Lindsay Tanner, the witty and very smart finance minister in the last Labor government, used to have a saying about politics: in this game, everyone exaggerates everything all the time. That applies as much to journalists as to the politicians themselves: if it isn’t dramatic, it isn’t news.

‘In its 81-year history, the Liberal Party has never split. It has navigated its way through plenty of deeply divisive issues, and emerged battle-weary but intact.’ Credit: Joe Benke

I was reminded of Tanner’s sardonic joke when, last Wednesday, The Australian Financial Review splashed with the headline “Shaky Liberals fear party split”. Not to be outdone, the following day in the Murdoch tabloids, Samantha Maiden opined: “There’s open discussion over whether the party will split after the net zero fight.”

It won’t.

This is not to deny that the Liberal Party is in a terrible mess at the moment. Nor is it to underestimate the grief and frustration, particularly among city-based Liberals, about the party’s decision to follow the National Party in abandoning the net zero target (which, it should be remembered, had been the policy of both parties since 2021). But the fact that there may be deep differences about a particular policy is a very long way from a split.

In its 81-year history, the Liberal Party has never split. It has navigated its way through plenty of deeply divisive issues, and emerged battle-weary but intact. At most, there has been fraying at the margin, such as when Malcolm Fraser’s dumped health spokesman, Don Chipp, quit to........

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