Tony Abbott and Jim Chalmers, an unlikely pair of saviours for the Liberal Party

May 24, 2026 — 1:30pm

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Later this week, the Liberal Party’s tribes will gather in Melbourne for its federal council. The Liberal national conference is usually a low-key affair. One of the biggest differences between the Liberal Party and the ALP is a structural one: unlike Labor, the Liberal organisational wing does not have the power to bind the parliamentary party.

A Labor conference is typically an important political event because its decisions can direct the course of governments. But for the Liberal Party the independence of the parliamentary wing from external control is an article of faith; Liberal conferences are, therefore, relatively tame affairs, seldom attracting notice other than the leader’s keynote speech.

This year, however, promises to be different. Political commentators seem incapable of writing a paragraph about the Liberal Party that does not contain the cliche “existential threat”. The seemingly relentless rise of One Nation, evidenced by the Farrer byelection and a string of awful opinion polls, will be on everyone’s mind – not the elephant in the room but the beast looming outside the door.

Federal council will also attract an unusual amount of attention for another reason: Tony Abbott will become the party’s federal president. It would be wrong to describe this as Abbott’s “re-emergence”; ever since he lost the leadership to Malcolm Turnbull 11 years ago he has continued to play an influential role........

© Brisbane Times