In more than 50 years of covering Australian politics, journalist Paul Kelly has “certainly never seen a crisis like this”.

Kelly is editor-at-large at The Australian newspaper and an author of major histories of Australian politics from the 1970s on. His latest book, “The Twilight of Exceptionalism”, shines a critical light on the often wasted years of prime ministers Tony Abbott, Malcolm Turnbull, and Scott Morrison.

Today, the Liberal Party finds itself in a worse position than after last year’s devastating election loss. Many of its voters have turned to One Nation. The party is on its second leader of this term, and its long-term future is in question.

But as Kelly explains in his new book, some of the Liberals’ present troubles originate in the Coalition’s troubled years in government from 2013 to 2022.

He joined us on the podcast, reflecting on why the Liberals are facing an “existential crisis” the likes of which he’s never seen before, and how the Labor government is trying to tighten its grip on power.

The Liberals’ ‘daunting’ challenges

Kelly describes today’s Liberal Party as “bedevilled by this combination of really dangerous forces”.

It’s just extraordinary that we’ve had these polls now for quite a while showing that Pauline Hanson leads the major parties on the centre-right, and some of the polls showing that she was even ahead of the Albanese government. So what we’re seeing is we’re seen a cultural and political crisis on the centre-right of Australian politics. […] Now I’m not saying the Liberal party can’t recover, I wouldn’t say that. But I’m saying the task of recovery for the Liberals is going to be truly daunting. And what Angus Taylor’s got to do above all else [… is] to get the Liberal primary vote ahead of One Nation. If you can’t do that, if he goes into the next election with the One Nation primary vote ahead of the Liberals, then the results will be a catastrophe in the subsequent parliament for the Liberal Party.

It’s just extraordinary that we’ve had these polls now for quite a while showing that Pauline Hanson leads the major parties on the centre-right, and some of the polls showing that she was even ahead of the Albanese government. So what we’re seeing is we’re seen a cultural and political crisis on the centre-right of Australian politics.

[…] Now I’m not saying the Liberal party can’t recover, I wouldn’t say that. But I’m saying the task of recovery for the Liberals is going to be truly daunting. And what Angus Taylor’s got to do above all else [… is] to get the Liberal primary vote ahead of One Nation.

If you can’t do that, if he goes into the next election with the One........

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