Sometimes evolution can be quite quick, almost revolutionary. Politics is similar to biology that way.

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Politicians and political parties think they are part of the political environment, but they are more like organisms within it and if it changes, they will die out if they do not respond adaptively. Only the fittest survive.

At the beginning of the 19th century, the Peppered Moth was coloured like white pepper, camouflaging it against the trees in which it lived. Then the Industrial Revolution covered the trees in dark soot and birds could easily pick off the white-pepper-coloured moths. But some rare dark-coloured moths survived and multiplied. By the end of the century 98 per cent of the moths were dark.

With pollution control in the 20th century, however, the light-coloured moths got back the advantage and now nearly all are light-coloured.

Political evolution is slightly different in that political moths do not have to rely on a random colour gene to survive. If they are smart they can actually change their own colour themselves to best suit the changing environment - or not.

The Liberal Party - or at least a majority of its elected members - is right now in the "or not" stage. This ground has been well-covered - failures to deal with the new communications landscape and failure to adopt policies which align with the changing views of much of the electorate, particularly urban, younger, and female voters.

But another change in the political environment is happening which can be seen in the Farrer by-election campaign. We will know the result in a little over a week, and we will be able to see how significant the change is.

In the 2020s the major parties have each lost more than 10 percentage points of their support - about a quarter of it. In 2025 Labor still managed to get a lot of seats (60 per cent of them) with its 34.5 per cent of the primary vote. And the Coalition........

© The Examiner