Does the Liberal Party Need to ‘Listen’ or Stand by Its Values?
Commentary
The political commentary after the defeat of the centre-right Liberals in the Aston by-election, held over the weekend, was brutally honest and sarcastic. For example, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, commenting on the spectacular win of the centre-left Labor candidate, said that voters disliked the Coalition’s negativity and that the vote was supportive of the Voice referendum.
It is certainly true that the result constituted a disastrous result for the Liberal Party. It was the first time since the Kalgoorlie by-election of 1920 that a sitting government won a seat from the Opposition.
The swing of six percent to the Labor Party was substantial—there had already been a swing of 11.6 percent in the federal election of 2020 against Alan Tudge, whose resignation from Parliament caused the by-election….