Liberals must resist fringe politics: Leeser
Liberal backbencher Julian Leeser has called for the party to rebuild its branches, reengage with mainstream voters and offer a serious economic plan to fight Labor.
The federal opposition’s former Indigenous affairs spokesman predicted more than half of members of his local Liberal Party branch would vote No in the Voice to parliament referendum, but praised the “civic mindedness” of voters engaging with campaigning on both sides of the debate.
Liberal MP Julian Leeser will call for the party to re-engage with mainstream voters. Louise Kennerley
In a speech titled Winning the Vast Middle, the Berowra MP said the Liberal Party had let its campaign professionalism run down too much, and called for more investment in election infrastructure and sophisticated ways to engage with voters.
He warned the Liberals’ future must not be in “American glitz, and red Trumpian hats, or a political diet of anger” but instead in decency and hard work.
“As a party, we need to seriously engage with rebuilding our party’s branches because we need them to embody and reflect the vast middle of this country,” he told rank and file Liberals on Tuesday in the Sydney seat of Bradfield.
“Making our party more accessible to and representative of women, multicultural groups and young people is about being more representative of the aspirations of the vast middle.
“Our pathway back to government is only through and with the vast middle.”
Mr Leeser – who quit the frontbench in April over the Coalition’s decision to oppose Indigenous constitutional recognition through the Voice – said Opposition Leader Peter Dutton was better prepared to be prime minister than any Liberal opposition leader in the past.
He said the Liberals needed to effectively prosecute a strong national economic plan, highlighting what he said were serious failures by Labor under Anthony Albanese.
He said the economy was the number one, two and three priority for Australians.
“I believe we are at an important juncture time in our history. Australians expect from us nothing less than a serious economic plan.
“I’m not talking about what we have seen across politics in recent times. I’m not talking about small measures that only alleviate the symptoms of inflation, productivity and wage stagnation, but serious policies that deal with the causes.”
Mr Leeser called for Liberals to deal with the causes of what he said was a national “economic malaise”.
“Australians will vote for change, if they truly believe, unlike the last election, that we have an economic plan for the future,” he said.
Senior Liberals expect Mr Leeser to return to the opposition frontbench in the future. The Voice referendum is expected to be called within days, with a vote likely sometime around mid-October.
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