Opinion
Oh no! Another wet LINO has been shot down, and the establishment shills aren’t happy.
A LINO is the Australian equivalent of the American RINO. New Zealanders might call them NINOs. They’re the dripping-wet, wannabe Greens who’ve infested supposedly conservative parties in the West, posing as “moderates”. What they really are, though, are establishment parasites who persist with the delusion that chasing after the hooting clown-car of the left, shrieking, “Wait for us!” is in any way what their voting base wants. And then the conservative parties wonder why no-one wants to vote for them.
Slowly, bit by bit, actual, grass-roots conservatives are taking their party back. And the establishment are freaking out.
The rebuild of the Western Australian Liberal Party has suffered a setback after one of its star recruits in waiting was unable to find a way through the preselection process.
In other words, the establishment pick was voted down by the rank-and-file. More pointedly, the party in WA wouldn’t need “rebuilding” if it hadn’t been demolished by exactly these sort LINOs.
Hayley Cormann, a high-profile barrister and the wife of former federal finance minister Mathias Cormann, finished last in Wednesday night’s three-person race to secure the Liberal nomination for the once safe seat of South Perth.
Ms Cormann’s defeat at the hands of lawyer and South Perth deputy mayor Bronwyn Waugh is a blow to senior party figures who had earmarked Ms Cormann – a former president of the Law Society of WA – as a potential attorney-general or even leader.
Here comes the character assassination.
Ms Waugh has been closely linked to the religious conservative faction that has long held considerable influence over the party south of the Swan River, and with which Mr Cormann was once closely aligned.
One party member said Ms Cormann’s defeat at the hands of Ms Waugh was a classic example of “brutal factional politics”.
In other words, she’s a traditionally conservative Liberal Party type, who won preselection over the wishes of wet party bosses.
Horrors — if this sort of thing keeps up, conservative voters might start voting for the Libs again. And then where would they be? In government? Perish the thought.
The recent preselections have been the first held by the party under its new plebiscite model, which gives lay party members a direct say over who becomes their candidate.
The method has already seen incumbent MPs David Honey and Ian Goodenough rolled from their seats, with Mr Goodenough in particular flagging his displeasure.
Because, of course he did. What’s the modern Liberal Party coming to, after all, if a bunch of actually conservative oiks start thinking they can overrule their well-off, globalist betters?
According to multiple people with knowledge of Wednesday’s meeting, Ms Cormann’s defeat owed at least as much to concerns over her ties to Paris as it did to factional influences.
The meeting heard Ms Cormann would have been a “FIFO candidate” between Paris and Perth for the rest of this year, before returning full-time to WA in the new year. Ms Waugh, meanwhile, was said to have delivered a good speech but was described as “nervous” during questions from the audience.
The Australian
It sounds like the conservative base really is rebuilding the party — just not the way the LINOs want it.