The Australian people can be persuaded if they are given courageous leadership.
Family First exists because Australia’s political class has moved to the radical left.
There’s no substantive difference between the Liberals, Labor, Greens or Teals on iconic policies like net zero and anti-family LGBTIQA+ identity politics, both of which are damaging our country immensely.
There are individuals in the Coalition who will fight in public, but they are a marginalised few.
Party power brokers in all states actively block the advancement of people with mainstream views on gender, marriage, family and energy policy.
Bernie Finn, a veteran Liberal for 41 years and Liberal member of the Victorian Parliament for 23, was expelled from the Liberals because of his pro-life, pro-family views.
Speaking to me on ADH TV, Bernie said he believes the Liberals are finished (interview at 33:18).
The Liberal power brokers’ treatment of conservatives frustrates former Prime Minister John Howard who wrote about it in his latest book, A Sense of Balance.
“They (the factional players) seem more intent on keeping people out than welcoming people in.
“One example is Lyle Shelton….his values align closely with many Liberals.”
But Deputy Liberal Leader Sussan Ley earlier this year told Liberals to stay out of the culture wars.
Thankfully Jacinta Nampijinpa Price took no notice.
Upon entering the Parliament last year as a Nationals Senator for the Northern Territory, she wasted no time in coming out of the blocks to oppose the Voice.
She didn’t wait for Liberal leader Peter Dutton and she carried her Nationals colleagues who last November voted to join her campaign against it.
In her column in today’s Australian Financial Review, former Senator Amanda Stoker reveals that the Liberals were headed.
“About a year out from the referendum, the almost universal advice given by pollsters and political professionals to the Coalition was that the Voice proposal had to be supported, because public support was so high that it could not possibly be defeated – whether or not it had merit.”
Stoker went on to give an insight into why Liberals don’t fight the culture wars.
“The conventional wisdom conveyed to new parliamentarians is to sit down, shut up and work for local services and infrastructure rather than any major reform or national issue.”
This is why anti-free speech laws remain on the books, why religious freedom went no-where under the Coalition and why there is no Senate inquiry into the harm child gender clinics are doing.
In the same way the Coalition meekly put Scott Morrison on a plane to Glasgow where he signed the nation to net zero, the conservatives were heading like lemmings over the Voice cliff as well.
But along came Jacinta.
She defied “the conventional wisdom” – “wisdom” that manifests itself usually through coercive control measures to bring new MPs into line.
As many have pointed out, and as Family First has been saying for years, the Australian people can be persuaded if they are given courageous leadership.
Jacinta and the No campaign proved this in spades at the weekend.
If there was a proper public debate with courageous political leadership about the costs versus benefits of net zero or the appropriateness of LGBTIQA+ gender fluid indoctrination of children in schools, mainstream Australia would rally.
No one can understand why our electricity prices are going up in a cost-of-living crisis and why the kids are being taught nonsense at school.
Yet nothing changes.
Silence and fear are the hallmarks of conservative politicians who are coerced into that posture by the power brokers.
Family First believes politics cannot continue business as usual.
Just as the Greens have pulled politics to the radical left, Family First is raising a movement which will bring it back to the sensible centre.
It’s going to take time and courage.
If there were more Jacinta Price’s, it might happen sooner.
But Family First is not waiting.
We’re building a political movement to put courageous and principled women and men into the Parliaments of our nation.