I may be older than some of the commentators here, but my gut feeling is that even if the Liberal party currently controlled by big business, moves back toward the centre, it will stagnate in the wilderness for 23 years as did the Labor party when it moved too far to the left under the trade unions. Evarard may have got his facts about Goff's demise wrong, but on this occasion, the rest is very possible. It is about time some of you old buggars woke up to yourselves. The voters in Victoria have spoken.
David

Absolutely worthy of copy and paste:

We need to remember that the Party under Menzies was not
the Party of today. It was a "broader Church." It was
"Liberal." It was not a right-wing conservative party.
It needs to go back to its original base.
Posted by Foxy, Wednesday, 28 November 2018 10:44:10 AM

Foxy. You stand almost the only voice of reason posting here and essentially right. Others seem to think we've moved away from the centre, where most elections are won.

While a few may believe that is so, it's the view you get from so far to the right. Moreover, these folk seriously believe in their rusted on ideology and believe the party, theirs and dominated from within, one might argue, by a new generation of neo-nazis, like those who recently tried their rotten luck infiltrating the nats? Have a serious shot at winning?

But may find it a little difficult at first, to win with just 30% of the primary vote?

However, anyone who thinks the once great liberal party is dead is seriously mistaken, there's life in the rock rattle and roll, corpse even yet? After all, it's only dead from the neck up? And just needs a better salesman to market its message? Or in a manner of speaking, get ahead?

Or more money from the puppet masters? So we can follow America and have the very best democracy, money can buy?
Alan B.

Reports of their death have been greatly exaggerated. Unless someone else manages to take their place within the next decade, all it needs is the combination of Labor slipping up somewhere (which is likely) and a new Liberal leader who's able to reinvent the party, dump the baggage of the past, and present the Libs as a credible alternative to Labor.

Having said that, I'd much prefer it if they were replaced.

___________________________________________________________________________________

Foxy,
>Liberals have always championed good economic management

It would be more accurate to say they've championed the illusion of good economic management.

They promoted themselves as the party of free enterprise, but Labor copied them.
They promoted themselves as the party of low inflation, but it was the accord under the Hawke government that brought inflation under control.
They promoted themselves as the party of low taxes, but Labor cut taxes.
They promoted themselves as the party of low interest rates, but interest rates got so low under Rudd that it ceased to be an issue.
They promoted themselves as the party of surpluses but failed to deliver. Indeed surpluses were neither possible nor desirable at this stage of the economic cycle, and Swanee's biggest failure was that he'd tried to instead of explaining this.
They promoted themselves as the party of jobs and growth, but didn't do anything much to increase either of those.

Now they're running scare campaigns against Shorten; a dangerous tactic, as it will be extremely hard to win the 2022 election if none of those dire predictions come true.

Every time, every single time, a party goes through an electoral downturn, we get these predictions that its over. I can remember when there were predictions of the demise of the ALP after Whitlam's failures in 75/77. Equally it was all over for the Libs after the losses in 83/84 and the Howard/Peacock rivalry seemed to be pulling it apart. 1996, 2004. Always the same story.

Yet the majors seem to carry on.

There is always this claim that the party in question has lost its way, that it no longer suits the times, that it needs to find the centre again.

But let's bear in mind that the centre is a moving feast. Things have been passingly good in Australia for a very long time (thank you Messrs Hawke and Howard) and so the centre is currently favouring the spenders and promisers. But it won't always be thus, particularly once Shorten and co get to run the Treasury.

Unless WW3 breaks out or we find that the whole of the ALP's front bench is running a child trafficking ring, the ALP will win next May/June.

Personally I think that'll be good for Australia. We need a massive change to our economic and political settings and the best way to get that is to let the nation see just what pandering to the so-called centre brings. At that point the centre will move and it'll move right. And the Libs will be there waiting for them.

_______________________________________

According to the author:
* the Libs will be " reduced to a few seats."
* the Nats will be "reduced to no more than two."
* "Shorten's margin in the House will be small ".

Either the author hasn't got the slightest grasp of simple arithmetic or he's just making it up as he goes. At least try to be consistent within each article, FFS.

There's no doubt in my mind that the Liberal Party
has to look very intensely in the mirror and come to
the realisation that they have to shift their
rhetoric and policy direction. When your own base -
is embarrassed to vote Liberal - it's time for a
battle - for the identity and values of the Liberal
Party. A battle to restore the Party back to the
centre right