Draft:Factions of the Liberal Party of Australia

The Liberal Party of Australia has, throughout its history, been divisible into several informal but distinct factions. Unlike its major rival the Australian Labor Party, factional groups are generally informal and lack organized structure. Factional groupings were historically typically characterised as the more progressive "wets" and the more conservative "dries", and at different points additional groupings have been identified. However, a more distinct group of three factions has existed since at least the late 2000s. These factions exist to differing extents in each of the party's state branches.

History of federal factions
The culture of the Liberal Party has been described as inhospitable to formal factions, as "the party's emphasis on leadership and loyalty and the resistance to groups that might form the nucleus for factions" had emerged as early as 1989.

1970s
A Leader and a Philosophy (1973) David Kemp

1978: Tiver, Peter G. (1978),  The Liberal Party:  Principles and Performance. Milton, Queensland, Jacaranda.

1980s
The early 1980s did not see particularly clear factional alignments. 1982 research indicated that the party was divided amongst four groups. On the left of the party were the neoliberalists, with the centre covered by the 'consensual conservatives' who oppose laissez-faire capitalism. The right wing of the party was divided between conservatives who were either more concerned with the economy or with morality. JUPP

In 1983, the groups could be simplified to a three faction system. The right supported laissez-faire capitalism and non-interventionist government, while the centrist anti-socialist faction was more supportive of government intervention. The left of the party were classified as the Deakinite liberals. JAENSCH

The Deakinite liberals eventually became the Liberal Forum, a semi-organized faction that emerged after the Liberals lost power in the 1983 federal election. The group worked to promote centre-left liberal policies. ALSO JAENSCH 1983?

'' 1985: O'Brien, Patrick (1985), The Liberals: Factions, Feuds and Fancies, Ringwood, Victoria, Penguin. ''

The candidates of the 1987 federal election were divisible into three camps. There was both a progressive and conservative wing, with the economic rationalists positioned between them. There was little ideological difference between the rationalists and the conservatives other than in their approach to corporatism: rationalists were suspicious of large corporations and believed them to be a barrier to the operation of the free market, while conservatives did not see an issue with corporatisation. Other major points of difference were environmentalism (which rationalists were more likely to oppose) and women's advancement (which conservatives were more likely to oppose). Both the rationalists and the conservatives were considered a part of the wider "dry" movement in the party. The progressive faction differed from the other two to only a moderate degree on economic matters in that they were supportive of economic equality, but was more liberal on all social issues. Progressive candidates were also tended to be environmentalists.

By the late 1980s, the two broad designations of the liberal "wets" and conservative "dries" was in use by party members and was beginning to be recognised by academics.

1990s
The Lyons Forum was an informal faction formed in 1992. The faction was mostly made up of Christian conservatives and concerned itself primarily with social issues. It was defunct by the early 2000s.

2000s
The National Right was led by Eric Abetz and Nick Minchin in the 2000s, and for much of the decade published the conservative, a print journal and website.

Malcolm Turnbull's loss of the opposition leadership to Tony Abbott in the 2009 leadership spill was partly attributed to the work of the National Right, under the influence of Nick Minchin.

Political parties in transition? p.41 9781862875937

2010s
By 2011, the National Right faction was "nominally" lead by Abetz, but the role was "in practice" shared by Cory Bernardi and Mathias Cormann.

https://insidestory.org.au/the-liberal-partys-faction-problem/

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-06-18/analysis-liberals-conservative-faction-flexes-its-muscles/9881284

https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/liberal-party-factions-at-war-over-tony-abbotts-alleged-role-in-the-garrotting-of-bronwyn-bishop-20160417-go88zx.html

During the Turnbull government, the right was headed by now former prime minister Abbott, and the moderates by Turnbull and Christopher Pyne. The conflict between Abbott's right faction and Turnbull characterised much of the Turnbull government, and ultimately led to the 2018 leadership spills in which Turnbull was challenged by Peter Dutton, but eventually replaced by Morrison.

https://www.afr.com/politics/a-brutal-political-massacre-20180824-h14f86

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-04-20/turnbull-says-morrison-likely-played-leadership-double-game/12157500

Following the 2019 federal election, the Australian Financial Review reported that MPs expected the Morrison government to lack a strong factional movement, and pointed to the existence of a cross-factional grouping of politicians who were first elected around the 2016 election. However, the report still noted that there were moderate, centre-right, and right-wing factions, with the right-wing headed by Cormann and Dutton. One MP noted that the right was divided between those who were economically dry but were not socially conservative and those who were both socially and economically conservative, with the former providing the bulk of the support for Scott Morrison. The centre-right coalesced around figures such as Morrison, Josh Frydenberg, and Alex Hawke. The moderate wing was led by Simon Birmingham, with other influential moderate figures including Paul Fletcher, Trent Zimmerman, and Marise Payne.

2020s
In 2021, a survey of the parliamentary party by The Sydney Morning Herald revealed there were three major factions. There were two factions on the right of the party: a socially conservative faction centred on Dutton known as the National Right, and a more moderate Centre Right that was led by Morrison. The former was primarily concerned with social issues such as religious freedoms and defence, and included a number of climate skeptics. A third faction of Moderates sat to the left of the other two, favouring climate action and are socially progressive but economically liberal. The survey also concluded that the wet and dry groupings were no longer active. Several of the politicians interviewed who belonged to the Moderates or National Right claimed that the Centre Right would largely dissolve once Morrison lost power, which eventually proved correct.

In 2023, the same survey was re-run to reveal changes following the 2022 federal election. Morrison's election loss and factional infighting in New South Wales meant the Centre Right had collapsed, with only six politicians identifying with the group. Several politicians who had formerly identified with the Centre Right were now identifying themselves as Centrists, a group without formal organisation or leadership. Ideologically, the Centrists are very similar to the Centre Right, but deliberately avoid association with the Centre Right and its New South Wales-based leadership. The National Right is now the dominant faction in the party, with the Moderates a depleted force.

New South Wales
In March 1989, the Centre Right was formed in the New South Wales branch, advocating for conservative views. It was the first faction of the Liberal Party to have any formal organization, keeping membership, having distinct policy goals, and receiving independent funding. The Centre Right faction in the New South Wales Party still exists as an organised group in the 2020s, joined by Moderate and National Right factions equivalent to their federal counterparts. This structure is more closely comparable to the factional mechanisms of the Labor Party. Liberal Premiers Robert Askin, Nick Greiner, Barry O'Farrell, Mike Baird, and Gladys Berejiklian have all been identified as members of the moderate faction of the NSW Liberal Party, while Dominic Perrottet was identified as a member of the hard right faction. Gauja 2015 9781922235824

https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/liberal-hard-right-faction-dumps-leader-and-regroups-after-icac-20141013-1155ht.html

https://www.9news.com.au/national/who-becomes-the-next-nsw-premier-and-whats-next-for-mike-baird/26213af1-cfdf-49bf-ba4f-342b5d27419d

https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/michael-photios-resigns-as-the-leader-of-nsw-liberals-dominant-left-faction-20170225-gulctv.html

https://search.informit.org/doi/epdf/10.3316/ielapa.200601753

https://www.smh.com.au/politics/nsw/they-made-dom-premier-then-he-switched-off-his-phone-the-moment-disillusionment-set-in-at-the-nsw-liberal-party-20230907-p5e2r8.html

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/feb/28/internal-nsw-liberal-documents-detail-how-its-right-faction-seized-control-of-hills-shire

https://neoskosmos.com/en/2022/06/03/news/australia/hard-right-of-the-nsw-liberal-party-takes-aim-at-alex-hawke/

Queensland
The Ginger Group was an informal but organised progressive faction in the former Queensland Liberal Party that formed in the 1960s and came to have substantial influence in the 1980s. The group is generally considered responsible for the collapse of the Liberals at the 1983 state election.

Today the party exists in Queensland only as the Liberal National Party of Queensland (a division of the Liberal Party), formed by a merger of the Liberal Party Queensland Division and National Party's Queensland division. Candidates of the Liberal National Party elected to federal parliament choose to sit as either a Liberal or a National politician. In modern times, there is no substantial moderate presence amongst Queensland Liberals.

South Australia
The South Australian branch also contains structured Moderate and National Right factions.

Tasmania
Tasmania does not have a substantial moderate presence.

Victoria
Victorian Liberals are more likely to identify with party personalities than ideologies.

Western Australia
The Western Australian branch is noted for containing The Clan, a factional group including both federal and state politicians that formed in the 2010s and was coordinated through a WhatsApp group chat. The group was led by federal politicians Cormann and Ian Goodenough and state politicians Peter Collier and Nick Goiran, and has attracted significant controversy for its coordinated branch stacking activities. The group is generally considered a conservative Christian faction. Western Australia does not have a substantial moderate presence.