Liberal Party Blues

Every single newspaper homepage is covered with this story today - the Liberals are having a meltdown over the ETS (and Kevin Rudd is giggling with glee like a little girl), and there will be a leadership challenge on Monday.

I had a certain appreciation of Malcolm Turnbull. The guy is so progressive on social issues he makes Kevin Rudd look more conservative than John Howard, although that's pretty damn close to the truth anyway. His economic policies are classically right-wing but hey, nobody's perfect.

How a classic liberal like Turnbull ever managed to grab the reins of the conservative Liberal party is beyond me, but the fact is that he was always going to polarize the party over social issues anyway. It just so happened that the ETS came first, and was just as divisive an issue.

What interests me is whether or not the Liberal party will remain united going forward. The factions within the party appear to be much more disparate on social policy than the corresponding factions within the ALP. It makes me wonder if the party should break up to form an true liberal wing similar to the ACT party in New Zealand.

Of course, come election time I'd love to see the centre-right collapse, but in the long run I know that it is imperative for a range of views to be represented in Parliament, and whilst the Australian political scene is more diverse than some others around the world (eg. US) there is certainly room for improvement.