Liberal Party Conservatives Just Gave Malcolm Turnbull The Worst Possible Christmas Present

Cory Bernardi, George Christensen and Tony Abbott have all teamed up to ruin Malcolm Turnbull’s summer holiday.

The trio of conservative MPs — let’s call them the Monstars, after the bad guys from Space Jam* — have launched what is pretty clearly coordinated attack against Turnbull’s leadership. Bernardi and Christensen have even threatened to quit the Liberal party.

First, let’s start with Bernardi. According to reports in both Fairfax and The Australian today he’s about to ditch the Liberals and start his own conservative party. Speculation surrounding the new “Trump-inspired movement” has been rife ever since Bernardi and mining billionaire Gina Rinehart met up with Trump’s campaign team in November.

There have been rumours of a new conservative party, led by Bernardi, all year. In an interview with Junkee Bernardi said “If the Liberal Party chooses to depart from its underlying ethos, I think it would have implications.”

Liberal MPs told The Australian that the threat was now much more real, and they were worried that it could happen as soon as early next year.

Meanwhile, George Christensen took to Facebook to fire off his own threat.

“A lot of people have told me to pull the pin on the government and go with another entity,” Christensen wrote. “However, I am loyal to Barnaby Joyce, loyal to the Nationals, and – most of all – loyal to local LNP members who selected me to be their candidate.

“What the Turnbull government needs to do is start being more loyal to the voters and the party members who sent us here or there will come a time when remaining inside the tent is no longer tenable to my conscience or my voters.”

So he’s not quite leaving yet, but he’s warning that unless the government (which he is part of, by the way) starts being more “loyal” he’ll jump ship.

How does Abbott fit into all this? Well he’s not threatening to quit, but he’s decided today was a good day to throw in a few hand grenades of his own.

@corybernardi was right in July 2016: it's best for the Australian people to have a strong, cohesive and sound Liberal Party.

— Tony Abbott (@TonyAbbottMHR) December 21, 2016

I’m going to put it out there: 7:30am is way too early to being dealing a sentence that begins with “Cory Bernardi was right.”

To be strong & united, the Liberal Party cannot take the base for granted & must convincingly argue for its values & principles.

— Tony Abbott (@TonyAbbottMHR) December 21, 2016

Seriously, how bloody cheeky is Abbott? Bernardi and Christensen cause a bit of a stir by threatening to pull the plug and he chimes in with a couple of not-so-subtle digs at Turnbull.

Here’s the bit I don’t understand: why are Liberal conservatives still so angry at the Prime Minister? He’s given them everything they want.

He’s delayed same-sex marriage indefinitely, he’s gutted Safe Schools, he’s scrapped any consideration of meaningful action on climate change and he’s launched an inquiry into Australia’s race hate laws.

These are all hugely important issues for the right-wing of the Liberal party and on every single one of them Turnbull has delivered for the likes of Bernardi and Christensen. Why are they still banging on about loyalty and values?

Surely the message here is that no matter how much Turnbull moves to the right, he’s never going to placate the conservatives in his own party. Even though he’s thrown out whatever principles he might have once had, they’re still talking about quitting and setting up their own shop.

You’d think the lesson here might be to stop letting them dictate the agenda, but because politics is so broken we’re probably going to see Turnbull shift even further to the right in 2017 in a bid to fend off One Nation.

*I’m calling them the Monstars because they look big and scary but they’re actually just a bunch of nerds. Let’s make this a thing.