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Speaker 1: Let's have a chat with Associate Professor Robman Wearing. Is

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Speaker 1: the Liberal Party MPs in State Parliament meet well oil

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Speaker 1: doors their party room as they go through this regularly

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Speaker 1: at Flinder's Uni. Is that Rubman Wearing and he is

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Speaker 1: on the line. Rub Good morning, Matthew. We've seen all

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Speaker 1: this before, of course, many many times over the last

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Speaker 1: well fifteen years particularly.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, that's right. I mean it's well yes and no,

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Speaker 2: because of course even here for a while. Yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 2: it was post for quite a while, but there's been

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Speaker 2: certainly the history of the Liberal Party here in South

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Speaker 2: Australia has been one of turmoil, factional divide and history

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Speaker 2: which many listeners will be well aware of. And we

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Speaker 2: just seem to be seeing the latest iteration of that.

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Speaker 2: And it will be interesting to see, you know, who

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Speaker 2: merges as a leader and whether they can really take

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Speaker 2: the party forward.

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Speaker 1: Okay, Vincentasia seems to be the likely result this morning.

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Speaker 1: I guess we'll know soon enough, but we haven't had

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Speaker 1: confirmation from Josh Tigue that he is running. Vincentarsias certainly

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Speaker 1: is and that that seems to be the outcome. Perhaps

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Speaker 1: I'm calling it too soon, and we'll wait and so

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Speaker 1: you never know. They could be a surprise, but it

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Speaker 1: seems the most likely outcome.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, well, it's hard to say, isn't it. I think

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Speaker 2: at the moment, I think that I think we could

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Speaker 2: read that way, and I think it could be heading

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Speaker 2: that way. And I think Benson Tazi is a very

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Speaker 2: interesting character, is a young he's kind of a young,

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Speaker 2: energetic kind of leader, and I think particularly politically, I

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Speaker 2: think within the party they would be saying, well, look, actually,

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Speaker 2: at one point it looked like Nick Xenophon would be

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Speaker 2: would sort of take his seat, and he comfortably held

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Speaker 2: off the Xenophon challenge, So that would be, you know,

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Speaker 2: a testament perhaps to his kind of political acumens. And

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Speaker 2: maybe that's some of the aspects. But the problem here,

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Speaker 2: the or the deeper question here is about the factional

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Speaker 2: divisions within the party. There's a very strong, strident conservative

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Speaker 2: wing and faction, and in one sense, some of their

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Speaker 2: MPs or leaders aren't necessarily amongst the kind of front

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Speaker 2: bench or amongst in the House of Assembly. So that

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Speaker 2: means that whatever leader steps forward and takes takes over

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Speaker 2: the leadership of the parties, how they deal and you know,

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Speaker 2: compromised with the sort of moderate and the conservative kind

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Speaker 2: of factions will be real kind of testament. Yeah, it

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Speaker 2: can be a real it can be a real problem.

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Speaker 2: The example I was thinking of is Malcolm Turnbull for example,

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Speaker 2: where Malcolm Turnble took the leadership of the Federal Liberal Party.

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Speaker 2: In one sense it was the deal that he had

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Speaker 2: to do with the conservative wing around climate policy, which

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Speaker 2: actually hamstrung his his time as leader. So this is

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Speaker 2: the kind of the real difficulty that any leader will have.

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Speaker 1: Marshall had no Conservatives on his front bench either, did he,

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Speaker 1: And I mean where were they all in the lower House.

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Speaker 1: They're all on the cross benches. So i'd all left

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Speaker 1: the Liberal Party because it was two left wing for

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Speaker 1: them ultimately, I mean that in a nutshell, is it?

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Speaker 3: Well?

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Speaker 2: I mean, that's one kind of reading of it. And

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Speaker 2: I think I think one of the criticisms that was

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Speaker 2: made at Premier at Premier Marshal was that in one

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Speaker 2: sense there wasn't a voice or an outlet or a

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Speaker 2: way of compromising with particularly the rural based or the

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Speaker 2: conservative based members of the party who seeming that the

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Speaker 2: moderates dominated the leadership and decision making, and that caused

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Speaker 2: kind of problems and in fact, if you think about

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Speaker 2: some of the issues around the mining bill, for example,

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Speaker 2: when four of his own MPs voted against the government bill,

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Speaker 2: which was quite unusual, it speaks to this kind of

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Speaker 2: this problem about how do you balance the sort of

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Speaker 2: conservative and moderate forces.

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Speaker 1: The only person who's got that right all the way

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Speaker 1: through you look at history, and that's John Howard. And

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Speaker 1: he was even fundraising. If it wasn't last the weekend

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Speaker 1: just gone, it's coming up for Nicole Flint, who's certainly

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Speaker 1: a conservative and moderate in the member for sturt in

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Speaker 1: James Stevens, so the broad Church Well, John Howard championed that,

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Speaker 1: but it seems moderates and conservatives independently find that hard

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Speaker 1: to do.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a very difficult thing. But I think also,

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Speaker 2: I mean one of the big picture of Rob Justin.

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Speaker 1: Can I just interrupt, We've got Stacey on the line

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Speaker 1: and let's go live to Parliament.

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Speaker 3: There's a result, real party hasn't met for the purpose

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Speaker 3: of electing a new leader of the South Australian Liberal Party.

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Speaker 3: Having a ballot been conducted, now I can announce that

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Speaker 3: Vincent Tazia is the new Leader of the South Australian

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Speaker 3: Liberal Party. I can release that the results were eighteen

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Speaker 3: votes to Vincent Tazia and four to Josh Taig. I

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Speaker 3: won't be taking any questions at this point, and I

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Speaker 3: understand the leader will be addressing the media in due course.

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Speaker 3: Thank you very much.

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Speaker 1: So there we are. That is the result, there rob

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Speaker 1: so no surprise, Vincentanzi're eighteen to four.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, that's right. And now the servictually of the real

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Speaker 2: work I think for Vincentarsi will begin because he faces

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Speaker 2: a very stiff electoral challenge. The Liberals were soundly defeated

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Speaker 2: at the last state election and they have a long

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Speaker 2: way electorally to go, and certainly getting into those of

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Speaker 2: suburban and how the suburban seat is going to be

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Speaker 2: happy and musk so how they forge a strategy from

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Speaker 2: that is going to be is going to be really

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Speaker 2: telling them whether they can really try and get some

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Speaker 2: significant blows against the mal Anouncis government. So he's got

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Speaker 2: a significant task ahead of it.

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Speaker 1: What's going to be different moving forward with towns you're

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Speaker 1: over spears.

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Speaker 2: It's hard to stay at the moment because I mean,

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Speaker 2: obviously we've only literally just had the announcement, so I

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Speaker 2: think the question will be I mean, a new opposition

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Speaker 2: leader has to do several things. So one is how

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Speaker 2: do that they manage intraparty relations, so how they managing

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Speaker 2: the machine, and do they have the sort of backing

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Speaker 2: or at least the support of both wings of the party.

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Speaker 2: So one test, which we won't really see in public,

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Speaker 2: is whether the new leader is able to do that.

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Speaker 2: But then secondly it's really about developing a kind of

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Speaker 2: clear policy agenda. Is it quite clear what the Liberals

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Speaker 2: stand for and what they're going to be offering that's

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Speaker 2: distinctive at the next day elections. So again that's going

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Speaker 2: to take some time before we really see this. And

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Speaker 2: then the third element is really building like a relationship

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Speaker 2: with the public and actually just kind of you know,

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Speaker 2: getting in public consciousness and then building those relationships with

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Speaker 2: the business community and so forth. So these a long

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Speaker 2: kind of these are difficult tasks and being in the

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Speaker 2: opposition is very hard and so in one sense we

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Speaker 2: probably won't see some real outcomes for that for some

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Speaker 2: time yet.

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Speaker 1: Do you think David Spieze will stay in the party.

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Speaker 2: I think, judging by his press comments or its press

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Speaker 2: release kind of last week, I mean I think he

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Speaker 2: was saying that he's not ruling anything in announce I

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Speaker 2: think probably in the short term he probably will. And

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Speaker 2: then the question is where you know what kind of

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Speaker 2: future role there might be for him or what he

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Speaker 2: wants to do. So I think there's in one sense

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Speaker 2: that's really a tough one to judge, and you know,

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Speaker 2: we just we won't kind of know that.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, all right, we'll wait and see on that one. Rob.

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Speaker 1: Appreciate your insights in all of this, but I just

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Speaker 1: wonder before you go, will it make it easier for

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Speaker 1: the Labor Party that's change or harder.

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Speaker 2: Again, it's probably a little bit too early to say. Again,

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Speaker 2: I think they're probably a party will be closely monitoring this.

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Speaker 2: They'll be kind of trying to see what kind of

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Speaker 2: new lines of attack or strategy they kind of open.

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Speaker 2: The premiers will be trying to I think the main

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Speaker 2: kind of issue for the Labor government will be trying

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Speaker 2: to show South Australians about their achievements of the next

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Speaker 2: gate state election and kind of building on that kind

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Speaker 2: of policy legacy. So in one sense, they'll be closely

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Speaker 2: monitoring it, but it might not necessarily be a kind

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Speaker 2: of huge change in strategy or tactics for them.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, we'll see all right, Rob, thank you for coming on.

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Speaker 2: Absolute pleasure.

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Speaker 1: Associate Professor Rob Manwaring, Flinder's UNI