Cory Bernardi deregistering Australian Conservatives Party due to ‘lack of political success’

Updated

June 20, 2019 18:37:28

Colourful senator Cory Bernardi has announced his Australian Conservatives will be no more, due to the party’s poor performance at the ballot box and a lack of money.

Senator Bernardi broke away from the Liberal Party after the 2016 election, arguing the Coalition under Malcolm Turnbull was straying from the conservative values upon which it had been founded.

In a statement on the Australian Conservatives website, the South Australian said he was beginning the process of deregistering the party.

“The inescapable conclusion from our lack of political success, our financial position and the re-election of a Morrison-led Government is that the rationale for the creation of the Australian Conservatives is no longer valid,” he wrote.

“No doubt this will come as a disappointment to those who have shown so much support over the past two years but in light of the circumstances, it is the wisest course of action.”

Senator Bernardi said he had told a journalist more than two years ago that the Australian Conservatives would no longer be needed if the Coalition returned to its conservative roots.

“If that happened, I said, ‘I’ll be gloriously fulfilled and I’ll go fishing at Coffin Bay’,” he said on his website.

“I am not quite ready for the fishing, but the Morrison Government victory and policy agenda suggests we are well on the way to restoring common sense in the Australian parliament.

“That is all we, as Australian Conservatives, have ever sought to do.”

Senator Bernardi and then-prime minister Malcolm Turnbull’s ideological and personal differences contributed to the South Australian leaving the party, but his views on Scott Morrison are vastly different.

“I have to say, everything changed with the Coalition changing their Prime Minister, or our Prime Minister,” he told ABC Radio Adelaide.

“We saw the people in our supporter base, our members, gravitate back to the Coalition.”

Despite that, he said he had not spoken to Mr Morrison about the possibility of rejoining the Liberal fold.

“That’s not something I’ve canvbaded, I’ve noticed media speculation, but I’ve publicly stated I want to support the Morrison government as strongly as I can because I think the policy outcomes for Australia are critical at this juncture,” he said.

Australian Conservatives’ time in the political spotlight was brief

The South Australian’s Liberal colleagues were furious at his decision to break away from the party just after the 2016 election, when he secured a six-year term.

His factional foe Simon Birmingham described it as a ‘dog act’.

Shortly after forming, the Australian Conservatives merged with Family First. In doing so, the party gained two representatives in the South Australian Upper House.

One of those members failed to get re-elected at the 2018 state election, and the other defected to the Liberal Party in the days following the disappointing showing at the ballot box.

Family First senator Lucy Gichuhi refused to join Senator Bernardi’s party when the merger happened, before also defecting to the Liberals.

If Senator Bernardi was to resign from Parliament altogether, it would trigger a casual vacancy.

Despite him breaking away from the Liberals, that party would still have claim to the seat, as Senator Bernardi was a Liberal member when elected in 2016.

Topics:

government-and-politics,

political-parties,

australia

First posted

June 20, 2019 17:43:14