Reviving this thread on what has been an extraordinary day in Canberra.
If you weren't aware, the government lost its majority in parliament when they lost the Wentworth byelection. This means that we currently have a hung parliament, although the crossbenchers have been clear in their support on matters of confidence and supply (confidence means that they won't vote against the government to force an early election, supply means that they will not allow the government to run out of money, as nearly happened in 1975).
The government's position got worse today, as one of the Liberal backbenchers, Julia Banks, indicated that she will now sit as an independent. She is actually the second member of the Coalition to do so, after Kevin Hogan did earlier in the year when Malcolm Turnbull was deposed (so it was actually at that point the government lost its majority, but most political commentators have largely ignored his defection for reasons I don't quite understand). Julia Banks sitting on the cross bench now means that the government will have 72 votes on the floor of the House, despite the fact that they started off with 75 (-1 due to the speaker in both cases). 76 votes is needed for a majority, but 75 is also sufficient if the speaker is a government member, as he is in this case.
The crossbench is now largely populated by small l-liberal women. These are people who are economically conservative but socially progressive, who might otherwise belong to the moderate faction of the Liberal party. It could be argued that these are liberals in the Menzies tradition, appealing to the centre and largely comfortable with the social zeitgeist. Not only has the government lost Julia Banks today, but there have been a number of MPs who have spoken out strongly about the trajectory of the liberal party. Kellie O'Dwyer is chief among these, as she got out today and lambasted the party for its creep towards the Right and the way it treats women. She even went so far as to call for the resignation of the Victoria president of the Liberal party (who is a prominent conservative). The President of the Senate also had some harsh words for his party, criticising the party for the creep to the Right and signalling that voters, whilst they might be conservative themselves, do not want to see their own views rammed down others' throats. Jane Hume, a Liberal senator from Victoria, was also very critical of her party on election night, following the same themes. She was particularly strident about the lack of representation of women in the party, which is now embarrassingly low in Victoria in particular (only 3/24 MPs in Victoria will be women...there will be just as many females on the crossbench and nearly quadruple this number in Labor's cabinet alone).
All of this amounts to the Moderates in the Liberal party finally starting to flex their muscles. This was the case during the Howard years too, where the conservatives controlled the leadership (in Howard and Costello), leaving the moderates emboldened to cause a little bit of trouble from time to time. Now that the conservatives have captured the leadership of the party once again (with Scott Morrison pursuing some breathtakingly stupid policy to show his conservative credentials), the moderates are finally starting to cause some trouble again. Will be interesting developments over time. The reality of the situation is that the moderates have the right of this situation. It is an absolutely horrid lie that the conservatives operate by in saying that the liberal party needs to sure up its base. The moderates have finally started to push back against this lie. Let's see who wins.