Sussan Ley’s Coalition is under siege from the ‘MAGA right’, and we all stand to lose

As happens from time to time, the Coalition has an identity crisis, with the hard right demanding the Liberals and Nationals shift their policy platform to its position to win elections.

Federal elections are won by appealing to voters in what Malcolm Turnbull called the “sensible centre”.

At the 2025 federal election, Australian voters woke each morning to the latest news from America – the announcements of spending cuts and sackings by DOGE (the Department of Government Efficiency) by an administration that promised to Make America Great Again.

So committed to the MAGA philosophy was the Peter Dutton-led opposition that one of its shadow ministers, Jacinta Nampijinpa Price, added “Make Australia Great Again” to the end of her statements at a media event, with Dutton standing beside her.

With that statement – together with a DOGE-like prohibition on women working from home and slurs against Chinese Australians – the Dutton-led opposition, in voters’ minds, had positioned itself as Australia’s MAGA.

The election result of “Aussie MAGA” versus a highly organised and disciplined Labor campaign, was 94 seats for Labor and just 43 for the Coalition – a landslide to an incumbent government.

Now, as Sussan Ley seeks to drag the Coalition back towards the sensible centre, her opponents within are determined to hold onto its losing position on the political spectrum.

Shadow home affairs minister Andrew Hastie has embraced the MAGA philosophy, promising to bring car manufacturing to Australia by imposing MAGA-like tariffs on 1970s-style, Australian-made, internal combustion engine cars.

Following their election loss, many of the Australian “MAGA right” have jumped onto the too-many-immigrants bandwagon, targeting Indians while also rolling out the Howard-era campaign of too many Asians.

They want a return to an overwhelmingly white Australia of the Judeo-Christian philosophy.

As they take their trip down memory lane, these right-wingers ignore the costs of Australia’s ageing population – the tax burden a whites-only policy would place on working-age Australians to pay for the health and aged-care services their parents and grandparents will demand.

In our immigration program, try selecting only white nurses and white aged-care workers, along with only white tradies to build homes and apartments. Australia would have a minuscule immigration program – but that’s exactly what the MAGA right wants.

Ley understands the folly of embracing such policies, but she would also be aware that the MAGA right is stalking her. The latest Resolve poll showed her personal ratings are pretty strong, but that the standing of the Liberal Party has fallen even further.

If Ley’s leadership is shaky, the abandonment of the Coalition’s commitment to net zero emissions by 2050 might well be the trigger for a spill motion.

Outspoken Nationals like senators Matt Canavan and Michael McCormack, and former deputy PM Barnaby Joyce are opposed to net zero. So is Hastie, who has threatened to resign from the frontbench if it is retained.

The only demographic in which the Coalition retains majority support on a two-party preferred basis is with baby boomers – voters in their 60s and older. But boomers make up only one-third of the voting population, with all younger age groups favouring Labor over the Coalition.

And there can be no presumption that the younger cohorts will become less socially progressive as they enter their 60s.

Gen X, millennials and gen Z voters are economically aspirational. They would always appreciate some tax relief. Yet bizarrely the Coalition voted against Labor’s tax cuts before the 2025 election, the shadow treasurer describing them as a “hoax.”

Yet the MAGA right is convinced that the Coalition will fare better electorally if the Liberal Party adopts its policies. It is well funded through the Advance group. And it well supported by the Murdoch-owned News Corp newspapers and Sky News’ Sky after Dark.

In a rejection of MAGA right policies by voters in affluent seats, the Teal independents hold six formerly safe Liberal seats, having been confirmed last week in the seat of Bradfield after the Liberal Party gave up on its pursuit of a court dispute against Nicolette Boele.

Labor will continue releasing policies that are appealing to the sensible centre.

If the hard right succeeds in toppling the Liberals’ moderate leader and replacing her with one of their own, the Liberal Party will have conceded the sensible centre to Labor.

 The MAGA right’s announced polices are economically damaging – costly auto tariffs to produce petrol engine cars that nobody wants, government-owned coal-fired power stations that would lock our products out of export markets, shortages of health care workers and tradies, and a rapidly ageing population that would need more support from working-age voters.

But that won’t deter them. They have an unshakeable faith that if MAGA is right for America then MAGA is right for Australia too.