What's wrong with Peter Dutton's Coalition

However. For Peter Dutton's Coalition, I could make an exception. Never, in all my years of observing politics enthusiastically, have I ever seen such a ragtag bunch of no-hopers all flung closely together because of circumstance (otherwise known as the relentless flogging they got during the 2022 election. Flogged).

And he is not the person to lead them out of the wilderness. Dutton is not inspirational in any sense of the word no matter how much his wife protests otherwise. Nor is he a person behind whom voters can unite. Nowhere is that more clear than in his behaviour around the Voice to Parliament. I have said before that I don't think white people should be leading the commentary on the Voice but Dutton is prepared to say and do the first thing that comes into his head.

And he's not the only politician from the conservative side to do that. It's almost as if now they are not in government, they've forgotten what discipline looks like.

Let me direct you to Dutton's "nopology" (appropriating the Prime Minister's neologism of the "Noalition"). It's not the first time the conservative side has struggled with Indigenous rights but it is the latest and it will not be the last. In this instance, Dutton apologised for not attending prime minister Kevin Rudd's apology some 15 years ago. He's said before that he made a mistake but this time, he was doing it in an attempt to prove he had matured since 2008. And he made his comments this time on the anniversary of the apology at Parliament House: "I've apologised for that in the past, and I repeat that apology again today."

So why did he reject the apology then? Apparently he thought it might open up the government to claims from Indigenous people: "It would beggar belief that they would be contemplating an apology that could open the government up to serious damages claims without knowing what those claims would be."

Anyhow, Monday's version was barely better: "I want to say, in an unscripted way, I apologise for my actions. The Prime Minister's frequently able to point out that I didn't attend the chamber for the apology 15 years ago. I've apologised for that in the past, and I repeat that apology again today ... I failed to grasp at the time the symbolic significance to the stolen generations of the apology. It was right for prime minister Rudd to make the apology in 2008. It's right that we recognise the anniversary today. It's right that the government continues its efforts, and in whatever way possible we support that bipartisan effort."

Except about the Voice. Was it only me who thought this apology was wet? I asked Susan McCarthy, the co-author of newly-published Sorry, sorry, sorry: the case for good apologies, what she thought?

She was blunt: "It's not a good apology. He doesn't address the prejudice he said he had. And he's limiting his regrets to failing to grasp the symbolic significance. It's a weak and qualified apology."

The woman is an American citizen but somehow manages to grasp Dutton perfectly. And it's not just Dutton. The problem with the Liberal Party in general is the lack of merit among its members. It's funny (peculiar) because the party has spent decades telling voters the reason not to set quotas for any kind of diversity is because merit is more important than gender or ethnicity. And somehow they end up with the pale, the stale and the male. That should be males.

Males who have no interest in the environment or energy policy or welfare or gender equality or health or or or...

Just this week, we've seen South Australian Liberal senator Alex Antic ask the secretary of Home Affairs Mike Pezzullo whether his department had been "captured by leftist ideology" because of the focus on climate change and whether that focus was "comedy" or "parody"? Surely there have been enough floods and fires in this country for Antic to recognise that might be the stupidest question on record? See how I'm resisting the urge to use his last name to make jokes? Hard to resist but as a person whose last name is Price, I have some empathy.

The saddest aspect of this slow death of the Liberal Party is that this lack of merit extends beyond the federal level. The Victorian Liberal Party is an embarrassment (and I'm neither Victorian nor a Liberal so I have no idea how those who are both manage). And the NSW Liberal Party stumbles from corruption to revenge porn and back. Ok, not strictly revenge porn - the photos shared by NSW Upper House member Peter Poulos were from a photo shoot years ago. But disgraceful nonetheless. And the poor woman whose images were shared without permission has to play nice because she's a member of the Liberal Party.

There has to be better systems and processes in the Liberal Party (and the Nationals are no better).

I keep hearing about reviews of the Liberal Party and how things will change yet I never hear about the change happening. Dutton says a woman has to be preselected for the seat of Aston and we will all believe it when we see it.

There's something rotten in the state of conservatism in this country. And it would be so much better for our democracy if conservatism was in much better shape. Not good enough to win, mind you, but good enough to represent those values in decent and fair way.