The famed Liberal Party powerbroker Walter Villatora is a former campaign manager for Mike Baird and Tony Abbott. Believing the “Liberal Party is finished”, he resigned his membership last week to start his own conservative party, Reform Australia.

Ex-Liberal Party powerbroker says ‘the party is over’

Fitz: Walter, I can’t help but notice that you’ve left the Liberal Party in the same week that Barnaby Joyce has left the National Party for – no, really – One Nation. Are we indeed watching the LNP “disintegrate before our eyes”, as Niki Savva put it on Insiders a fortnight ago?

WV: We are. It cannot be rehabilitated. It has been disintegrating for some time, lost in culture wars that have nothing to do with the actual lives of the Australian people. But for me, the death knell was the Liberal Party AGM of the NSW division last week, when they reduced the state executive from 30 to 13 members, with six of the 13 unelected and appointed by the factions, at the expense of the broader membership and the best interest of the party. So, I resigned. The party is over.

Fitz: And yet, given that you were the campaign manager for Tony Abbott – who is himself very strongly associated with the hard right of the Libs, whose red meat is those culture wars – you can’t have had too many problems with hard-right nutter views?

WV: Look, I’m a team player. Tony and I did not agree on a bunch of fronts, while agreeing on a bunch of others. My relationship with Tony wasn’t really straightforward.

Fitz: And so you took your hat, your coat, your umbrage and left on your high horse in high dudgeon?

WV: I lost all faith in what was happening within the local Liberal Party in the lead up to the 2019 election, where Zali Steggall beat Abbott. I stayed on as a local branch president – involved with the members as opposed to the head office – that also consolidated my perspective that the party was lost.

Fitz: And you thought the pre-selection of Katherine Deves, as the Lib candidate to take on Steggall after Abbott, was – to use a technical expression – batshit crazy?

WV: Oh, beyond batshit crazy. This was an important juncture in the demise of the Liberal Party. I’d spent 12 years as the founder and the head of the democratic reform movement within the Liberal Party to promote members’ interests. And it’s very simple. The history of the party was that only 6 per cent of the membership had any say in who their candidates were for state and federal elections within NSW – which meant just the local executives had a say. So, our push was to give all of the membership a vote in determining who the candidates were. But at that 2022 election, Scott Morrison and Alex Hawke binned the Liberal Party constitution, delayed the pre-selections in order to justify their “captains’ picks”, and that is where Katherine Deves came from. We had our own candidate, a great local bloke, respected in the community, who could have won, but they came in over the top.

Fitz: And Ms Deves was a more or less a one-trick pony, carrying on about how, unless something was done, swarms of truck-drivers in tutus – claiming to be transgender athletes – were going to take over every playing field and dressing-room in the land?

WV: The issue was of no importance to anybody in the electorate of Warringah. It was completely irrelevant, and most of the people of Warringah were entirely uncomfortable with what this represented. This was one of many disconnects with the voting public reflected in the poor election result.

Fitz: Despite it all, you stayed on as a local branch president until last week. How long had you been forming the idea you were going to (jocularly) rat on the party that gave you birth?

WV: I thought things had to deteriorate to a particular point where it started to justify an alternative. And I think we’ve reached that point now, and people are screaming out for a different way. I think mainstream Australians have lost faith in all of the major political parties, and the minor parties aren’t making a difference. And when people start to become this concerned with politics, it’s because none of the current parties are answering their needs.

Fitz: Well, the results certainly prove the electorate has formed the view that the Libs are not answering their needs.

WV: Indeed. Remember that every single time the Liberals have had a catastrophic election loss, they’ve called for a full internal review, and they’ve called for submissions from everybody, and I’ve been part of that process, as have many. But we have been ignored over and over again. All that has happened is that the Liberal Party executive gives window dressing to hide the fact that they’ve got a malignant culture within the party that’s really driven by lobbyists and power brokers in the shadows. And this is reminiscent of why Menzies had to abandon the United Australia Party 80 years ago to form the Liberal Party. We’ve gone full circle.

Fitz: If we follow that through, that makes you Menzies. So, what’s your grand vision?

WV: I am no Menzies. However, what we do have is a vision for a party the likes of which has never been seen in Australia. Firstly, it will not be run by career politicians, staffers, lobbyists and backroom factional operatives. We are not political people, but have extensive political experience. The most significant difference that speaks to our vision is that if it’s not discussed at the “kitchen table’ in mainstream Australia, we don’t want to know about it. We are focusing on the issues that are having the greatest impact on everyday Australians; the cost of living, housing affordability, a shockingly regressive tax system.

Fitz: Walter, let’s take one of your motherhood statements, and drill, baby, drill. A “shockingly regressive tax system”? Great. So, what would you do? Give us a sniff of an actual hard policy idea!

WV: I suppose you would like a simple answer to address Australia’s most complex policy area! We will develop a practical, pro-growth tax package that backs small firms, rewards investment in factories and exports, and boosts innovation whilst protecting revenue integrity. We will take a particular interest in eliminating regressive taxes, such as payroll tax, which penalises companies for creating more jobs. We would give small businesses a permanent, generous instant asset deduction and roll small business concessions into one simple digital package, so family businesses can invest and hire rather than wrestle with paperwork. Red tape reduction is critical to reducing costs. We’d simplify personal tax brackets to incentivise and reward hard work.

Through all this, we will be member and voter centric. Our members, subject matter experts and key stakeholders will have direct input into our policy development.

Fitz: OK, but why would you give it the same name as the Nigel Farage mob in the UK, when they are barking-mad lunar right, and you – from what you’ve told me – are not?

WV: Let’s go back a step. The name “Reform” predates Farage’s party. It was originally conceived in British politics in 1790. In fact, it was also the name of a prominent Canadian political party founded in 1987. We really looked at this very closely, and this is purely a branding, marketing-type exercise in getting our name out. Even though it’s controversial and people are wanting to know what the links are with Farage and others, I’ve got to say, it’s worked because the amount of positive attention this initiative has now attracted is extraordinary. But I’ve made it very, very clear that we have no ties whatsoever with Reform UK. We’re a different country, different issues.

Fitz: Are you the president of this party?

WV: When we actually register, I will be whatever works. And I’m not into titles one bit, but for the purposes of clarity, I would be either the president or the federal secretary. I think I can run an organisation in a professional manner. And my greatest interest is getting good people with life experience into politics.

Fitz: Let’s just say the Labor Party on the political spectrum from 1 to 10, is at 5, on the left end of the centre, and the LNP has shifted a little further right to be at 7, where do you position Reform Australia?

WV: We say that whole left/right way of thinking is outmoded. We say we won’t even discuss things that are not being discussed by Australian families around the kitchen table. We want real solutions to real problems, solved by politicians who are of the people, connected to the people, and not apparatchiks rising on patronage of a disconnected executive.

Fitz: OK, but you will have seen the criticism which says: we’ve seen other disillusioned conservatives come and go, doing exactly what Reform Australia are doing. In recent times, we had the Cory Bernardi “Australian Conservatives” launched to great fanfare. The result is that “Cory Bernardi” himself is now the failed answer to a trivia quiz, completely forgotten. We’ve had the Clive Palmer thing – “Trumpet of Trumpers” or somefink – which gave us “Senator Numpty-Dumpty” and has had no impact on anything. Why will you be any different?

WV: It’s very simple. Australia does not respond well to a cult-based party, or one built around just one person, Pauline Hanson notwithstanding. The parties you name were not well managed. I am not a great orator, but one thing I have a reputation for is competence, and that what’s missing in Australian politics. I think the major parties and most of the minor parties are mismanaged in a very chronic sense. When I spoke to Cory, I said, “What’s your structure going to be federally”? And he said, “What do you mean? I’ll just run it.“ Unfortunately, it takes more than being an impressive individual and a great frontman like Cory.

Fitz: Waiter! No more whiskey for this man! But do go on...

WV: And it was the same with Clive. Clive didn’t set it up as a serious business. I think Clive met his objective of generating publicity to put pressure on the major parties but not necessarily in a way that was sustainable in the long term.

Fitz: Let me spend $150 million on ads, and I’ll generate publicity, too, hopefully without being a laughingstock. But, OK, so you want a party, with real actual members, developing saleable policy from the grassroots up?

WV: Exactly. We’re going to focus on what has to happen internally to allow good people to be able to run, to get in the parliament. I can relate to all the naysayers because the history is not good for minor parties to get off the ground, but there’s only one way to disprove it, and I’m just going to keep my head down and keep going.

Fitz: What reaction have you had from people?

WV: Extraordinary. I’m hearing from people, political and non-political, that I haven’t spoken to for decades, who are sending me messages saying ‘we’ve joined the party’. I’ll give you a simple benchmark: I was the president of a branch of the Liberal Party, and we had 20 members. We tried for years to grow the branch to no avail due to the toxicity of the Liberal brand. In contrast, Reform Australia is getting 100 members a day signing up before we’ve even registered the party. We are on our way, and will register as a new party shortly.

Fitz: What chance of sitting LNP members joining you - like Barnaby, but sane?

WV: That’s a definite possibility.

https://www.smh.com.au/national/ex-liberal-party-powerbroker-says-the-party-is-over-20251211-p5nms7.html

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