The Liberal Party of Australia (LP) is in dire straits. Australia’s conservative opposition lost the formerly safe seat of Farrer to One Nation (ONP) in a by-election, and polling consistently finds them at or below ONP’s popularity. The Labor Party (ALP) holds the popular vote and the centre-left, while independents encroach on the centre. The ground on which the LP stands is shrinking. Political parties don’t collapse overnight, but the constant media coverage of the LP’s struggles begs the question: are we watching a party die? If we are, it could have broad impacts on the structure of Australian politics.

The death of a different Australian party more than 80 years ago can show us what a terminally ill political movement looks like. Between 1931 and 1945, the United Australia Party (UAP) won four federal elections under the leadership of Joseph Lyons, Billy Hughes and Robert Menzies. After Lyons’ death in 1939, the party struggled to compete with Labor before Menzies dissolved the party in 1945 and formed the Liberal Party. In her 1998 paper Things Fall Apart: the End of the United Australia Party, Sylvia Marchant details the demise of the UAP and the characteristics of the breakdown. We’re observing these symptoms again in real time; the question is whether the Liberals are following the same path as their predecessor.

Symptom 1: Reactionary Policy

Marchant writes that, before its collapse, the UAP “… had nothing to offer the electorate: … only criticism of, or reaction to, ALP policies”. A shift from agenda setting to agenda reaction signalled that the UAP had lost control of the policy discussion. It also hints at the weakness of a political movement which is built on opposing values rather than promoting its own distinct belief system. 

On the 14th of April Angus Taylor announced the Liberal Party’s (LP) new “Australian Values Migration Plan”. Multicultural Affairs Minister Anne Aly labelled the plan a “not-so-subtle dog whistle” to ONP voters, trying to win back conservative Australia in response to Pauline Hanson’s surging popularity. For  the LP, changing its own positions in response to other parties’ policies shows that they have stopped setting the agenda. 

In 2025, the LP tagline, “are you better off than three years ago?” was prominent in the federal election, reflecting the dominance of anti-Labor sentiment in their campaign. In an election campaign labelled “dull and uninspiring” by Annabel Crabb; both parties were reactionary rather than ambitious. In his 2025 quarterly essay The Good Fight: What Does Labor Stand For? Sean Kelly bemoaned a Labor Party built around opposing the LP. Of Prime Minister Albanese, Kelly wrote, “Above all else, he is not a Liberal”. If the Liberal Party is dying, where does that leave a political system where both major parties are propped up in opposition to one another? A reactionary UAP became redundant; does the same fate lie ahead of the LP – and what befalls Labor in that case? 

Symptom 2: Leadership Instability

One thing that sets both the ALP and ONP apart from the LP is their leadership. Anthony Albanese provides to his party the assurance of consistency; while Pauline Hanson is a divisive figure, she is a uniting figurehead for her political movement. It is difficult to paint Angus Taylor in the same light.

After Joseph Lyons died in 1939, the de facto UAP leaders Menzies and Hughes alternated leadership as the party became redundant, before Menzies eventually formed the LP and most UAP assets transferred to the new party. Despite this leadership turmoil at the end of the UAP’s life, the conservative movement in Australia still had Robert Menzies to rally behind, and he went on to be the longest serving PM in our nation’s history for 20 years with the new Liberal Party. 

Modern day Liberals face a slightly different issue. While their leadership is in similar tumult, they lack a Menzies-like figure to unite their ideology if the party fails. The last four leaders of the party have all in that role for less than four years. Sussan Ley was removed from leadership after less than a year. The current leader, Angus Taylor, has constantly had the threat of Angus Hastie’s popularity looming over him, and lacks support from key Liberals. LP veteran and former PM Malcolm Turnbull labelled Taylor the “best qualified idiot [you’ve] ever met”. 

Without a new Menzies, or a new John Howard, the LP are left to their revolving door at the top, which makes it difficult to appeal to voters as they struggle to compete with the more prominent leaders of the other major political movements. 

Symptom 3 – Narrow, Elite Membership Base

In Marchant’s 1998 paper, she notes that the UAP had become increasingly reliant on a few wealthy donors and elites, which left them out of touch with the Australian population. The party base became inactive outside of election periods, and party membership was low. 

Today, Liberal Party membership is deteriorating: the Guardian reported that the average age of a Liberal party member in Victoria is 68, and that up to 30% of all Victorian members did not renew their membership after the scorching 2025 federal electoral defeat. As membership narrows and ages, the party loses not just numbers but also its ability to generate new ideas and maintain a connection to voters. There is also increasing public perception that both major parties protect their major industry donors. For example, Anthony Pratt’s company, Pratt Holdings, is the largest donor to the LP and the ALP and is notorious for paying very little tax.

Diagnosis

By the 1940s, the UAP struggled to define an original agenda, stabilise its leadership or draw on a broad base of supporters. These symptoms corroded the party’s efficiency until it was no longer an effective political machine. An unelectable opposition fails in its primary function, which is to hold the government accountable. 

For the modern LP, a shift toward reactionary policy suggests a loss of ideological confidence. Leadership instability points to internal fragmentation, and an ageing, shrinking membership base indicates a party increasingly detached from the population it seeks to represent. This descent fits a pattern which is difficult to ignore. If they cannot stabilize their leadership, move beyond reacting to their opponents and rebuild a broader base of support, they risk following the same trajectory as their predecessor. If that happens, the consequences will extend beyond the LP. A political system built around two major competitors cannot remain stable if one begins to disintegrate. The slow death of a party does not just reshape one side of politics; it reshapes the entire field. The LP is in critical condition, and unless they change course, they risk the same slide into irrelevance as their predecessor.