Crack open any document about superannuation and you should see the disclaimer, “past performance is not a reliable indicator of future performance.”
When it comes to the future of state Liberal MPs staying inside the party, it’s a phrase South Australian leader David Speirs may hope holds true.
For various reasons over the past 30 years, the Liberals have lost eight elected lower house MPs to the crossbench compared to Labor’s three in the same period.
The Liberals have also repeatedly faced unusual circumstances with MPs from the south-east.
Rory McEwen was a card-carrying member coming into the 1997 election. He sought Liberal pre-selection for the seat of Gordon – centred on Mount Gambier – but was unsuccessful.
He ran anyway as an independent where he won, was returned twice, and served as a minister in the Labor Rann government before retiring in 2010.
After Don Pegler’s single independent term, the Liberals finally managed to take Mount Gambier with Troy Bell as its candidate in 2014.
Then he was forced to the crossbench three years later after being charged following an anti-corruption investigation.
Mitch Williams resigned his Liberal Party membership ahead of the 1997 election, then won Gordon’s neighbouring seat MacKillop as an independent with the help of Labor preferences.
Mr Williams rejoined the party and the Olsen government two years later, staying in the Liberal fold for the remainder of his time in politics, which ended at the 2018 election.
Which brings us to his successor, Nick McBride.
From a farming background, in his relatively short parliamentary career Mr McBride hasn’t been afraid of speaking out against his party’s positions or decisions, particularly if he feels his electorate could be adversely affected.
He was critical of the Marshall government’s handling of parts of the pandemic, the impact it had on his electorate — which runs along the Victorian border — and branded the statewide lockdown in 2020 as an overreaction that “hung businesses out to dry.”
Meanwhile, a threat to turn independent ahead of the 2022 state election did not eventuate following a meeting with then-premier Steven Marshall and treasurer Rob Lucas.
Fast forward 18 months and Mr McBride has once again faced questions about his future with the party.
It follows the leaking of audio which aired on ABC Radio Adelaide on Thursday from an address he gave to a business group in the south-east in February.
He warned the party during the last term had “ostracised” a tranche of Liberals, businesses and associations like the Master Builders, Hotels and Motor Trades.
“They were our base and they’ve deserted us,” he said.
During the same talk, Mr McBride said unless the Labor government “does something stupid” they will be in for another 16 years and he did not know what that would mean for his future.
“I’ve had dinner with the premier and his wife in his family home while he was the opposition leader,” Mr McBride said.
“Because he wanted to talk to me about what was happening in MacKillop, the Limestone Coast and what I stood for.
“The Malinauskas government rolled out more to the Limestone Coast and the community of MacKillop than even my own premier did in many of the budget years that we went through in government.”
When asked on ABC South East on Friday if he had any intention of leaving the Liberal Party and running as an independent, Mr McBride said, “No, I’d prefer not to”, and he had “every endeavour to try and stay and work with the Liberal Party throughout this term”.
“But it won’t stop me putting pressure on them. If they see it as pressure they might be glad to see me go, I’m not sure,” he said.
“But I will continue to be forthright, advocate strongly for the regions, strongly for MacKillop too.”
He also conceded if he knew the talk was being recorded, he “probably” would have filtered what he said “a little better” than what he did.
“Secondly, I probably would have asked them to come a bit closer so my audio could have been heard a bit clearer,” Mr McBride said.
He said he believed the party was making inroads with some of the issues he had been highlighting and he was not personally critical of David Speirs’s leadership.
“So I think they have changed, I think they are recognising some of the mistakes that were made but I think they’ve only scratched the surface,” Mr McBride said.
“I’m going to try to stay in the party right through to the 2026 election, and hopefully be part of what will hopefully be a strong election campaign and give ourselves every opportunity to win.
“And if it doesn’t work, I’ll make other decisions along the way.
“But there’s no point in me sitting back saying nothing when there are some really great opportunities, big opportunities, to turn the Liberal Party around from what was perhaps a really disappointing result in 2022.”
In response to the leaked audio, Mr Speirs said he thought Mr McBride was “pretty aligned” to the direction the party was headed and he thought the MacKillop MP would remain a Liberal “for a long, long time to come”.
“You didn’t invite me on the show this morning, I’ve called in because I think your listeners need to know that the party is united like never before,” he said.
“Nick and I speak regularly, we’ve never had a cross word and I think he’ll be a very significant part of my team for a long time to come.”
Mr Speirs said the one of his first jobs after taking on the Liberal leadership nearly a year ago was to reconnect with the party’s base.
“One of the things that I think we’ve failed to do in the past as a Liberal Party is to be able to keep everyone in the tent and allow people with different views and different opinions, different policy priorities, to coexist together,” he said.
“Now I think we’ve done that pretty well in the last 11 months. There hasn’t been a lot of angst around policy debate.”
As far as superannuation policies go, it’s clear Labor and Peter Malinauskas have had an eye on keeping Mr McBride happy while Mr Speirs and his team may have more work to do to make sure history does not repeat once more.
Posted , updated
