Tim Wilson opens up on Andrew Hastie and ‘big Liberal energy’

Liberal frontbencher Tim Wilson says rebel MP Andrew Hastie should never have joined the opposition frontbench as he outlined his vision for “big Liberal energy” that rejects the need for the party to shift to the right or left.

Wilson, who returned to parliament in May after winning back the seat of Goldstein from independent Zoe Daniel, told this masthead’s Inside Politics podcast that the Coalition could retain its contentious net zero emissions pledge and still win the climate argument against Labor.

In an expansive interview in which he discussed his sexuality and prickly relationship with Daniel, Wilson said he wrestled with whether to rejoin the frontbench after both Opposition Leader Sussan Ley and her rival Angus Taylor offered him positions.

“What’s become evident to me is that [Hastie] probably shouldn’t have joined the shadow cabinet in the first place,” Wilson said, saying he had to convince himself that he did not want the freedom of the backbench. “I don’t say that as a criticism.

“He’s now got to develop something which he’s now going to try and essentially remake the priorities of the entire party on.

“That’s a very substantial move, and it’s one that’s fraught with difficulty because there’s the world you want, there’s the world that we live in.

“I’ll start with the world we live in and how do we then take that world towards a more Liberal vision – rather than starting from the world I want, and trying to get reality to conform to it.

“We’re all waiting … to see what it is that he wants to say.”

Hastie, the 43-year-old former soldier who quit the frontbench last week, and Wilson, 45, have at different times been held up by colleagues as exemplars of the moderate and conservative visions of the party’s future.

Wilson said the pair used to sit together in their early years in parliament, swapped books, bought gifts for family and shared a close bond, although he said he was more “retail” than Hastie, whom Wilson described as a political “romantic”.

Wilson acknowledged the party was at a crossroads and required hope and ideas that grappled with a changed nation: higher rates of migration, new geopolitical threats and what he said was a growing appetite across the West for “majoritarianism” – the rights of dominant cultural groups.

Speaking about Hastie, Wilson said the pair shared many of the same ideals despite perceptions that the pair had little in common politically.

“He’s talking about deindustrialisation. If you go and look at my campaign launch speech back on the 29th of March of this year, I explicitly talk about re-industrialising the country,” Wilson said.

“We’re both very focused on national unity, what it is we need to build out for the future of Australia.”

The Hastie drama has sparked public debate about the future of centre-right politics in Australia as populist movements surge in the US and UK and support for One Nation ticks up in Australia.

Former Howard government ministers Amanda Vanstone and Arthur Sinodinos have criticised Hastie for engaging in so-called culture wars. But the Institute of Public Affairs’ John Roskam and others have argued conservative parties cannot ignore rising community concern about national symbols and migration.

Wilson argued in favour of a migration system with greater focus on integration and Australian history from the period of British settlement onwards.

He said the party needed to espouse positions which created a more “culturally confident nation” at ease with its history, binding people together regardless cultural background.

“We should be selling that story about people being massive contributors to our country … who care for each other, who take responsibility.

“There is not just big Liberal energy, but there is big small business and aspiration energy. The more we instil that across the rest of the country, the more you have people who stand on their own two feet.

“Liberalism has many dimensions to it. But, if anything, it is about that sort of mutual dependency and support that we give to each other because that’s the strength of our country.”

The party has been in turmoil over its position on net zero. Wilson, who supports nuclear energy, and some senior Right faction MPs want to work with Ley to find a compromise that includes maintaining the net zero target with new economic caveats.

Wilson warned the Coalition got caught “taking the bait” and fighting over net zero.

“Labor wants us to be debating this issue. The Greens want us to be debating this issue. The teals want us to be,” he said.

“When people email me and say ‘scrap net zero’ … I always reply and say, ’What do you think will happen if we do it? And people sort of say, ‘Well, prices will come down,’ and I say, ‘Well, how?’”

“Because inevitably what they think is, well, suddenly new coal-fired power stations will pop up, the price of energy will collapse, etcetera. And it’s like, no, that’s not going to happen ... because this is a problem that’s been 20 years in the making.”

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