Cory Bernardi Has Split From the Liberals and Nobody Is Surprised Except the Liberals

It's official: Senator Cory Bernardi will leave the Liberals to form his own political party, called the Australian Conservatives. At last, conservative-minded Australians will have an alternative to the Liberal Party, the National Party, the Country Liberals, Pauline Hanson's One Nation, the Liberal Democrats, Family First, Katter's Australian Party, the Jacqui Lambie Network, frog-based memes, and the Labor Party.

At 12:40 PM on Tuesday, Bernardi informed the Senate that he would be leaving the Liberal Party, describing the decision as both difficult and a relief.

The arch-conservative Bernardi has not been shy in vocalising his dissatisfaction with the Liberal Party's stance on countless issues. That criticism increased when Malcolm Turnbull, who from Bernardi's stance on the ideological spectrum appeared to be somewhere to the left of a tie-dyed hemp bust of Karl Marx, took over as Prime Minister.

The real question is this: how the hell did the Liberals not see this coming? Everyone else did.

In September 2015, almost a year before the last election, Bernardi refused to rule out quitting the Liberals. He had just changed his Twitter bio from "Liberal Senator" to "conservative Senator" in what seemed like the biggest indication that he was seeking to distance himself from his party.

This likely led to Bernardi being placed second on the Liberal's South Australia Senate ticket instead of first, but it was a toothless gesture from the party. Despite SA's typically unpredictable senate makeup, and the added x-factor of the Nick Xenophon Team wedging its way into the centre, it seemed unlikely that the second spot would be particularly dangerous place to be. In the end, the Liberals picked up four Senate seats, and Bernardi was secure for a six-year term.

But how popular was Bernardi himself in the last election? Could he have won without being hitched to the Liberal bandwagon? In 2016, he received a total of 2,043 primary ballots, or 0.19% of the vote. Assuming those numbers would be the same if he runs without the safety of the Liberal umbrella, he would have reached 0.025 of the quota to enter the Senate, which is roughly 2.5% of what he would need. That means that all the nitrogen in Cory's body could enter the Upper House, but all of the carbon, oxygen or hydrogen in his body would have to stay in Adelaide and get back into rowing or whatever he did before politics.

In contrast, Liberal Senator Simon Birmingham received 11,108 primary votes, the Greens' Sarah Hanson-Young received 8,980, Labor's Penny Wong received 17,899, and Nick Xenophon's Nick Xenophon received 25,777. Bernardi's name recognition does not yet to translate into primary votes, and he has about five years to turn that around.

Many Liberals are calling on Bernardi to respect the will of the voters and continue to support the government's agenda from the crossbench, whereas South Australian Liberal MP Christopher Pyne is calling for Bernardi to recontest his seat altogether. It is a pretty reasonable demand, given the numbers show Bernardi only got his seat because he was aligned with the Liberals. The calculus in waiting until after the election to leave the party demonstrates strategy over principle. And given Bernardi's whole pitch is "I want to give hope to those who despair at politics", this is a pretty bad start.

Bernardi once famously blogged about an encounter he had with a Liberal MP, claiming the MP admitted he'd only joined the Liberal Party because he lived in a safe Liberal seat. "If I lived in a Labor seat," the MP reportedly claimed, "I would have joined the Labor Party." The anecdote is widely thought to be about Christopher Pyne, though Pyne has strenuously denied it. This story now takes on a whole new meaning if Bernardi only stuck with the Liberal Party through the 2016 election to get himself back in the Senate.

So what are these principles that Bernardi keeps espousing?

ABC's Jane Norman referred to Bernardi as "Social conservative and economic liberal," a position so ridiculous that it was once used as a punchline on 30 Rock.

He believes that same-sex marriage will lead to polygamy and bestiality. He is does not believe that human activity has contributed to climate change. He wants to ban the burqa. He opposes legalised abortion. He said that the Safe Schools program's design is to make homosexual children feel safer at school by bullying heterosexual children.

He recommended his Twitter followers read an article by pro-rape blogger "Roosh." He once quoted what he thought was a statement from Voltaire, but turned out to be a quote from Holocaust-denying neo-Nazi Kevin Strom. He went to the US on the Australian taxpayer's dime and spend much of that time meeting with Donald Trump's campaign manager Kellyanne Conway and surrogate Rudy Giuliani, and has since been seen non-ironically wearing a hat reading "Make Australia Great Again."

Bernardi's very noisy departure paints a picture of a government in chaos, particularly given Bernardi informed Turnbull that one of the catalysts for him leaving was apparently further rumblings of leadership instability. Although talk that someone in the Liberal Party is looking to depose Turnbull is news that will surprise absolutely nobody.

But it's not all bad news for the right: there's another crossbench vote for the Coalition to court, possibly giving Bernardi a bigger seat at the negotiation table, and pushing a stronger conservative agenda.

For the left, there's also room to celebrate: one of the most conservative voices in the Liberal Party has now splintered off, tilting the balance of power ever so slightly, and transforming a centre-right party seized by the grip of its right flank into a centre-right party seized the grip of its right flank except Cory Bernardi isn't there.

So make sure you give a warm welcome to the Australian Conservatives. With only one member on its books, there is no better metaphor for that silent majority Bernardi is always telling us about.

Lee Zachariah is journalist, TV writer, and author of Double Dissolution: Heartbreak and Chaos on the Campaign Trail, out now from Echo Publishing. You can also follow him on Twitter.