THE re-elected Member for Wannon Dan Tehan has warned that voters will give the Coalition “a kick up the backside” if it focuses too much on right-wing ideology in the wake of the election outcome and not on what voters want.
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Commenting on SA Liberal Senator Cory Bernardi’s move to create a right-wing group called Australian Conservatives to rival prominent left-wing protest and lobby group, GetUp!, Mr Tehan said the electorate would react negatively if the Coalition got hung up with “navel gazing” following the election outcome.
“The Australian public will give us a kick up the backside and we would deserve it,” he told ABC Radio.
Senator Bernardi has been reported as saying the lobby group would be a “conservative life raft” for the Liberal Party following the big vote by many discontented former Liberal voters for other conservative candidates at this month’s federal election.
But Mr Tehan told The Standard the Coalition had not been re-elected to “set up a think tank” but to address issues of concern to everyday Australians.
Describing himself as “more of a conservative than a small L liberal” and someone who was in the centre of the political spectrum, Mr Tehan said the move for a right-wing lobby group was “a distraction that was incredibly unnecessary”.
“Good government governs for all Australians. I’m sure that will be the focus the Prime Minister takes,” Mr Tehan said.
The government needed to focus on issues that mattered to people such as job security, providing political stability and national security and “living within our means and not placing future debt on our children”, he said.
Mr Tehan said he expected Labor and the cross bench MPs to recognise the Coalition had a mandate for the budget it passed earlier this year and approve the budget measures.
The tax cuts for small business and farmers promised by the Coalition were essential to economic growth, he said.
On his hopes to be reappointed as a minister, Mr Tehan said “it would be a great honour” to continue in his current ministerial roles for Veterans Affairs and for Defence Materiel but he was happy to do whatever role Mr Turnbull asked him to do.
Mr Turnbull was likely to make an announcement about his ministerial appointments late this week or next week, he said.
