Religious conservatives have long sought influence within the ACT Liberal Party. Their efforts under Zed Seselja offer a cautionary tale about factional power, political ambition and the limits of ideology.

I have been waiting for some time for someone to notice the remarkable congruence between allegations of a cult of Opus Dei zealots seeking to take over the NSW Liberal Party and what many have alleged in the ACT during the reign of Zed Seselja. If the parallels are as they appear, it may well be that Zed was the more effective exponent of the dark arts involved. But still not successful, except in advancing his own career.

The ACT Liberal Party over the years has been generally a party of moderates, somewhat woke and very socially progressive, including on matters that cause reflex paroxysms among the very Catholic right. Former Liberal chief ministers Kate Carnell and Gary Humphries might be said to have been models of the type of non-Labor politicians able to find the broad wavelength of at least half of Canberra’s voters, and to form governing coalitions with independents and minor parties, other than the Greens.

Gary Humphries, of course, went from being chief minister to senator, once Margaret Reid decided to step down, and was a popular representative, generally having little trouble getting that third of the popular vote necessary for an ACT person to become an ACT senator. Zed Seselja was a different kettle of fish, of the Liberal Party hard right.

Even during his term, Humphries had problems in getting unanimous support from within his own party. When in the ACT Assembly he was ambushed by Trevor Kaine, a much more conservative Liberal, though not noticeably a moralistic one. There was a certain irony in this, given that Humphries had earlier plotted to take Kaine’s position as leader of the party and afterwards became a little too complacent. He failed to learn sufficiently from this near-death experience even after it was clear Seselja was assembling the numbers to depose him in his senate seat.

The very first assembly after self-government had a number of members belonging to anti-self-government parties, some of whom seemed to have belonged to religiously conservative collectives, and others of whom shared somewhat nutty and conspiratorial views including about fluoride, and League of Rights issues such as citizen initiative referendums.

Some of the more religiously focused had pious acquaintances known to me but whom I regarded as essentially harmless. I was reluctant to have The Canberra Times accused of being in any sectarian conflict and was in any event somewhat scornful of their political skills. The members did not fail to get critical attention from our reporters, but not much of it was focused on religion. They defeated themselves.

Seselja tries to make the Liberals more pure, more moral and less electable

Once Zed Seselja appeared upon the scene it became obvious that he was attempting to master the numbers in the Liberal Party in his own interests. He gathered a tight disciplined group to support him. Some thought this intrinsically sinister, but it was ordinary politics. It was also clear that the basis of his support, and his recruitment of numbers, was opposition to the ACT Liberals’ progressive views on matters such as abortion, voluntary euthanasia, discrimination and human rights. I had no idea whether his mission had any sort of episcopal blessing, or was receiving any support from party members, new or old, with........

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