Democracy Sausage: Echo chamber politics

Historian Frank Bongiorno joins Democracy Sausage to dissect the Liberal Party’s existential crisis and asks whether Australia’s ‘natural party of government’ is heading for collapse.

Is the Liberal Party becoming ideologically pure but electorally toxic? Why are Liberal MPs losing control of their branches to Sky After Dark viewers? And what happens when a political party holds just one in ten metropolitan seats but refuses to moderate?

Frank Bongiorno is a Professor at the ANU School of History. He is President of the Australian Historical Association and the Council for the Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences.

Marija Taflaga is the Director of the ANU Centre for the Study of Australian Politics and a Lecturer at the ANU School of Politics and International Relations.

Mark Kenny is the Director of the ANU Australian Studies Institute. He came to the University after a high-profile journalistic career including six years as chief political correspondent and national affairs editor for The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age and The Canberra Times.

Democracy Sausage with Mark Kenny is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Pocket Casts, Google Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. We’d love to hear your feedback on this series, so send in your questions, comments or suggestions for future episodes to democracysausage@anu.edu.au. 

This podcast is produced by The Australian National University.