Cory Bernardi Has Disbanded The Australian Conservatives Due To “Lack Of Political Success”

You could be forgiven if the name Cory Bernardi has dimmed in your memory somewhat.

Once known as one of the staunchest conservatives in the Liberal party, a man eerily obsessed with outdated notions like heteronormative family values and trickle-down economics, Bernardi broke ranks with the party in 2017 and formed his own splinter cell known as the Australian Conservatives. And around the same time, he essentially disappeared from public view.

Not that Bernardi wasn’t still making noise. The Australian Conservatives Facebook and Twitter pages were filled with the kind of dopey, off-brand memes that conservatives imagine will set the internet on fire, and Bernardi still occasionally tried to grab headlines by saying obnoxious things.

But the corner of the media landscape reserved for political firebrands — i.e. pollies so lacking in any other kind of worth that the only way they can draw votes is by admonishing any display of human decency — was taken up by other far-right numpties, and Bernardi got left in the cold.

One thing people should never forget is that Cory Bernardi only formed his little conservative pity party *after* he secured a cushy six year senate seat running on the Liberal ticket, despite flagging it before the election. Could not have been more dishonest. #auspol https://t.co/O8kyfH8xDP

— Alex Hempel (@rainynight65) June 20, 2019

So yeah, the Australian Conservatives were a massive failure, and Bernardi’s decision to leave his spot in the Liberal party to form them means he’s a big failure too.

Now, following a particularly bad showing in the May election — in which Bernardi’s party failed to score a single seat — the senator has announced that he will disband the Australian Conservatives.

Although he did acknowledge that his party’s “lack of political success” (that’s a direct quote from the horse’s mouth, right there) partly inspired the decision, he also claimed that the booting of Malcolm Turnbull and the re-election of Scott Morrison means that his party is “no longer valid”.

Cory Bernardi to deregister Australian Conservatives and ponder his future https://t.co/NnfJqVZ616

— lynlinking (@lynlinking) June 20, 2019

Now, if he could only direct that stunning, clear-eyed insight onto his own career and not just the career of his doomed party, we might actually be getting somewhere.

Not that you should expect to never hear from the man again — rumours are already swirling that Bernardi is set to rejoin the Liberals, proving that sometimes a bad penny does come back.