“The most irrelevant lobby in the country today are the libertarians arguing there is no case for lockdowns anywhere of any scale,” declared Paul Kelly, the doyen of Australian conservative political commentary, in July.

However, anti-government anger is growing as Australians confront the realities of a dismally slow vaccination rollout and ongoing lockdowns. The right-wing libertarians of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) hope to convert that sentiment into the votes they need to win seats in state and federal parliaments.

Just a few days prior to Kelly’s declaration, his colleague at Rupert Murdoch’s conservative broadsheet the Australian, Janet Albrechtsen, set the hares running. She argued that widespread disaffection with the Liberal Party’s pandemic response, both federally and in New South Wales, has led to the rejuvenation of the LDP, “the little start-up that never took off.” If, Albrectsen argued, they mobilize serious intellectual firepower and keep out the weirdos and gun nuts, the LDP can force the Liberals to remain true to the values they claim to uphold.