The Centre Right Faction or Centre Right Group[6][8][9] is a faction within the federal Australian Liberal Party that makeup one of its four major factions, with the other factions as of 2023 being the Moderate and Centrist factions to its left and the National Right to its right.[6]
The faction's main ideology can be seen as a soft mix[clarification needed] of both the adjacent factions' ideologies. As noted by The Sydney Morning Herald in 2021: “The group's unifying philosophy is pragmatism – that means an adherence to free-market economics (but with enough flexibility to splash billions to prop up the economy during the COVID-19 pandemic) and relatively conservative social values.”[6] The ideological position, and pragmatism ("to yield results"),[10] of the Centre Right Faction, is one of the reasons Scott Morrison was appointed leader of the party in 2018.[10] As its nickname under Scott Morrison (Morrison Club) signifies, its figurehead was then-Prime Minister Scott Morrison, with Alex Hawke known as the leader of the faction.[1]
During the Morrison government years, the Centre-Right was the largest faction, with 32 of 91 Liberal MPs belonging to the group.[11] However, the 2022 Australian federal election saw a significant realignment of factional affiliations within the Liberal Party, with the Centre-Right going from being the largest faction to the smallest faction, plummeting from 32 members to just 6, caused by a combination of members losing seats as well as members moving to other factions; the aftermath of the election saw the emergence of a "Centrist" faction consisting of former Moderate and Centre-Right MPs, mostly hailing from Victoria, with this group espousing similar ideological leanings to the Centre-Right faction in being more economically dry than the National Right and more socially conservative than the Moderates.[12] Most of the factional power following the election defeat and leadership change was transferred to the Conservative Right led by the new Party LeaderPeter Dutton.[13]
^Crowe, David (28 May 2021). "Liberal faction wars could snare PM in puppet master's strings". The Sydney Morning Herald. One the soft-right's own, Melissa McIntosh, is being challenged by conservative candidate Mark Davies in Lindsay, the marginal seat around Penrith in Sydney's west. There is talk of a conservative challenge against Sussan Ley, the Environment Minister and member for Farrer, but nominations for her seat have not opened.
