Breaking up is hard to do, even for a week!

Given the average age of marriage in Western countries- around 30-32, it is impossible for a couple to be married for eighty years.

Therefore, it is probably no surprise that political alliances and parties can crumble in their octogenarian era.

Following the Liberal-National Party’s significant defeat as a coalition in the recent Australian election, the right wing of Australian politics has fractured.

The 80-year-old Coalition, which has splintered before, is for the moment dissolved. Given 42% of Australian marriages end in divorce, the longevity of the Coalition is not to be dismissed. As Harold Wilson observed, “a week is a long time in politics.” By next weekend, the warring political partners spouses may be reunited!

The National Party, just a 'little proud' that they only lost one of their seats at the recent election- and that was to a former National turned Independent- compared to the fourteen lost by the Liberal Party- believe that they are entitled to make sterner policy demands of the Liberals as their price for remaining in the coalition. For the moment, the Liberals are having to decide whether they can live with such conditions.

And, once again, climate change politics is in the mix. The Greens who lost 75% of their House of Representative seats, are still influencing the political landscape. How Green does my party have to be is the cardinal question that bedevils the conservative flank of Australian politics. Can the Liberals and Nationals live harmoniously when they are divided on the questions on whether or not to endorse the government’s net-zero emissions target of 2050 and/or remain committed to the development of nuclear energy?

The present fissure of the coalition has led to predictable cries about “the end of the political world” as we know it.

How little people remember their political history and its ironies.

The National Party in Australia started its life in 1917 as the Country Party. The emergence of another conservative grouping alongside the Nationalist Party led to Billy Hughes introducing preferential voting in 1918. This new system was first used in a by-election in the Victorian seat of Corangamite in December 1918, then at the 1919 Federal election and every election since.

Look who would have won Corangamite in a ‘first past the post’ contest!

Hughes’ undisguised aim was to prevent the conservative wing of voters splitting their preferences in a ‘first past the post’ contest and delivering seats to their common enemy, the ALP.  

In 2025, the same preferential voting, introduced as a survival strategy for the conservatives, delivered the ALP its emphatic victory on the back of anti-conservative preferences, principally Green votes. What goes around, comes around!

Let’s not forget that the Liberal Party is only 81 years old itself. After the end of the “three elevens” of political parties of the first decade of the Federal Parliament- ALP, Protectionist and Free Trade- the conservative forces fused as the Nationalist Party in 1917. The Nationalist Party then became known as the United Australia Party until it was renamed the Liberal Party in 1944, following the UAP’s disastrous election loss in 1943.

The ALP often boasts about its singular continuity since workers of the world united under a tree in Barcaldine, Queensland in 1891 to commit to parliamentary representation for the labouring classes. This is deceitful. The ALP has had three seismic shifts in its history: first, in 1916-1917 over the issue of whether to introduce conscription to support Empire in World War One; secondly, it split in 1931 on which policies to implement to respond to the Great Depression.

People forget that grand treachery has been practised in Australian politics long before the Rudd, Gillard, Rudd, Abbott, Turnbull and Morrison churn of Prime Ministers in recent years.

Billy Hughes, the ALP Prime Minister abandoned his party over its refusal to fully support his wish to introduce conscription and formed the Nationalist Party, retaining the Prime Ministership in the process!

The Scullin government had a similar fate as it became divided about the appropriate economic response to the Great Depression.  The Treasurer of Scullin’s government, Tasmania’s Joseph Lyons, left the party in protest, joined the Nationalist Party, renamed it the United Australia Party, and led it to electoral victory in 1931. Lyons remained Prime Minister until dying at his desk in 1939.

The final split that reshaped the ALP in Australian was over the issue of Communist involvement in the party in the Cold War era of the mid-1950s. Those in the ALP concerned about Marxist involvement in the ranks left the party to form the Democratic Labour Party, which  was a potent force in Australian politics until the mid-1970s.

Both parties have also had splinters, if not splits.  In the late 1970s a disaffected Liberal, Don Chipp formed the Australian Democrats party, promising to “Keep the Bastards” honest. The Democrats were in the late 1970s- early 2000s the powerful crossbench party of the Senate in the manner of the Greens today. . Ask Labor veterans about the splintered radical strands of the ALP led by Jack Lang and Eddie Ward!

Tennis players end their coalition agreements with their coaches on a far more regular basis. Only this week Novak Djokovic dissolved his coaching relationship with Andy Murray. Even though Djokovic was one of Murray’s groomsmen, they could only endure being coach and pupil for six months.

The split did not prevent Djokovic from another landmark victory. He has secured his 100th title by winning  the lowly ranked ATP 250 tournament in Geneva. Not exactly a tournament to rank along his 24 Grand Slams, but an ATP tournament it is. In the week he turned 38, Djokovic beat Poland’s Hubert Hurkacz on the Swiss clay in a three-hour final 5-7 7-6 7-6. Hurkacz has now played a role in two tennis milestones as he defeated Roger Federer in a quarter-final at Wimbledon in 2021 which was to be Federer’s final Wimbledon match.

It has been a long wait for Djokovic who won his 99th title at the 2024 Paris Olympics. Only Federer (103) and Jimmy Connors (109) have won more titles. Only three female players have won more than 100 titles: Navratilova (167), Evert (157) and Graf (107).

Relationships break up in a range of ways.  President Trump has reshaped the dissolution of foreign alliances. There was a time when fireside chats in the White House with foreign leaders were pleasant “meet and greet” occasions, before the realpolitik took place behind closed doors. 

No longer. The President has turned these occasions into public ambushes and muggings. First, it was Ukraine’s President Zelensky who was upbraided by Trump and his Vice-President. This week it was the turn of South African President, Cyril Ramaphosa, who was confronted with accusations about his country’s treatment of white farmers.

Now, the President has turned his eye towards Massachusetts to ignite a fight with Harvard University, aiming to ban the enrolment of foreign students. Trump maintains that Harvard had created an unsafe campus environment by allowing "anti-American, pro-terrorist agitators" to assault Jewish students on campus. He has also accused Harvard of coordinating with the Chinese Communist Party, saying it hosted and trained members of a Chinese paramilitary group as recently as 2024.

Tragically, near to the White House, we saw another fracture of a civilised society, a relationship on which we all depend. Again, the Middle East conflict was the catalyst. Two Israeli junior diplomats, recently engaged, were assassinated when leaving a Jewish museum. The detained suspect was allegedly heard shouting pro-Palestine rhetoric before the killings. In Gaza, the dire and deathly deadlock remains as an insistent Israel demands the release of hostages captured by Hamas before allowing greater aid to the besieged region.

We also know that relationships can founder on excesses of harmony and complacency, especially in politics.

When John Howard achieved the ‘golden ticket’ of a double majority in the House of Representatives and Senate following the 2004 election, he was able to enact his ‘Workchoices’ legislation, which was his ideological apotheosis for Australia’s workplace.  Howard’s hubris backfired. Feeling in supreme control of the political landscape, he handed the Labor opposition a rallying point for the following election where Howard’s government was soundly defeated, and Howard ignominiously lost his seat. 

A generation later, it is Albanese who bestrides Australia’s political world like a Colossus. His party may not control the Senate but can with the votes of the Greens. The ALP’s ideological dream of  levying a “soak the rich” tax on unrealised capital gains in superannuation funds is likely. 

The philosophical horror of levying a tax on income that has not been earned makes the objections of the Boston Tea Party insurrectionists seem a bagatelle. The practical consequences of destroying investor confidence and promoting a flight of capital from superannuation funds are profound.

Albanese would do well to reflect on the potential cost of misusing his mandate. Already the Teal members of Parliament are warning against the proposed superannuation tax.  Finally, the Teals are prepared to show they are not just a lighter shade of Green.

Elections take place, form new political relationships and alliances ending old ones. Cardinals gather, elect a new Pope and new theological directions emerge. The qualifying rounds at Roland Garros are over and the opening matches of the French Open’s first round are played tonight as players quest to be the next champions.  A week is a long time in a conclave and politics; the fortnight of a Grand Slam is similarly replete with passions, dramas and unknown outcomes!