Liberal leader Vincent Tarzia must immediately confront the man he replaced – David Speirs, who has publicly accused him of undermining his own leadership – and put an end to the latest outbreak of embarrassing bedlam enveloping their party in the interests of the South Australian public.

The broken South Australian Liberal Party is yet again in its default crisis mode, with open warfare exploding between its current and former leaders as fledgling incumbent Mr Tarzia yesterday went to ground, refusing to confront the chaos he is presiding over.

A day after Mr Tarzia declared in an ABC Radio interview that Mr Speirs would be overseas until the end of the month, the Member for Black touched down in Adelaide, telling two TV outlets he had been “blindsided” by his omission from Mr Tarzia’s frontbench, and was now considering quitting politics altogether.

“I found out about that via you guys in the media… that was a little bit disheartening (and) goes to the measure of the way the party’s operating at the moment,” he told reporters.

He also offered a downbeat assessment of Mr Tarzia’s leadership, saying: “I’ve been watching from afar, it seems that things have gotten off to a shaky start.”

Asked if he endorsed Mr Tarzia’s description of him as a “friend, supporter [and] confidant”, he insisted he was merely “a colleague”.

And in case this could all be written off as the jet-lagged ad-libs of a disoriented former leader caught on the hop after a long-haul flight, Mr Speirs later re-emerged to speak to another two TV outlets, going even further.

“I think there are very significant challenges [for the Liberal Party],” he said.
“There are leaks; there is a lack of team; there is a lack of vision, plan, momentum… it seems to be coming apart at the seams.”

Mr Speirs noted “there does appear to be a level of shambolic-ness about what’s going on in the Liberal Party”, describing the challenge ahead as “more Mount Everest than Mount Lofty”.

Mr Tarzia insisted when he unveiled his shadow cabinet that he would talk to Mr Speirs about a potential role when he returned from overseas. Now that we know Mr Speirs would prefer to serve on the Liberal frontbench, Mr Tarzia needs to immediately meet with his predecessor and clarify whether that role is still on offer – and if so, which of his current frontbenchers will he turf to accommodate him.

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Attributable to Tom Koutsantonis:

What an absolute shambles.

The South Australian Liberal Party has for decades been something of an embarrassing outpost of the national Liberal organisation, but even by its lowly historical standards, the degree of dysfunction we are now seeing sets new benchmarks.

I’ve been in parliament for 27 years and even I’ve not seen the Liberals like this – although it’s just another chapter in a party that simply exists to in-fight. This is a broken institution, incapable of governing itself – the divisions are simply too deep.

In the past week alone we’ve seen Mr Tarzia openly contradicted on policy by members of his own frontbench, we’ve seen him flag billions of dollars in potential cuts to services and we’ve seen the man he replaced describe his administration as ‘shambolic’ – and he’s only been in the job for three weeks!

South Australians deserve better – Mr Tarzia must immediately stop this childish standoff, pick up the phone and arrange a personal meeting with Mr Speirs to clear the air. If they’re not even capable of talking to each other, how can the state Liberals hope to articulate a coherent vision to the rest of South Australia?

Mr Speirs is a former leader of the Liberal Party, elected by his peers – surely that entitles him to more respect than he is currently being shown by Mr Tarzia.

If this broken party can’t govern itself, how can it hope to govern the state?