One of the five squares found in the Adelaide CBD, Light Square, is named after the colonialist Colonel William Light, the surveyor who laid out the City of Adelaide. Along with the many other detriments of colonialism, Light’s planning has ensured that the past, present and future inhabitants of Adelaide can enjoy one of the world’s most liveable cities. Local tour guides say that certain roads were made wide enough to ensure that a horse-drawn gun-carriage could be turned in a single roadway, a useful military advantage in the event that the city needed to be defended. A need our green-focused city planners have forgotten, who instead gift us with suburban residential developments where the roads are wide enough to accommodate a loaded mule and it is impossible to find parking anywhere within a day’s walk of a resident you may wish to visit.

An Extinction Rebellion greenie granny took advantage of Adelaide’s wide roads this past week to dangle herself off of Morphett Street bridge and cause traffic chaos, all in protest at an oil and gas industry event at the Adelaide Convention Centre. Grant Stevens, the SA Police Commissioner, deliciously commented that as much as they would like to, SA Police were unable to simply cut the rope. The ire the action caused amongst the commuting public will hopefully reduce the number of Greens votes at the next election. I took the opportunity to spend a few minutes watching the whole spectacle and noticed a vehicle parked on the bridge. If it was hers, I hope it is now in the custody of SAPOL’s confiscations section, being a vehicle used to commission an offence. The irony of the whole protest was highlighted by the Speccie’s front cover picture of Jim Chalmers holding the coal budget surplus aloft.

Adorning one of the electrical power boxes dotted across the nearby Light Square was a notice which read ‘Adelaide Pride Gronk Watch’. The text on the notice advised readers that if they spotted or were getting hassled by Gronks at the day’s pride event, then they could scan the QR code on the notice which would link them to a social media group monitored by the event’s ‘crack team of yellers’ who would respond to any Gronk sightings.

The term ‘Gronk’ inspires images of an orc, troll, ogre or another horned and scaled creature one would expect to find in one of Tolkien’s works. The term ‘Yeller’ inspired images of, well, I’ll leave that image clattering around my brain and invite your imagination to fill in the gap and thereby avoid any Lathamesque offence.

Which brings us to moves currently afoot within the South Australian Liberal party to establish a Pride branch. The raison d’être for such a branch is ostensibly to promote the Liberal party at Pride events.

The promotion of the party at Pride events is a magnanimous goal. However, is a branch specifically for this purpose a good idea? The task of promotion of the party at Pride events could be allocated to a sub-committee of the state executive council. Pride events are associated with the radical left. It is not difficult to imagine that some gay and lesbian members of the community must be fed up with being lumped together with the transgender movement and its controversies. The Liberal party with its more conservative base would be a welcome refuge from the excesses of the trans lobby. What is difficult to believe is that there is an abundance of potential members keen to join the party in attendance at Pride events. A Liberal party stall and flag at a Pride event would be about as welcome as a bacon sandwich in a synagogue.

Hot on the heels of the Moira Deeming expulsion debacle in the Victorian branch and at a time of rising tensions in the party around questions such as gender transitioning, especially for the young, the sexualisation of children in state schools, the rights of woman to their private spaces and sport competitions, the move is a bad idea.

At a time when the Liberal party is struggling to keep its traditional family voter base and bleeding support to minor parties to the right on the political spectrum, the focus of scarce party resources needs to be on winning its traditional support base back and attracting swinging voters and not on increasing the amount of rainbow-generating unicorn flatulence at party meetings, events and campaigns. The party has after all committed itself to a net zero emissions target.

Party gossip is that one of the motivations for forming the Pride branch is that it will carry delegate positions at state and federal council and will provide a mechanism for the wets to secure seats at these councils and counter the conservative vote from the Rural and Regional, Woman’s, Young Liberal and other branches. The establishment of such a branch would embed identity politics into the fabric of the party structure. As we have seen from recent election results, the path of out-woking Labor or the Greens leads to electoral annihilation. To win seats, the Liberal party needs to set a clear distinction between itself and other parties. The way to win back the women’s vote is to offer to protect a mother’s children from the ravages of identity politics, rather than encouraging it.

At the time of writing it is unclear if sufficient signatories would have been obtained in order to establish a separate branch. The establishment of the branch will most likely need to be voted on at a state electoral council, possibly at the upcoming 27 May event. If the branch is established, it will be a victory for the Yellers. If the Gronks prevail, the voting down of the formation of the branch will most likely be seized upon by ‘their ABC’ and be given the usual disproportionate howling protest coverage afforded to any matter their editorial team perceives as being ‘biccy’.

Either result will prove to be a challenge for the party’s state leader, David Spiers. A Yeller victory will increase unease amongst the conservatives in the party rank and file and the threat of ongoing electoral defeat. A Gronk victory will place him in the thick of battle in the culture wars, an area he seems to shy away from. Should such a controversy eventuate, he can choose to face the media onslaught bravely and use it to the party’s advantage, especially in those areas that have seen an attrition of voter support. He could appeal to women voters by taking a stance in favour of protecting girls and women spaces, reason with the younger generation about the dangers of gender ideology, (especially transitioning at a young age), and draw attention to the good work his parliamentary team is doing in other areas of policy importance such as economic development, defence, state finances and education.

The Liberal party does not need to have another of its state branches torn apart by the Yellers. Whatever the outcome, may he have the courage to look to the tried and tested values of conservative thought to lead wisely and well and a lot better than his Victorian counterpart.