Tighe, president of Right to Life Australia, goes so far as to claim credit for the Brumby government’s single-seat November 2010 election loss. “The most significant seat that we had success with was in East Gippsland,” she says. “We targeted [independent incumbent] Craig Ingram in a big way. We had a big mobile billboard driving behind a car.” The billboard featured a picture of a newborn with the words: “The newborn is precious, unlike unborn babies who can be aborted til birth. Craig Ingram voted for this. Vote Ingram last.”

Tighe’s claim is probably hyperbole. Indeed, the Coalition’s promise to conduct a trial of cattle grazing in the Alpine National Park probably played a bigger part deciding votes in the rural seat. But the concept of “punishment politics” partly explains why Australian politicians seem so keen to pander to fringe groups on the hard right.

Voters who support the re-criminalisation of homosexuality, or believe abortion should never be acceptable, even in cases of rape, or think Islam should have no place in Australia society, are in a minority. You might think politicians wouldn’t bother. But unlike rusted-on voters in the majority, people from the religious right are typically wedded to specific issues rather than political parties. The political challenge is to appeal to such voters without upsetting the broad mass of the population. It is a delicate balancing act – particularly in a left-leaning state such as Victoria.

This week the Napthine government found itself on the defensive when The Age reported that Attorney-General Robert Clark will late next month deliver a “welcome to Victoria” address to the World Congress of Families. It sounds innocuous enough, but a close examination of the speaker list reveals the event features a who’s who of the extreme right, some of whom espouse views that many mainstream Victorians and minorities such as the gay and lesbian community would find offensive.

Included is an American doctor promoting a discredited link between abortion and breast cancer, a spruiker of Russia's "crusade" against homosexuality, and organisers from the Tea Party-style Rise Up Australia Party. The conference will be opened and closed by federal Social Services Minister Kevin Andrews, who will share the stage with event organiser Larry Jacobs, a strong supporter of Russian laws banning gay pride demonstrations and “homosexual propaganda” who has praised Russia as the "Christian saviours to the world".

The Coalition's leader in the Senate, Eric Abetz, and controversial Liberal senator Cory Bernardi are also listed as supporters. The event will also be addressed by anti-abortion campaigner and Victorian upper house MP Bernie Finn, who recently ran into trouble after claiming abortion should not be acceptable in any circumstances, including cases of rape.

That Clark is attending an event promoting Vladimir Putin’s “pro-family” policies is significant. Clark is, as Victoria’s chief law officer, responsible for enforcing the Equal Opportunity Act, which is supposed to prevent discrimination. How his duties here are consistent with some of Jacob’s more extreme claims is difficult to fathom. Moreover, the Coalition’s flirtation with the extreme right risks a backlash from the left in other key seats, particularly the Liberal seat of Prahan, held by just 4.7 per cent.

So far Napthine has shrugged off the issue by arguing Clark is merely doing his job as a senior minister promoting state tourism by welcoming a major event to Melbourne. He also points out he recently flagged new laws to expunge previous crimes from homosexuality from the record, a change which will be implemented by Clark.

The Liberal Party, so it is often said, is a broad church. The thinking is that having representatives from the right in State Parliament like Clark and Finn and in the Federal Parliament like Bernadi and Andrews only serves to broaden the Coalition’s appeal. The "broad church" strategy can be an effective form of dog whistling. It is when the whistling becomes shrill enough to offend the ears of the broader population that problems can start to arise, as Napthine discovered this week.

Danny Nalliah, Christian evangelist, leader of political party Rise Up Australia, and president of Catch the Fire Ministries, argues the reach of religious and right-leaning lobby groups such as his have grown. Nalliah says Catch the Fire has a database with about 14,000 people on it, claiming credit for the federal government’s $244 million school chaplains program, a decision to remove the word “multiculturalism” from a list of federal portfolio responsibilities and federal Attorney-General George Brandis’ push to water down the federal racial discrimination act.

ABC election analyst Antony Green says the religious right is still far more subdued as a political force in Australia than in the United States. If anything, Australian political leaders have tended to promote liberal credentials in recent decades, pointing out that laws relating to abortion and homosexuality have been progressively rolled back and liberalised.

Green says religion in Australian politics often has more to do with internal party politics than pandering to the public. “In America there is a public demand that the state defines these issues,” Green says. “In this country there is more a general perception the state shouldn’t blur the lines between difficult personal decisions and policy.”