Last night the Liberal Party hurtled further down the path first taken when Don Lane and Brian Austin defected to the National Party after the 1983 election with the party splintered, and the epicentre of the quake somewhere around Clayfield. The Party effectively rejected the plan to merge the National and Liberal Parties into a division of the Liberal Party by deferring the constitution convention to facilitate it due to be held this weekend. See the CM here, Australian here and you’ll have to wait for The Brisbane Times because they apparently stopped filing at 4:10 pm yesterday.
The current dispute doesn’t reflect well on any of the participants. Mal Brough was elected on a platform of cleaning out the Liberal Party organisation and negotiating a fair amalgamation. He’s done neither. Disgruntled Liberals point to the fact that the incompetent Geoff Greene remains Liberal Party State Director, and that sitting members in the merged entity are guaranteed preselection until somewhere next decade, as proof of this.
On the other side the National Party look like they wanted to crash this Party all along. The Liberals have given them juust about everything that they want, so how could the sticking point be a Liberal being the inaugural president of the merged entity? The Nationals (when they respond) apparently argue that it would be undemocratic not to elect the inaugural President, in which case, why protect all sitting members from preselection?And why reject Mal Brough as that president? Afterall, he is one of the few politicians in Queensland with political capital available to spend.
One of the major problems in the negotiations is the tendency of the National Party to see it through the prism of state politics and to assume that the federal Liberal party is a handy, but largely irrelevant, part of the scheme. In fact, as the merged entity involves folding the National Party into the Liberal Party, the federal Libs are in fact crucial to it occurring at all. You can’t therefore treat the Liberals federal president as a supernumerary.
There is a tendency for the media to portray the Liberal Party’s internal decisions as reflecting “pro” and “anti” merger factions, when it is nothing of the sort. Most people in the Liberal Party want a merger, but not just on any terms, and they demonstrated that by overwhelmingly electing Brough as President. The 26 to 21 vote on the party’s state council is not as close as sentiment in the party. The council is biased towards the Santoro faction because of their disproportionate control of some of the smaller Federal Electorate Councils.
In fact, the amalgamation issue in the Liberal Party has little to do with amalgamation and everything to do with factional politics. Santoro was resolutely opposed to the amalgamation until he realised he could use it as a weapon against his enemies. He even campaigned against Brough when he first announced his intention to run for president because he was pro-amalgamation! Now Santoro is its biggest supporter and bags Brough because he is alleged to be part of the Tucker faction and anti-amalgamation.
That McIver and Springborg appear to be happy to play along with Santoro underlines the fact that from their point of view this was never about a merger but about a backdoor listing for the damaged political assets of the current National Party.
The result is that unless the National Party comes to its senses Anna Bligh should easily be re-elected. She is in desperate trouble as her appearance on Australian Story proves (and see our latest “What the people want” analysis here), but the problem for Queensland voters is that if they want to punish her they have to elect a mob who aren’t even good enough for Opposition. And now they look likely to have the problem of not one, but two mobs to choose from!
July 25, 2008 | Graham
Not even fit for opposition
15 Comments
RSS feed for comments on this post.
Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.
Graham – You are kidding right? I believe the new party will be launched on Sunday with or without the “Liberal Party” on board.
Grandfathering was bought in (and you should know this) to stop the otherwise chaos that would descend if every sitting member had to fight for preselection. This works both ways also. Without it all the positions on the Senate ticket would be ex-Nationals. The real reason Brough is bitter is that he wants Slipper’s seat. Longman is too hard for him and he wants an easy win.
I was one National prepared to vote for him as president on the back of his work with the intervention. After his act of the last month or so there is now no chance in hell this will happen.
To you point on Santo – Although Santo as a partner is not ideal, him brings with him fundraising, members and most importantly Campbell Newman.
Comment by Chris — July 25, 2008 @ 4:39 pm
So somehow Brough pulling the pin at the last minute and not giving his party a vote is Santoro’s fault? I thought Brough got elected on the basis that he would make the new constitution more democratic. First they wanted an unelected president forced on the new party now they don’t want their Liberal members to have a say on the floor of convention…
Bring on the LNP!
Brough has lost a lot of credibility here and many potential votes as leader of the LNP from both sides.
Comment by Joe — July 25, 2008 @ 4:55 pm
Mal Brough’s position as at early Friday Morning was clear and he stated“This new entity, if it goes ahead on Saturday and whoever joins it, will no longer be the National party because they are shedding their skin … but won’t be division of Liberal party either, so therefore they become an entity that has no existence in any other state, that hasn’t got affiliations with Federal Liberal party and that for me is the worst of all worlds and what we were trying to avoid,”.
Clearly there were sticking points that the Liberals wanted answers on.The Nats showed no courtesy what so ever-answers didn’t come
The vote for the merger should have been deferred.Graham’s comments are spot on. Why should the Libs sell themselves down the drain to the Nat’s at any cost!
Comment by David Jones — July 26, 2008 @ 1:21 pm
Chris is right. The new party will be launched this Sunday regardless. But the issue isn’t whether the Party would exist- From my understanding, even if the legal procedure had failed, the Nats and a handful of high profile Libs would’ve pushed on with the new party anyway. The issue is whether it will become an official QLD Division of the Federal Lib’s.
New party or not, this drama still has a long way before it concludes.
Comment by Davey — July 26, 2008 @ 2:35 pm
This is about the first article that i have read that actually has a grip on what is happening.
As for Mal Brough, i thank him for his efforts in trying to bring a fair and equitable deal to the table. i was one of the masses who witnessed first hand today the takeover of the Liberal party today and it was a sad site to see. Lawrence Springborg is not interested in the best of both parties, he is simply interested in rebranding his own party and taking as many of Liberals top players as he can with him.
It is a sad day for the Liberals in QLD today.
Comment by Liberalmember — July 26, 2008 @ 4:02 pm
Well the LNP is now here. Completed to be launched officially in the ceremony tomorrow morning. It is an historical but sad day in QLD politics. When the divide has finally been removed from true liberalists and the conservatives, leading a party with not any specific philosophy but rather a party that is just marketed on being anti labor.
It will be interesting to see where it all goes from here. Whether it is approved by the federal body will make quite a difference at this stage. Mel Brough is still the president of the Liberal party of Australia (QLD division) until such time as it approved at a federal level and if it is not approved then we will just have to see what happens from there.
Mal Brough was doing the job that he campaigned on doing, that was working on the merger but without liberals giving away everything and anything to make it work. Mal wanted more time to have it done properly to allow the merg to be fairer rather then just a national takeover. However, this was against the opinion of the majority and he could not do it right, now the liberals have made major sacrifices and im sure one day they may realise what they have done.
But now it just comes to seeing what happens from here.
Comment by airliestar — July 26, 2008 @ 4:12 pm
Whatever the details, the public of qld have been wating for over 20 years for a united conservative party and it is finaly here in the LNP!
There is a real excitement in the air and i believe a lot of people will come back to politics now, while others will join for the first time to get behind this new united party.
Watch out Bligh, your days are numbered!
Comment by Joe — July 26, 2008 @ 9:29 pm
Whatever the details, the public of qld have been wating for over 20 years for a united conservative party and it is finaly here in the LNP!
There is a real excitement in the air and i believe a lot of people will come back to politics now, while others will join for the first time to get behind this new united party.
Watch out Bligh, your days are numbered!
Comment by Joe — July 26, 2008 @ 9:30 pm
Whatever the details, the public of qld have been wating for over 20 years for a united conservative party and it is finaly here in the LNP!
There is a real excitement in the air and i believe a lot of people will come back to politics now, while others will join for the first time to get behind this new united party.
Watch out Bligh, your days are numbered!
Comment by Joe — July 26, 2008 @ 9:31 pm
Whatever the details, the public of qld have been wating for over 20 years for a united conservative party and it is finaly here in the LNP!
There is a real excitement in the air and i believe a lot of people will come back to politics now, while others will join for the first time to get behind this new united party.
Watch out Bligh, your days are numbered!
Comment by Joe — July 26, 2008 @ 9:32 pm
Whatever the details, the public of qld have been wating many many years for a united conservative party and it is finaly here in the LNP!
There is a real excitement in the air and i believe a lot of people will come back to politics now, while others will join for the first time to get behind this new united party.
Watch out Bligh, your days are numbered!
Comment by Joe — July 26, 2008 @ 9:34 pm
Whatever the details, the public of qld have been wating many many years for a united conservative party and it is finaly here in the LNP!
There is a real excitement in the air and i believe a lot of people will come back to politics now, while others will join for the first time to get behind this new united party.
Watch out Bligh, your days are numbered!
Comment by Joe — July 26, 2008 @ 9:36 pm
Graham, I think you have contributed a great amount to non-Labor politics and I think you could continue to do so. Much of pineapple politics may be stuck in the 80′S with most bloggers, but you still call it as it is. The fact that QLD is once again a first is actually a testament. I hope you see so as a united non-Labor party should welcome you with open arms. At least, that is what I have proposed. I hope you see this as a birth rather than a death.
Comment by Steve — July 26, 2008 @ 10:54 pm
I thought you had gone missing inaction for a few weeks graham. There seemed to be no comment about the merger shenanigins for weeks, but you are back with a very coherent and incisive article. I could not agree more with your article.
This IS a takeover,
Plan A …. takeover libs
Plan B …. change the name of national party
I agree that the Nats are state focused, but they now have completely changed the balance of power in the joint party room federally (and this cannot be just happenstance). Shifting conservative politics further to the right in Qld, and federally will do us no good in the long run.
This is a very retrograde step for conservative politics in Australia.
Comment by Chris — July 27, 2008 @ 8:57 am
Australia is headed striaght into a whirlpool. you might be able to get pull out if you reach toward us. the USA.
Comment by Theleastofthemall — August 4, 2008 @ 2:51 pm