According to my occasional employerThe Australian, I am still a “top Lib”.
In an article entitled “More top Libs opt to sever LNP ties” reporter Greg Roberts says:
Mr Young, who survived an attempt by the Liberal Right faction to expel him last year, said he would not apply to renew his membership. He said the LNP would collapse after losing the next state election. “There’s nothing holding it together other than ambition and opportunism. Its reason for being is to win the next election and if it doesn’t, it’s likely to fall over.”
Now, while Roberts got the quote right, he’s mistaken about my Liberal Party membership.
I describe it as being in a “quantum state” because it depends who you talk to as to whether it is still current or not. I think that the correct legal position is that it should be, but I would have to go to court to enforce that. The challenge would hinge on the fact that 75% of the people at the State Council meeting needed to vote to expel me, and that out of 42 present, they could only muster 27.
However, there is no point in running that case if the end result is that I will become part of the LNP.
I joined the Liberal Party to a large extent because of what I saw as National Party malpractice and bad government. While Coalitions with the Nats are the price that you have to pay to be in government, merging with them is just a bridge too far. Especially on the terms that has occurred in Queensland.
Not only is the Queensland merger a takeover of the Liberals by the Nationals, but it is a takeover of the grass roots by the state parliamentary party.
I received a broadcast email from Lawrence Springborg this morning where he refers to himself as the “leader” of the LNP. While the new party might be a broad church, it also needs to understand that good political parties have a separation of powers between the parliametnary leadership and the organisational leadership. This fused leadership, with its focus on state government, rather than federal government, is not onlly bizarre, it is yet another reason why I want nothing to do with the new party.
Ceding power to the top of the organisation is not only bad policy and bad management, but it contradicts one of the basic tenets of both conservatives and liberals – that power should be located as close to the people as possible.
A quantum state? Does that indicate the LNP should only exist in some alternate universe?
Comment by Mark — August 26, 2008 @ 12:31 pm
Perhaps there is even a universe in which they will be successful.
Comment by Graham Young — August 26, 2008 @ 4:36 pm
And that’s why we (non-Labor) forces cannot get into government. Stupid Liberal pride. We think we are so important. No we are not. We are here to represent the people. The people wanted a merger.
Give them what they want and they will vote for us.
By losing you suggest the LNP will collapse as it becomes irrelevant. Sorry to tell you this but at a State level the Liberal Party was already worse than irrelevant. It was a joke.
Constant poor organisational and financial discipline meant every State campaign started with a massive handicap. The Nats are disciplined and are desperate to win government. At least more desperate than the Libs were. Good luck to them.
Comment by Doug — August 27, 2008 @ 5:59 pm
Try alternative government
Comment by Dallas Beaufort — August 28, 2008 @ 12:13 am
Gee Graham, anyone would think you are bitter…or something.
Comment by Steve — August 30, 2008 @ 9:26 am
Gee Graham, anyone would think you are bitter…or something.
Comment by Steve — August 30, 2008 @ 9:27 am
you still sound very bitter…it is interesting that The Australian is your part time employer and that you hate the supposed “right-wing” faction of the liberal party…I wonder how come there is never any mention about the other faction i.e. tucker and flegg in Greg Roberts articles? It really annoys me that it is always reported that the “right wing” only supported the merger…when 95 per cent of the delegates to convention voted in favour of it, I should know I was there.
Comment by Timothy — August 31, 2008 @ 11:28 am
1983 happened Graham! Get over it!!!
Comment by Stephen Hutchinson — September 1, 2008 @ 9:35 pm
Australia is an island continent occupied by Anglo/Saxon/Scottish/Irish establishment beginning at about 1788. They brought with them all their faction fighting and hate that has been a feature here ever since then.
Do I have a right to say this?
Yes. Since it takes one to know one.
And indeed, it takes a little maturity to recognise one’s own faults.
Now; might we consider that having established this alleged democracy here and having forged a ‘CommonWealth’- it might pay us to seek out the implications of that.
Perhaps consider that ‘interest factions’ are perfectly okay in politics so long as they remain a way of giving fair indication to voters and to others in parliament of an aspirant’s beliefs and attitudes and in no way compromise a sitting member’s responsibilities to his electorate.
In all seriousness, since factions or partisan politics cannot be abolished without being driven underground – then perhaps their influence should be statutorily extinguished from within parliamentiary process and removed away from parliament itself to a succession of hired halls.
Perhaps in this way some semblance of accountability might touch the consciousness of the Lordly ones within their electorates.
Good Grief; they might even have to listen to the disenfranchised and the minorities.
Comment by A NON FARMER — September 18, 2008 @ 9:52 pm