From today’s Crikey email:
Something is rotten in the state of the Queensland Liberal party.
Yesterday, I wrote about the spillover of toxic leadership wrangling into the federal sphere. It’s now clear that the state Liberals commissioned research into the party’s federal standing which included questions about the Liberal leader, Dr Bruce Flegg. As Graham Young writes, the inclusion of these questions is counter-intuitive and their being asked at all is likely to colour the polling results.
The polling was shared with National Party figures, but when Flegg asked about it, the Liberals’ state president, former Senator Warwick Parer, denied that it existed.
It’s widely suspected in Brisbane that the troubles some Liberals are having with the Federal police have their origin in the allocation of campaign funds not on the basis of electoral considerations but for factional reasons. Whether or not misuse of public funding is involved in these shenanigans is a moot question for the moment, and the Liberal MPs at the centre of the investigation maintain their innocence. The findings of an internal audit commissioned by the Libs after the investigation came to light have not been made public.
During the last state campaign, it was alleged that funds were re-directed to attempt to shore up the chances of factional honcho Michael Catalbiano in his losing battle to hold onto his seat of Chatsworth. This only highlighted the dysfunctionality of the Liberal machine and its focus on rewarding and protecting factional mates rather than beating Labor.
Much fundraising also appears to be conducted on a factional basis, with funds being allocated as if to feudal retainers rather than being centralised and directed rationally for the party’s best interests. It’s no surprise that many business donors have declared the door closed in the face of these tactics. This has only compounded the issue, with fundraising MPs such as Andrew Laming and the former Senator Santoro trading on Howard’s power and his presence at functions to raise funds independently.
The Labor Party machine in Queensland would never tolerate this sort of practice. As Young remarks, if it were going on, Rudd would surely step in. But Howard is taking his usual hands off attitude.
The State Liberals’ rep is toxic with voters. It’s bizarre that the party would seek to muddy the waters with the Federal campaign. It’s been a delicate balancing act to quarantine the mess that is the State Libs from Howard in the past.
Labor would have to like its chances in many Liberal-held marginals. The atmospherics outside Brisbane are rather different, but the state mess will have maximum impact here with heavy coverage and airplay throughout the metropolitan media.
The impact of the current ructions may be passing (though it hardly helps), but the bigger story is the likely turn inward of the state division. If they’re busy eating themselves and squabbling over the spoils of defeat, a very vicious dynamic could take hold. These apparently parochial stories could be well worth careful watching in the lead up to the federal poll.
The Libs only hold two out of the 35 Brisbane state electorates. A large part of the reason is their inability to organise a coherent campaign and the way their campaign efforts cannibalise their own candidates and members. That’s worth remembering when calculations about Brisbane federally are made.
The Liberal Party in Qld has always been total wankers. No news in that.
Er.. the Qld ALP machine (the one which produced Mike Kaiser) wouldn’t stand for WHAAT exactly? (guffaw)
Mark, your heading is frightening the horses , answer well, no, unless he puts up a silk wall paper and a $30.000.00 mattress barrier. Well, you know ‘no one told me about Qld and Mrs PM said she wanted silk mattresses not dowdy wall paper, must be interesting when Mrs PM who has worked so hard to convert the Sydney shack into something doable to think that all her hand ringing and social justice work, the tireless work for her staff, is all looming into a life of tax payer paid below standard dross.
Howard has two standards.
‘Apparently in the same electorates the sitting federal members have positive ratings, for example Gary Hardgrave on plus 20′ reports Graham Young.
And how large was this poll for any significant subsets of it to have any statistical significance?!
Looks like the Federal Libs have seen the writing on the wall and are out and about looking for a scapegoat. I actually have more faith in Flegg as a politician than most of the Federal Queensland Liberals. There are just too many of them and they have won too easily in the past to learn how to work hard.
A good cleanout in the next election and couple of decades in opposition could be just the thing needed to make them appreciate how good they had it and what wasted years the last eleven years have been.
I think that one of the sleeper issues in this election will be Brough’s bungling of the commonwealth State disability agreement. I can not remember one word of protest from any of the hopeless Queensland Federal Liberal members and on this basis alone none deserve to be reelected.
To leave such a basic service in such disarray is unforgivable!
It will be very difficult for Howard to quarantine himself against this level of dysfunction.
I’d say it’s nothing personal Steve.
Catanzariti has probably just been given an opportunity by a munificent employer to explore a wide range of enhanced career possibilities unencumbered by the daily minutiae of, you know, an actual job.
I’m sure that by speaking with Federal Liberals the Federal Police have been thrown into absollute confusion and don’t know who or what to believe. This would explain why the process has taken so long to finalise.
Well, the main problem with the Libs is “what do they stand for these days?” What is their philosophical position that distinguishes them from Labor? The problem is that the differences are negative - they don’t like unions (unlike Labor), and they don’t have the social justice thing going (again, unlike Labor). But what are the positives for the Liberals? Better grasp on economics? Nope. Labor does just as good, or better. More liberty? They weren’t the bunch that decriminalized homosexuality in Qld, were they?
I’ve heard a lot of complaints about Labor as “Liberal-lite”, which I agree - but the result is that the Libs are looking more and more like the “Labor-bloated” party in 2007. Just with extra fundamentalism and wowserism added in.
(I’m not saying Labor are that much better. But for some reason, they seem to be better, period… time and time again.)
Interesting comments Down and Out. I think another problem the Liberals have Federally stems from their small government rhetoric where everything that is not bolted down is sold or given away to their business mates but with this comes a loss of public accountability and invariably a loss of service.
Has anyone tried to get the privitised Telstra to connect a customer to broadband lately? I’ve talked to almost every Telstra employee in Bangalore and can not get anyone to set a date for connecting broadband from the corner of my house to the computer.
It also leaves the Liberals responsible for very little and leaves the public paying very high taxes and more money for services which government once provided.
State wise it will take a long time for the Coalition to have a reason to be elected. They just do not perform well as an opposition and are prepared to sit back and rubber stamp whatever Canberra decrees is good for Queensland.
Pedant here. You quarantine a virus; and contain a toxin.
Howard’s gambit is simply to avoid going near the toxins.
On that basis he had better quarantine and contain the Member for Clayfield quickly or the infighting will dominate another week of Queensland headlines.
This was in the Curious Snail on Saturday.
PLOTTERS of Liberal leader Bruce Flegg’s demise are jostling to shore up numbers for a possible challenge next week.
Clayfield MP Tim Nicholls is said to have at least four votes but it’s believed he will only challenge Dr Flegg if his colleagues call for a spill and second the motion.
It’s understood the ongoing speculation and uncertainty is frustrating state Liberal Party president Warwick Parer, who next week may call for an end to the conjecture, although he has no control over the eight-member parliamentary wing.
Speaking to The Courier-Mail yesterday, Dr Flegg said he was disappointed with some of the backstabbing but described himself as “tough”.
“This week would be viewed as a setback (for unity) but one of the positives of this week was all the MPs were mature . . . and absolutely rock solid (in support),” Dr Flegg said.
“This is politics. This is a challenging occupation.”
However, Dr Flegg hinted that he made sure he had the numbers to head off any challenge.
“I had very little quiet moments (this week). My phone was going from 5am in the morning.
“It’s when your phone doesn’t ring that you have to worry.”
Asked if he believed he should resign as leader for the good of the party and for the upcoming Federal election, he said: “That’s the equivalent to asking, ‘When did you stop beating your wife?’ – and I’m not married.
“It’s a nonsense of a proposition.”
The Libs stand for whatever the Howard government does. The lack of a sizeable and identifiable bunch of Liberal dissenters and the never-apologise-never-resign creed of Howard means that Libs will not be able to claim any sort of ideological consistency in the face of inconvenient truths, both those that have come to light and those yet to do so.
The philosophical position arises after they lose government and search for something to keep them going through the long dark march of opposition.
Just because the State Libs are unpopular, it does not follow that the Federal Libs are unpopular for the same reasons. I think the last state leader who suffered for the unpopularity of the Federal party was Dunstan in 1975, and he had been busy pissing people off in his own right. The Feds are rightly unpopular due to their own efforts. These dills who attempted to publicly fund partisan campaigning look like corpses twisting in the breeze, waiting to be cut down. It’s doubtful that the ALP would have tolerated someone like Michael Johnson.
It’s interesting that there are three Federal cabinet ministers from Queensland, and none of them come from the nation’s third-biggest (soon to be second-biggest) city.