Larvatus Prodeo

Michelle Grattan is right - the question of a merger between the Libs and the Nats is “a perennial issue in bad times”. But in her column about the way forward for the conservative parties, she doesn’t seem to notice the incongruity of calling for the Libs to be more of a “broad church” and to celebrate the small l liberals in their ranks and the addition to their ranks of a big rump of antideluvian rural populists, whose only policy contribution would be to entrench even further the politics of porkbarrelling which John Howard made into a fine (but finally unsucessful) art. It’s pretty unlikely that anything will happen at federal level, and in fact the grumbling about the Nats getting the deputy opposition leader or PM slot which she alludes to is probably what’s behind it. It’s reasonable to point out that the Nats are over-represented on the frontbench but the usual (and accurate) criticism of the quality of their frontbenchers is somewhat diminished in force by the not entirely sterling qualities of the Lib frontbenchers Nelson has selected (two words - Bronwyn Bishop).

It’s maybe a little more likely to happen in Queensland, where Nats leader Jeff Seeney (who already has the state Liberal rabble pretty much under his thumb) is trying to revive the Nats’ single figure support and his 11% preferred Premier leadership with talk of a merger, as did his predecessor Lawrence Springborg, whose resurgence in the leadership speculation stakes Seeney is ironically trying to fend off with the merger project. It makes sense electorally in Queensland where Beattie turned optional preferential into what is effectively a first past the post system after a decade of “just vote One” campaigns, which accounts in part for Labor’s massive majorities in the last three elections.

Continue reading ‘“A perennial issue in hard times”’