From today’s Crikey:
As the newly resurrected Nationals leader meanders around Queensland having a conversation with the voters (he can’t call it a listening tour because Peter Beattie got there first), Lawrence Springborg might well be thinking that he might have done better to stay in Brisbane and listen to what his Coalition partners were telling him about his dream of a “United Conservative Party”.
Effectively, Springborg’s new party was buried the day after he returned to the leadership when four Liberal Senators, led by frontbencher George Brandis SC, gave it the public kiss of death. The promise Liberal parliamentary leader Mark McCardle gave him of an “eminent persons group” meant very little, so little that McCardle joined every other delegate at last weekend’s State Council in voting to put negotiations on hold - ostensibly to allow the party to fight the Brisbane and Gold Coast local government elections (due on March 15) without distractions.
The Nats shouldn’t have to think too hard to conclude that the implication of this is that the Libs believe that the new party is electorally unappealling. And they shouldn’t think either that the idea will get a run later on. Delay is equivalent to rejection.
The Nats’ trump card is supposed to be the prospect that they will go ahead on their own with a new party and appeal to “like-minded conservatives” to join. If this is just a longwinded way of rebranding their party, no-one will care very much. If, as member for Mirani, Ted Malone, mused last year, it’s a way to draw One Nation and its splinter groups into the mainstream fold, they can kiss any hopes of election victory goodbye. If it’s a mechanism to draw a number of marginal Liberal MPs, frustrated by their prospects in their own deeply factionalised party, into the Nationals fold, it certainly won’t promote unity.
Springborg’s other argument for urgency is the prospect that Anna Bligh will call an early election to capitalise on the feuding on the conservative side of politics. She won’t. A redistribution is overdue, and the Queensland Electoral Commission has put it on the back burner until the local government elections can be held - the first under the new boundaries Beattie pushed through last year (which the astute political junkie might recall were supposed, according to John Howard, to spell political doom for Kevin Rudd). There’s nothing like a redistribution to start the Nats and the Libs brawling over seats, and if the conservative political cycle is stuck in an eternal return as it appears to be, probably failing to agree and running candidates against each other. Bligh also needs time to bed down her own popularity, distinguish herself from Beattie and get infrastructure in decent shape.
There’s one very big lesson in all this mess for the state and federal conservative oppositions. The lack of coverage for Springborg’s “conversation with Queensland” reflects the fact that he has very little to actually say beyond the united conservative party notion. Far from longing for such a prospect, voters are either uninterested in or turned off by an inward looking focus - as Simon Crean who wasted his leadership on party reform might recall. Whatever direction salvation lies in for both state and federal Tories, it sure isn’t in amalgamations and reviews. Word to the wise - policies might help.
“Eminent Person’s Group” - ah, you mean those Persons who visited Nelson Mandela in gaol, when Hawkie was PM (and clever Hawkie invited His Eminence Malcolm Fraser to be a Person)?? No? Well then, which prisoner will this EPG visit?
Mark:
Oh for heaven’s sake! Politics in Australia is a rough-and-tough game.
95% 0f the Nationals’ problems are the Liberals.
Why doesn’t Springborg just give up the idea of a merger. Tell the Liberals to disband their failed excuse for a party. Tell Brandis and his ilk to just shut up and apply for membership of the National Party right now - or spend the rest of their careers on the crossbenches doing crosswords. Then get on with the real business of running a Tory party.
Springborg’s pussyfooting around will only lead to his own political demise.
If he’s a leader, he has to show leadership and lead the way out of this unholy mess.
The chances of Lawrence’s (or anyone else’s) of uniting Queensland’s faction-riddled conservatives in enduring harmony are about as great as uniting the Middle East and the Balkans ditto, for the same reason: too many tribes; too much hatred; for too long.
OOps - delete ’s
Yeah the machinations of the last few weeks have virtually ended the hope of some people (myself included) for Brough to head a united Right state party. Brough won’t touch this with a 10 foot pole now.
The Qld Nationals have struggled with actual policy for almost 10 years now. The biggest problem facing them is the still moribund party organisation which ensures that old white men maintain their grip on party policy and organisation. They need to let younger, more educated voices like Dom Katter, Cripps and Goodwin (Nat #4 senate candidate soon to succeed Boswell) start taking a more prominent role in policy generation and at the same time encourage more women (and diverse candidates in general!) to run.
Just out of interest, Antonio, why the support for Brough?
He got the highest swing against him of any sitting Liberal member to lose their seat, if I recall. Much higher than the statewide swing.
Mark, for the last eight years or so I have liked Brough because of his unguarded enthusiasm and degree of charisma. As a Queensland Liberal, these two qualities are certainly in very short supply. While I don’t agree with all aspects of the intervention, I do believe that Brough was genuine in really wanting to try to do something about the parlous state of indigenous people in far rural communities. I guess time will tell if his idea was successful to any degree.
He was one of the first Qld Lib Federal parliamentarians to openly stand up against Santo’s dodginess and I think that he is one of the few Liberals who entered parliament to actually make a difference in people’s lives. Some may dislike his heavy-handedness and paternalistic, army commander style approach - and to an extent I agree they have a point. However, I think as a Liberal, it’s impoprtant to support politicians on the Right with charisma, enthusiasm and with what appear to be good intentions. As a person he is also quite a moderate fellow with considered views on different social issues.
I have to say that I was honestly quite surprised at the result in his seat. A number of my friends were involved in that campaign and really worked the seat hard. From what I understand, extensive exit-polling was done after the election which showed that while Brough had a very high personal approval rating, in the 2007 election voters in Longman opted to punish his party and John Howard (in particular) for Workchoices and toughening/increased bureaucratisation of Centrelink requirements.
It is bizarre to me that people like Brough cannot be invited into an existing seat while talentless hacks like Johnson and Slipper continue to slink on the parliamentary benches.
Yes, that all makes sense, Antonio, and I’m interested to see the confirmation of the hypothesis advanced by George Megalogenis that the “welfare to work” thing would come back and bite the Coalition in seats like Brough’s.
But, again, aren’t the Libs who think your way barking up the wrong tree? Surely the Nationals and Liberals both are far too obsessed with personalities and the search for an electoral messiah when a distinctive policy approach and really doing a good job in holding Labor to account would prove more electorally fruitful. It’s not as though the Bligh government is above criticism!
And no wonder the WA Nationals have ruled out a merger or a Coalition with the WA Liberal Party when this goes on.
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Wonder if Walker will run as an independent do you think she will win Frank,apart from that, the thing that gets me about WA and its only paper is why none of the assembled press or shock jocks have asked about the editor of the Worsts connection to the evil according to the Worst Brian Burke.
I also believe some of the reporters on the Worst got fed by Brian as well,A question was asked on ABC talk back one day last week but it vanished into the air,and you can be damm sure that 6pr wont look at it either.
Disclosure I went to school with Brian Burke he was a nice bloke when I knew him
Johm,
You’re right, especially when The West was instrumental in getting the ban on talking to Burke lifted when Carpenter was elected leader. And it’s also interesting to note that since the Liberal FOI feed got squashed by McGinty releasing the whole lot publicly, THe Worst are now reduced to whinging about how the CCC is evil by running the Fong /Burke Inquiry in secret, while the others were public.
No doubt they wanted the Fong one to be public so they could have a field day plublishing the transcripts of the phone taps.
Mark [8]:
The Nationals haven’t had to bother with formulating distinct policies since Artie Fadden was Bob Menzies’ loyal side-kick. There is no corporate memory of policy making left in the
CountryNational Party. As was said years ago “Edwards [Liberals] makes all the bullets and Joh [Nationals] just fires them”. That seems to be the way things have always been with the Nationals right across Australia.As for being an effective Opposition, all they know is bad-mouthing anything-and-everything that Labor comes up with. Nothing else. The voters soon got sick of their perpetual whinging, their lack of co-operation with Labor when such was necessary and their lack of worthwhile alternatives.
Let’s see if Mr Springborg is radically better than his predecessors - especially now that the Liberals, as a party, are doomed.