As I predicted, the Queensland Liberals yesterday canned Lawrence Springborg’s Pineapple Party.
A decision on whether the Liberals would sign up to The Borg’s “United Conservative Party” will now be delayed and referred to the federal working group considering an amalgamation. This effectively buries the push, and there will not, as Springborg had demanded, be put to a vote of the Liberal membership.
Liberal leader, Mark McCardle, has publicly stated that parliamentarians should now stay out of the debate, and get on with the job of opposing Anna Bligh, which is effectively a rebuff to The Borg who has staked all his chips on the UCP succeeding.
Under Springborg’s short lived predecessor, Jeff Seeney, there was strong speculation around the corridors of Parliament House that the Nats were wooing individual Liberal MPs, particularly at the height of the farcical coup against former leader Bruce Flegg, when the Libs couldn’t agree on a leader for over a week. Privately, Liberals are now warning that a repetition of such overtures, hinted at by Nats close to Springborg, would not be tolerated and would call the Coalition into question.
Springborg is being urged to play down organisational issues and concentrate on taking the fight up to Labor, but it appears unlikely that his cashed up advertising campaign which pointedly ignores both the Nationals and Coalition brands will come to a halt. Its purpose appeared to many to be to bump the Libs into agreeing to sign up to his UCP, a tactic which has been tired repeatedly, and which has failed repeatedly.
With Ron Boswell leading the fight against the Pineapple Party from within the Nats’ own ranks, it’s only a matter of time before questions about Springborg’s leadership are re-opened. The manner in which he defeated Seeney left scars, and his tactics since then are stoking conservative disunity rather than fostering unity. The Borg would be well advised to train his sights on the Premier and shelve his personal crusade. But it’s becoming very clear indeed that taking advice is not Lawrence’s strong suit.
It looks like a split in the queensland Libs could be developing.
http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/news/queensland/mcardle-urges-disgruntled-mp-to-stay-with-libs/2008/03/31/1206850774761.html
as far as I recall your headline isn’t from a Bob Dylan song; nonetheless it’s great!
So the coalition can break up for all anyone cares.
Its not as if they are the government anyway. Is there a difference between the opposition and the crossbenches? And who cares anyway?
One thing the Liberal Party certainly has in common with the ALP is the way they run things from the top down, and avoid having decisions put to the members.
At least the National Party are a democracy, ie the members run it from the bottom up. Though not as over the top democratic as the Australian Democrats were.
When your decisions don’t matter, you can afford to be democratic.
Absolutely! Minor parties can be “democratic” in makeup, but parties which get power must rule from the top!
Can’t have the plebs in the party membership actually having a (gasp) say in their own party policy.
Who knows where that may lead? Perhaps to (double gasp) elected representatives making the law in parliament, where people have a say.
… Instead of where lawmaking belongs, which is in the hands of judges.
It’s been a huge day for foam.