Feral Sparrowhawk offers some thoughts on the future of the Liberals, something rather topical at the moment in the wake of Brendan’s big night out in Parliament.
Everyone knows the Liberals are in trouble, with the possible exception of Alexander Downer. However, looking at the discussion, both on blogs and in the MSM, this seems to be perceived to mean: They can’t win in 2010, probably not in 2013. However, the assumption seems to be that at some point the Liberals will be back (possibly merged with the Nationals). Much advice has been given based on the notion that ambitious Liberal leaders should be positioning themselves to lead in 2013 or 2016, rather than now.
I disagree. I believe that 2010 is likely to be the best chance the Liberals will ever have to get back into government. If they can’t win then, or at least give it a decent shake, there will probably never be another Liberal-led federal government in Australia.
A big call I know, but my thesis is that the Liberals are caught between two crises, both of which will likely see them whither in the long term. Every election will become harder to win, and after a while it will become difficult for them to even sustain the position of official opposition.
There are other, smaller problems, but the first core issue is the savage decline in their recruitment, both in raw numbers and in talent. The second is the way they have put themselves on the wrong side of history on many political issues, creating millstones they will struggle to shake off.
There are obvious questions about what this will mean for the structure of Australian federal politics, and what will happen at state level. I have theories about each of these, but I’ll save these for subsequent posts.
Declining Talent
Anyone who has spent any time around the youth wings of the Liberal party (be it the Young Liberals or the Liberal Students) knows there is a problem. I don’t have reports on South Australia or the territories, but in the larger states and Tasmania it is clear talented Liberals under 30 are such an endangered species those that do exist should have a keen interest in Bob Brown’s EPBC challenge.
Membership numbers are hard to obtain, and estimates of talent are subjective, but whether you look to John Hyde Page’s The Education of a Young Liberal, or survey recent student elections, there’s plenty of evidence that the party has far fewer (non-stack) young members, and those that exist are less likely to be intelligent, articulate and dedicated.
The lack of talent can be seen when younger Liberals get put in positions of authority or leadership. Hamish Jones was perhaps the most high profile such disaster, but others exist, most recently the case of the party staffers sacked for being stupid enough to update their anti-Baillieu blog from Liberal Party head offices.
The problem for the Libs is not that such idiots exist; it’s that these people get preselected or employed in positions of influence because there aren’t enough others to fill all the spots required. At the moment they’re mostly running in unwinnable seats or serving behind the scenes, but as the baby boomers retire from politics people like Jones – with all Buswell’s weaknesses and none of his strengths – are going to start appearing in marginal, and even previously safe, seats.
Even if the Liberals can turn around this recruiting problem its going to be quite a while before people recruited next year will be ready for senior positions. But does anyone really think that, out of power everywhere and with their vote plumbing record lows, the next few years will be a fertile recruiting era? The problem is worsened by the fact that there is now a severe shortage of worthy mentors for any bright young sparks who do come along.
In 2010 the Libs will have a leadership team that includes, in some combination, Malcolm Turnbull, Brendon Nelson, Julie Bishop, Tony Abbott, Nick Minchin, Eric Abetz and possibly Peter Costello. All born between 1953 and 1958. The talent is hardly overwhelming, but it’s not entirely absent either. By 2016, and possibly earlier, many of these will be gone. Almost certainly their replacements will be worse, particularly if the party suffers a wipe-out at the next election and is struggling to fill its front bench. One can expect more Lindsay leaflets, more chair-sniffing incidents, more internal conflict.
The Wrong Side of History
One of the outstanding features of the Howard Government was a preference for short-term advantage over long term planning. This has done incalculable damage to Australia, but it’s not going to be good for the party either.
The most obvious example of this is in regard to Global Warming. People who have been damaged, and are aware they have been damaged, by higher temperatures or rising sea levels will be very hard to persuade to vote Liberal. By 2030, and possibly a lot sooner, this will be most of the population of Australia. With Howard gone the Liberals might try to distance themselves from him in this area, were it not that a fair few of their remaining MPs have outed themselves as denying anthropogenic global warming altogether, a position that in a few years time will be electoral poison.
There are a number of other issues that will individually do the Liberals far less damage, but may collectively add up to a significant problem. Underfunding of education, infrastructure and research are unlikely to really bite with most of the electorate, but the people who will be most concerned will also be those who would be mostly likely to address the talent decline.
In a few elections time the Liberals may once again win votes by demonising asylum seekers, but there won’t be any votes in their record on Tampa per se. On the other hand, the ethnic communities that coped the brunt of this behaviour will by then be a significant share of the electorate, and it’s hard to imagine how the Liberals will be able to win even marginal support from these groups.
A few caveats
All this is probable, rather than certain. Perhaps an issue that favours the Liberals will become significant enough to balance Global Warming. A series of bombings by Islamic fundamentalists in Australian cities would seem the most likely such scenario, but it’s possible to construct others.
Alternatively it is possible that a future Liberal leader will prove so inspiring he or she will single-handedly reverse the party’s membership crisis.
Nevertheless, I maintain that by far the most likely way for the Liberals to ever win government again is for a global recession to affect the Australian economy so badly that, come 2010, the argument that Labor can’t manage money has resonance while there are still enough Liberal MPs with something resembling a clue for them to take advantage of it.
The path to power for crypto-Liberals, referencing in particular those who enjoy the company of the white shoe brigade, will then be through the Labor Party. Witness the trajectory of NSW Labor.
Sparrowhawk – congrats on your debut post and welcome to the LP fold. I hope the following total annihilating rebuttal of your argument won’t discourage you from further posting!
Time may well prove your conclusion correct. But if so, it won’t be because the Libs get crushed between the “two crises” you identify. Declining party membership is not a threat and hasn’t been relevant for more than 30 years. As a counter-example, I tender the ALP, which holds every political office in the land above Mayor, and yet it too has suffered a membership collapse every bit as dramatic as the Libs.
Membership decline has been a feature of Australian political life noted by scholars for the last 30-40 years. From the historic highs of 1950s, party-political membership has collapsed in absolute numbers – and the fall as a proportion of the population is proportionately even starker.
Party membership peaked during the 1950s when more than one-third of voters became full paid-up party members, and that’s not counting union affiliates! Today both parties are too embarrassed to even disclose the numbers, but the best estimates suggest that actual active, paid-up members (as opposed to branch-stacks) probably wouldn’t even trouble six-figure totals for either of the major parties.
Of course, both parties were aware of this trend more than 30 years before young Sparrowhawk ever put finger to keyboard, and they restructured their parties and donorship base to shore up their stocks against the membership drought to come. That is why both parties receive so much from corporate donors, and why the membership of both parties have no say at all over policy. Witness last year’s Labor conference, or Iemma in NSW ignoring the members over electricity privatisation.
Australia ceased to be a democracy based on mass-party membership more than a generation ago. But the parties are still here, still viable and will continue to be.
They have member-proofed themselves. They have hermetically sealed off both their policy-making and fundraising from any dependence on membership whatsoever. The membership protocols and branches that exist are political eunuchs: hollowed-out shells that give some hapless individuals somewhere to go for a cup of tea and biscuit on the third Tuesday of each month. The factional warlords get their (wo)man preslected to do their policy bidding, at which point they are free to p*** on the members from a great height. That’s all.
For a glimpse at the future of party “membership”, watch the way Americans are managing to solicit donations through their websites. Now that campaign finance reform means the big donors can’t dump millions on their preferred candidate like they used to, it’s all happening through $10 and $20 donations online – Obama has raised staggering sums that way, beating Clinton’s campaign hands down.
Party “membership” in future will be as fleeting, and as meaningful, as membership of a Facebook group. But elections will still be held and people will still be voted in.
As for Global Warming…naaaah. It won’t matter a jot to the political future of the Libs. The ALP was caught on the “wrong side of history” too during the Cold War. It kept them out of power for a generation, but it didn’t kill them off.
For this post I have shamelessly ransacked from memory the work of various political scholars whose work I sadly don’t have in front of me in order to reference it properly. By way of apology, I can only offer acknowledgment to the respective authors, who are free to claim every last word!
This is reminiscent of the things you hear on talkback radio the day after the AFL grand final. A couple of years ago we were talking about a West Coast dynasty. After last year, Geelong were seen as a sure thing to win a couple more grand finals. In 2004, Howard was going to reign for a thousand years as the ‘natural party of government’ and Labor were looking for a reason to exist in an ‘inherently conservative’ Australia.
In politics, as in footy, it never works out like that.
Right now the Liberals are a rabble, at state and federal level. They will lose some of the talent they have (which is already looking pretty thin), and will struggle federally for at least a few more years before they make any headway. But at some stage, they will have a surprise win at state level (like Steve Bracks in 1999). The widely-recognised hopelessness of several state governments almost guarantees that somebody, somewhere will take a chance on the Libs.
Once they have a couple of states, they can rebuild their organisational structure, recruit some talent and start to get some donations rolling in. Look at how many top Victorian public servants and advisors have moved to Canberra in the last 6 months. If the ALP loses a coupe of states (particularly to ‘unelectable’ Liberal Oppositions), the recriminations will begin, and some elements will start to undermine the party from within. Suddenly the wheel starts to turn.
On top of that I have a completely uninformed hunch that Rudd has watched what happened to Howard, and will be looking to head off into the sunset in about 6-7 years. If he goes, who knows how Labor will fare?
As for the ‘wrong side of history’ arguments, they could go either way. Maybe if carbon trading spikes petrol prices by 20 cents a liter overnight, people will yearn for Howard’s greenhouse denialism (particularly if the rest of the world fails to follow us into the battle against CO2). And your assumption that by 2030 there will be legions of people actually suffering directly because of climate change, and that they will never vote Liberal again as a consequence, is pretty thin. Kind of like Howard bringing up high interest rates in 1990 as a tactic against Rudd in 2007.
Ultimately all governments get tired, lose their way and get turfed out. I doubt that the Liberals will be back in government before 2015, but they will be back. Remember that about 40 per cent of the population are rusted-on Labor, and 40 per cent are rusted-on tories. What’s the alternative? A one party state? A Greens opposition?
You have to believe in a linear March of History in order to believe this. The more ducks you have to line up in order to support this prediction, the less credible it is. When it came to the terrorist attack, the global recession, the meteor strike, the alignment of the planets, I started to laugh.
People like Brendan Nelson and Malcolm Turnbull flirted with the Labor Party (in Nelson’s case, more than flirted) but went with the Liberals partly because Labor had fucked up, partly because the floundering of the Liberals created opportunities for these guys. It’ll happen again. I think Rudd is competent but I don’t think he’s perfect.
Young Liberals and Liberal Students make up a small proportion of Liberal frontbenchers. People like Julie Bishop spend their uni days studying and post-uni days establishing their careers, and frankly this is the sort of person preferred by the Liberal Party when it comes to preselections.
Ten years from now, Labor will have made some mistakes and people will be tired of them. It will not do to witter on about education or global warming or whatever, just as the Coalition last year looked foolish when they wittered on about Keating and political correctness.
I agree with you about the idiots. It was a mistake to portray John Hyde Page as some sort of expert, merely because he helps prop up some of your beliefs, whereas he’s of a piece with Hamish Jones (”high profile”? Forgotten by everyone except you) or the boneheads from Melbourne Liberal HQ. You underestimate the effect that a capital strike will have on them. Donations will dry up and the management of the party will be all about wondering what has to happen in order to get the donations rolling in again. This will be an important corrective on the far right, as they have no capacity to pull serious $. In a two-party system you have to have an alternative party, and the Greens can’t do that (especially once St Bob of the Brown retires. Come 2014 he’s outta the Senate. I won’t fall into FS’s error by saying that because I can’t see a similar figure rising in the Greens, that movement is doomed).
In 1949 (insofar as there was punditry back then), nobody was predicting Labor would be out of office for a quarter-century. In 1972, nobody was predicting the Libs would be back in three years. It’s a funny old world. First, though, you have to club that historical determinism and keep clubbing it until it dies.
Global Warming isn’t a mortal lock.
And it has been demonstrated that those who have already entered the country through immigration are some of the staunchest defenders of our borders through their words and opinions. They like the fact it’s hard to get into the country, as long as they have already gained their entry.
But, most YLs are undergraduate pranksters who live in a world of black and white, and like to use the crudest language to describe anyone they identify as an enemy, which more often than not also includes fellow party members. And that is worrying – I don’t particularly want them running the country. Sensible, thoughful Liberal Party members under 30 like me are few and far between, and most get disillusioned by party machinery every now and then, also like me.
i agree with most of this although it’s all very speculative and it’s unlikely that Australia would tolerate a one party state for long. One aspect you haven’t mentioned is the states, where some of the Labor governments must get kicked out sooner or later regardless of the quality of alternative government on offer from the Libs. Once that happens, the Libs will have a platform to begin the process of rebuilding.
Labor of course has its own problems attracting capable candidates and party members and these will only get worse as the trade union movement continues its decline. Indeed if the Iemma Government gets turfed out at the next election (which I devoutly wish occurs), the ensuing rabble of a Labor opposition would make Nelson’s mob look professional and inspired.
Sparrowhawk
Interesting thesis. While I think in the short term the Libs are unelectable, I think you miss a few points:
. Coalition was decimated in seats, but still had a significant 2PP vote.
. Labor will inevitably get on the nose.
. At some stage, the Government will lose office. Iemma has shown that this requires a little bit of credibility from the opposition, which does shore up your argument to some degree.
. The rusted-on voters will become less of a reality as the membership declines identified by both you and Mercurius becomes a reality.
Interesting argument, though. I certainly don’t see a realistic ‘Rise of the Greens’ happening.
BTW Mercurius, I understand that corporate donations in the US are illegal, hence the $10 and $20 donations. Lobbyist donations are also illegal which kinda undercuts Obama’s claim that he hasn’t accepted donations from any such source.
Nice post, FS. This is a theme John Quiggin has explored as well, so you’re in good predictive company.
I don’t agree with you that recruitment and organisation are nearly as critical a problem for the political Right as it is for the Left. Without grassroots support and adequate machinery, Parties of the Left wither, as the Democrats have, as Labor may yet in NSW and elsewhere, and as the Greens do whenever their representatives try to create personality cults in any local area or State (Norto might back me up on this).
The parties of the Right in Australia have historically been much more willing simply to co-opt people and movements who share an antipathy to the labour movement, even if—as in the case of Billy Hughes and William Holman—they share little else. Membership numbers are irrelevant for the Liberals, as their Party isn’t the pool they draw on for candidates. They’re not a mass movement and never have been, they’re better understood as a Party in the nineteenth century sense, a relatively loose affiliation of right-wing interest groups, who through historical accident, have been forced to keep as tight a Parliamentary discipline as Labor. They don’t require a machine, and run best on the personal leadership of relatively small elite groups of motivated people—as Menzies’ Party was in the 1940s and 1950s, and as Howard’s Party was in the 1990s.
The tories are quite capable, if they get wise, of revitalising themselves even in the next year or two.
Fear not, Howard C, they never will. They couldn’t run a kegger.
Maybe it’ll be you running the country someday then! But please, can you give it at least 30 years or so? It’ll take us that long to get over the last Howard!
A week is a long time in politics.
I wouldn’t count on the ALP winning the next election,I certainly would not treat it as a virtually forgone conclusion.
With the huge advantage of mainstream media collusion and the Coalition always able to count on the ‘big end of town’ preferring them to the others, however reluctantly considering their past, current and probably future incompetence, they are always going to be a chance. Like jackals waiting for an opportunity. A 9/11, an economic downturn, real or perceived via the media, a ’scandal perhaps, remember Khomeni? If Troy was in the ALP…..
The polls are not showing that much difference, less than 3% at the election and that and the present larger margin could disappear in next to no time. A change of brand differentiation, a new ‘front person’ and Dennis, Glen and their mates will be back in the saddle again.
Beware hubris.
“Party membership peaked during the 1950s when more than one-third of voters became full paid-up party members, and that’s not counting union affiliates!”
Mercurius I’ve never read such a claim before and it seems very hard to credit. Where did you get the information?
Sorry Ken, as I said I don’t have the sources in front of me. It was a postgrad reader tracing the trends in Australian party political membership. I read it last year. If I can’t remember the title, I sure can’t vouch for the accuracy of my recollection specific figures! Even so, memberships for both the majors now are a paltry fraction of their mass-member days – and this has hardly hurt the ALP’s political power base – surely that is not in dispute?
“They’re not a mass movement and never have been, they’re better understood as a Party in the nineteenth century sense, a relatively loose affiliation of right-wing interest groups, who through historical accident, have been forced to keep as tight a Parliamentary discipline as Labor. They don’t require a machine, and run best on the personal leadership of relatively small elite groups of motivated people—as Menzies’ Party was in the 1940s and 1950s, and as Howard’s Party was in the 1990s.
The tories are quite capable, if they get wise, of revitalising themselves even in the next year or two.”
As time passes I wonder if the phase ‘they are better understood as a party in the 19C sense …” will reflect the change they have to undergo to be a 21C party ? All the points of strength you then mention are salient for the new era. And with Rudd moving to the centre their flexibilty with organisation will be a strength.
I also think it is the nature of right wing parties to be savage and ruthless with regard to their own losers so renewal can be dramatic and unexpected .No sentimental retention of the likes of Beazley or Crean just a constant hunger for power which drives change.
That’s a good way of putting it, murph.
The Liberals do have a natural base in the employer organizations. Sooner or later, if the Tories don’t sort themselves out, those bodies will do it for them.
One interesting possibility is that we might eventually get the split in the small-l liberals and the conservatives that’s always been a possibility. What effect this would have on the Labor Party is also a worthy topic for idle speculation…
It’s possible that the ‘natural’ Lib-coting constituent will erode in some of the major cities.
Wentworth will eventually be an ALP seat, as redistributions shift the electoral boundaries further to the south and west.
The seat of McEwen, won narrowly by the Libs, may well fall to the ALP next time around unless redistributions can excise the rapidly growing, ALP-voting outer suburbs from the seat.
Elsewhere, traditional ALP-voting suburbs with a high working class and/or immigrant constituent are quickly becoming gentrified and filled with middle class, educated professionals, but these people are still voting ALP or Greens rather than Lib.
Adam Carr has argued that even North Sydney is experiencing a ’slow drift’ toward the ALP:
http://psephos.adam-carr.net/countries/a/australia/2007seats/northsydney.shtml
If there is to be a Liberal renewal, it is difficult to see where it’s going to come from, unless large numbers of ALP voters experience some Road to Damascus conversion.
Labor is already a right wing party. By becoming so they have in effect forced the anti-Labor parties (I heartily agree with Liam’s analysis of the shape of anti-Labor parties)to far to the right. When they get in that position they become virtually unelectable, outside of some national meltdown, excluding a genuine war, is a war not like GWOT. This happens because the majority of Aussies don’t like extremes, of the left or right, though they will acknowledge minor leftwing parties eventually do the society some good eg CPA, Greens. Minor right wing parties (One Nation) or organisations (New Guard, League of Rights etc)are by their very nature destructive of society.And Australians don’t like that.
I do see the Greens becoming a possible alternative opposition, and in the decade ahead I see minor left wing parties like Socialist Alliance taking the place of the Greens. Scoff if you wish. But I’m not saying it’ll happen overnight.
And, as far as the Libs go, don’t forget Bindi Irwin. In twelve years time she’ll be old enough to enter politics as the Lib Messiah, if she follows her dad’s politics (or what I think they were given the way he sucked up to the American Imbecile.)
And sure, Rudd may go in 6 or 7 years. And by then the people will want Julia. So the ALP’s got no worries on that account.
“They’re not a mass movement and never have been, they’re better understood as a Party in the nineteenth century sense, a relatively loose affiliation of right-wing interest groups, who through historical accident, have been forced to keep as tight a Parliamentary discipline as Labor.”
I recall reading once that the UAP didn’t have members and one of the reasons Menzies formed the Liberals was to create a mass membership party that could compete with Labor at a local/grassroots/volunteer level.
Anyone know if that’s correct?
d
Here’s John Quiggin from last year, as I mentioned.
Darryl, I do know that one of the main themes in post mortems of the UAP was that it was too obviously the party of the top end of town, that the non-Labor side of politics could never win an election again without winning a respectable share of working class support, and that it therefore had to reinvent itself in a more inclusive form as the party of the “forgotten people”. This seems to gel with your conjecture.
My speculation on this topic is that:
1. John Quiggin is probably right and that the Liberal and National parties in their present forms are too far gone to recover.
2. Labor in government will, whatever its leadership’s intentions, sooner or later enact a critical mass of policy measures which the employer organisations mentioned by Robert, the smarter elements of the right-wing intelligentsia, and the Murdochs, Packers, etc., will be unhappy with and wish to have something done about.
3. Said constituencies will therefore conclude that attempting to deal with a dominant Labor Party solely through pressure group politics and intellectual/ideological agenda setting, without being able to exert the meaningful threat of swinging their support behind an electable pro-capitalist alternative to Labor, is not much chop, and will endeavour to engineer the creation of such an alternative, ensuring that it attracts the endorsement and membership of reputable public figures whilst keeping out some of the more bizarre specimens of humanity which have risen to prominence in the contemporary Liberal Party.
4. Such a party may well also attract a number of moderate, or moderately conservative, citizens concerned at tendencies towards non-accountability, arrogance, maladministration, etc., by unchallengeable Labor governments of the kind we see in some states.
Sorry, Liam, but I can’t really assist with your speculation about the Greens. The only State Greens organisation about which I have sufficient knowledge to comment is Queensland, and I have yet to observe the existence of a cult of personality or of attempts by any individual to create one. I would say that, wouldn’t I? Yes, but I happen to believe that it has the additional merit of being true.
True in some such suburbs, but not yet all. An interesting case is the electorate of Batman, in which this process has gone a considerable distance in its southern precincts closer to the Melbourne CBD (Northcote, Thornbury and to some extent Preston) with a concomitant growth in the Green vote, but has not really begun in my home suburb of Reservoir, which thus remains resolutely Collingwood-barracking Old Labor.
Good stuff Sparrowhawk. In this ever changing & filled w/ Machiavellian types world that we live in I reckon Labor & it’s supporters must keep a vigilant lookout each & every day for wily tactics, labelling/character assasination campaigns & possibilities of real & “false flag” terrorist attacks.
It’s an intense, whack ‘em as they raise their heads, chess game w/ much to lose for both sides that strive to hold the Vital Centre. Hopefully many of the advisers & supporters of the Libs will recognise how bankrupt their side is these days, as evidenced by the undying support for that moral pygmy over in Israel right now, the one who spends more time on constructing war just like his family has done before, and raising nationalistic & religious-based temperature to FEVER level, than on mourning the dead in China, Burma & in the Nation Iraq, the country he used as a BBQ to fry his oil mates & friends meat on.
This latest pathetic attempt to drive Rudd away from the spotlight & categorise him as a “megalomaniac” will only fail because the Labor team is filled w/ strong, articulate, persuasive characters who have shifted to a more pragmatic & common-sense centre that is under-written by the staunch support for a STRONG, DURABLE “safety net” that takes into account changing circumstances during these DAYS OF UNCERTAINTY for the public at large.
The public are not stupid…they are awakening by the moment to the fact that much of the media is biased & not portraying an accurate picture of the War in Iraq…& the interest rate & oil price increases. They know in their gut that lowering the petrol excise is merely a “figment of the imagination” oasis in the desert that is contemporary Liberal policy.
The robber barons tried to suck Australia dry thanks to the Coalition’s tax policies & lack of regulation…& in many ways they sucked the very soul, heart & imagination out of the Liberal Party during their pillaging & raping of Australia & its citizens.
Kevin Rudd & his team are strengthening & growing more confident & experienced by the day…& as long as they have the interest of THE PEOPLE in mind & policy, and are willing to stand up to scrutiny w/ guts & integrity…& make adjustments if they recognise a policy needs fine tuning…& keep it REAL w/ the people on the ground…& don’t allow a FEW lobbyists to dictate the policy formation & message…& keep those OPPORTUNITIES happening for those who lost out under the rigid rule of King John & his Mob of Mockers…& for the children of those who don’t feel they have the DIVINE RIGHT by birth or wealth to own everything…then i reckon they’ll be A-OK.
As long as they get to TELL THEIR STORY. AND THEIR SIDE OF THE STORY (think the BS being put out by some alarmists & sh*t peddlers regarding the changes to the Medicare surcharge).
I might add, it will be interesting to see if Bob Brown is deciding to leave the chess board & create his own game. Might shift the focus. And the Vital Centre.
In the current environment, a political party needs on the ground supporters more than paid up members. There is a need for people who will ring up talk back radio, write letters to the editor, letter box flyers, organise to man booths on election day to put up banners and to hand out how to vote cards, and let us not forget blogging. As a member of the Greens, I know that we need to call on family, friends and others who will support the cause without committing to membership to get the numbers to man booths on election day. The ALP has its members and the trade unions to get the numbers out, the Libs always seem to get the numbers but it seems to me in recent years they seem to be the very young or the elderly.
In the last Federal election the ALP also had support from the Your Rights at Work campaign and GetUp in the lead up to the election.
I am not sure the Libs will just fade away, but if being out of office everywhere and changed rules on donations lead to less money to spend on campaigning, combined with less committed supporters in the community then they will struggle.
It is an old truism that governments lose elections rather than oppositions winning, but no matter how bad the current Labor govts around the country look, the Liberal oppositions look worse.
Actually, on that point, Rossco, it may be relevant to note that Howard’s campaign had to pay international students to fully cover the booths in Bennelong last year. There’ve been stories around for a while that increasingly the Libs had to resort to paying people to distribute leaflets and staff booths. But last year I think confirmed that it goes on.
Anyone who’s worked on a booth knows that potentially it’s about a lot more than handing out how to votes. Knowledge of politics and passion obviously makes a difference, as opposed to people being paid 20 bucks an hour to hand stuff out.
Mark,
you’re right about being on a booth. Greeting old friends and acquaintances makes for a friendly atmosphere; paid persons from outside the electorate don’t have that. Joshing and sparring (verbally) with competing booth persons is part of the fun, too.
I wouldn’t write the Liberals off. I still recall the poster outside the newsagents (late 1975, or 1977, or both
: “Is Labor Finished??”) If memory serves it was a poster for “The Bulletin”.
Well may we say God Save the Labor Party, because NOTHING will save “The Bulletin”!!
ORLY?
“There’ve been stories around for a while that increasingly the Libs had to resort to paying people to distribute leaflets and staff booths. But last year I think confirmed that it goes on.”
In many electorates the Liberals have always paid people to work on their booths. In NSW the ALP will be doing the same in 2011, once they get their hands on public funding. Parties are now mere ‘name brands’ filled up every decade or so, with activists wanting to create a movement or a career for themselves, from the issue(s) of the day.
The Liberals as we knew them under Howard will shape shift to something different in order to deal with the new issues/controversies of the day, from the perspectives preferred by conservatives, neoliberals, and simple opportunists. Just like the ALP really.
@Paul Norton “I have yet to observe the existence of a cult of personality or of attempts by any individual to create one.”
Hey! What about me?! Jeebus, what’s a burgeoning egomaniac with delusions of grandeur got to do to get noticed around here….
d
One point that hasn’t been made yet is that viable Opposition parties with a chance of forming government are are a vital feature of democracy. Much and all as I don’t want them in government, the conservatives do represent a substantial strand of Australian political opinion and not having them around would make Labor and any other left-of-center parties much weaker forces for the good of the nation.
Look at NSW, for instance.
“and let us not forget blogging.”
all good points rossco…& those following. Plenty of cyber-archers out there across the blogs if certain Neo-Libs & their Neo-Conning mates decide to use their mainstream media enablers to do the TYPICAL character assasination thing.
A tactic used by certain media outlets addictively these days to shift public opinion, influence government & undermine the credibility & reputation of specific politicians (think attacks on Obama today)…& of course, as ever, to increase revenue. Money greases the monkey that turns the handle.
Let’s hope the political game becomes somewhat more civil over time. Playing it noble…keeping to the facts & fighting the man or woman on their policies rather than character might see some archers & wizards retire. One can only hope for a more civilized game. I hear so much hypocrisy emanating from the Coalition camp. Do they really think that LEFTIES & their allies forget that much? As we get straighter & more sober…the more the bloggers become the elephant in the room…w/ one hell of a memory.
And demeaning teachers & trying to kick them in the guts by policy threats just might be a BAD move on the part of some Libs. Watching Nelson these days you’d think he was playing the CRYING GAME. Yes, tears flow when the KINGDOM is lost…but those eyes were far too dry when the KING locked children, students & foreigners in the dungeon…& prodded them night & day.
“I begin to fear, lest his humility … be a counterfeit humility, and his tears crocodile tears.”
(Edmund Grindal, Archbishop of York and of Canterbury)
Crocodile Tears:
Meaning
To weep crocodile tears is to put on an insincere show of sorrow.
Origin
The allusion is to the ancient notion that crocodiles weep while devouring their prey. Crocodiles do indeed have lachrymal glands and produce tears to lubricate the eyes as humans do. They don’t cry though. Whatever emotion they experience when finding and devouring prey we can be certain it isn’t remorse.
(The Phrase Finder)
Hi all, thanks for the responses.
First let me apologise for the absence of links. I sent a draft to the LP collective and promised to get back to them with links included if they liked it. I’d been a bit slow and obviously with the timing of Nelson making even more of a goose of himself than I thought possible they decided not to wait. If you really want them, some have been put up on my site and I’ll try to add others later.
A few responses: First up I certainly believe the Libs will be back in government in most states at some point. It’s only the federal Libs I think are dead. I think we may be moving towards a situation like Canada where a party may be in government at provincial level but struggle to get 10% of the vote in that province in national elections, and vice versa. Winning a state will give the Libs a temporary morale and recruiting boost, but it will also encourage what little talent they have to head for that level rather than Canberra, so it can also make things worse.
And I agree with Robert that this will be bad for democracy, at least until the time comes where there is another party seriously able to challenge the ALP. Bad as the Liberals have been, an effective one party state will be worse. I’m planning a second post (if the LP collective want to run it) on the various ways I can see a new party arising.
As to membership being irrelevant – that’s true for some things, for example fundraising. Having paid people hand out HTVs will cut the vote compared to community-engaged locals, but its not a disaster. Having no pool of talent to recruit from is, and that’s really where the declining membership is a problem. Mercurius is right that its been going on for decades, but the thing is a change in degree eventually becomes a change in state. I think that has already happened to some branches of the Libs, and will happen to others soon.
Thanks for the post, Feral. Interesting and thought provoking.
Just on the comment that a few people have been making about how party machines in Oz have atrophied and parties have effectively become vehicles to market pollies with supporters paid for – amused, I think, has made the point in the context of the Iemma privatisation fandangle that the Sussex St machine might end up akin to a campaign consultancy rather than a party. (And here it’s interesting to remember that the ALP does in effect outsource campaign strategy to Hawker Britton).
This is not new in America. It’s the reason why the Democratic Party in particular became a shell. What’s interesting is that the Obama phenomenon is in large part a reaction against that, as was the Dean campaign and what the “netroots” have been up to. But they won’t succeed in revivifying the party itself (and perhaps that’s not the aim). It’s more like creating an open source campaign.
Whether a similar level of disillusion inspires something similar in Australia is an interesting hypothetical. I don’t see any “conservative movement” existing in any real way, and it’s hard to see one coming into being. It’s perhaps more possible to imagine some GetUp! like structure in future seeking to influence or shape the ALP. But the scope for this sort of thing is much smaller here because of the absence of primaries and the traditions of party discipline.
The criticism I find most interesting is the issue of whether having a near total absence of talent in the membership prevents one recruiting capable people for leadership roles.
Andrew E argues “Young Liberals and Liberal Students make up a small proportion of Liberal frontbenchers.”
I don’t think this is really true. Turnbull, Costello, Abetz are names well associated with Liberal youth wings. Abbott was in the Democratic clubs, but there is no equivalent such group today – he’d be in the Lib students now. Amongst the younger ones Hockey, Pyne, Smith, Fyfield, Mirabella were all heavily involved in either the Young Libs or the Liberal Students (or both), and those are just the ones I know of without having to look up their bios. I think Julie Bishop and Brendan Nelson are the exceptions, not the rules.
Recruiting talented outsiders from business might have worked in the days when a) the parliament was half the size, b) the number of paid officials and advisers needed to make a party run was perhaps a tenth of what it is today and c) the scrutiny was much less intense. In an era of professional politicians its not that easy to fill the ranks with people who had no political involvement before their 30th birthday.
Following Kim I’d add a crucial difference between Australia and the US is the absence of a strong conservative movements outside of the relevant party. In the US the Republicans can recruit from people active in the NRA, anti-abortion groups etc. I can’t think of an equivalent group in Aus that would have more than a few hundred young members, and most of those would be young Libs anyway.
“In NSW the ALP will be doing the same in 2011, once they get their hands on public funding.”
They already get public funding in NSW. Over $7 million for the ALP/CLP from the 2007 State election, plus over $800k *every year* from the “Political Education Fund”
d
Some of the outsiders tend to be apparatchiks though – people like Andrew Robb masquerade as having been in “business” whereas he’s really just made a bit of money out of political connections. But originally he was an industry association honcho – and there’s maybe some parallel there with the unions on the Labor side, as someone said.
The reason why they have problems attracting highfliers are also related to increased inequalities in income – back in the day when an exec might have earned about 5 times as much as their employees, the disparity between parliamentary salaries and commercial remuneration were neglible or at least not so large. And barristers etc. can’t really treat parliament as a part time hobby in the same way they used to.
That’s also where you get the whining from Costello about his pay packet as Treasurer and claims that he could have been earning a mint in the private sector (we’re still waiting, $weetie!) and the struggling Abbotts.
But – just being a pollie won’t buy you into Vaucluse these days or wherever you think it’s your rightful station in life to reside.
For mine, the issue that damages them most long-term is WorstChoices. Easy to imagine there being many parents not trusting the Party again after its vicious moves against the workplace rights and security of their children.
Like Liberal rusted-ons, the Party seems chocka with doddery old “conservatives” (for want of a more disparaging term): on their last legs and on the way out. The Young Liberals, such as their numbers are, are merely young fogeys.
Their best days are indeed behind them, never to be regained. They demonstrate the depth of the rut they’re in by all the time looking back (to Howard’s overly-hyped “record”) – and their 1950s take on matters like unions (boo!), the environment, religion, gay marriage.
A heartwarming read, Administrator, thanks. With Climate Change the hot topic for the foreseeable, maybe the Greens momentum will become such that they form the next official Opposition, as the flaky old Liberals self-extinct.
Garbage. Employer organisations do not mirror those of unions. Employer organisations deal with MPs directly to achieve policy outcomes, they don’t – and nor do they need to – get involved in organisational stuff. Employer organisations rarely provide active support to the Liberal Party, and then only when the momentum has well and truly been built, e.g. Federally 1949, Victoria 1992.
You’re talking about the most densely populated electorate on the continent with several natural boundaries, boundaries are unlikely to shift much. What’s changing is the iron rule that wealthy people never vote Labor, always Liberal. When you hear Liberals moaning about “latte leftists”, they’re not really concerned about Radio National. They’re concerned that the Liberal vote in Paddington or South Yarra or [insert their equivalent elsewhere] is in steady decline. I’d say that Warringah (Tony Abbott’s seat) is more likely to go Labor than Wentworth. In fact, a clever ALP campaign in Berowra (Ruddock) could see them win and hold that seat.
Hi Liam
My point was that “The Bulletin” queried the future of Labor (”Is Labor Finished?”) and all these decades later
* Labor’s not finsished
but
* “The Bulletin” is
for the time being,…..
I think current predictions of the Liberals’ demise are likely to prove inaccurate in a similar way, though I wish no harm to Feral S.
FS, I was a member of the Liberal Party for 14 years. People like Hockey, Pyne and Fifield were my contemporaries. If you don’t want to focus on people like Ian McLachlan, Sussan Ley or Danna Vale, just because they’re not factional warriors, I can’t make you – but they’re no less real for that. Most of the new Liberal MPs who won Labor seats in 1996, thus creating the Coalition majority, weren’t veterans of the Howard-Peacock wars of the ’80s. Similarly, I’d suggest that a well-educated, presentable professional would beat someone steeped in factional blood.
Provided you ignore the IPA, for example. Politically active people from both parties sharpen their teeth in advocacy, media relations etc., in non-political organisations. Being CEO of, say, the Australian Ferret Breeders’ Association may sound like an odd platform for a political career, it doesn’t involve rallying the massive ferret-breeding community but once you’ve learned to master a brief, convert it into a 10-second news grab and raise some money, you can pretty much select party and seat and off you go to Parliament.
Whilst it sounds a nice idea that the Liberal Party will wilt away, I can’t see how that would possibly happen. The Liberal Party is doing badly in every state and federally – that is true. However, there is no alternative opposition to Labor. The Greens are being mentioned as a possibility. They don’t even have an economic policy. They have no chance of being treated seriously until they do. Anyhow, I don’t think that a majority of people would ever vote for a party called the Australian Greens. The Australian Democrats used to be credible and could have come to more prominence now if only they hadn’t imploded internally 10 years ago, had a succession of weak leaders, poor strategy and poor campaigning.
Perhaps the decent Democrats and Greens and disaffected small l liberals and some maybe disaffected Labor members can form a new centre-left party with a decent name. Otherwise I think that eventually, whenever it is, that the Liberal Party (possibly in another name) will be back in power with their far-right politics.
“Otherwise I think that eventually, whenever it is, that the Liberal Party (possibly in another name) will be back in power with their far-right politics.”
Actually, their policies will be a lot ‘moderate’ next time around (comparatively speaking), if by next time round we mean after the election of 2010. Howard’s ascendancy and the mad gibberish produced during his time was as much a product of the frantic desire of conservatives to do their own version of Keating’s ‘big picture reforms’ which in the case of the Liberals meant exterminate effective unions, and the prosecution of a curious version of the US culture wars, which in the context of Oz meant being atrociously cruel to people speaking muslim, talking a lot of crap about education standards and being generally authoritarian about everything while spruiking the mantra of ‘individual choice’.
The ‘individual choice’ mantra will stay, but will be retro fitted to the issues arising in 2010, and no-one here has the foggiest what those issues will be.
The clearest lesson in the staes as wel las federally is that you’ll get two terms and then the electorate will start the judging. If you do fair to ok and the opposition isn’t much chop you’ll get a third. But the opposition has to be shite AND you have to be lucky to get a fourth term.
The old style was that you had to join the party (lib or lab) at 18, hand out leaflets, make sandwiches, raffle chooks or queensland holidays, help stack local councils, help stack branch meetings, sleaze into local “action groups” and either nobble them or ginger them up.
Then after 15 years or so get a paad gig for 3 months with a local member or slide into the party machinery, or if in Lab slide sideways into a comfy union hack job or Libs a comfy minor research job in a think tank or private setup, or get a job in academia (either mob and I’m generously including TAFE in academia)) where you could earn a crust and have plenty of time and access to rescources to campaign and be involved at almost anytime of day or night with the uni office taking messages, providing photocopyinga nd getting post grad students to do the odd bit of quick and dirty research on a project.
Then after a small lifetime of mind numbing service involving trivial and mundane matters to the party and your faction you might get a stab at running in an unwinnable seat as a prelude to shouldering aside a longer serving hack to get a run a a winnable seat.
Now thats going to change. Both mobs are happy to import a non member with (or without) talent at the last minute and parachute them in to a winnable seat. Hell some of these people have even had jobs outside the party or academia. This will become the norm.
So there’s no need to be a party member just because you might want to be a pollie one day. If fact it might even help to have achieved something or failing having any real ability, at least in Victoria, be a sportsperson of note.
Now all you have to worry about is the media’s view that politics should only be played by those who are between 40 and 55 years of age. If you are over 55 you will be declared too old and heading for retirement and if under 40 will be declared young.
So don’t even contemplate being in Australian politics if you are wise and experienced and over 60 – just sit at home and dream of being in Europe or USA or somewhere that isn’t so biased against age.
In Canada in 1993, the Progressive Conservative Party government lost government. Specifically they went from 169 seats, an absolute majority in the House of Commons, to 2 seats. A rival right-wing party, the Reform Party. largely based in western Canada, went from 0 to 52 seats. The rest went to the Liberals, the New Democrats and the Québec separatists.
Between 1993 and 2005 the Reform Party renamed itself the Canadian Alliance, the Progressive Conservatives merged with the the Alliance, and the Conservative Party was born. Although they only have a minority government at present, the Liberal opposition is ducking and weaving furiously to avoid an early election in which they fear the Conservatives could get a majority.
I agree the Liberals may well be doomed. That is not the same thing as assuming permanent Labor dominance. Australia has been through 3, by some counts 4 major conservative parties. If you count the Labor splits as giving rise to a new party, then Australia has been through 3 major progressive parties.
This suggests the collapse of the Liberal party will not necessarily lead to permanent Labor dominance. Parties come and go. The two sides set up new parties to represent them.
The other Canadian thing which may spread here is the split between federal and state parties. Federal elections in British Columbia are a three-way contest between the Conservatives, the (liberal) Liberals and the New Democrats. Provincial elections are a two-way contest between the New Democrats and the (conservative) Liberal Party of British Columbia. Other provinces also have provincial parties that do not contest federal elections.
NSW is probably crying out for a conservative party that excludes the crazies and could actually get elected.
There may be more going for Borg’s Pineapple Party than we think.
Thanks Alan, that was one of the points I was going to make. Australia’s always had a high level of commonality between state and federal voting but Canada proves its not inevitable.
Andrew E, I can’t say I know much about Sussan Ley, but the reason I’m ignoring Ian McLauchlan and Dana Vale is because if this is the future of the party then I’m pretty confident I’ll be proved right. McLachlan strikes me as a plodder – possibly a useful member of the team, but no star.
Vale is definitely a first class idiot. She may have value holding her seat (particularly one as whitebread as Hughes) but the idea that old “brave and true” and “muslim majority” is suited to leadership is laughable. Vale is a perfect example of why, for all the problems of the youth wings, its better for people to have served an apprenticeship before they get into parliament than to walk straight in. Firstly it provides an opportunity for the party to catch the really stupid ones before they get anywhere. Secondly there is an outside chance they might learn something, which clearly Vale never did in whatever her career outside politics was.
If you’ve got any better examples of people who were not active in the party before they hit 30 I’m all ears (or eyes).
No one seems to have mentioned the dreadful bounceback of the UK Tories.
If the Democratic socialists in the UK Labor party had their act together this should simply never have occurred. As it happens recent UK politics in general actually makes the latest DSP shenanigans looks good. ( Scottish socialists and Blair-Vs Brown et al)
It is a great target to aim for to minimize the Tory side as much as ergonomically possible because if we are to make any real progress in saving the planet then the next great ‘clash-of-the-titans’ must necessarily be between democratic socialism and libertarian socialism. To hell with all the Tory Whigs – they are destined for the proverbial ash-heap of histories discarded lies.
It’s not a “movement” though is it? It’s a corporate funded advocacy body. There’s nothing equivalent to the grass roots conservative movement in the States. Just Catallaxy!
On Canada, the 2 seats was a result of first past the post voting. That’s also what keeps the Greens and the New Democrats (the Canadian equivalent of the Labor party) from getting anywhere at federal level. The Canadian 2 part system always stabilises as something of a cross between the 19th century British party system and the American – less right wing and right wing parties of capitalism.
Kim
I agree that FPTP voting is an abomination. On the other hand, FPTP has made the New Democrats one of the two majors in provincial politics in British Columbia and Saskatchewan. It’s not immediately obvious why FPTP in Canada would produce the evil result you describe but FPTP in the UK does not.
I don’t know that the Liberal Party of Canada is to the right of the ALP. Their record on healthcare, industrial relations, indigenous policy, same-sex marriage, the charter of rights, and a number of other issues suggests strongly they are not, but it’s a fine line. And then there’s the weirdness of the Liberals, the New Democrats and the Bloc Quéecois holding 3/4 of the seats in the House of Commons but allowing the Conservatives to govern because the three other parties cannot agree on anything.
FPTP is pretty bad anywhere, Alan!
In the UK, it took the Labour Party probably about 30 years more than its Australian and New Zealand counterparts and a similar length of time after the Swedish Social Democrats to break into a secure governing position.
The Canadian Liberals aren’t to the right of the ALP in some ways, but it depends how you define “right”. It’s partly a sort of “new liberalism” after the letter in Canada, and the ALP’s slow creep away from democratic socialism. But the lack of a union connection and the labourist traditions associated with it do make a difference at least to the ethos of the Canadian Liberals and the various Labour and Labor parties around the world. Collectivism vs. individualism, though you have to force that a lot to make the distinction now, I’d concede.
The weirdness of the Tory minority gov’t in Canada is a direct outcome of FPTP.
Actually, the 1993 results has been ‘recalculated’ assuming that AV applied. The Conservatives would have won no seats. The Bloc and Reform would have won more because they are the donant parties in Québec and Alberta. The number of seats where the New Democrats were ahead of the Liberals was minuscule. AV actually exaggerates the size of the majority party somewhat more than FPTP. We do not, for example, have any Green or Democrat MGRs.I’m sorry but if I were making wedding plans right now I’d much prefer the Canadian Liberals’ alleged rightism to the ALP’s alleged leftism. And for the record I would not vote Liberal if I were Canadian.
Yeah, but that’s a big hypothetical, because people vote differently under preferential and FPTP systems.
And sorry, I’m not saying the ALP is teh brilliant or represents “leftism”. I’m just pointing out that there’s a continuing stronger bias towards collectivism in parties which descend from a labour/union tradition than from an individualist social liberal tradition. In many ways, at the moment, it might be preferable to vote Lib Dem than Labour (though there’d also be many good arguments for voting the other way), but you’d be kidding yourself if you didn’t think there were underlying ideological and philosophical differences.
I guess then we disagree. Tradition’s a sad flag to hang out if it’s the only basis for claiming the ALP is to the left of the LPC. Tradition matters only to the extent it is followed. I don’t know that I’d vote Lib Dem in the UK. I do know I’d vote New Democrat in Canada.
… which shares a similar collectivist tradition!
I don’t think you’re getting what I’m saying…
great thread, lots of good ideas and information. But the one thing missing is that Australian politics is (thankfully) a dynamic equilibrium. Neither major party really stands for all taht much beyond getting into power, do they? Labor seeks whatever’s popular for 50.1% of the people come election day, and vice versa. To put it another way, don’t discount the capacity of the Libs to reinvent themselves. I don’t think the deep structural funding issues are permanent either – Libs will find ways to make enough bucks to keep on keeping on.
Due to compulsory oting, it’s a race to the centre, there’s no reward for extremism, and the libs if they dally there for very long will find out what rewards tehre are. I would like to see some libs for once (post Robert Hill) advocating green capitalism as the way forward for ‘icon issues’ like climate change. Greg Hunt hasn’t a clue, but someone will, one day, eventually.
I am. I would vote New Democrat for their policies, which they actually tend to enact when in government, rather than an archaeological investigation of their ideas.I am moved by what parties are doing now rather than what they did in my grandparents’ day.
Declaring that someone you’re debating does not understand your argument may or may not be accurate. It may or may not be a comment on your ability to convey an argument. Thus far you’ve advanced a theory that Canadian, but not British, FPTP produces parties to the right of the ALP irrespective of their actual polices and programs, that the New Democrats could win seats from the Canadian Liberals in which they received fewer votes than the Liberals, and that parties with a collectivist tradition are better than parties without that tradition, irrespective of what they actually do. I can see how you might think that I would not understand your argument.
I suspect I may not be entirely alone if it is in fact the case that I am not overwhelmed by the bright stream of logic running through your posts.
I challenge what was said by The Age writer Shaun Carney today in his aticle titled ‘A reckless reply’:
“Why Nelson’s reply failed; it was purely political — a grab bag of attention-grabbing “ideas” surrounded by boilerplate about Liberal values and a home movie of the good old days.”
He was particularly referring to Brendan Nelson’s value statement made at the end of the budget reply speech.
As a Marketing student, I’ve studied enough to understand the value of merging ideas from the theories of economics, psychology and sociology. The value of bringing these theories together is so that the approach to ideas is holistic enough to implement ideas through practice.
I expect that Dr. Nelson addressing the nation with “pure economics”, as suggested by Carney, would actually be publicly disengaging, since most of us don’t understand economics in its pure form anyway. My mother, for example, didn’t buy the Herald Sun on Wednesday to find out about anti-inflation strategies. She simply wanted to know if she’s entitled to a Carer’s allowance. She doesn’t need to be that clear on the subject of economics to know what it means for her.
What the Shaun Carney article attempts to do is progress the media criticism of Dr. Nelson from his style to the substance of his arguments. It is true that his argument has been inconsistent, particularly on the subject of taxing alcopops, but it’s the objective of Carney’s article that I’m so over – that is, the Mainstream Media’s continuous obsession with changing the Opposition Leader of the day.
It’s the hot press gallery topic that never seems to cool down. Mentioned as Brendan Nelson’s possible replacements are: Malcolm Turnbull (the much hyped great hope), Peter Costello (the sequel! – we could nickname him Indiana Jones ‘08)and Joe Hockey (my preferred choice, but only if the timing and purpose is truly accurate).
I’m as doubtful about the emphasis placed on this leadership issue as I am about the value of the recent 2020 Ideas Summit held in Canberra or the value of raising taxes if not part of a holistic approach to solving a problem.
One way of assessing what’s happening in politics, and how it gets reported in the media, is applying David Allen’s “natural planning model” (from a book called ‘How to get things done’).
From top-down, the five steps of this “natural” planning model are: defining purpose and principles, outcome visioning, brainstorming, organising, and identifying next actions. To seek more clarity, you work the model from bottom-up. To get more happening, you work the model from the top-down.
As Allen points out, “natural planning” doesn’t necessarily equate to “normal planning”. It’s normal that there’s “probably” components of the natural planning model that haven’t been implemented in any situation. An easy example of that is the way in which recent relief efforts in Burma are frustrated by the crazy Burmese junta who yesterday had the nerve to declare the Cyclone relief effort in the country over.
So regardless of how much “flip-flop” policy positioning the Coalition may be guilty of at present, it is important that a credible alternative government can regather its thoughts about its purpose and principles, as Dr Nelson attempted in his speech. To quote Dr. Nelson:
“Our beliefs are in the individual, in encouragement of, and rewards for, hard work in everyday life. We believe in family small business. We believe in families as the bedrock of the nation while respecting and reaching out to every Australian irrespective of his or her personal circumstances. We believe in choice – in health, education or membership of a union. We believe in lower taxes, sound economic management. We believe strongly in defence and security.”
Fulfilling what these values will mean for the Coalition and Australia by applying them in the real, current world certainly does require taking things back to the drawing board, even at the risk that they will be accused by some on the Left of running a “home movie of the good old days.”
From Justin
Alan, there’s no need to be snarky. I’d normally be happy to restate my argument in terms that you might find clearer, but if you’re going to comment like that, I’ve got better things to do.
This post – and the reams of MSM articles just like it – would be funny if not for the embarrassment of ignorance on show.
The Liberals (or coalition) have been the government of Australia for 42 out of the 64 years of Australia’s existence.
And now every idiot is proclaiming them dead and buried. That’s plain dumb.
Has everyone truly forgotten how quickly and stupidly ALP governments bring themselves undone? (The Hawke/Keating was the uniquely radical exception.)
There is so much hyperventilating wishful thinking behind this whole “the Libs are dead” nonsense. Honestly, write about something that might have a consequence in the real world.
CazFairy, actually I’ve been arguing that the Liberals were going to hit disaster at some point since the late 90s. It’s not a sudden response to their current mess, although that has emboldened me to post more publicly (albeit pseudonymously).
The MSM thinks they’re in trouble because Nelson’s making a dill of himself. To my mind this too will pass. What won’t pass are the two problems I point to. If you have a supreme shortage of people under 30 with a vestige of a clue then you’re going to have trouble filling your front bench in 10 and 20 years time. And if Global Warming is the dominant issue of the 21st Century then having taken the country backwards for 11 years in dealing with it, and having a parliamentary party loaded with people who will deny it until the day sea levels are inundating their house is not a good look for your credibility.
Feral (if I may call you by your first name)
- This too will pass. Politics is like that.
- So far, the Rudd gov’t isn’t shaping up to be a bright shade of green. Some of their budget announcements were, let’s face it, a little disappointing if green happens to be your color of choice for the rest of the millennium.
- Point to a country – any country – that boomed ahead with “green credentials” in the last 11 years. The Howard gov’t was not the worst of them, in global terms. They were acting pretty much like every other government. Hardly something that will damn them to hell for all eternity. (Oh, and not signing Kyoto doesn’t count for shit.)
- I’ll play devil’s advocate and suggest that “global warming” (latest data – confirmed, with much astonishment by the scientific community – shows that it’s not occurring, as the planet is far more self correcting than previously thought), is not necessarily the dominant issue of the century. (Unless you mean “climate change” – which is true enough, the climate does, indeed, change.)
- Other matters, possibly environmentally related, will be the bigger hits. We’re seeing it already: the fight for basic resources – food, water, health services, safe land to live on. These pragmatic matters will overtake any big picture stuff. The West is already whinging about developing countries ACTUALLY DEVELOPING – wow, how dare they! This was always going to happen eventually (I figured that out when I was just a kid), and its time is now. Rather than the have-nots getting all antzy, it’s the West getting all antzy about the have-nots getting more. The hostilities have only just begun.
Sorry, too tired to go into sensible or detailed argument, hoping you will get my drift, from quick drivel.
“latest data – confirmed, with much astonishment by the scientific community – shows that it’s not occurring, as the planet is far more self correcting than previously thought”
Really? I’d be fascinated if you can back that up with actual peer reviewed evidence, rather than a claim from a blogsite funded by Exxon-Mobile or run by a wingnut. Most of the recent studies suggest the problem is actually worse than we thought, at least if you think that, say Nature, is more reliable than a website paying homage to Lyndon LaRouche.
Ferel – it’s from NASA data. Will try to find link for you.
“Duffy: “Can you tell us about NASA’s Aqua satellite, because I understand some of the data we’re now getting is quite important in our understanding of how climate works?”
Marohasy: “That’s right. The satellite was only launched in 2002 and it enabled the collection of data, not just on temperature but also on cloud formation and water vapour. What all the climate models suggest is that, when you’ve got warming from additional carbon dioxide, this will result in increased water vapour, so you’re going to get a positive feedback. That’s what the models have been indicating. What this great data from the NASA Aqua satellite … (is) actually showing is just the opposite, that with a little bit of warming, weather processes are compensating, so they’re actually limiting the greenhouse effect and you’re getting a negative rather than a positive feedback.”
Duffy: “The climate is actually, in one way anyway, more robust than was assumed in the climate models?”
Marohasy: “That’s right … These findings actually aren’t being disputed by the meteorological community. They’re having trouble digesting the findings, they’re acknowledging the findings, they’re acknowledging that the data from NASA’s Aqua satellite is not how the models predict, and I think they’re about to recognise that the models really do need to be overhauled and that when they are overhauled they will probably show greatly reduced future warming projected as a consequence of carbon dioxide.”
Duffy: “From what you’re saying, it sounds like the implications of this could beconsiderable …”
Marohasy: “That’s right, very much so. The policy implications are enormous. The meteorological community at the moment is really just coming to terms with the output from this NASA Aqua satellite and (climate scientist) Roy Spencer’s interpretation of them. His work is published, his work is accepted, but I think people are still in shock at this point.”
http://tinyurl.com/3xangr
Funny how this stuff never ever finds its way onto page one. A muted mention, then vanishes. Plenty of evidence out there, just doesn’t get the PR or media coverage.
Climate change is massively profitable big business, don’t want to rock the boat, hey?
Christopher Monckton is one of the many UN climate change report writers who shared the Nobel Peace Prize with Al Gore.
Monckton concludes:
“My fellow-participants, there is no climate crisis. The correct policy response to a non-problem is to have the courage to do nothing. Take courage! Do nothing, and save the world’s poor from yet another careless, UN-driven slaughter.”
His full piece here – http://www.heartland.org/Article.cfm?artId=22430
(Dishonest Political Tempering with the Science on Global Warming)
Look, I don’t particularly want this thread to end up as a climate change denialist fest with our old friend Jennifer Marohasy the star attraction. Please stick to the core of the issues Feral raised.
Thanks.
Finite resources and infinite demand: that’s the enduring and only global problem, in a nutshell.
Buy some of the books by little known Bjørn Lomborg – he talks sense.
“Australian author Tim Flannery recently told an interviewer that climate change is “the only issue we should worry about for the next decade.”
Tell that to the four million people starving to death, to the three million victims of HIV/AIDS, or to the billions of people who lack access to clean drinking water.
Human-caused climate change deserves attention – and it has gotten it, thanks to Gore, Flannery, and others. … much of the developed world believes that global warming is the planet’s biggest problem.
Yet, the world faces many other vast challenges. Whether we like it or not, we have limited money and a limited attention span for global causes. We should focus first on achieving the most good for the most people.
The Copenhagen Consensus project brought together top-class thinkers, including four Nobel Laureate economists, to examine what we could achieve with a $50 billion investment designed to “do good” for the planet.
They examined the best research available and concluded that projects requiring a relatively small investment – getting micro-nutrients to those suffering from malnutrition, providing more resources for HIV/AIDS prevention, making a proper effort to get drinking water to those who lack it – would do far more good than the billions of dollars we could spend reducing carbon emissions to combat climate change.
Carbon reduction activists argue that focusing exclusively on climate change will bring many benefits. They point out, for example, that malaria deaths will climb along with temperatures, because potentially killer mosquitoes thrive in warmer areas. And they would be right. But it’s not as simple as the bumper sticker slogan “Fight climate change and ward off malaria.”
If America and Australia are somehow inspired by the Live Earth concerts to sign the Kyoto Protocol, temperatures would rise by slightly less. The number of people at risk of malaria would be reduced by about 0.2% by 2085. Yet the cost of the Kyoto Protocol would be a staggering $180 billion a year. In other words, climate change campaigners believe we should spend $180 billion to save just 1,000 lives a year.
For much less money, we could save 850,000 lives each and every year. We know that dissemination of mosquito nets and malaria prevention programs could cut malaria incidence in half by 2015 for about $3 billion annually – less than 2% of the cost of Kyoto. The choice is stark.
… even if we could stop global warming right now – which is impossible – we could reduce malaria infections by only 3.2% by 2085. Should we not worry more about the 100% infected now, whom we can help much better, more cheaply, and with much greater effect?
When we look at the evidence, we discover again and again that the best solutions to the world’s biggest challenges aren’t the ones we hear about the most. We could save many more lives during extreme weather events, for example, by insisting on hurricane-resistant building standards than we would by committing to Live Earth’s target of a 90% reduction in carbon emissions by 2050. This would be easier, much less costly, and ultimately do far more good. Indeed, the Copenhagen Consensus experts discovered that for every dollar invested in Kyoto-style battling climate change, we could do up to 120 times more good with in numerous other areas.
It’s honorable that the Live Earth organizers are so concerned about the far-off future, but you have to wonder why there is so little concern about the much-worse present.
I don’t want to stop anyone from caring about climate change, only to encourage a sense of perspective. There is a massive amount of good that we can do through practical, affordable approaches like HIV/AIDS education, malaria prevention, and the provision of micro-nutrients or clean water.
This is the message I would like to ring out: we should focus on the best ideas first.”
And this has what relevance to Feral’s post?
*Sigh*
His argument for the death of the Libs is that they ignored “climate change” for 11 years. Read Ferel’s own words Kim. I was responding to HIS points, and his subsequent request for information – yeah, none of it sponsored by an oil company.
Is that an outstanding feature of Howard’s government? I thought that was par-for-the-course for everything nowadays and very much politics. Howard did very much have a obtuse attitude to the environment but then so did (does?) the ALP. The ALP of course see it as an election issue where they can win and of course they must pay it some attention considering the ground they’ve lost to the Greens.
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However I’m not convinced they’ve put much real policy nouse into the environment (not that the Greens’ve done much better). Spending money’s not the same as good ideas as some of Robert’s excellent recent posts demonstrate (to me anyway). We’ll see.
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But I digress. I imagine that along with political cycles there are permeatations in talent and attractiveness of this or that part of the political spectrum amongst the youth. In the 30s the Left was fashionable but not so in the 50s. In the 60s a New Left again became fashionable but by the 80s it was on the nose and so on. Likewise the ascendance of the this or that side of the political fence. For the last 2 or so decades the Right have been ascendance. Even labour governments (Hawkeating/Blair) have pretty much adopted neoliberal economics. Now it swings the other way at least here and in America. I have a feeling New Labour’s gotten old.
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But it’ll swing back. One shouldn’t make the mistake of thinking that because the Young Liberals are crammed full of dickheads that that will be the case with the senior party twenty years hence. There may very well be talented people at University who adhere to the philosophy but are presently uninterested in politics. One likewise shouldn’t make the mistake that dickheads are unelectable. History is crammed full of contrary evidence.
CazFairy, all this stuff about Bjørn Lomborg was thrashed out in great detail on John Quiggin’s blog years ago. You might agree with Marohasy that climate change isn’t happening. Few people do. We’re just not interested in going down that route on this thread. Obviously the Australian electorate by large majorities believed that climate change was an important issue and Howard’s stand or lack of a stand on it was a salient part of his demise. You can take that as a *political* given. But I’d like you to take your climate change disputin’ elsewhere as it’s really not on topic for the political issues Feral has raised.
I don;t want to add to the off-topicness, but I need to correct a really outrageous misrepresentation Cazfairy has made. (OMG, someone on the internet is wrong!!)
“Christopher Monckton is one of the many UN climate change report writers who shared the Nobel Peace Prize with Al Gore.”
No no no no no!! Monckton is not a ‘UN climate change report writer’ and didn’t connection at all to the Nobel Prize. He’s a British journalist, business consultant and a former advisor to Margaret Thatcher and probably Britan’s leading Denialist. Not even close to being a scientist.
And now I will stop. Again, sorry for the OT-itude,
d
We’ve all been there …
I’m torn. On the one hand I’d really like to keep this thread on topic, and I realise asking Cazfairy for evidence was a big mistake. On the other hand, one seldom comes across the sheer goldmine of wrongness that Cazfairy has offered in his Global Warming denial. What to do, what to do?
Will resist. Adrien has an important point: “There may very well be talented people at University who adhere to the philosophy but are presently uninterested in politics.” I’m sure this is true, but I don’t know that this will save the Libs. The problem is twofold. Firstly, it gets harder to recruit people as time goes on. When you’re just hitting uni politics can look attractive, at least to put a toe in the water. However, when you’ve on your way up the career ladder, but battling a large mortgage and (quite likely) have a couple of young kids who’d like to see you occasionally heading down to your local branch meeting doesn’t look so attractive.
The people who do take up politics later in life seem to have four reasons that I’m aware of:
1) Some issue really gets them fired up and they decide they have to do something. The more middle of the road Labor is the fewer such issues will arise, although of course there will always be some.
2) You have friends who are involved and persuade you to come along. Trouble is, if 95% of the Lib members in an age group are idiots, its a fair bet the same will go for their friends.
3) You really wanted to get into politics earlier but something stopped you. I seem to recall that Michael Wooldridge made a promise to his wife or parents or someone he wouldn’t get into politics until he had established his career. This happens, but I doubt its common.
4) You’re really sick of your job and a career in politics looks nice. Great way to recruit people who a) don’t understand how much work is involved in being an MP, b) will only serve the party until its clear they’re not going to make it into parliament and c) probably weren’t all that successful at their original career.
The other problem is that even when people with real talent are recruited politics takes time to learn. It’s the ultimate team sport, except it’s even tougher because you often get tackled by your own side. You can’t just pick up a ball and play at the highest level without years of practice. John Hewson strikes me as a beautiful example of someone who had real talent, but crashed and burnt because he hadn’t spent the time learning important lessons others discover on the way up.
To digress for a moment. There seems to be a confusing use of “on the nose” the last couple of years. This is the meaning I was taught:
on the nose: Exactly; precisely: predicted the final score on the nose.
Adj. 1. on the nose – being precise with regard to a prescribed or specified criterion; “his guess was on the nose”; “the prediction for snow was right on the button”
on the button
precise – sharply exact or accurate or delimited; “a precise mind”; “specified a precise amount”; “arrived at the precise moment”
Adv. 1. on the nose – just as it should be; “`Precisely, my lord,’ he said”
on the button, on the dot, exactly, precisely
(Based on WordNet 3.0, Farlex clipart collection. © 2003-2008 Princeton University, Farlex Inc.)
Is “on the nose” used in Australia as a colloquial expression for “stinky”?
Just wondering. I’ve lived here on & off for nigh on 30 years but have only heard it used this way recently. Gets confusing. Talk about a living language.
Not trying to be pedantic…I would seriously like to know.
We all know it’s true, the libs fucked up too big, and they’ll never get back from what they did!
I am referring to: the intervention in Aboriginal communities; the anti-terrorist legislation with its particular referencing to Aborigines; revoking the archaic law banning “black majic” (which may seem irrelevant today but is really big insult for most religious believers, and most Aborigines, for whom it is an affront to culture, and a step backwards in work to ensure that legislation is respectful of “true law”); and a whole variety of other minor mean nasty legislative changes, which the beaurocracy is only just beginning to bear the full burdens of applying. The gall of Howard to meet with the “Exclusive Brethren” so close upon the election, while they are among those weirdo Christian cults who seem to imagine that they can excuse child rape in any community by blaming Australian Aborigines, just goes to show that the Liberal-National coalition, and whatever it might become in future, were always just too insane to notice what social justice really is.
I vote we let them continue trying to prove that they really do actually know about oppression; from opposition, that is.
Thinking more about CazFairy’s intervention, I actually don’t think it is as OT as it might appear. A core part of the Liberal’s problem is that they’re so overrun with people who really do believe that reality is what they say it is. Global Warming is the most obvious manifestation, but there are lots of others: Most of them have stopped arguing there really were WMD in Iraq, but that’s only because they’ve moved on to saying that Iran already has nukes, and the Green movement is the cause of malaria etc.
Some of these delusions don’t damage them much with the general public directly, but living in a culture where you actually believe that Christopher Monckton has a Nobel Prize is not a good way to develop a party that can confront reality, and its pretty alienating to the party members who actually like facts.
I guess the real question is whether a party can get elected determinedly announcing that the sky is yellow. Howard got away with it in 2001, but that was an issue that didn’t touch most voters, and the time was pretty short anyway. I suspect it is a whole lot harder to pull it off when you’re in opposition and have been repeating the fantasy for years.
“We all know it’s true, the libs fucked up too big, and they’ll never get back from what they did!”
Never underestimate the level of xenophobia in Nations. And the potential for certain media groups to convince gullible individuals that if they vote a certain way they will find the pot of gold. Particularly when times get tough & some are convinced they aren’t getting their share of the goodies. Or their share will be handed over by govt. to someone w/ a BIRTHRIGHT.
Shifting blame is also not that hard when your enablers run the media show. Paul Keating learnt that the hard way. Latham didn’t til it was too late…and then he spit the dummy.
The Corporate media hedge their bets during time of EXPOSURE & CHANGE… but they also know how to use signs, codes & conventions to make the BIG SELL when they & their puppet masters think they’re losing too much.
Particularly when the public become complacent as they “burn out” & are directed to movies & music that tells them their government is a Nanny State…& we know what Nanny does when she “Rocks the Cradle”. It’s incremental, invasive, insidious, malignant…grows like a cancer…& hits you before you know it.
In fact it’s a virus…engineered to create FEVER & BLINDNESS not long down the socio-economic-political road. And Borgs are adept at spreading it.