For the second time in a row, Dennis Jensen has lost his preselection for the safe Liberal seat of Tangney, only to have it overturned by the WA Liberal’s State Council. I think it raises a few interesting discussion points about the major parties and the way they work.
I’ve written about the politics of safe seats before and I think the same thing applies here. The idea that “democracy” is served by doing what the branch members in a particular safe seat want is flawed. It’s understandable that the party members who live in a safe seat should feel that they have a claim over it. But it’s my view that safe seats give parties an important opportunity to elect smart, talented people who may be more suited to being ministers or doing unglamorous or controversial committee work. They are a way of balancing out the well-recognised problems with representative democracy as we know it, which is the way in which a pretty face or a good turn of phrase, and pandering to the lowest common denominator, are so often more likely to win. I see no benefit to democracy in trying to enforce the same rules in different circumstances – not when you don’t have to.
That said though, there is an important role for party members in safe seats in working to create a policy framework from which to find good people to run. What’s especially disappointing yet so unsurprising about this result is the complete lack of policy reasons for the local rank and file’s rejection of Jensen. This is a man who is a self-declared climate change sceptic who refused to attend the Apology. For such a controversial man, you’d think we would know more about the man who defeated him, who is only ever referred to as a “Toyota finance executive”.
This isn’t a battle about principles and ideas. This is a rank and file membership who have failed in their job and who care more about which candidate will properly wine and dine them than about who’s best for the party and for the country. Claims that reducing their role in preselections will kill party membership is missing the point entirely. The major parties have a serious problem with following their platforms and engaging their membership in forming a set of ideas that they can believe in and which will also make them electorally competitive, and so preselections have become a replacement for platforms. When both parties end up selling out when in government, rank and file members might as well pick the safe seat candidate with the nicest smile and the biggest bar tab.
Indeed, but no-one could claim that Jensen was particularly smart or talented. Surely even another Liberal drone with a substantial bar tab would have been (just) preferable in this case.
I think it’s important to distinguish between smart and wrong, David.
I’m confused – perhaps I missed the “irony” flag.
I agree that a central party organisation may be wise to impose a “smart, talented” person in a safe seat instead of the electorate’s choice.
Then you say that Jensen – who was defeated in preselection, twice – is a “a self-declared climate change sceptic who refused to attend the Apology”.
Does Not Compute.
Anna, I take your point, but being that wrong implies a certain willful stupidity, and an astonishing ability to ignore evidence – not the mark of a clever man.
Does anyone think Jensen is a) a particularly good worker of his electorate, or b) potential frontbench material?
Icidentally, his other hobby-horse is buying the F-22. Given that Robert Gates has finally succeeded in his long quest to kill off production of that plane in the USS, that’s no longer an issue. Wonder what he’s going to spend his time doing?
Not sure that I agree with Anna’s implied conclusion that the outcome is a good and proper one for the Liberal Party – but I do agree that lack of say in local preselections is not the main reason people quit the major political parties.
A strong central compenent, as anti-democratic as it appears from the outside, does tend to put a brake on the worst excesses of branch stacking – it doesn’t stop it, but I think the experience of the ALP nationally shows that a large lcoal component to preselections leads to pretty significant branch stacking problems.
But the disconnect between membership generated policy and that adopted by the parliamentary party is the main reason for member disillusionment, from my experience.
But it’s a difficult issue – when there’s no way to keep the parliamentary party to accountable to the platform agreed to by the lay party, the only way to make changes is through the preselection processes, and that leads on to significant shitfights at every level of the party.
To clarify, I’m not saying that this was a win, so much as I’m saying that Glenn Piggott keeping the preselection wouldn’t have been a victory for anything.
I’m not a member of the Liberal party, so clearly I’m not going to agree with a lot of ideas put forward by ideological Liberal party MPs. But that isn’t going to stop me from criticising a process that tried to dump a man who debates ideas and disagrees with his leader publicly in favour of a man whose ideas are completely irrelevant to the process.
Had it been a fight about climate change or the apology then that would have been different, but it’s not how this played out. So it’s a partial win in that at least the man who’s there for the actual policy won out – I see that as a separate issue to which ideas win out in the debate.
Good article and I particularly liked the link to the old article on Kelly Hoare vs. Greg Combet. Heh. Now, on your criticism of the process.
I don’t see that local preselection in the non-Labor parties has anything like the totemic importance that it does in the ALP. They’re not a Party with airs of being a mass movement of the working class or even a representative institution able to select amongst local activists. They’re a broad anti-Labor church, and they run best on enthusiasm, hope, opposition to perceived immoral/socialist policy and the leadership of inspiring central figures (John Howard being the most obvious and recent).
But don’t take my word for it, take Ian Hancock’s, the Liberal Party’s historian:
Could be 1949 as easily as 2009, couldn’t it?
I don’t have my copy of Judith Brett’s book on the Liberals to hand, but IIRC she says much the same thing; that they succeeded through improvising their structures and working out, as they went, what processes gave the best results, instead of making the process as central to identity as the ALP does.
“What’s especially disappointing yet so unsurprising about this result is the complete lack of policy reasons for the local rank and file’s rejection of Jensen. This is a man who is a self-declared climate change sceptic who refused to attend the Apology”
Isn’t that a contradiction? Most people support some action on climate change, and the Apology, so why wouldn’t the local branch, if it represents the mainstream view, want to dump Jensen?
I think the other thing this incident does is cast some light on the local (and broader, I guess) media’s inability to grasp the dynamics of internal party politics – if this story had of been about the ALP it would have been written about the factional dynamics at play.
The Libs have as deeply embedded a factional system as anyone else – it functions differently, but only in response to the functional differences of their rules.
And yet there’s no real talk about the factional dynamics at play here – it’s not even quite cast as the ‘locals agin the head office’, let alone used as an insight into who the power brokers are in the broader party.
Local branch members pay membership dues; they (usually) are the face of their party in the local area; they organise and attend fundraising events; they staff campaign stalls, usually on weekends; they participate in policy forums; they articulate what their party should be doing on the local area.
“Safe seats” usually have (comparatively) large and thriving branch memberships, making their input especially important.
Why on earth should local branch members not determine who is best to represent their party at a local area? I can understand the idea perhaps from a Liberal Party perspective, where the philosophy seems to be that the extra-parliamentary organisation is a shell designed solely to support parliamentarians, but branch members don’t owe their primary loyalties to “good governance” in the abstract; they are attracted to their party because of the potential to contribute to the social welfare of their local area in the form of their party’s overall platform. They have absolutely no obligation to elect someone “smart”, or who would “make a good minister”, up until the point where the lack of these perceived qualities would have a negative impact on their party’s chance to win at a local level.
Central party interventions to ensure the “parachuting” of some candidate or another are almost invariably injections of someone who has little or no local presence or knowledge. Sure, local branch members can be mindless partisans of a dud candidate; but so of course can be central organisations. Both sides will claim they are securing “smart” candidates but in reality they are just reflecting the reality of institutional clout, either at a local or a central level.
There’s another important reason why safe seat candidates need to be chosen very carefully – when there’s a wipeout, as there seems to be every decade or so, they’re the only people you’ve got left to rebuild.
If they’ve been chosen (by whoever) because they’re dedicated to the Party, have policy nous, are hardworkers and clear thinkers, they can help in the rebuilding process.
If they’ve been chosen because the Party owes them, they’re unemployable in the real world (believe me, I can name at least three MPs who were failures in their chosen careers and used their Party connections to find them a safe seat instead) and are too lazy to do more than sit back and watch the Parliamentary super accumulate, you’re out of government for a long time.
By definition, if you hold a state seat you’re right for life. It doesn’t really make much difference if your party’s in or out. Not being under threat yourself, there’s very little incentive for you to get involved in the rebuilding process, which requires work. Much easier to just go through the motions.
I meant ‘safe’ of course, not ‘state’ — but very Freudian, I was thinking of the Victorian Liberals whilst I was typing!!
This is one of the huge failings of the Westminster system. It wants it both ways in terms broader community representation in Government by ministers who’s actual duty is to act as a local representative. I’ve always thought that a directly elected executive is a better idea, but then there would be “more pollies”.
I would say it’s an opportunity rarely seized, instead succumbing to perceived favours, inherited interests etc. etc.
Rather than closing off the preselection more, I would propose opening it up. The tories in the UK have been doing this recently in a ‘primary’-style kinda thang, and I think it’s a cool idea for re-engaging and invigorating the public’s participation and awareness of the party, and thus serves the good of democracy as whole.
Now, you may argue the public don’t know crap and will select a dud, but that’s democracy, innit? I would feel the same way about local preselections if they were more than a pretense and less a numbers game, stacking, etc. etc.
patrickg,
That experiment will be best judged after three or four rounds, though, not the first.
It’s a fascinating thing they’ve done, and probably will work for them this time – but it usually takes a while for the party hacks to get their heads around how best to manipulate a new system, so now’s maybe no the best time to rush to adopt it.
Despite the way it worked out this time, I can’t see how it won’t end up front-end loading their election costs as it does in the US – and I really don’t see how that will work well in the long run.
OTOH, I can remember Maxine McKew saying she wanted to contest a seat like Bennelong rather than seat a where she was a shoo-in, precisely because it was only a high profile person like her who would be able to win it. She thought she would be wasted contesting a safe seat.
Just clarifying again for @monkeytypist: I’m not saying that either parachuted candidates, locally selected candidates, factionally approved candidates or any style of selecting are better than the others, except in how effective they are in getting the best candidate. I’m arguing that each of them are means to an end, and I’m criticising anyone who tries to make any preselection method into a principled stand in and of itself.
A good post and thread. I would just add that if the Liberals are that convinced that Dennis Jensen has that much to offer the Australian Party, they could always put him at the top of their Senate ticket.
May I say Brian Walters in melbourne is a darn fine candidate fo rthe Greens and wil hopefully knock of Pike; an example of parchuted drop ins so called
“good” memebrs.
Interesting piece.
But you missed the point in Jensen’s case. He had the clear backing of both the local members and the broader party. Where he fell down was in allowing a handful of would-be power brokers to hijack his branches and give them the numbers on the local preselection committee to dump him.
And it may be fair to label him controversial, but his questioning of the climate change mantra, and his insistence on concrete measures to aid indigenous people rather than hollow apologies, have substantial support, at least here in WA.
@Tangney Voter
Surely if there was a stack on, Tangney Voter, his opponents could have mustered more votes on State Council?
Who was behind the local stack against him, then?
Crankynick, in Victoria I think the media (or at least the Age) will invariably mention the Kroger-Costello and Keating (occasionally Keating-Baillieu as a tribute to the current premier) forces. These are named after significant local personalities, but seem to have the same significance as the Left and Right factions of the Labor Party, but obviously only in Victoria.
Austin, I’ve never understood the pollie-paranoia you refer to. I’d rather have more politicians than less. The more they are, the less of the pie that’s available to each. But for the same reason, I think I’d always want to retain a Parliamentary system (but with, say, each house roughly doubled in size, and Senators/MLCs banned from ministries so there’s some people who can never hope to have executive power).
When I was still at Catallaxy we had Dennis Jensen write a guest post for us on defence issues. He really is very knowledgeable in that area and an asset to the Australian parliament for that alone. This would apply equally if he were in the ALP. He’s even got a doctorate in physics — so for once not a lawyer, teacher or union hack. I’m not saying that lawyers, teachers and union hacks don’t have their place in parliament, but surely there’s room for scientists and academics as well?
Old PJK running a faction in the Victorian Libs now?
Or is it Jeff K you mean? Baillieu blue blood. Jeff, true blue. He so blue he BEYOND blue, man.
@crankynick #22
Far easier to take control of a majority of branches in a division (can be done with only a dozen or so people) than to control all the 15 or so divisions, plus young libs, women, etc.
Who was behind it? Well from the media reports on this, it would seem to be the people who had a pal they wanted in last time. When they failed it seems to have got personal, and they just wanted Jensen out at any cost. That’s why they ended up with a car salesman who made bomb threats to people who stood in his way (assume you’ve read reports about the antics of Jensen’s latest opponent?)
@Tangney Voter
So do you have any particular knowledge of what went on, or just through the media?
And my experience of people who can raise the votes to stack out multiple branches is that they would usually be able to muster up some votes elsewhere – how come not this time?
@crankynick
They WERE able to muster more votes against Jensen on State Council, just not for their own candidate. The third candidate – a patsy they had drafted in to boost their chances – ended up with nearly 6 times the number of votes for their man. Half their problem was that their candidate was so bad.
I understand he was the overwhelming victor. The report I got was that he was by far the most impressive presentation.
I think there’s no excuse for not having a member who’s actually supported by the local party branches. If you want to stick an MP in parliament who either a) has the charisma of a dodo and can’t even hold down the branches in a safe lower house seat, or b) is more suited to the details of committee work than representing an electorate, stick them in the Senate.
There’s nothing worse than having a local member who’s too much of a twit or too incompetent to actually represent the constituency they’re supposed to be acting on behalf of. I grew up in a seat where we’ve had useless Dennis Jensenesque backbenchers at state and federal level for the last twenty years, and the area’s suffered for it under successive governments.
Bring in the primary system, I say. We’d have the greatest cleanout of political deadwood in the history of the world.
@Tangney Voter
So who is ‘they’ specifically?
@Tangney Voter
And by specifically, I mean Corman? Northern Alliance? Crighton Brown? Who?
@crankynick
None of the above.
I said “would-be” power brokers. These guys are nobodies, which is why they were unable to translate the local stack into a significant number of council votes.
Given their humiliating failure, they are likely to remain nobodies.
The more serious factions obviously threw their weight behind Jensen – and, to a lesser extent, Lyons. Piggott was so disastrous that two of the Tangney councillors jumped ship and (presumably) voted with Lyons.
Jensen is also strongly pro-choice, pro-stem cell research, pro-RU486, IIRC. This might’ve had an effect on local pre-selectors.
I don’t know anything about WA Lib politics, but could it be that the local delegates in his seat are God-botherers, but the central party is strongly anti-AGW?
Liam, I’m disappointed to see that you don’t seem to understand that the Liberals these days are more likely to go with a would-be ideological martyr candidate than the ALP is.
Hence our side gets the likes of Harry Jenkins, a minor party dynast, but one with a BSc; a man who’s never gone out on a limb attacking any part of that scientific discipline; while Dr Jensen wields his Phd as a way of preaching teh full crazy. (God, I’ve been wanting to use that analogy for ages. It’s got everything. Near-namesakes, totally different, yet possibly the only two men in the Reps who know the periodic table. As for hardcore movement activists, the Libs have em, they have serious convictions, though they’re also from some other, reactionary planet.)
Anyway there’s plenty of ‘totemic importance’ in a tory blueblood preselection for any eastern suburbs seat in Melbourne near Scotch Hill. The current state Lib leader is descended from kings in grass castles, & his predecessor was a GPS English teacher. To our eyes it might be inscrutable, but the bluebloods Libs are certainly a tribe, regardless of whatever Left historiography would have us believe about the bosses’ party somehow not being a movement.
As Rebecca says, primaries on the US model have a lot going for them. The party machines could be left with control of the Senate ticket as a way of finding a spot for able but unselectable candidates.
@John Quiggin
The problem with primaries is that they’ll wind up being a significant additional campaigning cost for candidates – that, as it does in the US (though not to the same extent, granted) will inevitably restrict the kinds of candidates who can run, and the need to raise cash will further corrupt the political system.
Know what? I’ve got it! Here’s the solution.
I think Turnbull’s backbenchers should call for a preselected vote of no confidence against the wedge candidates, so that Penny Wong can force Rudd to ask Tony Abbott to have a utegate with the Governor General.
…Sounds pretty darn moronic, dunnit?
Just thought I’d let you know what some folks around here (not namin’ names or nuttin’) sound like to us seps, when they’re busy opinionatin’ about the zany US healthcare debate.
Okay, done with my bilious satirical urge now. As you were.
Back to your debate that I couldn’t possibly know anything helpful about, and justly so.
Under Tasmanian multi member constituency Hare Clark system, as I understand it, candidates are selected by the parties but the voters have considerable clout in deciding which candidates from each party get elected.
What Sam @ 38 said.
I’m attracted to the idea of trying out some sort of broader US style primaries, although it’s hard to predict how well they would work transplanted to the very different Australian political culture.
The Tasmanian (and ACT) system of giving voters a range of candidates from each party to choose from gives the party some say in who gets put up as their candidates, but leave the final choice to the voters as to which one/s they prefer.
Of course, proprortional representation in the lower house in the federal parliament has even less chance of being introduced than US style primaries.
A very interesting and thought provoking article and one that I agree with and as Thomas Jefferson declared with an exceptional statement “Dissent is the Blood for Democracies Veins’.
However I do think it is somewhat egotistical and perhaps somewhat self righteous to assert that this problem relates only to the major political parties as there are just as many zealots within the minor parties such as the Greens who on the current issue appear to be deliberately misleading the population in regard to Climate Change and are not being completely honest in regard to the cause such as the Earth tilting upon its axis.
As for the complete disregard and contempt for the internal Democratic processes that is the current modus operandi, the only way to alter the current status quo is by encouraging ordinary people to play a role in the policy making process as opposed to allowing the old Stalinist power base of Centralised decision making continue, a system largely supported by party hacks, cronies and those who have never had to wring the sweat from their undies after a day on the tools.
As the Earl of Chatham declared in the House of Lords “Unlimited power is apt to corrupt the minds of those who possess it”
Sam, Andrew Bartlett
Voters have similar clout in Senate elections, if only they will seize the day and vote below the line. How many take the time to do so?
So you’re asking control freaks running major parties to give up their power. To give up their power not to someone else, but to the broad community as a whole. To potentially elect candidates who owe the party organisation fuck-all. Candidates who won’t necessarily jump when party hacks crack the whip, because there is no whip to crack.
Riiiiiiiiight. Good luck with that.
The nearest you’ll see to this is in the Liberal Party in Victoria, which has the sort of free and open preselection process that makes the Greens or the Democrats look as inscrutable as the Chinese Communist Party during the Cultural Revolution. The door is wide open to challenge State MPs but nobody is stepping up to do it – well, one person, but the incumbent is likely to be returned because “he hasn’t done anything wrong”. This model can only be vindicated, preserved and extended by victory.
If the Victorian Libs win state government and in the federal election get at least 28 Federal seats from that state, and three Senators with the possibility of a fourth, then we’ll see about this open democracy stuff and can think about extending it. Pretty big if, though. I don’t see it happening either.
By Christmas next year the Liberals will have lost federal and state elections. The State Director, Tony Nutt (John Howard’s former chief of staff and a former State Director in WA and NSW) will put an end to this namby-pamby democracy bullshit, and will start tapping dud MPs on the shoulder and replacing them with candidates who can think for themselves (including knowing on which side their bread is buttered).
The Liberal Party in Victoria loves a strongman. Bolte and Kennett realised they’d have to grab the party by the scruff of the neck, and that’s what happened. Baillieu, despite being a former state party president, hasn’t done/can’t do that. Nutt is well positioned to play the role that John Carrick did in NSW and Nick Minchin in SA, which is reshape the division in his own image and deliver the votes federally (provided the federal leader is acceptable), with state politics as a sideshow to be treated with disdain if it gets in the way of the feds.
Andrew E,
I would like to see the party hacks of either Macquarie or Sussex St win a State election without the support of the rank & file membership of either party.
Factional warlords of head office, manipulators and the bourgeoisie party hacks need realise that at the end of the day their lurks and perks will cease to continue with-out being able to place men and women on the ground to stuff propaganda into letterboxes or hand out ‘how to votes’ on election day, these people will end up stacking shelves in Woolworths for minimum wage.
Ambigulous 41
there’s no local angle in Senate elections. The elections are state-wide and the voters probably haven’t has any contact with the candidates in any way or have even heard of them except in a senate election context. There’s no reason for the voters not to follow their party’s ticket in terms of the order of their votes for the candidates of that paper.
In the Tasmanian/ACT context, it’s different. The electorates are small enough so that local personalities can and do play a part.
Yes there’s no local angle, but often (at least some of) the candidates already have a public profile, either through their political activities or through their life-before-candidacy.
But we probably have to be close followers of political news to know about some of them, so what proportion of the electorate is that? 6%? 8%? 2%??
Jensen is just another of the West Australian Liberals like Tuckey,and the rest oppose everything and stand for nothing other than what the local Right wing warriors want them to
Andrew E and Sam,
and
Not relevant to this discussion, as NSW Labor at least has a 100% local component pre-selection system.
The fact is, 97% of people can’t be bothered with politics enough to join, vote in or organise in a political party. So the internal power falls to those willing to do the work to get and keep votes.
Hardly unfair, or some sort of centralised megalomaniacal conspiracy. Its fun to paint the major parties as closed shops, but the reality is that anyone with a bit of time, commitment and intelligence could become a major force in any state branch of any Australian political party in 3 years.
And they wouldn’t have to raise millions or be media tarts, as an open, US-style primary system would require.
On the whole, most of the comments here are based on pre-conceived bias or an entirely wrong understanding of why people of either political bias stand up for pre-selection. I am not a party hack, I am not a straw man for someone elses agenda, I am not extreme right or extreme left. At worst I could be called a moderate that was concerned about his LOCAL community. Yes, my local community. You people get so wrapt up in the ‘politic’ of the occasion you fail to understand that there are ordinary community members like me who challenge the status quo because we are unhappy with events at a local level.
Dennis Jensen is a dud who does not understand his local community. That’s why I challenged. I couldn’t give a rats if Dennis Jensen had a PHd in saving the planet (which he doesn’t) the basic facts are he has no idea what we ordinary Tangney people want ..or ever will. He’s a dill, a drongo and as exciting as grass growing.
The upshot of my challenging the local member is I have had venom and spite poured on me and my family from people I have never even met. I have lost my job.
To the Liberal Party I say, If you do not want to hear the truth don’t ask for anyone to stand for Preselection. You are so inward looking you don’t want to know what the public think. So, resign yourself for years in opposition. To you armchair experts…give it a go you nongs, see how it goes. I doubt you have the cahounas/willpower/intestinal courage or strength…get stuffed.
@Glenn Piggott
But Glenn, you don’t even live in Tangney! It isn’t YOUR community! And you failed simply because you were a poor candidate. You should reserve your ire for those who encouraged you in this folly (Cameron, take a bow) and promised you so many things.
Did they even tell you they approached more than 30 others who turned them down before asking you to stand?
And you think you had a tough time of it? What did you expect? Everyone to acknowledge your brilliance and let you walk into the job?
Best go back to selling cars.