Liberal Party Redux
The pattern of factionalism and decline in the parliamentary Liberal Party that I described in my previous column is a reflection of the leadership of the administrative wing of the party. Decades ago, the cream of business, professional and agricultural communities administered the Party; today they are mostly absent. The recent national election review by Brian Loughnane and Senator Jane Hume highlighted this problem. ‘The Liberal Party is not a lobby group or a think tank. It is a political party whose objective is to form government to advance Australia. To do this it must be an effective political operation and appeal to the broader Australian community. Self-absorption by narrow sectional and factional interests is increasingly restricting the Party’s ability to meet this test, as are inflexible Party structures. It is a pre-condition for revival that this changes. Maintaining an engaged and energetic membership and volunteer base is the responsibility of us all.‘
So bad is the situation that Loughnane and Hume publicly condemned the ‘ineffective and unprofessional behaviour in senior Party committees’ and proposed that ‘the Federal Executive discuss the role and responsibilities of Party Executive members and develop a Code of Conduct to be signed by all candidates wishing to contest senior Party positions, including State Executive positions and Federal Electorate Committee membership. The Code should set out clear requirements of behaviour and penalties for breaches. Party members should also, on applying for a position, waive their rights to take legal action against party members.’
Significantly, they recommended that ‘after endorsement by the Federal Executive the recommended Code should be discussed and adopted by each State Executive.’ This is an admission that the state divisions of the party are incapable of individually implementing the necessary reform. To expect the very people who have manipulated the factional arrangements to now walk away from their spoils is optimistic!
As John Howard observes in A sense of balance ‘the most negative consequence of factionalism is that political parties have become more inward-looking, less welcoming to newcomers. They are increasingly preoccupied with themselves, to the detriment of engaging with and understanding the thinking of the community.’
The decline in real world experience and the concentration on internal party politics also results in more parliamentarians who seem unaware and unconvinced of Liberal Party principles and are unprepared for the hard policy work required to persuade the electorate. While this is compounded by the 24-hour news cycle and social media, there is no substitute for detailed policies. When the coalition lost office in 2007, it almost immediately established a polity review committee. For more than three years, under the leadership of Julie Bishop, myself and subsequently Andrew Robb, this group updated, wrote and rewrote policies across all portfolios. Shadow ministers had to produce regular updates about the challenges in their portfolios, the individuals and groups with whom they were consulting, the range of possible solutions and their proposed policies. These proposals were subject to detailed costings. Some policies were released in response to events, but most were subject to regular review and kept for the election campaign. Detailed policy development is a necessary discipline if a party wishes to regain office. As Robert Menzies once observed, ‘opposition must be regarded as a great constructive period in the life of the party, not a period in the wilderness, but a period of preparation for the high responsibilities in which you hope will come.’
Missing from the narrative of recent Liberal leaders has been a vision for Australia. Yet it is critical if they hope people will support them. Visitors to the Howard Library at Old Parliament House will read on the wall at the entrance the former prime minister’s aphorism that ‘politics is not a public relations exercise. It is fundamentally a contest of ideas about what best serves the national interest. It is the ability to evaluate competing visions of the common good that mark a truly great people.’ John Howard’s statement reflects Menzies’ observation that if you get the policies correct, the politics will follow. His words should be displayed in the office of every Liberal parliamentarian, along with the values of the party. Where was the Liberal vision for Australia, or for a particular state, at recent elections?
It is a common complaint amongst ordinary party members that they have no role other than to hand out ‘how -to-vote’ cards at elections. Most people who join the party wish to contribute to policy development, but these opportunities are now few or perfunctory. As a consequence, parliamentary members and candidates are less informed about the issues facing Australians, unless they take active steps to initiate regular policy discussions. The leadership of the party needs to implement an extensive ongoing program of real grassroots engagement.
The federal review made a series of observations and suggestions about widening the base of the party by recruiting more members, especially from the groups largely unrepresented currently. If left to the very people who run the factions, all the party will achieve is the recruitment of additional factional operatives from the currently underrepresented groups.
What is long overdue is a modernisation of the governance structures of the party. It is troubling that political parties fail to meet modern corporate governance requirements. The governing structure of every major sporting code, indeed every major sporting club, is more rigorous than the political parties, as is the governance of not-for-profit and charitable bodies. The Federal Executive of the Liberal Party should insist on a modern structure for the state administrative bodies, with a majority of independent, non-executive directors. There should be clear requirements on these directors for the conduct of the party, the raising of finances, the selection of candidates and the widespread recruitment of members, the average age of whom is now over 70 years. Few realise that a rapidly ageing party membership is an existential threat to its future. Under these proposals, party members would continue to vote in pre-selections and contribute to policy development, but the incentive for factional operatives to manipulate the governance of the party would be significantly diminished if a modern governance structure was implemented. A party without the ability to change is without the means of its own conservation.
This column was first published in the Spectator Australia.
