The Murdoch media has recently made much about the need for the Liberal Party to engage in grass-roots campaigning because of the relatively low number of federal metropolitan seats which that party currently holds. Social Action Australia (SAA) agrees with this focus on the Liberal Party returning to its roots because Australian democracy is enhanced when there is greater public participation in electoral politics. It will be argued in this article that the Liberal Party needs to revive party branch democracy while remaining vigilant against the threat of regionalization.
By the late 1940s the Liberal Party had a strong branch structure as many recently returned defence personnel joined this relatively recently formed political party. The primary motivation for joining and participating in Liberal Party local branches was because of the recognition that the federal coalition had successfully diverted Australia from an over-bearing statist direction to which the then ruling Australian Labor Party (ALP) had been taking the nation.
Strong Liberal Party branch democracy helped it to achieve a run of twenty-three years of coalition government between 1949 and 1972 until the ALP federal electoral victory in December 1972. Malcolm Fraser as Opposition Leader in 1975 was probably endowed with the political backbone to block supply in the Senate because of the reports he received from Liberal Party branches about public discontent with the Whitlam government. This discontent was reflected in high rates of recruitment into Liberal Party branches accompanied by financial donations to the party. At the time of the ALP’s return to power in March 1983 Liberal Party membership stood at over one hundred thousand members!
The reasons for the Liberal Party’s malaise during the 1980s and 1990s were manifold. However, one of the factors which bears citing is the party’s transition from the Menzies’ tradition by supporting economic rationalism so that the voting public had no effective counter to the neo-liberalism of the Hawke-Keating era (1983 to 1996).
The decline in the Liberal Party’s fortunes during this period coincided with a shift away from party branch democracy and participation in the political process. This decline in Liberal Party branch democracy and consequent political effectiveness can be delineated in the south-eastern state of Victoria due to the impact of Liberal Party power-broker Michael Kroger. At the age of thirty in 1987, Kroger was elected Victorian state president of the Liberal Party. Under his leadership ‘reforms’ were brought in by which the state party executive unfortunately increased its role in pre-selecting parliamentary candidates at the expense of local party branches.
A ramification of Kroger’s political activities was that the Victorian branch of the Liberal Party became factionalized. Kroger’s opponents coalesced around Victorian Liberal Party parliamentary leader Jeff Kennett, who was state Opposition Leader between 1982 and 1989 and from 1991 to 1992 and who served as Victorian premier from 1992 to 1999. This factionalization of the Victorian branch of the Liberal Party was either a cause or a symptom of that state branch’s ultimate decline.
Premier Kennett’s harsh neo-liberal reforms were accepted by most Victorian voters as necessary ‘tough medicine’ to overcome the colossal economic incompetence of the Cain-Kirner era (1982 to 1992) when the ALP had held office in that state. Consequently, the Kennett led coalition was comfortably returned to office in the March 1996 Victorian state election. However, due to Premier Kennett’s neglect of Victorian Liberal Party local branches during his tenure as premier he failed to discern that there was fundamental discord in regional and rural Victoria so that this government was voted out in a stunning upset in late 1999.
Jeff Kennett and Sir Joh Compared
Interestingly, the demise of the Kennett government contrasted with the political longevity of the government of Sir Johannes (’Joh’) Bjelke Petersen in the north-east state of Queensland. Sir Joh who served as premier between August 1968 and November 1987, presided over a populist government which consistently kept its ‘finger on the pulse’ with regard to public opinion.
Although Sir Joh was a quasi-authoritarian leader, he still respected party branch democracy. The Queensland premier appreciated that his initially rural based National Party branches were depositories of human resource talent which could be utilized to help maintain his political dominance. It was partly due to this political dominance that Sir Joh’s party was able to reduce the Liberals to a rump in the wake of the October 1983 state election.
This comparison between the respective Bjelke-Petersen and Kennett governments is instructive in helping explain why the former (which was also supported by a loyal and capable state public service) was able to last as long as it did. The Kennett government by contrast conspicuously failed to protect itself by utilizing its party branch structure so that this government lost a crucial component of its electoral base in its loss of government in late 1999.
Liberal Party Factionalism
Another ramification of the reduction in party-branch democracy is rampant inter-party factionalization. While the Victorian division of the Liberal Party was bedevilled by the division between the Kennett and Kroger/Costello factions, the New South Wales Liberal Party branch is deeply split into three factions, the Moderate, the Centre-Right and the Right factions.[1]
The South Australian division of the Liberal Party has long been delineated by a division between its Moderate and Conservative factions, lasting more than fifty years. Similarly, the Queensland division of the Liberal Party in its post-1983 state was also polarized into two factions with this state branch later being absorbed into the Queensland branch of the National Party to form the Liberal National Party (LNP) in July 2008.
The Western Australian branch of the Liberal Party was also factionally divided, with the previous existence of the eponymous non-ideological Noel Chriton-Browne (NCB) faction and its opponents. This state branch is now endangered by being reduced to a mere two seats following the March 2021 state election!!
However, in the eastern island state of Tasmania, Liberal Party branch democracy is alive and well. The operation of the Hare-Clarke electoral system of proportional representation resulted in the respective factions within both the Tasmanian branches of the Liberal Party and the ALP being able to compete with each other to win parliamentary election at a state level.
Consequently, in this context, there is linkage by both parties to the Tasmanian community’s grassroots. It is therefore no surprise that the Liberal Party in Tasmania at a state level holds office and will still be viable in the future should it lose power. By contrast the Liberal Party in New South Wales, while currently holding office, is still under a fundamental threat should that state division lose the scheduled March 2023 state election due to the predominance of its three aforementioned factions.
The Need of Liberal party Internal Reform
It may be impossible to overcome factionalism within Liberal Party state branches but that does not necessarily mean that branch democracy cannot be revived at a local party level. For example, in Victoria the apparent demise of the Kroger-Costello faction means that there is now ample opportunity for branch democracy to be revived.
The recent Victorian state election of November 26th, 2022, saw the Liberal Party increase its share of the vote in the northern and western suburbs of Melbourne. This increase in the Liberal Party vote did not translate into increased parliamentary representation because this swing occurred in safe ALP areas.
Therefore, the Victorian division of the Liberal Party should not lose heart and indeed should consequently look at internal reform. One such reform which the Victorian Liberals could contemplate undertaking would be to specifically employ paid party organisers or ‘party agents’ for areas such as the northern and western suburbs of Melbourne who would be charged with the task of developing local branches in those areas.
Similarly, it might very well be a necessity for the Victorian Liberals to have paid party agents for its regional areas who can crucially assist, but not dominate, the process of developing party branches. Indeed, there arguably could be Liberal Party agents throughout Victoria who could be allocated areas of responsibility based upon that state’s parliamentary upper house regions.
Furthermore, for both existing and new Victorian Liberal Party branches the executive positions within them should be based upon portfolios directly related to functions which will enable a seat to be won. For example, if there is to be a local branch vice-president then let the person who holds that position be responsible for recruitment activities. Such specialized responsibility might be very important if the electoral region has several ethnic groups which could be recruited to crucially assist the Victorian Liberals to win a particular seat.
It should also be pointed out that local Liberal branches anywhere in Australia could employ their own staff and/or maintain permanent offices. For example, Liberal Party branch members in the Melbourne federal electorate of Higgins could ‘pass round the hat’ to employ their own party agent with his or her own office base.
It is a disgrace that the Liberals cannot hold a ‘blue ribbon’ seat such as Higgins which takes in some of Australia’s wealthiest suburbs such as Toorak with that seat having fallen to the ALP in the May 21st, 2022, federal election! The emergence of the Greens Party as a viable contender for the seat of Higgins was a factor in the Liberals losing that seat because Greens’ Party preferences helped to deliver Higgins to the ALP.
The Liberals must be able to pre-select early and to carefully vet their candidates if they are to have any chance of winning back seats which are in their heartland. This is particularly the case if the Liberals are to win back the six seats which were won by the so-called ‘Teal’ independents in the May 2022 federal election.
The Teal Threat to the Liberal Party’s Base
The Teals are not a formalized political party as they ran as independents. However, the Teals were primarily funded by Simon Holmes a Court’s Climate 2000 organisation. The campaigns of the Teals were distinguished by their high degree of engagement with the local community. If the Liberals want to take back the House of Representatives seats which they lost to the Teals, then a combination of the Teals’ campaigning strategies and techniques would not go astray. It could be argued that the Teal electoral strategy strongly resembles the original Liberal Party post-war branch structure that delivered so much of its early success.
Although Cathy Mc Gowan was not a Teal, her successful campaign to take the north-eastern Victorian federal seat of Indi in 2013 set the template for the Teals to follow in winning seats. From a Liberal Party perspective, the community campaigning techniques which were utilized by the Mc Gowan campaign have not been subsequently applied by the Liberals.
Similarly, Zali Steggall utilized community campaigning strategies and techniques to take former prime minister, Tony Abbott’s Sydney seat of Warringah at the May 2019 federal election. Tony Abbott’s loss of his seat was probably a blessing in disguise for the Liberals because he still could have led his party down the ‘garden path’ towards a policy of regionalization.
The Dangers of Regionalization to the Liberal Party
Regionalization is a process which has been analysed in previous SAA articles but is now briefly reviewed and defined in order to provide a critical context. The regionalization process if applied will ultimately involve the dismemberment of Australian states and their usurpation by new super regional councils which would receive direct funding from Canberra. Although the role of states was enhanced by the recent Covid crisis with the state premiers and territory chief ministers serving on the national cabinet, regionalization remains a distinct threat to the states and by extension to the Australian political system.
A future regionalization process will be a means by which political power in Australia may be reconfigured. If the Liberals lose the New South Wales state election in March 2023, then every mainland state will be held by the ALP. It is therefore a viable future scenario that with both a predominately hard- left Albanese led federal government in place and New South Wales possibly in the Labor column that the long-threatened regionalization process will commence.
There well may be elements within the federal coalition which could support regionalization out of a misplaced belief that they will be able to gain control of future regional bailiwicks as a form of compensation for having lost power at both a federal and state level. However, the recent success of the Teals demonstrates that there is a viable voting critical mass which will support an alternative socially liberal political force.
Consequently, a Teal type of political operation could well gain control of some of the future super regional councils at the expense of the Liberal Party so that its future viability could be fundamentally threatened. If the Liberals and Nationals parties are to survive into the future, then they must oppose any referendum question to recognise local government in the Constitution (the Trojan Horse for regionalisation). Peter Dutton as federal Opposition Leader would lose control of the political situation because the Liberal Party would ultimately not survive the onset of this process.
Peter Dutton: Where Preparation Meets Opportunity
It is therefore to be hoped that should there be a referendum question regarding local government recognition in the Constitution that Peter Dutton will lead the ‘no’ campaign. For Peter Dutton is a leader who is highly politically skilled. He first demonstrated his extraordinary political skill in November 2001 when he won the Queensland federal seat of Dickson from the ALP’s high-profile Cheryl Kernot. This campaign was followed by Peter Dutton successfully holding that seat since then, even though it had previously been considered to be a safe Labor seat.
Becoming a junior minister in 2004 Dutton subsequently advanced after holding the Health and Immigration portfolios under Tony Abbott before acquiring the super-ministry of Home Affairs under Malcolm Turnbull in late 2017. Even though Malcolm Turnbull gave Peter Dutton enhanced administrative power, Dutton still launched a political challenge against Prime Minister Turnbull in August 2018.
This leadership challenge cleared the way for Scott Morrison and Josh Frydenberg to respectively become prime minister and federal treasurer. Peter Dutton probably did not launch his ‘dark horse’ leadership challenge to become prime minister but to ensure that Scott Morrison and Josh Frydenberg moved into their respective positions so that with Malcolm Turnbull out of the way the federal coalition could pick up seats in Queensland.
Malcolm Turnbull was not popular in Queensland. Consequently, there was more of a chance for the coalition to win seats in that state once he had been removed. Not only did the Liberals/LNP manage to win seats in that north-eastern state, but the coalition overall won the May 2019 federal election overall due to this swing to it in Queensland. This Queensland based swing combined with the broader electorate who had become sceptical about Bill Shorten becoming prime minister which in turn ensured that the ALP did not win seats outside of Queensland to compensate for the loss of seats north of the Tweed River.
The Liberals might have faced an electoral wipe-out outside of Queensland in the event of Peter Dutton becoming prime minister in 2018 in the wake of Malcolm Turnbull’s deposition. However, Peter Dutton was intelligent enough to know that this would have been the case, so he gave his subsequent support to the Morrison/Frydenberg leadership ticket, which may have been his intention all along.
Why Malcolm Turnbull’s ‘Ghost’ Still Haunts the Liberals
Nevertheless, there was still unease among the broader Australian public about the way in which Malcolm Turnbull had been deposed so that the electorate never really took to the Morrison/Frydenberg leadership team. Consequently, despite the Morrison federal government’s adroit, if not brilliant handling of the Covid pandemic 2020-2021 crisis public unease remained concerning Australia’s national leadership. This public scepticism degenerated into hostility which resulted in the coalition being voted out of office in May 2022.
Had Malcolm Turnbull not been deposed in August 2018 then Scott Morrison and Josh Frydenberg may not have reaped the subsequent whirlwind of electoral hostility. This was particularly the case with Josh Frydenberg stunningly losing his once Liberal blue-ribbon seat of Kooyong in Melbourne’s affluent eastern suburbs to a Teal candidate. This turn of events ultimately benefitted Peter Dutton because the way was then cleared for him to become Opposition Leader following the May 2022 federal election.
Even though Josh Frydenberg had been a conscientious member for Kooyong and his formulation and application of Job Keeper subsidy programme was instrumental in saving Australia from socio-economic disaster, both his local electorate and the broader voting community still mysteriously turned on him. However, mysteries should be delved into to be solved!
Analysis of the above scenarios concerning Josh Frydenberg and why the Teals won six federal seats in the May 2022 federal election can be traced back to the way in which Malcolm Turnbull was deposed in August 2018. Socially liberal voters in the Liberal Party’s heartland were alienated from the Liberal Party because of the way in which Malcom Turnbull had lost office as prime minister. Therefore, had Josh Frydenberg not taken advantage of Malcolm Turnbull’s fall in 2018 then he may have held his seat in 2022.
Commentary within the Murdoch media in 2022 that Malcolm Turnbull should either resign or be expelled from the Liberal Party was from a coalition perspective, extremely ill-advised. Should Malcolm Turnbull leave the Liberal Party then the Teals will not only entrench themselves in the seats which they currently hold but they could go onto win more parliamentary seats in future federal elections.
While the Murdoch media have questioned Malcolm Turnbull’s loyalty to the Liberal Party it should be appreciated that this former prime minister’s action when in office of scrapping Tony Abbott’s White Paper on ‘federation reform’ did the Liberal Party a great service. Had Tony Abbott not been deposed in September 2015 then the Liberal Party’s future demise might have become unstoppable. This is because the onset of regionalization under Tony Abbott would have enabled a Teal type of socially liberal operation to emerge to fatally eat into the Liberal Party’s electoral base by their winning control of super regional councils.
There is still the distinct possibility that the federal coalition could move to again toy with regionalization should Tony Abbott fill the senate vacancy caused by the recent death (January 2023) of New South Wales Senator Jim Molan. With a Senator Abbott again within the federal coalition’s parliamentary ranks there might be a renewed push for the Liberals to re-engage with regionalization.
However, given the emergence of the Teals, a regionalized political regime might prove fatal to the Liberal Party so that it would be best from a coalition perspective that the New South Wales Liberals not pre-select Tony Abbott to fill the Senate casual vacancy. Let the New South Wales Liberals instead focus on generating greater grass-roots participation within their ranks so that they can remain politically viable.
Will Bad Public Policy Lead to Liberal Party Renewal?
Similarly, Peter Dutton should examine means by which he can help engineer greater membership participation within his party’s ranks if he is to have any prospect of winning the next federal election. The contemporary question which currently requires focus is whether Peter Dutton can, given his electoral unpopularity outside of Queensland, win the next federal election for the Liberal Party?
The answer to the above question is yes! This is because the economy under Prime Minister Anthony Albanese is facing an uncertain future threat which may get worse because of the application of dubious public policy. The relatively high inflation rate that the current federal government inherited will probably unfortunately increase as a result of its policies.
The recent introduction of multi-employee agreements (‘pattern bargaining’) will help lock in the currently high inflation rate. This outcome will occur because the facilitation of higher wage rates via pattern bargaining will be offset by consequent further increasing inflation because the wage increases will not be underpinned by productivity gains.
It has been recently argued in an SAA article (‘Pattern Bargaining, NO! Enterprise Bargaining, YES!’) that the Australian union movement should seek to achieve union renewal by applying the union organising model (the organising model) in an enterprise bargaining context. The organising model is strategically designed to devolve key organising tasks to voluntary workplace delegates and other rank and file union members at a workplace level so that union effectiveness can be facilitated.
The Australian union movement’s endorsement of pattern bargaining represents a disengagement with genuine enterprise bargaining. The previous golden age of the Australian union movement which existed between the late 1900s and the early 1990s was due to a combination of external and internal factors. The external factors were the arbitral supports of the Australian industrial relations (IR) system, such as industry-wide award coverage.
However, such an external support could not have had such a beneficial impact for Australian trade unions had it not been for the internal factor of trade unionism being based upon the employment craft to which union members belonged.
The shift in Australia toward industry-based unions in the early 1990s via trade union amalgamation was therefore a profoundly de-unionising process. Although Australian unionism now languishes at just under fifteen percent of the workforce the existence of industry- based trade unions has led to a concentration of power within the ALP.
This is because amalgamated industry trade unions now form voting blocs within the Labor Party at their state and federal conferences. It is therefore not beyond the realms of possibility that industry-based trade unions could, under the aegis of the ALP, gain control of super regional councils should regionalization later be introduced.
It is therefore imperative that the Dutton led federal coalition oppose any constitutional referendum proposal to recognise local government. For if such a constitutional amendment was to be approved then the way would be cleared to legally introduce regionalization.
Political Mastery: Where Internal and External Factors Align
Peter Dutton is a leader who possesses the political skill to align external political contexts to his advantage and this pattern would re-occur should a constitutional proposal to introduce constitutional local government recognition be opposed by him. Currently, while unemployment is low, external socio-economic conditions do not align to support Peter Dutton’s prime ministerial aspirations. However, it is detrimental to the quality of public policy in Australia for oppositions to win office based solely upon a government’s inadequacy. Therefore, let the Liberal Party also focus on enhancing the role of its branches to complement it in its highlighting of bad government policy.
The Albanese government’s existing policies of rapidly trying to shift Australia toward energy renewables may adversely impact on Australia economically so that higher rates of unemployment will ensue by the second half of 2023. Therefore, Peter Dutton may then be on track to win the scheduled 2025 federal election.
Instead of rapidly transitioning Australia toward renewable energy and consequently driving unemployment up, the Albanese government will hopefully put the ‘horse before the cart’ by spending more on Research and Development (‘R&D’) with regard to first gaining the scientific knowledge to effectively combat human induced climate change. Because Australia’s contribution to global climate change is relatively small, time is still on this nation’s side so that there can be a more gradual shift toward energy renewables.
What is being asked of the Albanese government therefore in environmental policy is that it create the necessary scope to align external factors to Australia’s socio-economic advantage. If such a public policy balance is achieved, then the Albanese government will be able to emulate Peter Dutton in terms of aligning both internal and external factors to each other. While Peter Dutton should focus on external factors by highlighting inadequate government policy, he can also enhance internal factors to favour him by supporting greater Liberal Party branch democracy.
[1] The Kroger/Costello faction appears to have now dissolved due to the breakdown in the political relationship between Kroger and the former federal Treasurer, Peter Costello, with the former apparently reaching an accord with the Kennett faction.