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Subject: Should the real Liberals split from the Conservatives?
Aussiegunneragain    12/12/2009 6:14:28 AM
Given that the god-bothering loonies have taken over the Liberal party and formed an unholy alliance with the same element in the Nationals, is it time for moderate Liberals to consider splitting and forming a new party? I know that it would probably mean having Labor in power for longer, but I personally find Abbott and his mates to be just as objectionable and dangerous as the worst in the ALP Left so it would really make no difference to me if the non-Labor parties stayed out of power for a while longer. It seems to me that Australians have no credible economically dry but socially moderate party (like New Zealand's Association of Consumers and Taxpayers or the UK's Liberal Democratic party) to vote for and that such a party may not only take some blue ribbon inner-city seats away from the Libs, but might have enough appeal with swinging voters to contest ALP marginals and Senate seat from the Libs, Greens and ALP as well. The next question is who would be the best leader. Malcolm Turnbull springs to mind.
 
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Volkodav       12/12/2009 6:32:08 AM
Why don't they just reclaim the party and expel the zealots?
 
Admittedly they may need to use napalm to root the religious right out of the NSW branches!
 
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Aussiegunneragain       12/12/2009 7:23:22 AM

Why don't they just reclaim the party and expel the zealots?

 

Admittedly they may need to use napalm to root the religious right out of the NSW branches!


Because it was 41 to 40 in the leadership vote and probably even less MP's would follow, so yes, napalm would be required which might contrast somewhat with the proposed socially moderate stance ;-).
 
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Volkodav       12/12/2009 7:52:47 AM

What is it with the Catholic Church and the hijacking of Australian politics?

At the risk of offending others I can't help but observe that the Catholic Church seems to want to insinuate its self into every part of life, no matter how detrimental it is to the majority.  Religion and State should be separate and the likes of Abbot scare me stupid.

My hope is the Libs get caned at the next election and that they then rebuild themselves as a true Liberal party and not the religio fascist organization Abbot and Co are angling for.

 
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Aussiegunneragain       12/12/2009 8:13:21 AM

What is it with the Catholic Church and the hijacking of Australian politics?


At the risk of offending others I can't help but observe that the Catholic Church seems to want to insinuate its self into every part of life, no matter how detrimental it is to the majority.  Religion and State should be separate and the likes of Abbot scare me stupid.


My hope is the Libs get caned at the next election and that they then rebuild themselves as a true Liberal party and not the religio fascist organization Abbot and Co are angling for.



I was thinking along those lines but the problem is that to many of their safe seats are held by conservative arseholes, whereas lots of the younger, more moderate MP's are in marginals. If they get walloped it just increases the conservative stranglehold rather than reducing it. I reckon Turnbull would be better to cut and run now, and run a party that can capture the balance of power. He is certainly more cashed up than either the ALP or the Libs are at the moment and the glaring need for a party committed to social and economic freedom is there in Australian politics, so I think he could give them both a run for their money.
 
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bigfella       12/12/2009 8:13:44 PM




What is it with the Catholic Church and the hijacking of Australian politics?




At the risk of offending others I can't help but observe that the Catholic Church seems to want to insinuate its self into every part of life, no matter how detrimental it is to the majority.  Religion and State should be separate and the likes of Abbot scare me stupid.




My hope is the Libs get caned at the next election and that they then rebuild themselves as a true Liberal party and not the religio fascist organization Abbot and Co are angling for.







I was thinking along those lines but the problem is that to many of their safe seats are held by conservative arseholes, whereas lots of the younger, more moderate MP's are in marginals. If they get walloped it just increases the conservative stranglehold rather than reducing it. I reckon Turnbull would be better to cut and run now, and run a party that can capture the balance of power. He is certainly more cashed up than either the ALP or the Libs are at the moment and the glaring need for a party committed to social and economic freedom is there in Australian politics, so I think he could give them both a run for their money.


It occours to me in my darker moments that, like the zealots on the right of the GOP or the old left of the ALP (those ones are mostly dead - explanation to  follow) the hard core conservatives in the Liberal Party would actually be happy with an election loss that shrank the party to a smaller, 'purer' conservative party. As you point out, this would make it easier for them to reshape the party in opposition.
 
There used to be a tendency among what I call the 'activist' left on the ALP to ehistfully wish for opposition, where all manner of fantasies could be indulged free of the responsibility of actually having to administer them. This tendency was never as strong as the conservatives now are in the Libs, and always had to fight with more practical elements on the left (such as some unions) who understood the realities of being in opposition. Whitlam started the process of killing this tendency (remember his 'only the impotent are pure' remark?). A steady drift to the right, the increasing professionalism of the party's administrative wing & 11 years of Howard has shrunk this tendency to its smallest size in generations. Unfortunately for the Libs the hardheads & machine men in their party seem to be on the far right. 
 
I'll link to an article below by a former Liberal MP in Victoria (one time shadow AG under Kennett). he has some good & bad news on this front. He estimates that the real split in the party is probably 50 liberal 35 conservative. This means that the liberal wing should be able to regain control, even after Abbott is finished with things. The downside is that he sees the liberal wing as essentially spineless & unwilling to fight as hard as the conservatives. This could change, but it will have to do so quickly. The intestinal fortitude required to clean out the crazies from the party's most powerful branch - NSW - simply isn't there among the moderates. This is equivalent to he task Whitlam faced with the Victorian branch in the 60s. That effort took some of the most talented ALP members of that generation (or ever - John Button). Do the moderate Libs have such figures? Until the infestation in NSW is fumigated the conservatives will have too powerful a base to fully defeat. 
 
If Dean is right then this means no chance of a split that will amount to anything - most of those who would need to walk simply won't. As the Nats have proven over the past few decades, it can only take a few shiny baubles & the promise of a Comcar to get someone to sell out their constituents. The other issue is the leader. As I have said before, I like Turnbull, but he is a disaster as a party politician. This is a man who, despite representing the majority ideological position in the party, has lost leadership contests to Nelson AND Abbott. Just ruminate on that for a moment. Nelson AND Abbott. Not even the much maligned Beazley was that poor a politician. If Malcolm walked I doubt he would get
 
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Aussiegunneragain    Bigfella   12/12/2009 9:39:04 PM
You and the author of the article that you post make some interesting and valid points, but I'm not sure that I made the basic motivation behind my suggestion clear. I have been thinking that it would make no difference to me whether the ALP stayed in power over Abbotts conservatives because I find their politics equally obnoxious. I am now thinking that I find Abbot's politics more obnoxious and would sooner see then ALP entrenched than him or somebody like him as our PM.
 
That is not to say that I would ever vote for the ALP, I wouldn't for the same reasons as your author related. However, I don't think the moderate Libs have a good enough leader to beat Abbot at his own game now and they won't have one after the election when their  influence is depleted further. Therefore I think that a message needs to be sent to the Right in the Coalition that they will never have power in this country while they spruik thier snake oil. Malcolm taking another shot at a balance of power party dedicated emphasising the social and economic rights of the individual would be just the thing to send that message.
 
I didn't mind the Democrats before Natasha Stott-Despoja took them so far to the left as to be indisdinguishable from the rest of the comrades and think that they did some good work during the generation during which they were relevant. I even voted for them in the Senate in 1993 as a bit of insurance against Hewson getting too excited with the pace of reform.  As far as I am concerned if a party led by Turnbull can only emulate that in his own style, then it would be a generation's worth of work worth doing.
 
As for leadership, despite his shortcomings as the leader of a complex major party, I am confident that Turnbull would be better able to handle a dozen MP's of like minds to him and seed a real alternative for voters like me. And he would only need a couple of Senators in his cricket team to have real power issues.
 
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Volkodav       12/12/2009 10:39:38 PM
I actually knew Nat and believe she is more akin to a moderate Lib, with special interests, than a left winger.  Lee's on the otherhand was quite autocratic and I consider to have been deceitful in her dealing with what was meant to be a democratic organisation.  The biggest failing of the Australian Democrats was the disproportionate influence wielded by school teachers in the membership and their attitude that they knew all the answers so everyone else should be quiet and do what they were told.
 
There is definitely room for a middle of the road party in Australia as the Labor lefties and Liberal right cause many talented individuals to steer clear of active involvement in politics, to the detriment of all.
 
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Volkodav    Thanks Wiki   12/13/2009 12:00:55 AM

Liberal Movement

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The Liberal Movement (LM) was a minor South Australian political party in the 1970s. Stemming from discontent within the ranks of the Liberal and Country League, it was organised in 1972 by former premier Steele Hall as an internal group in response to a perceived resistance to sought reform within its parent. A year later, when tensions heightened between the LCL's conservative wing and the LM, it was established in its own right as a progressive liberal party. When still part of the league, it had eleven parliamentarians; on its own, it was reduced to three.

In the federal election of 1974, it succeeded in having Hall elected to the Australian Senate with a primary vote of 10 per cent. It built upon this in the 1975 state election, gaining almost a fifth of the total vote and an additional member. However, the non-Labor parties narrowly failed to dislodge the incumbent Dunstan Labor government. That result, together with internal weaknesses, led in 1976 to the LM's being re-absorbed into the LCL, newly renamed as the Liberal Party of Australia. The non-Labor forces again failed in 1977 but succeeded in winning government at the 1979 election.

A segment of the LM, led by former state attorney-general Robin Millhouse, did not rejoin the Liberals, instead forming a new party, the New LM which, combined with the Australia Party, under the invited leadership of Don Chipp, formed the nucleus of the Australian Democrats which aspired to a balance of power in the federal Senate and up to four state upper houses for three decades. The LM and its successor parties gave voice to what is termed " Quote    Reply


bigfella       12/13/2009 2:15:04 AM

You and the author of the article that you post make some interesting and valid points, but I'm not sure that I made the basic motivation behind my suggestion clear. I have been thinking that it would make no difference to me whether the ALP stayed in power over Abbotts conservatives because I find their politics equally obnoxious. I am now thinking that I find Abbot's politics more obnoxious and would sooner see then ALP entrenched than him or somebody like him as our PM.

I take your point on Abbott & co, but I think it is a bit self defeating. My thnking is that splitting the Libs pretty much guarantees a Conservative government at some point. All governmetns run out of steam in time, and much as I would like a lengthy period of ALP government, the time will come when it is time to go. I don't want the replacement to be led by the sort of people who are backing Abbott.
 

That is not to say that I would ever vote for the ALP, I wouldn't for the same reasons as your author related. However, I don't think the moderate Libs have a good enough leader to beat Abbot at his own game now and they won't have one after the election when their  influence is depleted further. Therefore I think that a message needs to be sent to the Right in the Coalition that they will never have power in this country while they spruik thier snake oil. Malcolm taking another shot at a balance of power party dedicated emphasising the social and economic rights of the individual would be just the thing to send that message.

After the election Abbott will be discredited. There will be an opportunity for a new leader. If that leader has the chops he (I don't see a she yet) will be able to reshape the party's message. The question of reshaping the party itself is more difficult. It will certainly be possible to run with the argument that hardline conservatism is an electoral dead end & use that internally to chop them off at the knees. They can start in Victoria - still a bastion of the moderates. Unfortunately the other moderate bastion - SA - appears to be in the hands of the conservatives for now. The question is whether the new leader has the balls & the skills to do it. Remember that as ideological as some of these folk are, enough of them are more committed to getting power to be open to voting for a moderate leader.

I didn't mind the Democrats before Natasha Stott-Despoja took them so far to the left as to be indisdinguishable from the rest of the comrades and think that they did some good work during the generation during which they were relevant. I even voted for them in the Senate in 1993 as a bit of insurance against Hewson getting too excited with the pace of reform.  As far as I am concerned if a party led by Turnbull can only emulate that in his own style, then it would be a generation's worth of work worth doing.

The problem is that it leaves you with an alternative government only fractionally more moderate version of the Abbottites and genuine liberalism completely marginalized .  

As for leadership, despite his shortcomings as the leader of a complex major party, I am confident that Turnbull would be better able to handle a dozen MP's of like minds to him and seed a real alternative for voters like me. And he would only need a couple of Senators in his cricket team to have real power issues.
 
I would rather see him stay on as a heavy hitter for the moderates in the party. Perhaps he will learn enough about politics in the next couple of years to make his undoubted stature in the party to the cause of fighting the crazies. After all, he is from NSW, the heart of the malaise.

On a related note, are you starting to see why I dislike Howard & despise Costello? This is ultimately their doing, one actively, the other passively. On your Great Big List of Howard Wonderfulness you left out one of his most successful & perhaps longest lasting reforms - transforming the Liberal Party into a Conservative Party (granted, an incomplete transition, but still a mighty effort). You may yet live to curse their names as I do.
 
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Aussiegunneragain    Bigfella   12/13/2009 3:57:17 AM
I wouldn't be so sure that a new liberal party couldn't win a substantial number of seats in both houses and ultimately force one or the other of the major parties into a Coaliton government that has to consider liberalism as party of its policy. The Liberal Democrats in the UK have increased their share of seats from 20 since their inception ion 1992 to 63 in 2005 and are seriously looking like they might be kingmakers holding the balance of power in the Commons after the next election. That is in a first past the post electoral system like our that doesn't favour minor parties like MMP does in New Zealand.
Whats more, I think that a separate party led by Turnbull would a different beast to the Australian Democrats and other similar parties that have come before (like the one that Volkodav provided information on). Instead of being a grass roots party dependent on member donations, we would be talking about a party led by a man who could raise some serious cash from both his own pockets and from his mates in big business, encouraged along from the Coalition by Joyce's anti-business, anti-investment rantings. Both the ALP and the Coalition are currently deep in debt and if Turnbull and Co targetted their spending at the most winnable seats at the next election, they could be devestating. Furthermore they would be taking a number of established local members with them and would leave the Coalition scrambling to preselet somebody to contest the seat in a short lead up to the election.
 
Personally I would rather take the fight to the bastards now capatalising on the very considerable strengths that Turnbull has, rather than waiting around for some Messiah to come and reform the Liberal Party.
 
I knew this conversation would ultimately come around to Howard and Costello. I consider Howard to be one of the best PM's Australia has ever had for a variety of reasons and he was exactly what Australia needed when he was elected. Apart from continuing with tough economic reform I see his role in the culture wars as an important part of an iterative process that has, between the efforts of the left in the 70's to 90's and his subsequent refutation of their excesses, left Australians confident and proud of their country while being willing to acknowledge the mistakes of the past. He promoted the rights of the individual and families throughout his time as leader and made it clear to the World that Australia would be a co-operative player that would never the less co-operate on its own terms.
 
Do I agree with all of his social conservativist views? Of course not, but he was pragmatic enough to run an genuine broad church so I could accomodate them. In this and in most other respects Abbot isn't a sweat pimple on Howard's arse. Had Howard's time come to go? Of course as the World moved on and he wasn't going to move along far enough with it. This is what frustrates me with this bunch of knobs, they were clearly told by the electorate at the last election that people want social progress but they are unwilling to accept it.
 
As for Costello, I maintain that he gave a long period of competant public service and had an absolute right to choose what was good for him and his family. I know what you are going to say about holding the fort like Kim Beazley and all that, but I don't think that holding the fort was ever Kim's intention, he wanted to win like every political leader does and thought he could. Truth be told I never liked Costell very much anyway and don't think he was electable, and he probably knew it himself deep down or he would have made a move towards the leadership at some stage. He definately couldn't have predicted this farce. When he declined the leadership the first and second place getters were both moderates and people just laughed at "people skills" Abbot when he put his hand up.
 
The person I am ultimately the most upset at is Peter Reith, because had he not given his son that bloody phone card number in 2000 we might have had a credible replacement who Howard was willing to take over from.
 
 
 
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