There’s been a bit of discussion about the LNP’s prospects and its leadership across a number of threads, so it might not be a bad idea to start a dedicated thread.
I think there are a few points to make here. First, the furious spin about how well the LNP did – combined with a sort of “we was robbed” theme about teh evils of ALP attacks – suggest that, at least in their own minds, Liberal Nationals believe they’ve progressed sufficiently to at least publicly declare the experiment a success. That’s despite the fact that they expected to win. That their actual relative failure to improve their seat count by all that much has put the kybosh on any talk of a similar model in other states probably tells us more about the actual state of play, but there you have it…
De-amalgamation would be almost impossible because the LNP is the state division of the Liberal Party, which as a state entity has been de-registered, and all its assets (or more properly liabilities) absorbed by the merged entity. Mal Brough’s attempts to keep some sort of shadow structure in place came to nothing. Anti-merger Liberals either accustomed themselves to the new party once it became clear their own positions would be safe (a la George Brandis) or faded away into political irrelevance outside the party. The failure of any independent Liberals to appear as candidates in Brisbane suggests there’s really no political organisation left among the former Libs. One would also have to question whether there would have been much of an electoral base for them to leverage had they tried to cultivate it.
In terms of leadership, Lawrence Springborg might have done his party more service by staying around as an interim leader while they sort themselves out and a new shadow ministry finds its feet. I suspect his family commitments prevented this – which was probably what some LNPers wanted – particularly, I think, Fiona Simpson. The Borg’s exit also revives some of the emnities which had been contained by the belief that the party could win. Jeff Seeney hasn’t forgiven or forgotten, and the party’s most plausible metropolitan leader, Bruce Flegg, is out of the running not just because of his 2006 performance but also because of the continuing effects of the stoush that saw him lose the Liberals’ leadership.
I think that an urban leader is a necessary but not a sufficient condition for an LNP revival. They need a plausible and attractive leader. Tim Nicholls isn’t that person, and his performance in this campaign is a millstone round his neck. Mark McArdle is a charisma free zone, even without contemplating his other troubles, and the Gold Coast MPs John-Paul Langbroek and Jann Stuckey never really made any impact as frontbenchers. Any ex-Liberal leader would also have to be acceptable to the unreconstructed Nats – the Mike Horans and Vaughan Johnsons of the world, who might have been hanging around mainly for another go at ministerial leather, but certainly won’t want the Nats’ power diluted, despite the shift in the numbers within the party room towards the metro members.
Talk of an outsider can be discounted. Campbell Newman would be mad to leave his Mayoral gig, and Mal Brough crueled his chances durng his ill-fated Liberal presidency. Barnaby Joyce could hardly be more country in image, and in any case, has bigger fish to fry.
The sad truth for the LNP is that The Borg was probably the best of a mediocre bunch.
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Wither the LNP?
We can but hope…
That was a tempting headline, but I guess the pun is implied…
The elephant in the room that all Conservatives have to address very quickly. What do you stand for in the 21st century?
No point in playing mix and match to try and appeal to more voters if your core values, platform and policies are either out of date or non existent, where nobody actually accepts or knows what you stand for on particular issues.
Springborg’s economic policy was straight out of an earlier century’s handbook. Cut spending cut jobs.
There is one particular lesson that politicians need to learn and that is the public servant voting block. Policy that affects them affects you. Threats to them are threats to you.
I don’t know the break down of the average public servant household but I could imagine that it contains at least and additional one or more voting adults. So for each public service job feeling threatened you can multiply that by 2 or 3 people who become immediately concerned. Then you have small businesses who typically rely on the regular business of public servants as bread and butter and thus risk losing their vote.
There are two examples I think of public servants deciding elections. Maybe.
In the NT Clair Martin won Labor’s first election after she publicly guaranteed every public servants job for her term is she won. That was the defining moment I believe, where she was then seen as a pair of ’safe’ hands. And this followed a period where the CLP were cutting public servant numbers.
Terry Smith lost the last NT election by one seat. He stated during the campaign that he would reduce public servant numbers (he was referring to management areas but that doesn’t really matter) and that was in a town where public servants and their families make up a much larger percentage of voters. Immediately Paul Henderson came out and not only promised to keep public servant numbers safe, he said he would increase them!
Springborg straight from the handbook said he would slash spending – public servants know what that means and it was equated to 12,000 in case they could work it out. Multiply 12,000 by two or three equals between 24,000 to 36,000 voting adults directly worried by his policy and of course those small business owners and their families also concerned.
The politicians know to suck up to the pension voting block but so far under estimate the PS voting demographic. Where an election could be close you don’t want to be threatening that block.
But the policy is stupid during a recession in any case.
The most important concern for the economy where consumer spending is 60% of it, is consumer confidence. It is obvious that confidence is going to be low and thus spending contract. The government has a useful tool in its bag, a great big block of spenders whose confidence they can immediately increase and encourage to go out and spend normally without fear. Springborg and Bligh for that matter if they want to help their economy and increase consumer spending might actually go out and say that they guarantee all public servant jobs.
But in any case all the conservatives need to rewrite their vision statements.
Actually that is wrong. I should say for the total number of public servants in Qld multiply that number by 2 or 3 to get the number who would feel very concerned by Springborg’s policy.So that may hundreds of thousands.
Thomas, it’s not just the publice service employment – it’s all the contractors, and vendors, and other private sector people and small and large businesses who supply goods and services to the various departments. Often that sort of spending is the first to get cut back, even before the job cuts come.
Looks like the Rural Press has decided to start campaigning for yesterday’s election today.
http://www.agmates.com/blog/2009/03/22/qld-premier-anna-bligh-believes-in-jobs-jobs-jobs-well-how-come/
That certainly reinforces my point. There are two methods where the govt can immediately create certainty among a portion of the spending community. Public Servants AND their families and some small businesses and contractors.
It has got to be very much cheaper in dollar terms to save a job (maintain spending levels) than trying to create new jobs once jobs are lost. It may sound counter intuitive but for the economy the best thing a government could do for the period of a recession is to maintain spending levels in areas that affect jobs.
Have to wonder how much relevance the National and Liberals lost to their natural base by becoming something different.
I would have thought a party dedicated to rural issues would be the better than an amalgamation. It allows the Liberals to appeal to their core base without having to worry about hurting a rural base and likewise for the Nationals. Wonder if the rural areas are now concerned where their brown paper bag man has gone.
As a Liberal voter, I hope the LNP dies. The best option for the LNP is to be renamed the Liberal Party and make Mal Brough the leader. Brisbane votes Liberal not LNP.
As I’ve mentioned elsewhere, the LNP will have to have an urban based leader. They may not have the right person for the job at the moment, but there will be something of a new dynamic operating post-election so I think it’s too early to write off the whole lot of them.
Dave Gibson from Gympie is a former Nat, but is a Broughish in style (also ex-army). Gympie still has a stereotype hicksville image, but it’s not like that much these days – its almost Sunshine Coast north, and/or gateway to Rainbow Beach & southern Fraser. It’s too soon for him to be leader, and I may be wrong and he might turn out never to be suited, but my point is there may be a few ‘crossover’ options in place.
And while Anna Bligh deserves a lot of credit for her good win, things could still turn sour very quickly. I’m not saying she’s a Morris Iemma, but he surprised with how well he win (admittedly with a much worse Liberal campaign) and things went downhill very quickly afterwards.
And while it’s the number of seats that count in the end, the LNP did still get around 49% two party preferred. If they hadn’t been seen to be ahead in the polls all campaign, I think there would be more of a feeling of a generally creditable performance, given what they had to work with, rather than the feeling of a big letdown that seems to have occurred because everyone was saying it would be knife-edge.
As I said earlier, the LNP should look westward and grab Brendan Grylls over to teach them how to run a grassroots rural campaign which resulted in 4 lower house seats and the Balance of Power in both Houses.
Is it likely the Pineapples will B quikly consumed by infiting & recrimination? (Recall the standard one about the Irish political party: The first agenda item is the split). If it is, certainly this will accentuate the move bak 2 a one party state as featured under Joh.With no viable opposition the ALP will soon be bak in arrogant and sleazy mode, secure in the knowledge that it has very little 2 fear from an electorate that was not swayed by the ongoing Qld health mess and a record that included Merri Rose, Gordon Nuttall and former cabinet ministers launching well-paid careers as lobbyists.
The LNP should have invested more time in getting rid of some older parliamentarians in safer seats, and pre-selecting newer / more articulate ones. I think Springborg is their best bet for the time being to lead. I cannot see Brisbane / Gold Coast warming to Fiona Simpson or Mark McCardle. I wouldn’t be surprised that the LNP fractures over the next three years as the realisation that they have lost again – and have not won a majority of seats in Parliament since 1986 – the tension between metro and country will re-surface. Also, the LNP has made very limited gains in the more progressive (probably not the best word – but the ones with better economies than towns like Bundaberg and Hervey Bay) regional cities – Cairns, Townsvill and Mackay. They obviously are not impressing people up there either….
Contrary to pre election predictions Bligh did well outside the SE and Springborg did OK in the south east. LNP’s problem is not that the ‘National’ wing weighs them down in Brisbane, did Springborg come across as a hardline Joh-style social conservative? I think not. The Iemma spectre must worry Labor but the worst outcome would have been a Labor govt on under 50% 2PP that would have lacked legitimacy, Labor has a prospect of fixing the problem areas.
Bree, The trouble is you have to contend with the National Party die hards, and they WON’T budge, more disunity ahead.
I think they should get back to the Coalition agreement for the short term.
Mitch Fifield is calling for a Liberal takeover of the LNP.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25228877-12377,00.html
Was the LNP a cunning plot by the Liberal Party to absorb the Nats in Qld by stealth?
In its inception the LNP was a combination of (i) a takeover of the Libs by the Nats and (ii) a cunning plot by the Santoro-ites to outnumber the moderates and maybe drive them away. But given a few years, the ascension of an urban (and urbane) leader and the return of the moderate Libs (I was talking to one today who’s thinking of it) maybe it will turn out in the longer run to have been a reverse takeover of the Nats by the Libs. But I doubt that any of them were cunning enough to plan it that way – sometimes history (and demographic change) just works things out in its own way.
Rua,
How do you absorb the Nats?
Do you breathe it, ingest it, by osmosis or take it as a suppositry?
Can hardly wait for George Brandis to turn up in North Queensland with his Akubra and Driz a bone raincoat spouting, “Im just like you”.
Jack A
I agree, it will be fascinating to see who gets the upper hand, Santo’s mob or Clive’s mob.
If Nicholls is the next LNP leader I guess Santo won. But can he attract the donations that a Clive candidate may?
The last thing the LNP need is a close contest for leader. Somehow I think it will be small, win 3-4 votes, to whoever gets the job.
“The Borg was probably the best of a mediocre bunch”. The Borg was the best from a pool of just 23 odd people. That’s not a huge group. The fact is that lots of state oppositions (and some state governments) have been led by “the best of a mediocre bunch” over recent years. Peter Debnham, Denis Napthine come quickly to mind but they are hardly the only ones.
Once they have a new leader they will be just as united as any opposition at the start of a new term, under a new leader – somewhat. If things go poorly in the polls that unity will fall away, but not because of anything inherent about the LNP. It’s just the lot of oppositions under a new leader.
The LNP Parliamentary party will know that unity is in their best interests. They will be just as likely to maintain it as any other party around the country despite their history.
What seems to me to be getting lost in this discussion is just how appalling it was for the conservatives when they were separate parties. The simple question “who will be premier if you win?” sent them into a tailspin, and the libs had to find a high quality leader from a caucus of eight.
We are starting to get some candidates putting up their hand for LNP leadership positions. The ballot will be held Wednesday next week apparently.
http://nqr.farmonline.com.au/news/state/agribusiness-and-general/political/hands-up-to-be-lnp-leader/1466987.aspx
Jeff Seeney wants to be Deputy Dawg only if Tim Nicholls gets the Leadership gig.
http://au.news.yahoo.com/a/-/local/5424461/seeney-wants-board-nicholls-gets-lnp-job/
How the Leadership brawl next week is shaping up.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25232957-5006786,00.html
Steve: You know this is the bit I love, the total shit fight that the Tories have after a flogging. It really is joyous to watch. Have you heard about oil and water, well in political terms thats mixing Nationals with Liberals…it doesn’t work. Any way you cut this the recipe is dissention. If the SE Qld and Townsville Liberals prevail then the agrarian socialists will never accept it and vice versa the Tory silver tails will burr up. Have I mentioned how wonderful this scenario is. Overlay this with a national trend of Liberals taking over National electorates federally and you basically have dysfunctionality in perpertuity. Put another way unless the Qld ALP totally implodes they are set like jellies. Remember last Saturday was the elction of a NEW government for Qld, it has plenty of longevity, if it performs well.
Stan I disagree. “If the SE Qld and Townsville Liberals prevail then the agrarian socialists will never accept it…” Surely the entire 11 years of the Howard govt show that this is wrong. The Nats had next to no influence and remained in the Coalition despite the libs doing whatever they wanted. There was “acceptance” of whatever the tories did.
I note that all the angst seems to be coming from outside the LNP parliamentary party. Fifield is quoted above, and now Bob Carroll. At the end of the day caucus just wants the person who is most likely to win the next election and keep their jobs. Australian politicians are far too pragmatic to seriously say, “well x is a superior candidate but I’ll support y because they are from my old party before the merger” As if.
The journo in the Oz is saying “some ex-Nationals are insisting that one of their own — Fiona Simpson, the MP for Maroochydore, or former leader Jeff Seeney — take over from Lawrence Springborg”. What rubbish. Does anyone think that Mal Brough would not be leader if he were in the LNP caucus right now? That ex-nats would vote for Simpson or Seeney(!) ahead of Brough? Of course he would be elected unopposed.
Oil and water will mix if it improves their chances of getting onto the Treasury benches. And it does.
Yeah – Jeff Seeney, cause he’s such a popular bloke!
Faaaark!
How’s it go? “The battles are so fierce because the spoils of victory are so small” or something?
Clive Palmer’s donation was 280K
http://blogs.crikey.com.au/pollytics/2009/03/24/what-does-280k-buy-you/
Jeff Seeney is a good guy. His public persona which followed him from his deputy leader days which portrayed him as a right wing headkicker is not accurate.He is a moderate who did his job (a difficult one) as deputy. Sometimes you need a deputy leader who does the hard yards, but in this case it has done jeffs personal and public reputation some damage.
stuart, do you reckon the “good guys” will be able to match the 45 years average of the new cabinet? Hope they’ve got a bingo ball dispenser to pick the Leader because it is looking like there will be too many name to fit in the hat for the traditional Lucky Dip that the Liberals are so keen on in these situations.
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