Liberals afraid of ideas

There was a time when people would join the Liberal Party as a way of making their concerns felt, and having a more direct, active and ongoing input into government decision-making than was the case merely by voting every few years. Under Tony Abbott, the party's policy-generation capacity has been exhausted. Liberals are actually afraid of ideas.

Earlier today Abbott announced a proposal for a Productivity Commission inquiry into childcare. This is not the same as announcing a policy on childcare. It is not the same as having a clear idea about what people need from childcare. Even if there was a bit of barrow-pushing from childcare providers, that would be a sign of life in policy terms.

Margie Abbott endorsed Abbott's statement but it was not clear what, in childcare policy terms or in actual outcomes, she was endorsing. It wasn't clear how her experience was being put to good use. Jeanette Howard or Therese Rein would have gleefully pointed out something that she had a hand in making happen, and then retreated back to the shadows; the expression on Margie Abbott's couldn't have been any more strained if she had a revolver jabbed between her shoulderblades.

I have two children aged under five: an announcement about childcare cuts through the static. In Abbott's announcement was, however, pretty much static. With "labour market flexibility", you need to be able to drop your kids off at childcare outside as and when required, rather than being locked in to a set number of days for a set number of weeks as per current policy. The childcare centre that Margie Abbott runs at St Ives opens no earlier than 8.30 am and closes at 3.30 pm - utterly useless for anyone who works full time. Even to speak of "labour market flexibility" would require Abbott to deal with workplace reform, the third rail of conservative politics. It's easier for him to hide behind the grey cardigan of the Productivity Commission than take such a stand.

At least Abbott's announcement knocked this into a cocked hat. As I said at the time - scroll down to the comments and search for my name - Josh and Alan are just another couple of Canberra elitist shinybums with no idea about childcare/early childhood education.

Other "announcements" of this type include:

• A Working Group to Grow Tasmania,comprised of people who have contributed nothing so far and offer little going forward, by contrast with specific and costed bandwagon-jumping measures for infrastructure in Sydney, Brisbane and Melbourne;
• A Working Group on Red Tape, featuring career public servants, which ignores the prospect of software overcoming "pages and pages of documents";
• On foreign language teaching, there is a bit of an imperative to "work urgently with the states to ensure", but nothing at the tertiary or primary levels;
• Simultaneously welcoming and discouraging foreign investment in agriculture;
• When it comes to marine park assessment, there is a lot of Canberra-shinybum activity; private member bills here and committees there, and referrals, as well as advice that is supposed to be "independent" (of what? of whom?), as though marine scientists grow on trees. As though an Abbott government would respect a scientific opinion he didn't like.

These committees have increased in number at the very time when doubts have been aired from within Coalition ranks as to the nature and quality of its leadership, and whether the incumbents are best placed to lead them to government. When you understand the imperative to create make-work schemes for restive Canberra shinybums, you understand how red tape grows and how hard it can be to cut it back. They aren't taking input from Liberal branches either.

Peter van Onselen decries formerly moderate Liberals for neither departing public life or making bigger targets for his employer. He starts with a bit of duff taxonomy:

The first barrier to moderate tendencies again securing a say within the Liberal Party is the rise of the non-ideological, marginal-seat MP. They are tribal warriors who know little about why they joined the Liberal Party, other than they dislike the ALP. Normally they are dissatisfied with the government of the day, or would not have been able to win preselection for the other side because they weren't in a trade union.

Really? Looking at this list of Liberal MPs, with the most marginal ones at the top of the list, few actually fit this bill. Most seem to have entered parliament when the Howard government was in office - so much for Labor dissatisfaction. Many newbie MPs on that list, such as Alan Tudge (Aston, V) or George Christensen (Dawson, Q), have long records of political activism that belie van Onselen's attempts to label them political blow-ins.

Perhaps having dabbled in small business, usually unsuccessfully (why else would they transition into politics)

Oh come on: Russell Broadbent (McMillan, V) ran a successful furniture business on Melbourne's outskirts. The three most marginal Coalition seats are held by former public servants. Liberal MPs with a background in small business have usually been successful for a long time and looking for a change in direction, not minding either the decline or steadiness of income. There are aberrations - the less said about Craig Kelly the better, and I disdain ex-staffers who go into lobbying as 'businesses' worth the name.

The Liberals have run out of new ideas. The central weakness of conservatism is that it cannot distinguish fads from lasting change. If the moribund party organisation is stuffed with lobbyists, whose agendas fill the space where local people's policy ideas used to be, then politicians will be less beholden to their communities than ever. Politics will become an apprenticeship for a career in lobbying, where representing general interests merely sharpens skills and builds contacts for representing small-scale interests. Nobody will be able to say "Thanks, Liberal Party!" for future policies with which they agree, because it has become a hollowed-out vehicle loaded by others rather than a political force in itself.

Now that the Gillard government looks less likely to lose by default, the Liberals will have to redouble their focus on state governments or else start the hard work of rebuilding for 2016. There are questions about the extent to which the straw men named by van Onselen can or will be part of that, as they all share the dread of repeating the ideological brawls of the 1980s and '90s.

Policies show that a party is listening and thinking, that it is comprised of people who are citizens before they are partisans. The Liberals sneered at Rudd in 2007 for promising to "hit the ground reviewing". Abbott is promising much the same except he isn't a kinder-gentler version of anything or anyone. At the 2013 election he is on track to hit the wall, not the ground. The Coalition won't be reviewing - they'll be recoiling and recriminating.

A political party that does not generate and stick by its own ideas will go the way of the Democrats, unelected and unmissed, because there are real issues that demand the focus that they lack.

The hamster dies, but the wheel still spins

The first Democrat-free Senate in thirty years starts on Tuesday. The last-ever leader of the Democrats, the hapless Lynn Allison, tried to do both a fond farewell and a phoenix-like determination to rise again - and failed at both, as you might expect.

Had Allison been defeated in 2001 she wouldn't have undermined Stott Despoja, her party's last best hope. The RU-486 ban would have passed anyway. She wouldn't have been able to say to her party "cheer up, it could be worse!", then set about making it so. Instead, she could have come back in 2004 and she'd have a freer hand to remake the Democrats in her image than she has, or deserves to have on the basis of this piece.

The public should acknowledge that the Democrats were always good for democracy, no matter what their views of our platform and philosophy.

Much the same can be said for the failure to ban the Communist Party, notwithstanding the public's revulsion of that party's (those parties' ?) platform and policy. This sounds like a reproach of voters for not being good enough to maintain Allison in the role to which she had become accustomed: a bad look in any democracy, a stupid move by someone who should be prepared to live or die in the name of democracy.

We transformed the Senate from a rubber stamp into a genuine house of review. But, sadly, most won't remember us for our policy and legislative contributions, choosing instead to focus on those few inglorious moments in our history that effectively sealed the party's death - notably, the divisive GST negotiations of 1999 and leadership stoush of 2002.

I won't focus on the Democrats' real achievements if you won't, Lynn. The reason the Democrats failed was not because the voters lacked focus - it was because the Democrats dropped their focus on reforming law and other aspects of government.

Let's look at some issues since 2002, issues that the Democrats in their heyday would have gone after for the sake of both good government and positive headlines:

• The commitment of Australian troops to Iraq, their activities there and care for those who have returned


• Suicides and sexual harassment in the defence forces


• Blowouts of defence projects, insufficient government scrutiny of expenditure before committing public funds and Australian defence strategies


• The backdown of Federal Police Commissioner Mick Keelty about how Iraq has made Australia less secure


• Immigration detention centres


• Immigration and the job market


• Education. The whole policy area, really. Pre-schoolers to postdoctorates.


• Innovation in industry


• Oligopolies and corporate regulatory failures generally


• Giving welfare to people who don't need it, many examples of


• Housing prices


• Civil rights


• Disparity between quality of food grown in Australia and price of said food vs quality/price of foodstuffs available for sale, obesity and other health-related effects of, including diminishing public sympathy for farmers


• Easy credit, concerns about


• Telco services in remote areas


• Any kind of services in remote areas


• Any kind of services to Aboriginal people and communities


• Public broadcasting


• Pharmaceuticals and other drugs


• Mental and other endemic illnesses


• Land clearing in Queensland


• The entire Murray-Darling Basin


• Donations to major parties


• Any time there was any sort of disagreement between the Coalition Federal government and the Labor states/territories (see Abbott, T.), where was the censorious more-in-sorrow-than-in-anger Democrat calling for bipartisan co-operation for the public good?


• Violence against women (why were the Liberals allowed to take the running on this before the 2004 election, and drop all funding and support once Latham was gone?)


• Any of those issues raised in my criticism of Rudd below

Maybe the Democrats did things on those issues, but they were fiddling around the edges rather than addressing them directly. One of the legacies of Stott Despoja is that she took the Democrats' eyes off policy, big-picture and detail, and turned them into just another bunch of PR dollies. Once that happened they were buggered. If you're going to talk about the Democrats' heyday and their record of achievement, talk about them. Instead, as you might expect, the response from Allison is piss-weak:

I know that many Democrats senators would do things differently if we had our time over.

Do what, exactly? The whole point of accepting blame is not for others to rub it in, but to learn from what should be done to avoid such a similar situation recurring. Allison goes on to talk about an issue she wouldn't change, lack of party discipline, which only became a problem when Democrats lacked any reason for voting one way or another.

Surely Australian politics is mature enough to accept this of a party?

Again, it's we voters who are not mature enough for the Democrats rather than the other way around. Like all failed politicians, she refuses to accept blame or to learn from her mistakes as the rest of us must. Like other failed politicians, she deflects attention from her failures by projection:

And despite all the hype surrounding the Greens, they've managed to pick up only half the number of seats we held in our heyday.

The Democrats held nine seats in their heyday, the Greens have five Senators from Tuesday.

While Brown is an extinct volcano but Milne and Siewert have the sort of dedication to both policy and publicity that the Democrats had in their heyday. You'd be a fool to bet against the Greens getting between seven and nine Senators next time, especially now that Allison has (however inadvertently) helped nobble their competition. She helps even more by revealing her ineptitude as a political strategist:

But I glimpse a window of opportunity for a new third party. The Rudd Government has already experienced trouble getting its legislation through the Senate, and things will only become worse. Under the newly composed chamber, the Government will be impotent to pass laws unless it has support either from the Opposition or the full crossbench - five Greens, Family First's Steve Fielding and independent Nick Xenophon. A fairly diverse bunch, to say the least.

More diverse than the Democrats? Really?

Is this not the perfect recipe for a double-dissolution? If I'm right, that would significantly improve the chances of a new party picking up seats, given that it would need just half the ordinary quota of votes, and the Greens would be seen to have caused the dissolution problem. Those not inclined to vote Labor or Liberal would seek a sensible third force to play the role of negotiator.

The key phrase in there is: "if I'm right". Other political leaders have a vision - Allison has a "glimpse".

In the Senate, the Coalition have placed all their faith in Minchin and Abetz. They will oscillate between point-scoring and pandering to the right, but will always snap back from the latter to avoid a double dissolution. A half-Senate election would hammer the Coalition and a double dissolution would be worse, with five or even four Senators from twelve in each state. The Coalition does not want to go the way of the Democrats, and more importantly will act to avoid that fate.

Nick Minchin was the South Australian State Director of the Liberal Party who acted to have a Labor minister returned in the electorate of Kingston than to have Janine Haines win it in 1990. Minchin is also responsible for ensuring that in the 18 years since, the Liberals have held that seat for five.

The Greens, as I said, stand to double their numbers at the next half-Senate election. At a double dissolution they would be lucky to get one from each state, a slight increase on their current situation.

Xenophon might fancy his chances in a double dissolution but Fielding must dread the approach of the polls. The perfect storm that enabled him to translate <2% of his state's vote to a Senate position has passed, and his role as an ineffectual goober becomes more pronounced the more he thrusts himself before the media. The press gallery think they're doing their job by paying attention to him, but actually they diminish themselves further.

A double dissolution election would deliver Labor six or seven seats from every state, i.e. a clear majority. The only issue where it would arise would be the workplace relations changes - see above for how the Coalition would react to that. Can you think of a single issue where the Coalition and the Greens would unite against Labor, and which would force Labor to the polls? Me neither.

Where does all this leave Allison? Stuffed, actually, and same with anyone who'd stand with her. As we learned from Opes Prime, nobody wants a broker who is themselves broke. A negotiator is someone who comes in for a fixed period to solve a fixed problem. A negotiator does not have an agenda like "liberal economic ideals and a progressive social agenda" that might get in the way of the problem at hand. If you want a negotiator, you'd want the next Governor-General or Sir Laurence Street, not Lynn bloody Allison.

Given that this scenario is unlikely, and that Allison's assumptions about other players are crap flawed, how absurd is this call:

The new party, if it is to succeed, must form quickly in anticipation of such a scenario.

Even if it does come off, you can't build a party designed to last beyond the election-after-next on that basis. You can't attract donations, you can't attract the support of sensible and busy people on the basis of a "glimpse" from Lynn Allison's eye.

It should rely heavily on the internet - more so than any other party before it - for building a support base, and recruit high-profile and well-qualified candidates to its winnable spots.

Be suspicious of politicians who urge you to rush now, think later - especially on the basis of a "glimpse". Be suspicious of politicians who appear dazzled by new technology without allowing for its transformative and decentralising power.

Be suspicious of politicians who set criteria they themselves fail to meet. Allison set up an inquiry into greenhouse gases in 1989, so what? John Howard set up the Campbell Inquiry into the Australian financial system, a flimsy basis on which to build economic reform credentials.

There's a vast open space in Australian politics waiting to be filled by a party with a philosophy and purpose similar to the Democrats'.

Allison must bear some blame for the arid, pathless desolation of that 'vast open space', to the point where those who would stoop and build up the post-Democrats with worn-out tools must not accept any assistance from Lynn Allison above handing out how-to-votes. She has learned nothing and contributed little. She is not a positive role-model for anyone who wants anything from public life beyond a parliamentary pension.

The problem for the Australian Democrats wasn't that the public couldn't get past the tumult from 1997 (when Kernot dumped the Democrats) to 2002 (when they dumped Stott Despoja). The problem was that that the Democrats couldn't get past it - even those Democrat politicians who weren't involved in All That, like Arthur Chesterfield-Evans, were useless both at nerdy committee work as well as the triteness of media. The other problem was that this was a party that was never serious about power, and now the Emocrats have gone the way of the Peacock and Beazley governments - and taken all their supporters' hopes with them.

Waking the dead

Many tears have been shed, mostly of the crocodile variety, for a political constituency that has been determinedly abandoned: liberals.

First, wily old careerists like Philip Ruddock and Robert Hill abandoned liberals and liberalism. Then, the Democrats sold out for a mess of, um, whatever it was Meg Lees got in exchange for the GST, or whatever it was Natasha Stott Despoja was supposed to have delivered. In 2007 we saw a contest between two conservative parties, one of which supported an authoritarian legal structure around employment and another wanted to replace it with something a bit more corporatist but definitely not liberal. The victory for the latter and the abolition of the Australian Democrats augured poorly for liberals and liberalism.

It comes as a surprise, then, that the Brendan Nelson DeathWatch theme has popped up despite, not because, he went in hard against the liberals. Seeking to deny health workers on Australian aid missions the ability to talk about terminating pregnancies has two aspects that appeals to conservatives: lots of churchy goodness plus being patronising to little brown foreigners. It should have Nelson praised to the skies by the rightwing cheersquad that got him up - but this would underestimate just what dingoes they are.

The rightwingers of today should have learned their lesson over the parliamentary debate over RU486, in which a bunch of Democrats and their fellow-travellers in the Senate of all places euthenased Tony Abbott as a serious contender for his party's leadership. The outrage over Nelson's capricious and self-defeating stance on abortion came from the same place as the groundswell for RU486. Even the savviest political strategist can be bowled over by a groundswell once, but to set up the party's leader for a second slapdown - and for Nelson to not avoid being set up - is sloppy tactics.

When you're on the nose politically, the rightwingers will abandon you. The rightwingers should have united behind Howard in 1987, but instead the threw the Joh spanner in the Coalition works. The rightwingers tubthumped about banning Australian athletes from the 1980 Moscow Olympics, but wouldn't ban far more substantial exports to prop up the tottering Soviet empire. The rightwing went on about communism in Vietnam, but when the whole war strategy had failed it was the veterans who bore the brunt. The rightwingers elevated McMahon over the trendy and shallow Gorton, yet they snickered when Whitlam lambasted him. To have the support of the conservatives in Australian politics is not the laurel wreath of victory, it is the sloppy hairy kiss of Judas.

Of course, the right wing rode high in the chariot under Howard, and they gloated like those who did not expect to win. The only liberals who stood up for refugees were old enough to remember when liberals were part of a liberal government, and were polite enough to be surprised that liberalism did not inform decisions on issues like refugees.

The 2007 election result cannot be blamed, in whole or in part, on liberals. There was no treason of the trendies. Everyone else had abandoned liberals and liberalism and the rewards for doing so, promised and actual, were rich.

The constituency of liberals has gone unrepresented since 2007. The groundswell on foreign aid abortions and RU486 seems like a real silent majority - but a negative one, one that would stop bad law but which can't articulate the good (or even some muddle that came from Senate-floor horsetrading when the Democrats were at their peak). A positive vision for positive liberalism is nowhere present nor to be expected.

Turnbull and Costello have a commitment to liberalism that does not survive polls, let alone substantial tests. Those who look to the Payne-Pyne double act are making the same mistake they made with Peacock: claims they are the people of tomorrow are belied by the staleness of their approach to contemporary issues, and so they'll be yesterday's people without a day of their own. Pyne quivers with ambition but will go the way of Ruddock. Ted Baillieu and Barry O'Farrell are the most interesting Liberal leaders, but neither is in Canberra and O'Farrell is probably right to assume he can attack Iemma anywhere other than from the liberal side.

Those who look to the Democrats/Climate Change Coalition/GetUp are waiting for a bunch of petty people to get over themselves, like a local government conference robbed of its practical grafters. A political movement that is not serious about government is politically dispensible.

There is the Labor Party, but we can be skeptical in accepting Chris Bowen's assurance that Labor is open to an influx of members of any large and broad-based community is crap.

Since its inception, the Liberal Party has attempted to straddle two political philosophies: liberalism and conservatism. These are two very different things, and overseas these roles are often undertaken by different parties.

Successful liberal-conservative parties in Australia and overseas balance the two. Howard is the exception but he ran on a balance, as are David Cameron, John Key and John McCain in the UK, NZ and US respectively.

Alexander Downer's monthly renewal of bans on the right of Falun Dafa practitioners to protest in Canberra must surely go down as the most illiberal act ever by an Australian foreign minister.

And Kevin Rudd is insisting on the rights of Falun Dafa, is he?

Payne must go through agony every six years, wondering whether this time the extreme right wingers, who run the NSW Liberal Party, will be successful in removing her from the Senate.

I wish I had six years in between worries about my job, Chris. The fact that you can make such a silly statement shows that you'd rather make a tenuous political joust than incorporate a liberal approach to your work.

In Britain, the Liberal Democrats often criticise the Labour Government from its left flank.

Ineffectively. Only when the Conservatives steal their clothes does Labour back down and the Conservatives advance, and to hell with the poor saps in the LibDems. That's the vision, is it Chris?

... traditional small l liberals are looking for a home. As a social liberal in the Labor Party, I can tell you that it is a very welcoming home.

Do we know, to quote your friend and colleague from Woy Woy, who you f*cking are? Yes, we do, and we know what you are too. You're only in Federal politics because you weren't good enough to roll Joe Tripodi. Go and shake down some developers, watch the half-hearted approaches to Aborigines, migrants and others seemingly unable to assert their civil rights, and know that Labor is the party of liberal-veneer - but only rarely, and thinly.

Yet, it's true that liberals tipped Howard out of Bennelong and it will be interesting to see if they tip Labor out again too (but not for a while). The first step is for liberals is to be clear about what they want. Once that happens, we'll see who's a silent majority. We'll hear the rightwingers howl folornly in the night and we'll see smart-alecs like Chris Bowen fail to give liberals any of the sustenance that comes with a proper welcome.

Mind you, "we'll see" implies the sort of determination and imminence which, as I've already pointed out, isn't there. Once that happens? If it happens, but it has the sort of groundswell that other political movements can only dream of.

Sparkling insight

Check out this hastily-written piece but stay for the comments.

20 years ago female candidates for US President were fielding that-time-of-the-month comments. Today, the comments on this piece shows that silliness is not the preserve of those who oppose a female US President generally and Hillary Clinton in particular.

That untravell'd world of moderate liberalism

After so many years in the darkness, Liberal moderates can be forgiven for stumbling blinking into the harsh light of media attention, and relishing the novelty that a wider public might want to hear from them. You'd have hoped that Chris Pyne and Marise Payne spent their long years in exile thinking, but no.

As Mark Twain might have said, rumours of our death are greatly exaggerated.

Not greatly exaggerated, Marise. The dying pillow was smoothed, and thankfully it lay under your heads rather than over your faces. This is only the first term of Opposition, and you remember what 1995-99 was like in NSW.

Such a defiant image contrasts with this:

"edge of the waterfall"

Well, which is it? She'll be right or panic stations? As long as you're part of the Main Stream, who cares about a waterfall? Makes a change from being up the creek without a paddle, eh?

There is tremendous scope for fresh ideas, for new thinking, for being prepared to use 2008 as a year of modernisation of our organisation. The party needs to embrace a change that will replenish our membership.

Just one year, mind you. By Christmas, the Liberal Party will have all the members and all the ideas it needs, thank you very much, and my haven't they got the inspiring leadership to make it happen. Fuck the membership, I can hear party hardheads blockheads say, give us some votes.

A strong membership base is a strong resource - for developing policy, in campaigning, in fundraising, in spreading the word, in providing the candidates, staff and personnel that every political party needs.

Yairs - it's a resource, certainly not the resource it was in the 1940s, which is why the Liberal Party membership will continue to be passed over when it comes to ideas and money, and yes even candidates. The ideal Liberal Party candidate is someone who wouldn't dream of sitting in a draughty room on a cold wet weeknight in May, listening to policy ideas regurgitated straight from talkback radio and helping plan desultory fundraisers that wouldn't cover the cost of mailing meeting notices to branch members.

We need to acknowledge the growing inevitability of the political cycle.

This is bullshit. Governments that are disciplined enough to purge lazy ministers and lazy thinking can be much more durable than wankers who just shrug and blame their own venality upon "the cycle".

What we should take from our recent federal experience is the challenge of creating our future, and avoiding wallowing in the past.

The Liberal Party's troubles is that it could not distinguish between what was currently viable and what was past, and one can have no confidence this recognition is much further advanced.

The Liberal Party of Australia has been custodian of two strands of political thought: liberalism and conservatism.

The Howard government neglected liberalism to the point where it is right to question whether the Liberal Party can seriously claim it at all. Last seen during the Fraser years, it is as musty and decayed as a catechism in the later years of Henry VIII. This is partly the fault of Howard and his orcs like Minchin and Abbott - but only partly.

Moderate liberalism should have manifested itself more strongly, in the debates over refugees but also in other areas of policy. It was up to moderates to make the case that education funding need not mean more resources for Trotskyite womyn's collectives. It was up to moderates to make the case that there is nothing at all "trendy" about Aboriginal policy, to grab them by the lapels and make them see that all the rhetoric about 'fair go' and 'family values' is so much bullshit because it is so palpably denied to Aborigines - and others, but don't start.

One of the key challenges of moderate liberalism lies in the meaning of civil liberties in an age of terror. Do checks-and-balances, parliamentary dramaturgy and rules-of-admissable-evidence really contain some precious kernel of freedom, and if so what is it? Are those things, handed down (yes, down, unto thee) from an ancient and distant land and which can apparently only ever be preserved or diminished, helpful in preventing us from terror and other evils? I am equally certain that these are central questions for moderate liberals, and that Pyne and Payne have squibbed them. They are much more important than monarchy/republic. I doubt they've thought about these issues much, and I think less of them for not having used their time in philosophical exile more productively.

Did they even try to adapt moderate liberalism to Australia in the early twentyfirst century? Did they bollocks. All we got was a slow wet fart like this:

We should embrace a practice that has been initiated by right-of-centre political parties around the world to their benefit: allowing all party members to select the parliamentary leader. In one sweep, we would give Australians a reason to join and become active in the party.

There is, of course, no connection between an idea like that and a rejuvenation of a political party. In 1986 - where the idea belongs, and obviously the last time Pyne did any actual thinking - it would have yielded Joh Bjelke-Petersen or John Elliott as leader, or even Wilson Tuckey. Imagine something like that happening today, with David Clarke or some sun-baked pinhead from Western Australia, and Pyne having the guts to admit that such an outcome wasn't what he had in mind.

Part of the reason why someone like Jeff Kennett increasingly lost touch was because he was convinced that he was carrying his parliamentary colleagues, and that they were a hapless lot. A leader not elected by the parliamentary party would be confirmed in that view. People with greater political sophistication but less appeal would run rings around them, which is why David Cameron is not UK PM yet (nor, indeed, has Barack Obama yet convinced Democrats that he is their future).

Chris Pyne spent many years holding a flame for Peter Costello to become Liberal leader. Costello would never have won a ballot of party members. Tony Abbott, Mal Brough perhaps; but not Costello. Not Nelson either, and definitely not Pyne.

But that is to treat the idea seriously, which is more than it deserves. This idea is born out of panic. It follows the same three-step of political skittishness identified in Yes Minister:

1. We must do something.


2. This is something.


3. Let's do this.

It's a silly idea and not at all attractive - like the Democrats' idea of lowering the voting age to 16 (and look where that got them).

There can be little argument that in the US, where the Republicans have involved their membership in this way since the middle of the 19th century, the Republican Party is a healthier specimen because of it.

Healthier than what, Chris? Is it healthier because it purged itself of moderates? Is it healthier because money and lobbying have invalidated the contribution of branch members? Is it healthier because it will never remove the taint of one poor leader who snuffed out debate and left the party bereft after he'd had his go?

So, in building broader representation and diversity, we must attract more members from multicultural Australia ...

The more multicultural an electorate is, the less likely it is to vote Liberal and the more likely branches there are to be rightwing "rotten borough" branches. Marise Payne has no excuse for not acknowledging that, let alone taking steps in her newfound freedom to act.

... more women and more young Australians who see membership of a centre-right party as a way to express their ideals in a stimulating environment of open minds and open debate.

Not that such debate would change anything, mind you. Chris Pyne said that wouldn't be healthy.

We need an agenda where the modern priorities include: climate change and water issues; addressing why women are still paid less than men in exactly the same jobs; dealing with the reality of modern family life in its many versions - particularly the notorious work-life balance. We cannot afford a head-in-the-sand approach to these and other pressing life challenges of the 21st century.

Work-life balance does not include spending one five nights a month week at branch meetings discussing stormwater recycling when someone like Peter Debnam will airily dismiss as impractical, after being patronising of course, whereupon any attempt to pursue debate will be viewed as divisive or undisciplined. The environment Payne talks about requires a critical mass which isn't there, and Payne and Pyne both know it.

We must encourage open discussion and robust debate. If we feel constrained about open expression, if there is any culture of intimidation, we are venturing into illiberal territory and I have had enough of any suggestion that a political party is the last place to discuss policy.

Hear that? She's had enough. I can almost hear the foot being stamped. How it stops the philosophical noodlings of the 1980s which only served as a foil to a can-do government is not clear.

Also, a similar view from families, who believed that the life of their family member was perceived by our government as insufficiently "mainstream" to merit the respect and basic human rights that the rest of the community takes for granted, just because they were gay. We can talk about the importance of family all we like, but once we are perceived as telling Australians that we disapprove of the lives of members of their family, I believe we are crossing a line, and we also pay a philosophical price for that.

Indeed. But gay rights have hit the mainstream with such force that any action by the Liberal Party would just be backfilling rather than actual progress. The legislation defined by a recent HREOC report as discriminatory to same-sex couples will be repealed within the next five years, and probably not by a Liberal government. The Liberal Party will always have conservative dogs in the manger of minority rights, always.

Interesting that equality for gays is closer at hand than equality for women - if I were a moderate Liberal, I'd have thought about that and it would show.

Australians are more actively interested in politics than at any time in our nation's history.

This is garbage. The decade or so after World War II, the systematic failure of capitalism in the Great Depression, the conscription debates in World War I or Federation saw much more political activism from a greater proportion of the population than we have now.

They have more ways to be involved.

Or, not involved. Nice assertion, it's just the reverse of what's true.

The internet has transformed politics.

The impact on Australian politics has been pretty minor. There have been no mass fundraising efforts like those in the US, and it's just another delivery channel. TV was introduced in Australia in 1956 but it took more than a decade to have an impact on the country's politics.

There are 1.8 million members of the "Australia" network on Facebook. That equates to 14 per cent of the people who voted on November 24 last year. That number will only grow.

Equates, not includes. The political parties in Australia will not succeed in using this effectively unless a foreign politician of the future finds some way to crack it, and even then the Liberal (or liberal) approach will be a feeble imitation. No plan, no sign of any consideration from Pyne - and yes, signs of intellectual life are possible in a wide-ranging, heavily edited speech.

Like Odysseus, like Robert the Bruce or Nelson Mandela or Jose Ramos Horta, moderate Liberals have done time on the outer and seen their life's work traduced. Unlike these others that exile was not sufficiently terrible to prompt far-reaching questions about their motivations and applicability of their beliefs; they basically dusted off stale and irrelevant ideas and are now going around stirring up apathy, like street hawkers offering chipped crockery and stained and dented cookware to passers-by.

Tho' much is taken, much abides; and tho'
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are,
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate ...

Yep, sounds like the moderate liberals I knew.

... but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

Nah, sorry - you must be thinking of somebody else. Who exactly I'm not sure, but not Marise Payne or Chris Pyne. Even their opponents within the Liberal Party have encouraged them to take long hard looks at themselves: Pyne has clearly taken this to justify his preening. If they haven't spent the past fifteen or so tumultuous years thinking, what have they been doing?

Poor, poor Democrats

The Democrats have the same problem as the Liberals: can't pretend they don't have a problem, yet they can't face up to what it might be. This is meant to be a rallying cry: it's too strident to be a cry for help, but not honest or sensible enough to perform its stated function:

merely an emphatic declaration that the Australian Democrats are still needed and that we are determined to fight back.

Merely an emphatic declaration. And these people complain that nobody listens to them when they want to be heard. Don Chipp's daughter has no more perspective on the Democrats than Beazley's boy or Downer's lad had in leading their parties, and is too polite and reverential of losers to do the overhaul that party needs.

In fact, so dismal was support for minor parties on election day that, six months from now, the major parties will hold all 12 Senate seats in NSW and Queensland.

All 12 Senate seats in each of NSW and Queensland, Laura. Those two states have twenty-four Senators. It's best to be clear about what you mean - and to not have words under your name outsourced to some semi-literate PR dolly. Your party is facing annihilation and you can't even describe what's happening! Perhaps, though, there'll be some explanation or apology in what follows.

But we must recognise this was a government-changing election, where the focus was very much on ousting a prime minister who had overstayed his welcome. The minor parties were bound to miss out.

Bullshit. Government-changing elections are where the minor parties did best - particularly the Democrats. Two of that party's best election performances were 1996 and 1983. The bastards in government were discredited and the bastards in opposition were untested. The idea that the Democrats suffered duff luck is unadulterated rubbish.

The following two paragraphs are an indictment of Lyn Allison's hopeless failure. Any effort the Democrats made to make a clear stand was smothered and dithered away by this nobody.

Xenophon has been a loose cannon in the South Australian Parliament.

No, Sandra Kanck was a loose cannon. Nick Xenophon got legal and policy concessions from a smug and bloated ALP government that still thinks it can do what it likes. Xenophon showed both the Democrats and the Liberals how to be an effective Member of Parliament without having to join the ALP.

It's a recipe for a double dissolution and it's why we need, now more than ever, a moderate third player in the Senate.

The Democrats strike a balance between ideological extremes

Typical Democrats: right problem, wrong solution. The Coalition had nowhere to go further right, only toward the centre that Rudd had already occupied. At a time of policy convergence in so many areas, this balance-between-ideological-extremes crap simply will not do. Don Chipp and Lyn Allison are old enough to remember when Communists and Nazis were potent political forces in our world - but you're not Laura, and spouting this stuff unthinkingly makes you look silly. You even ended the article by claiming that parties of government aren't extreme, they just have different hues.

So does this:

unwilling - or perhaps unable? - to use the parliamentary system as a means to an end.

Right there is your one-line indictment of Allison and those who sailed with her.

These coming years will be tough for the Democrats, to say the least, but our supporters remain loyal and our members enthusiastic.

Loyal to what? Enthusiastic about what? This says: we're all right thanks, we're nowhere and we're loving it!

If we are ever to regain our pre-eminence as the third team in Australian politics, I suspect the changes we make now must be sweeping. All options should be on the table ...

No shit! What a shame you have to drill through half the article to get to this. Come on Laura, give us some of that olde-timey passionate Chipp vision:

including mergers with like-minded micro parties and rebranding.

Oh no, she's been captured by the same marketing clowns who've got Brendan Nelson: there's nothing wrong with our policies, they just need to be marketed properly. Keep following that line of thought and your depleted finances will be bled dry (including those of hard-working party members fored to cough up time and again for nothing), with no gain electorally. Those young Democrats itching to get on local council will be mown down like all those lions-led-by-donkeys in World War I.

We also need to work harder to sell our policies to the masses. Alas, it has been difficult over the years to sex up commonsense ideas.

It is evident to everybody except you that it is the policies themselves that need review. You can rub as hard as you like but you can't polish shit. It was John Faulkner and Penny Wong who did the work in Senate committees that had been a Democrat specialty: note that both Wong and Faulkner will be in the Senate after July.

What the Democrats have done is screwed up commonsense ideas - see what I mean about imporecise language - and the more you treat people like "masses" the harder it is to convince them.

There are large numbers of moderate Liberals who worked hard to get John Howard elected, who bided their time and avoided appearin disloyal, and who now have nothing to show for it. They're loyal to a fault and they'd be enthusiastic Democrats, Laura, if only you weren't too proud to reach out to them.

There are large numbers of Labor voters who just weren't sure about Rudd, and who were apprehensive of all those Melbourne maddies. These people explain the large number of seats in NSW and Queensland that Labor won narrowly, and those in SA and WA whic they lost narrowly. These people are also natural Democrats.

In politics, you convince first, sell later. Your Dad knew that, Laura. So did the Democrats' better leaders, Janine Haines and Cheryl Kernot (it was when Kernot flicked the switch to retail that she lost it). The Democrats' biggest losers, Coulter and Lees, couldn't even convince and were rubbish at selling.

we put the environment on the political agenda for the first time.

Johnny Gorton was doing that when your Dad was one of his Liberal drinking pals, Laura. Nice try.

In Australian politics, we still desperately need a third force that owes its allegiance to no one

And no one will vote for it, no one will fund it; and those who are loal and enthusiastic will find somewhere that rewards those precious attributes.