There’s consternation in the Queensland Liberal Party that President Warwick Parer is even having informal talks with the National Party about amalgamating the parties, and very senior office-bearers want him to back-off now.
Local Brisbane media have been carrying the Nationals’ version of the story, complete with the incorrect claim that attempts at merger 18 months ago were killed-off by John Howard. In fact that merger proposal was scuttled by the National Party, and the deal was for National Party members to join the Liberals with the National Party’s assets being transferred across. The merger agreement is available from here, and you can read my coverage of it starting here.
Liberals see current talks as a National Party manouevre to keep the National Party afloat with nothing to offer the Liberals or the people of Queensland. “Their life in Queensland politics is limited, it really is,” I was told.
“Every time something goes wrong they want amalgamation.”
A merged party is seen as a strategic mistake, with the Liberal Party being consumed by the National Party and the resulting organisation less able to win middle-class Brisbane electorates.
“They’ll have more of the numbers than we have, take us to the right and how would we win back those small “l” votes?”
Parer has told his internal critics that he is not holding formal discussions with the Nationals and he has made it clear to them that any amalgamation would need to be at a federal, not a state level.
All very well, but this is seen as too nuanced. Once informal talks are unofficially or officially leaked, then as far as the public is concerned, they’re official. “We’re just good friends” is not a viable modus operandi.
In dallying with the National Party Parer is folllowing a path well-trodden by Liberal leaders, and it always ends with the Liberals looking like they wrecked the party, which has the effect of dragging their vote down.
Former Nationals leader Lawrence Springborg ran a long campaign to amalgamate the two parties, during which he commissioned some research. The research, which you can download from here essentially said that a merger should not be attempted unless there was agreement on all sides. That precondition does not appear to have been met.

I was too young to be paying much attention when Clem Jones was Lord Mayor of Brisbane, but I do remember some things.
Some of the members of my mother’s deeply conservative North Queensland family voted for him, much to mum’s consternation. They would only have done this because he was non-ideological, and he got things done, like sewering the city and bitumening most of its roads.
I’ve bumped into Clem a few times in my career, but at the end of his life where I had to introduce myself every time. He was a good 90 when he died. When I bumped into him he wasn’t Lord Mayor anymore, and was most likely to have a roll of development plans tucked under his arm.
Clem wasn’t a trade union hack, but a surveyor, before he entered politics. And he didn’t depend on politics for his living – although when he was Lord Mayor what they paid councillors was derisory compared to what they get now, so he couldn’t have. He made his fortune out of development.
He wasn’t a careerist for whom an elected office was just a rung on the ladder of opportunity. After he left politics he was still active in the community, notably running the Cracker Jack Carnival at Carina for decades.
It’s people like Clem who’ve paved the way for the success of the modern Labor Party. Pragmatic and non-ideological – that’s the haulmark of contemporary state labor governments. Labor’s also the richest political party in Australia because it has invested wisely. Guys like Clem knew how.
Not that I think Clem would have approved of a lot of state Labor administrations. He never respected red tape, and there is the story of how Brisbane’s first town plan came into being with Clem sitting down alongside the town clerk and drawing circles around the bus and train stations and designating them Residental “B” for higher density. Some of the designations were opaque and obtuse, but they happened a lot faster than they would have under any bureaucratic process.
Sewering the city was similiarly haphazard with connections often run through the middle of blocks – anything to get it done quickly and cheaply. Similar principles applied to tar and sealing roads.
His ability to get things done was recognised when he was given the job of fixing Darwin after cyclone Tracy. Compare that to the shambles that occurred in New Orleans after Katrina.
It seems like the whole world centres around Griffith these days. Kevin07 lives here, and so did Jones.
Griffith the seat wasn’t kind to Jones. He generally had good timing, except for when he ran against Don Cameron for Griffith in 1974. Don was the sitting member, and I think Don would be the first to admit that he was no Clem Jones, but he saw Clem off.
It looks like timing’s returned to Jones. Not only did he die in the midst of Campbell Newman’s huge civic works projects so they could name some of them after him, but he’s a reminder to two successors of a different kind of how to succeed.
To Newman, who’ll likely take his mantle as Brisbane’s next enduring Lord Mayor, he says – keep thinking big. To Kevin Rudd, who won the seat of Griffith, he says – don’t worry about process, achieve results.

The Liberal Party always talks about restructure when it loses an election. This generally has little to do with actual reform, but rather tipping the field so that your enemies are at a disadvantage.
When John Moore took control of the Queensland Liberals after the 1983 losses he set about radically changing the structure, merging “areas” which were constituted on the basis of one per federal electorate, into “zones”, which generally consisted of three areas. There were also changes to the state executive, which if I recall rightly included institution of a formal management committee.
These changes didn’t make much structural sense, but they allowed Moore to radically reshape the personnel on the state executive by abolishing positions and creating new ones that had to be elected by totally new constituencies. There was a veneer of management speak to justify this, but the real motivation was political assassination.
The effectiveness of the reforms can be measured by the fact that a few years later they had to be almost entirely reversed – the zonal system was just too centralised and top-heavy.
Ironically, one of Moore’s lieutenants was Santo Santoro. Not surprisingly, just a few years later, those of us who had been demoted by Moore’s reforms were busy defending him from Santoro who had his own political assissinations in mind.
Now the federal party is talking about the need to reform and make a more “modern” party. The principle reform appears to be to give the federal executive even more power on the pretext that this will allow it to deal with the factions.
The federal executive had enough power to intervene in Queensland after the 1998 election debacle, but as I have chronicled, this was bungled because of John Howard’s preference for people who belonged to the wrecking faction. People like John Herron, Warwick Parer and Santo Santoro. Rather than dealing with factionalism it entrenched it even more deeply. I can’t see how greater powers to intervene would make any difference.
There is also an idea that the federal executive should have more power over the federal leader. The federal executive has always been weak, particularly when the party is in power – that’s the way that Menzies designed it. I sat on the federal executive when Malcolm Fraser was Prime Minister, and he didn’t pay much attention to us. I always thought it was a long way to travel for a nice meal at the Press Club (always a great seafood buffet).
It’s hard to see how you could make the federal executive any stronger. The party’s executives are generally consumed with management issues, and these are dealt with at a state level. Trying to do them any other way would involve enourmous travel expenses. And campaigning and policy, which is where the feds mostly failed, is carried out by the state director and convention and policy committees, respectively, not the state executives.
There is some possibility of using the federal executive to overturn preselections, but if that is deemed necessary, can anyone tell me what preselections during the term of the last parliament would have met criteria which would have justified that decision who weren’t dealt with adequately by their state divisions? I thought not.
Andrew Robb appears to be the chief proponent of change. He has been a consistent proponent of “reform”, and with the failure of every additional tightening of federal control to bring any benefits, he calls for more.
Anyone who thinks reform of the Liberal Party’s constitution will bring it back from the wilderness ought to check their ticket – they’re on the wrong tram.

Peter Beattie, who once hounded a governor-general from office because he didn’t show enough empathy with victims of paedophilia, can’t even say sorry for the disgraceful treatment of a young Aurukun girl which occurred while he was Premier.
In a speech to the Fabian Society in Sydney he blamed everyone but himself for what happened to a 10 year old Aurukun girl. To those who haven’t been paying attention, this 10 year old girl was pack-raped. The perpetrators escaped a custodial sentence. She had been previously raped and put into foster care. Despite the pleas of her family she was returned to her community where they believed she would be raped again. Her mother says that one of those convicted had raped her when she was 7.
All the state actors in this girl’s tragedy – the crown prosecutor, the district court judge, and the child protection agency officials – were either appointed by the Beattie government, or responsible to it. Yet Beattie’s solution is not to reform the state agencies, but to suggest the Commonwealth ought to take over responsibility. No wonder. He won’t take responsibility himself.
So this is what Labor’s “ending the blame game” amounts to.
Beattie wants to use Labor’s majority around Australia to have a constitutional convention to, according to the ABC, “work out, once and for all, who has responsibility over what”. I’ve got news for Beattie – we had one of those just over one hundred years ago, and I’m sure that Rudd won’t be foolish enough to try a repeat. And that convention quite clearly put responsibility for law and order with the states, which is where it should be.
It is racist for Beattie to suggest that aborigines are a special case and ought not to be the responsibility of state governments in the same way that the rest of us are.
Beattie’s attitude ought to rule him out of any official jobs, on the standards he applied when he was Premier. The Department of Families in Queensland has been appalling, in some cases sending children who have been sexually assaulted back to the families where they have been assaulted, so that it has happened again. Not one officer or minister has resigned and taken responsibility. Beattie wouldn’t own the responsibility when he was Premier, perhaps he can be made to wear the consequences now he isn’t.
It’s ironic, that while Rudd is organising to say sorry to indigenous Australians for something most of us were not directly responsible for, this Premier can’t say sorry for something which executive officers under his government actually did.

Warwick Parer, and others, have been referring to a supposed convention that a spill motion must be accepted as carried by the chair of a parliamentary party meeting when the vote is in fact even. While this seems unlikely, it has been uncritically accepted by a number of commentators.
David Fraser is an expert on the Queensland Liberal Party, redistributions, and the party’s history. He writes:

I was reviewing some historical material last night asnd came across a reference to the change of Liberal leadership in 1978 when Llew Edwards replaced Bill Knox. In view of the events of the past ten days, and references to “conventions”, it’s rather interesting.
On 20 September 1978, at a parliamentary party meeting, a motion to suspend standing orders to allow for the moving of a motion declaring the leadership vacant was lost after an 11-11 tie (with one abstention).
Two weeks later another meeting was held and the following motion was moved and carried: That the leadership be declared vacant (Moved: Terry Gygar; Seconded: Bruce Bishop).
So much for the notion that the Liberal Party has a convention that leadership challenges must result in the automatic declaration of a vacancy.
By the way, the motion was carried 13 to 9 and Llew Edwards was the sole nominee for leader.
Ayes: Rob Akers, Brian Austin, Bruce Bishop, Tony Bourke, Llew Edwards, Terry Gygar, Bill Hewitt, Rosemary Kyburz, Don Lane, Col Miller, Guelph Scassola, Norm Scott-Young, Terry White
Noes: Fred Campbell, John Greenwood, Bill Kaus, Bill Knox, Norm Lee, Bill Lickiss, John Lockwood, Bob Moore, Charles Porter
Sam Doumany abstained and there was a vacancy in Sherwood following the death of John Herbert.

Let’s be charitable and say Parer is ignorant of the processes of the party. He wouldn’t just be asserting something because it supports his aims, would he?

This is the text of a media statement made this afternoon:

This afternoon I am informed that the Queensland Liberal Party State Council purported to expel me from the party of which I have been a member for over 30 years.
This decision has not been properly arrived at, as stated in a letter from my solicitors to Liberal Party State President Warwick Parer. The letter can be downloaded from http://ambit-gambit.nationalforum.com.au/archives/_0921144650_001.pdf.
The Queensland Liberals should have learnt many lessons from recent events, including the federal election. One of those lessons is that they have too few members, not too many, with party membership the lowest it has been for half a century.
I am a professional journalist and publisher of Australia’s most popular politics website On Line Opinion. I have pioneered the art of using the Internet for qualitative research and just recently completed an investigation into voting intentions in the federal election with The Australian. During the last election I also anchored a current affairs television show for Briz31, and gave many media interviews.
Not once has it been suggested in the material sent to me by the Liberal Party that in any of my commentary or research I have said anything untrue. The inference must therefore be that my comments have been too close to the bone.
The consequence of this decision, if it is allowed to stand, is that by joining the Liberal Party members give up the right to publicly and honestly criticise the party. Rather, they are required to suppress any information that the State Council, or the Disciplinary Committee, might retrospectively decide should be supressed.
It would appear from the Disciplinary Committee’s report that even when behaviour by party members is illegal a member may not draw attention to it.
This is not an acceptable position for a political party which aspires to run the governments of Australia, especially a party whose constitution is founded on the right to free expression, and who receives funding from the public to conduct its election campaigns.
Every time the state and federal liberal parties talk about protecting whistle blowers their hypocrisy will be evident.
A fuller analysis of the party’s position is in my submission to the Disciplinary Committee, which can be downloaded from http://ambit-gambit.nationalforum.com.au/archives/Disciplinary_Committee_Hearing_14_08_07.pdf.
Once I receive official notification from the Liberal Party, it is my intention to ask the courts to enforce my rights. This is not just a personal matter, it affects everyone interested in open, transparent and effective governance in this country.
A copy of the original charge can be downloaded from http://ambit-gambit.nationalforum.com.au/archives/Liberal%20Party%20Notice%20-%20Young%2009%2008%2007%20Scanned.doc.pdf.
A copy of the Disciplinary Committee’s report to the State Council can be downloaded from http://ambit-gambit.nationalforum.com.au/archives/Liberal%20Party%20-%20Disciplinary%20Committee%20Report%20to%20State%20Council%20-%20Graham%20Young%2021%2009%2007.pdf

The decision to flouridate Queensland’s water supply gives Premier Anna Bligh a signature achievement that should easily define her premiership for generations to come. Former Lord Mayor of Brisbane, Clem Jones, is most remembered for sewering Brisbane. Former Premier Joh Bjelke-Petersen had the street marches and being tried for corruption, but is also identified with the mining and tourism industries and Expo. Posterity needs an easy label to hang on you so it can remember you.
Bligh’s predecessor lacks such a signature as premier. I was contacted by a number of journalists on the retirement of Peter Beattie and asked what his defining policy achievements were. It was hard to find one. While Beattie touted the “Smart State” as a success, I don’t think our collective IQ actually increased during his term, it was mostly a rhetorical policy. And most of the Smart State innovation is stuff that would have happened under any government. Beattie extended trends, but he didn’t really start anything. In the end I decided his greatest achievement was reform of the Labor Party when he was Labor Party State Secretary.
Flouride is a particular family hobby horse. I endured hours of lectures from my father about how Brisbane should have flouridated water, like Vancouver, where I spent the first five years of my life. So I was partly fulfilling family destiny in 1997 when, as Queensland Liberal Party Campaign Chairman, I pushed for flouridating Brisbane’s water to be a central plank in that years mayoral campaign. Despite a tentative start by lord mayoral candidate Bob Mills the policy was still-born. There were too many anti-flouride zealots in the Liberal Party.
It was a pity. Flouride was good policy, and should have been good politics. Mills desperately needed an issue on which to stand-out; the uncumbent, Jim Soorley, was another anti-flouride zealot and actively kept it out of Brisane’s water supply so we were guaranteed a fight; the dental association was prepared to offer support; and it should have appealed most to that key swing group – parents (particulalry female ones) of young children.
Now Bligh’s going to make it happen. Full marks to her. It’s a promising early start, and if she does no more in her term of office, she’ll certainly be remembered for this.