It’s more or less official – the National Party is over. Queensland National Party Leader Lawrence Springborg is launching a serious of advertisements this evening promoting him as the alternative state premier, according to AAP, but without mentioning the National Party at all.
QUEENSLAND Opposition Leader Lawrence Springborg says there’s no point in spruiking the Nationals brand in advertising campaigns, as he’s confident there will be a single new conservative party by the next election….
Mr Springborg, who is championing the amalgamation of the Queensland coalition parties, said he no longer wished to promote the Nationals brand.
“There’s no point in advertising the Nationals name or the coalition – this is about leadership, it’s a leadership campaign,” Mr Springborg told AAP.
“It says there’s a better way, and leaves it open for the new party to seamlessly morph into that.”
This is what Springborg did to the Coalition brand last electoral cycle – trashed it. Now he’s doing it to the National Party. As a result he is more or less committed to a new party, although without the Liberals it will be in some ways little more than a rebadging of the Nationals.
It will be without the Liberals. Politically, the Queensland Liberals look a little like the Iraqi government, but when the factions pause from bombing each other there is one thing they all agree on “No new conservative party!”
And where the Queensland National Party goes, there goes the party in the rest of Australia. They used to be called the Country Party, but when the Queenslanders decided that they’d outgrown the country and were going to take over the world, the rest followed suit. The Joh for PM push was the result, which cost the federal coalition the election that year.
That year was 1987, 21 years, or one generation, ago. Makes you wonder whether the Nationals and their heirs are destined to repeat the mistakes of their forefathers “even unto the seventh generation”.
The advertising campaign refers viewers to Springborg’s website www.springborg.com. Is it an omen that when I clicked on the site just now it has a message “Coming soon”? You shouldn’t pretend to be the real deal when you’re stil very much under construction!
Springborg’s stupid website just tried to trap me there. Back button in my browser didn’t work.
Comment by Mark Bahnisch — March 26, 2008 @ 5:56 pm
They’ve now switched on the site. Obviously no-one understands that it’s a 24 hour media cycle now and if you let the press know about something it has to be live then.
But it still hijacks your back button. How rude!
Perhaps we should do a joint effort critiquing the site. I’m just looking at the video. Not YouTube, and not good quality
Comment by Graham Young — March 26, 2008 @ 9:16 pm
Given the Libs/Nats are the one party anyway, it doesn’t matter in the slightest. The only people who argue against the merger are the politicians and very involved party members, to the rest of the country it makes sense. Not to mention that classical liberals have absolutely no useful power in the Liberal party. A united conservative party by any name just makes sense.
Comment by vee — March 27, 2008 @ 10:41 am
That’s a good idea. I’ve just watched the ad – it’s terrible.
Comment by Mark Bahnisch — March 27, 2008 @ 1:05 pm
Judging by the local Government election, and the last Federal Government election – I would say that the number of people who vote only based on party lines is diminishing.
Future election campaigns need to be about people and ideas – not tired ideology and parties.
So I welcome the Borg going it alone, he’s certainly not going to get much help from Mcardle or Flegg.
Comment by Hosea Bob — March 27, 2008 @ 3:06 pm
(I believe the advert does mention “authorised by the National Party…” so they do get a minor mention.)
So now that Brough is running for Pres do you think he is more pro-merger?
Why don’t they just merge and become the Liberal National Party. We all know after a few years parties often drop the last part of their names (eg National Country Party in NSW). Liberals think their name is so important, and Nats won’t join under just the Liberal name (they could do that today if they wanted to be a Liberal).
I also hear grass roots Libs are keen to have a cleaned up constitution to get away from the factions. So win-win.
Comment by Joe — April 2, 2008 @ 9:24 am