I have received better information on the Liberal National Party, so I’ve uploaded a few files. Make of them what you will.
The major difference between what I was told, and what appears to be the case is that there will be four regions in the south-east, not two. I’m not sure that it will make much difference to which of the former parties will control them. While the National Party is weak in Brisbane, so those two regions should remain in ex-Liberal hands, outside Brisbane the membership is fairly weak. I wouldn’t be surprised if the National Party had more members on the Gold and Sunshine Coasts than the Libs, as well as in the rest of the state, despite the fact that the Libs have many more elected members at a federal level.
The proposed structure also appears to reflect the Nationals’ structure more than the Liberals’ and at one level is unwieldy, and at another confers power on a smaller group of people than the current Liberals’ structure. It proposes an executive of 22, half the size of the current Liberal Party State Council, which is the group that meets every two months to run the party, but slightly larger than the Management Committee, which meets monthly.
It also proposes a State Council to meet bi-annually that could have as many as 200 entitled to attend, including all members of parliament, federal, state and local, and all chairmen of state and federal electorate committees. This group wouldn’t be capable of a management function as much as a general oversight one, so it looks like 22 people will run the new party for all practical intents and purposes.
There will also be a state convention, which assuming the parties are telling us the truth about their memberships, will comprise around 1700 people! One delegate for every 10 branch members plus the State Council.
So far the concentration has been on the actual question of whether the parties ought to amalgamate, but it’s about time that the parties looked at the practicality of what is proposed.
The documents that I have uploaded are:
- Table of proposed regions and voters per region
- Springborg’s version of the Liberal National Party
“There will also be a state convention, which assuming the parties are telling us the truth about their memberships, will comprise around 1700 people! One delegate for every 10 branch members plus the State Council.”
You’re running off the old model, with out of date information… a new deal is just around the corner.
Comment by Doug — May 21, 2008 @ 4:57 pm
We’ll see. This is what they’ve told the State Council, and you would have thought that they would stick closely to the bones of what they’ve discussed.
So what else are they going to ditch?
Comment by Graham Young — May 21, 2008 @ 5:43 pm
imagine a system where delegates to convention are limited to 5 from every SEC with 1 additional delegate for every 250 members in the SEC over the first 250.
imagine the end of branch stacking then as we know it…
Comment by Doug — May 22, 2008 @ 11:30 am
Looking further down the track, if the amalgamation goes ahead, and if the new party succeeds in getting Federal MPs elected to Canberra, would they sit in the Liberal party room or the Nationals? I think that is the real test of the nature of the beast.
Comment by rossco — May 22, 2008 @ 12:21 pm
Good question Rossco. I guess you mean people who aren’t already members of parliament?
The document given to the Liberals suggests that everyone will be Liberals, but Springborg’s document suggests they won’t.
Doug, how does your proposal end branch stacking?
Comment by Graham Young — May 22, 2008 @ 12:51 pm
An SEC with 1000 members will have have 8 delegates to convention whereas under the Liberal constitution they would have 100 delegates. An SEC with 100 members has 5 delegates whereas previously they would have 10.
There is no longer an incentive to enrol every member in your family plus the family dog just to boost delegate entitlements.
Of course every person can vote in preselections but the existing rule requiring residency in the electorate for which you are preselecting fixed that several years back.
Comment by Doug — May 22, 2008 @ 3:35 pm
Doug, in an effort to kill branch stacking you’ve just killed democracy! How can you justify an SEC with 10 times the members having only 66.66 more representation?
Comment by Graham Young — May 22, 2008 @ 4:08 pm
Well it works for Senate preselections quite well.
Isn’t the complaint with branch stacking that concentrated numbers make it unrepresentative?
Comment by Doug — May 23, 2008 @ 10:30 am