Mal Brough favours amalgamation of the Liberal and National Parties, but only on the right conditions. Speaking today at the Queensland Media Club lunch Brough stressed that an amalgamation should only happen after proper input from the membership and if it improved the chances of the current National and Liberal Parties winning state and federal elections. He expressed his concern that the proposed constitution did not allow for that.
He singled out the fact that under the proposed constitution members would not get to vote in a Senate preselection until 2020, nor in a preselection for lower house state and federal seats for 5 or so years as areas of concern.
The Liberal party plebiscite was another area of concern. He pointed out that while most in the room were in favour of a republic, the republican referendum failed because voters the principle isn’t enough, you have to have a specific model. He said that while a plebiscite might show the membership was in favour of an amalgamation it wouldn’t show what sort of amalgamation they favoured.
Brough also inadvertently revealed the corruption of the Liberal Party’s administration admitting he had been unable to write to delegates directly because the party secretariat will not make a delegate list available to him. This is unprecedented.
The speech was entitled “The Future of the Liberal Party and its importance to Queensland and Australia” and Brough is tipped by many to be the next Liberal Party president, but there were few Liberals in attendance. Federal Parliamentarians would have been in Canberra, but out of the 8 sitting state members, only 3 were present. Factional heavies were also thin on the ground, although Vice-President John Caris was in attendance.
Some of them may have been off planning for the State Council which is to be held tomorrow evening. I’m told that the reason for this is to set the amalgamation in its current form, in stone.
Brough didn’t rule out running for a seat in the future, but he said it would only happen if the Liberal Party could be fixed. Going on the support that he received today, and the behind the scenes machinations, that’s a task even more forbidding than the NT intervention.
May 28, 2008 | Graham
One party, but…
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I suspect Mal Brough does not only want to be Liberal state president but also be the new LNP president. All comments must be considered in that light. The new constitution does guarantee the selection of sitting members but not other candidates.
The corruption, factionalism, and branch stacking within the Liberal camp are only exceeded by the lack of discipline and unauthorised comments to the press.
Unity with the Nationals who have never looked more teamlike, determined and cashed up must give ordinary Liberals some hope for a better day.
Comment by Lionheart — May 30, 2008 @ 12:31 pm
These “Conservatives” (and I use the word loosely) had spndnieg increases these past 2.5 years that outpaced those of the Liberals. Who’s spndnieg all your money again?And perhaps these “conservatives” won’t try to run your life directly. Instead they give that power over to private corporations, by writing and passing such legislation as bill C-61, which would make it a $20,000 offense to copy your own CD over to your iPod for your own personal use.These “conservatives” promise senate reform, no more partisan appointed senators. But that only lasted one day before they appointed a friend and campaign manager to a senate position, even though Fortier could have been put in the cabinet without that (except then he wouldn’t get the paycheque, perks, and pension of a senator)These “conservatives” promised me sovereignty in the arctic with a fleet of fighting capable ice-breakers.. that got turned into non-ice-breaking coastal supply ships, that eventually got cancelled. Yeah, I’m sure America and Russia *really* respect our claim to the arctic now.These “conservatives” raised my income taxes so that I could save a couple cents on a listeria infected sandwich.These “conservatives” break their own promises regularly and have no shame in trying to shift their election expenses to take more of my tax dollars into their party coffers.Let’s be honest. These guys aren’t conservative in anything but name. What they really are is Liberals in blue suits.
Comment by Matylda — December 15, 2012 @ 7:42 am