I have been saying this for a while now: the Liberal party is slowly abandoning it's core values. Many of it's supporters have not cottoned on to this yet, but the debacle over Nelson's fuel excise cut has really brought it to the front page. At the same time, the Labor party is gradually abandoning it's roots, for example by distancing itself politically from the Unions. Both parties appear to be drifting towards the centre, but what is interesting is that they are not staying on their traditional 'side' of the centre. It will be interesting to see where they end up.
Libs complete their cave-in!!! http://www.ozpolitic.com/forum/YaBB.pl?num=1204166399Changed support for major parties: study http://www.ozpolitic.com/forum/YaBB.pl?num=1192069707Visionless leader floundering IF the Libs are finding it tough going in Opposition, they should spare a thought for the punters. Many of us are wondering what precisely the Liberal Party stands for. Not what it stands for in a general sense. We all know the Liberal Party mantra: freedom of choice, hard work, taking risks, small business and so on. Brendan Nelson gave a fine budget reply last week that warmed the conservative heart.
But throwing a few bare bones to the converted is not enough. If the Libs are serious about winning back the voters they lost last November, they need to relaunch themselves into relevance by defending their biggest remaining asset: a successful economic legacy founded on economically responsible policies.
At the federal election last year, the Liberal Party castigated Kevin Rudd for his populist pronouncements on petrol. In power, the Rudd Government realised it could not reduce petrol prices in an economically responsible way.
Enter Nelson and his promise last week to cut fuel excise.
It is pure populism that goes to the heart of the problems besetting the Liberal Party. Desperate to live another day as leader, Nelson is pursuing a populist policy that makes no long-term economic sense. That’s why, as The Australian reported on Monday, Peter Costello, Alexander Downer and shadow treasurer Malcolm Turnbull opposed the fuel excise. That many other members of the senior Liberal leadership team - including those regarded as economic hardheads - can sign on to such a vacuous policy tells you that they have stopped protecting the Liberal Party brand.
One would think that the shenanigans at the state level, now emerging at regular intervals like some late-night horror movie ghoul, would be frightening the daylights out of the federal Liberal Party.
Juvenile chair-sniffing incidents in Western Australia aside, the long refusal of the NSW Liberal Party to stand up for the privatisation of the state’s electricity assets points to a party that no longer understands core Liberal Party principles. And as much as Victorian Opposition Leader Ted Baillieu may bang on about treachery when two staff members were found to be associated with websites that labelled him as “he who stands for nothing”, there’s a powerful message there if he and other Liberals choose to listen rather than shoot the messenger. The full message, from one of the US’s founding fathers, Alexander Hamilton, is “those who stand for nothing fall for anything”.
The politically befuddled Baillieu is the national poster boy for confused Liberalism. The classic emperor with no clothes, it is simply not enough that the man looks good in a well-cut conservative suit. Baillieu won’t be leading the Victorian Libs to power by mimicking Labor on everything from multiculturalism to climate change. When he moved further to the Left than Victoria’s Bracks Labor government on civil unions for gays, he signalled his contempt for mainstream values.
Nelson is no Baillieu. But six months as Opposition Leader is sufficient time to get a feel for Nelson’s Liberal convictions. His unmistakable tendency, when speaking off the cuff, to opt for shallow rhetoric instead of articulating policy grounded in Liberal philosophy points to a leader who is neither a comfortable nor confident Liberal.
Speaking at the National Press Club in March about why he is a Liberal, Nelson said he would not forget delivering his first baby, or his first cot death, or his first suicide, or his first resuscitation of someone who had had a cardio-respiratory arrest. Sure, the Libs need to show compassion, but Nelson is drowning in the stuff at the expense of policy. His pursuit of an $800,000 grant to counselling and support agency Bonnie Babes before he was willing to articulate the Liberal’s position on industrial relations reveals that Nelson is nervous about taking a stand on big issues.
That was only repeated earlier this month when Nelson was asked what he thought about the Rudd Government’s decision to means-test the baby bonus. His response that “every mother loves her baby” and “all babies are equal” was the sign of a leader, albeit well-meaning, who cannot respond with policy alternatives.
When, after the budget, Nelson was asked on ABC radio whether it was reasonable for Labor to apply a means test on a family earning $150,000 before receiving a family tax benefit, he squibbed it with more equivocating rhetoric about it being “very important that we support families”. When asked by ABC reporter Chris Uhlmann whether he had an opinion on it, Nelson left listeners with the unfortunate view that he did not
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