Norman Abjorensen Friday 6 February 2015
The Liberal party belongs to strong leaders, but Abbott never managed to achieve the authority of a Holt, Fraser or Howard – and certainly not of Menzies
‘Unlike their Labor counterparts, a new Liberal party leader inherits something of a blank canvas on which he or she, if given time, is free to paint’ Photograph: Penny Bradfield/AP
A most curious beast is the Liberal party, paradoxically a party that would prefer not to be a party; little understood, under-studied and a puzzle even to itself. The party’s antecedents in the early 20th century reluctantly overcame their distaste of political organisation only to counter the rising collective power of the nascent Labor party which had invaded the hitherto gentlemen’s club of parliament with a radically subversive agenda to share the spoils of a productive and affluent society.
While the Liberal party bears a superficial resemblance to the Labor Party – that is, with a geographical branch structure, a federal organisation, and a capacity, albeit limited, for member input into policy and candidate selection – there is a significant difference: the Liberal party remains very much a leadership party, a top-down constellation of power that is far from democratic.
Unlike their Labor counterparts, a new Liberal party leader inherits something of a blank canvas on which he or she, if given time, is free to paint. The picture is invariably a self-portrait, perhaps modified by artistic license.
That Robert Menzies, with a little help from others, constructed the modern Liberal party in his own image is no secret; it was designed, first and foremost, as a grand vehicle for his political resurrection. Menzies and the Liberal party became a single and virtually indivisible entity.
His obsession with royalty and Empire was not shared by all his colleagues, and when he proposed calling the new decimal currency the “Royal”, they merely sniggered, as they did with his elevation to the archaic honorary post of Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports with its equally archaic uniform. But he was indulged, such was his authority (even if public ridicule did force a retreat from the “Royal”).
After Menzies retired, Harold Holt led a radical rethink of White Australia. Menzies was gone and still revered; but this was now Harold Holt’s party. Eyebrows might have been raised at his radical departure from Empire and his turn towards Asia, but no one dared to openly demur.
John Gorton, Holt’s unconventional successor, assumed he had the same latitude. But after trampling on some sacred Liberal ground, such as states’ rights, and presiding over a major loss of seats at the 1969 election, his authority was weakened and he was removed by an increasingly nervous party room.
After the loss to Labor in 1972, the new leader Billy Snedden (to whom Abbott is already being unfavourably compared) proved ineffectual, especially after losing the 1974 election.
The Liberal Party between 1975 and 1983 was Malcolm Fraser writ large. He championed multiculturalism to the chagrin of many of his followers; even bolder, he reversed the party’s longstanding tacit (and occasionally even overt) support for the white supremacist regimes of southern Africa, playing as he did a significant role in helping turn the international tide. Many in his party saw this as a betrayal, but as long as he was winning elections he could have his way.
Tellingly, after his defeat in 1983 and his immediate resignation, the key issue of southern Africa abruptly slipped from the Liberal party radar. One day it was there as an unwavering principle; next day it was as though it had never existed. The Liberal party was no longer Malcolm Fraser.
John Howard, with his 1996 election victory, owed no debts to either the electorate or the party. He was handed the traditional blank canvas (and would, as all do, pay dutiful homage to Menzies), but his initial and subsequent successes at the polls overcame what had been significant hostility to him within the party, especially in Victoria. A large part of that concern was about his radical stance on industrial relations which, as history now tells us, was the principal cause of his defeat in 2007.
In other words, the party had been blinded by electoral success to the dangers it already sensed, but Howard’s authority prevailed (and especially so, with his ruthless purging and sidelining of moderates who held most qualms).
Tony Abbott’s problem is that he has never been able to achieve the authority of a Holt, a Fraser, a Howard and certainly not a Menzies, each of whom had personal convictions not necessarily shared by the party, but whose leadership stature and the moral suasion that goes with it was such that the party simply acquiesced.
His narrow win by a single vote of the leadership in 2009 was evidence of lukewarm support, but his 2013 election win, despite ongoing reservations about his leadership, saved the day. But he has seriously misread his party and the limits of his own authority if he thinks he has its collective blessing to indulge his pet schemes, like the unpopular paid parental leave program and the knighting of Prince Philip. In this sense Abbott is hobbled, and has deluded himself.
Like Rudd, Abbott has failed to understand the importance (and the interests) of his primary constituency, the party room. Unlike those before him, he has failed to make it an Abbott party, and the party’s exercise of its most democratic feature – the power to decide who leads it – may well render that failure terminal.
