John Howard may well describe the Liberal Party as a broad church, but God help you if you are on the wrong side of the nave. Or should that be knave?
The past week has seen a further break-out of ideological warfare (or at least skirmishing) in the Liberal Party. There were two sources of the skirmishes. One was a statement by retiring MP Michael Ronaldson that Peter Costello was the natural successor to John Howard. The other was the Young Liberals’ conference in Canberra condemning former Liberal Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser and an equivocal speech by newly appointed Cabinet Minister Tony Abbott defending Fraser, much as Mark Antony defended Brutus. In doing so, Abbott referred to the broad church, while smugly sitting on the right side of the nave.
Ronaldson’s remark on its face was remarkably unremarkable. Ever since the Telecard affair damned Peter Reith’s chance at the leadership – if there ever was one – it was obvious that Peter Costello was in the box seat. So why would any on-record formal statement by a retiring back-bencher to that effect be of any moment? Well, because every leader prefers two or more leadership aspirants, rather than one. Two or more cancel each other out. Reith and Costello cancelled each other out. When both were in the game, it was seen that they would only fight it out after Howard voluntarily decided to quit. If only one were in the game, Howard might not have the luxury to deciding when to quit. There would be a challenge.
Some historical context is illuminating. Of all the men who have been Prime Minister – all bar one have been thrown from the prime ministership by their own party, the electorate or death, at least once in their career. Only Barton retired of his own free will. There are two other quasi-exceptions. Menzies was thrown by his party but returned later to retire gracefully 16 years later. Fisher was thrown by the electorate to return later to retire voluntarily. All other 20-plus Prime Ministers were ejected by party or people. So don’t expect Howard to retire. He will, like nearly all those before him, be thrown, unless he can get an ally, like Abbott to neutralise Costello.
In that context, Ronaldson’s comment should be seen as part of the schism in John Howard’s broad Liberal church. His statement should not be seen as a statement of the obvious, but padded out to read “”Peter Costello as a small l liberal socially will be a better Prime Minister than Tony Abbott, a social conservative.” It was more than a personality statement.
It should not be seen as a NSW vs Victoria thing either. The state rivalry is only a guise that would be swamped by policy rivalry.
A week ago Abbott attempted to paint himself as the tolerant successor to the Menzies legacy. His starting point was the Young Liberals’ bagging or former Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser for being to wet on things like Aborigines, the Republic, the environment, internationalism and a Bill of Rights. Abbott attempted to paint himself as the tolerant, respectful man saying that Fraser deserved the respect of all in the party and the young Liberals had been impetuous and disrespectful, but the sub-text was that Fraser had gone off the rails.
The Young Liberals, hitherto the pricking conscience and probing questioner of orthodoxy of Liberal Party, has turned sharp right, though it has remained true to its role as iconoclastic thorn in the side – but jabbing from the other direction.
So Abbott, Voltaire-like, comes to Fraser’s rescue, disagreeing with everything Fraser says, but defending his right to say it – but in truth only because he wanted a pretext to display his “”liberalism”.
Truth is, Howard has led the Liberal Party away from liberalism in the past five years. In the dying days of the Labor Government, Labor was detested for factionalism verging on tribalism and looking after mates with public money – either in the form of jobs or in the form of taxpayers’ money being spent on marginal seats or narrow party interest.
The Liberal Party – led by John Howard who promised to uphold a standard of decency – has now equalled, or perhaps surpassed the excesses to the Hawke-Keating years. Every board with few exceptions has been stacked with political mates. The advertising for the GST has surpassed Labor’s jobs campaigns, and the Liberals’ everything-for-regional-Australia campaigns make the sports-rorts white board look amateurish. Fallen Liberal MP mates have been given consolations, most recently the richly-undeserved former Senator Jim Short got the full-time make-up job as special envoy to Cyprus, formerly a very part-time occupation of another seat-losing Liberal turned diplomat, John Spender as Ambassador to France.
Howard’s Government is also as faction-riven as Keating’s. Economic dries and a social conservatives (like Labor’s NSW right) have muscled others out. The only exception – Amanda Vanstone — proves the rule. She had to be readmitted to Cabinet after Jocelyn Newman retired because there had to be a woman.
All other talented small-l liberals on social policy have been left out or thrown out of the Ministry – Chris Gallus, Petro Georgiou, Brendan Nelson, Bruce Baird and Julie Bishop. Even John Fahey, who had the temerity to support a Republic, is not being supported by Howard in his pre-selection battle for the seat of Hume (most of which is his old seat of Macarthur).
Abbott aped his leader’s words last week in saying that the Liberal Party is a broad church and that it should not be seen as a battleground between conservatives and small-l liberals but a symbiosis between the two that broadened electoral appeal.
It was twaddle.
Under Howard the left side of the nave has been squashed. But as Howard’s term comes to its close, expect it to assert itself more in the hope that a Costello leadership will be more inclusive. Certainly expect it to fight Abbott’s pretence at leadership however remote it seems now because Abbott promises more of the Howard line. Conversely expect the social conservatives to be drawn to him — unless he is seen as incompatible with electoral victory, in which case all principle will go out the window (the Liberals are not at foot-shooting as Labor) and they will tolerate Costello despite what they see as dangerous social liberalism. Economically, they are both dry.
Therein lies an irony in Australia’s political landscape. The party that supposedly defines itself on the economic agenda – the Liberal Party — will have its leadership determined on social outlook and the party that defines itself socially – Labor — is having its schism fought out on the economic front (with Mark Latham).
Abbott’s attempt last weekend to paper over the gaps in social outlook of members of the broad church only highlighted them. The attempt was almost as silly as the statement earlier this year from new Liberal president Shane Stone who said he was “”happy we have a broad church, I just wish we would start singing from the same songbook”.
Stone missed the point. The analogy of the broad church is not that they have an outward appearance of unity by singing the same tune (that is taken for granted), but that inwardly they can tolerate, indeed promote, a range of theological (ideological) views within the same organisation. It is not happening now. It may be a broad church but preferment is only available to those on the right side of the nave, while Howard is leader. And as his tenure comes to an end, the members on the left side of the church will work to ensure that that situation does not continue under a new leader, while those on the right will work the other way.
Events of the past week were just an understated example.