The Labor Party is masterful at post-election victory lap, wheeling out their star players and coach to provide extensive commentary on the failure of the Coalition.
Their script is always the same, extolling the electorate for rejecting extremists, deniers, and crackpots. Sadly, in Liberal land, this too often frames the debate and kicks off an inevitable avalanche of recriminations.
Rather than waste time lapping up Labor’s commentary, the Liberals must study their form.
Labor currently does politics better.
Their political culture is one of ruthless discipline, forever campaigns, and perpetual candidate development. The political excellence of Labor is not an accident; the party has been forced to get good at politics because socialism has proven to be a weak electoral product.
At its simplest Labor is a political movement based in the workplace, focused on the economic betterment of union members. However, the party casts a broader net, capturing a bigger base with handouts, familiarity, and targeted advocacy.
Labor’s heart and soul is union, but their front of house is community advocacy.
The party machine wields a vast network of community organisers, paid activists, and allied organisations. While at times these groups have conflicting interests, Labor’s political culture is one of unity through compromise. A political trait mastered by the centre left and designed to take advantage of the Australian electoral system.
Labor’s preference machine is its ultimate political asset. The governing majority is a coalition of preferences from centrist independents to the hard left culture warriors, the result being artificially large margins in metro and suburban electorates. Building a broad coalition in opposition isn’t difficult; the magic trick is holding it together in government – a feat requiring extraordinary discipline, delicate stakeholder management, and ultimately a weak opposition.
In contrast, the Liberal Party hasn’t evolved much since Howard’s 1996 victory, with most of the membership stuck in the same decade. Since then, the party organisation has been run by the politicians and staffers, who regularly make a mockery of grassroots representation, policy development, and meritocratic renewal.
The Liberal’s most impactful organisational failure has been its inability to engage migrant communities. From issues-based advocacy to candidate development, the effort has been tokenistic at best – despite these communities carrying the same aspirational DNA the party was founded on. Compounding this has been the party’s inability to identify a mission or prosecute a purpose while in government. After nine years, the Coalition minted three Prime Ministers, increased public debt and through their failure to make the economy fairer, turned a generation toward Labor.
Yet despite all of this, the centre right is not going the way of the Tassie Tiger.
Labor’s political model of progressive consensus has a limited shelf life, but as a party the Liberals shouldn’t rely on the inherent failures of socialism to get themselves re-elected. The party must study Labor’s form to sharpen its organisation, candidates and campaign machine.
Going back to basics, the Liberals ought to recognise that the foundation of the centre right is the community. Not the workplace, big business, or activist groups. Conservatism begins in homes and neighbourhoods and focuses on issues which have material impact around the kitchen table and community.
For the Liberal Party to rebuild, the logical place to start is local government.
In every state, there are thousands of dissatisfied rate payers. Most are politically dispassionate but hold views that local government should live within its means – and get pissed when they are forced to pay for it, failing to do so. At its heart, this is a view about prudence and responsibility, which neatly sums up the Liberal Party’s brand equities of lower taxes and smaller government.
As the Liberal Party’s membership languishes, the organisation should retool to embrace councillors and local government-related community groups. At an organisational level, the party should formally engage in local government elections. Identifying and endorsing new candidates to stand, while providing mentoring and support for councillors once elected.
As Labor and the Greens have recognised, local government provides an excellent training ground for future parliamentarians. It requires candidates to be responsive to local issues and to reflect the people who elect them. A term or two in local government will either train and inspire a person to political office or cure them altogether.
The Liberal’s need to treat political opposition as an opportunity to do more than just bicker. It is a time for new ideas, organisational reform and most importantly, new people. Just as Labor ties its political fortunes to the advancement of the union, so should the Liberal Party tie itself to the advancement of ratepayers.
