A superficial interpretation of Tony Abbott’s latest mutterings would suggest the former prime minister is a fan of democracy. He certainly claims to be, particularly when it comes to “democratic” reform of the New South Wales Liberal Party.
But a closer look at Abbott’s motivation for party reform, paired with his calls for changes to the Senate, show he’s only interested in wresting power from those with whom he disagrees.
On its face, Tony Abbott’s call for “democratic” reform of the NSW Liberal Party seems perfectly reasonable. As he rightly noted last weekend, Liberal Party members are generally expected to turn up, pay up and shut up.
All important decisions are made at the highest levels of the state and national divisions of the party, while grassroots members attend monthly meetings to debate policy resolutions that aren’t binding on MPs, run seemingly never-ending fundraising drives, and man the polling booths on election day.
So it makes a lot of sense to re-engage demotivated grassroots members by giving them a greater say in party decision-making, such as the selection of candidates.
But it’s equally fair to say that grassroots members might not have the knowledge or expertise to choose a candidate who can win the seat, let alone be a good local member or minister. This is particularly the case if the members are not representative of the broader electorate, which is usually the case with the Liberal Party.
[Matthewson: Tony Abbott’s plan for revenge has gone horribly wrong]
Despite Abbott’s claims that the NSW division is “haemorrhaging members”, the party’s membership in that state is around 11,000 and has been that way for the “past five years or so”. Across the Murray, the Victorian Liberals have around 13,000 members, and according to the Victorian Liberals’ state president Michael Kroger, half the state party’s members are aged over 70.
There is little to suggest the NSW party’s demographics are significantly different. The state’s Liberal Party members aren’t representative of the broader community, yet Tony Abbott wants them to have a greater say in selecting the party’s candidates.
This is not just because lobbyists are holding senior party positions or having significant influence over party decisions. It is because such lobbyists are wielding that power that the moderates, who’ve taken control of the state party’s decision-making bodies, are blocking the preselection of conservative candidates.
For example, when former treasurer Joe Hockey bowed out of federal politics after Turnbull became leader, the NSW Liberals’ president and leading moderate, Trent Zimmerman, beat the conservatives’ preferred candidate for the position.
And then before the last federal election, conservative warrior Bronwyn Bishop was replaced by Liberal moderate Jason Falinski, who also beat former Abbott campaign manager Walter Villatora for the position. Villatoria lost again to James Griffin, who won preselection for the state seat of Manly after it was vacated by the former NSW premier Mike Baird. There’s even talk the moderates will orchestrate a challenge against Abbott for preselection before the next federal election.
So Tony Abbott’s push for grassroots party members — who are more conservative than the party executive — to have a say in preselection decisions is more an effort to counter the dominance of moderates in the NSW division than it is a fight for democracy.
For if Abbott actually believed in democracy — that is, political equality for all voters – he wouldn’t be arguing for reforms that would allow the government of the day to overrule the Senate. Yet that is what Abbott is calling for in the latest iteration of his “election manifesto”.
Abbott essentially rejects the right of democratically elected senators to reject or negotiate improvements to government legislation, claiming “the Senate has become a house of rejection, not a house of review”. At no time does he acknowledge that the composition of the Senate is a direct result of Australian voters deliberately creating an upper house that will provide checks and balances on the government.
[Abbott’s Australian vision: poorer, hotter, more socialist]
In an effort to end this Senate “gridlock”, Abbott has proposed that section 57 of the constitution be amended by a referendum at the next election, making it possible for legislation rejected twice by the Senate to be put to a joint sitting of both houses of Parliament without the need to hold a double-dissolution election first.
In short, the man whose austerity budget was blocked by a more compassionate Senate wants to change the power dynamic between the two houses of Parliament, to ensure that any governing party with a strong majority in the House of Representatives can overrule a Senate that was created by voters to keep it in check.
Such a move would be the antithesis of democracy, because it would diminish the democratic rights of Senate voters.
During Tony Abbott’s long campaign of attrition against Malcolm Turnbull, political observers have become accustomed to the fact that the former PM is not big on consistency or internal logic. But his diametrically opposed positions on democracy — advocating more for Liberal conservatives but less for Senate voters — are the most incoherent yet. That’s because they are about wresting, consolidating and exercising power, and not about political equality at all.
Once again Crikey writers betray their suspicion of grassroots democracy.
“The state’s Liberal Party members aren’t representative of the broader community, yet Tony Abbott wants them to have a greater say in selecting the party’s candidates.”
Are the party elite more “representative” of the electorate than the members?
Any Party should be representative of its members, not “the broader community”. That’s what Parliament is for.
On principle and in practice I support greater member say in Parties, especially in preselection – greater democracy in the Liberal party would be the best way to ensure they never enter government again!
Huh? I don’t feel this article “betray(s) Crikey’s writers suspicions of grassroots democracy at all. I agree with what Paula has written. aTonement has always been always been all about himself.
Maybe you should read my comment to the end.
Babs isn’t much of a reader
Oh mighty Spartan warrior, this is your BFF Babs here. Lucky we have you here to keep us on the straight and narrow. The suppositions you make about how people think and vote are truly stupendous. Keep the compliments coming please.
The thing is Bob, if he really wanted the thing we NOW call democracy, he’d push for the UK Labour model. You know, the ballot that gave them Jeremy Corbyn.
Or, he would’ve done so when he led the party.
But he won’t, because a recent Essential poll says that 43% of voters want Tony Abbott to just fuck off already.
You need to remember that the “demos” were fully-enfranchised citizens (with tossils*, of course); a very priveleged caste in Tony Abbotts day (circa Peloponnesian Wars), not the general populace (polloi).
So he is using the word correctly; he just doesn’t realise it.
Read what you will into the fact that in the Peloponnesos, the demos were called homoioi (“those who are alike”) with the masses called helot (“captive”)
You also need to remember that Crikey correspondents are still hurting over the fact, that they spent more than a year declaring Corbyns leadership to be an irretrievable calamity, with Bernard Keane being alone in admitting that they fucked up, and Guy Rundle STILL refusing to believe it.
It’ll be a long time before they have anything nice to say about direct representation.
*(apropos of not very much, testimony was named after what you swore on; yep, your apricots)
My point wasn’t about Abbott or the Liberal party, it was about Keane’s article yesterday and this one today, that seems to find the idea of a party controlled by its members distasteful.
Regarding demokratia, the analogy with the Peloponnesos, by which I assume you mean Sparta, isn’t that useful, as no-one’s ever said the Spartans were democratic. In Periclean Athens the broad mass of people were citizens, not an Abbotesque elite. Not everyone, and not slaves, had the vote, but most did and it was an astonishing step forward from what had preceded it.
If by “most” or “the broad mass”, you mean 10-15 percent on average, or never more than a third (Thorley, J., Athenian Democracy, Routledge, 2005). Similar to the homoioi/helot ratio. They were both “dēmoskrátos” in the original sense of the word, but not in the sense we use it now.
But I know what your point was, and was full-throatedly agreeing with it. To wit…
“You also need to remember that Crikey correspondents are still hurting over the fact, that they spent more than a year declaring Corbyns leadership to be an irretrievable calamity, with Bernard Keane being alone in admitting that they fucked up, and Guy Rundle STILL refusing to believe it.
It’ll be a long time before they have anything nice to say about direct representation.”
@Lykurgus
I must re-read my Athenian history, I was under a different impression. Nevertheless the Solonic reforms and the developments that followed it were a massive step forward in democratic empowerment.
Regardless, we’re off-topic somewhat!
I did realise we’re in agreement for the most part, unfortunately some readers can’t distinguish between dislike of Abbott and support for his argument (not matter how disingenuous, insincere and hypocritical he may be in advancing them).
The inability to argue a case on its merits rather than on your attitude toward who holds it seems to be particularly widespread in current Australian discourse.
Well, far be it for me to presume to speak for Guy Rundle, but I have always got the opposite impression from reading his articles: that he indeed is very happy that Corbyn did so well. Must be my tiny brain showing up again. I never read, as you so wisely pointed out above. Please set me straight oh mighty guide and philosopher.
Hiya, Babs
Lovely to “meet” you Spartan. Please lead me along the paths of righteousness.
I on’t think the article is saying that the party elite are more representative, just that they have a better idea of what is needed in an MP.
Which is precisely the problem “the elite have a better idea of what is needed in an MP” – obedient, unimaginative, docile, seat polishers who just follows orders from the aforementioned ‘elite’.
The time serving simulacrae in both T1 & T2 who move from uni to party to Parliament, without passing through the real world or collecting a real wage for real work.
What is most amusing about the dilemma of party membership/broad community being at odds is that Corbyn proves the folly of the political class. A mass movement of new members gave him the leadership to the horror & dismay of the blairite/apparatchik MPs.
This elite can’t bear to associate with the unwashed masses upon whom they depend for votes and their highly agreeable lifestyle – hell, they can barely speak the same language.
Which brings us to the current stoush in the Greens – they have already begun to fossilise and accrete all the faults of the elder parties whereas the membership is a great deal younger, principled and keener for real change.
The SA Liberals have had full membership voting for lower house preselections for years and since it was introduced, the membership have chosen the male candidate in every contested preselection for a safe Lib seat. So far it is 16 preselections and counting.
” …that the former PM is not big on consistency or internal logic. But his diametrically opposed positions on democracy — advocating more for Liberal conservatives but less for Senate voters — are the most incoherent yet. ”
Thank you for those words Paula. I was beginning to think I was going crazy so it is nice to see someone confirm that it is Abbott, not me, who is incoherent and inconsistent.
“There’s even talk the moderates will orchestrate a challenge against Abbott for preselection before the next federal election.”
It would be the best thing for the Liberal Party if they did that. The ‘conservative’ element is unelectable to 75% of the public, they would be pared back to a minor party if the RWNJ’s had their way.
On the other hand, as Bob The B points out, that would be grassroots democracy.
Bob, Lykurgus, Barbara,
Just on that discussion, the idea and practice of grassroots democracy can lead to either good or bad outcomes, as per current events.
The Libs moving to true grassroots democracy would lead to ultra-conservative members, and ultimately their demise as a political force. The executive are over-ruling the more conservative members towards the electable centre, but its thus far not particularly successful as the conservatives would rather wreck the party than suffer moderate government.
The Corbyn example was different, in my view, in that the grassroots were much more aligned with the whole electorate than the ‘executive class’ of the party, who were going along merrily assuming that neoliberal-lite was the policy stance to win government.
In the UK case, the grassroots were closer to the mind of the electorate in general than the executive class, and therefore their grassroots democracy helped the party.
On Corbyn generally, I thought Rundle was cheering Corbyn on, while occasionally hedging his bets with the odd article suggesting they were finished. Keane has only just come across (still wary, he may be a double agent) to the awareness of what damage neoliberal economic philosophy has perpetrated on the peoples, so I agree with Lykurgus comments there.
And then Herr Razer, who was cheering Corbyn for all she was worth.
As for commenters, as opposed to correspondents, there were plenty of us hoping upon hope that Corbyn could give them a black eye, and I nailed my colours to that mast quite clearly.
Even that, this analysis is post facto. Who can really say with certainty that Corbyn’s unexpected results were the results of effective grassroots politics, or him finding his feet in the battle of an election, or May falling over. More likely a bit of each, but I am confident that the neoliberal edifice has some chunks taken out of it, and like the Berlin Wall many years ago is hopefully a few more hammer blows from coming down completely.
Cheers all
The difference with Corbyn comes from the UK not having compulsory voting. What happened was that there were a sizeable proportion of UK voters on the Left who saw no-one reflecting their views and advocating their interests and so tuned out. Corbyn has provided these people with representation.