Four years ago, Greg Mirabella – the incoming party president who lost his Senate seat at the May election – started writing a manifesto that spelt out where the Liberals were going wrong. It was lost, until recently, and strangely ominous.
Fixing the Liberal Party
In Victoria, where Mirabella wants to turn the party’s fortunes around, Opposition Leader Matthew Guy needs a massive 18 seats to win the November election. If he fails to beat Premier Daniel Andrews’ tired and COVID-ravaged government, it will be the Coalition’s sixth loss in 23 years. Presciently, another problem foreshadowed in the Mirabella document – before Zali Stegall or Monique Ryan became national figures – was the threat of independents., lost to the mother of the community independents movement, Cathy McGowan, in 2013.Elections are largely publicly funded in Victoria.
Mirabella explains that many membership-based organisations, such as Rotary clubs and even the Labor Party, are struggling for members in the digital age. Movements that still attract followers tend to be focussed on climate and social justice. The Greens and Labor at least have the support of environmental groups and unions respectively, while the Liberal Party does not. According to Mirabella, it therefore needs to be malleable and find new causes to attract members and voters.
A senior party source who spoke anonymously to discuss internal party matters describes the Liberal Party’s lack of talent at a state level as a “human resources problem borne of perennial opposition”. “The Victorian Liberal Party is something regarded as not to be touched with a 10-foot barge pole. Also, Labor people tend to be more interested in social policy rather than national security or economics, so state politics is a more natural home for them.”who lost the Brighton-based seat of Goldstein to teal independent and former journalist Zoe Daniel
outlines his ideas for the future foundations of the Liberal Party, says conservatives need to embrace policies that decentralise power and give people control over their financial and familial security. He cites the proposal to allow people to use superannuation to buy a house – an idea he championed that was eventually pledged by Morrison during the election campaign.
Another former senior federal MP, who didn’t wish to be named, said the party had failed to explain its philosophy to an entire generation of voters who view the Liberals as simply “social conservatives” and not championing classic liberal ideas such as free enterprise, individual freedoms, freedom of speech and smaller government.A new threat
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