In the wake of the Liberals' federal election loss there's been a mass of commentary suggesting that the party should be more "liberal".
Yes -- the Liberal Party should be more "liberal", in the sense that it should be the party that defends and extends personal freedoms. But considering the future philosophical direction of the party is an entirely different thing from considering the reasons why it lost the election.
The Liberals didn't lose because they weren't "liberal". The Liberals could have been as liberal as the Greens and it would have made no difference to the poll outcome.
The reason John Howard lost is because he had WorkChoices and because he stayed too long as leader. Not because of his attitude on reconciliation, refugees or the republic.
The stark reality is that until a week or so ago, one of the reasons the Liberal Party stayed in power for as long as it did was because of, not despite, its policies in these areas.
If Howard had experienced a Damascene conversion on the republic, for example, he may well have lost 15 seats in Queensland, not the 10 that he's likely to lose as it is.
The Labor Party understands the essential conservatism of the Australian electorate. That's why Kevin Rudd promised to maintain the Northern Territory intervention, undertook to maintain strong border security measures, and why he kept silent about the republic.
The community doesn't like change, and change is the last thing that Labor was promising.
When the ALP says that it will keep most of the Liberal Party's policies it's impossible to conclude that the election result was a wholesale rejection of all the Liberals stood for.
The problem for anyone who desires a more "liberal" Liberal Party is that there are no votes in it. The issue for any Liberal MP who says he or she will "listen to voters" and follow their advice is that most voters are not unhappy with the current philosophical disposition of the Liberal Party. Most voters favour the status quo.
It's ironic that in the 2007 federal election, Howard was the radical candidate.
Politicians who vow to "listen" to the public need to be careful. Populism is easy -- leadership is harder.
The refusal of the former government to ratify the Kyoto Protocol was unpopular. It would have been straightforward for Howard to cave in to popular opinion -- but he would have had to dismiss his grave misgivings about the effect of the protocol on the economy.
Similarly on WorkChoices. Does the Liberal Party now abandon its commitment to labour market reform because WorkChoices was electoral poison?
Over the next three years, the federal Liberal Party will spend a great deal of time arguing over policy. Most of that time will be wasted.
Policies are important -- once a party is in government. Usually it's not policies that get politicians elected. Not having too much by way of policy didn't stop Steve Bracks.
It was when the Coalition government lost sight of its values that its policies went in the wrong direction.
For example, a core liberal (and Liberal) value is that the community should provide welfare support to those who need it. A social safety net does not need to be provided to those who don't need it.
From this flows the conclusion that welfare benefits should be means-tested. The Coalition's policy of paying the baby bonus to millionaires as well as to single unemployed mothers was clearly not consistent with this notion.
For the next 12 months, Liberal MPs should forget about policy and instead concentrate on deciding what will be the values to guide their policies. If there are going to be arguments in the Liberal Party about the party's future direction -- and there should be -- they should be over things that matter. Only political science aficionados care about the precise definition of "liberal" and "conservative".
In reality there are no concrete definitions, and in any case those definitions change over time. On some things the Liberal Party will be "liberal" and on others it will be "conservative". Far more important than labels is substance.
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