Courier Mail, May 5th 1998
Terry Sweetman
Any doubts that the Queensland Liberal Party was something of a curious misnomer appear to have been settled by its weekend decision to direct preferences to Pauline Hanson’s One Nation ahead of the Labor Party.
And its continued failure to carve out a separate and distinctive identity for itself eventually could consign it to the ranks of historical curiosity.
The decision to direct preferences to Hanson’s troglodytes is another indication that the Liberals are in bad shape politically, intellectually and, now, morally.
The lame justification from state president Bob Carroll was that his party was in the business of winning elections, not giving ‘free kicks’ to Labor.
This is an extraordinary statement from the head of a party that hasn’t really been in the business of winning elections since it curled up in bed with Sir Joh Bjelke-Petersen.
Until last election, it couldn’t even muster the numbers to be counted as a political party enjoying a few crumbs of office thanks to the good graces of then premier Wayne Goss.
Even now with just 14 members in the House it remains so enfeebled it is nothing more than a hollow echo of the good old boys club of the National Party.
Its paucity in numbers is in no way compensated by the vigour of its member’s performance in the House or in their ministerial portfolios.
There is little to indicate the party can improve its situation in the coming election but every chance that it could lose the odd seat now that koalas have ceased to be an issue.
Privately, some of the hardheads of the National Party have expressed fears that the Liberals’ soft vote in the city could cost them office.
Strangely, the decision to direct preferences to One Nation promises little direct gain for the Liberals but it probably softens up the electorate for when the Nationals make a public declaration that they are going to do exactly the same.
The difference is that in some seats, such as Barambah and Gympie, striking a preference deal with the Hansonites might well be a matter of survival for the Nationals who are facing up to 20% swing to the far-out right.
Apart from which, its the sort of deal that would expect from the Nationals.
But where does that leave the Liberals in Brisbane, where they have for so long promised to be the caring, sharing alternative for urban conservatives?
How do they explain to their city supporters that they have sullied the name of the party by giving comfort to the dark forces that are represented by One Nation?
How do they explain to the educated urban professionals to which they lay claim that their party is giving support to a group that takes strength from ignorance, fear and envy?
How do they explain it all to the likes of Steven Huang, endorsed Liberal candidate for Sunnybank?
Huang was so bold as to declare in the Chinese-language policy statement in his Multicultural Times not so long ago that he planned to put any Hanson candidate last on his how-to-vote ticket.
I detect a considerable loss of face at stake here, if not a considerable loss of faith among the ethnic voters of Sunnybank.
Apparently, the Liberals believe that can counter criticism of their moral bankruptcy by pointing to the number of Liberal candidates in Queensland who come from migrant backgrounds.
Their chances of fooling the electorate are marginal at best and who can blame some of these much touted candidates if they start to feel that they are little more than ethnic tokens?
The inescapable fact is that the Liberals have exchanged their moral credentials for the continued goodwill of their senior partners, a tacit admission that they are little more than a city rump of the National Party.
By preferring to support One Nation rather than give Labor a ‘free kick’ the Liberal Party has shown that it stands for little.
Rather than demonstrating it is a forward looking party of innovation and creativity, it has shown itself to be more the intellectual inheritor of the sterile policies of the late and unlamented Democratic Labor Party.
The failure of the Liberal Party to present itself as a real alternative to the National or Labor parties ultimately is unhealthy for Queensland, which is left with a middle-ground vacuum.
It is a political landscape ready made for simplistic and ill-thought policies and a polarisation into extremes.
The tragedy is illustrated by the other weekend political development of a Terry Lewis and Brendon Abbott-led escalation of the law and order hysteria that patently is developing in the lead up to an election.
Police and Prisons Minister Russell Cooper is taking his party down a hardline road that sounds good but delivers little. Opposition leader Peter Beattie and his spokesman, Tom Barton, are enthusiastically rising to the bait, throwing plenty of criticism but little in the way of constructive policy.
In an unproductive situation that desperately needs the input of a genuine third force.
By the weekend decision, the Liberals have squandered a chance to claim that middle ground and to become a real and meaningful force in Queensland politics.
The Liberals have chosen patronage and pragmatism over principle. Perhaps they should also choose another name.