Extract from The Monthly
Was Malcolm Turnbull joking when he said the Liberal party was not run by factions?
Monday, 12th October 2015
When Malcolm Turnbull told the New South Wales Liberal
Conference that the party was not run by factions, there was mirth,
derision and incredulity: the delegates knew bloody well that it is, and
for their prime minister to deny it was, perhaps, his idea of a joke.
But Tony Abbott, within the audience, was not laughing; after all, it was his faction that had been splintered and defeated. A breakaway group within the conservative majority in the federal party room on whom he had relied for so long had been forced by the necessity of sheer survival to overcome ideology.
Forty-four of the hardliners kept the faith, eschewing Turnbull’s softer approach to climate change, same-sex marriage, republicanism and the like. A few of their colleagues were not so obdurate, but that did not mean that they were not still conservatives. They were members of a faction.
There were also sub-factions: Scott Morrison notoriously refused to instruct his followers to vote for Abbott. There were perhaps four of them – a small group certainly, but what was thought to be a crucial one, run by their factional leader. Like all political parties, the Libs are certainly composed of factions – members who come together to pursue their shared goals, whether they are based on policy, loyalty or naked self-interest.
What Turnbull was presumably trying to say was that the Liberal system may not be as rigid as the regime of the ALP caucus, but that it is now just about as fluid as the manoeuvrings within the government. The days when Graham Richardson and Gerry Hand controlled what were called the Right and Left (but in fact had become no more than convenient labels for the warring tribes) are long gone.
Even in those far-off times, there were breakaway groups: Bill Hayden, John Dawkins and others set up what they called the Centre Left faction to break the duopoly. John Button and a few Victorian friends, calling themselves “the participants”, defied the ruling warlords. The idiosyncratic Graeme Campbell inaugurated the Extreme Centre faction, confined to himself. But factions, whatever their name, remained the party’s bedrock. They were the foundations that allowed the machinery of politics to operate, and thus it is within the Liberals as well.
Turnbull acknowledged the fact when he formed his new ministry; all the talk was of the need to accommodate the factional tensions that remained from the leadership contest. Turnbull calls the Liberals a broad church; maybe so, but the congregation is seldom unified and never far from schism.
And Turnbull knows just where the factions lie, and how to exploit them. Originally, in 1981, he was beaten for preselection in the electorate of Wentworth by the conservative Peter Coleman. When, older and more cunning, he moved to knock off Peter King, the popular sitting member in 2004, he spent more than half a million dollars in what was described as the mother of all branch-stacks to form the Turnbull faction. And his faction won. No wonder the audience chuckled last week at his chutzpah.
But Tony Abbott, within the audience, was not laughing; after all, it was his faction that had been splintered and defeated. A breakaway group within the conservative majority in the federal party room on whom he had relied for so long had been forced by the necessity of sheer survival to overcome ideology.
Forty-four of the hardliners kept the faith, eschewing Turnbull’s softer approach to climate change, same-sex marriage, republicanism and the like. A few of their colleagues were not so obdurate, but that did not mean that they were not still conservatives. They were members of a faction.
There were also sub-factions: Scott Morrison notoriously refused to instruct his followers to vote for Abbott. There were perhaps four of them – a small group certainly, but what was thought to be a crucial one, run by their factional leader. Like all political parties, the Libs are certainly composed of factions – members who come together to pursue their shared goals, whether they are based on policy, loyalty or naked self-interest.
What Turnbull was presumably trying to say was that the Liberal system may not be as rigid as the regime of the ALP caucus, but that it is now just about as fluid as the manoeuvrings within the government. The days when Graham Richardson and Gerry Hand controlled what were called the Right and Left (but in fact had become no more than convenient labels for the warring tribes) are long gone.
Even in those far-off times, there were breakaway groups: Bill Hayden, John Dawkins and others set up what they called the Centre Left faction to break the duopoly. John Button and a few Victorian friends, calling themselves “the participants”, defied the ruling warlords. The idiosyncratic Graeme Campbell inaugurated the Extreme Centre faction, confined to himself. But factions, whatever their name, remained the party’s bedrock. They were the foundations that allowed the machinery of politics to operate, and thus it is within the Liberals as well.
Turnbull acknowledged the fact when he formed his new ministry; all the talk was of the need to accommodate the factional tensions that remained from the leadership contest. Turnbull calls the Liberals a broad church; maybe so, but the congregation is seldom unified and never far from schism.
And Turnbull knows just where the factions lie, and how to exploit them. Originally, in 1981, he was beaten for preselection in the electorate of Wentworth by the conservative Peter Coleman. When, older and more cunning, he moved to knock off Peter King, the popular sitting member in 2004, he spent more than half a million dollars in what was described as the mother of all branch-stacks to form the Turnbull faction. And his faction won. No wonder the audience chuckled last week at his chutzpah.
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