The lesson to be learned from the rise of the Greens and other fractures of the center-right vote in Australia is that the Liberal Party must have a clearly defined purpose if it is to succeed.
This disintegration is not entirely unprecedented. When the United Australia Party was officially dissolved in 1945, the party had long been without rudders, as its raison d’être was to get the nation through the Depression with savings and sacrifice. had run out.
It was Robert Menzies who resurrected the fortunes of the Australian center-right, but did not establish a “broad church”. While he certainly intended to have a broad appeal ranging from “wage earners, shopkeepers, skilled artisans, professionals, farmers, etc.,” Menzies explicitly founded what he called “a party with philosophy.”
Recently, in the Guardian, Van Badham argued that history shows that the Australian center-right is more successful when it appeals to the center. However, the formation of the Liberal Party did not represent a shift to the left with respect to its predecessor, which after all had been formed around a former Labor prime minister in Tasmania.
The Liberal Party represented a renaissance of Australia’s strongest political tradition, Liberalism, and with it came a clear sense of leadership. Menzies was taking advantage of something deeply rooted in Australian history, so much so that in the late 19th century virtually every Australian politician called himself a “liberal”.
In the Australian context, liberalism has conservative elements, which can often lead to confusion in definitions. At the time of the federation, the Liberals had succeeded in such a way that to defend what existed was to “preserve” a liberal order. Australian Liberals have always believed that freedom flourishes under our existing institutions, including parliamentary democracy and constitutional monarchy.
“The concept of the wider church when it comes to the Liberal Party of Australia is a legacy of John Howard.” Photography: Alan Porritt / AAP
Thus, Australian liberalism contains many of the principles of the philosophy of Edmund Burke, whom Menzies admired. During the 1940s, when Menzies was giving his series of radio shows famous for “forgotten people,” he quoted Burke as saying that a political party is “a body of men united to promote through their joint efforts the national interest, according to a particular principle, on which everyone agrees. “
The concept of the “broad church” in the Liberal Party of Australia is a legacy of John Howard, who tried to put to bed the ideological struggles that had haunted the party during the 1980s. But the fact that the Liberal Party he was driven out of the desert by Howard rather than by a peacock says much.
The Australian center-right has tended to succeed when it has a clearly defined purpose, whether to maintain patriotism during and after World War I, to maintain fiscal conservatism in response to our worst economic crisis, or to defend the role of free enterprise. threatened by Chifley’s bank nationalization and the rise of international communism.
The Australian center-right has failed when it returned aimlessly, such as the end of the UAP or even during the 1980s, when Labor had taken on the crucial work of Reagan / Thatcher-style economic reform.
Leaders who are defined by their “moderation” have failed because they do everything possible to make the party meaningless. Look not only at Peacock’s failure, but at the unexpected defeats of 1969 and 2016. It must be remembered that Malcolm Fraser, who was an election success, only drifted to the left after office.
Australia’s unusual system of compulsory voting and compulsory preference drags politics to the center. Australia has a long tradition of sacred cows that cannot be touched by this, that is, the “Australian settlement” that lasted for decades, and a system of industrial relations that cost Stanley Melbourne Bruce and John Howard no. only their prime ministers but their seats. It could be argued that border protection has become a new “resolved issue” in this regard.
But just because our voting system is pushing politics toward the center does not mean that center-right parties are being rewarded for leaning toward it and losing their sense of direction. People need to be motivated to campaign when no union is fooling them into doing so, and right-wing preferences are far less reliable for returning to their respective main party.
The recent wave of Blues green independents follows the split of the UAP in multiple parties towards the end of its life, but even before it was the center-right who introduced the preference due to the tendency to have a multiplicity of candidates.
People who value individual freedom and self-awareness tend to have as much fun as cats. They need to be inspired and directed.
Moderate liberals often like to quote Menzies as saying that liberals “were determined to be a progressive party,” but what is all too often forgotten is that, as a visionary with a strong will, Menzies would define what progress meant. It was not a weather vane pointing out the direction of social and political tendencies beyond its control, and actively devouring a liberal ethos.
The center-right will recover sooner or later, when it finds its purpose again. It’s hard to imagine that this will happen simply by chasing the bluish green vote.