A NEWLY ELECTED leader of the Australian Labor Party inherits a set of traditions, albeit more symbolic than real in the age of Rudd. A new Liberal Party leader, however, inherits a blank canvas on which he or she, if given time, is free to paint – and the picture is invariably a self-portrait, perhaps modified by artistic license.
That Robert Menzies, with a little help from others, constructed the modern Liberal Party in his own image is no secret; it was designed, first and foremost, as a grand vehicle for his political resurrection. Once risen from the political dead and ascended to power, Menzies and the Liberal Party morphed into a single and virtually indivisible entity.
Not only was Ming the face of the party, he was its very incarnation. Indeed, to some in the party, a Liberal Party without Menzies was difficult, perhaps even impossible, to contemplate. Even when he announced his retirement in early 1966 – aged seventy-one, weary and unwell after sixteen years as prime minister and twenty-one as Liberal leader – there were those who pleaded with him to stay.
Having already stayed too long, he wisely declined to heed their words and rode out into the Imperial sunset and the faded glory of the Cinque Ports and some indifferent memoirs. Harold Holt, almost ten years in the great man’s shadow, grasped the helm and set sail on a course of his own, away from the Empire, towards Asia and a radical rethink of White Australia. Menzies was gone and still revered; but this was now Harold Holt’s Liberal Party.
Fast forward to the tragedy of December 1967, and that sunny visage was swept out of sight. Behold the advent of Gorton, and the party was something else again: the gospel of federalism and the mantra of states’ rights were cast aside as a new nationalism was proclaimed. But when the party, with some considerable help from old-style boss premiers like Henry Bolte and Bob Askin, gradually reasserted itself Gorton’s bold brush strokes were erased by Bill McMahon, who had neither the time nor the support to paint a portrait of his own: he was simply put there to mind the shop before it went out of business.
Post-1972 and in the unaccustomed role of opposition, the Liberal Party under the hapless Bill Snedden was fractious; the niceties of ideology or policy were overlooked in a scramble to find a leader who could take the party back to its rightful place on the government benches, and in Malcolm Fraser it found him. There was much about Menzies in Fraser that soothed the party grandees; here was a return to conservative orthodoxy (even though he retained many of Whitlam’s social reforms). As long as he won elections, he could do as he pleased. And he did.
The Liberal Party between 1975 and 1983 was Malcolm Fraser writ large; it was hard, tough and ruthless on the outside, but inside there was a resonant social liberalism that would have done Deakin proud. A man singularly devoid of prejudice, Fraser built on Whitlam’s steps towards multiculturalism to the clear (but silent) chagrin of the monocultural jingoists in his party. Even bolder, he reversed the party’s longstanding tacit (and occasionally even overt) support for the white supremacist regimes of southern Africa, playing as he did a significant role in helping turn the international tide. Many in his party saw this as a betrayal, but as long as he was winning elections he could have his way.
Tellingly, after his defeat in 1983 and his immediate resignation, the key issue of southern Africa abruptly slipped from the Liberal Party radar. One day it was there as an unwavering principle; next day it was as though it had never existed. The Liberal Party was no longer Malcolm Fraser.
The course of the next thirteen years was a time of tumult for the Liberal Party. It agonised over whether it was wet or dry, conservative or liberal; it veered between principle and pragmatism; in desperation it looked to the horizon for a new messiah who could deliver the party to its rightful place once more at the pinnacle of power. It looked to Andrew Peacock and then to John Howard, each of whom lost an election. It changed back again to Peacock, who lost another election.
Seeking to close what looked embarrassingly like a revolving door, the party turned to a neophyte in John Hewson, an MP for just one term, to take the helm after the 1990 loss, solemnly promising him two terms to turn the fortunes around. But when he failed to deliver the dividend in 1993 he was dumped in favour of Alexander Downer, who was wisely persuaded to stand aside for John Howard before even contesting an election. A tired and dispirited party had turned – not all that enthusiastically – to the last man still standing.
Just what the Liberal Party was in 1996 as the election loomed is not at all clear. Neither Howard nor Peacock had stamped the party with a distinctive brand; Hewson had tried, but once he had gone so did all traces of his policy program. Downer was little more than light relief.
But the Liberal Party did not have to be very much in 1996; all it had to be was being there, not noticeably divided, and not with a leader who was unelectable. Tired and dispirited as the Liberals were, so too was Labor after five terms and the tank running low as Keating’s unpopularity soared.
Apart from pledging to govern “for all of us” – a code-laden slogan devised by a right-wing staffer from Bronwyn Bishop’s office, Gerry Wheeler, who later sought endorsement for a Senate seat without success – Howard owed no debts to either the electorate or the Liberal Party. He was handed the traditional blank canvas (and would, as all do, pay dutiful homage to Menzies).
There had always been opposition to Howard within the Liberal Party. Partly that can be attributed to his Sydney roots in a party that Victorians always thought they owned, but it was more than geography and parochial rivalry. It had more to do with ideology and political culture: Howard represented that strain of Sydney Free Trade conservatism that harks back to George Reid, and the Liberal Party always worried that if such sentiments ever came to the forefront the horses would be frightened. In other words, it’s one thing to support the moneyed interests, but concealed in a rhetoric of the national interest or the greater good; but it is another thing altogether to throw caution to the wind and abandon all subterfuge (as Howard did with WorkChoices).
That the Liberals have always had concerns about this is exemplified in a story recounted by the former Liberal MP Neil Brown in his memoirs. Brown mentions visiting London at the time when Gorton’ prime ministership was publicly unravelling and meeting with high commissioner and former Menzies minister, Sir Alexander Downer, father of the risible Alexander. After listening to Brown’s latest intelligence, Sir Alexander put a hand on the shoulder of the young backbencher and said solemnly: “You must promise me one thing, Mr Brown. Never let the prime ministership fall into those vulgar Sydney commercial hands.”
Of course, the Sydney commercial hands have had hold of the Liberal leadership, if not the prime ministership, for most of the past two decades, but under Howard it was not just the business interests that were pushed but also a social conservatism, which the party had not seen before. This was Howard’s self-portrait – a bold foray that erased the Deakinite social liberalism and drove it from the party’s heart, save for the peripheral remnants made up of Petro Georgiou and a few others. It found willing support from another quarter that is as yet little explored: the increasing Catholicisation of the Liberal Party – a continuing seismic ripple from the great Labor split of the 1950s which saw socially conservative Catholics leave Labor in droves.
Brendan Nelson came to the leadership after the 2007 defeat not so much on a wave of popularity but as a compromise stop-Turnbull candidate. The right, when it realised it could not get one of its own elected, threw its support, which provided decisive, behind Nelson. But Nelson had nothing to offer the party, and his poor polling showed he could not deliver what it expects of a leader – victory.
Now that Turnbull is leader – and as representative of Sydney money power as anyone could be – he is seeking to make the party an extension of his own persona. Unlike Howard, he is a social liberal. He held his own diverse seat of Wentworth last year against the tide, and is convinced that his social liberalism was a telling factor. He is also of the view that many natural Liberal supporters deserted the party last year in protest at Howard’s social conservatism.
But while Turnbull will seek to exercise the unofficial right of rebranding the party in his own image, it will not happen without considerable resistance. There is a strong core of diehard Howardites – the ones who mobilised last year to stop Turnbull – who will resist his push to restore a modicum of social liberalism to the Liberal Party.
This has implications for Turnbull’s longer term leadership as well as for the Liberals’ attempt at a show of unity between now and the next election. The canvas he is seeking to paint may not be all his own work. •
