It’s almost too kind to describe it as a death-wish. The Australian Liberal Party seems to be engaged in a quest for self-degradation and destruction of a kind that it’s hard to find precedents for. At least, that’s if we take seriously – as it now appears we must – the reports that it is set to elect Tony Abbott as its next federal president.
The federal presidency is not traditionally a high-profile role. Its purpose is to supervise the party’s federal organisation, but even administratively it is not very powerful: the organisational weight of the party is with its state divisions, and federal control is limited. It would not be quite fair to describe the presidency as a sinecure, but it would not be far from the truth. If its holder is frequently in the public eye, that’s a sign that something has gone wrong.
One previous president made a public splash: corporate fraudster John Elliott, who held the job from 1987 to 1990. (Three-year terms are the norm, sometimes repeated, although in theory the position is elected every year.) Elliott schemed to enter parliament himself and generally made life a misery for the party’s leaders, principally John Howard. The party has since tried to avoid repeating the experience: in 2011 Peter Reith was favorite for the job but ruined his chances by promising to take an activist role. The more sedate Alan Stockdale won a second term instead.
No Liberal leader has ever gone on to serve as president, but two have been serious contenders. Malcolm Fraser wanted the job in 1993, but eventually withdrew rather than contest a vote that he would have lost (leaving Tony Staley to be elected unopposed), and Alexander Downer was the subject of discussions in 2008, but nothing eventuated. It is probably not coincidental that both occasions followed major electoral defeats for the party – recycling a former leader can easily be seen as a sign of desperation.
This year, “desperation” is putting it mildly. Abbott and Downer are the two declared candidates: as Bernard Keane puts it, “Australia’s worst prime minister” against its “worst foreign affairs minister.” I described Downer’s candidacy in 2008 as “a rather tasteless joke” and he appears to have learnt nothing since; he remains a clueless practitioner of tribal hard-right politics. Yet with Abbott as his opponent he goes into the contest (in another Hindenburg moment) with the backing of the party’s left.
Not that it will do him any good. The right controls the federal organisation, and if it wants Abbott then that’s who it will get. Paul Sakkal at Channel Nine reports that “Sources with knowledge of the numbers in the 113-person federal council said the conservatives had about 70 of those votes sewn up for Abbott.”
A large part of the president’s job is to act as the leader’s eyes and ears in the organisation, so a leader who makes their preference clear – as Angus Taylor has for Abbott – is unlikely to be disappointed. And, to be fair, there’s a nice symmetry between the utter idiocy of Abbott as president and the utter idiocy of making Taylor leader in the first place.
In the parallel universe that Abbott and his boosters inhabit, of course, it all makes sense. Whatever the problem, the answer is always to move further to the right. But even among his ideological soulmates there are some who think that Abbott is just so much a loose cannon that he may damage their cause within the party.
And outside the party, the voters are looking on with bewilderment. Abbott will simply reinforce all their perceptions of a party that cares nothing for women, immigrants, young people or indeed democracy itself. The voters who agree with those positions are unlikely to be tempted, since they can get all that and more from One Nation (and without Abbott’s uncharacteristic scepticism about Vladimir Putin).
Meanwhile, the much larger number who disagree will just move further beyond the party’s reach.
The World is Not Enough 