“No one looking at the Liberal party today can be happy with what they see,” the former Liberal prime minister Tony Abbott told 400 of the party faithful on Saturday, in his exhortation to “democratise” and reinvigorate the moribund New South Wales division.
Speaking at a convention of members supportive of the campaign for democratic reform of the party, Abbott said the Liberal party faced an existential crisis if it did not reform. The party had 50,000 members 30 years ago, he said, but in 2016 it had 8,000 members.
“We need more members and we need less [sic] factions.”
The long-running dispute over the party’s operations will reach a crucial juncture next weekend, with a motion to be taken to the NSW Liberal party AGM, seeking a reform of the party’s constitution, giving rank-and-file members a greater say in the party’s operations.
The crux of the dispute is essentially over preselections.
NSW is the only state division of the Liberal party that does not allow each party member a vote on preselections. Instead, candidates for parliamentary seats are chosen by a small core of party elites – including influential lobbyists – on the state executive, and high-ranking members from local branches.
Of the NSW Liberal party members, 95% – by the reckoning of Walter Villatora, who brokered Saturday’s meeting – had no say in the Liberal candidate representing them in elections.
But the battle is also a proxy war between the party’s factions. The dominant moderate faction controls the state executive, and therefore, the preselections, while the party base – seeking a greater say – is ideologically aligned to the conservative base.
Critics of the “democratisation” movement have accused Abbott supporters in the hard-right of the party of waging a “civil war” in the party, and of hijacking the argument around democratic reform to boost their own influence.
Saturday’s reformers meeting had the feel of an insurgency.
A succession of speakers propounded the principle of “one member, one vote”.
Professor David Flint compared the NSW division of the Liberal party in 2016 with France’s Ancien Regime of 1789, and their meeting at a waterfront wedding reception venue with the Tennis Court Oath.
Neither the prime minister, Malcolm Turnbull, nor the NSW premier, Mike Baird, were at the meeting, but both are being counted in the reform camp.
Both sent video messages played at the beginning of the meeting.
Turnbull said political parties faced irrelevancy if they could not reverse the trend of falling membership numbers.
“What we’ve lost is that big broad base of membership. We simply don’t have enough members.”
Baird said people could be encouraged to join the party only if they felt they could contribute to it.
“If we empower our membership, we’ve got a great opportunity to encourage more people into the great Liberal party.”
Abbott went on stage to a standing ovation and chants of “Tony, Tony, Tony”. One member called out to him “we still love you Tony”.
The former prime minister joked that it was the best reception he’d had since asking a question on the floor of parliament as a backbencher earlier in the week (that reception was from Labor members).
Abbott said the party, and the nation, would benefit from a more democratic selection of candidates, because superior ones would be chosen, and that the broad membership could not be manipulated in the way a small clique of party elites could.
He urged all members to attend the party’s annual general meeting.
“What we’ve got to do next weekend is say, enthusiastically, but respectfully, ‘one man one vote, one woman one vote’.
“What we want is real democracy and we want it now.
“Just get it done.”
