LNP state convention to determine if party can change for the better
The upcoming LNP state convention will test whether the party has the will to change its culture and become competitive with Labor, writes Peter Gleeson.
Peter Gleeson
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When LNP parliamentary leader David Crisafulli strode to the podium at the state council conference six weeks ago, he was uncharacteristically nervous.
This was a defining moment in his leadership and the ultimate prize, to be the next premier of Queensland.
Seated just a few feet away was the acting LNP president Cynthia Hardy and the godfather of the conservative movement in Queensland, former president Bruce McIver.
After being elected in the wake of the devastating election loss six months earlier, Crisafulli had spent months travelling the state, talking to branch members about how the LNP was going to dust itself off after the defeat.
The mood he had detected was one of anger, like he’d never experienced before.
The grassroots members were livid that the organisation they loved, the party they believed in, was self-harming. They had watched the LNP organisation and its executive preside over a dysfunctionality that made the Trump administration look like seasoned professionals.
For many, there were two key “final straws”.
The first was the transparently stupid leaking of internal polling six months before the election showing that then leader Deb Frecklington would struggle to win the October 31, 2020 poll.
If it was designed to undermine her leadership and create division and a spill it failed its purpose. At that point of time, Crisafulli did not have the numbers, so any suggestion of a spill was nebulous, and dumb.
Her crime? She wasn’t prepared to do the bidding of the party machine.
All the leaking did was harm Frecklington’s stature among voters. If you can’t govern your own party, how can you govern the state?
The other source of great anger was the photos, printed in The Sunday Mail, of LNP elders like McIver, Gary Spence and Dave Hutchinson watching the election night coverage from billionaire Clive Palmer’s yacht.
Palmer ran his own political party and the optics were not good. For some it amounted to a brazen and cavalier middle finger to the grassroots and this incident was mentioned many times in those meetings attended by Crisafulli and Hardy.
So as Crisafulli began his speech, both Hardy and McIver were listening intently.
McIver, after all, had championed Crisafulli’s ascension to the top job.
What they heard was a leader who was determined that the branches would reclaim control of the party.
The days of the executive – the president’s elite group – running the show had to end, Crisafulli declared.
The banishing of good members merely because they disagreed with the status quo had to end.
Also sitting nearby was Lawrence Springborg, the former opposition leader.
He’d been banished from the party trust for asking why the polling had been leaked by the machine.
Crisafulli was blowing the party up, knowing full well that Springborg, initially reluctant, was now ready to run for president.
It was a gutsy speech and those there described it as his best performance to date.
It galvanised the membership and it amplified to them in no uncertain terms that the change would be driven by the right people.
A new broom was arriving, the revolution was coming.
Crisafulli knew that the only way to beat Labor in Queensland was to have the parliamentary and organisational wings of the party rowing in the same direction.
The discipline and unity shown by Labor was a lesson to the conservatives.
Have your fights behind closed doors, but do not present a public image of disunity.
Fast-forward to next weekend, and it will be Springborg challenging Hardy for the presidency – she last night confirmed she would be running – with fresh faces galore keen to join the state executive.
There will be more women in key roles, more small businesspeople having a say on policy.
A wholesale clean-out of the top roles – including the president’s team – is certain as members jump at the chance for generational change.
Hardy only has herself to blame.
Instead of reading the room, she has put her head in the sand and refused to acknowledge there’s a problem.
In fact, after The Courier-Mail and The Sunday Mail exposed the problems in March, she went on the offensive, describing those who spoke out as cowards.
Those “cowards” included Springborg, former premier Rob Borbidge, former deputy premier Jeff Seeney, former federal minister Gary Hardgrave and Brisbane Lord Mayor Adrian Schrinner.
It was the sort of political arrogance and hubris that was a hallmark of the McIver era, and it was obvious she was not going to be part of the solution.
Queensland needs a cogent, unified opposition.
It needs a major conservative political party with ideas and policy to take the state forward.
That’s why next weekend shapes as the start of the long road back to being competitive against Labor.
It’s about time.
