CLP faces a challenge it needs to tackle, writes Thomas Morgan

The CLP’s parliamentary team is espousing the virtues of discipline, but its organisational wing is in jeopardy amid fears for the party’s future.

THERE is an old saying in politics: disunity is death.

The phrase is trotted out every time a prime minister is rolled or factional warfare threatens to derail a party.

Labor seems to have learnt this lesson, albeit the hard way.

The party spent six years in power eating itself alive as Julia Gillard and Kevin Rudd engaged in an unholy power struggle in Canberra.

Keen to avoid a similar fate at the Territory level, one could argue that despite some high profile exceptions (cocaine sex scandal, anyone?), Labor’s NT branch is a tight-knit, disciplined operation.

So too is the CLP’s parliamentary team.

Jamie de Brenni’s role as party president has been mired by insurgency, as party loyalists sound the alarm over fears of the CLP’s future. Picture: Emma Murray.

CLP Leader of the Opposition Lia Finocchiaro runs a relatively disciplined operation. . Picture: Glenn Campbell

The contrast couldn’t be starker with that of the organisational wing of the Country Liberals.

You’d think that after their disastrous term in office between 2012 and 2016, they would know the dangers of public feuding.

But last weekend showed the CLP still has a long way to go before the party addresses its problems.

The issues facing the CLP are largely structural.

Their membership is ageing. One insider last week told me in confidence they estimate 20 per cent of its membership is dead.

The CLP is going to have a real hard time explaining that one to the Australian Electoral Commission.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison may have saved the CLP this election, but the party’s future is far from secure. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Gary Ramage

At the same time, the CLP seems unable to foster a younger voter base, thanks in part to a lingering legacy of the Mills-Giles era.

And any younger conservative voters who would have once upon a time wanted to be a part of the Country Liberals won’t bother.

Given how transient the Northern Territory has become for younger generations, there’s little motivation to join.

And this is compounded by a management which has seemed unwilling to acknowledge this reality.

Labor at least seems to have a strong ground game when it comes to engaging and converting younger voters into members (recent scandals in NT Young Labor notwithstanding).

But the CLP’s leadership has appeared unwilling to come to grips with how to tackle this demographic challenge.

It’s little wonder long-term CLP stalwarts are more than happy to leak confidential and embarrassing sagas to the press.

The CLP’s central council meeting this past weekend was the culmination of years of frustration.

You can hardly blame them. The insurgency within the CLP is a sign of anger at the leadership’s mismanagement and obliviousness.

Freshly-minted CLP president Fiona Darcy has a big task ahead. Picture: File.

Disunity is death, but in this instance it’s also a symptom of a disgruntled membership.

The new president Fiona Darcy, 80, may not be a part of the generation her party needs to attract if it wants to stay viable long-term, but she absolutely has it in her power to right the ship and sail the CLP back toward political relevance.

To do so, insiders say Ms Darcy needs to take steps to arrest the decline.

First step would be a clean-out of the dearly departed on the CLP’s member list.

Next would be reviving the party’s image in the eyes of Territorians and attracting younger voters.

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Originally published as CLP faces a challenge it needs to tackle, writes Thomas Morgan