James Campbell: Liberals’ preselection strife continues

THE longstanding hostility of Liberal Party members to admin preselections — and their heartfelt desire for party democracy — has been clear for many years, writes James Campbell. Which is why the latest decision is so unpopular.

TWO WEEKS ago my colleague Matt Johnston drew attention in his column to the “absurdity” of the Liberal Party “not having locked-in candidates for winnable Upper Seats” with only four months to go until the Victorians go to the polls in November.

He was referring to the fact that despite the date of this year’s election having been known for the past 15 years — it was set in legislation in 2003 — the Liberals have yet to preselect people in the “eminently winnable Northern Metro and Eastern Victoria” Legislative Council regions.

As if by magic, the very next evening the party’s Administrative Committee decided — via email — to fast-track a process for choosing the candidates for these positions, as well as a replacement for Simon Ramsay, the bibulous MP who last month blew almost .19 on his way home to Barwon Heads.

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Simon Ramsay was caught drink-driving. Picture: Michael Dodge/Getty Images

To say the decision has not gone down well with a large section of the party would be an understatement. The reason is that although all party members are free to nominate there won’t be a conventional preselection involving local members as the constitution requires. Instead the Admin Committee will itself choose the candidates.

The longstanding hostility of ordinary Liberal Party members to Admin preselections and their heartfelt desire for party democracy has been clear for many years.

“The justification for a broad-based plebiscite,” one member wrote in 2014 “is that no faction, MP, much less party leader can exert undue influence on a large decentralised group of pre-selectors.”

The problem with an Admin preselection is “No candidate appointed by a narrow group should necessarily assume the confidence and support of the wider party membership following such appointment.”

The author of this impassioned defence of party democracy was the party stalwart Beverley McArthur and the source of her anger was the “extraordinary pre-selection” that took place after the Western Region candidate quit that year, in which “the administrative committee chose a sham process of re-advertising and then appointing one of its own administrative committee colleagues.”

Victorian Liberal leader Matthew Guy. Picture: AAP Image/Alex Murray

Readers, I have to tell you that in this space Ms Mcarthur’s views appear to have evolved over the past four years.

Last month in her capacity as the party’s female country vice-president, she did not oppose the move of the Administrative Committee to hand itself the Western Region preselection, though did send an email the next day stating she wished to abstain. And if the rumours are correct, she herself is the favourite to replace poor old Ramsay on the ticket.

It would seem in the Liberal Party democracy is a tram you ride until you reach your destination, as the President Erdogan of Turkey said in a different context a few years ago.

The justification being put about for Admin’s decision is that the committee had no choice because the motion had been moved by the party’s leader Matthew Guy.

As excuses go, it’s a pretty good one — certainly better than the earlier reason for not holding the preselections, namely the coalition agreement with the Nats had yet to be finalised. And at the end of the day, running a bunch of upper house preselections four months from an election is not a good use of party resources. But there is no doubt his acquiescence has hurt Guy with some people in the party who until now had prepared to overlook his cosying up to the party’s dominant faction as a necessary price for Liberal peace in an election year.

Victorian Liberal president Michael Kroger. Picture: AAP Image/Joel Carrett

No such excuse can be found however for the Admin Committee’s decision last week to re-endorse all sitting federal lower house MPs without any preselections at all.

According to the Party’s President Michael Kroger, the reason these haven’t been held until now is that it was until the AEC had finished redrawing the electoral boundaries.

To understand how this happened, let us go to Kroger’s email this week to party members: “We have pre-selected before on draft boundaries but it was decided that it was proper that all Members knew the final boundaries of their seats before we took the matter further. In the end, the Administrative Committee took the view that given the large number of other pre-selections potentially taking place between now and November we would re-endorse sitting Members.”

Those “other preselections” are presumably the state ones the Admin Committee had cancelled a week earlier, along with the Labor-held marginal seats it is hoping to win, though it is hard to be sure.

Anyway, it would seem odd to argue that it would not have been proper to hold preselections on draft boundaries and then to turn around and cancel them altogether.

It is widely suspected the real reason the sitting members were re-endorsed was because the veteran MP and ally of the current Admin Committee, Kevin Andrews, was facing defeat in his seat of Menzies.

Interestingly the Liberal senators James Paterson and Jane Hume, who are up for election next time, were not re-endorsed, because it is suspected the current powerbrokers have plans to push her to the risky third spot on the ticket. Watch this space.

— James Campbell is national politics editor.

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