Government’s desperate move

THE Liberal party is so short of members it is considering drastic action to recruit fresh blood. This is why the move is a big mistake.

COMMENT

STEP right up, step right up, get them while they’re hot!

The 2018 Liberal Party showbag! For members only!

It’s only a hundred bucks, and not only do you get membership of the Liberal Party, but discount vouchers for beer, boots and chocolate!

Hurry up folks! Get ’em while they last!

Today’s Daily Telegraph reported that the Liberals might look at boosting membership numbers by offering bonuses just for joining: discounts on Coopers Beer, RM Williams boots and Haigh’s Chocolates. According to the report, research within the party has found that one reason people aren’t joining it is because high membership fees can be a huge turn-off.

For me, the news was a flashback to those days as a wide-eyed kid, wandering through the showbag pavilion at showtime. The big crowds. The bright coloured bags filled with lollies and cheap plastic toys. Deciding where to spend my hard-earned pocked money. And over a dodgy PA, the voice of a hardened spruiker, flogging a showbag with “five hundred dollars worth of value, for just TEN bucks!”

It wasn’t until I got home that I realised that the bag didn’t really have $500 worth of value.

It was just a beach ball, a fun-sized Milky Way and discount vouchers for a bowling alley that had already closed down.

Today, the Liberal Party is taking the same approach as a carnival show worker to get folks to buy something that they’re just not convinced they need.

Each polling booth (and there are thousands around Australia) needs people to hand out how-to-vote cards each election day. Picture: Troy Snook/AAP

They’re not taking a modern approach to marketing, customer acquisition and retention. Instead, stuffing the membership bag with freebies and offers in an attempt to cajole new members into joining.

If people want a discount on grog, they don’t need a political membership, they’ve got shop-a-dockets for that. Cheaper RM Williams boots? Well, 10 per cent off a $600 pair of boots is still … let me do the sums … a lot of money! And Haigh’s chocolate? OK, I admit it. They might be onto something there.

Truth is, it’s hard for political parties of any stripe these days to attract new members, whether they hand out free chocolate or not. In this, the Liberals are not alone. Bill Shorten’s target for the Labor Party was 100,000 members, but in reality it is sitting at about 50,000. There are more members of the Richmond Football Club than there are members of any political party in Australia.

Once upon a time, joining a political party was one of the only ways for people to feel as though they were able to make a difference or be involved in politics. These days people feel as though they are contributing to political debate by commenting on Facebook posts and signing online petitions. With these options available to feed their political adrenaline, it’s increasingly difficult to attract them to do the hard yards of paying a membership fee, coming to branch meetings and handing out how-to-vote cards.

Part of the reason Liberals are jumpy on membership numbers is they know there’s a tough election campaign ahead. In getting rid of Malcolm Turnbull, they lost their single biggest donor and financial lifeline. Getting members to join isn’t just about boosting the coffers, it’s about acquiring willing volunteers in the lead-up and on election day at voting booths around the country. The party needs money, but it needs people as well.

This man has a house on the harbour. He’s got plenty of cash to donate and we’re guessing he won’t be feeling too generous right now. Picture: Sean Davey

If there’s a barrier to joining a party, I’m not convinced cost is the problem. Every party has a membership fee, and they vary from party to party and even from state to state. In NSW, a basic membership is $100. For Labor and The Greens, it depends upon how much you earn, starting about $50 and peaking about $100, depending on your circumstances. For One Nation, it’s about $45. But let’s be real: people don’t join a political party because they got a great deal on the price or because memberships were on sale. It’s not like buying a TV. When people join a party, they do so because they understand the cause, the values and want to be a part of it.

A bigger challenge in acquiring new members is that people need to know what they’re signing up for. When people join One Nation, which many former Liberal members have, they know the values of the party and want to be part of it. It’s the same for people who sign up for The Greens. They know what they’re in for.

This is part of the challenge that the Liberals need to face. If people buy a membership, what are they signing up for? What does the party stand for? Does it lean to the centre or lean to the right? Because changing leadership and rotating policy positions have made it hard for people to keep up, let alone commit to joining the cause.

The party needs to focus on the product it is offering, not the freebies that might go along with it. Unless it reckons with its modern identity, it will continue to have trouble attracting members, whether it hands out showbags or not.