‘Liberal brand not fit for purpose’

A scathing post-election review has been presented to the 30-member Liberal federal executive, with 49 critical recommendations confirming ‘urgent’ need for party reform.

An official post mortem examination of the federal election has warned that the Liberal Party was no longer “fit for purpose” and had presided over the collapse of its volunteer base which left it incapable of defending key seats against teal independents.

Party membership levels had also hit crisis point after years of deliberate hollowing out by the factional warlords in control of state divisions, the review has found.

The review will also reinforce findings of the ALP post-election review that former prime minister Scott Morrison’s unpopularity was a decisive factor in the election loss on May 21.

The Australian understands that the post-election review, conducted by former Liberal Party federal director Brian Loughnane and Victorian senator Jane Hume was presented to the 30-member federal executive on Wednesday and is due to be released on Thursday.

It is highly critical in its assessment of the party’s separate state divisions – which were riddled with factional infighting and personality cults – and blames them for a “grassroots” failure and neglect of community networks.

It is expected to deliver 49 recommendations, with a warning that the state divisions were in need of “urgent” reform.

The Liberal Party review will state it lost touch with the Australian people under former prime minister Scott Morrison - and highlighted state divisions as being an ‘urgent’ point of call.

A key recommendation, which the report says was fundamental to the party being competitive at the next election, was the resurrection of a volunteer base and grassroots campaign activity.

This, it claims, was a major factor in the party’s inability to defend against teal independents who had swamped key Liberal seats with volunteer brig-ades of 1500-2000 people.

But it said the problem was broader than that.

The party’s membership is estimated now to be about 10 per cent of what it was in the 1950s when it boasted more than 100,000 members.

The Australian revealed this week that the review had found that the party no longer represented “modern Australia”.

It will recommend reform of the branch membership to reverse the deliberate purging of branches over recent years at the hands of factional warlords seeking to control the candidate process.

It will recommend 50 per cent targets for the recruitment of women and the broadening of the party’s representation to include greater ethnic diversity.

The review will also recommend better use of data and analytics, and rebuilding the digital marketing strategy.

The review also cites the failure of the parliamentary team, led by Mr Morrison, to have articulated a coherent forward agenda during the campaign.

It found that the government had “lost the politics”.

A senior Liberal Party source said that they “would be surprised if anyone thought there were any surprises in any of that”.

While not as explicit in its ­assessment of the campaign as the recent ALP review – opting to refer to the “prime minister” rather than Mr Morrison personally – the report would reinforce the view that Mr Morrison’s unpopularity was a defining problem.

It found that while the government had been focused on the pandemic it had taken its eye off the ball in addressing the politics.

This, the report will conclude, enabled Labor to define Mr Morrison and the Coalition and determine the issues that the election would be fought on.

Opposition immigration spokesman Dan Tehan said the party should accept the review’s findings - with Peter Dutton entasked with changing its culture.

But a senior Liberal source familiar with the contents of the review said it would be a mistake to focus on Mr Morrison and ignore the more enduring problem, which was the dysfunctional nature of the state divisions.

They said the collapse of the volunteer base of the party and its diminished membership meant it was no longer a modern campaign outfit.

“This issue is much wider than the teals,” they said.

“The situation is not terminal if there is professional application immediately, and urgent reform of the divisions.”

Another senior Liberal MP told The Australian that if the Liberal Party did not have a democratic federal structure, the NSW state executive and the Victorian administrative committee would have been put into administration.

“It’s that bad,” they said. “And there doesn’t seem to be a realisation at the state executive or admin committee level about how bad their governance is seen.

“Instead of fighting each other on the executive, they should be focused on putting structures in place for the party to build their ground campaigns back up.”

Victorian federal MP and opposition immigration spokesman Dan Tehan, who successfully defended his seat against a teal candidate, said this week that the party needed to adopt the review’s recommendations and undertake urgent reform of the branches.

“If we are to win at the next election, we have to change the culture immediately,” he said.

“… and we will change the culture in the leadup to the next election – we have to.

“We’ve got preselections coming up over the next 12 to 18 months so we’ve just got to make sure we now begin to implement.

“Every political movement has to make sure that they are continuing to update their systems, modernise their practise, and in putting all the latest techniques in place to make sure that they’re engaged.

“… the absolute key now, is that we adopt the recommendations and make sure we implement them.

“Plenty of reviews are done. They have the greatest intention in the world, but then they’re left on a shelf to get dusty.”