Liberal Senators' upper hand spoils the party

THE federal parliamentary Liberal Party has become, in a practical sense, divided into two separate and disparate parties, one in the Senate and one in the house.

The Senate party is deeply conservative, reluctant to take action on climate change and supports Tony Abbott as leader.

The Liberal Party of the House of Representatives is moderate, supports an emissions trading scheme and prefers Malcolm Turnbull as leader.

In the recent leadership change and policy U-turn over the emissions trading scheme, the Senate party imposed its will on the house party.

Earlier, after months of normal policy-making procedures characterised by robust public and private debate, the party had come to a position on the trading scheme.

Unhappy with this result, the conservative minority pushed for a leadership spill but still fell well short of the required numbers. Confronted by this defeat, the conservative wing, from its power base in the Senate, unleashed a shock-and-awe campaign of frontbench resignations, forcing the Liberals into a policy and leadership crisis, from which Abbott won by a solitary vote.

The Senate-house divide, unchecked, could lead to a fatal disconnect between conservative politicians and the people they seek to represent.

Let me explain.

While Liberal leadership ballots are conducted secretly, politics being the public sport that it is, we can look at this month's 42-41 result and draw some quite accurate conclusions about who voted for whom.

On my reckoning, up to 22 of the Liberal Party's 32 senators adopted an anti-ETS stand. Almost all of them would have supported Abbott over Turnbull.

This means that while Abbott held a two-thirds majority in the Senate party, in the house it was almost the inverse.

His ETS position and leadership support amounted to about 20 MPs out of the 53 then in thehouse.

The point of this analysis is to demonstrate that the political character of the Senate Liberals is very different from the character of the Liberals in the House of Representatives.

When you consider why this might be the case, the long-term dangers become apparent.

It has long been my contention that the people in Canberra most closely connected to the voting public are the members of the House of Representatives, particularly those in marginal seats. Considered as groups, bureaucrats, political advisers, journalists or, significantly, senators do not have the same level of daily interaction with mainstream Australians. MPs who live in their electorates and deal with their constituents' daily concerns are bound to stay in touch with thepublic. Their survival depends on it.

Many senators are not as connected. Certainly some mingle extensively through their portfolio duties, some support their marginal seat colleagues and some are extensively involved in community groups.

But many Liberal senators mix largely in Liberal Party circles.

To be re-elected, their most important task is to secure party preselection for a winnable place on the Senate ticket.

And to secure those preselections it is not voters to whom they need to appeal but Liberal Party office holders and state council delegates. Hence senators have a tendency to circle tightly in the ever-diminishing, ever-ageing gene pool of Liberal Party branch membership.

In my experience, in this self-selecting group, hardline views on many topics are more prevalent than in the broader community. On climate change, in particular, you will find the prevailing view is strongly sceptical in a way that is out of kilter with middle Australia.

I am suggesting nothing sinister or improper here.

People who are active in political parties are entitled to their views and have a right to expect their elected representatives to reflect those views.

But it is worth making the observation that there is a strong likelihood that the soundings of community views by senators may not be as broadly reflective of mainstream values as soundings taken by lower-house MPs who move around their electorates, frequently attending community events. Senators typically don't even have to appeal to all Liberal Party members but to a small cohort of Senate preselectors or state councillors.

In the lead-up to the ETS vote, some senators received phone calls from preselectors threatening to withdraw support if the senators voted with the (then) party position.

Some will say this is all about "dancing with the ones who brung you": that the most important task for any party is to consolidate itsbase.

But even the hardheads must concede the risk that, in satisfying the strong calls from their narrow political base, the senators may have taken the party further away from the mainstream voters it needs to woo.

So, in light of the tumultuous events of the past few weeks, there are two serious questions for the Liberal Party.

Has the Senate Liberal Party imposed its will on the whole parliamentary Liberal Party? Is there a risk that the Senate Liberal Party is out of touch with mainstream views on climate change and other issues?

If the answer to both of those questions is yes, this bicameral divide presents the Liberal Party with a desperate fight for relevance.

Lest I be accused of grinding an axe, I take the rationalist position of being sceptical about the science but taking sensible risk-management precautions by adopting a well-designed ETS as the prudent way to begin reducing carbon dioxide emissions while we await further scientific verification. The hardline Nick Minchin-Abbott scepticism is, of course, a legitimate position, and we will know soon enough which proposition is preferred by Australian voters.

But regardless of the success or otherwise of the Minchin-Abbott era, the Liberal Party needs always to be alive to the challenge of staying in touch with middle Australia and rejuvenating its base.

There are some practical ways in which the Liberals could guard against a future disconnect.

The party could look to past practice in some of the state Liberal parties, where leadership ballots have been the exclusive preserve of lower house members.

So, just as the Senate leadership is elected at present by a ballot only of the Senate partyroom, perhaps the leader of the opposition should be chosen only by members of the House of Representatives. This would at least ensure the leadership reflects the character of the MPs in the house, which after all is the chamber in which government is formed.

Also, it is worth examining ways to broaden Senate pre selections to encourage greater community engagement by senators.

A ballot of the full state Liberal Party memberships would be worth considering because it would encourage prospective senators to campaign to a constituency broader than just a few hundred delegates.

Finally, a more fundamental challenge is to simply increase party membership.

If the aim is to ensure the Liberal Party remains the dominant party for reflecting the mainstream views of a broad variety of Australians, then it must find ways to encourage greater and broader party membership.

The greater the number of mainstream Australians involved in the Liberal Party, the greater the chance that those views will be carried all the way through to parliament, even into the rarefied atmosphere of the Senate.

Chris Kenny was chief of staff to Malcolm Turnbull.