Both major parties published reviews of their federal election campaigns last month, the Liberal Party’s being conducted by former federal director Brian Loughnane and current Victorian Senator Jane Hume, and Labor’s being the work of Greg Combet, Lenda Oshalem, Linda White and Craig Emerson, the first two being listed as chairs and the latter two as panel members. To the best of my recollection, the publication of such reviews started to become standard some time in the noughties, although it was then generally made explicit that parts of the reports – presumably the most interesting bits – were redacted for internal viewing only. This post offers a summary of what the Liberal Party’s report had to say, and will be followed by a similar effort on the Labor report when I can find an idle moment for it.
In contrast to suggestions that Liberal internal polling had performed poorly during the Victorian state campaign, the report states that the party got its money’s worth out of its “benchmark” polling during the campaign, which it notes did not employ robo-polling. This polling showed the Coalition two-party preferred “improved at least 3-4% over the campaign period in the key seats polled”, although there wasn’t much evidence of this in published polling. Further detail that is provided tells a familiar story of weak support for the Liberals among young women, compounded at this election by a heavy swing among middle-aged women.
On this basis, the review reaches the uncontroversial conclusion that a perceived unresponsiveness to issues important to women was “not sufficiently and effectively addressed”. As is often the case with these reviews though, it does a more convincing job of identifying problems than solutions. The report rejects following Labor’s example by introducing quotas, calling only for “targets” for parliamentary representation and party membership with no mechanism for meeting them. It notes the difficulty of a membership becoming ever less representative of the electorate as it declines in numbers, a problem with deep causes that the listed recommendations are unlikely to overcome.
What remained of the party membership was said to have been further demoralised by widespread denial of rank-and-file preselection ballots. Delays to the process arising from factional disputes discouraged strong potential candidates from nominating and in some cases caused the wrong ones to be chosen, which was “a particularly problem in New South Wales”. State party administrations in general are said to have become dominated by factional warlords who had failed to build networks in the community. Once again though, the scope of the recommendations offered is limited: the federal executive is advised to set preselection timelines to be followed by the state divisions, and to implement a code of conduct for those involved in party affairs, “collegial and professional standards” having been found wanting in some quarters. The report rejects the notion of a US-style primary system, as advocated recently by Dominic Perrottet.
While Scott Morrison’s unpopularity is noted, the report to some extent paints the government as a victim of the pandemic, which allowed it little leeway to pay due regard to “political management” and elevated the profile of Labor Premiers to the Coalition’s disadvantage. This was accompanied by a failure to “define Labor and its leader before the campaign”, causing Anthony Albanese to appear as a “low-risk alternate Prime Minister”.
Perhaps constrained by a lack of authority to address policy issues, the report has little more to offer on the teal independent challenge than suggesting a well-resourced campaign of personal attacks might make the problem go away, notwithstanding the abject failure of such efforts during the campaign and the enthusiastic co-operation they received from News Corp (here some credit is due to The Australian columnist Katrina Grace Kelly, who in the wake of the Victorian result wondered if “sections of the electorate now conflate the party with sections of the media, which they regard as toxic, and perhaps they are voting to reject both this type of media as well as the party they think it represents”).
Other points of note: waiting until late in the campaign to announce major policies encouraged a perception that the government lacked a fourth-term agenda; the government’s initial support of Clive Palmer’s High Court action on border closures was an unforced error contributing to the party’s Western Australian debacle; and the party needs to pay closer attention to emerging social media platforms.
Can we please keep this thread relevant to the Liberal Party election review and related matters. The open thread for general discussion is here.
The Liberal Party is dominated by lawyer types.
It is no surprise to anyone that the main theme of their internal review is as expected from lawyer types.
Deny everything .
“ It notes the difficulty of a membership becoming ever less representative of the electorate as it declines in numbers, a problem with deep causes that the listed recommendations are unlikely to overcome.”
And as this diminishing membership continues to die off, the tiny remainder likely become even more unrepresentative of community values. As a result they increasingly choose even more unrepresentative MPs who are unelectable leaving the party facing an existential crisis in a decade. Can they really not see this?
Those in the Liberal party problem has and will be is relying on their corrupt political media units propaganda to do all the campaigning and attacking the lib/nats political opponents , by the public slowly coming out of the slumber and seeing the corrupt media as what they are.
The Liberal party will have to split politically from the media , or be in political wilderness
Yes, the Coalition continues to have a “women” problem, but they shouldn’t delude themselves about it, it’s not just women, it’s also the young, the middle aged, older people may not be as enthusiastic for the Coalition as they were in the past, and even some financially well-off people may be abandoning them (see the rise of the Teals in some affluent seats).
“While Scott Morrison’s unpopularity is noted, the report to some extent paints the government as a victim of the pandemic…”…. Hmmm, a crisis such as the pandemic (and bushfires and floods and the international effects of the war in Ukraine) is a problem for a government when the government doesn’t react effectively to the crisis. Morrison’s problem was not being the “victim” of crises, but irresponsibly reacting in an incompetent way to such crises.
With regard to the Teals, I agree that the Liberal party still doesn’t know how to effectively react to them. Well, I have got a piece of advice for Dutton: Moderate your policies!…. Oh well, I am wasting my time, I guess.
Q: allowed it little leeway to pay due regard to “political management”
All Morrison did was political management, cosplay and press conferences and announcements 3 times a day…. and no policy work or even basic management.
Q: “conclusion that perceptions the party was unresponsive to issues important to women were “not sufficiently and effectively addressed”
So the problem was peoples perceptions, not their actual lack of women’s policies.
Scott @ 8.00am
” be in political wilderness”
The Liberals are already in the wilderness and their own review does not address their problem(s).
The Liberals are wagering plenty on the upcoming NSW election.
If the scramble a win, any further review, together with the latest one will be archived.
The Liberals real concern is the response to a massive defeat in NSW.
Oh, we’ll have another review!
The liberals have a “blight” in most areas.
The symptoms are “closed eyes” and “curling up”.
The libs member base is now firmly represented by religious nutters. That is who their preselectors are. That is who they are now. They used to be able to craft a fantasy narrative that they were a ‘broad church’ with their ‘moderates’ holding the purse strings with their blue bloods. The moneyed set. But they’ve driven them, and their representatives, out. They lost every one of their blue ribbon seats. Until they can get a handle on that, and I have my doubts, they’ll continue to alienate everyone else. Their review doesn’t have a single thing to offer the people who abandoned them at the federal election.
” All Morrison did was political management, cosplay and press conferences and announcements 3 times a day…. and no policy work or even basic management.”
The Morrison playbook was:
1. Unremitting demonisation of opponents (in and out of Parliament), their policies and positions.
2. Pick fights, especially over defence, security and culture war issues. Divide the country and take the bigger half.
3. Micro-targeted pork barreling
4. Lie shamelessly as required in support of 1, 2 and 3.
5. Work closely with media allies, especially Newscorp.
Who needs policy work or management?
Peter Dutton is trying to adapt that playbook to Opposition. A key component is that the Albanese Labor Government fails, or at least that Coalition media allies can convince enough punters that it has. There is no Plan B.
S777
In terms of playbook, the hip pocket nerve will be prodded mercilessly in the last year or so before the next election.
What remained of the party membership was said to have been further demoralised by widespread denial of rank-and-file preselection ballots. Delays to the process arising from factional disputes discouraged strong potential candidates from nominating and in some cases caused the wrong ones to be chosen, which was “a particularly problem in New South Wales”.
This is an ever so polite way of saying the bastardisation of the NSW Moderates by ScoMo/Hawke faction leading up to the election. Hawke, on ScoMo’s orders and as his proxy, failed to attend the Executive charged with preselection sign off. Hawke’s role was ex-officio required to move anything. He simply failed to attend for 18 months. Which is the definition of bastardisation.
And to show just how brain dead ScoMo/Hawke was (and still is), they refused a number of factional deals, how these matters are usually resolved. No, not for the Sydney god-botherers- it was brinkmanship until the end.
But they did get Katherine Deves endorsed in Warringah.
For those wanting to read all 60 pages of the whitewash..
http://cdn.liberal.org.au/2022/2022_election_review.pdf
And the ALP Review at 62 pages
https://alp-assets.s3.ap-southeast-2.amazonaws.com/documents/ALP+CAMPAIGN+REVIEW+2022.pdf
The other key finding buried on p35 was:
The swing against the Liberal Party was significantly greater in electorates which have a higher concentration of voters of Chinese ancestry. In the top 15 seats by Chinese ancestry the swing against the Party (on a 2PP basis) was 6.6%, compared to 3.7% in other seats.
There were a number of reasons for this, including a perception the previous Government’s criticisms of the CCP government of China included the wider Chinese community more generally. This was obviously incorrect but the Party’s political opponents pushed this perception among voters of Chinese heritage in key seats in 2022.
According to the most recent census, 5.5% (1.4 million) of Australia’s population identify as having Chinese ancestry. This has increased from 3% in 2001, and 5.2% in 2016. Rebuilding the Party’s relationship with the Chinese community must therefore be a priority during this term of Parliament.
There is a particular need for the Party’s representatives to be sensitive to the genuine concerns of the Chinese community and to ensure language used cannot be misinterpreted as insensitive.
The solution would seem obvious. Tell Peter Dutton to shut the F* up on matters multi cultural.
Instead, the Liberal review recommends getting more Asian heritage staffers.
Meanwhile, the ALP Review was more succinct
Many in the Chinese-Australian community voted Labor for the first time because of the behaviour of Scott Morrison and Peter Dutton. They felt that the actions and rhetoric of Scott Morrison and Peter Dutton meant that they were not welcome in Australia and that their businesses would be affected. Morrison and Dutton’s unnecessarily bellicose politicisation of the relationship with China also adversely impacted Australia’s national interest.
Q: There is no Plan B.
Plan B involves hard work……
So Yes, no Plan B then!
@goll
“The Liberal Party is dominated by lawyer types.”
Yes and no. Speaking as a Victorian lawyer of almost 20 years’ experience, it’s clear that the calibre of the lawyers who get involved in the Liberal Party – whether as active members or parliamentary candidates – has markedly declined over the last few decades. Long gone are the days of the likes of Garfield Barwick (whatever you think about his decisions towards the end of his days on the High Court), Nigel Bowen and Bob Ellicott. I’ve dealt professionally with a lot of openly Liberal-aligned barristers and solicitors in Melbourne and, with rare exceptions, they’re quite underwhelming – if not embarrassing.
“Have you tried my being racist?”
sheesh… “Have you tried… not being racist?”
“(here some credit is due to The Australian columnist Katrina Grace Kelly, who in the wake of the Victorian result wondered if “sections of the electorate now conflate the party with sections of the media, which they regard as toxic, and perhaps they are voting to reject both this type of media as well as the party they think it represents.)”
—————————————————————————————-—
Interesting, does KGK think that it’s the fault of the voters for conflating the Liberals and the Murdochracy or that the seemingly obvious symbiotic relationship between both has turned toxic on the two hosts?
Wow, talk about head in the sand from this review. “Scott Morrison’s unpopularity is noted, the report to some extent paints the government as a victim of the pandemic”.
At a time when incumbent governments were polling extremely positively for their handling of the pandemic.
The Coalition bungled it completely. Aged care, vaccines, RATs, challenging state lead lockdowns like in WA, anything else? Oh yeah, Morrison then tried to take credit for action the states lead on.
As for Morrison himself. From his own party insiders;
“He f*cked us and his fingerprints are absolutely f*ckin’ everywhere on that. The bloke thinks he is a master strategist. He is a f*ckwit”
“I think it took people three years to realise what a horrible person he is,” a Liberal Party insider says.
Hubris + horrible. Not a great combo is it. More here;
https://www.thesaturdaypaper.com.au/news/politics/2022/05/28/coalition-loss-the-transphobe-thing-was-absolute-disaster#hrd
This is all before the demographic crisis facing the Coalition. A growing block of voters who are increasingly younger, more progressive and not religious.
State Liberal Parties in WA, VIC, SA and QLD have all learnt the hard way, that following their federal counterparts is not a path to electoral success.
Pi says:
Sunday, January 15, 2023 at 10:39 am
The libs member base is now firmly represented by religious nutters. That is who their preselectors are. That is who they are now. They used to be able to craft a fantasy narrative that they were a ‘broad church’ with their ‘moderates’ holding the purse strings with their blue bloods. The moneyed set. But they’ve driven them, and their representatives, out. They lost every one of their blue ribbon seats. Until they can get a handle on that, and I have my doubts, they’ll continue to alienate everyone else. Their review doesn’t have a single thing to offer the people who abandoned them at the federal election.
———————————————————————————————-
As I noted last year, their broad church is now nothing more than a tiny chapel and frankly they’re happy with that but they’ll never be re-elected.
Cronus @ #18 Sunday, January 15th, 2023 – 12:58 pm
This was the best news in the report for me, and thank you to WB for digging it out. Regardless of the conclusions the Liberals may take from her insight, if indeed she’s onto something, that is encouraging for a Murdoch weary Australia.
(And in passing, hats off to WB for sentence length in that paragraph.)
The people finally realised the LNP was not the party their daddy done voted for. Simples. The LNP has been well and truly hijacked. Add that to the fact that their only purpose is to keep Labor out of power, and they have no purpose. They are anti-democratic and anti-government, so what is their purpose?
Review complete.
Hi William. Sorry if this is the wrong thread for this.
But just wanted to let you know I think your live results facility for the Victorian state election is showing what looks like incomplete results – currently says only 67.3% counted.
Also, the booth results map for Albert Park doesn’t appear to be working.
Otherwise thanks a lot for producing these live results facilities. They are excellent. The booth results map is a fantastic resource as are the polling place results tables which have all the results in easy-to-read % form plus all the vote swings.
Thanks PSTRLGW — fixed, I think.
‘… “collegial and professional standards” having been found wanting in some quarters.’
In other news, water and shade have been “found wanting in some quarters” of the Sahara.
“… notwithstanding … the all-too-enthusiastic co-operation they received from News Corp …”
A topic of deep and meaningful discussion within the Loughnane household, surely?
‘… its “benchmark” polling during the campaign … showed the Coalition two-party preferred “improved at least 3-4% over the campaign period in the key seats polled”, although there wasn’t much evidence of this in published polling.’
Unnamed (of course) ‘party insiders’ told Samantha Maiden that, based on their own polling, they were optimistic about the election outcome.
Ms Maiden dutifully touted her insider insights to the world.
When, post-election, she discovered she had been led up the garden path, Ms Maiden was mightily miffed.
It was once thought to have been repeated that a Liberal Party insider once asked a fellow insider,
“you don’t believe that bullshit going around do you ? ”
“what’s that about” he asked,
“something about us believing our own bullshit” he replied dismissively,
“that would be those bloody teal sheilas”,
“I was talking to a bloke the other day, a friend of a friend who’d met one of them at a function once, bloody hell, a waste of time, no one would vote for them”.
“just lesbians like those bloody greenies”
‘waste of time really, just a mob of bullshit artists”
(review complete)
Torchbearer says:
Sunday, January 15, 2023 at 12:32 pm
Q: There is no Plan B.
Plan B involves hard work……
So Yes, no Plan B then!
____________
Actually, Plan B would involve the hardest work of all: change.
The Libs will struggle to beat Teals unless the Libs change. Part of the change will involve finding a mechanism to increase the number of Lib women MPs, for example.
Is there any evidence such change can be achieved without quotas?
In other words, the Party needs to acknowledge it has deep-seated problems, caused by the very nature of those who now seem to dominate its membership. Its current members need to be persuaded to reduce their own exercise of power within the Party, in hopes of reaching out to segments of the electorate without whom the Party will struggle to win.
Good luck.
Dustboot says:
Sunday, January 15, 2023 at 2:26 pm
Wow, talk about head in the sand from this review. “Scott Morrison’s unpopularity is noted, the report to some extent paints the government as a victim of the pandemic”.
At a time when incumbent governments were polling extremely positively for their handling of the pandemic.
The Coalition bungled it completely. Aged care, vaccines, RATs, challenging state lead lockdowns like in WA, anything else? Oh yeah, Morrison then tried to take credit for action the states lead on.
As for Morrison himself. From his own party insiders;
“He f*cked us and his fingerprints are absolutely f*ckin’ everywhere on that. The bloke thinks he is a master strategist. He is a f*ckwit”
“I think it took people three years to realise what a horrible person he is,” a Liberal Party insider says.
Hubris + horrible. Not a great combo is it. More here;
https://www.thesaturdaypaper.com.au/news/politics/2022/05/28/coalition-loss-the-transphobe-thing-was-absolute-disaster#hrd
This is all before the demographic crisis facing the Coalition. A growing block of voters who are increasingly younger, more progressive and not religious.
State Liberal Parties in WA, VIC, SA and QLD have all learnt the hard way, that following their federal counterparts is not a path to electoral success.
____________
If the Libs can blame ‘the pandemic’ and ‘Morrison’ for their loss, they don’t need to engage in paradigm change.
Thus they will blame ‘the pandemic’ and ‘Morrison’, whilst conveniently ignoring the electoral success of Labor state govts that were perceived to have prioritised people’s health – most spectacularly, WA.
PS The pandemic is still with us. I fear politicians of both major stripes are trying to wish it away. Further surges in cases/mortality may see Labor punished at future stat/federal elections, even though the alternative (Coalition) would’ve been worse. You really campaign on ‘they would’ve been worse’.
After previous losses the Liberal party could always just stew awhile, wait for people to get sick of Labor and then enjoy an undeserved swing of political pendulum back again. I hope now the two party system is broken so that when people become dissatisfied with Labor they can vote in other ways to maintain the momentum towards climate action and sustainability.
Meanwhile no review from the Nationals? I expect they’re so pleased with having done comparatively well compared to the Libs they haven’t bothered. In reality though no party in Australian history has done so little to benefit its supporters as the Nats since the 1980s.
So an entirely predictable result.
“The voters are at fault, we won’t change anything and they’ll come around.”
Opposed to the actual reason of “we are completely incompetent.”
The Nationals will presumably do their own review but might keep it quieter. One of the stories to come out of the Vic state election is that the Nats did a very successful review of the 2018 debacle and unlike the Libs, learned from it, spent 3 years implementing the learnings and pow, they won back 3 regional seats from independents.
The Lib review is a pig circus because they refuse to admit they could ever be wrong about anything.
When you consider what’s left of the Liberal party in parliament and indications that Millennials and younger are becoming if anything more left wing as they age it’s hard to imagine how the Liberal party as we know it gets re-elected to government. The way things are going the LNP looks like it’s heading towards becoming a mostly rural, socially conservative minority party, the teals or some successor party the home of actual liberals, the Greens the home of left wing post materialists and Labor occupying the widest range of voters in the centre. I don’t think the LNP can see, or are willing to admit, the existential crisis they face if they don’t take big steps to recalibrate and engage with younger voters urgently.
“Calyptorhynchus says:
Monday, January 16, 2023 at 10:43 am
After previous losses the Liberal party could always just stew awhile, wait for people to get sick of Labor and then enjoy an undeserved swing of political pendulum back again. I hope now the two party system is broken so that when people become dissatisfied with Labor they can vote in other ways to maintain the momentum towards climate action and sustainability.
Meanwhile no review from the Nationals? I expect they’re so pleased with having done comparatively well compared to the Libs they haven’t bothered. In reality though no party in Australian history has done so little to benefit its supporters as the Nats since the 1980s.”
The Nats are consistently elected in seats (rural/regional) that have the highest percentage of population with socioeconomic problems and also the lowest levels of education. Are those voters so happy with that, that they keep voting their Nationals representative in, election after election, and by a large margin? Or do they keep voting so because of that issue (e.g. low education)?…. No wonder the Nats always ask for money, but never use it to truly improve the situation of the majority of voters in their electorate.
William Bowe says:
Sunday, January 15, 2023 at 8:37 pm
Thanks William, much appreciated. Unfortunately the polling place results tables and booth results map for Albert Park still don’t seem to be loading, but perhaps that’s just an issue at my end.
sprocket on Sun at 12.10 pm
Good contrast. There is no sign the LNP have recognised the real cause of their alienation of Chinese Australian voters, namely the generalised anti-China rhetoric. This led, via the media, inter alia to a situation where public perceptions of a supposed ‘China threat’ to Australia are significantly higher than in regional countries that are much closer to China geographically.
Who is the main Liberal expert on China? J.W. Howard. What was his advice? Play the “long game” against the Chinese government.
An article on Howard and China at the start of 2022 concluded with this para:
‘“No country can afford to ignore the importance of trading relationships. But having said that, there’s no doubt that the belligerence shown has been obvious,” [Howard] said’.
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/the-long-game-howard-says-australia-must-wait-out-china-aggressiveness-20211220-p59j0q.html
There was no recognition at all from Howard that Australian rhetoric under ProMo and Dutton displayed much gratuitous belligerence toward China.
The LNP either did not bother to request focus group surveys among Chinese Australians. or they could not comprehend the results.
For Howard’s public advice on relations with China in November 2020 see:
https://asialink.unimelb.edu.au/insights/asialink-milestones-john-howard-reflects-on-the-china-challenge-and-the-trump-legacy
The idea did not occur to Howard that the Chinese government knows the “long game” well.
Ironically, one of the key seats for Chinese Australian voters was Bennelong, lost by Howard in 2007. Presumably, the Lib loss report had no case study of Bennelong. Too close to the bone.
I am not about to give the Liberal Party a heads up on where their problems are
In my opinion their problems are pretty obvious – and have existed since the times the likes of McPhee, Chaney, Georgiou et al were replaced
And then you look at the affiliations of those who replaced them
The self analysis, including who has attended the analysis, serves no purpose over and above entrenching the problems
The so called “Teals” now entrenched in former “blue ribbon” seats is an outcome a very long time in the making
There is a hell of a lot of further electoral pain heading the way of the Liberal Party
That said, Rudd should have nailed the coffin but the ALP, panicked by media, stuffed it up
Media no longer has credibility – and no longer has relevance or power
When your selling lies, politics is a ‘marketing problem’? So you decide all you need is more effective personal attacks on Teals…. oh dear!
If they were characters in professional wrestling what would Liberal politicians look like?
The Teals should replace them, they are an anachronism, we need a credible opposition
The Fiberals never learn. They believe that with the help of the right-wing media they can always waltz in next time round. Even Murdoch himself once said to that effect that he would be okay with tolerating one term of Labor.
Just when you need it where is Nostradamus to divine when they will next win a federal election and who will be their leader then?
How do you dig yourself out of a hole? By digging sideways.
The Liberal party needs to find their way of digging sideways because the way they are digging is just getting them deeper into the hole.
“B.S. Fairman says:
Wednesday, January 18, 2023 at 1:00 pm
How do you dig yourself out of a hole? By digging sideways.
The Liberal party needs to find their way of digging sideways because the way they are digging is just getting them deeper into the hole.”
Will digging sideways really get the Libs out of their current hole?….
They can’t keep going using topics where they are either not winning or just drawing even. Some of the culture war stuff is not going to win them anywhere votes and going to further alienate people they need to win back. What they need to do is try to define themself in the minds of voters as something different from what they currently are. They need new causes to champion because their current ones are going to do that for them.
An example of what I mean is when Menzies started his Forgotten people rhetoric which moved the publics imagine of the conservative side from being a pro-wealth party to a pro-middle class (I know this debatable by some).
I am not sure what that is (unless they pay me enough to think about it, then I will come up with some rubbish they could use but I don’t think they have that much cash on hand).
Amazing that so much seems to be about the personalities and the perception of their leaders among certain demographics.
But so little about their abhorrent policies and practices.
They do not learn.
HH, earlier
“By the end of the year, South Australia is set to be the first state to have a First Nations’ Voice to Parliament.”
——
Good on ’em, but I wonder if this might backfire on the referendum. I’ve read the argument that we don’t need to change the constitution. The SA example supports that view.
EDIT: Oops. Wrong thread…
Another bit of good news for the Voice. (Note that the ACT Liberals opposed.)
On a motion by a Labor MLA, both Labor and the ACT Greens have fully supported a motion supporting the Voice to Parliament:
https://marisapaterson.com.au/issues/assembly-work/first-nations-voice-to-parliament-uluru-statement/