Amalgamation is not the answer for the Liberal and National Parties

By whatever standard is adopted, the National Party is in desperate straits. It is barely registering on the radar screen of public opinion and is facing a bleak future. With the next State election less than two years away it appears to have no answers to drag itself out of the electoral doldrums.

A contest for the leadership of the organizational wing of the party between incumbent, Terry Bolger, and former Premier, Russell Cooper, and continuing speculation over the security of Mike Horan’s tenure as parliamentary leader does little to engender community confidence in the National Party’s ability to chart and maintain a clear, unambiguous course.

To the Nationals a revitalised Liberal Party is the only available lifeline in sight. However, the Liberal Party must answer some serious questions before accepting the latest marriage proposal.

For its own sake the Liberal Party must restore its electoral fortunes in the critical south-east – that area south from Noosa to the border and east from Toowoomba – and in selected regional areas. To do this it must present policies which have popular appeal and which demonstrate it has answers to critical questions facing Queenslanders.

This is the complete antithesis of the Nationals’ desperate "back to the bush" approach. While the Nationals are consumed with winning former One Nation and independent supporters, the Liberal Party has to cast its net over Labor voters for whom the new brand of National Party conservatism has little appeal.

Since assuming the Liberal leadership in 2001 Bob Quinn has staked out Liberal policy positions which, while unremarkable in themselves, are in complete contrast to the National Party’s way of thinking. In any amalgamated party these new Liberal policy positions would have to be accommodated. The Liberal support for land clearing guidelines, daylight saving, shopping hours reform and four year terms of Parliament are strongly opposed by the National Party. Indeed, the Nationals see opposition to such policies as key planks in their efforts to regain conservative supporters. This policy mixture would be absolute poison to an amalgamated party and its opponents would be entitled to question the very platform on which it sought electoral support.

The simple fact is that the policy prescriptions needed to assist the Liberals in their target seats are the complete anathema of those needed to help the Nationals restore their electoral fortunes. While such differences can be managed in a less formal arrangement – as existed at the 1995, 1998 and 2001 elections – they would cripple any new party arising from an amalgamation of the two.

More importantly, from the Liberal viewpoint, any sort of policy backdown to accommodate an amalgamation would convey a very clear message to the very people the Liberals are trying to get onside – the Liberal Party is once again willing to sell out its beliefs in the hope of some electoral gain. The south-east would reject the Liberal Party and cast its lot with Labor.

Whatever gains the Liberal Party has made would be squandered. Suspicions would again be aroused that the Liberal Party simply couldn’t be trusted. It would reap the political consequences of its folly.

The genesis of these latest moves is disturbing.

Dennis Atkins, writing in "The Courier Mail" on 1 April this year – April Fools Day – quoted an unnamed "insider involved in the reform movement" which pushed the amalgamation question at the National Party’s Central Council meeting in Charleville.

That "insider" said: