What is John Howard doing in Queensland?

Secondly, it will lead to further coalition bickering, with the National Party threatening to run in a number of urban seats, endangering a unified campaign at the next election. The National Party are also hard bargainers and are likely to refuse to run a joint campaign until the issue is sorted out, giving Beattie more free time to get on top of damaging issues like his petrol price gaffe and abandonment of his jobs target.

Thirdly, the Liberal Party looks like it has returned to its old quarrelsome, self-interested ways. To lose the three-cornered contest that caused the biff would prejudice future three-cornered contests.

It is easy to see why Galtos and Watson were happy to pass on this one.

Why is the Santoro/Carroll faction so keen to run? One reason would be that Galtos and Watson had decided not to, against the wishes of the locals. That Santoro uses these issues opportunistically is well demonstrated by the fact that at the same time as he was telling Liberals he supported running he was telling Borbidge and the Nationals he was opposed! Another reason is that Santoro cannot get the numbers to be parliamentary leader in the current parliamentary party. To become leader, a dream he has nursed for 20-something years, he needs an influx of new blood – it does not matter if the injection occurs by taking a seat from Labor or the Nationals.

With these machinations taking place, and in the light of previous organisational campaigning incompetence, Watson decided that he had to set himself apart from the ruling organisational faction. So, in response to a question at a press conference on Monday 5^th June, he made the comment that the people behind the Cunningham push were hardly strategic geniuses – they were the same people responsible for the One Nation preference deal. Incredibly, Santoro took offence and issued an ultimatum: either Watson excepted him from the comments and expressed confidence in him by 2:00pm Wednesday, or he would resign.

Watson chose to downplay the challenge, and refused to work to Santoro’s timetable. Instead he asked why Santoro thought the comment implicated him. Wasn’t he on the record as saying he had not been involved in the One Nation deal?

While Santoro makes this claim, it is contrary to the facts but very important to Santoro, as he now relies on 400 or so ethnic Chinese stacked into two branches to deliver outcomes critical to him. Given that Santoro has never publicly admitted to being a power broker, Watson might also have asked what part he had to play in the decision to run, or otherwise, in Cunningham.

He did accuse Santoro of being a prima donna, but under the circumstances, and given the fact that he was being stood over, that would appear to be a moderate response. Santoro duly followed through his threat.

Santoro’s resignation is a good thing for Watson. It flushes him out as a troublemaker and factional leader who is running a party within a party. The next day’s Courier Mail even carried a story where Santoro admitted to raising huge amounts of funds and doling them out to party units. He denied that favours were ever asked in return.

When the party makes yet another blue, Watson will credibly be able to point at Santoro and Carroll and their party within the party, and seek to build a popular mandate for himself.

The same Courier Mail report has Howard issuing a directive that no more Federal Ministers are to lend themselves to Santoro’s fundraising efforts, which returns us to the original question as to why Howard would buy into a state scrap.

The least sensational theory is that it was done to head off trouble with Nats like De-Anne Kelly and Bob Katter and three-cornered contests at a Federal level. That doesn’t seem to lead too far. Kelly and Katter will always be trouble, and three-cornered contests at a Federal level go on all the time almost unremarked.