Party to disaster

Howard has forgotten the great lesson that the Liberal Party's founder, Sir Robert Menzies, understood in 1944 - you must have a strong party organisation to sustain long-term electoral viability of any government.

An effective party organisation is necessary to recruit and train future parliamentarians and to provide policy ideas outside the confines of government, bureaucracy and pollsters. Moreover, a political party must be devoid of any hint of questionable standards if it is to have public credibility. Howard, the ultimate party man, should have known this.

But Howard's failure goes even wider than this. Given the pivotal roles in Australian government of political parties in recruiting leaders, developing policy, connecting to interest groups and citizens and acting as critics of governments, a hollowed-out Liberal Party bodes ill for Australian democracy.

The defeat of the Howard Government might see a great shakeout in the non-Labor side of politics. It may even force not just overdue reforms to the Queensland Liberals but at last provide the push for amalgamation of the Liberals and Nationals Australia-wide. This has been too long coming.