Politics
Time to assert his Will …
IT was early in October that the first face-to-face showdown between Liberal state leader Will Hodgman and senior Tasmanian powerbroker Senator Eric Abetz took place in their very public battle for the soul of the Liberal Party in Tasmania.
The occasion was an electorate meeting in the Hobart seat of Denison on a cold Monday evening.
In one of those only-in-Tasmania moments, the date clashed with a $200-a-head glittering waterfront banquet cooked by chef extraordinaire Tetsuya Wakuda to help save the Tassie devil, forcing many of the well-heeled Sandy Bay faithful to choose between canapes and crayfish or internal party squabbles.
Unfortunately for Mr Hodgman, many of his “small-l” moderate Liberals preferred the obvious appeal of the devil dinner to a full-on barney about Liberal ideology.
So it was that the Opposition Leader, away from his home electorate of Franklin, faced the music from many Denison Liberals unhappy with his decision to air the party’s dirty linen in public.
In September, Mr Hodgman used the Mercury to deliver an open challenge to Senator Abetz and his highly organised and strategic right-wing element of the Liberals.
…
There are some who claim Mr Hodgman’s determination to fight for a new way forward this weekend for the state Liberals will be the start of the end of his leadership of the Parliamentary Liberal Party team.
He says he is resolute that there is only one way forward, and that is progressive change. He also refuses to have that debate in private.
But Mr Hodgman is no fool rushing to his political death. He rightly points out that after 4 1/2 years as head of the Tasmanian Liberals and at only 41 he is already the longest-serving, and youngest, Liberal leader in Australia.
With that albeit limited in longevity terms experience under his belt, Mr Hodgman sees the first state council after both a state and federal election with three to four years of clean air before the next polls as the best and most appropriate time to fix structural and value problems within his own ranks.
That judgment is correct. There are only two options facing the Liberals now – to fade into right-wing oblivion or to reclaim the central political ground with mainstream policies and principles.
Full Sue Neales Comment, Mercury, HERE
What Tony Abbott said …
6 November 2010
TRANSCRIPT OF THE HON. TONY ABBOTT MHR
ADDRESS TO THE LIBERAL PARTY OF AUSTRALIA, TASMANIAN DIVISION, STATE COUNCIL
LAUNCESTON
Ladies and gentlemen, I am incredibly grateful for the warmth of your welcome and I hope that my words can justify it. Eric, thank you so much so that splendid introduction. Ladies and gentlemen, it took a truly remarkable man to step into the big shoes of Nick Minchin and Eric Abetz is that remarkable man. Thank you so much for the leadership you are providing to our country and to our Coalition in Canberra as well as here in Tasmania.
Ladies and gentlemen, it’s great to be in the presence of my distinguished federal colleagues, Senators Richard Colbeck, Stephen Parry, David Bushby and of course Guy Barnett. I want to pay particular tribute to Guy Barnett here in his home city of Launceston. He has fallen in the field of political combat. He is a military cross winner in political terms and the great thing about falling in political life is that you can rise again and we very much hope that that will happen, Guy. Could I also acknowledge the presence of my distinguished frontbench colleagues the Shadow Assistant Treasurer Mathias Cormann and also the Shadow Finance Minister, Andrew Robb. Where are you, Andrew? Good to see you here, and can I say that all of my federal frontbench colleagues are here because we want some of the success of Will Hodgman to rub off on us. Will, you had a remarkable state election result, a seven per cent swing to the Liberal Party and a 12 per cent swing against the Government. There are a lot of rip-offs in politics and the greatest rip-off of recent times is the failure for there to be a Liberal government here in Tasmania. There should be a Liberal government here in Tasmania.
Ladies and gentlemen, there should also be a Liberal government in Canberra. There really should be a Liberal government in Canberra and the more we see of the current Government in Canberra the more obvious it is that we need a different and a better government in Canberra. This is a bad Government in Canberra. It’s a bad Government getting worse. We had the carbon tax that they ruled out before the election and they ruled in after the election. There was the East Timor detention centre that was going to happen before the election but is plainly not going to happen after the election. There were the onshore detention centres that weren’t going to happen before the election but which most definitely are happening after the election. There was the mining tax that was all fixed before the election and is all unravelling after the election, and there’s the Murray-Darling Basin plan that was going to be embraced sight unseen before the election but which is now being run away from at a million miles an hour after the election.
What we have seen, ladies and gentlemen, since the election is one Labor stuff-up after another, one Gillard mess after another. It was the Prime Minister herself who said back at the end of June that the Government has lost its way. Well, it is no news to the Australian people when I say they are still lost. They are still absolutely lost. In fact, the more I think about it the more I think that changing from Kevin Rudd to Julia Gillard was like changing the leadership from Burke to Wills with most unfortunate results for the expedition Australia.
In fact, ladies and gentlemen, I used to say that the longer the Rudd Government lasted the better the Howard Government looked. Now I say the longer the Gillard Government lasts the better the Rudd Government looked. That is the predicament in which we find ourselves today. It is a Government which is just going from bad to worse. It is a Government whose worst days are still ahead of it and let me focus on one example which I think demonstrates everything that is wrong with this Government. It is a Government which sees a problem and thinks more bureaucracy is the solution. It sees a difficulty and it passes a law. It needs money and it raises a tax. This is inherent in the nature of this Government.
It is inherent in the nature of this Government that rather than think that the best way to give us here in Australia the faster, better, more efficient broadband that we all want and need is not to give us competitive markets but to give us a government monopoly. Not to give us a futuristic solution but in fact to go back to the 1960s of telecom to give us a solution to our broadband issues. Now, I understand that before the election there was a bit of enthusiasm for this policy here in Tasmania and the last thing I would want to do is damage or detract from any new infrastructure that might actually have been rolled out here in Tasmania. But let’s be under no illusions about what’s happened. So far the nationalised broadband network has gone past some 5,000 households. Only 50 per cent of those households, so it seems, have actually been connected, and less than 10 per cent it seems have actually signed up for the higher speeds. Ladies and gentlemen, this looks like a gift but it is a gift that we will be paying for again and again, our children and their children. It is a gift funded by debt that we must repay. It is a gift that does not give. That is the problem with this nationalised broadband network. I have described it as school halls on steroids and ladies and gentlemen the longer the nationalised broadband network lasts the more like yet another dodgy Labor scheme it will become.
But ladies and gentlemen, our challenge is not simply to criticise this Government. Our challenge is to offer the Australian people a vision of a better Australia. A vision of a better Australia that is built on those great values of freedom, choice and responsibility which have always been at the heart of our party. Our challenge is not to be critical alone – important though that is – our challenge is to be constructive and even since the election we have been a constructive Opposition; we have been a credible alternative government. Just this week it has not been the Labor Party which has been leading the political debate, it has been the Coalition which has been leading the debate and now we see the Labor Party scrambling to catch up. We believe in a decent and responsible banking system with more competition in it. That is why we are proposing a Private Members Bill to give the ACCC the power to investigate price signalling and potential collusion between the banks. And I ask you how many times under John Howard and Peter Costello did we have a situation where the Reserve Bank changed interest rates and the banks raised them by more. Did it happen a dozen times? Did it happen once or twice? It never happened and that’s because John Howard and Peter Costello knew how to manage an economy in the way that Wayne Swan and Julia Gillard simply don’t.
We believe in tax reform. We believe in lower, simpler, fairer taxes and we don’t just believe in it, we put it into practice when we were in government and precisely because of the kind of reforms that we put in place when we were in government the real wealth of Australians doubled. Individual and household real wealth almost doubled in the time of the Howard-Costello Government.
We believe in welfare reform. We believe in a strong and effective safety net but everyone in this country who could work, should work and that is what was achieved increasingly through programmes such as Work for the Dole under the former government. We believe in better public hospitals and if it were up to us there would be local boards running the great public hospitals of this country so they were responsive to the people, the patients, the doctors, the nurses that work in them and are served by them rather than simply the bureaucrats in distant cities. We believe in better, more responsive public schools. Again, schools that are more accountable to the parents and the communities that so depend on them. So we are a party of reform. We are a party of modernisation. But we are a party of reform and modernisation that builds on the best traditions, the great strengths and the mighty achievements of the Australian people. We will always be true to the traditions, the strengths, the achievements of the Australian people.
Ladies and gentlemen, it is very important that we always remember the values and the principles which animate our party, and I want to congratulate this Council, particularly you, Sam McQuestin, retiring state president, for beginning this State Council with the ‘We Believe’ document. Not for us the kind of culture which has recently been characterised as long on cunning and short on courage which characterises the modern Labor Party. Not for us the kind of situation which now bedevils the Labor Party, in the words of one of their own: ‘lobotomised zombies’ inhabiting the Federal Parliament. That’s not for us and it will never be for us if we remember what we believe in, and so, Sam, I really do want to congratulate you for the ‘We Believe’ statement which was recited, declaimed, declared at the start of this meeting and I do think that this is an example which could well be followed by every State Council right around our country.
Ladies and gentlemen, as Liberals we stand for lower taxes, smaller government and greater freedom. As conservatives we support the traditional family and we support values that have stood the test of time and as patriotic Australians we support policies that work and which don’t trifle with Australia’s future. These are the enduring principles that have animated us since Bob Menzies day. These are the enduring principles in our civilisation which have made it so strong for so many centuries.
Ladies and gentlemen, I don’t pretend that the next period of time in the federal parliament is going to be easy. This is a bad Government getting worse, but it is a Government which is very good at politics even as it is very bad at government. So it will be tough the next period of time. I would like to think that we can have significant success on the floor of the parliament given the current state of the numbers but that cannot be guaranteed. What I can guarantee though is that if we stand united we will succeed at the next election whenever that comes. What I can guarantee is that your worst enemy in the Liberal Party will vote for you in every single division while your best friend in the Labor Party will vote against you in every single division, and as long as we remember that then I think we will demonstrate the cohesion and the unity required to persuade the Australian people that we are worth trusting with government when the next opportunity to make that choice comes.
Ladies and gentlemen, I will be here in Tasmania a very great deal over the next few years. I have already signed up for Guy Barnett’s Tasmanian Pollie Pedal in the last weekend of February. I am extremely attracted to some of the catalogue of events, sporting events, that was unfolded to me last night in this very hotel, including the Freycinet Challenge which someone is going to send me all the details of, and of course one of my great ambitions in life has been to sail from Sydney to Hobart and I hope to organise that sometime before the next federal election. But Tasmania is important. Tasmania is important. It would be tragedy to return to government without having seats in the House of Representatives here in Tasmania and rest assured that my absolute determination is not to return to government without having seats in the Lower House here in Tasmania.
It’s almost 12 months since my parliamentary colleagues conferred on me the extraordinary honour of leading the federal parliamentary Liberal Party and leading the federal Coalition. I am so conscious of the honour you have done me. I am so conscious of being the standard bearer not just for the million of Australians who vote for the Coalition, but for the great values and principles which have animated our party over the decades and which have been so important in the success of our country since the 1940s. To walk in the footsteps of Bob Menzies and John Howard and Malcolm Fraser and all the other great people who have led our party is an extraordinary honour. I am sustained and nurtured by the encouragement and the strength that you give me. It is going to be a tough fight over the next three years. I’m up to it, I know my parliamentary colleagues are up for it, I think you are up for it. Let’s take the fight to the Labor Party and let’s give Australia the better government in Canberra that it so really deserves. That’s our job, ladies and gentlemen, to give Australia the better government in Canberra that a great country deserves.
ABC Online:
‘Stuck in a rut’: Libs candidate quits
A high profile Tasmanian Liberal member has quit the party after losing a ballot for party president.
Jenny Branch says the party is stuck in a rut and will not move forward.
“What I wanted them to show was that they had at least listened to what was being said to them, and had some commitment to moving forward into the future and that’s just not there.”
Ms Branch is well known as a Glenorchy City Councillor and former head of the Tasmanian Parents and Friends Association.
She says she will stand as an independent at the next state election.
“The Liberals really need a shake-up and I don’t think anyone in there at the moment has got the guts to do it,” Ms Branch said.
“I’m not sure that the Liberal party has the reach into the community and … I think they’re very much missing the mark with some of the people that I want to represent.”
The state Liberal Party conference in Launceston chose retired police officer Richard Chugg as its new state president.
Leader Will Hodgman told the gathering the party needs to attract younger voters.
And,
Hodgman ‘sick of opposition’
The Tasmanian Liberal Leader has outlined a raft of measures he hopes will help the party snatch victory at the next state election, saying he is ‘sick of opposition’.
Will Hodgman told the Liberals’ state conference in Launceston the party must learn the lessons of defeat.
“The simple fact is we failed, we’re still in Opposition,” he said.
He says another election loss is not an option.
“We’re sick of being in opposition.”
Mr Hodgman has vowed to use the findings of an independent review of the party’s Tasmanian branch to implement change.
It found the party needs to attract more members, especially women and young voters.
Mr Hodgman says Liberal election candidates need to be pre-selected earlier to give them, and the party, the best chance of success.
Mr Hodgman’s speech had been expected to directly challenge powerbroker, Eric Abetz.
The senator insists the party is united.
“I think Will Hodgman hit the nail on the head. His statements have been good and, if I might say with respect, there’s been a lot of media hype that has simply not come to fruition.”
Pre-selection change
It is expected Senator Abetz will be less than pleased with two constitutional changes to decentralise control of Senate and Legislative Council preselections.
The party has agreed to increase the pre-selection committee for upper house elections from 61 to 67.
First published: 2010-11-06 09:42 AM