The Liberals. The shrinking tribe – The Spectator Australia

Before there werecountries,there were tribes.In politics,there still is.Almost everyone identifies with a particularpoliticaltribeand, ifeven if ones primary tribeis not one of the two contenders for government,most also identifymore strongly with oneof the major tribesthan the other.

Tribes began asextended familygroups,butthemore successfulonescooperated with other tribesformutual benefit.Apart fromintermarriage and trade,thatmeantconfrontingenemies.Even when the Roman Empire was at its peak, parts of whatisnow Germany remained unconquered because theGermanictribes(whichhad endless internal squabbles) would unite at critical momentstorepelthe Romans.

Australias two main political tribes are based around the Liberal and Labor parties. As elections approach they enlist supporters, expanding the tribe, to win government. You might think both parties would take a similar approach expand the tribe, win a common objective but youd be wrong. While Labor brings in minor parties and interest groups to enlarge the tribe, the Liberals are inclined to do it all by themselves.

The composition of the Labor tribe at election time not only includes the party itself but most unions, the Greens, Getup!, plus various left-leaning lobby and policy groups. Many would argue some in the media, including the ABC, SBS, Guardian and elements of Nine media also join up.

This hassignificantconsequencesinour preferential votingsystem.Many Labor members of parliament owe their seats to Greens preferences, while many Greens senators are elected with Labor preferences.Other minor left-wingandsingle-issuepartiesalsodirect theirpreferencestoLabor.

Labor is quite pragmatic in its relationships with minor parties and never overly concerned about ideology. Despite our obvious policy differences my party, the Liberal Democrats, has always found Labor to be professional and receptive to negotiation. Moreover, quite a few of the Labor people with whom I have negotiated later became members of parliament while retaining an interest in preference negotiations. As a result, there is a close link between the parliamentary and political perspectives.

The Liberal tribe is comprised of the party and its formal coalition partner, the Nationals, plus some business organisations. Certain media, including the Australian, The Spectator and Sky News, might offer support on particular issues. But it is a noticeably smaller tribe because, except for its coalition partner and the Christian Democrats in NSW, the Liberals regard virtually all other parties as mortal enemies.

Furthermore, eachstate division of thepartyhasitsownapproach topreferences,generally under the control of the State Director.This can have bizarre consequences;my party has oftenhadless favourable treatment than parties with which the Liberals have nothing in common,andon one occasionwas rankedlower than a micro party withblatantlynational socialist policies.Few politiciansgetinvolved and there is little interest in negotiating with minor parties, irrespective of relationships in parliament.The disconnect between the parliamentary and political perspectives isalmost total.

This was clearly shown in 2016 when the Federal Director of the Liberals sought to challenge my partys name in the Administrative Appeals Tribunal, claiming it was confusing voters and that a vote for us was a vote lost to them. In retaliation, we ran in the Canning by-election and preferenced Labor ahead of the Liberals. This prompted enormous indignation among many Liberals, particularly Andrew Hastie (the Liberal candidate), yet when they were told why we did it, they insisted that the two issues were unrelated.

The legal actionwas only dropped when Itold Malcolm Turnbull I wouldvote against all their legislation, noting that I had supportedhis partyon nearly all their key billsto date. Even then, he couldmerelyasktheFederalDirectortodrop it.

To this day theattitudeof the Liberals isthat primary votes are all that matter, and a vote forminor partiesis a vote lost to the Liberals. Laborsview, thatits the total vote of the tribe that matters, just isnt part of theLiberal mindset.

And now theLiberal Party haspassed legislation to forcethe Liberal Democratsto changeitsname or be deregistered. They want exclusive ownership of the word liberal.Needless to say, thetribe willnot benefit.

If my partys name was the Labor Democrats,we would be embraced aspart of Labors tribe.Even if things becamefractious,such asbetween Labor and the Greens, there would never be any doubt about wanting us on their side.And if we were to win seats, they would preferit wasusratherthan someone from the Liberal tribe.

If the Liberals followed Labors approach they would welcome parties like mine. Even if someone voted for us because we share a word in our name with the Liberal Party, they would ensure that those votes came back to them via preferences. They would also use their preferences to help elect our candidates rather than candidates from parties that are in the Labor tribe. It seems such an obvious point to make, yet they seem incapable of understanding it.

Tribes have always succeeded by uniting against a common enemy. Labor reminds me of the Germanic tribes, mentioned earlier. The Liberal tribe seems more like the tribes of neighbouring Gaul (now France), which the Romans defeated.

David Leyonhjelm is a former senator for the Liberal Democrats

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The Liberals. The shrinking tribe - The Spectator Australia