Voters did not believe union was a marriage
23.03.2009
By: TONY KOCH
COMMENT
QUEENSLAND voters, and particularly those in Brisbane, were not convinced that the Liberal and National parties were as united as they would have liked everyone to believe.
The mistrust between the two parties traces back 26 years, to when two Liberals, Don Lane and Brian Austin, abandoned the party to join the Nationals and give Joh Bjelke-Petersen the numbers to rule without the Liberals.
A bitter hatred has simmered between different factions of the parties since then.
The marriage last July of the two, cleverly engineered by outgoing Opposition Leader Lawrence Springborg, ostensibly put an end to that division, which almost certainly denied the conservatives any chance of being elected in Queensland.
It was never really a marriage, properly bedded down and election-ready. Suspicion abound-ed that it was more like a twosome on a dirty weekend than a couple blinded by the mist of marital bliss.
Perhaps the union is too young for people to have reasonably expected much of it. But the truth is that too many people involved with the LNP -- elected members and officials -- are obsessed with suspicion of one another.
For instance, there is a group that blames former Liberal leader Bruce Flegg for his poor performance at the 2006 election, which left the party almost without metropolitan representation.
There is a large proportion of Liberals who see the merger as a takeover by the Nationals -- and there is evidence to support that contention.
Others want to blame former high-profile Liberal Mal Brough for ``holding up'' the merger for months, thereby restricting the time they had to prepare for the general election.
And, as usual, there is the dark, shadowy hand of Liberal meddler Santo Santoro pulling the strings in the background, as he has done for years, manipulating a faction he has somehow been able to convince to listen to him. The last-mentioned is the sadly deluded faction.
The electoral impotence of the LNP shown by Saturday's results begs the question: have they got it right?
It is quite incredible that the party was not able to maul Labor in the regions outside Brisbane, and particularly in the north of the state.
Brisbane has been a disaster. The conservatives went into the election holding just two of the 32 Brisbane-based seats: Moggill and Clayfield. On Saturday, they picked up Aspley and Indooroopilly, with the possibility of another one.
During the election campaign, experienced Liberals openly predicted that Brisbane would not vote for Springborg. Their reasoning was that he did not relate to the business community and had made little effort to capture that constituency during his 20 years in parliament.
They also said it was a huge mistake for Springborg not to be constantly seen campaigning with well-known and high-profile Liberals. In not doing so, he ran the risk of perpetuating the belief that the Nationals were again calling the shots. That, to Brisbane voters, is straw-chewing stuff, hayseed politics.
At the other end of the scale, Springborg and the LNP had little or no appeal to city-based youth. Springborg just did not connect with young people. His major appeal seemed to be to middle-aged male voters.
Springborg was not only one of the major architects of the merged parties, he was also the glue that kept it together. His efforts to present a united front were genuine, and he did so with commendable conviction.
Nobody else in the LNP has emerged as having anything like Springborg's energy in regard to moulding a truly united conservative force in Queensland and
it seems highly unlike the union can survive, given the competing forces at work.
