Queensland Libs offer biggest compromise yet to Nationals

The Queensland Nationals look hell-bent on delaying or wrecking what had hitherto looked like a certain merger with the state Liberal Party by refusing to compromise on the threshold issue of the presidency of the new "Liberal National" party to be debated at party conferences this weekend.

Having already acceded to most Nationals demands in what amounts to a takeover of the Queensland Liberal Party, Queensland Liberals and the party’s Federal organisation have insisted that the party president be a Liberal, to offset the parliamentary leadership of Lawrence Springborg and the bias in the party’s draft constitution toward Nationals members.

But an email leaked to Crikey has revealed how far the Federal Liberal executive was willing to compromise even on the presidency issue.

The email, sent last Monday by president Alan Stockdale to Queensland Nationals president Bruce McIver following a meeting between the two the previous week, offered a range of possible resolutions of the presidency issue, including a joint or alternating presidency with the Nationals.

Subject: Possible arrangements re the Presidency

Bruce,

Further to our meeting on Friday [11 July], I set out below the options discussed:

1. Liberals only elect a Liberal as President;
2. All delegates elect the President but it is agreed that only Liberals will stand;
3. Joint Presidents working together to unite the Party through the transitional stage;
4. Alternating Presidents in which a Liberal and then a National lead the Party for six month terms; and
5. Agreement to bring in a prominent person with proven management and interpersonal skills to be President with each Party to nominate a Vice-President to work with the President through the transitional stage.

Obviously, all details are up for discussion but I would suggest that the initial term be two years so that the transitional arrangement gives certainty and takes the Party through the next Queensland election and the next federal election.

These ideas are advanced in an attempt to resolve this difficult matter but I am happy to discuss any other ideas.

Thank you for meeting with me last week. You will have seen that the Queensland Liberal State Council has demonstrated its bona fides and support for the merger. I hope that this will give all parties the confidence to find a solution to the remaining issue.

Please call me when you have considered the matter.

Regards, Alan

Stockdale’s email suggests the Liberals are desperate to find a resolution to the problem, even if only as a temporary measure to keep the issue quiet until after next state and federal elections. Following the email, State Liberal president Mal Brough subsequently proposed a variant of option five, in the form of former Northern Territory Country Liberal chief minister and Liberal president Shane Stone.

Despite the willingness of the Liberals to compromise even on this key issue, the Queensland Nationals have refused to consider any of the proposals. Lawrence Springborg explicitly rejected the Stone proposal, arguing he wasn’t a full-time Queensland resident and that the party membership should be given.

"They haven’t responded in any way to our efforts to compromise on the issue," said a senior Queensland Liberal.

As repeated again in today’s Australian, Stockdale and Brough have made clear the merger won’t proceed without a resolution of the presidency issue. The Nationals’ response is to say they’ll establish a separate party without the Liberals, albeit with some of the more conservative state Liberal MPs. But any non-merged new party defeats the purpose of the exercise, to unify Queensland’s conservative forces in the fight against the Labor party.

Ross Fitzgerald has hammered Mal Brough today in an op-ed piece but Liberal sources dispute the suggestion that Brough mishandled the issue, arguing that rather than a personal bid for glory by the former Indigenous Affairs minister, it was the Queensland Liberal executive’s unanimous position that the Liberal state president become the new president of the party, and that Brough has subsequently offered to step aside to facilitate a solution.

Moderate Liberals are already deeply concerned at what amounts to a National takeover, and the jockeying of right-wing forces aligned with former senator Santo Santoro and former president Gary Spence to secure power within the new Nationals-dominated structure (think Vichy France under German occupation). But they will also be worried that the Federal party was happy to propose sharing the presidency with the Nationals, even for a “transitional period”.

At this point, they may be relying on Nationals intransigence to wreck the deal.