Liberty and Democracy Party activists seem happy enough with with their 0.13% national vote share in the House of Representatives and 0.15% in the Senate. I’m still not convinced that the micro-party strategy is the way to go in promoting classical liberal/libertarian ideas.
While LDP members did get publicity they would not otherwise have received, much of it was not favourable. Lisa Milat is hardly responsible for the actions of her brother-in-law, but pre-selecting her just about ensured that media coverage was not going to be on-message for the LDP. And Bede Ireland perhaps could have picked a better issue to promote than decriminalising incest.
As the LDP is not seen as a serious electoral contender, the mainstream media will only be interested to the extent that the LDP can offer some colour to alleviate the boredom of the stage-managed major party campaigns. But ‘colour’ in the media context means things that the public will think ridiculous, eccentric or outrageous. That isn’t the way to make people take libertarian ideas seriously.
Then there were organisational issues such as their seemingly rather scattergun approach to targeting seats and candidates. It’s a fair call to say that the Liberal Party as represented by John Howard wasn’t clearly better on classical liberal principles than the Labor alternative; but the way to send a message isn’t to target the Liberals who are quite sound from a classical liberal perspective, such as the now ex-member for Corangamite Stewart McArthur. Sukrit’s candidacy there didn’t do McArthur any extra harm in the end, but from a libertarian perspective there were far more obvious people to go after, such as Kevin Andrews in Menzies (it would have saved Sukrit some travel time too). Some more research on who stands for what in the major parties wouldn’t go astray.
Regardless of these particular aspects of the 2007 campaign, overall I think that the best way to get a relatively unknown political stance a higher profile is through issue movements, think-tanks, and newer technologies such as blogging. Political parties are for the last stage in the issue cycle, when there are a sufficient number of potential supporters to be mobilised, and used to gain leverage with other parties, not the first stage when the ideas are still new to most voter.
For many people, that means a two-hats approach. I am far more libertarian in my personal and CIS views than I am in a Liberal Party context; as in the latter I must make concessions to secure at least partial acceptance among people who don’t share my philosophy. Policy purity is a lot more enjoyable than policy compromise, but if the consequence is achieving nothing at all in practical reforms then the price is too high.
Andrew Norton 
I agree, although unless you are implicitly saying it (I think you are), then infiltrating the big parties, as Peter Garett did with the Labor party, might in addition get you somewhere. Now would be an especially good time to get somewhere with the Liberal party for motivated people.
I think having both people in the ranks of the big parties and becoming popular through other means as you suggest are complementary. An example of this is that some people would argue that the Liberal party had to change to deal with One-nation (who were an electoral force also– but its hard to see how they would have survived over the long term), but an example people wouldn’t argue about is the Greens in Germany. They were so successful in changing the big parties (through popular support and people in the parties willing to include their policies) that they put themselves out of a job. I imagine the same might happen to the Greens here if the Liberal party tries to get the young vote and the Labour party gets a bit more green.
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The thing about the Greens and One Nation is that both of them turned up relatively late to tap into pre-existing sentiment. Perhaps because there was a longstanding green issue movement, the Greens have managed to overcome the massive organisational obstacles to establishing a functioning political party. The LDP have none of these advantages.
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“Political purity”? Perhaps you should shift your identification back to libertarianism if that level of clarity is a pleasure. The “constrained view” in Sowell’s schema – perhaps corresponding to a more conservative temper – seems to mitigate against this kind of “atomistic” libertarianism (as he describes it).
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I guess this raises another point. Microparties seem to represent political hybrids (Conservatives for Climate Change, or whatever they’re called) interest groups (What Women Want) or ideologies (LDP). I don’t think any party in the latter category will ever have much influence. With such a clear, principled, dogmatic platform, the result is internal homogeneity and a lack of broad-based appeal. It’s not just deep greens or ecofeminists or neopagans who are attracted to the Greens; many identify with their general leftiness and liberal social policies.
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Similarly, even though many shooters, euthanasia supporters etc. may sign up to the LDP or give them their votes, once the libertarian vision is fully articulated, I imagine all but hardened libertarian ideologues will be turned off. The legalization of incest is probably the most obvious example of this. As long as your party represents a result rather than a series of tendencies, processes, and sympathies, people will be disinterested.
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Andrew, this is a very interesting post. Are you still involved with the Liberal Party, though, or did the constant policy compromise of which you speak become too much? Personally, I found the latter quite difficult to sustain.
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The LDP doesn’t support legalising Incest. Our candidates sometimes make mistakes.
I find it strange that you’d lecture us on how to do it Andrew.
Your party in the last 11 years has hardened its stance on drugs, significantly infringed the rights of shooters, become more socially conservative in a bid to pick up the bible-thumper vote, raised the tax take by 35%, pork barrelled to ridiculous lengths and failed miserably in implementing its IR policy.
How are classical liberals like yourself helping your cause by remaining members of the Liberal party? They get further away from your (and our) ideals every year.
As for picking out the more liberal candidates and supporting them like your Kevin Reynolds example, what would be the point of that? Would he cross the floor on issues with which he disagreed with Howard?
Of course not.
If you are a member of a party that is entirely poll-driven in its policies then nobody in your party stands for anything, regardless of what they claim.
Our job as a minor party is to gain senate seats and block your continual push to become Tony Blair.
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Sorry, Stewart Mcarthur, not reynolds.
Our candidate policy was pretty simple. We tried to put candidates in marginal seats where they could do the most damage. It seems that every Liberal seat turned out to be marginal though, pity we didn’t have more candidates.
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Seems to me the best way to promote libertarian ideas might be to join a major party and get active. If all the keen libertarians out there doggedly avoid the Liberal Party like the plague, I don’t see why we should be surprised that it aint very liberal anymore.
With someone like Turnbull seeking the federal leadership, now might be a good time for a renewal of the ideology of the Liberal Party.
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Here is an alternative to the micro party approach, in the context of the US party system:
http://www.rlc.org
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One could argue that if the Americans had preferential voting, they’d be doing it our way. The RLC certainly haven’t been particularly successful in turning Bush into a libertarian.
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I just love you guys; the Trots of the Right. The rhetoric on political tactics is identical.
When can we look forward to seeing the first three-way split?
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I agree with Yobbo completely.
And I was happy to see John Howard lose his seat – this may well force change for the better and result in a Liberal party libertarians won’t have to hold their nose to support.
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The best outcome would have been the Liberals just scraping in, John Howard and Mal Brough losing their seats and our man Terje in the Senate, but you can’t have everything …
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‘this may well force change for the better”
Don’t bet on it Jason. The Hillsong Opus Dei faction isn’t going anywhere. They will fight to the death, theirs and everyone else’s.
The Liberal Party, especially in NSW, will soon resemble Beirut circa 1982.
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Spiros: Hillsong == assemblies of god,
Opus Dei == Catholics.
Put them in a room together and the fight will be monumental, no matter how much conservative thinking they might outwardly share. The Liberal party is in for a DLP style split if the NSW Liberals are anything to go by, unless they can convince one of their less divisive candidates to be the leader. Unfortunately, people like Brendan Nelson aren’t the sharpest knives in the drawer, and Turnbull is a little too wet for the more conservative minded. Costello has gutlessly exited stage left when his party needed him the most.
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I’ve had my say on the LDP here. The civil libertarians are your best bet, ditch ther gunlosers and take the Democrats’ mantle now that they’ve dropped it (but without all those good ideas for new bureaucracy, red tape and spending.
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I disagree that libertarians should “infiltrate” major parties – Maoists talked a lot about this sort of thing and fat lot of good it did them. The stacking problem in both major parties shows that a libertarian can slowly and patiently build up a support base, person by person, issue by issue, only to have it washed away by a stack. As to Stephen’s example: they look like kept boys, if not cheerleaders then certainly useful idiots to make excuses for government bloat.
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Microparties are the way to go. What you want is votes going back to the majors via your preferences, which creates leverage far in excess of your membership numbers and much more than is possible from within a major party.
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The LDP needed people more sensible than Terje, Bird and Lisa Milat, and it’s an indictment on that party that they don’t exist. Family First had a lot of potential (the Democrats at prayer). Their poor choice of candidates – not just the pervert from western Sydney, but also out-of-his-depth Fielding – have doomed that party.
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I note that Leon and Yobbo are at cross-purposes over atomistic libertarianism. Sort it out guys, keeping in mind that the rights of drug users and gunlosers are not the only rights.
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Thanks Jason for alerting us to the notion that the whole LDP strategy was so inflexible that it would only work under very limited circumstances.
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After the Liberals got burned up in 1993 when they had the best platform we are ever likely to see, the lesson was that you have to play pork and all the angles until the chattering and writing classes are prepared to address policy issues instead of being addicted to leadership spills and ALP boosting.
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Hey Andrew
and I quote from your post on 1st December last year.
“Whoever wins, I reckon John Howard has an early Xmas present. Rudd wouldn’t challenge if he didn’t think he had a reasonable chance, so even if Beazley hangs on we’ll all know that even much his own party doesn’t think he is fit to be PM. If Rudd wins, the ALP will have as leader a man without the common touch.
Love that common touch. Bet you howard wishes he could have got a different Xmas present though.
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If I was a libertarian, I’d be joining the Liberal Party now. Take advantage of the leadership vacuum and soul searching. Now’s the time when entrism will return its greatest dividends.
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Gazza: sounds pretty sensible to me. Rudd hasn’t got the common touch, people are overlooking that and reaching out to him anyway.
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Robert: what a party does at the parliamentary leadership level and what it does at the branch/conference/State Council level is not at all the same thing.
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Gazza – My most wrong post ever! Guess I should watch serious interviews less and Sunrise more before I assess the common touch.
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As a Liberal Party member and a sympathiser with many of the LDP’s philosophic positions I make the following two points.
The LDP is a disaster in marketing and campaigning. Who chose LDP as the short name ? As very few booths are manned the bulk of voters are faced with a large white Senate sheet with ten or so organizations to put the single ONE against. If the short name was ‘Smaller Government’ or ‘Liberty and Freedom’ you would suddenly vault to the top of the micro parties and have something to swap with other groups. Of the micros only the ones with words and known acronyms gained any votes in the booth I scrutinised.
In campaigning – I agree with the above – don’t go for semi-rural seats with possibly sympathetic members. Go for seats with members you can solidly contrast yourselves with, either socially (Andrews) or economically (Gillard, Roxon). There are plenty of low cost methods of gaining attention and support that would translate into the 2-3% that makes the Party and policies into a segment worth the Liberals and Labor chasing.
There are less than ten thousand Liberal members in Victoria. Perhaps two thousand are active. If any LDP people wish to give it a go, then join a Branch and make yourself useful. You will be chosen for positions pretty quickly in my experience – as the Party is desperate for new blood. You could get a seriously classical Liberal into parliament if you’d give it a real go.
Hear endeth the lesson.
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The Australian Greens are a credible force in Australian politics and will now largely fill the role once undertaken by The Australian Democrats. Anybody that thinks that the Greens have not changed the shape of the policy agenda over the last 20 years have not been paying attention. And anybody that thinks that the Greens came into being without first being a micro party also have not paid attention. The idea that enviromentalism as a political force would have emerged as rapidly from within the major parties without the existance of Greens is in my view naive. And just as naive is the idea that libertarian policy positions will emerge from within the major parties today without any competitive need.
My big fear about the Liberals is that in the wilderness they will more than ever look to the likes of the Christian Democrats for preferences and this will tip them further towards social conservatism.
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Tim,
Nobody decided to campaign with the abbreviation LDP. Your criticism is based on poor information. Perhaps you would like to do some homework (by reading the LDP blog) on why we got stuck with an acronym before you blame it on “poor marketing skills”. We all know it was a dud situation to be stuck with and it was never deliberate.
Regards,
Terje.
http://ldpblog.wordpress.com/2007/11/03/its-all-in-a-name-ldp/
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Tim
Thanks for the comment. But look at what they did to Prodos in richmond at the alt state election. the state machine chewed him up.
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See also here.
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Rafe
Useful analysis as always – the Libs abandoned classical liberalism because of op-ed writers? WTF???
We know you’re a die-hard Liberal supporter so stop making excuses for the unprincipled hacks, Rafe.
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Andrew, maybe watching Sunrise would help but it would also help to think how many young voters have no memory of a Labor administration, are spooked by climate change, dont understand a thing about productivity and wage fixing, maybe did some arts or sociology at uni, scan the headlines of the Sydney Telegraph, the SMH or the Age, would like lower interest rates and cheaper groceries and just generally think it is time for a change.
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Andrew Elder:
what a party does at the parliamentary leadership level and what it does at the branch/conference/State Council level is not at all the same thing.
As a member of the ALP, I’m well aware of that problem!
What I’m saying is that given the choice between paying membership dues to the LDP and the Liberal Party, now’s probably a good time to join the Liberals. I’m not sure I would have said the same thing under Howard, but the fact that he’s gone means there’s an opportunity.
We’re talking about two terms in opposition, which gives plenty of time for libertarian activists to make some headway — especially because, as Tim Warner points out, the Liberals are not a mass-membership party, and in fact the membership base will surely decline now they’re in opposition.
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I am really disappointed by how this debate is going. People don’t want to listen to each other. My view is that one approach does not exclude the other. Moreover I do not think there is one approach for all sizes.
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I like the Trotskist entryism approach. You guys could be the Liberal Party’s very own Militant Tendency. (It worked a treat for the British Labour Party.)
Go for it!
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Membership of the LDP can be free if you take the non-financial membership option.
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Spiros
This isn’t a soccer match , mr. Tifosso.
I like the Trotskist entryism approach. You guys could be the Liberal Party’s very own Militant Tendency. (It worked a treat for the British Labour Party.) Go for it!
You mean that we are Trotskys because we believe in the things we do. So it’s no longer what you believe that makes one a Trotsky, it’s how strongly you believe in it. That’s deep, Spiros. That’s some heavy duty thinking, Dude.
Would you mind explaining the economic argument of why you were against Workchoices. Not the politcs of it…. just the economics as I’m interested in hearing what you have to say.
I’ll start you off:
Workchoices and free labor markets are bad economics because……
Fill in the rest please.
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Ignore him JC, it’s boring.
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There is some silly stuff here.
John Howard didn’t back Peter Costello for the leadership because he thought he was too ‘dry’ even if he agreed privately with his views. He was right – you need to take Joe Citizen with you in politics – but even Howard got hammered because of public mistrust over WorkChoices. He finally exaggerated the electorate’s willingness to accept rational policies. Yobbo would have preferred an even more radical agenda that would have produced an even worse outcome.
The LDP is a political joke that sees national politics as a process of making gestures not gaining power and doing things. Let’s liberalise all markets, abolish the ABC, liberalise drugs and cut out all public schools.
These are screwball policies but, more than that, they are policies that will get a party (at most) 0.13% of the vote.
Politics just isn’t some kind of undergraduate game kiddies.
Who cares if LDP people do or do not join the Liberal Party. Its like the old cries of the Sydney Trotskyites to join the ALP. Even if this does occur (it fortunately) would have no effect on policy.
The Liberals want to regain power before 2050.
BTW Yobbo many of the things you say are factually false – Australia is still wedded to harm minimisation (in my view wrongly) and taxes as a % of income have not risen 35%.
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To JC’s comment on Prodos – his difficulties do not stem from his beliefs but from the fear his eccentric dress and hair invoke in very timid administrators. They believe that the press would concentrate on his very different look at the expense of covering a bland policy – the idea that you could use the press interest is a step to far.
I note the error in lodging the forms for the LDP – but having the Party name would have been only one step up – it still would not answer my comment. The LDP needs to be known as the low tax and or small government group. “Liberty’, “Liberal’ and ‘Democracy’ simply do not cut the mustard. They are simply not visceral enough.
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No Harry, but they have risen 35% when expressed in terms of a percentage of real GDP per capita.
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Shorter Harry: Being in power is all that counts. Actually making good policy is for amateurs.
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Yobbo, If you are saying that the average fraction of our income going in taxes to the government has increased 35% you are deluding yourself.
That’s right Yobbo. Standing on the sidelines and shouting slogans is worthless. It’s a kid’s game – not real politics.
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I calculated a real per person increase in Cth spending of 17.5% between 1995-96 and 2004-05.
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“Workchoices and free labor [sic] markets are bad economics because……”
WorhChoices had nothing to do with free labour markets. WorkChoices is 800 pages of legislation and 1000 pages of associated regulations.
WorkChoices was a political instrument designed with one purpose only, which was to destroy the trade union movement. That is why the unions were so against it and it is why they are so relaxed about Rudd’s plans to keep the economic substance of WorkChoices, while removing the trade uinion destroying part.
In time WorkChoices will be seen as one of the great policy, political and legislative dogs of all time, up there with Chifley’s bank nationalisation.
It’s a funny sort of libertarian who associates 1800 pages of law and legislation with free markets.
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Though WorkChoices was a bureaucratic mess, there were aspects of it that were worthwhile – such as reducing the scope for ‘unfair’ dismissal claims and ending the status quo as the baseline for future wages, which the Howard government abolished itself before it was defeated. But it was a political failure – which I will show in considerable detail in the next issue of Policy. The Liberal Party should let the repeal bill pass unimpeded through the Senate.
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Spiros
I didn’t want the union ads talking points memo. We know that. I want you to explain why free labor markets don’t work. Stay away from the talking points and explain why the marginal productivity is incorrect.
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I look forward to it Andrew. I can see the argument for letting it go through, but it is galling when Labor opposed all the (sensible) Coalition policies that had been taken to an election, such as the GST, Telstra sale, unfair dismissal, etc. It’s very tempting to tell Rudd to shove it for the next 6 months. The question is, if the Coalition no longer stands for (very incremental) labor market deregulation, what does it stand for?
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JC, I want you to explain what WorkChoices had to do with free labour markets. (Note the spelling of labour.)
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“It’s very tempting to tell Rudd to shove it for the next 6 months.”
Only if you have a political death wish.
Even if the Liberals decided to oppose the WorkChoice repeal, Barnaby will do a deal anyway.
But the Liberals will drop WorkChoices because it is political poison.
And while we’re on the subject of repentances, watch the next Liberal leader line in behind Rudd in supporting the ratification of Kyoto.
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Spiros
They were a little freer than they were before.
Now tell us all here why you think free labor markets are wrong economics.
(Thanks for the spelling lesson.)
Now don’t slink away from it, Mr. Tifosso.
I’ll start you off again:
The marginal productivity theory of labor is wrong because………….( note! not because Greg Comebet says so)
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I don’t think action to deal with climate change has inherent ideological problems for Liberals or liberals. Howard blundered on this. As Rajat says, IR is a different matter. But at least for the foreseeable future, democracy has to trump liberalism on this one.
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What does that mean, Andrew?
Rudd simply can’t demand the senate pass the law. That’s democracy too.
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hc’s comments are a great demonstration of why conservatives are the true enemy of liberalism. Prohibitionism plus watered down commitment to markets plus craven power-seeking for its own sake.
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Andrew
You have been hinting that you will be providing a detailed analysis of ‘what now’ for the Liberal Party. Can I pose a question that you may wish to consider. While you, I and many of your readers would like the Liberal Party to be more classic liberal/libertarian, what’s in it for the Liberal Party. Most Liberal Party members are interested in the Party regaining power and want policies that will enable them to do that. They aren’t interested in classic liberalism for its own sake. The challenge, as I see it, is making classic liberal ideas a compelling path to political success for the Liberal Party. Any ideas?
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