Mr President, with your permission could I just make one or two very brief comments about this issue. Membership and the way we attract new members and the way we govern ourselves as an organisation is just as important for us as it is for the Labor Party. And there's a great danger right at the moment because the Labor Party at a federal level is going through a bit of turmoil that we will smugly assume that we are attracting a lot of new members, that we don't need to examine furiously our internal structures. I think we do, and at the risk of sounding a little controversial on one subject in particular, I think I would be failing in my duty to the Party as Federal Leader and Prime Minister if I didn't raise some real concerns.
Firstly, on a very positive note, can I welcome the report. I think it's an excellent report and I think the fact that it has been commissioned is very sensible and I hope it is seriously kicked around by all of the divisions.
Can I also say that the idea of having a membership at large at a national level is a very good idea. In this day and age, there are a lot of people who want to belong to the Liberal Party and show their support by being part of the team, that they seek a certain amount of anonymity. Now some of us may think that's squeamish, but we have got to be a party for all seasons and for all supporters and if people are willing to support us in that more anonymous way and don't want to be involved with the regular routine, there's no reason why we shouldn't have it. I know that some of the divisions have it, I understand that it's worked quite well in the divisions that do have it, but I think if you had it at a national level, I think there's a lot to be said for it.
But I think the real problem, and if we're frank with ourselves, is that we face the challenge of becoming a political party where a dwindling number of people are arguing with ever intensive fury over control of the diminishing membership base. Now if we're honest with ourselves, we know that in different forms that is the situation around the country and if we don't recognise that, and perhaps from the position of federal political strength at the moment, is precisely the time to recognise that and precisely the time to say it.
I think factionalism is weakening and eroding the strength of this party and the respect of this party in the Australian community. I think it is visiting far more havoc on the party at a state level - and that is self evident because we're out of office - than it is at a national level but that doesn't mean to say we're immune from it at a national level. I'm not so naive, and I've been around long enough to know that you're not going to abolish it but you can learn first of all to understand it exists; to understand its limitations; to recognise the disabling effect it can have on the task, the state organisations particularly face in attracting quality candidates to win marginal seats held by the Labor Party. We will not win back state office unless we find high-quality popular people to run in marginal seats held by the Party, including people who are not now members of the Liberal Party.
And we need to have a capacity to mix. And I speak as somebody who was a member of the party organisation long before he became a member of the parliamentary party. I'm not suggesting for a moment that we won't continue to recruit a significant number of our future Members of Parliament from within the ranks of the organisation and from people who make a big contribution to the party organisation. I think that is always going to be the case. And the great bulk of those people, when they go into parliament, turn out to be excellent Members of Parliament and make a big contribution. But the fact is that if we are to win back state office from well entrenched state governments, you need people who've got local community appeal, irrespective of their previous association with the Party because as the years go by, incumbency becomes more important, it becomes more important where the ideological intensity of the debate is less significant. And that is particularly the case, it's the case with all politics now, but it's particularly the case at a state level. State politics is less ideological; it's more about the quality of service delivery and management than it is about ideological differences. So that means that more and more getting rid of incumbents is harder and harder and that's been demonstrated around the place.
So, I make those comments as a practical way of taking a step forward, and this will almost certainly fall on deaf ears, but I make it... you know, I've reached that stage in politics where I can afford... you know, one can afford occasionally to make appeals that fall on deaf ears. And what I'm about to suggest, I don't suggest for a moment it should have in any way retrospective effect, and I'm not suggesting for a moment that it is an observation on the behaviour on any individual person - I want to make that very clear. But the division from which I came until the mid 1980s had an unwritten rule and that is that if you were an incumbent state president, you did not seek pre-selection for parliamentary membership at any time while you were the state president. Now, you may think - well, that's a bit limiting. It's not actually. One of the things that we need in the party is to get people of independent action in positions of great authority who can become effective keepers of the ring and who can, in effect, when there are debilitating arguments about who should get the pre-selection for what seat - and there's nothing wrong with that because we are a competitive party, we believe in people aspiring to office. But if I look around Australia and I think to myself if we are to get the really best candidates in marginal seats held by Labor, at a state level especially, then we need to have a capacity for each division to say that person is the right person and to have some authority, subject always to the democratic process, to ensure that at least the system is open to a talented outsider. I mean, you do hear from time to time of people who would make excellent candidates, they make inquiries and [inaudible] the vacancy in that seat is going to so and so, it's already arranged. Now, you all know that can happen. We know that and we've got to be honest enough to face it. Now, you won't win back state government unless you break the closed shop of the pre-selection system - if I can use [inaudible].
So, I think one modest contribution to that could be that we might over time work towards an understanding that you get a president who becomes... he or she becomes the keeper of the ring and there's an understanding because it alters the whole dynamic if you have somebody at the apex of the organisation who is saying, look it's in the party's interest that both you groups get out of the way - and I don't use the expression group in any perjorative sense, I use it in a generic sense - both get out of the way and allow Mr so and so, who's the president of the xyz sporting club, and who's also run apex, and he's the local businessman, and he's a very respected figure, he's always voted Liberal and he's prepared to join but frankly he can't afford, for all sorts of other reasons, unless he has some kind of guarantee he can get up. Now it is in within the wit of men and women in the Liberal Party to make that work and still allow for the talented insiders, the talented people, like many people in this room who have parliamentary ambitions and I had them, I was never ashamed to make them known and its one of the reasons I never aspired to be the President of the Party in New South Wales and I felt that that system, I'm not saying that any particular virtue in it because it was a New South Wales system, but it seemed to me to have something that can commend itself.
But we do have to tackle this, we have to recognise that we are seen increasingly as being a bit unwelcoming to people, we've got to have the flexibility to grab the right candidate at the right time for the relevant seat because it's getting harder and harder to attract people of talent. The personal abuse that is hurled at anybody in public office now, the scrutiny, the unfair allegations sometimes that are made against people who go into public life, is getting less and less attractive. And for you to get those talented outsiders, I think you need a bit more flexibility at the top and that is inevitably, perhaps it will fall on deaf ears, but this is a time to make these sorts of suggestions and I hope it might be considered.
[ends]