Wednesday, December 20, 2023

LNP Party Room Problem

When Liberal and National parties of Queensland merged into one party, it created a peculiar problem for The Coalition. That is a party room distribution. 

Liberal and National MPs each have their own separate party rooms, they do not have joint Coalition Party Room. Thus, only MPs of their respective parties participate in all important internal governance of their parties: National MPs do not vote on leader of Liberal Party and Liberal MPs do not vote on leader of the National Party. 

That used to limit radical far right MPs influence on politics. Sure, Nationals do get some portfolios, but they have no say over who gets any portfolios on Liberal side of Coalition, or who will be new Liberal leader.


However, when LNP was created, instead of getting their own party room, they made a peculiar arrangement with the Federal parties: 2 out of 3 LNP MPs will be in Liberal Party room and the remaining one out of 3 in National Party room instead. 

That shifted the power balance in Liberal Part room far to the right. A lot of rural MP, who would have been in National Party room under old arrangement, were now in the Liberal Party room instead. That affected preselection of leaders in the Liberals. Suddenly radicals such as Tony Abbot or Peter Dutton could become leaders of this otherwise moderate party.


Because of that, the Australian politics overall shifted far to the right. What used to be fringe rural sentiments now suddenly seeped through to the mainstream. In fact, the whole mess of the 2010s should be blamed on this subtle party room arrangement.


The solution to this problem will be to replace this arrangement with something that reflects reality better. One solution is all rural LNP MPs sit with the Nationals and only urban with the Liberals. The other one is LNP is getting its own party room, elects its own leader who becomes second deputy PM if coalition wins, and they get some agreed on portfolios, just like Nationals currently do.


I do hope this will be solved, the sooner the better.

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