Public relations and communications consultant and long-time political observer, Chris Forsberg takes aim at what he calls a lack of liberalism - and nationalism on offer for Far North Queensland voters.A spruiker by day and political prestidigitator by night, Chris has worked with independent MP Bob Katter and election campaigns for Cairns mayor Val Schier. Chris Forsberg is also the publicity officer for the new North Queensland Party. May God help them both.
Condolences are due - overdue - to all Far Northerners who voted for the Liberal National Party - that forced marriage of two totally incompatible parties that brands itself as the "LNP."
Revelations on CairnsBlog and in The Cairns Post that things are not at all well with the four local branches of the LNP are nothing new to Far North Queensland political junkies who have spent a few years monitoring the local conservatives' collective determination to self-destruct.
To comprehend the latest outrage, it is necessary to examine the chaotic state of the local Liberal Party before the merger. Party activists like Diedre and Colin Ford and [Cairns Councillor] Alan Blake alienated a fair share of rank and file members – and contributed to a long list of failed campaigns.
Electable candidates like economist Bill Cummings, tourism operator Steven Welch, Port Authority guru Bob Manning and lawyer Miles Thompson, were given no chance at all - because their notional Liberal supporters and campaign workers were more focused on arguing amongst themselves than getting their candidates 'over-the-line'.
Warren Entsch was smart enough to realise that he could never win Leichhardt by relying solely on his party's support - Wazza worked National Party networks throughout the region to achieve his three successive and well-deserved wins.
Yet Warren blew it too - by insisting that Charlie McKillop take his place. When Kevin Byrne correctly cautioned that Ms. McKillop was not an electable candidate - many local Liberals rounded-on Kevin Byrne, white-anting his mayoral re-election campaign, contributing substantially to Val Schier's un-expected victory.
These same former Liberals now criticize Cairns mayor Val Schier at every opportunity - conveniently forgetting the fact that they contributed fulsomely to her win.
Meanwhile, back in the bush, the moribund National Party was still licking it's wounds from the One Nation phenomenon – and fell prey to a suggestion from Lawrence Springborg that they should merge with the Liberals.
The Gnats weren't travelling all that well - even safe ministerial seats like Tom Gilmore's Tablelands had been lost to One Nation.
In spite of the spin from LNP headquarters that the merger has been a thundering success, the fact is precisely the opposite: a faction-divided Liberal Party has collided; with an old-fashioned agrarian socialist party, which at least wasn't split in to squabbling factions as were the Liberals. But nor was it anywhere near 'at the top of it's game' - had it had been so (as it was in the 'Joh era') a merger would never have been considered.
The Nationals themselves at the time of the merger were not fully aware of the bitterness and back-stabbing that had become 'normal' within the Liberal Party. The Libs then, and perhaps still, had a 'Sicilian faction' - a group of Italian-Australian MPs and senior party officials who wielded in-ordinate influence over party affairs, much to the disgust of Anglo-Saxon-descendent Liberals.
Note please that no Liberal could be accused of racism in respect of their loathing of players in the 'Sicilian faction' - the arguments were always over policies, personalities and, especially, perks - to their credit, the anti-Sicilian faction Libs never referred to their adversaries as 'wogs' or 'dagoes'. Well, never in public anyway.
These factional rivalries were reflected in all Liberal Party branches throughout Queensland - and no where more so than in FNQ. It isn't a case of these rivalries merely continuing to this day - they have intensified, dramatically, fueled in this latest instance by Dennis Quick's seemingly self-appointed role as Warren Entsch's campaign manager.15 seriously aggrieved LNP members catalogued a litany of allegations against Mr Quick last September - and forwarded them to LNP state president Bruce McIver. Mr Quick claims he has since been "cleared" by an internal investigation - and most likely he has been.
Reason: former Nationals 'have the numbers' in the Brisbane LNP hierarchy - and Mr. McIver and/or the 'internal investigators' may well have thought that exonerating Mr. Quick would meet the approval of his fellow former Gnats. Mr Quick served the National Party well in his extended tenure as Townsville-based 'regional co-ordinator' - the LNP finding against Mr Quick could have antagonized countless ex-Gnats who now rest, most uncomfortably, in the LNP.
Regrettably, Mr Quick is not the ideal campaign manager for any Liberal candidate - not even one as Gnat-friendly as Warren Entsch. To describe Mr. Quick's win/loss record as campaign manager over many campaigns as "mixed" would be charitable - he's lost many more than he has won - including Kevin Byrne's unexpected defeat at the last Council poll.
Kevin Byrne snatched defeat from the jaws of victory on that occasion - and Mr Quick, along with the many Liberals who turned on Byrne, as payback for his perfectly sensible cautions relating to Charlie McKillop's candidacy, share responsibility for mayor Byrne's demise.
No doubt, every LNP member and supporter means well and acts in good faith - but the sad fact is that the local branches, as much as the entire state apparatus, are in a total shambles. Mistrust and deceit are the order of the day - every day - the back-stabbing and bull-shitting has reached depths that are nothing short of outright disgrace....
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Precious few LNP folk are 'liberal' in the proper sense of the word, which conveys tolerance and understanding - and nothing any LNP spokesperson has come-up within years could be described as 'national', the word that implies an all-embracing country-wide engagement.
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Indeed, the 'national' reach of the LNP goes no further than Brisbane - the Nationals are no longer major players in Canberra, where even their Liberal coalition 'partners' regard them as a rural rump.
Voters BEWARE - the LNP is not supportable until such time as it gets its act together, eases-up on the back-biting and back-stabbing, and re-invents itself as a credible opposition, to both the Bligh regime in Brisbane and the Ruddites in Canberra.
And that's going to take a long while yet.
But all that said - let no-one take any of the above as a piece of pro-Labor propaganda. Labor is creating havoc across the land with its big-government 'we know what's best for you' ethos - and running-up massive debt in the process. But at least they keep their equally bitter factional squabbles 'in-house', and have mechanisms in-place that ensures a 'common party position' after the various factions has, in relatively courteous fashion, 'negotiated' compromise outcomes.
The LNP can't do this - they're too bogged-down with blood-letting and back-biting to negotiate compromise - and, at the end of the day, all politics is compromise.
Little wonder North Queenslanders are flocking to the new North Queensland Party in droves - too young to have factions, too new to have 'baggage', the NQP is focused only on the needs of the region.
The very fact that 15 seriously pinged-off LNP operatives have to send their complaints to the head honcho in Brisbane speaks volumes as to who is running the show - and where LNP priorities lie. Likewise, in the less likely event of 15 Laborites having similar grievances, they too would have to lodge their complaints in Brisbane. And, no doubt, who-ever the subject of those Labor complaints was, he/she too would be 'exonerated' by head office.
Uniquely, the North Queensland Party is accountable to no-one who doesn't live here in the Deep North - and is unquestionably the only political party that genuinely understands the North. It's not National, it's not Liberal – in fact it has no leanings to either left or right - and it has already learned from our local LNP how not to manage a branch structure.
In 'what not to do' politically, our local LNP have supplied a splendid example.
- You can email Chris Forsberg and ask him the meaning of life and who to vote for.
