The PM's hero would be appalled at the state of the party he founded. JOHN Howard's iron grip on the Liberal Party might have helped him win four elections, but it has created problems for the future in what amounts to a fundamental betrayal of the man he professes to admire most, Robert Menzies.
Although the Liberal Party of Australia is now in its seventh decade as an organisational entity, in reality there has never really been one Liberal Party, but several.
There were the social liberals descended from the Victorian protectionist Alfred Deakin (now an endangered species), the devout conservatives with nowhere else to go, and the free-market radicals descended from the NSW free trader George Reid, predominantly from Reid's home state but with adherents across the country.
Under John Howard's leadership and policy direction, it is the third group that has prevailed, with the acquiescence of the second at the expense of the first.
In effect, the NSW Liberals, a very different breed, have hijacked the party and steered it away from its largely Victorian roots of social liberalism, which by and large informed the ideas of Robert Menzies when he helped found the party in 1944.
Menzies made great play of proclaiming that his party was beholden to no vested interests — a tactical swipe both at the Labor Party with its trade union links and the Liberals' predecessor, the United Australia Party, which was effectively controlled by big business.
This was why Menzies insisted that the party raise its own funds to secure its operational and political independence — a move that was most fiercely resisted in Sydney.
Menzies was acutely aware that big business, left to its own devices, would act in ways not always compatible with a democratic society, the lessons of the Great Depression still fresh in his mind.
In fact, Menzies the lawyer and Menzies the politician often looked askance at business, seeing it as just another interest group, albeit an important one.
No so John Howard. He has consistently delivered to the business community, from the GST to the workplace relations changes, and the strident voices of the business lobby, such as the Business Council of Australia, the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, and the Institute of Public Affairs appear to have merged into the Liberal Party.
Back in 1944, when Menzies struggled to find common ground with all the groups opposed to Labor, his biggest battles were in Sydney.
The PM's hero would be appalled at the state of the party he founded.
JOHN Howard's iron grip on the Liberal Party might have helped him win four elections, but it has created problems for the future in what amounts to a fundamental betrayal of the man he professes to admire most, Robert Menzies.
Although the Liberal Party of Australia is now in its seventh decade as an organisational entity, in reality there has never really been one Liberal Party, but several.
There were the social liberals descended from the Victorian protectionist Alfred Deakin (now an endangered species), the devout conservatives with nowhere else to go, and the free-market radicals descended from the NSW free trader George Reid, predominantly from Reid's home state but with adherents across the country.
Under John Howard's leadership and policy direction, it is the third group that has prevailed, with the acquiescence of the second at the expense of the first.
In effect, the NSW Liberals, a very different breed, have hijacked the party and steered it away from its largely Victorian roots of social liberalism, which by and large informed the ideas of Robert Menzies when he helped found the party in 1944.
Menzies made great play of proclaiming that his party was beholden to no vested interests — a tactical swipe both at the Labor Party with its trade union links and the Liberals' predecessor, the United Australia Party, which was effectively controlled by big business.
This was why Menzies insisted that the party raise its own funds to secure its operational and political independence — a move that was most fiercely resisted in Sydney.
Menzies was acutely aware that big business, left to its own devices, would act in ways not always compatible with a democratic society, the lessons of the Great Depression still fresh in his mind.
In fact, Menzies the lawyer and Menzies the politician often looked askance at business, seeing it as just another interest group, albeit an important one.
No so John Howard. He has consistently delivered to the business community, from the GST to the workplace relations changes, and the strident voices of the business lobby, such as the Business Council of Australia, the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, and the Institute of Public Affairs appear to have merged into the Liberal Party.
Back in 1944, when Menzies struggled to find common ground with all the groups opposed to Labor, his biggest battles were in Sydney.
In his memoir, Afternoon Light, Menzies explicitly rejected the notion that private enterprise should have an "open go", arguing that the state quite properly had a role in enacting social legislation and providing for economic security.
Furthermore, he explicitly embraced the term that Howard so studiously avoids — social justice.
Howard learnt much while in opposition, especially the lesson that disunity is death.
His response, however, has been to impose tight control over not just the party but all of the political environment that he can influence, from politicising the public service to the blatant stacking of the boards of public authorities such as the ABC.
Menzies would have been aghast at Howard's autocracy and cronyism.
A case in point was the retention of Dr H. C. Coombs, who had been the chief adviser to Labor prime minister Ben Chifley and architect of the postwar reconstruction that Menzies had criticised as socialist.
While there were members of his incoming government in 1949 who distrusted Coombs and his ilk, Menzies, as biographer Allan Martin pointed out, insisted on Coombs' inviolability.
The Liberal Party in NSW has always exhibited elements of what James Jupp has described as the "ratbag characteristics of an outgroup", which has spawned such responses as the New Guard in the 1930s, the later free marketeers and libertarians down to today's right-wing "uglies".
After the long Menzies era, the interregnum of Holt and
the colourful interlude of Gorton — all Victorians — came McMahon, who was distrusted in Victoria for what one Liberal described as his "reckless closeness" to Sydney business interests.
His successor after the defeat in 1972, Bill Snedden, another Victorian, was later to remark privately that the Liberals would never again entrust the leadership to a Sydneysider.
That they have three times — to Hewson and twice to Howard — is history. The party is now shaped very much by those influences that have made Howard what he is, and they have taken the party a long way from Deakin and Menzies.
Howard, in turn, may soon vacate in favour of Peter Costello with the possibility of election defeat looming in 2007. Costello, a Victorian with just a touch of Deakin's social liberalism, will find little room to manoeuvre at the head of a party fashioned in John Howard's likeness.
Norman Abjorensen teaches politics at ANU. His book Leadership and the Liberal Revival will be published later this year.
