PETER VAN ONSELEN
Liberal Party reactionaries ignore Menzies’ progressive vision
Illustration: Eric Lobbecke
Away from the cut and thrust of the daily partisan political combat, the Liberal Party is in a fight for its soul. What does being a Liberal really mean? What should Liberals stand for? Is the party inherently conservative or liberal, and to what extent should it be an amalgam of the two ideologies?
Who better to quote on his understanding of what the Liberal Party should stand for than its founder, Robert Menzies: “We took the name ‘Liberal’ because we were determined to be a progressive party, willing to make experiments, in no sense reactionary but believing in the individual, his right and his enterprise, and rejecting the socialist panacea.”
Take the opportunity to re-read that quote, reminding yourself how often Menzies is incorrectly referred to as a champion of conservatism: “determined to be a progressive party”. Not a lot of ambiguity in that.
Of course Menzies looks conservative today, rather than progressive, namely on social issues. Funnily enough, Australia and the world have changed just a tad since Menzies was Prime Minister from 1949 to 1966.
Transposing his views on social issues into today’s debates to claim Menzies was conservative in his time is foolish. Such a construct renders everyone in history conservative other than full-blown radicals, including in the mid-20th century when Menzies was PM. Back then Aborigines didn’t have the vote, women in many developed countries didn’t either. The idea of same-sex marriage was virtually unthinkable in the mainstream. Opinion polls wouldn’t have reflected public support for legalising assisted suicides.
Times change. Had Menzies governed today, his well-articulated instinct for progressive politicking would have played out according to the policy scripts relevant now. He is far more likely to have emulated David Cameron in Britain or John Key in New Zealand and pushed for a free vote on SSM, supporting it himself, than sought to block such moves, as Tony Abbott did. And as Malcolm Turnbull is now doing, pandering to his conservative flank.
While Liberal ranks in Menzies time did include personnel who would be classified as conservative today, few were reactionary like so many modern self-styled conservatives now are. Menzies specifically dismissed reactionary politicking as something the Liberal Party did not embrace: “in no sense reactionary”.
How times change.
The definition of a reactionary is someone who opposes political and social reforms. A conservative holds traditional values but, more importantly, supports change only via well-thought-through deliberation and consideration. In other words, they don’t react to progressive thinking by immediately pulling up the drawbridge on reform. They want to ensure, before change is embarked on, that unintended consequences have been adequately thought through.
This traditional brand of conservatism fits neatly with liberalism. The evolved reactionary version does not. Which helps explain the schisms on the Right of politics both in Australia and abroad. Self-styled conservatives today would do well to read 18th-century philosopher Edmund Burke, the father of conservatism. His numerous treatises on the subject flesh out his thinking.
If self-styled conservative commentators and MPs find plunging into such texts too much to bear, I’m sure there are crib notes that simplify and explain Burke’s reasoning. Philosophy isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, even mainstream philosophy. Here’s a key element of Burke’s case for conservatism to get them started: he advocated governing with an eye to the importance of history as a source of knowledge and wisdom.
Let’s not forget Menzies named his new party the Liberal Party, not the Conservative Party. He didn’t choose the name Liberal because he wanted the party to be defined as conservative, even if his aim was to keep conservatives in the tent.
The things that unite progressives and today’s conservatives, however, are becoming less pronounced than what divides them. This is why One Nation is rising, Cory Bernardi has broken away to form his own conservative party, and internally what’s left of the Liberals is a divided mess.
Getting back to Menzies and the stunning quote that sums up how he saw the Liberal Party, those words were written by him in 1967. After his long prime ministership, reflecting on the party and his time in power. It’s not as though he intended the party to be progressive and on reflection it didn’t turn out that way. On reflection he defined the party as rooted in progressive thinking.
The number of times I have heard Menzies’ name used in vain by poorly read conservatives as some sort of guiding light to their thinking says more about their limited grasp of history than what Menzies espoused.
It really should come as no surprise that Menzies was less conservative than modern conservatives would like to think. Apart from his own words and party’s name, the most significant figure in non-Labor politicking who preceded Menzies was Alfred Deakin, Australia’s second prime minister. Deakin was a liberal through and through.
The rise of One Nation on the Liberal Party’s right flank presents problems for conservatives (most of whom are in fact reactionary, so let’s describe them that way) and liberals alike. Reactionaries because One Nation is destined to pursue policies the Liberal Party won’t and shouldn’t. But liberals need to be cautious, because pressure will come to bear internally from reactionaries to steal One Nation’s political oxygen by stealing its policies from time to time.
This is a lesser evil than One Nation’s rise and rise, but it’s unlikely to contain the One Nation phenomenon. The minor party has learned from past mistakes, Pauline Hanson in particular has. So much so that in Western Australia a preference deal has been done that will likely give One Nation control of the state’s upper house irrespective of which major party forms government.
In Queensland the LNP may yet do a preference deal with One Nation such that the parties form a coalition government. Polling federally tells us that One Nation, if it can hold itself together rather than descend into internal divisions, is growing fast enough to overcome the new Senate rules designed to hamper minor parties.
This means the future in modern politics may well see Liberals forced to negotiate with One Nation in the same way Labor has been forced to deal with the Greens: occasionally in alliance, always doing preference deals, occasionally under threat in certain electorates. Inner-city seats are the Greens’ target zones. One Nation’s targets are regional and outer metropolitan electorates.
The mainstreaming of One Nation is the big political story of 2017. It is also the biggest challenge to right-of-centre parties in decades.
