Surely you are on the"piss!

It might not happen that way exactly, but the general thrust of it is pretty close to the mark.
David

Surely the current attitude of most Australians toward existing party beliefs is one of a need to stay centralist in political outlook and belief.

Excessive commitment to either the right or left is now out of date.
Electors have been there, done that.

Now they appear to be choosing an option which abandons the old dogmatic trends of opposed philosophies.

The two/three major party scheme may be headed for extinction.

Let's create the 'Independents' Party.'

Tying the future to the past is fraught.

There was nothing “illegal” about the removal of Whitlam. The reserve power was used. The electorate approved with a huge Liberal vote at the ensuing election. But yes. Fraser was a dick. Howard was OK until he, too, turned into a dick and lost his own seat because of it. He was also the to blame for the initial nonsense about unreliable energy and subsidies for it. And we all know what the king dick, Turnbull did, moving the party to the Left. All of these galahs trashed the Liberal brand in their own way. There was a brief chance with Abbott, but all the dicks in the party knocked him in the head. There is nothing “illegitimate” about Morrison, but he is also a dick who looks to be the one to finish off the Liberals for good.

I have never agreed with anything Compton has written in the past, but he is right this time on the pending demise of the Liberal party.

However, Compton is like all those other people who fail to recognise that the reason for the failure of the Liberal party is the steady move to the left that has occurred in the majority of MPs - those better suited to the Labor party - to keep it simple, they are the ones who voted for Morrison and not Dutton; the ones interested only in clinging on to their seats and to hell with principals. The ones who have left Australia with two Labor parties.

After Compton misreads the real problems with the Liberals, his article descends into the bulldust he usually churns out. His scrying his utter nonsense. The Liberals must go and they must be replaced by be genuine conservative party.

Everald doesn't like the Liberal Party, so what, he is entitled to his opinion. Who says political parties have to live for ever? They form, they change and they keep changing. Wasting your time with vitriol Everald accomplishes nothing. Also never listen to your enemies when you are seeking help, that is the first rule. Perhaps now the Conservatives will get their chance?
When Labour go into debt and balls everything up and the big clean up is needed I am sure we will have another blurt about how the Labour Party is dead and buried, again!

after years of incompetence and running up huge debt that Labour ran up, it shows what sort of sick mentality Everald has with his eager anticipation of Shorten/Tanya being elected causing further destruction on this nation. To describe the refusal to sell out to the Marxist wealth distribution con via gw and the refusal to promote the perverted promotion of homosexuality to kids as hatred shows how devoid of any sense he has. It is a good thing that the Liberals will collapse. Hopefully they will get rid of the self servers like Pyne and Bishop who obviously care zero about power prices and instead virtue signal about the gw fantasy to cover any sense of real character or decency. The hatred of Abbott by Everald along with other regressives is sickening. The man who stopped the massive flow of illegals and got rid of the fraudulent carbon tax did more for this country than 7 years of Rudd/Gillard/Rudd and Shorten. Everald's hatred certainly blinds him of any reality. Unfortunately he is not alone. No doubt he is also a lover of the abc with its feminist/Marxist platform. The sooner we get a Trump the better.

Australian politics has a definite cycle.

Liberals have always championed good economic
management - their policies centred around
increasing surplus. They did/do this by cutting
spending to essential services like hospitals,
schools, education, roads, rail, and infrastructure -
all the usual stuff. How was this damage fixed?
Labor gets elected.

Labor then spends to fix the damage
done. What happens next? Liberals get re-elected to
increase surplus. And so the cycle continues.

Round and round we go.

Vale Liberals forever?
Certainly - unless they change.

People support governments if they do things
that improve their lives. In Victoria the government
focused on the practical; upgrading hospitals,
new schools, the removal of level crossings, a huge
infrastructure program. People overlook many
failings if they see things happening. If governments
live their values, keep their promises, and gets things
done - they will get re-elected. At least in Victoria.

If the Liberal Party continues to be increasingly
divided along lines familiar in Canberra - where a
segment of the party is far to the right of the
electorate and if it continues to "play" to that
segment - it will alienate others.

The fear campaign in Victoria that crime was out of
control did not resonate well. The rhetoric did not
convince a more sophisticated electorate. People
rejected the "low road of fear and division."
They overwhelmingly endorsed a positive and
optimistic plan for the state.

Did the Liberal Party learn anything from this?
It doesn't appear so.
The "blame game" continues. Calls for resignations are
being demanded. If the Liberal
Party does not change its outmoded political tactics -
it's future certainly does not look very bright.

We need to remember that the Party under Menzies was not
the Party of today. It was a "broader Church." It was
"Liberal." It was not a right-wing conservative party.
It needs to go back to its original base.

Hmmm, is Everard Turnbull light ?
As soon as the blackouts start in a big way there will be an upheaval
in the whole political field.
There was a warning that a systemic collapse might occur.
The suggestion is that we could be without power for hours a day and
that it could go on for months.
That is probably an exaggeration.
However, even a lower level of failure would have wide economic affects.

It will only need one or two of the base load stations to close for
an extended period to prove that renewables cannot do the job.
If you spend time watching Queensland supporting the electricity
consumption of NSW, Victoria and Sth Aus on
http://tinyurl.com/y9n75xkf
you will see the extended periods of low wind & other from Sth Aus
which is generally supported by Qld and Tasmania.
Also note the price of the MW/hrs and it is usually that QLD has the
cheapest price.

Power stations have always had periods when they had to close for
maintenance or fault repair, however now that we have closed so many
of the base load stations a closure of one or two has dramatic effects.
This has given the greenies the opertunity to say that renewables are
more reliable than coal fired stations.

Two recent examples of how the Liberal party will be brought down from within:

Julia Banks moving to the cross bench and betraying the voters of Chisholm, who voted for the Liberal party, not little Ms. Banks herself who claims that naughty boys bullied her. She also claims that the party is run by the Right! If only that were true; the Liberals would be re-elected next year.

The “popular” Julie Bishop calling for bipartisan support with Labor on a ridiculous NEG. Her catty revenge after she found out that she was not actually popular at all.

The Left (posing as 'moderates') have buggered up the Liberal party, and they are now blaming the Right for it.

You display a resounding ignorance of the structure of the Australian government in your above comments, Everard. there was nothing illegal about the replacement of Abbot or Turnbull under our Westminster system wherein in our case to date, the PM is actually the prerogative of the party with the largest number seats in the lower house. The only people who vote for the Australian PM directly are those who cast their votes in his or her electorate; as such changes in PM between elections are up to the party in power, not the people as a whole. For this to change needs fundamental changes to the system and, in fact what you are advocating is a half-baked Presidential system. I have no problem with changing to a Presidential system if adequate debate about the pros and cons of such an action takes place but draw your attention to those third world countries that have taken up the Presidential system without adequate checks and balances. The downfall of the idea of a republic was, in my humble opinion, the result of not thinking through the problem adequately before putting the proposal to the public.
Your proposed solution, to me smacks of that lack, but I am happy to admit that I am nothing more than an old piece of colonial flotsam that refuses to go away, who spent his whole working life outside Australia and have only been resident back in this country for ten years, all of that in Townsville, no less.

Everready

Surely you go too far this time.

Nay, we majority of OLO commenters who are Liberals or way far right of that, are already depressed to contemplate 2 terms (6 years) of Labor rule from May 2019. We will not rest till Biblicly smite the forces of progress.

Everald when you say:

"They [that is We] hate the Labor Party and its Trade Unions. [We] also despise climate change advocates, gays, refugees, muslims, aborigines, welfare recipients and female Parliamentarians."

You may be right. But you are talking about us grizzled, old, male, majority who chatter on OLO Forums daily.

Yes we may pillory all that has happened since Menzies. But we're proud of slagging Leftist drinking women Lattes under every bed (not in them unfortunately) and whenever possible.

So there. I hope you feel ashamed Everready

You've hurt my feelings.

I may be older than some of the commentators here, but my gut feeling is that even if the Liberal party currently controlled by big business, moves back toward the centre, it will stagnate in the wilderness for 23 years as did the Labor party when it moved too far to the left under the trade unions. Evarard may have got his facts about Goff's demise wrong, but on this occasion, the rest is very possible. It is about time some of you old buggars woke up to yourselves. The voters in Victoria have spoken.
David

Absolutely worthy of copy and paste:

We need to remember that the Party under Menzies was not
the Party of today. It was a "broader Church." It was
"Liberal." It was not a right-wing conservative party.
It needs to go back to its original base.
Posted by Foxy, Wednesday, 28 November 2018 10:44:10 AM

Foxy. You stand almost the only voice of reason posting here and essentially right. Others seem to think we've moved away from the centre, where most elections are won.

While a few may believe that is so, it's the view you get from so far to the right. Moreover, these folk seriously believe in their rusted on ideology and believe the party, theirs and dominated from within, one might argue, by a new generation of neo-nazis, like those who recently tried their rotten luck infiltrating the nats? Have a serious shot at winning?

But may find it a little difficult at first, to win with just 30% of the primary vote?

However, anyone who thinks the once great liberal party is dead is seriously mistaken, there's life in the rock rattle and roll, corpse even yet? After all, it's only dead from the neck up? And just needs a better salesman to market its message? Or in a manner of speaking, get ahead?

Or more money from the puppet masters? So we can follow America and have the very best democracy, money can buy?
Alan B.

Reports of their death have been greatly exaggerated. Unless someone else manages to take their place within the next decade, all it needs is the combination of Labor slipping up somewhere (which is likely) and a new Liberal leader who's able to reinvent the party, dump the baggage of the past, and present the Libs as a credible alternative to Labor.

Having said that, I'd much prefer it if they were replaced.

___________________________________________________________________________________

Foxy,
>Liberals have always championed good economic management

It would be more accurate to say they've championed the illusion of good economic management.

They promoted themselves as the party of free enterprise, but Labor copied them.
They promoted themselves as the party of low inflation, but it was the accord under the Hawke government that brought inflation under control.
They promoted themselves as the party of low taxes, but Labor cut taxes.
They promoted themselves as the party of low interest rates, but interest rates got so low under Rudd that it ceased to be an issue.
They promoted themselves as the party of surpluses but failed to deliver. Indeed surpluses were neither possible nor desirable at this stage of the economic cycle, and Swanee's biggest failure was that he'd tried to instead of explaining this.
They promoted themselves as the party of jobs and growth, but didn't do anything much to increase either of those.

Now they're running scare campaigns against Shorten; a dangerous tactic, as it will be extremely hard to win the 2022 election if none of those dire predictions come true.

Every time, every single time, a party goes through an electoral downturn, we get these predictions that its over. I can remember when there were predictions of the demise of the ALP after Whitlam's failures in 75/77. Equally it was all over for the Libs after the losses in 83/84 and the Howard/Peacock rivalry seemed to be pulling it apart. 1996, 2004. Always the same story.

Yet the majors seem to carry on.

There is always this claim that the party in question has lost its way, that it no longer suits the times, that it needs to find the centre again.

But let's bear in mind that the centre is a moving feast. Things have been passingly good in Australia for a very long time (thank you Messrs Hawke and Howard) and so the centre is currently favouring the spenders and promisers. But it won't always be thus, particularly once Shorten and co get to run the Treasury.

Unless WW3 breaks out or we find that the whole of the ALP's front bench is running a child trafficking ring, the ALP will win next May/June.

Personally I think that'll be good for Australia. We need a massive change to our economic and political settings and the best way to get that is to let the nation see just what pandering to the so-called centre brings. At that point the centre will move and it'll move right. And the Libs will be there waiting for them.

_______________________________________

According to the author:
* the Libs will be " reduced to a few seats."
* the Nats will be "reduced to no more than two."
* "Shorten's margin in the House will be small ".

Either the author hasn't got the slightest grasp of simple arithmetic or he's just making it up as he goes. At least try to be consistent within each article, FFS.

There's no doubt in my mind that the Liberal Party
has to look very intensely in the mirror and come to
the realisation that they have to shift their
rhetoric and policy direction. When your own base -
is embarrassed to vote Liberal - it's time for a
battle - for the identity and values of the Liberal
Party. A battle to restore the Party back to the
centre right

I repeat never listen to your enemies advice as it is never helpful. Foxy, nothing personal but you are as one sided Labour as I am one sided conservative, so!
I will not vote liberal because the party are not attending to what I want. I will vote minor party and LNP will have to accommodate me eventually.
As other posters have pointed out Shorten and his crew will be a total lash up and if they get the recession we have to have then they will be blamed for it and everything changes, again!

No. I am not "one-sided" Labor.
As a matter of fact I come from a Liberal
voting family way back. However, as I stated
earlier - the Party has changed enormously.
And it has lost my vote - and will continue
to do so unless their direction and policies
change.

Time for the NATs ganging up with ON & start kicking butt.

In order for them to be able to do that they
need to grow their numbers. Big time.

Foxy, I am in sympathy with you, but I think the libs will need to move a bit further left than the centre right. Judging by the overall voting pattern in the Victorian election, the place to win the votes is back in the centre. That is where the younger voters are all heading. That is why the Greens got done. People also want to see practical policies and that is what they actually got from Daniel Andrews. The right wing Liberals have no policies to tackle climate change and most of the pollies in every government lack the engineering knowledge to get their heads around what is needed in a practical sense. It is all very well making targets, but no one has a clue how to meet them.
David

One policy the Liberal Party could run on is repealing ridiculous laws. If they set a goal of ten per day, and promised to start with the tax code, that would give them a unique selling point, and help them to return to the original spirit of Liberalism.

But as long as the choice remains between an ALP government making bad law to buy votes from the poor, and a Liberal government making bad law to gain support from the rich, neither party can hope to command respect or attract disinterested voters.

Jon J,
Exactly !

From my recollection of the times, Malcolm Fraser was a decent and fair man and middle of the road Liberal who stepped up and put Gough Whitlam out of office as a way of stopping an accumulative interest loan deal via Khemlani.
It was the Labor loan dealing that brought down the Whitlam led Labor government.

http://www.naa.gov.au/collection/fact-sheets/fs239.aspx

I think it would be good for Australia to return to Malcolm Fraser Liberal Party and Ralph Hunt Country Party - integrity type of politics.

The Liberal Party stopped being a traditional Conservative party with Howard.

It's since become a Neo-Conservative Party infected with and the prisoner of extremists and interest groups, each with their individual agendas.

Their sole purpose is to create an environment of unregulated free-market capitalism in the belief that it will solve all problems and their strategy is to divide society into internal warring groups.

If the Labor Party is controlled by Unions then the Liberals are likewise the puppet of corporate interests and lobbyists.

The perpetual myth of "good economic management" has been disproven many times. Our global economic ranking has fallen with successive Liberal governments and the alleged success of the Howard-Costello years were not what they are reported to be with several examples of gross waste, mismanagement and lost opportunities.

The only way they can survive is to split off the extremists into another party and rebuild their base in the middle ground.

Australian politics has a definite cycle.
Liberals run the economy responsibly and get
our economy in the black. They do this by
cutting back funding on whatever has to be cut,
whenever the Labor dominated Senate allow
them to do so. If this means cutting back
on things that will make them unpopular,
then they know it is the responsible thing to do.

Labor is then elected in and spends
like there is no tomorrow.
They know how to buy votes using
other people's money. Oddly, like
socialists everywhere, they hate
the very institutions that create the
wealth they need to buy people's votes.
So, they soon run out of other people's money
to spend, and start borrowing.

Dept levels go through the roof.
Sooner or later, the electorate figures
out that they are all idiots,
the Libs get in and fix the mess,
and round and round we go.

The fear campaign that the Libs used in
Victoria was not as strong a message as
the Labor "we will give you everything for free",
and the "we have no idea where
the money will come from, but we will work
that out later."

Did the Liberal Party learn anything from this?
Yair, there are those "wets" who think
that they should emulate Labor's success tactic
and tell the electorate that they will give
them everything for free. And that they should
also emulate the ethnic sucking policies of Labor.
Especially reassuring immigrants that their
entire countries can immigrate to Australia, en masse.
There is plenty of money in Centrelink,
and diversity bollards are relatively cheap.

We need to remember that there are politicians
who think more about holding onto their
seats than telling the electorate what they
don't want to hear. But there are still
responsible Liberal Party members who are
economically responsible, and who appeal
to smart, responsible people. The Liberal
Party needs to go back to it's base.

Well said and true, Lego.

The same old tactics will not work.
There are lessons to be learned from
Victoria. It would help both parties if
they opened up preselections for the coming
federal election. MPs should be answerable to
the judgement of the members before every election.
Perhaps that way they can get rid of the "old guard,"
that's no longer relevant.

Just a thought.

Aw shucks, Foxy. I thought that paraphrasing your post would get a better response from you than that.

I was hoping to cross swords with you and begin your deprograming process. I think that you are smart enough to salvage. A bit uppity, but that comes natural with every social justice warrior.

But tell me, every time you see some lunatic lefty shutting down debates by pulling fire alarms, demanding that Gert Weelders should be banned from Australia, Lauren Southern should not get an entry visa, and Milo should be silenced with violence and intimidation, don't you get weeny bit worried that your ideology is the same as those lunatics?

Intelligent people throughout history have instinctively mistrusted those who demand that others must not listen to other people's ideas. Smart people want to hear both sides and they greatly resent being prevented from making up their own minds. A belief in free speech is pre requisite for claiming a triple figure IQ'.

I mean, do you really identify with those loonies who claim that gender is a social construct, and who demand that they be spoken to with gender neutral pronouns? How about open borders? It is now an observable fact that allowing third world people into first world countries results in ethnic suburban ghettoisation. With the result that first world suburbs become third world suburbs filled with third world people, with third world crime rates and third world social problems.

This must be the first time in history that a privileged university educated minority think that is fashionable to destroy the very civilisation that they live in

LEGO,

I enjoyed your very entertaining paraphrasing.
I appreciate your opinions and of
course I welcome your comments. As for crossing
swords with you? I don't think that I could argue
with your logic.

Yair, Foxy. I am a hard act to follow.

Lego

Some of your comments fit directly into the Liberal Party as it is now. The extreme right state, it is our way or the highway. With the NEG, whether right or wrong, it was debated in the Party room and there appeared to be consensus. It was later undermined by the extreme right.

The other matter of interest is that earlier the Liberal Party in NSW voted for political representatives be picked by the grass routes members of an electorate. The motion to make a such a change had been promoted by Abbott. There were worries about Craig Kelly through the perceived damage he could do to the Party which led to the Executive endorsing Kelly. So the grass roots members of Kelly's electorate were disendorsed.

A split in the Liberal Party is a distinct possibility through the antagonism between the extreme right and more moderate members of the Liberal Party.

Ant, I think the NEG got dropped because it was belatedly realised
that it would lead to an impossible grid stability problem.
It will, I believe, only be possible to get stability by either
building two coal fired stations in the next 12 months, an impossible
task as I am sure you realise.
I think that if Liddel is closed then we will be in for very frequent
blackouts. There was a report by some organisation, but unfortunately
I missed who it was, that said we could be in for a collapse of the
electrical system. It sounds a bit much to me, but we are going the
wrong way with the system.

It is an education to watch the AEMO Dashboard web page.