By Stephen Robson
From 1949 until 1972, the Liberal Party held federal government. Following the decision of the powers that be to terminate the Whitlam government in 1975, the Liberal Party again governed until 1983.
By this time, the Liberals had been in government for 31 of the 39 years since their foundation in 1944. No wonder they began to think of themselves as the "natural party" of government.
The sustained challenge to this myth began with the Hawke Labor government. Its Prices and Incomes Accord and the resulting compliant unionism reassured big business.
Now, after losing the unlosable 1993 election, the Liberal Party faces a crisis of direction. Can it modernise to become a credible alternative for the corporate giants? How can the beast be packaged to give the image of difference from Labor without it being seen as New Right?
State government is not such a problem, the Liberals achieving government in five of the six states mostly thanks to Labor governments self-destructing.
But the federal level has been more elusive. Think of all those career paths: born to rule, but if only the people knew it. So sad.
Barely a few months after becoming leader, Downer seems to be going the way of Peacock, Howard and Hewson.
Federal council
So the party's 50th anniversary federal council meeting in Albury at the end of October was painted as a watershed. What was clear is that quite sharp ideological differences exist within the party, from small-l liberal through to New Right.
A number of reforms had been proposed for the meeting, essentially to try to centralise what is a very loose federalist party. Downer must envy Keating: if only he could deal with his dissidents in the way that the Labor machine does.
The reforms put to the federal council were primarily organisational, but parallel to this has been a push for some political reforms.
The organisational reforms are not new. The Valder report following the Liberal defeat in 1983 proposed sweeping changes, as did the Goldsworthy report last year.
Former New South Wales premier Nick Greiner focused on these proposals in his Menzies Centenary Oration in Melbourne on October 19. "The party's organisational structure is based on having a Menzies or a Fraser, or at state level having me. When you have a strong leader with moral authority or a strong personality it works, and the rest of the time it doesn't work."
At the council meeting the Liberals were given a big stick with which to bludgeon rebellious branches. Labor has used this off and on over the years.
In the '70s Labor used federal intervention to isolate radicals in its Victorian branch. Now the Liberals can threaten the stick, probably against the unrepentant WA branch.
Powers now exist to discipline federal MPs.
Social issues
There is a recognition in influential circles of the Liberal Party that it has to address its image of opposition to social concerns. Being portrayed as anti-woman, anti-gay, anti-Aboriginal is being seen as a vote loser in the '90s. Greiner in his speech implied that Liberals should be seen as supporters of Aboriginal reconciliation and try to put an end to their image as racists.
"The spirit of Australia today as reflected in the reaction to Cathy Freeman's two flags is one of constructive nationalism, of acceptance, perhaps begrudgingly, of the desirability of Aboriginal reconciliation", he said.
The new policy direction was symbolised by the Liberal stance on Labor's privacy legislation to override Tasmania's reactionary anti-gay laws. The Liberals isolated the overt anti-gays in parliament, mainly from Tasmania and Western Australia.
Even former parliamentary leader John Hewson has now been reborn, this time with a social conscience. The man who tried to sell Fightback is now trying to present a soft, caring image.
As even the Australian conceded in its editorial of October 31, the Liberal reforms are "more symbolic than substantial". But that's just the point. Labor has been quite successful in implementing a right-wing, pro-business economic agenda, covering itself with a "progressive" image on issues that don't cost much. Why shouldn't the Liberals follow the same path out of their "wilderness"?