Arthur “Cocky” Calwell’s words came flooding back to
me a few days after the Queensland election.
"Rufus,” he said to me one night in early 1966, “winning
in politics isn’t everything. Sometimes it’s much more fun to
lose.”
Calwell knew what he was talking about. He had lost his share of elections
as federal Labor Party leader.
As it turned out, as we drank in the Non-Members’ Bar of the old Parliament
House in Canberra, he confided in me that he took a perverse pride in losing
elections. He said he was most upset on the night of the federal election
in 1961 when it appeared Labor may have toppled the Menzies government.
"I much prefer to lose,” Calwell said to me, “and the bigger
defeat the better.”
It will leave it to other, more qualified individuals to speculate on the
personal, psychological – or indeed, psychiatric – causes of his
electoral outlook.
But Calwell certainly got his wish a few months after our conversation when
the new Liberal PM, Harold Holt, won a landslide victory – a result
that led directly to Calwell’s defeat as ALP leader at the hands of
the young Gough Whitlam.
I was reminded of Calwell’s words when Joan Sheldon rang me a few days
after the Queensland election to say she was about to step down as the state’s
Liberal Party leader.
Having followed the three-week campaign closely, this news came as somewhat
of a surprise – not the fact that she was thinking of quitting, but
that she was the Liberal leader.
In all of the Coalition’s television advertisements I had seen, it
appeared to me that the National’s Rob Borbidge was doing all the talking.
The same went for news conferences. I must say I didn’t recognise Joan
standing right next to him – I thought Rob had been kind enough to
take his mother along for the campaign ride.
Part of the problem, I believe, was that Joan had been given a “makeover”
by her political minders since becoming Liberal leader. I readily admit
the other part of the problem could be my failing eyesight.
I had lost touch with her shortly after she assumed her party’s leadership
in 1991, replacing the hapless Denver Beanland, who had failed to secure
what many Liberals firmly believed to be their rightful role in Queensland
politics – providing unquestioning support to the National Party.
Beanland had himself replaced the hapless Angus Innes, who also had failed
to lead the Liberals back into a Coalition with the Nationals – either
in government or Opposition.
Innes, in turn, had followed the hapless Sir William Knox, who had the distinction
of twice serving his party as leader. In his second innings, Knox himself
walked back to the pavilion, as it were, when it was clear he had failed
at the 1986 election to secure the Liberals their coveted place as junior
partner in government with the Nationals.
Knox had taken over the leadership after the party’s stunning defeat
at the 1983 state election. The Liberals had been led into that election
– and a massive loss of seats –by the hapless Terry White, who
had tried to assert a more vigorous and dominant role for the party within
the Bjelke-Petersen Coalition government (to the point of splitting the
Coalition) only to discover that was not what his party wanted after all.
Apparently, they were just happy to be there.
Prior to that election, White himself had challenged and defeated as party
leader the hapless Llew Edwards.
In 1978 Edwards had ended Knox’s first period of leadership largely
by promising to be a leader who would stand up to Bjelke-Petersen and the
Nationals. He was defeated by White because he wasn’t, and – as
I’ve already explained – White came undone because he was.
It was this proud heritage of leadership that Joan Sheldon assumed back
in 1991. And she did her duty as far as her party was concerned – taking
it back into a National Party-dominated Coalition in Opposition and then
walking into power when the Wayne Goss-led Labor government stumbled out.
But now, she has gone – quickly and quietly at a time of her choosing.
As I write this column, the aspiring replacement leadership team of Dr David
Watson and Bob Quinn have already started counting the numbers, which shouldn’t
be too hard in a party room of just nine.
Also as I write, Rob Borbidge is still Premier and is trying desperately
to remain so. Borbidge must secure support from the two independents as
well as the One Nation members.
In return for such support, the One Nation members will no doubt be demanding
changes to the state’s gun laws, cuts in funding for Aboriginal programs,
a government-funded bank offering low-interest loans, and the abolition
of publicly funded arts scheme – all policy positions they advocated
during the state campaign.
If Borbidge succeeds in stitching together support for a minority Coalition
government it will be due, in large part, to the support of the remaining
Liberal MLAs.
Without the Liberals, the Nationals cannot hope to form a minority government.
If the demands placed on the Nationals by One Nation are unpalatable to
the Liberals, then they should refuse to join in another coalition.
If they did so, they would be putting themselves in the position of holding
the balance of power and having the ability to make or break a Labor government.
History suggests this is unlikely.
After all, it was the Liberal Party that went along with the idea of putting
One Nation ahead of Labor on Coalition how-to-vote cards – a move aimed
at propping up the Nationals in the bush, but which backfired badly in Liberal
metropolitan seats and, as it happened, in the bush too.
Such selflessness as displayed by the Queensland Liberals is certainly a
rare commodity in political parties.Let me return, briefly, to the 1983
election : the one in which the two major conservative parties campaigned
separately after the Coalition government split.
On election day in 1983 Liberal supporters voted with their feet and put
the Nationals just short of an outright majority and power in their own
right.
A few days after the poll, two former Liberal ministers also voted with
their feet and became Nationals – delivering single-party government
to Bjelke-Petersen and the Nationals.
How different things would have been had the Liberals remained solid and
exercised the authority derived from holding the balance of power. The Liberal
Party in Queensland could certainly have taught “Cocky” Calwell
a thing or two about losing.
Rufus Badinage MBE, now retired, is one of Australia’s
leading
experts on politics and public administration having worked as a
senior bureaucrat for various state and federal governments.
