Peter Slipper (Fisher, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

Initially, I would like to congratulate the honourable member for Blaxland on what I thought was a very well put together speech. Clearly he had thought through the matters he wanted to raise in his maiden speech to the Australian parliament, and I do wish him well, as I do all other new members—although one could understand if I do not wish those on the other side any sense of political longevity. I do counsel the honourable member for Blaxland, however, that when serving his political masters he ought not to forget the people in Sussex Street—who, I understand, are possibly more of a potential threat to him than would be the electors of Blaxland.

There are few debates in this parliament where one can talk about anything one wants to. I want to use this chance to say how strongly I support a single conservative party in Queensland. Hopefully after that has been achieved there will be a flow-on effect so that we see a single conservative party nationally. Sir Robert Menzies in the 1940s faced a crisis of conservative politics and he managed to bring together 18 disparate non-Labor and conservative forces to form the Liberal Party of Australia. At the present time, the conservative parties throughout Australia are in some disarray. We do not hold government at any state or territory level and we certainly, post 24 November, do not hold the keys to national government. I suppose the one bright spot on our national horizon is the lord mayoralty of Brisbane, where I am hopeful that Campbell Newman as lord mayor will be able to obtain a majority in his own right at the council elections next month.

Lawrence Springborg, the leader of the Queensland opposition, has, in quite a visionary way, been consulting with the people of Queensland with a view to achieving a new conservative party, to grow out of the Liberal Party and the National Party. Alternatively, one could merge the two—and I am not wedded to any particular alternative but I strongly consider that if any rationale ever existed for there to be a separate Liberal Party and a separate National Party then that rationale evaporated a very long time ago. Honourable members would be aware that I have been privileged to serve in the Australian parliament as both a member of the National Party and a member of the Liberal Party, at different times. The people who were in both of those party rooms were very similar people, but, more importantly, the branch members of the Liberal Party and the National Party were very similar. Indeed, the voting public who support Liberal and National Party members are not specifically National or specifically Liberal; they are broadly conservative voters who want to achieve positive outcomes for the future of our state and nation.

That is why I have written to the Queensland state president of the Liberal Party, Warwick Parer, a distinguished former senator of this parliament, and our state director, Geoff Greene, to urge support for the proposal being put forward by Lawrence Springborg. I greatly regret a recent decision of the Queensland state council of the Liberal Party to defer any consideration of a single conservative party until after the Brisbane City Council and the Gold Coast City Council elections. I hope that the postponement of these discussions is not designed to gain time so that a new party could be put to death at a time when it would be less politically dangerous to do so. I do not think anyone would accept a decision to say no at this stage because, were that to happen, our Brisbane City Council team and our Gold Coast City Council team would be pilloried at the council elections to be held next month.

Had the state council gone ahead with an indication of support for a single conservative party, I consider that this, at the council elections, would have given a very strong momentum towards support for conservative teams running in council elections. But, having said that, all is not lost. I can understand that there was an argument put forward that, were we to be talking about a new party prior to the council elections, that could well divert our attention from the need to win those elections. I accepted the decision of the state council, but I strongly urge that, on the day after the council elections are out of the way, we as a Liberal Party go out and consult our members and seek to attain the support we need to form one conservative party.

I said earlier that the non-Labor forces in Australia are currently in a state of disarray. As we stand, we are somewhere between three and 12 years away from national government. We are probably six years away from state government in Queensland because Anna Bligh leads what is arguably the worst government in Australia of any political party. What we need to do is to indicate to the Australian people and to the voters of Queensland that we have listened. They have sent us powerful messages at successive state elections. They say to us, ‘Get your act together and then come back and seek our support.’

I believe the Howard government was an outstanding government. History will record the achievements of that government. We inherited an economic basket case, yet we reduced unemployment, we had lower interest rates than have historically been the case, and we made Australia respected throughout the world. When history judges the record of that government, history will be very kind because it was a very good government. Having said that, on 24 November, a new Prime Minister from Queensland was elected and the Labor Party, as we have seen in the successive votes today and earlier, clearly holds a very strong majority currently in the Australian parliament. What we need to do is to try to indicate to the Australian people that we have learnt the lesson and that we are prepared to listen to the message being sent to us. I believe that it is very, very important to move forward to form this single conservative party. Were this to happen, I believe the electors would look at us in a much more favourable light.

In recent times, the coalition has worked very well together at the state and the federal levels. However, there is this feeling in the community’s psyche that over the years we have had the luxury expended by Liberals and Nationals of taking pot shots at each other. There have been visions of disunity. We have seen headlines in the various papers on occasions indicating that the parties are not working to one purpose. That is why I think we cannot now afford two non-Labor parties—particularly two non-Labor parties which largely have the same policies and which largely represent the same people. The Liberal Party has many more rural members of the Australian parliament than does the National Party. I do not say that in a sense of triumphalism over the National Party. All I am saying is that the rationale for two separate parties has long evaporated.

I want to commend the Leader of the Opposition and the Leader of the Nationals in this place because both of them have indicated that they are not opposed to Queensland moving forward to form one conservative party if that is what the collective wish of the membership of the Liberal Party and the National Party in Queensland happens to be. There are some who say: ‘Let’s not have a merger at state level. Let’s wait until there is some form of national consensus.’ Mr Deputy Speaker, I am sure that you would agree with me in your capacity as the member for Maranoa and as a former president of the National Party that often such a sentiment could in effect be code for putting it off until such time as it will never actually happen.

History records that the only way that the Australian Country Party became the National Party of Australia was when one state—that is, Queensland—grasped the nettle. It unilaterally changed its name and then created the momentum which, over a period of years, saw the Australian Country Party become the National Country Party at the national level and then become the National Party of Australia throughout the nation. Already in the Australian parliament we have Senator Nigel Scullion, who represents the Country Liberal Party, which is a merger of the parties in the Territory. I suppose it is a bit strange in a sense that he is also the deputy leader of the National Party, but that is an issue for another discussion.

If the Liberal Party and the National Party were prepared to be visionary and prepared to emulate what Sir Robert Menzies did in the 1940s and if we were able to achieve a single conservative party in Queensland then one would find that very quickly the other states would fall into line. We would have one conservative party, which, in effect, would indicate that we were ready to inherit the keys of government. The state leadership of the Liberal Party and the National Party in the Queensland parliament have both indicated support for this proposal. As I talk to Liberal Party members in my electorate and elsewhere throughout Queensland, I find that there is a very strong view in favour of ruling off the past and moving forward. In the electorate of Fisher, I was very fortunate because we had a joint campaign committee. The Liberal Party and the National Party campaigned together as equal partners, and we achieved a result which, given the tsunami that engulfed our side of politics, was very pleasing.

The electorate has sent us a very strong and unambiguous message: fix up the mess and make some positive changes. If that happens, of course, we will receive support. We just cannot go on as we are. We need to try something new. If we do go on as we are, I suspect we will be where we are for a very long period of time. You cannot have a good government in Australia unless you have an effective opposition. I just see a single conservative party as being essential. It really ought to happen. It must happen. If it does not happen, then we are consigned to the wilderness of opposition for possibly a generation.

I would also like to say how pleased I am that next month the three councils on the Sunshine Coast—the Noosa Council, the Maroochy Shire Council and the Caloundra City Council—will merge to form the new Sunshine Coast Regional Council. It would have been better if we were called the Sunshine Coast City Council because, let’s face it, while the member for McPherson at the table would certainly not agree with me—

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