The book is titled 'Is the Party over?' by Christopher Puplick.
Puplick (at the time of publication) was a Liberal insider who had held most offices within the party, was a former senator and shadow minister and had been a party member for close to 30 years. His thoughts on the party were interesting, but I'll come to those in a minute.
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Of particular interest was the history of NSW Liberal powerbroker Lyenko Urbanchich, who had been a WW2 Slovenian Fascist leader before finding a home and a strong power base in the broad church of the Liberal party from the 1950's onwards. More information about his activities are available here.
We also know that self-proclaimed National Socialist (NAZI) David Oldfiled was a staffer for Tony Abbott before he joined forces with Pauline Hanson and One Nation. The fact that Oldfield abandoned him may also in part explain why Tony Abbott went to the trouble of setting up a slush fund in order to bring down One Nation.
The links between the Liberals and NAZI and Fascist elements sound like fertile ground for a Royal Commission. But unlike the Abbott government, Labor are not in the business of wasting public funds on a political witch-hunt (Tony must be disappointed that the Insulation Scheme Royal commission hasn't attracted any real headlines, I'm sure he holds out higher hopes for the Union RC).
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It was written in the wake of 'the Unlosable election', that the Tories lost, so as you'd expect the tone of the book is one of very deep and reflective soul-searching. What is really striking about the book is the introductory chapter and the fact that many of Christopher's assertions of the time have such currency.
Below are a number of direct quotes:
the party which has done so much to advance the position of women in society alienated many of them with its policies
The party whose early record on environmental protection and conservation is outstanding alienated most green voters with its unrealistic policies on federalism in relation to the environment and a plainly stupid policy advocating nuclear power.
The party which first rejected the White Australia policy, promoted immigration and launched the first multicultural program was rejected by ethnic Australians for its uncaring and offensive comments about the 'multicultural industry'.
... rejected by the vibrant arts community for its narrow-minded, penny-pinching and unimaginative approach to the economic, social and spiritual values of one of our major industries, and because of its bizarre threats to all but destroy the great national institution of the ABC.
... rejected by the gay and lesbian community for the crass homophobia apparent in its policies on gay partners, gays in the defence forces and the enforcement of censorship. The list goes on.
While Christopher thought there may have been lessons learnt from the electoral loss he says:
... recent pre-selections in NSW for both the House of Representatives and the Senate have resulted in the choice of candidates (including Bronwyn Bishop, Tony Abbott and Dr Bob Woods) who represent a hardline conservative, exclusionist position.
In relation to the new (post-election) Liberal team he says they risk:
replacing a strategy of having all policies and no politics with a strategy of all politics and no policies.
Christopher laments the Liberal's adoption of a purely economic model of society and their blind faith in the economic market which is matched by their lack of faith in the individual. He cleverly notes:
Some Liberals want to be out of anyone's boardroom but into everyone's bedroom, playing moral policeman.
And perhaps the most interesting of Christopher's observations:
The Liberal party has never been particularly comfortable dealing with ideas. It likes to think of itself as pragmatic, practical, problem-oriented, not fussed about ideology or theory, suspicious of intellectuals.
The rejection of public debate about ideas is reinforced in the Liberal party by the rise to prominence of individuals described as 'populists', the latest trendy wave rolling in to replace the 'economic rationalists'. The one defining characteristic of these populists is their inability to cope with ideas, their rejection of informed debate and their insistence on conducting public discourse on the basis of slogans, cliches and meaningless rhetoric. None of them can stand the scrutiny of having to spell out ideas to which they are committed or which they would seek to turn into public policy.
It seems that much of what Christopher saw, feared and predicted has come together in the current Abbott government. The last paragraph in particular sounds like it was extracted straight out of the Peta Credlin media engagement policy.
It is clear that the Liberal party of Menzies is no more. And that the Liberal party of Abbott et al is a vacuous shell held together with nothing more than smoke, mirrors and hot air.
Sadly, the book is very hard to find, but there is a copy held in the JCU library. It's interesting that you couldn't give away copies of 'Lazarus rising' or 'Battlelines' but a book such as this is so hard to access. The publisher should consider a reprint of such an important and insightful work.