Division in the Coalition

The Leader of the Opposition, Tony Abbott, has announced a tough new policy on 'asylum seekers' or illegal immigrants who come to Australia, especially those who come by boat using people smugglers.

In the past year there has been a big increase in the number of boats coming to Australia and the detention centre at Christmas Island is almost full. Many commentators attribute this to the soft policies of the government, although even they have 'toughened up' in recent months.

Mr Abbott announced a policy of "temporary protection visas" and a tough stand against people smugglers with a proposal to re-introduce an offshore processing plan similar to the 'Pacific Solution' of the Howard government.

However 'moderartes' in the Liberal Party are very unhappy and are upset that the policy was not discussed in the Party Room.
Read media report on this issue.

This is another example, which is being discussed extensively in the media, of the growing split in the Liberal Party - between the 'conservatives' and the 'moderates'.

In an election year, this will become increasingly significant in the months ahead...

Meanwhile, Labor is in disarray over its cancelled and unfulfilled policies (more than 40 according to journalist Piers Akerman). Andrew Bolt recently revealed the critical comments that former ALP leader Mark Latham made about Kevin Rudd's abilities and character in his 'diaries' - although, at the time the Latham Diaries were published in 2005, after Latham left politics, Kevin Rudd dismissed them as 'fiction'.

There is a real possibility that the Liberals could win government - however, they will need to be united if they are to have any chance of winning the federal election. The Party generally moved to the 'conservative' side with the election of Tony Abbott as leader, but with the 'return' of Malcolm Turnbull and the moderates complaining about policy, division is evident in the Liberal Party. As Peter has noted in his article about the Liberal Party (Part 6 in our series on political parties) in our forthcoming June journal, the Liberal Party has never won from the 'left'. It is only when they adopt conservative policies that they show a real difference between them and Labor.

Division in the ranks is not the way to win!

UPDATE: May 31, 2010

An interesting analysis of polls and election prospects for both parties was published in The Age today... written by John Watson: Poll results bode well for Rudd

It makes interesting reading. Perhaps even more telling is that in the accompanying vote about the proposed mining tax and manipulation, the result was 82% against the government's proposal. Some of the comments promote the Greens as an alternative, although one person noted they had "unworkable and uncompromising policy positions ensuring their ideals are never tainted by real world practicality".