The Liberal party in Australia is paying the price for two decades of factional infighting that has seen its membership fall to the lowest levels in its history. It is estimated by insiders with access to the membership numbers that there are less than 40,000 members nationally. This means that less than one in 600 Australian adults are members of the party. The same decline is true of the Labor party. Most AFL clubs have more members than the Liberal party.

The decision by the executive of the federal party – representing all states and territories – to intervene in the NSW Division and appoint administrators was well overdue.

The decision was greeted with predictable disbelief and rejection by members of the ruling faction in the state. It was reported that the only member of the federal executive to vote against the resolution was the NSW president. The state opposition leader said he hadn’t read the report into the matter! This excuse has become prevalent in politics in recent times: politicians – including the Prime Minister – avoid answering questions on the basis that they haven’t read or seen a report with which they should have been conversant; or which their staff could be considered negligent if they had failed to bring it to their attention. The media should not accept such excuses without further interrogation.

The comment by a Liberal factional operative that the administrative panel – including former federal president, Richard Alston and former Victorian treasurer, Alan Stockdale (both members of successful national and state governments) – was ‘pale, male and stale’ is evidence of the inane condescension and preoccupations of some of the people who have brought the party to its knees in most Australian states.

The comment distorts the reality of a party which provided for equal representation of men and women in all executive roles from the local branch through to state and national executives from its inception 80 years ago. The problem is not gender: it is extreme factionalism.

The 28-member NSW state executive has been dysfunctional for years. At one point federal pre-selections were delayed for months because a federal member appointed to the panel didn’t attend meetings. The party was engaged in litigation about pre-selections in the week before the last federal election. The list goes on.

It has been almost two years since Brian Loughnane and Jane Hume delivered their report on the 2022 election. Yet state executives – charged with the responsibility to act on the advice in the report – have sat on their hands, unwilling to make the reforms to remove the modern ‘rotten boroughs’ of the Liberal party.

New South Wales may be the worst state, but others are also deficient. Why has it taken more than 18 months for the Victorian administrative committee to begin a process to consider the Loughnane/Hume proposals? Less than a week before the dissolution of the NSW executive, the Victorian president wrote to members about the federal proposals. It doesn’t take a cynic to suspect that the timing was a defensive response to the determination of leading federal figures to clean up the recalcitrant state divisions.

The real test for states such as Victoria will be their acceptance or otherwise of the model constitution. Given past performance, it would not be unexpected for factional operatives to attempt to change the model to retain their internal advantages. If this occurs, the federal executive should appoint administrators to the states that reject modern governance standards.

The factions might have a place in the modern party if they were something more than ‘pre-selection cooperatives’ as John Howard described them. Instead of the sensible compromises required of a party that purports to represent the broad church of classic liberal/conservative values; a winner-takes-all attitude now dominates the party. The consequence is a party consumed by individuals defeating internal opponents, and unfocused on its real task: to win elections. Failing to lodge nominations in municipal elections in NSW was the straw that broke the camel’s back. In Queensland, the LNP had not pre-selected candidates in some eighteen seats with just over two months to the state election.

As regular readers of this column will recall, I proposed a series of reforms to the state constitutions more than a year ago, noting that the party had fewer legal requirements than a company or even a local not-for-profit organisation. In particular, I proposed a skills-based executive with a majority of appointed members and strict KPIs about fundraising and the conduct of pre-selections. Under the proposal, rank-and-file members would still elect members of the executive, but they would not be able to exert factional control. The model constitution proposed is a necessary step towards modern governance.

The reforms recommended by Mr Loughnane and Senator Hume – and now provided in the model constitution – address the gross deficiencies in the current arrangements and propose a workable and responsive executive in the states.

Significantly, the model constitution restates the values of the party of which so many modern careerists and factional functionaries seem ignorant.

Opposition leader Peter Dutton was right to push for federal intervention. With a minority government increasingly likely after the next national election, and a Coalition victory possible, his prospects are being cruelled by the antics of some of the state divisions. Left to their own devices, they have proven unwilling or unable to introduce necessary reforms.

Most federal MPs have little time to engage in the day-to-day factional shenanigans in which many of their state counterparts are engrossed.

The exception is a few senators whose political future is determined by state councils rather than the membership at large. Yet the activities of their state colleagues and executives can have a disastrous impact on their electoral prospects federally.

Peter Dutton cannot afford internal feuds that can derail his campaign. Many state MPs seem to have lost the will to win. Thankfully the federal team understands their task is to secure government and prosper the national interest.