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NSW State politics: The Christian right’s coup d’etat With the NSW State election looming the NSW Liberal Party has upped the ante and the conservative religious right have succeeded in their coup to gain control of the party. It’s important then, that we know the nature of the Opposition and their agenda. Brenden Hills reports. On April 2, 2005 The Sydney Morning Herald’s Gerard Noonan pondered the future of the NSW Liberal Party. Principally, Noonan mused over what might be on the horizon for John Brogden, the promising young moderate leading the NSW Liberal Party party and his dominant moderate faction known as ‘The Group’, with the emerging threat of “a newly determined and reorganised teeth-bared juggernaught of the conservative Christian right”. In April 2005 ‘The Group’ was led by Brogden, and still clung to its supremacy of the Liberals. What’s more, the Liberals were showing enough form even to take the next election after Bob Carr, the NSW Premier of ten years, handed over the Labor reins to the relatively inexperienced Morris Iemma. The forecast for the Liberals looked to be smooth sailing with increased sunny periods. Not much more than a year and a half later the moderates are very swiftly being purged from the party. The former NSW Liberal leader John Brogden resigned in disgrace and attempted suicide after going down in political flames, Patricia Forsyth has resigned from the Party after 38 years of service, guns have been pulled at Canterbury branch meetings, and the right-faction of the Liberal Party has been busy preselecting and branch stacking in seats across NSW. The latest victory for the right faction has come in the seat of Epping where Federal Sex Discrimination Commissioner and moderate Pru Goward was defeated by the right backed Greg Smith, the former president of the NSW branch of the anti-abortion group – Right To Life. Getting behind the stone walls of the NSW Liberal party is not an easy task. The general response from most Liberals when questioned on factionalism is “we here in the Liberal Party don’t get involved in factionalism, that’s more of a Labor Party thing. Thank you, goodbye”. But really, could any other response be expected? A complete denial and a shot at the opponent – a text book politician response really. In the past year the once dominated right-faction of the Liberals has made a clear and decisive move to seize control of the Liberal Party. And coming into October 2006, leading into the March 2007 NSW state elections, the end goal is in sight. This ‘New Right’ of the Liberal Party is led by David Clarke, an Opus Dei devotee. Labor MP and member for East Hills Alan Ashton says the faction includes Chris Hartcher, the member for Gosford; Anthony Roberts, the member for Lane Cove; and Upper House member Charlie Lynn. On August 31, 2005 The Financial Review also named Anthony Roberts, Charlie Lynn and Chris Hartcher, as members of Clarke’s right faction. Because of his ties to Opus Dei, Clarke’s opponents fear his growing ability to impose his morally conservative ideals on the NSW Liberal Party. Clarke’s agenda is built around adopting conservative ideals which stand in strict opposition to abortion, same sex marriage, safe heroin injecting rooms and euthanasia. In his introductory speech to the NSW Upper House, Clarke unequivocally outlined his conservative value system. In the speech, Clarke claimed that homosexual values will devalue the concept of the family if legally enshrined. Clarke further expressed his absolute and unchangeable opposition to a ‘culture of abortion’ that is not the mark of an ‘enlightened society’. He also criticized the trials of safe injecting rooms, which he dismissed as merely symbolizing community acceptance of drug abuse. John Brogden was a marked man ever since he crossed the floor to vote with Labor in favour of the Kings Cross injecting centre. In recent years the moderates have faced a slow decline, with the leadership being the last vestige of power that they held on to. When this final column was knocked out from beneath the moderates, their control of the Party began to crumble. Brogden resigned following the leaking of allegations of drunken misconduct and racist comments made concerning the wife of former Labor leader Bob Carr. A further twist occurred when he attempted to commit suicide in his Pittwater office. On July 7 of this year Alex McTaggart who replaced Brogden as the MP for Pittwater unveiled further light on the matter. McTaggart alleged that Brogden’s suicide attempt coincided with a threat made by John Howard loyalist Federal Senator Bill Heffernan that a dirt file which revealed Brogden’s sordid sexual past would be released to the media. The Daily Telegraph’s editor David Penberthy told ABC’s Stateline that stories concerning Brogden’s alleged behavior wouldn’t have made it to them had it not been for people inside the Liberal Party. Brogden, on several occasions has named Young Liberals leader and staffer for stalwart David Clarke, Alex Hawke, as the source for many of the rumors that led to his downfall. However, there is no evidence that officially implicates the right-faction in Brogden’s demise. Following Brogden’s spectacular departure, Barry O’Farrell was thought to be the next in line for the leadership. However, O’Farrell, despite allegedly having the numbers, withdrew from contesting the leadership. Stateline reported that he feared elements within his party would immediately try to undermine him. The right-faction backed Peter Debnam was appointed the new leader of the NSW Liberal Party on September 1, 2005. According to Greens MLC Lee Rhiannon, the Liberal Party machine had chosen its successor to Brogden only 36 hours after he stepped down as leader. Mr Debnam battled claims for sometime thereafter that the leaders of his party’s far-right faction had told up to five MPs that their preselection would only be guaranteed if they switched their allegiance from O’Farrell to Debnam. Moderate MPs formerly aligned to Mr Brogden were allegedly panicked following his departure. Many claimed they were being pressured by the right-faction to either vote with them or face the possibility of being unseated in the next round of preselections, or relegated to the back benches. Intimidation tactics used in conjunction with branch stacking have become rife, with several meetings ending in violence. In April last year the Christian right’s recruits flashed pistols at their opponents at a branch meeting on Sydney’s North Shore. In 2004 an all in brawl occurred at the Croatian Club in Punchbowl where 230 members of the party branch had to be calmed down by police after violence broke out over branch stacking claims. Fights have also broken out at the Beaumont Hills branch in Kellyville. Even with the support of two Liberal leaders John Howard and Peter Debnam, Pru Goward still suffered defeat in the preselection for the seat of Epping to Greg Smith. However, Goward has since been pre-selected for the seat of Goulbourn. David Baynie, a bankrupt businessman with close links to the Liberal Right, conscripted more than 100 friends and relatives into the branch, which accounted for 34 of the 72 votes cast by branch members in the preselection. Smith had the support of most of the 20 delegates from the NSW State Executive, which is dominated by the right-faction. The delegates included Jai Rowell, a staffer of MLC Charlie Lynn. Rowell emerged recently as the likely Liberal candidate to be preselected for the South-Western seat of Wollondilly. Rowell had all but secured pre-selection when Peter Debnam intervened after days of intense lobbying to have the ballot delayed. Debnam attempted to have the delay last for six weeks but the right faction cut this down to three weeks in order to prevent the moderates from finding a candidate to oppose Rowell. Clarke’s faction will continue to challenge the power of Debnam and it will be interesting to see how much force Debnam is prepared to use to rein in the factional battles of his party. After attempting to intervene in both the Epping and Wollondilly preselection affairs, Debnam’s impact on the party he is supposed to be leading has been negligible compared to that wielded by the right-wing power brokers of the party. With this sort of religious based factional warfare occurring within the NSW Liberal party, for many voters, the coming March 2007 elections will carry extra potency with the injection of Clarke’s religious wedge politics. If the Liberals are elected with the religious right-faction holding the level of power that it does the social landscape of the state could be at risk. If voted into power it is plausible the religious right will do what ever it takes to get the numbers to end women’s access to safe abortion services, scrap age-of-consent legislation, close down safe injecting facilities, clamp down on stem cell research and ‘sanitize’ school sex-education programs. These in-party issues will not figure in the Liberal’s next election campaign, but with the implications that they hold for NSW, it is imperative that voters are informed of the nature of the internal party politics of the NSW Liberal Party. |
