Exodus Leaves Gaps On The Backbench

by Glenn Milne - The Australian

Peter Costello acknowledged yesterday that last week's proposed Australian Electoral Commission redistribution of seats in NSW and Queensland would make it harder for the Coalition to win next time around. What he didn't admit to is that there are a series of other factors also working against a Coalition victory in 2007.

"I think the redistribution probably makes our task a little harder in NSW," he said. "That means that at the next election, as we front up, we can't just be looking at trying to hold seats. We have got to start winning some, and we will certainly have to win some others in other states."

The Treasurer managed to sidestep the obvious hospital-pass question. Did the fact the redistribution made John Howard's seat of Bennelong even more marginal make it imperative that the Prime Minister run again?

"What happens with John Howard obviously is a matter for him," Costello said, straight-faced. "He has held that seat now probably for well over 30 years. He hasn't been defeated yet and I have no doubt that the electors of Bennelong value him as a member. But this is all speculation. These things will be worked out in due course and there is no point in being distracted by them."

Indeed. But in canvassing his wildest dream, Costello has also inadvertently alluded to a wider problem facing the Government; the potential retirement of a swath of sitting MPs at the next election.

This scenario is being focused on within the Coalition as it enters the second half of the current electoral cycle. Those who do these numbers calculate that there are at least 16 Coalition lower-house members who have either announced they will not be contesting the next election or may be considering the same course of action.

To get some perspective: that's more than 20 per cent of the Government's strength in the 150-seat parliament who may move on after the 2007 election. Big numbers.

Let's deal with those that have announced their departure. They include former deputy prime minister John Anderson, whose seat of Gwydir was abolished in the redistribution; Warren Entsch, burly Howard loyalist representing Leichhardt in far north Queensland; and Barry Wakelin in South Australia. In Western Australia, former small business minister Geoff Prosser is also going.

Prosser, remember, became a first-term victim to Howard's long since abandoned ministerial code of conduct. In the wake of the children overboard affair, Vivian Solon, Cornelia Rau and AWB, Prosser must wonder what he did wrong to run into Howard at a phase where the PM actually supported Westminster principles. But that's another story.

According to the internal tally compiled by senior figures in the Government, there's another 12 MPs you can add who might be considering going the same way as Anderson, Entsch, Prosser and Wakelin. They include Philip Ruddock, Alan Cadman, Jackie Kelly, Kerry Bartlett, Danna Vale, Ian Causley and Joanna Gash in NSW. In South Australia there's Trish Draper, and in Queensland Kay Elson, David Jull and Peter Lindsay. Over in the west, Wilson Tuckey is also regarded as a candidate to join Prosser.

What drives this assessment? A range of reasons. Most of those on the list are '96ers - the group that swept into power with Howard on the wave of his first victory. To be brutal, their parliamentary super and post-service entitlements are stitched; there's no reason for most of them to stay on unless they're going it make the ministry, and most aren't.

Kelly and Vale were Howard favourites who had their moments in the sun as members of the executive. Kelly is now apparently more interested in appearing as a celebrity in Dancing with Torvill and Dean on Ice or whatever it's called and bagging Costello. No one thinks she's hanging around. Vale's seat has become more difficult to win after the redistribution. But against that, she loves her role as a local member.

Ruddock and Cadman have been around since 1973 and 1974, respectively. They must be giving some thought to giving it away. Unless they're modelling their careers on the central committee of the Chinese Communist Party. For his part, Bartlett, another '96er, has just seen his seat go badly backwards in the redistribution. Tuckey, a former minister, and Causley are in their 70s and 60s respectively.

So what would be the political impact of these departures? The short answer is they would represent both an opportunity and a cost. First to the opportunity. Regardless of who leads the Coalition to the next election, the vacancies in seats across the country - in the event of victory - would represent a substantial new injection of fresh blood into the Government.

The downside though, is this: all election campaigns are scarce on resources. The possible departure of so many sitting MPs would mean the Coalition would have to potentially pump money into many more seats than otherwise, promoting new candidates, when those dollars might otherwise be going into marginals. A big ask, when as Costello has already declared, the redistribution means the Government will have to win additional seats as well.

And in a number of these incumbent seats, notably those of Kelly, Gash and Vale, the candidates' profile is higher than that of the Liberal Party, meaning even more money will have to be spent on the party's new faces. There are ways of dealing with this. The ideal model is La Trobe, where, at the previous election, despite a strong Labor challenge, retiring sitting member Bob Charles chaperoned new boy Jason Wood through every step of the campaign to ultimate victory. It's a succession plan not lost on Costello supporters.

The other variant in the story is this: the more sitting MPs turn their minds to turning it in, the more Government discipline starts to fray. Backbenchers, either having been in the ministry with no chance of returning, or with no chance of ever making it, begin to pursue their own agendas.

So, we have Entsch pushing Howard on same-sex rights. Kelly attacks Costello over child care and says he'd make a lousy prime minister who, being Victorian-based, wouldn't care about western Sydney. And Tuckey runs a maverick campaign in favour of the abolition of AWB's single desk.

And consider the cabal running hard behind the cause of the Papuan asylum-seekers, Judith Troeth, Judi Moylan, Petro Georgiou and Bruce Baird. All are in the twilight of their careers - at least while Howard remains PM.

Fag-end days. Opportunity or cost? Election day 2007 will give us the answer.