Our goal is to get 1% of the population as members.
Menzies did it. The Canadians have achieved 2%.
It has only been in the last 30 years that the wheels have fallen off the Liberal and National Party membership missions.
Times have changed and what was necessary 70 years ago in terms of the need for a delegate* structure today with modern digital communication every member can have a voice and a vote.
The Canadians, in particular, and the Brits and the Kiwis have shown that if members are valued and given real responsibilities they will join the political parties in their droves.
The Brits and Kiwi Conservative parties - because they promised but didn't deliver to their members - unsurprisingly didn't realise the new potential. Meanwhile, the British Tories in particular will likely disappear.
So, the first principle is that the party must be open and honest with its members.
It is, after all, their party.
The politicians and the organisational executives are appointed and elected by the members to serve the members, not the other way around.
All the matters of the party, including the finances, must be available to the members without exception.
All corruption and illegal dealings must be stamped out.
The end never justifies the means.
Our members obey the law, the party and its officers must do so too.
The party entities must all be justiciable, preferably companies limited by guarantee, entities that can, if need be, be taken to court to have issues resolved, the purpose being to prevent the issues from arising in the first place.
The second principle is that on a strict one-vote, one-value basis, the members shall decide
A. Who their local government ward or riding candidate will be.
B. Who their mayoral or shire chairman candidate will be in the local government.
C. Who their local state parliamentarians will be.
And every term, 12 months before the following election, the members shall decide who shall be their candidate for the following election.
D. Who their federal parliamentarians will be.
And with the same mechanism as the state, shall also decide the candidate for the following election.
E. Who their state senators will be.
F. Who the state parliamentary leaders in both houses, (if applicable), will be.
G. Who will be the federal parliamentary leaders in the House of Reps and the Senate.
H. Although there will be a parliamentary trigger for the removal of a parliamentary leader, meaning the party parliamentarians can vote to remove the leader, the party members will vote to provide the replacement, which may include the leader removed, by his or her colleagues.
The fourth principle concerns the party organisational structure under the following headings.
Federal. The federal division must include all party members in the states and territories and must have its own monies which are transparent to all members.
For instance, all electoral expenditures by state and electorate shall be disclosed.
The members shall vote for the federal president at a federal convention.
And the same shall occur at the state level, with the members in the state voting for the state president.
Policy needs to be devolved to the local level.
Only contentious policy issues need to be discussed formally and openly at conventions.
The wisdom of the crowd shall guide policy.
So, the wishy-washy, non-offensive “PAP” that led our Liberal/Nationals politicians to allow the invasion of alien cultures, as demonstrated at Bondi Beach, all of that must end.
The policies that the members want, not what the ABC and the mainstream media and the ALP want, will be those that apply.
We believe that a membership fee in the order of $20 is more than enough to attract between 50 and 70 times the number of people who are currently in the Liberal Party Australia-wide.
This is where instead of each member having a vote a delegate elected or appointed by specific members attends the function/ meeting council or convention and votes on behalf of the members who appointed them. Where the specific members electing specific delegates is roughly equal then the system is representative.
However, if members in one part are allowed to elect delegates with substantially different numbers of members, then distortions which have undemocratic consequences result. Every state has a different delegate corruption system which has resulted in non-conservative representative and policy outcomes.
All of this has to end. This is at the heart of the reforms needed.