Mark Latham’s purported sacking as Pauline Hanson’s One Nation Party leader in New South Wales is the latest example of personality-based political parties imploding.
(Mr. Latham has since since quit the party, and will now represent his constituents as an independent.)
When founders of political entities insert their name into the party’s name, it is a fair bet that ego is somewhere in the mix.
The glue that holds them together is not an overarching belief system, it’s about the cult of personality.
It usually has the founder as the controller of all things. Any executive is a puppet show for the leader with the voice-over coming from one source.
Australia has a predictable history with such parties.
Clive Palmer’s United Australia Party saw its founder, the mining magnate Mr. Palmer, win a House of Representatives seat and four senators elected in the 2013 election.
Within half a term of the Parliament, it had disintegrated with three of the senators departing to form their own group. Their defection was blamed on the autocratic control of the leader Mr. Palmer.
One of them was Jacquie Lambie who established the Jacquie Lambie Network. To her credit, she regained her seat despite the unseemly infighting when she, who declared herself of Aboriginal heritage, bowed out after a High Court ruling over her citizenship (she was of Scottish heritage).
Her replacement, Steve Martin, refused to vacate Ms. Lambie’s former seat after he had taken over.
He was later expelled from the Network and Ms. Lambie ended up being re-elected in 2019.
Pauline Hanson’s One Nation Party is no different with many a blowup and unedifying removal of members of which Mr. Latham, a star recruit of her party, seems to be the latest casualty.
Ms. Hanson should know how it feels, given she was unceremoniously dumped by the Liberal Party in 1996 which made her a political martyr and allowed her to win a strong Labor seat.
This unceremonious dumping of members of Parliament and candidates does in fairness infect all parties which today put more focus on immediate issues rather than committing to a fair process.
Please Explain
Vital virtues and values like natural justice, proper procedure, and the right to be heard are summarily dispensed. Those virtues don’t only promote fairness to those about to be expelled but also give cause for the movers to reflect on what they are doing and their motivation.While an inappropriate social media post that was withdrawn may have been the catalyst for Mr. Latham’s summary dismissal, another suggestion from Ms. Hanson is that his purported removal was due to the poor showing at the last New South Wales state election.
But actually, the results were not that poor and the NSW parliamentary party remains the biggest grouping in existence for One Nation anywhere in Australia.
Further who is the alternative leader and would that person do any better?
Whatever the reason the defrocked Mr. Latham has fought back claiming that the NSW leadership is to be determined by the relevant parliamentarians, namely his two other NSW upper house colleagues.
How Ms. Hanson can claim to override their decision leads to the question which has become synonymous with her name—please explain.
In the turmoil, Mr. Latham has been removed from the New South Wales state executive by Queenslander Pauline Hanson along with others from Tasmania of all places. Their knowledge of all things New South Wales, one assumes, is superior to those local New South Welshmen who were removed.
All unseemly, and a reminder that political parties built on the cult of personality are volatile and susceptible to implosion based on personalities and not principles.
Australians do deserve better than the ugliness of such infighting by their MPs which adds to concerns that some are just in it for their own vanity. How all this relates to public service remains a mystery to most.
