VIC: Fraser calls for dramatic Liberals overhaul in Victoria

AAP General News (Australia)
02-11-2008
VIC: Fraser calls for dramatic Liberals overhaul in Victoria

MELBOURNE, Feb 11 AAP - Former prime minister Malcolm Fraser says the Victorian Liberal
Party has lurched right, become dangerously factionalised and needs a dramatic overhaul
if it is to survive.

Mr Fraser, who was prime minister from 1975 to 1983, told Fairfax today that the party
was controlled by ideological conservatives who stifled dissent and were driving thousands
of rank-and-file members away.

Fairfax said Mr Fraser had sent an email to leading Liberals that called for the party's
head office to release its control of preselections at a state and federal level.

Preselections should be decided by a plebiscite, with senate candidates (now chosen
by a central panel) chosen by a poll of all Victorian party members.

"It would make it much harder for a faction to control that broader group," he wrote.

The Victorian party had "narrowed its base, and boxed itself into a corner", he wrote.

"It is important that the power of individual members be re-established, that the importance
of branches be re-emphasised, and that the power of a few to achieve the election of those
who hold views which they support be diminished".

The email comes ahead of an expected challenge to the faction of former federal treasurer
Peter Costello and former party president Michael Kroger by forces loyal to former premier
Jeff Kennett and current Opposition Leader Ted Baillieu.

It also coincides with a proposal by Nationals Victorian president Bill Baxter to replace
the Liberal and National parties with a new conservative party.

Asked yesterday who was responsible for what he calls the "ideological conservatism"

of the party, Mr Fraser would not name names but described Mr Baillieu as "one good piece
of news" for the party.

AAP jrd/srp

KEYWORD: LIBERALS VIC

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