Dave's on your side John

_{27, August 2001}

Dave Watts is a decent, honest, elderly guy, with a voice a little like Jimmy Stewart and sharp political judgement. He has been a member of the Queensland Liberal Party since its birth and served for many years as its state secretary.

When he and his wife Margaret and their dogs retired to Toowoomba he spent much of what used to be his work hours as a party volunteer. When sitting member Bill Taylor stood down Watts went out and recruited his replacement, Employment Minister Ian McFarlane, and made sure he was preselected.

Now he has leaked documents which implicate his party and his protégé in tax rorts. Why?

Dave Watts no longer has faith in the ability of his Party to act with honesty and integrity, something which is important to him.

According to Watts the rorting in the Ryan preselections was the catalyst for his actions. The Liberals have become Balkanised - split between the Santoro/Carroll faction which controls the party, holds regular meetings and elects leadership, and the rest, a cottage industry style network of personal spheres of influence. The Faction monsters the rest and puts its interest before anything else. In the 4 years it has been in control it has been completely incompetent, reducing the state Liberal party from 15 members to a 3 person rump and running up at least $1,000,000 worth of debt in various entities.

Recognition of this is implicit in the Federal intervention into this branch, and it is implicit in the continuing problems in Ryan that this intervention has failed. This failure probably will cost John Howard up to 6 Queensland seats and government.

The only way that the Queensland situation can be salvaged is if there is accommodation between the various groups. Ryan has a special place in Queensland Liberal Party folklore. Not only was it, until the by-election, the only “safe” metropolitan seat, but it is believed that you cannot control the party without controlling Ryan. Any accommodation had to be built on Ryan. If The Faction can deny the preselection to Bob Tucker, the unsuccessful by-election candidate, and a former state president, because he is not one of them, then no accommodation is possible.

Watts is not a factional warrior. This isn’t a “get square”. He is also not a Judas - any advantage to the ALP is meant to be collateral. He’s lost faith, and he’s had enough and he wants someone to do something about it: just like, for their own myriad personal reasons, so many others in the electorate. That’s an opening for John Howard, if he wants to take it. Dave Watts is on his side. He needs to reach out and support him.

Published in the Australian Financial Review