SYDNEY LETTER:IN 1996 the Liberal Party held power in eight out of nine of Australia's federal, state and territory governments. The sole exception then was the New South Wales government.
Today there are no exceptions; the Liberals are out of power everywhere.
Twelve years ago the Liberals held 256 lower house seats in the nine parliaments. Today they hold 155.
They have lost the last 22 state and territory elections, and lost power federally six months ago. Every Labor state and territory government is on at least its second term.
The Liberal Party is, at the very least, ripe for renewal. But it is far too busy shooting itself in the foot.
Their leader in Western Australia, Troy Buswell, recently admitted to sniffing a seat which a female staff member had just been sitting on.
His tearful confession came a couple of days after being repeatedly asked to deny the accusation, saying 13 times he would not comment on "unsubstantiated, anonymous rumours".
The woman concerned told the West Australian newspaper Buswell placed a chair on his head twice within 10 minutes, sniffing it before writhing in mock sexual ecstasy. "We finished the meeting [ with a constituent], I walked the bloke downstairs and out of parliament, and when I got back I walked into the room to pick up my notepad from the desk and Buswell started grabbing the chairs going 'Aahww, which one did you sit in? I'll be able to tell'," she said.
"And then he picked them up and started sniffing them and groaning and making sexually satisfying noises. I went, 'You're sick, knock it off' . . . and walked out, but he didn't pay attention to a word I said."
Buswell has form. He had previously admitted to snapping the bra of a Labor party staffer and has also been accused by fellow Liberal MP Katie Hodson-Thomas of making sexist remarks.
Some in the Liberal Party caucus moved to replace him in the wake of the scandal, but he survived the vote. Federal Liberal leader Brendan Nelson backed him. "He's said everything that needs to be said about it and it's obvious to anybody that has seen Troy Buswell that he's extremely remorseful about it and he has changed his behaviour," he said.
But Dr Nelson has his own troubles. The latest poll in the Sydney Morning Herald saw his party down four points since the election and his rating as "preferred prime minister" at 17 per cent. This looked good compared with the poll in the Australian newspaper, which had him on 13 per cent as "preferred prime minister".
His headline reply to Labor's Budget last week was a promise to reduce excise tax on pre-mixed drinks, better known as alcopops. But it's not just binge drinking teenagers that would benefit from Dr Nelson's largesse - he also promised a five cents per litre cut in petrol tax. How this fits with his statement in the same speech that "It is time for us to live on environmental interest rather than environmental capital," went unexplained.
Dr Nelson subsequently accused his shadow treasurer, Malcolm Turnbull, of leaking an e-mail to a journalist. The e-mail, from Turnbull to Dr Nelson, was to express his disagreement with the petrol tax proposal.
Turnbull, who has lately earned the nickname Malcolmtent, is widely thought to just be biding his time before challenging Dr Nelson for the Liberal Party leadership. He has refused to rule it out and has also refused to rule the petrol tax cut in.
Dr Nelson, perhaps unwisely, has refused to sack Turnbull.
In Victoria, meanwhile, two Liberal staff members have been fired for running a website ridiculing their state leader Ted Baillieu as "Red Ted" and depicting him as an incompetent left-leaning buffoon who was "beyond reform" and had to be dumped.
The former party workers, John Osborn and Simon Morgan, signed confidentiality agreements when they were sacked, preventing them from making public comment. This did not, however, stop Osborn from releasing a correspondence that led to the resignation of another Liberal staffer, Susan Chandler, for anti-Semitic comments.
Chandler had sent an e-mail to Osborn describing a party candidate in the federal election last November as a "greedy f***ing Jew". After announcing her resignation, Chandler issued a statement which expressed her deep regret and pointed out that "I have many Jewish friends".
While the Liberals are tearing each other apart, the dominant narrative in Australian politics is Kevin Rudd's extraordinary popularity, with 70 per cent saying he is their "preferred prime minister".
While the Liberals' internecine warfare and outrageous behaviour continues, Rudd's extended honeymoon is safe and the Libs have a few more election losses in them yet.
