Rediscovering political parties

November 25, 2025

Jack Waterford’s discussion helpfully identifies how diverse efforts across the land, of those elected to our various Parliaments with Liberal Party endorsement, are seeking a path that will not only get them back on Treasury Benches, but unite their party. Presumably the political party membership of such Parliamentarians will be confirmed by Liberals winning Government. The party’s raison d’etre will have been achieved. But in the meantime, does the Liberal Party lose its character as a political party when it defines itself in terms of such a goal?

Jack says: Liberals need a plan to make a difference. Is the difference our polity needs simply the discovery of a Liberal distinctive path to Government? Jack pictures the Liberals as trying to conjure political unity by crafting a winning plan. So, without winning, are they merely a mob led by those elected who have lost their identity even if they coalesce in Parliament under the banner of party endorsement?

The Liberal “side” of Parliament seems to emphasise itself as representatives of their “party”, and that’s not so very different from those on the other side. Meanwhile independents emphasise a difference that Parliament is constitutionally composed of representatives of electorates.