Joke Party Doomed By Killer Punchline

by Matt Price - The Australian

Ian Smith is married to Natasha Stott Despoja. They've recently produced Conrad and, like all new parents, are wonderfully besotted with their beautiful boy.

Still, there's a hint of parental tension over nicknames for the four-month-old. Smith, a successful lobbyist and former adviser to Victorian Liberal premier Jeff Kennett, favours neo-Conrad. Stott Despoja, the former Australian Democrats leader, prefers Conradical.

In these days when only family and dear friends dare admit support for Democrats senators, you wonder if Stott Despoja can even count on her husband. Smith's company recently won a lucrative contract to spruik the looming Telstra sale, a policy vehemently opposed by the Democrats.

Nor does Stott Despoja's beloved betray qualms about ridiculing his wife's disintegrating political party.

"One more child and we're a Democrats partyroom," Smith jokes as Stott Despoja raises her eyebrows in mock horror.

And it's true. From July 1, there'll be just four Democrats left in the Senate and no balance of power. John Cherry, Aden Ridgeway and Brian Greig lost their seats on October 9. So did Meg Lees, who was elected a Democrat but quit at about the nadir of 2002, the party's annus horribilis.

What's left is Stott Despoja, Andrew Murray, Andrew Bartlett and Lyn Allison. Three years ago Murray, Allison, Cherry and Ridgeway turned on Stott Despoja, forcing her to step down. At the time, the accidental coup appeared indulgent and insane. Hindsight proved it an unmitigated disaster.

The Democrats are now more punchline than political party. Under the new Senate configuration, they're expecting to lose 11 of 15 staff. In desperation, new leader Allison (the fifth in four years) has approached the Australian Greens and Family First to conjure a plan to pool resources. Neither is much interested in teaming up with the Mickey Mouseketeers of the Senate.

Under these circumstances, you'd expect Stott Despoja to be brooding and miserable. Instead, she's surprisingly up-beat. Time and motherhood have put the travails of 2002 in perspective. Anger and bitterness have turned to sorrow and resignation about the Democrats' demise.

With the polls swaying between an asterisk and 1 per cent, the Democrats are a seriously endangered species. Unless Stott Despoja's profile saves her from political oblivion, there's every likelihood the 2007 election will wipe out the party's presence in federal parliament.

Stott Despoja's leadership came under pressure after the party allegedly underperformed in the Tampa/S11 2001 poll. In fact, the Democrats did remarkably well to return four of five senators after a campaign dominated by terrorism and national security. But Lees was fuming about losing the leadership, Stott Despoja became hypersensitive and internal discipline vanished. At one point two Democrats couldn't have a private chat about the weather without a poisonous, twisted version of the conversation appearing on the Crikey political gossip website.

The tragedy of all this is all seven sitting Democrats senators are genuinely decent individuals. They've been inordinately diligent legislators, sweating over the minutiae of bills in case their casting vote was required. Which all counts for nothing after the masochistic trailer-park dysfunctionality of 2002.

Stott Despoja remains as busy as ever, carting Conrad about to meetings and appointments. Her long-time interest in work and family issues is no longer theoretical; Stott Despoja plans to maintain her focus on this rich policy area, along with education and science.

Allison hasn't yet worked out how the new, reduced Democrats will work. It seems pointless loading each senator with a swathe of portfolios. Daily, usually lengthy, partyroom meetings during parliamentary sittings would seem a complete waste of time.

In true Democrats fashion, members and senators have spent months conducting a postmortem into the 2004 poll catastrophe. A document, optimistically titled Future Directions, has been produced and there'll be plenty of teeth-gnashing about trying to revive these silly bastards who've long dreamed of keeping everyone else honest.

Common sense tells you what should happen with the Democrats. Whatever her flaws, Stott Despoja is patently the best leadership option of the four surviving Mouseketeers. When irrelevance strikes on July 1, the depleted Democrats' alleged legislative skills become essentially redundant. Any slim chance of survival depends on selling themselves in a cutthroat, competitive political marketplace.

Bob Brown provides the template for minor party success; the Greens have benefited enormously from the Tasmanian senator's thick-skinned opportunism, relentless idealism and shameless media savvy. Allison may be a dedicated, hardworking parliamentarian, but her chances of rekindling the Democrats' flame from the ashes of near extinction are remote.

My guess is that from July 1 the Mickey Mouseketeers will act as four independents. The Government fancies Murray as a kindred spirit and will court him for tight votes. Bartlett will champion refugees rights and environmental issues. Allison will try to cobble together some kind of united front.

Leaving Stott Despoja to tend to neo-Conrad-ical, indulge in her own political interests and ponder the senselessness of her demise ... while trying hard not to laugh at her husband's jokes.