#026 Bruce McIver, the LNP’s Founding President

Bruce McIver was once described as part of a very powerful lobby group: the happy clappers that ran Queensland, part of “the religious right”. He is unapologetic about his faith, as well as the personal and social value he places upon Judeo-Christian values like fairness, respect and mateship.

According to Bruce McIver, the Liberal Party and National Party are not moving further away from genuine conservatism or Judeo-Christian values. He asserts that the alternative to staying in the LNP and having some influence is to “go outside, and be a spoiler.” Bruce also reckons that the only reason national debt levels are rising alarmingly under the Coalition “is because the Senate blocks everything.” Bruce’s advice to voters if they don’t like past candidates is to take advantage of party democracy and actively vote in future party candidate preselections.

Bruce McIver discusses Pres. Reagan’s observation that the Left likes to tax and regulate businesses until they fail, and then subsidise them. Recalling his own days in business, he muses that payroll tax has little to no effect on real employment numbers. Bruce also comments that climate change is nothing new, that Qld missed a golden opportunity in 2015 to privatise the coal-fired power generation, and that we need more coal-fired power stations.

The NSW Liberal Party members voted overwhelmingly for Tony Abbott’s motion to improve the representative democracy of their state party preselections, something with Bruce McIver supports strongly, and implemented at the amalgamation of the Qld Liberal and National parties.

We debate the pros and cons of Bill Shorten’s initiative to change federal MP terms to fixed, four year terms, and its impact on government, business and the constitution.