The Rudd government has made a good start, but only a start, on improving standards of governance. One move that is particularly sensible is the complete ban on ministers having personal shareholdings. Any other rule is bound to create grey areas, and politicians being as human as they are, attempts to push the boundaries. That said, I’m sure someone will be found who is silly enough to breach even a clear-cut rule like this. When this comes to light, it’s crucial that Rudd should bite the bullet and sack the person concerned, regardless of their other merits. I’m struck by the extent to which the Beattie government has come unscathed through a string of scandals, largely because, once a breach of the rules became apparent, those responsible were sacked.

The big problem of ministerial accountability remains to be addressed, but at least we have some hope of an improvement in standards of financial probity, which is long overdue. More on this from Tim Dunlop.

Meanwhile, even allowing for a difficult position, I’ve been disappointed by Brendan Nelson so far. Surely, for example, it would be better to leave a frontbench position vacant than to appoint Bronwyn Bishop. On a more serious note, having supported the ratification of Kyoto, Nelson appears to have shifted to opportunistic opposition to anything that would build on this first step.

This thread is designed to accommodate anyone who wants to write their own retrospective on John Howard. I won’t impose length limits, or do much moderation, but I remind everyone that the rules regarding civilised discussion remain in effect. If you don’t recall them, please read the comments policy, linked at the top of the page.

So many political careers have come to an end in the last week that it’s not going to be possible to say much about all of them. But John Howard’s thirty or more years in Australian politics deserve some sort of notice beyond what we’ve seen so far, mostly motivated by the internal disputes of the Liberal Party .

I’ll start with the positives. Despite his carefully cultivated ordinariness, Howard was the most substantial figure produced by the Liberal party since the party itself was created by Menzies from the ruins of the old United Australia Party. In important respects, he epitomised the ‘forgotten people’ to whom Menzies appealed, and, on a number of critical occasions (after the Port Arthur massacre, on East Timor, after the Boxing Day tsunami), he represented those people at their best.

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While we wait for the new government take shape, we should be thinking about the first steps in policy (updated a little bit). But it’s impossible to avert our eyes from the trainwreck on the other side of politics.

Perhaps my perspective is skewed a bit by being in Queensland, where a Courier-Mail net poll has overwhelmingly nominated Mickey Mouse as the best choice to lead the State Libs (and indeed, his would be a more accurate name for the party). Not only are the eight members of the Parliamentary Party split down the middle, but they only want the job for the sake of the ex officio position on the State Executive which controls the spoils of defeat over which they are struggling (breaking news on this is that hopeless incumbent Bruce Flegg is about to stand down).

It’s easy to write this lot off as a provincial joke. But it doesn’t seem as if things are much different elsewhere

At this point, Turnbull seems like the only hope the Liberals have for change from within. If he succeeds, the party will be changed beyond recognition from that of Howard and Costello. If he fails, it’s hard to see the Liberal party surviving in its current form.

Reader Stephen Ziguras has sent me this interesting graph on public preferences regarding the choice between lower taxes and more services.

It illustrates what Andrew Norton has called the issue cycle. Although our preferences differ quite a bit on this, I think Andrew and i share much the same political analysis. Voters are broadly satisfied with the moderate social democratic settlement that’s been in place for the last twenty-five years or so. When taxes go up a lot, as they did, thanks to bracket creep in the 1970s, they want tax cuts. When the quality of services like health and education gets squeezed, they want more public money spent on those things.

Those who want to argue for either a substantial enhancement or a substantial cutback in the role of the state have their work cut out for them. In this context, much of the me-tooism we saw in the recent election campaign is not that surprising, and nor is the defeat of the Liberals. There’s not much risk that the state will expand far beyond its current role, and a pretty strong feeling that lots of public services are in need of expensive repairs.

With the decision of Mark Vaile to stand down, and Alexander Downer likely to return to the backbench, if I’ve read these tealeaves correctly (BTW, is anyone else thinking “AWB inquiry” here), the Coalition will have lost its Leader, Deputy Leader, Treasurer and Foreign Minister in the space of a few days. That certainly increases the likelihood of the kind of radical restructuring I’ve been predicting/proposing.

For once, my electoral predictions haven’t turned out too badly, so I’ll offer one more before we get back to policy: The Liberal Party will never again win a federal election.

This isn’t a prediction of unending Labor rule, rather an observation that the Liberal and National parties are in such dire straits that they can’t continue as they are. They haven’t got enough support, parliamentary representation or ideas for one party, let alone two.

The obvious option is a merger, but there may be other, more radical realignments in the wings. With no incumbent governments, there’s no real obstacle to a merger, except for entrenched interests in the party machines. But, in many ways, it would be better for the conservatives to start a completely new party, leaving their toxic existing structures to collapse.

I’d welcome this. Governments need to be kept in check. That requires an effective opposition, and a serious prospect of losing office. We’re already feeling the lack of this at the state level.

Update Apparently, Peter Costello agrees.

Further update Some commenters have objected that this is too strong a call to make on the basis of one 53-47 election. But of course that’s only part of it. The picture at the State level is far worse. The conservatives haven’t won a state or territory election this century, and have suffered landslide defeats at the hands of Labor governments, some of which have been mediocre at best. Of course, things could go badly wrong for Rudd or for one of the state governments. But if they don’t, it’s hard to see the Libs getting back in anywhere before the next NSW election due in 2011, and that depends on the most dysfunctional party organisation in the country getting its act together.

A thousand times sweeter than 1993. Not much more to say until tomorrow. Have a great night, everyone!