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The Victorian Liberal Party will pre-select candidates more than one year before elections and draft "expert" non-party members onto special committees to develop policies, under the reform plans of new state president Helen Kroger.
Outlining a five-point vision for change, Ms Kroger said the party had to rejuvenate in order to be viewed credibly by the business community and overcome the perception in some sections of the general community that it had lost touch.
"The critical thing is that we can't stay the same. If we stay the same we'll end up losing the federal election in Victoria and we will probably lose more members at a state level in 2006," she told The Age yesterday, as the party completed its first two-day State Council meeting since last November's election loss.
On Saturday Ms Kroger was elected the party's state president for the next three years. The planks of her five-point reform plan are:
•The pre-selection of candidates at least one year before an election.
•More involvement of Liberal branch members in developing policy.
•Improved professionalism at party headquarters,
•A closer relationship between city and country members.
•Developing a clear election strategy, including creating electoral teams comprising local branch members and party staff.
Liberal leader Robert Doyle used a speech to about 500 Liberals at the meeting yesterday to distance his team from the Kennett years, and to declare education and the environment the party's "unassailable top priorities".
"Whatever we might think of the period of Liberal government in Victoria for much of the 1990s, the fact is that the electorate has passed judgement, and they believe we got it wrong," he said.
"I believe we must accept that we disconnected from the community from 1996 on. It is now time to put that era behind us. The times have changed: the Liberal Party must now move with the times," he said.
Outlining plans to make his party greener, Mr Doyle said most Australians were concerned about greenhouse and climate change.
One aim was to stop the outflow of sewage into the ocean, he said.
"At Gunnamatta . . . sewage is pumped raw, fetid and dangerous directly into the ocean. This is nothing more than sanctioned vandalism," he said.
Mr Doyle also flagged a change to forest management practices to limit the risk of bushfires, and said the party would reconsider its logging policy.
Speaking on education, Mr Doyle said he wanted Victorian schools to be the best, in which students come first.
Election results to party positions at the meeting moved the party further away from the Kennett era.
People aligned to Mr Doyle, federal Treasurer Peter Costello and former party state president Michael Kroger won every management position contested.
Defeated presidential candidate Peter Clarke said the party would now move forward together, because the main goal was to win elections.