It's easy to focus on the success of One Nation in the recent South Australian election. There's a message there for both the major parties. Hanson, however, doesn't acknowledge the proportion of the One Nation vote that was a protest against them rather than a vote for her team.

Nonetheless, plain speaking is an admirable quality and voters are attracted to it. We're just fed up with bland spin. But in the end, voters want a better Australia - solutions to our problems. One Nation hasn't offered them.

In all the political commentary about political success or otherwise, little is said about the role played not by the parliamentary wing of each party, but the backroom organisational arm. It plays a vital role.

At the federal and state level, Labor's ties to the huge monolithic union movement give them an incredible advantage over the Liberal Party. The organisations are like chalk and cheese.

The union movement may not be head office for Labor, but what a difference it makes to them. It provides, indirectly, training and vetting for candidates, volunteer boots on the ground, and no doubt money finds its way to select spots. It provides organisational skills and grunt.

The Liberals have an organisation. It's miniscule. Its success or otherwise federally depends entirely on the strength of the federal president.

They've had some greats. Tony Staley stood out in my time. A former Fraser minister, he was an extremely active and strong president. Ditto Shane Stone, former NT premier, and Chris McDiven from NSW. McDiven is rightly credited along with Dame Margaret Guilfoyle for working over a few years to provide the enormous influx of women into the Howard government in 1996.

Good presidents need to be strong, active and to get things done.

No one would know that former SA premier and senator John Olsen has been federal president since 2020. Sure, no party leader wants the party president out hogging the limelight. But invisibility isn't a good option either. Not for more than half a decade.

Olsen has heaps of experience. He was a local SA member and led them to two successive elections losses. You learn from losing. Twelve years in opposition confirmed that for me. He left state parliament having been gifted a "greener fields" senate vacancy created by a retirement.

Then scandals overwhelmed the state parliament. It looked like premier John Bannon would lose the upcoming election. For Olsen the desire to be top dog, to be premier, was deep.

He did what few would have had the mettle to do. He tossed the gifted Senate seat aside and stood again for a state seat conveniently vacated for him by a mate. He hoped to fulfil the dream of being premier.

Sadly for him another person, Dean Brown, also stood in a seat vacated for him by a mate. They won their seats, contested the leadership, and Brown was the victor. Narrowly. Brown then led the Liberal party to a landslide victory.

Over the following few years that must have cut deeply. Olsen desperately wanted to be premier. After a few years of playing junior to Brown, Olsen pounced, defeated Brown and became premier. He then led the party into minority government. Under Olsen the Liberals lost just over a third of their seats. He was state president when Marshall won in 2018, although to be fair, Labor was trying for a fifth term.

With all that experience in the organisation, state and federal parliament frankly under his control, one might have expected a well-oiled fighting machine. It didn't happen.

Maybe he's just tired. Maybe he just wanted the job. Maybe he thought it would give him good connections. I don't know the answer. I do know politics is littered with people, mostly men, who want the job rather than want to do something with it.

It's not just about the president. They shape the organisation. They keep the director on point, make sure the work is being properly done in polling and other research. They knock parliamentary and organisational heads together. Who knows if that's happened under Olsen. If it did it certainly wasn't effective.

It would be a hellishly frustrating job. Imagine being in that position when parliamentarians get above themselves and do stupid things. You're left trying to explain to donors why it's a good idea to part with loads of cash to ensure they become or remain in government. Frustrating for sure.

But so it is for parliamentarians when the organisation controls campaigns and does it badly. In a long period of opposition, I've heard plenty of federal directors explain why we were certainly going to win but didn't. The private sector just wouldn't wear that incompetence. It's the federal president's job to make sure we don't.

It will be a long time before the Liberals enjoy the skill of another Lynton Crosby. He was campaign manager in 1996 and then federal director. But skill like that is essential.

The federal parliamentary Liberal party will get its house in order. But at the next election it will need a stronger organisation than what it took to the last election. Bad policies don't generally win. Good policies badly sold won't win either.

The Liberals have been plagued with members who keep putting their own interest ahead of the team. No doubt they see themselves as saviours but can't see that others recognise ruthless ambition as sure as they see the sunrise.

On the Labor side, the great big monolithic union movement is well accustomed to sorting out disputes and ensuring everyone survives. Even if they're not all deliriously happy they find an end point that they can live with and not kill themselves in the process. They have a virtual keg on tap of members.

Those sorts of issues plagued the South Australian party. If you want to get influence, you join people up in low membership seats making it easier to get the majority. Surprise, surprise, the organisation was stacked with right-wingers. People were bussed into meetings to vote according to a right-wing ticket. They didn't know the people nor really want any involvement. What a pyrrhic victory they had.

The organisation needs a redesign to stop that sort of blatant misuse. And while they're on that job, the method of selecting candidates needs an overhaul. Sure, locals should have a big say, nor should candidates be selected by a few at the top behind closed doors. The focus needs to be on getting the candidate who might win the seat rather than giving the task to a mate.

Nonetheless, without a strong organisational wing, good candidates will lose as sadly they did in South Australia. Infighting, leadership issues and some bad candidate choices really blotted the landscape. Heads were not knocked together. What a mess.

The leader in any campaign is obviously pivotal. But the public do not get to see the enormous amount of work that goes on behind the scenes. The organisation is an important cog in the machine.

In the 1998 election as duty minister in the campaign, an early morning interview was sent my way. Lynton Crosby said he'd give me a decent bottle of red for every time the words "strong border control" went to air. It's amazing how focused you can be.

What that shows is that in a difficult election, promising a new tax, you need to understand in detail what the public are concerned about ... and focus on that. Crosby had his you know what together. At all times.

Shane Stone as president gave him the tools he needed to do the job. Money, market research and more. You might say the rest is history. But it is history made by strong people and strong organisations. Without that, you're cooked.

Amanda Vanstone is a former senator for South Australia, a former Howard government minister, and a former ambassador to Italy. She writes fortnightly for ACM.

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