Any organisation that just continues to offer more of the same is heading for the cemetery. Change is a part of life. It is how history is made - and history doesn't stop because you do.
Liberal Party members just can't see that anything has happened since the Howard government lost in 2007. To the extent that they have seen anything of the party organisation, it has been more of the same.
The National Party didn't recognise the need to respond to change when its former leader Tim Fischer retired from the New South Wales seat of Farrer. The Nats ran an older male candidate to take his place. It was more of the same. The Liberals ran a younger female. Given the choice between more of the same and moving with the times the electors chose change. The Liberal won the seat.
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The federal Liberal Party needs revitalising, just as any other organisation does.Apart from the inevitable march of history, there are two good reasons to look for improvement. First, the Liberals have lost two elections in a row. But when did the party's national policy committee last meet? Who remembers?
The second is that the world has changed. People who join an organisation today are fully aware of how technology can be used to keep them up to date and included. Understandably, their expectations have risen. The Liberal Party needs to respond.
The federal president of the Liberal Party carries little in the way of constitutional power. That doesn't mean it is a do-nothing job. It means to do anything, you need to work hard.
In the Liberal Party the state divisions jealously guard their separate organisational structure. With an ever-increasing focus on national politics, this could be a mistake. But in any event that's how it is and ensuring these separate state bodies work together more effectively is no small task.
With little formal constitutional power and a structure that is decentralised, to get anything done in the Liberal Party you need to have, at a minimum, a certain gravitas. You also need the energy that comes from being an enthusiast, and plenty of persuasive power to boot. Otherwise nothing happens.
The Liberal Party organisation has, after many good years of Howard government, become an election machine that in between elections serves the leader. If there is a file labelled ''Member services'' it isn't a thick one.
The Labor Party has the benefit of an ever-present union movement to bolster its organisation. The Liberal Party, by contrast, has to maintain its organisation on its own, and thus ignores the membership at its peril.
Peter Reith has declared he will challenge former Kennett government minister Alan Stockdale for the federal Liberal presidency. Reith would be an ideal president. As a former federal minister he has worked effectively in the tough, combative political scene. He is well known throughout the party and the community.
He is not weak. That's one of the reasons I like him. Australian politics has a nasty side that is not so prevalent in other countries. It is an ugly but common political tactic when some don't like a policy, to attack the proponent. The so-called ''Howard Haters'' were masters at this.
These personalised campaigns are never nice. They are irrational and relentless. Reith went through one of these over the waterfront dispute of the late '90s. There were no ''poor me'' laments, no squealing. He just got on and did the job. Our waterfront is more productive and Australia is the better for it.
Reith's experience working overseas since leaving politics gave him the chance to work and develop skills in a less combative environment. It has also given him a fresh and broader perspective.
Reith has always favoured inclusion. He once championed citizen-initiated referendums. I did not like the idea, and still don't (I see it as a vehicle for extremists and single-issue fruitcakes). But Reith loved the idea because he is committed to the spirit of the democratic process. Letting people have their say is instinctive to him. To a party membership that feels used rather than included, he should be a dream come true.
When I entered Parliament in 1985, Reith was also starting his parliamentary career. As one of the few women in Parliament at the time, I saw quite dramatic differences in how the guys treated women. Some ignored you, some made sisterhood jokes until you were nearly mental, others chose the paternalistic ''I defend women's rights therefore I am a sensitive, new-age guy'' approach. Peter just treated you as a person.
That he takes people as he finds them is not just something important to women. In a party that has as one of its great strengths a broad diversity of views, factional leaders can be divisive and destructive. Sometimes their view of their own importance blinds them to the party's need for a balanced team.
With a federal election just two years away, it would be reckless to defer change until next year. Now is the time for change. And in the lead-up to an election, someone who treats all people equally would be a welcome and uniting force.
Amanda Vanstone was a minister in the Howard government.
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