federal politics
16 Dec 2011
The Liberal Way Forward
The Libs are the healthiest political party in the country, no question. Just what do they stand for? Ben Eltham ends the year by putting Abbott and co under the microscope
Whither the modern Liberal Party? Australia’s key conservative political party has now been out of power federally for four years. For much of that time it has struggled to come to terms with its opposition status. It narrowly lost the 2010 election, despite a strong campaign by Opposition Leader Tony Abbott, and in some aspects of its party organisation, such as fundraising, still trails the Labor Party.
For all of this, at the end of 2011, the Liberal Party is far and away the healthiest political party in Australia. The party is in power in Australia’s two largest states, New South Wales and Victoria, as well as Australia’s most prosperous state, Western Australia. It looks likely to be elected in Queensland early in 2012 too.
Federally, the Liberal Party under Tony Abbott is the more popular of the two major parties. It polled the most primary votes of any party in the 2010 election, and has led in the polls ever since. Under Abbott, the Coalition has proved to be a strong opposition, regularly embarrassing the Government (which admittedly scores its fair share of own goals) and presenting a robust alternative government to voters.
In politicians such as Scott Morrison, Julie Bishop and Joe Hockey, it enjoys frontbenchers with national political recognition and effective media performance. It also enjoys a strong crop of younger talent, in politicians such as Josh Frydenberg, Kelly O’Dwyer, Simon Birmingham and Alex Hawke.
Organisationally, the Liberal Party is arguably better aligned to the everyday concerns and interest of the broader Australian electorate than the ALP. The party membership is certainly older and whiter than Australia in general, but the Liberal Party has done a better job of engaging with multicultural Australia and civil society than many give it credit for. On many booths on general election days, you can see plenty of young Australians from diverse backgrounds in blue Liberal t-shirts, handing out how-to-vote cards.
The Liberal Party doesn’t suffer from nearly as much factional infighting as the ALP.
Unlike Labor, the Liberal Party is not a feudal cabal of warring factions; nor is it ruled by union powerbrokers or faceless men. There are factions, of course, and the branch stacking and internal powerplays can be every bit as brutal as in Labor. But political alliances inside the party tend to be more fluid, and the party does a much better job of concealing its internal squabbles from voters.
Strong Liberal leaders also tend to inspire more support and loyalty than their Labor counterparts. This can sometimes lead to sclerosis, as in the final years of John Howard’s reign, but it also means that once a strong leader is found, parliamentary Liberals tend to unite around him. (It almost always is a man, Isobel Redmond excepted).
Philosophically, the Liberal message continues to resonate with many sections of middle Australia, even if the party itself has largely turned its back on the Deakinite traditions championed by its founder, Robert Menzies.
The modern Liberal Party is chiefly a champion of liberty, especially economic liberty, and it is at its most naturally confident when espousing the values of business interests and the right of entrepreneurs to make money unfettered by government regulations or union action. These core values of individual liberty and small government may not necessarily be reflected in every policy platform, but the party is reasonably consistent in what it stands for and most Liberal members can articulate, even if only in a few disconnected soundbites, why they joined the Liberal Party. Business of course remains a key recruiting ground for the party, but the law, the professions and even the emergency services furnish plenty of candidates.
Intellectually, the Liberal message finds itself at its most dissonant when attempting to reconcile individual liberties with conservative social values. Liberals gravitate to the right on most contested social issues, such as gay marriage, abortion and asylum seekers. This sometimes leads to a conflict between those who value enterprise and freedom and those who value tradition and the family unit.
The problem is that global capitalism and the power of unfettered free markets are not, in general, beneficial to the social and civic bonds that tie us together. Indeed, as even conservative thinkers like Michael Oakeshott have recognised, capital has a great tendency to erode social and family connections, dissolving everything in a commoditised sea of consumption. This is one reason, incidentally, why Liberals are often most intellectually comfortable with the lofty ideal of the family small business, because it neatly conflates the two great ideals of Liberal thinking.
Generally speaking, there are three ways out for the conservative who wants also to embrace capitalism.
The first is out-and-out liberatarianism. Libertarians easily solve the problem of the social corrosion inherent in capitalism by denying there is anything much valuable in society in the first place. In its extreme form of Ayn Rand worship, libertarianism becomes a kind of cult of capitalism, in which brave and strong entrepreneurs wrestle with the lazy and morally weak masses to drag society into a new era of prosperity and progress. Libertarians are commonly found in the think-tanks and policy institutes to the right of centre, but the popularity of true libertarianism in broader society is small.
The second solution is roughly the Turnbull solution, which we might call classical liberalism. Under this formula, the so-called "wet" Liberals who look back to Menzies and Deakin, and beyond them to Mill and Locke, posit a universe in which rights are balanced against social responsibilities, and in which free enterprise is balanced by the sinews of civil society and the moral responsibility of the businessman and the entrepreneur. This type of Liberal is uncomfortable with anti-immigrant policies, restrictions on media freedom and big-government, pro-family conservative policies like Family Tax Benefit and the Baby Bonus.
The third solution for the conservative worried about the radical change inevitably wreaked by unfettered markets is populism. This, roughly, is the program mapped out by Tony Abbott in his book Battlelines. Populism in this context means an uneasy chimera of free market, small government rhetoric with pro-family, socially conservative moral crusading. Hence, law and order is a winning issue (even if it means depriving many citizens of their individual liberty) because it can be portrayed as a morally correct action. The same is true with border protection and asylum seekers.
Almost by definition, populism doesn’t have to be intellectually consistent, which makes it a handy and flexible position for the skilled politician. A libertarian or classical liberal might find themselves quite uncomfortable with a policy like Direct Action, which seeks to impose a big government solution for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. A populist doesn’t have to worry about such qualms, and can instead revel in the right-wing talkback glory of questioning the validity of climate science.
This final issue, climate science, or rather, the status of rational intellectual inquiry, represents the real potential schism for the modern conservative movement in this and other Western nations. As the old name for environmentalism — conservation — implies, environmentalism is entirely compatible with conservative beliefs. Indeed, it could be argued that green ideas like the precautionary principle can be traced directly back to Edmund Burke’s beliefs in prudence. And yet, for reasons that have everything to do with the culture wars over social issues that developed in the latter quarter of the 20th century, modern conservatives nurse deep animosities toward the environmental movement. In the case of climate science, these animosities have been allowed to spill over into a quixotic attack on the principles of peer-reviewed science itself, a quite astonishing development for a movement that, in its economic beliefs, clings tightly to the legacy of the Enlightenment.
The problem of how to continue the capitalist engine without destroying the earth is a problem that now confronts all those who profess a belief in the value of business, enterprise and the importance of "the economy". Because climate science is a century-long global issue that will come to define the geopolitical shape of the 21st century world, conservatives (no more than progressives) don’t have the luxury of just wishing climate change will go away.
As Sir Nicholas Stern famous observed, climate change is the greatest market failure in history, so anyone who professes belief in markets will need to find a way to reconcile their beliefs with the damage markets are doing to the planet and the welfare of future generations. It certainly is possible to formulate an eminently neo-liberal climate change policy — this, after all, is essentially what Labor’s emissions trading system is — but to do so, one first needs to accept the scientific reality, and to campaign for reform on an issue that is deeply unpopular with much of the conservative base.
But climate change is a very big and very long-term issue. Conservatives also have the luxury that progressive parties generally lack, which is that they often don’t have to be about big issues at all. All politics is local, as they say, and Liberal parliamentarians often excel at the school fete level of political engagement. Somebody has to represent the interests of the business community and the people who will never vote Labor or Green. Simply by being this party, the Liberals have a built-in political power base they will almost certainly hold on to for decades.
In summary, the state of the Liberal Party is one of rude health. The natural party of government in Australia expects to govern again in 2013, and there is every chance currently that it will succeed.
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Posted Friday, 16 December 11 at 1:10PM
Just a quick note too to thank all our subscribers, contributors and supporters At New Matilda. And of course marni and Catri, without whom the publication would be impossible.
Seasons greetings! Ben
Posted Friday, 16 December 11 at 2:05PM
Mr Abbot is no liberal, a unprincipled opportunist more like it.
The UK and America did briefly experiment with some ‘free market’ ‘liberal /conservative’ ideas . But they quickly went back to their usual habits .
In the UK It did not take long for entrenched privilege to reassert its ‘right’s .
And Bush junior’s record on running deficits makes Whitlam look responsible.
Over there the prefix ‘Neo’ in practice meant more of the same old thing and get me another credit card.
Merry Christmas
Posted Friday, 16 December 11 at 2:32PM
Caption competition suggested for your article’s header photo:
my entry, “The Siblings Grimm.”
Posted Friday, 16 December 11 at 2:56PM
Ben is probably right about the election outcome. The MSM is in control and will decide the election outcome. This article will assist to make it so.
Merry Christmas.
Posted Friday, 16 December 11 at 4:16PM
Merry Christmas Ben and thanks for the dubious gift of reminding me that the Liberals may not only be the more popular party but that there are good reasons for this, particularly that Labor is a party run by faceless men. We have seen some of the faces this year, to our detriment.
If Labor is able to reform in 2012 to allow for democratic preselection and grassroots policy development I will consider all my Christmases to have come at once. I doubt they will.
Posted Friday, 16 December 11 at 5:31PM
Ben,
There is no doubt it’s well written but… and I’m pained to say this, but this piece is so superficially analysed so MSM, so journalistic for you, I’m disappointed .
I have to say that [“The Libs are the healthiest political party in the country,”] is only true with in the isolated construct of a political party that has no clear relationship with being a good alternative government. It’s a bit like hailing the skater who was the last man standing as being the best in the world. He won the race true, but the best?
[“Under Abbott, the Coalition has proved to be a strong opposition,” ] Fair suck of the sand shoe they had one principal …….NO…… that’s not hold the government to account !
By the same token The Labor Government are dreadful sales persons but in the circumstances you haven’t addressed their acceptable actions.
Let’s be real, imagine the disasters that we’d be facing if Abbott had got in?
ACC? resurrection of liberal pro business IR. Refugees …et al .
Your writing usually has the edge of ‘this is the way it is but that’s not good enough’ leaving MSM to play the entertainer, cheer squad routine.
Then again perhaps I’m biased given I am opposed to political parties in general if only because they polarise the options into absolutes, differentiation, a choice between two lacklustre options etc rather than what’s best for Australia and specifically the majority of its people.
Then again I fundamentally reject the notion that parliament is inherently about politics… the grabbing and maintenance of party or personal power.
Notwithstanding your work is among my favourite reads.
A good ‘retail festival’ for you, your family and I look forward to your insights in 2012.
Posted Friday, 16 December 11 at 5:47PM
geoffdb - my caption… “WAKE UP!”
Posted Friday, 16 December 11 at 6:02PM
Great article Ben! But I’m with you Dr Dog, grassroots policy development. Also true representative government…
Posted Friday, 16 December 11 at 10:13PM
I don’t think the Liberal’s can move beyond Tony Abbot’s three word rhyming slogans. They are locked in to his interventionist rhetoric. However, both Labor and the Coalition occupy policy-free political zones. Neither provide an over-arching vision or plan for an equitable income and taxation system that eliminates distortions in the economy. Both kow-tow to special-interest groups rather than serve the public interest. Neither have the guts to roll back the insiduous Howard/Costello welfarism that has now sees middle and upper income earners and very rich superannuants adopting a sense of entitlement.
Australian politics is a sadly debased story of opportunism and cherry picked policies devoid of both principle and a national vision.
Posted Saturday, 17 December 11 at 4:02PM
“The Liberal Party doesn’t suffer from nearly as much factional infighting as the ALP.”
The Liberal party is more secretive toward the electorate than Labor and the Greens. This may give the impression of calm and less conflict. It also makes them look more decisive on less issues and less willing to change eg Tony on ‘No’. Labor individuals on the other hand are willing to air their dirty laundry sometimes looking more conflicted eg Kevin with a wry smile, saying nothing. Each of the two leaders have their Nemeses in Malcolm and Kevin providing entertainment value for a semi-engaged population and we can thank them for that at least.
“The problem of how to continue the capitalist engine without destroying the earth is a problem that now confronts all those who profess a belief in the value of business, enterprise and the importance of “the economy”“.
The Economy is irrelevant beside Climate Change. The Capitalist Engine has blown a head gasket and no parts are available. There has to be a median way between Capitalism and Socialism that doesnt destroy the earth and according to the experts we dont have much time. Growth and Pollution go hand in hand and our biggest challenge is to, in a flash use less while reducing population growth fairly. I think remuneration parity is one of the keys, bringing the highest salaries down and the lowest up. But this is impossible while Corporations have so much power.
Posted Sunday, 18 December 11 at 6:32AM
Merry Christmas Ben and thanks for another good article, but there is a couple of thinks that you have not considered and added.
I agree with most of what Examinator has added to the debate, even to the extent of MSM picking winners, but i do think that he failed to appreciate your article fully.
Ben you said:
“The party membership is certainly older and whiter than Australia in general, but the Liberal Party has done a better job of engaging with multicultural Australia and civil society than many give it credit for. On many booths on general election days, you can see plenty of young Australians from diverse backgrounds in blue Liberal t-shirts, handing out how-to-vote cards.”
What YOU failed to appreciate is that Labour changed the immigration policy towards business migration, thereby giving the liberals a greater power base. A lot of migrants despite the, (“The party membership is certainly older and whiter”) still engage with the make money quick mentality of the Libs, it is in part this that also created the division and the rise of the factions within labor.
This article here and what was said in it is relevant to our own Political outcomes and struggles. It is after all at the end of the Day, THE ECONOMY and who benefits and the mentality that drives that economy.
Consumerism or socialism that decides. So read on and maybe you would like to have another take and/or address this devisive factor, The Greedy Immigrant who came here for a better future, a better future for whom.
Watch Out For The European Spring
By Charles McPhedran
And some fear 2012 will bring still more threats to European democracy with it.
In an essay on the history of debt published by the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung in early December, economic historian Michael Hudson argued that the debt crisis would cause political crisis and a transition to autocracy and oligarchy in the West.
Hudson recalls that, for Aristotle, debt was the “most important mechanism” leading to the transition from one political system to another.
To make his argument, he draws on classical Roman historians like Plutarch, writing that struggles between creditors and debtors brought down the ancient Roman republican democracy.
“When Brother Gracchus and his followers tried to reform the credit laws in 133 AD, the reigning class of senators reacted with violence, killing them and opening a century of civil war,” he claims.
The civil war, says Hudson, was fought between creditors and “populist leaders, who attempted to win the people to their side by promising debt relief”. The conflict was marked by “political assassinations…and was later traced back [by Roman historians] to the intransigence of creditors.”
Posted Sunday, 18 December 11 at 6:50AM
Ben.
Having said that, take note of this in my previous comment from Watch Out For The European Spring
By Charles McPhedran.
“And some fear 2012 will bring still more threats to European democracy with it.
In an essay on the history of debt published by the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung in early December, economic historian Michael Hudson argued that the debt crisis would cause political crisis and a transition to autocracy and oligarchy in the West.
Hudson recalls that, for Aristotle, debt was the “most important mechanism” leading to the transition from one political system to another.
To make his argument, he draws on classical Roman historians like Plutarch, writing that struggles between creditors and debtors brought down the ancient Roman republican democracy.”
Now take note that I have said in previous comments that the Yanks gave us every Depression for the last 100 years. America went form owing to being owed by England and became the new Empire.
And what happened, as I’ve said before, an understanding of history or past human activity is essential.
History according to “Students guide to World History 1789-1979”
From 1937 massive, general re-armament further stimulated economic recovery, and from 1940 the great armaments spending for World War II at last brought full employment. (Re-armament is treated by some economists as a specialised form of government intervention to stimulate the economy.)
Understandably, such conditions produced mass discontent in the midst of which political extremism flourished. Up to 1930 Fascism attracted little mass support outside Italy where Mussolini had taken power in 1922; Communism was scarcely more effective. But both Fascism and Communism became powerful international movements in the 1930’s.
(i) United States. The Depression put an end to the long series of Republiican Presidents, 1920-32, and the Democrat, Franklin D. Roosevelt, took over.”
And so we ask, now.
“economic historian Michael Hudson argued that the debt crisis would cause political crisis and a transition to autocracy and oligarchy in the West.
Hudson recalls that, for Aristotle, debt was the “most important mechanism” leading to the transition from one political system to another.”
We ask, why does and did America create all of these Depressions, Sharemarket scandals. Was it by design or human error. Could Greenspan have been that stupid, honestly.
How about a game of Chess, anyone.
Posted Sunday, 18 December 11 at 11:57AM
Ben misunderstands the role of peer reviewed publications in the progress of science, and in the nature of science itself. Science has historically progressed through the scientific method, which uses logic, and experimentation as key tools rather than consensus. A true scientist can never use an appeal to an authority be it the IPCC, the CSIRO, etc. Where a theory is proposed, it must make precise predictions which can be measured or observed. To date the anthropogenic climate change theory has been unable to do this. It reminds me of the logical contortions of the Ptolemaic astronomers. Predictions about climate are becoming increasingly vaguer and longer-dated - often it is noted beyond the retirement dates of the people in question.
It disturbs me that so few seem to know of the iconoclastic scientists who questioned theoretical shibboleths whose scepticism was ultimately rewarded with Nobel prizes. While Einstein is a well-known one, Daniel Shechtman, the 2011 Chemistry Nobel prize winner was told to read the textbooks when he first revealed his discovery.
Posted Sunday, 18 December 11 at 8:39PM
Philip Dowling, perhaps you like to give us your predictions for which denialist will win the Nobel Prize, Lord Monckton? Primer? Lord Lawson?
Posted Monday, 19 December 11 at 11:17PM
There is an important question here that one always needs always to bear in mind: given that their policies are so similar, what stops the ALP and the Liberals from uniting into one organisation?
Trade unions are not in themselves anathema to the Liberals. The AMA after all is one of the most successful, and the Liberals are totally on side with it. Each party of course has its own existing leaders, who would be hard to fit into the other organisation.
But Ben’s articel failed to mention the most important difference of all. Both major parties are redistributive, but for the Liberals the redistribution of wealth should always favour those who in their view are the ‘wealth creators’: inevitably, the richest strata of society. In ALP theory, it has to be the other way around. (Practice of course is another thing entirely.)
Both parties woo the people of ‘middle Australia’, the Liberals by trying to include them in programs of upper-class welfare, and the ALP by trying hard not to leave them out of its (desultory) efforts to benefit those least well-off. The result is that the ALP favours a somewhat more even distribution of wealth.
The Liberals are not happy unless the wealth of the richest layers is ever and ever more grossly obscene. But they can justify it by using trickle-down economic theory.
Posted Tuesday, 20 December 11 at 3:55PM
Nice article Ben, so much to consider!
Part 1 response:
It’s easy to present a polished, unified, practised party image when the corporations tell your political Party what to say and do.
The AUS Liberal Party may have no (public) in-fighting, but they have something worse, a self-contradictory value system: They may be Liberal when they launch the latest invasion to liberate petrol prices, but are they more liberators or oppressors on issues like human rights, wage security, infrastructure, and ecology.
A corporation is an ingenious device for creating individual profit without the burden of individual responsibility. The AUS LP oppress’ most voters by lavishing praise, tax cuts, and bail outs on rich residents and non-residents, while criminalizing public dissent (2005 Terror Laws, whistleblower punishing), organized labor rights (Workchoices), and removing the bare bones of corporate responsibility requirements. All the while telling us these hard working owners (like Gina Reinhart) are doing us a favor.
Until the AUS LP values ecology and human rights as much as they value short term profits and pre-emptive levels of security, they’re a Power.
(Identify, then unmask, then engage the Powers.)
Posted Thursday, 22 December 11 at 1:56PM
Liberal - A person who favours a political philosophy of progress and reform and the protection of civil liberties.
Is an odd title for the 1% support party.
Posted Friday, 23 December 11 at 12:20PM
Massive, thought provoking article, Ben.
Part 2 of my thoughts & feelings:
*The Liberal Party of AUS (henceforth LP):
may promise “wet” responsible, considered liberalism of Turnbull,
but in the last 15 years have delivered almost no such Legislation.
*Law and order Legislation isn’t populism, it’s 70% about providing free guards to the haves, to keep their disproportionate resources from being used by the have nots. That’s why the Tory Party, oops I mean the Liberal Party, focusses on law and order. Heh.
*Environmental responsibility Legislation is sabotaged by LP because responsibility is anathema to profit, and Tories exist to keep the profits, concentration of money, and other powers in the hands of the elites.
*”Freedom for the pike is death for the minnows”- Isiah Berlin.
As the human “pikes” controls all sorts of propaganda, “minnows” want to step in the pool and try to become the pike. People will allow hope to triumph over common sense, especially when the commons will pay most of the price for their failures, and if they win, the commons will bail out all their risks.
Posted Saturday, 24 December 11 at 5:50PM
The picture says a lot, Tony crafting the words which will indicate “No”, Julie waiting in the wings in vain, Eric asleep at the wheel, and Poor Malcolm who knows he’s not a denier but cant find purchase among his party. The sun has set on perfect Capitalism, the money has been given to all the top dogs (and OMG they’re thinking of blowing more). This is the true meaning of Terrorism.
After all, the pointless wars, the subsidies, the tarifs, Corporate Welfare, Lobbyists making it nice for corporations, Propping up the preference for Fossil Fuels, and the Liberals (neocons), are still seen with their mouths flapping “Let the market rule, let the market rule”. It looks a bit like that scene in the movie “The Ruling Class” skeletons singing the Anthem. So absolutely terrified of even the mention of Socialism that they prefer genocide to dabbling.
The Liberals and the Labor party, are now so close in practical philosophy that theres hardly light between them.
“As Sir Nicholas Stern famous observed, climate change is the greatest market failure in history, so anyone who professes belief in markets will need to find a way to reconcile their beliefs with the damage markets are doing to the planet and the welfare of future generations”. Believing the markets will save our arses is a bit like believing in one or more of the Gods, you need lots of faith because evidence is thin on the ground.
Posted Tuesday, 27 December 11 at 7:54PM
Ben
Are you still ruminating on the have/haven’t got the ticker view of the two party system? Does wealth afford party bureaucracy a healthy looking exterior while cholesterol drenched internal party organs swill around in their own mantras? When those rollicking Libs get the knives out again who will cop it next?
You appear to be so kind/detached in your appraisal that your article encourages us (dear readers) to appease the stark and deepening divide. All this courtesy of the(how many) years of the Libs in power and subsequent generational ‘user pays”client base’ of the economic rationalist outlook.
I’m with Olivier on this one. It’s pretty simple to me.
Ben, my advice to you, cut the ‘cool’ bullshit and start yelling from the biggest soapbox you can find. We can’t hear you!
Posted Tuesday, 27 December 11 at 10:02PM
Nice bit of straw man work. There will be an Eltham article two years from now demonstrating why a Labor victory was always inevitable and why the Coalition was fatally flawed, and hopefully nobody will be so gauche as to throw the above back in Ben’s face.
The fact that the Libs trail Labor in fundraising is not just some sort of oddity, it is a symptom of deeper problems.
Consider that business leaders complain that they have little to no meaningful relationship with the incumbents. With a few big issues (e.g. carbon price, mining tax, lack of protection for manufacturing) they have demonstrated great annoyance with the incumbents. Consider also that poll after poll shows the Coalition miles in front of the incumbents. Now, go back to Politics 101 and consider that the Coalition are supposed to be the party of business, aren’t they? Well?
Why aren’t the Liberals swimming in cash? Why the old and small membership - surely public disaffection with the incumbents would mean that meetings of your local Liberal/Nationals branch would be chock full of people seeking to use it as the most potent structure for prying the incumbents’ hands from the levers of power.
Anyone who ever wanted to go into politics but who couldn’t be bothered with the byzantine structures of the ALP should be taking their chances: to such people you’d think the Liberal Party would be, to coin a phrase, open for business.
The non-examination of these weakens Eltham’s piece and makes the Liberal Party as described by Eltham a more hollow collossus than his piece would seek to represent.
My favourite bit of puffery was the equation of such nebulous qualities as “national political recognition and effective media performance” with tangible political attributes as popularity, policy effectiveness, and/or vote-winning capacity. Politicians might be present in the media and may deny such space to others without necessarily being persuasive that they may be able to govern better than the incumbents.
Bishop has been exposed as a no-mark in policy terms, Hockey and Morrison are heading down the same track. Eltham failed to examine that too. He has also failed to examine the reasons why, say, Frydenberg does not have a frontbench role while, say, Bronwyn Bishop does. Given that SA Senator Birmingham has seen his earnest work on Murray-Darling water policy rubbished by Abbott’s populism, how strong or talented can he be said to be?
The stuff about economic and personal liberty in the sheerest piffle, owing to the disconnect between the stated beliefs of party members and the dot-point policies of the parliamentary party (again, unexplored by Eltham).
Rude health, my arse.
Posted Monday, 02 January 12 at 2:32PM
Venise Alstergren
Ben: I have to admit that I didn’t read all of your article. However, forgive me for saying it was overwrought and over-long. But the thing that really fascinates me is that the Liberals have not attempted to favour the electorate with any kind of philosophy. In fact they shy away from the subject like a nervous horse being asked to take an unfamiliar jump. Yet you feel embolden to articulate a philosophy for them?
With Tony Abbott as the leader of the federal liberal party, the party is a mirror image of the man himself. A fifth rate, gutter- crawling little man who does nothing but scream NO. This is the man who will lead the liberal party and Australia into a glorious future? Gimme a break.
Posted Wednesday, 04 January 12 at 2:28AM
VA, It should be noted however that elections in this particular so called Democracy are very much about faith in worn out slogans, platitudes, lies and the ever present spin. We woud be more gainfully employed guiding our national aspirations by faith in our collective Horoscopes.
Party philosophies change with the nomination of leaders and it should also be remembered that the ex-most powerful superpower is still easily able to re-elect an insufferable moron and USAians are willing to turn a blind media to the personal philosophies of such people. I sleep more easily after than before a national election here, I suppose I’m nervously awaiting consensus rather than reason to deliver us from our first insufferable moronic Prime Minister.
Meanwhile, back at the farm/mine we await a real decision rather than frantic, poll driven, tax oriented, opiates for the Masses. It may not make much difference but roll on Spring.
Posted Tuesday, 17 January 12 at 5:13AM
Liberals like Labor don’t really stand for anything and are terrified of the media and opinion polls while dealing with an ageing more conservative electorate exemplified by following or reacting versus leading with clear policies. In many respects both major parties have converged to represent Coke versus Pepsi, while their cola is an amalgam of One Nation and the DLP.
Posted Tuesday, 17 January 12 at 12:35PM
Puhleese (going back a bit) “There is an important question here that one always needs always to bear in mind: given that their policies are so similar, what stops the ALP and the Liberals from uniting into one organisation?”
What stops them from uniting is the Libs - following after the sloganic US politic - are terrified of Socialism, and the Labs are above all that… in theory.
“Trade unions are not in themselves anathema to the Liberals. The AMA after all is one of the most successful, and the Liberals are totally on side with it.”
But the AMA while partly depending on socialist policy aspirations are like a quietly spoken Ghengis Khan with age withered principles who knows which side its bread is buttered on. The truest analysis of the Australian Labor ruling class was Mark Latham’s “Conga Line of Suckholes”, and it applies to the Libs as well. Each party’s success depends on which Conga Line we vote for.
Posted Tuesday, 17 January 12 at 9:35PM
connaust and guywire -
after reading a book on analysising politics (I love having access to an entire university library!!) I was reminded how so much of our politics harkens right back to the 1600-1800s and philosophers’ beliefs about human nature and how best to order society. It seems our present excuses for political parties STILL represent ideas about society and human nature that are 300-400 years old which is a worrying point, isn’t it?!! These philosophers had some highly suspicious ideas, beliefs, and the social, political, economic, religious influences of THEIR time impacting upon their theories, ideas etc. For example “natural rights”…what are these, do we have them, who is entitled to them? OR are we rational creatures or not generally capable of rational thought on a societal level thus “needing” others who DO have the political, ruling “talent” to order and control us? How about Thomas Jefferson, a primary author of the Declaration of INdependence who believed in “equalilty of natural rights” but who also owned slaves…
We can see attitudes about poor people being a less deserving, moral type of person as witnessed in 400 year old poor laws…perhaps still present in many politicians’ and others’ attitudes to unemployed, sick, disabled, migrants, assylum seekers and aged people now about not deserving social security benefits…
Anyway…I’m starting to ramble…a common fault of mine!! Cheers
Posted Tuesday, 31 January 12 at 2:22PM
Breaking news:- With Abbott in control (if ever) the liberal way forward will be that Australia will go into obliteration.