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If Eric Abetz is serious about preventing the airing of his party’s internal differences when he addresses this weekend’s Young Liberal conference, perhaps he ought to have a word to the Australian Liberal Students’ Federation and their alumni.
Phil Coorey in the SMH nicely points out today the irony of Abetz not being able himself to resist the opportunity to get stuck into his opponents, whom he describes as “jeremiahs” and “snake oil merchants”.
Alas, that’s nothing compared to the language used by some Young Liberal conservatives.
Tim Andrews, who until last year was national president of the ALSF (the “peek representative body of Liberal Students in Australia”), recently started blogging, and on Tuesday offered the following thoughts about Liberal leader Malcolm Turnbull:
Malcolm Turnbull and the center-right movement have traditionally been considered an ill fit, to say the least … In accepting the Leadership of the Liberal Party, Turnbull’s speech to the media laid out the blueprint for a new style of “conservatism”; one based not on laissez-faire conceptions of individual freedom, but on government empowerment. Clothed in the rhetoric of individual rights, he presents a model little different to those of nanny state paternalism.
Turnbull’s words — “a society can not be free if it is not fair” — say it all. The next day he promoted Christopher Pyne, widely acknowledged as a leading light in the party’s hard-left and a recent attendee at the Democratic Convention, into a senior cabinet post … For many on the right, there is little doubt that Turnbull is a man of no convictions whatsoever. No convictions, that is, except one: that he should be Prime Minister…
Vigorous stuff. But young Tim, who last year as ALSF president attacked Liberal MPs who supported the apology to the Stolen Generations — including Eric Abetz — was only getting warmed up.
Turnbull’s response to the global financial crisis can be described as nothing but sickening. He decided to seize the initiative (and the media spotlight). He proposed a quasi-bailout and, attacking the government from the left, argued for government guarantees of all bank deposits; a move met with surprise by economists (as Australian banks remained highly profitable and had no need for a bailout) and conservative commentators (surprised that the Liberal Party would embrace socialism so rapidly) …
And then we move to Labor Market reform. Nowhere can the mind-boggling cowardly cravenness of the Liberal Party be seen more starkly than here. Note, by the way, that I deliberately do not call them the Opposition, as is their proper title in Australian politics, for they have completely failed to oppose anything. Her Majesty’s Supine and Backboneless Dishrags would be a more apt title. And it got worse.
With the Union-beholden Labor Party proposing legislation to return Australia to the 1930s, destroying individual freedoms, eliminating jobs and critically damaging the economy, the Liberal Party — on this, the one issue where some of its greatest achievements have been – did nothing. It refused to stand up for the right to work. It refused to stand up for freedom of contract. It merely bowed its head and submitted … A policy platform based on no more than perceptions of future opinion polls. No principles. No ideas. Just an empty void.
This is the fundamental cancer that is infesting the conservative movement: the willingness to play to media elites through ‘bipartisanship’ and ‘compromise’. Odiously selling out your beliefs and politically prostituting yourself to climb the greasy poll to success. It is morally repugnant…
All the while the mainstream media lavishes praise upon him, salivating at the concept of the change he brings. And indeed, why should they not? For Turnbull is essentially one of them. One of the Elite. Popular on Facebook, and photographed with celebrities and societies glamorous. Agreeing with every left-wing policy directive…
And so on.
Wonder what the Young Nats think of Turnbull.
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10 Comments
Full points to young Tim for twigging so early in his political career the sport of politics isn’t like any other. You just bat whichever way the winds of approval blow using any number of tactics based on knee-jerk reaction. There’s no game plan, training or development just unswerving trust in spin, loads of patience and buckets of loyalty. Incentives are awarded to the complacent with protesters handed penalties and no correspondence entered into. Its sort of an administrations sans frontieres…
PS Tim..you’re too bright, idealistic and honest for any political party.
I first loved the fact that he represents the “peek” body for Australian liberal students. Suddenly though, I was truly struck by Tim’s genius - “politically prostituting yourself to climb the greasy poll to success.”
Delicious, unintentional puns through the mastery of confused homophones.
check the way the wind is blowing in the world tim. left to right with a social conscience. at about 100 knots. the bluster is here and the breeze has blown out. ( bush howard blair)
If the Liberal party failed to reproduce in this generation it could only be considered a kindness.
Loved the bit about Turnbull’s sole convivtion:that he should be PM
right(H)on Tim!!
Andrews’ use of phrases like ‘media elite’ and ‘mainstream media’ suggests that he has been reading too many right-wing American websites and watching too much Fox News.
does Australia have a ‘mainstream’ media, and if it does, exactly how much of it has a liberal bias?
Eric Abetz appears to be as authoritarian as his great uncle Otto in wishing to stifle public discussion about the policy directions of the Liberal Party. As a senator, he doesn’t have to try to garner the vote of each of his constituents. His only battle is to secure a winnable position on the Coalition’s Tasmanian senate ticket. Eric sees the Liberal Party as an exclusive members only club rather than a branded product or service which needs to be marketed and sold to a skeptical buying public.
Kevin Rudd moved the ALP to the centre which forced the Howard Government even further to the right. The only way back to power for the Liberal Party is to move back towards the centre so as to force the ALP to the left. If uncle Otto had attended military college, he would have learned tactics and strategy. Unfortunately, as a jumped up SS amateur volunteer, he remained recalcitrant until the bitter end.
You can continue to reminisce about the glorious past or you can try to regain government in the future, but you can’t do both. If Eric wants to keep living the golden era of conservatism for the rest of his days, he should disappear to a small community in southern Argentina like many of uncle Otto’s erstwhile compatriots. Tasmania and Australia will change with the times.
Sadly for this angry young man, the wheels fell of his right-wing bus when his undoubted hero J.Winston went down in a screaming heap. Reading Andrews blog, is it any wonder Dame Murdoch would happily throttle Howard for decimating the Liberals?.
His analysis though, of the party under Turnbull’s is spot on. Can’t imagine what they will do but if Malcolm wishes to survive he should defect to Labor.
I do not remember Malcolm arguing for a government guarantee of all bank deposits - although I think he did suggest a higher upper limit than Labor’s original upper limit of $100,000. Labor then panicked and gave an unlimited guarantee. That was the irrationality of Labor, overreacting to what Malcolm said. I was a bit concerned myself about the level of government intervention involved with guaranteeing bank deposits, but I think Malcolm recommended it because it was needed for Australia to be able to participate effectively in the international financial markets.
I am on Malcolm’s list of facebook friends. What’s wrong with being popular on facebook? Malcolm is a lot more active on facebook than Kevin Rudd. It’s a form of accountability. Although it may seem trivial, when Malcolm says things like ‘I’m on a train from the city to Bondi Junction’, I admire his willingness to let us know what he is doing on such a regular basis.
Anyway, what is it with these ultra-conservatives? I’m sure many liberals in the Liberal party felt like publicly disagreeing with John Howard at times, both before and after he was elected as prime minister, but they did not succumb to that temptation. For example, the attempts by John Howard and his allies to stop single women and lesbians from accessing IVF were appalling. There is no reason why single women and lesbians cannot be responsible parents, provided they have the emotional and financial resources that any parent would need.
Why should Malcolm engage in some kind of competition with Labor to see who can be more right-wing? The Liberal Party is a right-of-centre party, but it doesn’t have to be as right-wing as it can get away with, which seems to be implied by the ALSF.
If he’s got any left after shooting himself in the foot you can bet young Tim will be toeing the party line from now on.