It’s a far cry from the Howard years (1996-2007). In those
days, it was those on the ideological left who were in a despondent mood,
because conservatives increasingly represented the political mainstream.
For a man routinely described as lacking charisma, John
Howard managed to hit just the right tone. He showed that integration was the
key to social cohesion. Citizenship tests were born. The republic was passe.
Ably supported by Philip Ruddock, Howard showed that
controlled border protection benefits nobody more than the immigrants who come
here fairly and legally. As a result, it helped damp down the fires of racism
and xenophobia. (Just look at Europe today.)
Markets and fiscal rectitude occupied the economic policy
high ground: Peter Costello paid off the debt while Peter Reith stared down the
last gasps of old-style union militancy.
School bureaucrats were widely slammed for pushing
politically correct curriculum that was aimed at finding hidden racism and
sexism in great works of literature.
Practical reconciliation defined indigenous issues.
Even The Sydney Morning Herald editorialised in
2007 against the “glib symbolism” of an apology, saying it was a “practically
useless” gesture that would have “no constructive outcome”.
The left was in despair. In an address to the Sydney
Institute in 2003, Julia Gillard conceded: “Howard has won his culture war.”
After Howard’s fourth election in 2004, former Keating speechwriter Don Watson
observed that the “worst thing Labor has to swallow is the completeness of the
ideological victory”.
My Radio National colleague Phillip Adams lamented in 2007
that the left’s “population in the press is so small as to constitute
extinction. We are dead parrots … giving the illusion of life because we are
nailed to our perches.” At writers’ festivals across the nation, the
intellectual elite was whipping itself into a lather and raging about how
Howard and Costello had stifled ideas and silenced debate and corrupted
democracy.
However, far from being silenced, left-wing voices had been
losing relevance – as one Kevin Rudd recognised. Remember, the only way the
self-described “economic conservative” could beat Howard was by mimicking his
agenda.
Times have changed. The oldest 20 per cent of the electorate
in 2004 who largely voted for the Coalition has been replaced today by the
youngest 20 per cent of voters who lurch left. Social media and twitter trolls
are all the rage. Polls show socialism has risen in stature, especially among
millennials.
Re-empowered trade unions are likely to return. Climate
change action is back in vogue just six years since Tony Abbott’s anti-carbon
tax landslide election.
Meanwhile, fringe university campus politics has gone
mainstream. Witness the campaign for identity politics, which seeks to divide
people along racial, ethnic and gender lines. That means people are boxed into
certain mindsets: ethnic minorities are victims of underlying racism and women
are oppressed by patriarchy.
To paraphrase Oscar Wilde, all bad public policy springs
from genuine feeling. One can acknowledge the history of discrimination and
hardship visited on various minorities and still recognise identity politics
leads to crude political tribalism.
As Jonathan Haidt, one of America’s leading liberal
intellectuals, has warned, politics fixated on racial, gender and sexual
differences and the cultivation of victimhood will be disastrous as a foundation
for democratic politics, leading to resentments that extremists can exploit in
ugly ways on both the right and left.
Although identity politics is more pronounced in America and
Britain, the victim culture is evident here: think of the campaign to change
Australia Day from January 26 or to demote Western civilisation in the school
and university curriculum or to blame our public discourse for the rise of
“white nationalism”. As the reaction to Christchurch has shown, the desire for
self-flagellatory virtue signalling is rampant.
Never mind that the political leaders accused of whipping up
Islamophobia – Howard, Abbott, Dutton, Morrison et al – have supported
large-scale, non-discriminatory immigration. Never mind, too, that they link
jihadists with extremist groups, such as Islamic State and al Qaida, not the
Muslim community.
Ideological pendulums have a tendency to swing back and
forth. At some point, there should come a sharp change in the national mood and
direction.
However, if conservatives and liberals fail to tell a
persuasive story to Middle Australia, one that soundly marries our support for
competitive markets with scepticism of divisive identity politics, we will
reinforce the perception that the centre of political gravity has shifted
leftwards.
Tom Switzer is executive director of the Centre for
Independent Studies in Sydney.
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