And she caved in to close Germany’s nuclear power plants in her rush to board the renewable express to Disasterville. Relatedly, she ignored the first-term President Trump’s warnings about the dangers of going all-in buying gas from Russia. The result of that energy policy madness is that power in Germany (here in Oz too) costs up to three times what it does in the US. And Germany’s economy-driving manufacturing base is imploding. But hey, Merkel won a lot of elections, right?
Or look at Britain’s Conservative Party. Why did David Cameron, Theresa May, Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak (I blinked and so missed Liz Truss) go into politics? Because they did an awfully good job of winning elections, didn’t they? The Tories were in power under these Prime Ministers from May 2010 until July 2024. That’s over 14 consecutive years of Tory governments. And they gave us what? They signed up to (without campaigning on) a crippling Net Zero under Boris. David Cameron didn’t reverse a single thing that Tony Blair had done to ruin the UK constitution and supercharge an imperial, unelected judiciary – instead, Cameron joined in the fun and made things even worse (think of his Judicial Appointments Act, for just one example). Theresa May would have been more at home in the Liberal Democrat Party. These 14 years saw Britain totally gut its armed forces, and the numbers of serving personnel plummeted. Government debt and taxes ended up, by the end of Rishi’s tenure, at the highest since just after the Second World War. And the Tories oversaw a massive, no – steroidally huge – influx of immigrants, both legal and illegal.
Or look at Britain’s Conservative Party. Why did David Cameron, Theresa May, Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak (I blinked and so missed Liz Truss) go into politics? Because they did an awfully good job of winning elections, didn’t they? The Tories were in power under these Prime Ministers from May 2010 until July 2024. That’s over 14 consecutive years of Tory governments. And they gave us what? They signed up to (without campaigning on) a crippling Net Zero under Boris. David Cameron didn’t reverse a single thing that Tony Blair had done to ruin the UK constitution and supercharge an imperial, unelected judiciary – instead, Cameron joined in the fun and made things even worse (think of his Judicial Appointments Act, for just one example). Theresa May would have been more at home in the Liberal Democrat Party. These 14 years saw Britain totally gut its armed forces, and the numbers of serving personnel plummeted. Government debt and taxes ended up, by the end of Rishi’s tenure, at the highest since just after the Second World War. And the Tories oversaw a massive, no – steroidally huge – influx of immigrants, both legal and illegal.
As for the latter, the Tory Party did not have the cojones to leave the European Convention in order to stop the illegal boats. Too many in the brain-dead party room thought this would mean the Tories were against liberal democratic values – as though Canada, Australia and New Zealand somehow didn’t exist (because none of those dominions are party to this woeful convention that’s been hijacked by the European judges with their suicidal empathy). Oh, and don’t get me started on how the Conservatives have sat idly by as the scope for free speech in the UK has shrunk and constricted in the name of trying to prop up a discredited and broken multiculturalism. (J.D. Vance is right, in other words.) And I’ll pass over in infuriated silence (sort of) the brutal fact that it was the Tories, yes the Tories, who were the lockdown thugs who aped the Chinese politburo and oversaw the biggest inroads on people’s civil liberties in a couple of centuries. (That’s true here in Australia too, of course. Which is why Scott Morrison goes down in my books as the equal-worst Liberal PM – with Malcolm Turnbull – in our country’s history.) At least Boris delivered Brexit, though he didn’t have the cojones to make it a full and effective one.
Again, though, those British Tories won a lot of elections, didn’t they? That can happen when you opt for the smallest of small target election strategies. It can work and you get elected and re-elected – until your party base starts to dessert you. (See Germany. See Britain. The uniquely bad voting system makes disciplining your own side of politics much harder here.)
Let’s ask a different question to the one with which I began: why do we, the voters, want right-of-centre politicians to go into politics? And to that, I can promise you that the answer is never ‘just to win elections’. No, we want the conservatives we elect to do substantive things that help make Australia a better country. Sure, we’re a broad church, and so what those things are is moderately contestable. Reasonable righties will disagree. But none of us likes this woeful strategy of the advisor class that amounts to ‘let’s park ourselves an inch to the right of Labor and move ever further left with them as they head towards the Greens’.
And that brings me to Peter Dutton. Is he a gigantic improvement on Turnbull and Morrison? You bet he is. Do I want him to win the upcoming election? I most certainly do. And I think he will too. But all that readily conceded, it is infuriating to watch the Team Dutton advisors – are any of them over 29 years old? – adopt a small target approach. Net Zero? They won’t pledge to leave, even though this is the most propitious time in decades to call that bulldust for what it is – with the US now joining China and India in ignoring its idiocies and so making anything we do here to impoverish ourselves and virtue-signal completely meaningless and downright stupid. Dutton’s advisors are likewise completely clueless about the importance of free speech and sign the Libs up to woeful freedom-infringing laws so that we have to hope for the US to strong-arm us into a sane position as regards free speech and to gainsay our woeful eSafety Commissioner. Immigration, you say? Softly, softly, softly is the Dutton Team’s approach. The ABC and making those who want to pay for this propaganda outlet do so with their own money? Don’t worry, we’ll look at that after the election, old boy.
It’s almost as though the Dutton advisors only care about winning an election a la Merkel and the British Tories rather than – you know – achieving stuff. Well, as paid advisors, that’s probably all they do care about. But politicians need to care about achieving substantive outcomes. Legacies matter. And that means you need a mandate. Our dysfunctional Senate is already asymmetrical in approving big spending, not small. And more regulation, not less. If there is to be any hope of changing Australia’s downward trajectory, then Dutton needs to seek an expansive mandate.
I know some conservatives have near terminal cases of Trump Derangement Syndrome. But Trump sought a stunningly wide mandate, promising an array of things conservatives love: from fighting the culture wars, cutting government, ending wars, shutting the border, bringing back free speech and taking on the transgender lobby. And he won. And he’s doing them all. And right now, Trump’s popularity is at an all-time high, an approval score of 54%. And that approval is highest of all amongst young people, at a staggering 60% amongst the 18 to 29-year-olds. They want change most of all, not mealy-mouthed quibbling.
Dutton needs to come out with clear, explicit pledges to vastly cut immigration and to fight the culture wars (a vote-winning issue, I promise you). I’d also like to see him revisit Net Zero and promise to get out. Win on that platform, and then it’s possible to take on our unrepresentative Senate. Come on, Peter. Enough of this British Tory-like squeamishness and small target cautiousness.
Dr James Allan is the Garrick Professor of Law at Queensland University.This article was first published HERE
Again, though, those British Tories won a lot of elections, didn’t they? That can happen when you opt for the smallest of small target election strategies. It can work and you get elected and re-elected – until your party base starts to dessert you. (See Germany. See Britain. The uniquely bad voting system makes disciplining your own side of politics much harder here.)
Let’s ask a different question to the one with which I began: why do we, the voters, want right-of-centre politicians to go into politics? And to that, I can promise you that the answer is never ‘just to win elections’. No, we want the conservatives we elect to do substantive things that help make Australia a better country. Sure, we’re a broad church, and so what those things are is moderately contestable. Reasonable righties will disagree. But none of us likes this woeful strategy of the advisor class that amounts to ‘let’s park ourselves an inch to the right of Labor and move ever further left with them as they head towards the Greens’.
And that brings me to Peter Dutton. Is he a gigantic improvement on Turnbull and Morrison? You bet he is. Do I want him to win the upcoming election? I most certainly do. And I think he will too. But all that readily conceded, it is infuriating to watch the Team Dutton advisors – are any of them over 29 years old? – adopt a small target approach. Net Zero? They won’t pledge to leave, even though this is the most propitious time in decades to call that bulldust for what it is – with the US now joining China and India in ignoring its idiocies and so making anything we do here to impoverish ourselves and virtue-signal completely meaningless and downright stupid. Dutton’s advisors are likewise completely clueless about the importance of free speech and sign the Libs up to woeful freedom-infringing laws so that we have to hope for the US to strong-arm us into a sane position as regards free speech and to gainsay our woeful eSafety Commissioner. Immigration, you say? Softly, softly, softly is the Dutton Team’s approach. The ABC and making those who want to pay for this propaganda outlet do so with their own money? Don’t worry, we’ll look at that after the election, old boy.
It’s almost as though the Dutton advisors only care about winning an election a la Merkel and the British Tories rather than – you know – achieving stuff. Well, as paid advisors, that’s probably all they do care about. But politicians need to care about achieving substantive outcomes. Legacies matter. And that means you need a mandate. Our dysfunctional Senate is already asymmetrical in approving big spending, not small. And more regulation, not less. If there is to be any hope of changing Australia’s downward trajectory, then Dutton needs to seek an expansive mandate.
I know some conservatives have near terminal cases of Trump Derangement Syndrome. But Trump sought a stunningly wide mandate, promising an array of things conservatives love: from fighting the culture wars, cutting government, ending wars, shutting the border, bringing back free speech and taking on the transgender lobby. And he won. And he’s doing them all. And right now, Trump’s popularity is at an all-time high, an approval score of 54%. And that approval is highest of all amongst young people, at a staggering 60% amongst the 18 to 29-year-olds. They want change most of all, not mealy-mouthed quibbling.
Dutton needs to come out with clear, explicit pledges to vastly cut immigration and to fight the culture wars (a vote-winning issue, I promise you). I’d also like to see him revisit Net Zero and promise to get out. Win on that platform, and then it’s possible to take on our unrepresentative Senate. Come on, Peter. Enough of this British Tory-like squeamishness and small target cautiousness.
Dr James Allan is the Garrick Professor of Law at Queensland University.This article was first published HERE
3 comments:
Seems to be worldwide phenomena. NZ has yet to wake up too!
Luxon promised things like downsizing the government and cutting spending. He was given a mandate to do these things. Yet, halfway through his term we see nothing. Expenditure is up, the government has shrunk a miniscule amount.
Then we see Trump just get straight into it. No hesitation, just do what was promised. Then we look at Luxon, nothing but platitudes and wearing a T-shirt over a suit jacket.
We are doomed.
You are absolutely right James, but have you thought that the problems we see with conservative parties may not be problems to them, at all. Things may be progressing to plan. Well that’s what it looks like if the plan is actually to destroy the home culture. And it seems to apply to all the Anglophone countries. Or am I being. a little cynical here?
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