In an interesting article on the Independent Australia website, Dr Geoff Davies explores how the political landscape of the right currently appears.
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A symptom of worshiping at the alter of market fundamentalism, blinds neoliberals to the importance of social relationships, which in turn drives some (such as Thatcher) to deny the existence of society. Debating Neoliberals on factual grounds is pointless because they believe they already know the truth, and far right reactionaries (such as Palin) are anti-intellectual and hostile to any evidence based discussion.
Far right ideas such as 'we're being invaded by refugees', 'the country is broke', and 'the government is conspiring against the everyman' are not reliant on any standard of fact, and are immune to the irrationality and inconsistency in their claims. As a result, any opinion, however uninformed or misinformed, is accorded as much validity in the public domain as any other. This in turn explains the so-called content provided by the likes of Alan Jones and Andrew Bolt.
This argument for argument's sake is fed by the press who give voice especially to far right opinions on subjects such as climate change, giving a disproportionate weight to minority opinion that is not factually or evidence based.
As a result, anything that is socially liberal, anything involving compassion, indeed anything that reflects actual knowledge of the subject at hand, is attacked and denigrated. They have in their own way taken Decartes' famous line of 'I think, therefore I am' and re-badged it as 'I think, therefore it is so'.
The reality of this shift to the far Right is best demonstrated by former Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser's resignation from the Liberal Party in 2010.
Fraser sees himself as liberal (in the classic sense). His uneasiness with his former party grew with the unreasoning faith in free markets, and in response to the Howard years and that government's embracing of Pauline Hanson’s xenophobia.
Robert Menzies, founder of the Liberal Party and longest-serving Prime Minister, would surely also have resigned, were he still around, and if he didn’t he would be thrown out as a pinko lefty. In government, he spent a lot of government money on such things as the Snowy Mountains Scheme and universities, he presided over considerable “intervention” in the economy, he tolerated strong unions prone to frequent strike action, and he allowed the continuation of many public enterprises, including a major bank, two airlines and significant infrastructure.
While much of the mainstream press' time has been devoted to Labor losing its way, perhaps they should be much more concerned with the path the LNP is clearly taking.
I believe that we in Labor are currently spending significant and productive time in looking at who we are and what we stand for, and in Townsville that has resulted in greater activation and engagement in our area. There is still more to do (there always is), but positive change is happening.
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