It’s hard to overstate how much the Liberals had going for them in Dunkley. Historically a Liberal seat, in a cost of living crisis, a candidate with name recognition as a local mayor, the absence of right-wing parties like One Nation and Clive Palmer’s United Australia, top spot on the ballot paper, far-right billionaire-funded attack machine Advance publishing xenophobic ads, no change of government riding on the results. How could it go wrong?
Victorian Liberal Senator Jane Hume told her News Corp handlers there was “white hot anger” in the electorate. Opposition Leader Peter Dutton even felt relaxed enough, according to the Financial Review, to put in a sneaky trip to Perth to bend the knee to mining heiress Gina (do we need a ™ for that?) Rinehart on Thursday.
As it turned out, there wasn’t even mild annoyance in the electorate. Labor’s Jodie Belyea lifted the party’s proportion of the primary vote a tad. The primary vote “swing” to the Liberals, currently 6.58%, is less than the combined Hanson/Palmer vote in 2022 (on the other hand, the Greens vote fell in a heap, and it seems little of it went to Labor either). The net result is a bog standard by-election swing. Maybe all the white hot angry voters were too enraged to fill out their ballots properly.
So much for Dutton’s Plan A. His Plan A has been to sell grievance and resentment to the electorate, telling them whom to blame for their problems — chiefly, migrants and foreigners and Labor. Conspiratorial whispering about “Labor’s secret agenda for a big Australia” has become a shouted narrative of foreign rapists and criminals assailing Aussie women. “Rapists, paedophiles and murderers” shouted the Advance attack ad, straight from the US Republican playbook. “If you do not want to see Australian women being assaulted by foreign criminals, vote against Labor,” deputy leader Sussan Ley tweeted before that blew up in the Liberals’ face.
Even after that, Dutton persisted. “The prime minister has taken a decision, his government’s taken the decision, to release 149 hardened criminals, including people who have poisoned Australians, including people who have raped and sexually assaulted children and women,” Dutton said on the eve of the by-election. “They took a decision to release those people into the community … if people here in Dunkley are worried about law and order issues, if you’re worried about crime, the last person you want to vote for is Anthony Albanese, because the prime minister spent his entire adult life arguing against strong border protection…”
“People are sleeping with weapons next to themselves,” the Liberal candidate Nathan Conroy chipped in.
As it turned out, the voters of Dunkley weren’t buying the Blame the Foreign Rapists shtick. Which leaves Dutton — where?
The complaint, even from within the Liberals now, is about the lack of policy from Dutton. At no stage has Dutton explained in detail how he’d address the cost of living, or housing, or energy. True, the Liberals have retained their 2022 election commitment to allow people to access their super for housing, which would pump tens of billions into an already crazy housing market, benefiting baby boomer Liberal voters and merely pushing prices up for everyone else. And we’re now told the opposition leader will unveil details about his nuclear power plan. But nuclear power is a culture war, not a policy — a culture war in support of coal-fired power because it requires us to prop up coal-fired power stations decades beyond the end of their lives.
This is Dutton’s, and the Liberals’, big problem. They don’t do policy. They do favours for mates, attack enemies or engage in culture wars designed to engender and exploit grievance. Super-for-housing is about destroying the evil industry superfunds as much as looking after the Liberals’ retiree base. Nuclear power is about delaying climate action to prop up fossil fuels.
The idea that Dutton and the Liberals can now transform from culture warriors into serious policy salespeople for the next election defies history. The last Liberal to campaign on policy was Malcolm Turnbull, who went to the 2016 election on an optimistic policy of embracing innovation and digital technologies, only to be undone by the Nationals complaining it upset the farmers, and Labor’s appalling Mediscare lie. Before that, you have to go back to 1998, when John Howard took a GST to an election.
In between 1998 and 2016, and in 2019 and 2022, all the Liberals have offered are scare campaigns, with the exception of 2013, when they just had to let the electorate cast judgment on Labor’s Rudd-Gillard antics. They find it particularly hard to do policy in opposition — remember the policy costings debacle of 2010? What experience do they now have to devise and sell policy that isn’t just another culture war or weapon of resentment and victimhood?
Maybe Dutton will stick with Plan A a bit longer.
What Coalition policies do you agree with? Let us know your thoughts by writing to letters@crikey.com.au. Please include your full name to be considered for publication. We reserve the right to edit for length and clarity.
The trouble is, the Coalition can’t reveal their their true policies, which are ballot box poison. They can’t go into a campaign telling us what they intend to cut, what they intend to privatise and what user-pays charges they intend to increase or introduce. They can’t tell us that they intend to run down Medicare to the point of collapse so that they are “forced” to “rescue” it through private insurance arrangements. They can’t tell us that they intend to further defund teriary education. They can’t tell us they intend to support owners and developers of housing above homebuyers. They and seem to be reluctant to tell us that they prioritise fossil fuel profits over climate action, even though that is patently obvious to anyone who looks at what they have been doing for the last 30 years. They can’t tell us that they intend to force people off social welfare onto jobs that pay way less than than the current minimum wage.
No, much easier to cultivate fear, anger and distraction.
What!? Dutton says the Libs are the working people’s party!
Lol.
Dutton is referring the tradition image of “working people”. That “tradition” being well described by Dickens. 😉
I think Dutton is covertly referencing the first of the white-shoe-brigade spivs, John Singleton, who tried to get the “Workers’ Party ” up and running, but which was actually a front for his ilk. Nothing to do with real workers, just admen and speculators scamming the hoi polloi. Nearest I could get to it in historical terms was Moseley’s fascist attempt that saw him jailed for the duration of WW2.
Oh, yes. And don’t forget Dutts threw in a policy of reinstating those massive planned tax cuts for the top end of town. They really are the pits.
Yes but it’s even more extreme than this.
The last circa 10 years (conservatively from the GFC to now but possibly going back to the Bush Jnr presidency)is different to the previous 20-30 years (from circa Thatcher/Reagan through to the above).
The earlier period could be described as ‘neo-liberalism’ in the sense that most people use it i.e. as basically a variation of free market competition.
The period we are in now is ‘oligarchism’.
It’s fundamentally different because ‘neo-liberalism’ nominally involves the state getting out of the way and letting the private sector do its thing.
‘Oligarchism’ involves the state intervening specifically to protect a few vested interests and to prevent free market competition.
Oligarchism is inspired by Russia after the collapse of the Soviet Union where a lot of Russians (and Westerners including key Brexiters and Trump supporters) made their fortunes through cronyism and authoritarianism. The beneficiaries of Russian oligarchism (and similar oligarchism in other countries like Saudi Arabia) became integrated in elite circles particularly in Britain and the US.
These groups in the West became further emboldened after the Bush Jnr presidency (Enron and the riches of the Iraq war) and the GFC and subsequent bank bail outs.
Many are also tied to toxic industries especially fossil fuels which unite oligarchs across Russia, the Middle East, the US and Australia.
We can see their opposition to free market competition in their attempts to prevent renewables from competing through subsidies given to fossil fuels and regulatory barriers. We also see their opposition to democracy including voter suppression in the US and Britain, and the disinformation campaigns.
Oligarchism is a 21st century version of fascism and should be distinguished from neo-liberalism for the above reasons.
I think it’s a continuum; neoliberalism is a recipe for oligarchism. I guess I’ve thought that for while; there’s a front page of the Herald Sun from 2001 featuring me at the Mayday protest with a placard saying SMASH THE OLIGARCHY.
The Scum just keep trying it on, to see how much they can get away with. This has always been evident to those of us who pay attention; unfortunately we seem to be absolutely terrible at getting anyone else to pay attention. It’s as if our only hope is that the Filth mightily misjudge and severely overplay their hand, but on one hand it’s hard to imagine what will actually jack up the lemmings, and on the other, the Vermin have had plenty of practice at the old frog-boiling palaver.
Everywhere you go people seem to be so involved staring into their phone to notice what is happening in the world they live in.
Yes neoliberalism did inevitably lead to oligarchism but there are key differences particularly in the role of the state and democracy.
Also a key difference is that neoliberalism is generally associated with a positive period for capitalism. It’s wot won the Cold War – no less. Thatcher/Reaganism ramped up capitalism during the dying days of communism (It was all propaganda of course) but the narrative is very difficult to counter. It’s all Ferrari v Lada.
People are less keen on the last 10 years where inequality has grown higher than at any previous period not least with a whole generation priced out of the housing market and watching fossil fuel industry destroy the planet without any consequences whatsoever.
The past 10 years has also fundamentally produced different types of leaders. Trump, the Brexit Party and the modern Coalition are fundamentally different to their predecessors. Many traditional conservatives are uncomfortable with these groups but can’t put their finger on why because they think they nominally stand for free market capitalism, small state, personal responsibility, and conservative values. But that is all a lie – they’re fundamentally opposed to these things. They are the antithesis of oligarchism (even the conservative values are just a front).
I found it useful to discuss the difference and had similar thoughts myself, thanks.
Quite right Kimmo. Neoliberal ideology as espoused by the Mont Pelerin society, founded by Friedrich Hayek and friends in 1949, inevitably leads to oligarchism. Oligarchism was not inspired by Russia. After the collapse of the soviet union the Mont Pelerin Society’s ideology formed the blueprint that was imposed in Russia and rapidly and inevitably led to the situation that exists there today. Oligarchism is always the unavoidable and inevitable consequence of implementing the discredited Mont Pelerin Society neoliberal ideology in its purest form.
Yes. “They’re the same picture.” Or more accurately, they’re a picture of the same thing taken at different times.
Neoliberalism is about the state handing over its responsibilities to the private sector (because business knows best).
Oligarchies are where that inevitably ends up.
It’s the same as when people try to make a distinction between “capitalism” and “crony capitalism” (which are the words people who don’t like the negative connotations of neoliberalism use instead).
It’s different from Fascism in that Fascism has a strong, authoritarian and hyper-nationalist State taking charge.
Thanks so much for this analysis.
That makes sense except that every business owner that uses underhand tactics to get ahead that isn’t already an oligog, is a neoliberal wanting to remove/buy all competitors .
How’s BK, with “Labor’s appalling Mediscare lie”?!
Pff… It was a bit of hyperbole perhaps, but fundamentally true. The LNP would never have a formal policy of axing Medicare, but anyone with a clue knows how much they hate it and always have a go at racking up those thousand cuts when they get a chance.
Labor would do well to bust out more of this sort of thing, because it seems there are vast swathes of the electorate who are too thick to figure out what the LNP are about.
How about, “The National Party want to kill all the fish in our rivers to fill the pockets of their rich mates,” and so on. Having a proper go at using the right’s own tactics against them would deal some heavy blows, I bet.
Agree entirely . It would be nice to see the ALP try some nice hyperbolic attacks along the lines of ‘The Nats want to kill fish in our rivers ..&etc…” , but you can be sure they would be immediately attacked all of the media including our ABC for engaging in unseemly campaign tactics , ignoring as they have in the past the outrageous lies from the LNP .
We saw enough when they were in Government on how they brought Medicare, the ABC and several other Government structures to their knees. Their outright intent was to destroy equity and many of our checks and balances for good governance. There’s been no change since they lost Government in their intent
It’s always been weird to me how, of all the various public and social security systems, conservatives seem to have a special hatred for public healthcare. Even more so than, say, the dole.
If you just try on the notion that conservatism is an ideology for evil cnts who like to pretend they’ve earned their privilege and that those without it deserve artificial scarcity, it all clicks into place.
It’s not so much that they hate public health care, it’s that this is a pot of gold waiting to be exploited by the private sector and after all the privatization we’ve been through, that’s a rare “commodity”.
As I recall, this was triggered by the Neo-Liberal Party’s plan to outsource the backroom Medicare functions: https://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/federal-government-defends-medicare-outsourcing-plans/qkf2k4tzz
Thin end of the wedge for the end of Medicare (Medibank MkI).
Apparently, all Dutton and the Flying Landlady Susssan Ley have to offer is fear and xenophobia. Even with the assistance of a torrent of far-right dark money, it didn’t work. The Dutton-Ley-Joyce LNP deserves another term in the wilderness. Indeed, they deserve an eternity in the wilderness.
Dutton and Ley ! Those two look so overtly nasty !
As long as they are center stage, Albo doesn’t have to worry too much.
You are right Martin.
If/when those two leave politics they will have long and distinguished careers in show business awaiting them. Dutton as a Lord Voldemort stand-in and Ley would make a fortune impersonating a Queensland cane toad.
At first glance, that’s right. But then I had exactly the same reaction when Tony Abbott took over the Liberal Party and made it obviously unelectable.
I’m a far left social progressive who hated Abbott’s policies, but I have to concede the guy has charisma. Dutton and Ley on the other hand…
‘Charisma’? A semi-naked gorilla in budgie-smugglers doesn’t scream charisma to me.
It did to enough people for one election, even if not to us.
Abbott. Charisma? LOL
Spud thug has charisn’tma
True – but the demographics have changed since then. LNP voters are getting older and aren’t being replaced. Demographers keep pointing this out. When Howard cooked up the divide and conquer strategy 30 years ago (as the ALP had co-opted the Menzies formula capturing the middle-ground strategy)….the LNP voter base was 30 years younger. It was a strategy that, politically (rather than ethically or for the benefit of the nation) worked. Unfortunately for the LNP they haven’t had any (new) ideas since then and keep recycling the same old tropes – at each election cycle to less return. My heart bleeds…..
And come the next election (State or Federal), they’ll wheel out Bernie, sorry, Johnny to rally the troops, and the younger voters will wonder who the f*ck is this codger.
They might think it is Gollum from Lord of the Rings.
Good point, same warning came from the US GOP Cafe con leche Republicans on following deep seated ideology masquerading as an electoral strategy that denigrates other and future prospective voters with demographic change.
They released the ‘Smoking Gun Memo’ that asked/warned the GOP to desist from dog whistling immigrants, Latinos, great replacement and the border over a decade ago during Obama years; though Fox News/MSM & alt right via Bannon, Farage, Orban et al. have made sure it remains an issue.
Further, they warned that it was deep seated eugenics masquerading as an electoral strategy, developed by dec. white nationalist John ‘passive eugenics’ Tanton’ now known as ‘Tanton Network’; the latter admired white Australia policy, visited and was hosted by SPA.
https://www.texasgopvote.com/immigration/tragic-dysfunction-america-s-broken-immigration-policy-and-need-action-0012320
See related outcomes in The Voice, bipartisan border policies locally, Brexit, Trump etc. appealing to ageing and low info monocultural voters, especially in regions and via MSM.
https://www.texasgopvote.com/immigration/tragic-dysfunction-america-s-broken-immigration-policy-and-need-action-0012320
Good point, same warning came from the US GOP Cafe con leche Republicans on following deep seated ideology masquerading as an electoral strategy that denigrates other and future prospective voters with demographic change.
They released the ‘Smoking Gun Memo’ that asked/warned the GOP to desist from dog whistling immigrants, Latinos, great replacement and the border over a decade ago during Obama years; though FoxNews/MSM & alt right via Breitbart, Infowars et al. have made sure it remains a daily issue.
Further, they warned that it was deep seated eugenics masquerading as an electoral strategy, developed by dec. white nationalist John ‘passive eugenics’ Tanton’ now known as ‘Tanton Network’; the latter admired white Australia policy, visited and was hosted by SPA.
https://www.texasgopvote.com/immigration/tragic-dysfunction-america-s-broken-immigration-policy-and-need-action-0012320
…. Boris and Natasha?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9S6i_xLUlkM
Ley reminds me of Liz Truss, off with the fairies, bereft of ideas and totally out of her depth.
So it’s likely Ley will be our PM before too long…
Even if so, and she isn’t starting from government as the appalling Truss did, she’d last about as long.
For about 8 minutes
Sounds about right. The most wonderful bit about Truss’s 15 minutes of fame, or infamy, is that it still gives her the entire panoply of perks due to any ex-PM. She gets the pension, the other allowances, the right to get a big long list of her mates given honours, up to and including seats in the House of Lords, a lifetime of security service protection and so on. And take a look at anyone who lasts a few years as PM. They typically appear to have aged two or three years for each calendar year in office. Truss got out before the job could mark her. So Truss is ‘off with the fairies, bereft of ideas and totally out of her depth’. She’s still having a great time. She’s swanning around the world right now, being paid a fortune to share her insights with adoring audiences all over the place, (although nothing like so much as her predecessor Johnson). The joke is on the poor bloody public, back in the UK. Maybe she’s not as daft as everyone thinks? Would it be as bad for the Australian public if Ley pulled the same stunt? Near enough.
This idea of running the country with a Prime Minister instead of an absolute monarch is supposed to be an improvement, but at least when Lady Jane Grey was quickly removed from the throne, they did the job properly and chopped her head off. Maybe they were on to something. The same could apply to any PM who is removed other than by a general election. This would make sure MPs only remove a sitting PM when they really mean it, but the result would be really final.
And Rupert as Fearless Leader….
Where are these “policies” going to come from? The shadow cabinet are carryovers from the Morrison government, a less talented group I have never seen. This bunch specialises in doing nothing unless it might wedge Labor or benefit their friends.
They talk about appealing to working people in the suburbs but oppose anything Labor has put up which might help them, eg in industrial relations they have backed the employers organisations.
The US right supplies the playbook for so much of their Aus brethren’s approach. In that sphere, the last good faith policy brought to an election was the GOP’s 2001 No Child Left Behind Act which, even if perhaps well intentioned, was a failure – more about loading on more testing etc than actually improving literacy. Since then, nada. The right simply pitches fear and division and culture wars. Their actions when they have power are all about enriching their cronies.
Whatever the Liberal party’s policies, lack thereof, or aversion to, might be, can I suggest that Mr Keane and similar stop with the ‘retirees vote LNP’ bulldust?
As a retiree I thoroughly resent the implication that I am braindead, greedy and ignorant of the needs of either society in general or my grandchildren in particular.
It’s just plain lazy journalism to suggest that ‘we’ will always put self-interest first by voting for a party that favours individual rights over society, and ignores the fact that as children of the sixties, we were the ones who started the communes, got out on the streets to demonstrate and largely invented green politics.
Try and find some other signifier for rightwing voters, Mr Keane, because branding them ‘retirees’ is neither accurate nor helpful.
Agree. I’m one of thousands in the same boat. Far more interested in seeing a fair society than trying to rip off my neighbour for a few bucks.
The children of the sixties may have started the communes etc, but also dropped the ball on the best chance we’ve had to save the world from dominator culture. The boomers had the numbers and the groundswell to smash the machine, but in the end they just became cogs in it.
My generation came along in the 70s to witness that chance disappearing in the rearview, and to swallow the realisation that we’ve entered the dark timeline.
“The children of the sixties may have started the communes …”
They didn’t!
It was the Children of the Depression and WWII. Israel gave the Commune system media oxygen back in the late 1940s, when Nation building we needed.
Back to blaming the boomers, eh? Yet another whine that sounds a like ‘I didn’t do it, I wasn’t in the room.’
So, according to your statement, the ‘boomers’ held the dynamics of society in a squirrel grip and no-one who came after had any responsibility or power to act? It was up to us to make the world a better place so everyone who came after could sit on their ars… sorry hands, and bask in the golden light of progress?
The timeline you speak of is a continuum, in other words we inherited some sh*t, did what we could to turn it into a garden, then you inherited a partially landscaped paradise, and so on and so on.
Ageism isn’t a pretty thing, and absolving oneself of responsibility for action by blaming the previous generation isn’t either.
Now back to my garden, which is flourishing because of all the sh*t I give it. And I grow veggies, fruit, flowers and feed for my animals, a lot of which I give away.
What do you do to change the world?
It’s not ageism to say I was born after the death of hope. And since I have a hard time believing in free will, I don’t have much use for blame, either. There are complex situations driven by vast quantities of physical causes and effects, and people’s brains don’t exist outside of that.
IMO, anyone who can recognise what an absolute stranglehold the forces of greed and domination have over humanity, should also be able to recognise that there was a tiny window between 2/3 and 3/4 of the way through last century where that might have been challenged. And that the only way such a profound shift could have occurred would have been via the psychological synthesis afforded by LSD, happening en masse.
The brutal and oppressive shenanigans of power closed that window quick smart; LSD became subject to intense demonisation and enforcement, while the commodification of education, housing, health services etc, saw to it that people had to operate lower on Maslow’s hierarchy. By the time I came along and tried to get anybody to agree that the world needed saving, I was met with near-universal apathy, because the moment was lost. The total fizzle of Anonymous and Occupy is testament to the fact that people are too beaten down to worry about the future when next week is such a concern.
It’s great that you enjoy the privilege of having a patch of dirt to play nature on. I too enjoy that privilege, at least until interest rates catch up with me. But I’m not sure how you can equate using your garden productively with any sense of hope. What people call hope is a shambling obscenity; hope is a fkn zombie.
Does my head in, how people seem to miss the vast difference in scale between the personal and the systemic.
Firstly I did not allude anywhere to the concept of hope. I do what I do not in hope (although a good crop of pears does remain an earnest wish) I do it for the personal satisfaction of beating the ‘system’, in this case that perishing bloody mercantile duopoly that everyone is currently in the thrall of, by not needing to pay them what they demand of consumers for a single piece of fruit.
My ‘hope’, if you like, is that everybody else will one day choose to do something similar and thereby beat the b*st*rds at their own game. Capitalism requires the market to decide, so if the market, ie individual consumers acting collectively, ‘burger off’ perhaps the personal can overcome the system. The system only exists because we as consumers and voters are too enthralled to buck it. We do have free will but if you choose not to exercise it, that is up to you.
Grow tomatoes on your patch of dirt. Or stinging nettles if you prefer (delicious in a wild greens pie). You might even feel a wee bit better if you do something productive instead of just wallowing in despair.
I think Kimmo has inadvertently identified the weak link generation that let go of the ball – gen X (Scomo’s generation – and mine!). The boomers had the numbers and that led to huge changes (the western world before and after the 1960s is two different places). The current young generation appears to be as up for change as the boomers were – but without the numbers; they should probably ally themselves with that cohort rather than dissing them – together they’ve got both the numbers and the experience. And feel some sympathy for gen X – yes they twiddled their thumbs during the 1980s and 90s (probably playing pacman) and pissed away the momentum of the 1960s and 70s – but they were under the impression at the time that all the big battles had been won….
As a primary school kid in the 80s, I was attending nuclear disarmament rallies with my parents, and having nightmares about WWIII. But most of my parents’ contemporaries were starting to drink the neoliberal koolaid, and being convinced that privatisation was a good thing, while they wondered about getting in on the property market.
Me too (re the rallies) – but it wasn’t my parent’s contemporaries buying the koolaid – it was my contemporaries – a process so obvious at the time a TV series was built around it – Family Ties – where it’s the genX kids (MJ Fox) that shifted to the right, while their parents stayed where they were – and that’s pretty much how it was. Compare the youth market films of the 1980s to those of the late 60 and 70s and the cultural changes are obvious – films of mock/cod revolutionary fervor replaced by films of vacuous inanity (from ‘if…(1968) and Easy Rider (1969) to Top Gun (1986) and Ferris Bueller’s Day Off (1987) – all aimed at the same age group – just 20 years apart. Telling.
Statistically they do though. Over-65s have by far the largest first preference and 2PP vote for the LNP.
https://twitter.com/KosSamaras/status/1758975798760071188
The joy of statistics. The percentage of over-65s who vote for the LNP is the more relevant number, as compared to the percentage of other age cohorts doing the same, or the percentage of over-65s who do not.
Quote me those stats, Doctor.
And just for the record, Twitter (now called X because it’s an unknown quantity I imagine) isn’t a reliable source of anything, other than thousands of examples of idiocy.
I reckon you’ve let the red mist descend a bit there.
We don’t need you to define something as prominent as that thing which was once Twitter; we’re all aware that Musk has more or less achieved his aim for it. But come on, hats off to those remaining voices in the ravening wilderness of authoritarian incels, bravely shouting into the hurricane. You can’t just hand-wave away their existence because you’re in a huff.
Kos Samaras is obviously legit.
Literally there in the graph.
53% of over-65s vote [1] LNP. 61% 2PP
Next highest is 38% of 50-64yos. 51% 2PP
And while I don’t necessarily agree with Kos Samara’s politics, the polling is usually solid.
It is telling that even Michelle Grattan, who can usually be trusted to find every possible excuse for the Coalition and provide the most helpful interpretation of its antics, is now plainly saying the shadow cabinet is no good and woefully short of talent, with no obvious replacements in view.
Well past time for that old duck to ride off into the sunset, she must be in her 80s.
Downvotes by folks presumably of the opinion that yesterday’s generations haven’t had quite enough of a go at stuffing things up for everyone