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The success of One Nation at the ballot box in South Australia is really driving the normiecon establishment into hysterical overdrive. As the establishment ‘conservatives’ finally, dimly, realise that the ‘moderate’ experiment has been a catastrophic failure likely to doom their precious blue-tie Liberal party to extinction, expect the fainting-aunt hit-pieces to pullulate like so many shrieking loons in a Bedlam.
Hit-pieces like this.
When the Liberal Party was in the hands of solid-blue conviction conservatives such as John Howard and Tony Abbott, One Nation’s appeal was limited. Yet the more bland the Libs become, the more One Nation thrives. Outrage, clarity and conflict work well in the era of political TikTokisation. Measured, relaxed and comfortable fall flat.
Cory Bernardi clocked up tens of thousands of “likes” by standing in front of the Ngangkiku Ngartuku Kukuwardli (otherwise known as the Adelaide Women’s and Children’s Hospital) to mock SA Health’s dual naming policy. “Why?” he asked. “No one knows where the Googa Waggly centre is.” You don’t have to be a humourless fright to find lame jokes such as this unworthy of a state political leader.
Yes, you do. That was bloody funny. We’re all sick to death of everything being ‘dual-named’ to some unpronounceable Oogabooga this or Gimmigimmiwannit that. And almost always at the behest of a bunch of pasty-white ‘Uncles’ or ‘Aunties’ whose sole putative ‘Aboriginal’ ancestor is lost so far in the mists of the Dreamtime that they’re about as plausible as a bunyip. That’s to say, slightly more believable than the average Bruce Pascoe ‘history’.
These race-baiting grifters are a boil on the arse of Australian society and, frankly, a good mocking is the least they deserve.
(And 10 bucks says that if Paul Keating had said the same thing, back in the day, the normiecons would be chortling into their snifters from their over-stuffed armchairs.)
One Nation’s campaign line – “we say what you’re thinking” – is more than just a slogan. It’s the complete mission statement of a party that is strong on conviction but light on policy. All talk but no action.
You mean, these policies? Perhaps Stuffy McStuffedshirt should spend less time sniffing in outrage and actually bothering to find out more about the straw-man he’s attacking. If he did, he’d find policies on everything from energy, to housing, taxation, Covid mandates and free speech.
All the stuff, basically, that a real centre-right conservative party should have been talking about for the last 10 years, instead of parroting the ‘moderate’ lines on ‘Net Zero’, mass immigration and ‘LGBTQ rights’.
But, no, he’s too fixated on trying to flog the dead Liberal horse.
In the 2021 WA election Zac Kirkup shrank the WA parliamentary Liberal Party from 13 seats to two all by himself.
Before Ashton Hurn became leader in December there was a widespread expectation the SA Libs would suffer a similar fate and would be replaced by One Nation as the official opposition. Yet while the Liberal Party has been humbled, it is institutionally intact.
Under the leadership of a country girl from Nuriootpa High, the Liberals are on track to return as a plausible seven-member opposition, albeit as a diminished force, but a basis from which to begin turning the party around.
He’s got to be kidding. As of writing, the Libs hold just four seats, with just another two likely to hold. Exactly half what they went to the election with. A loss of half your seats is a wipeout in anyone’s language. Meanwhile, One Nation is expected to claim another three seats, bringing them up to four. A 400 per cent increase from before the election. Their share of the vote has rocketed from three per cent at the last election to 20 per cent, putting them well ahead of the Liberals.
It is a reminder to the party that it can no longer dodge the Arthur or Martha question. The Liberals must resolve the ambiguity embedded in its name.
Is it a Liberal Party in the sense of being opposed to conservatism, like the governing Canadian Liberal Party? Or is it liberal in a conservative, 19th-century manner, accepting that while our institutions are not perfect, the last thing we should do is knock them down to clear the ground for the new utopia? The tension between the two visions manifests itself in issues such as climate change, hate speech laws, Aboriginal special privilege and immigration.
Which, let’s see... the Liberals are, respectively: climate change, gung-ho for; hate speech laws, also gung-ho for; Aboriginal special privilege, wishy-washy at best; and immigration, absolutely gung-ho for.
The Liberals have made their choice: they’ve taken the Canada route. Even the election of a wishy-washy conservative like Angus Taylor is fooling no one: the ‘moderates’ are still running the show. Witness how fast Taylor backtracked on the leaked, modest plan to reduce mass immigration just a little bit.
Just as they regularly gnash their teeth and wail about the Bad Orange Man in their opinion pieces – and get shredded in the comments – the normiecons can wail and tear their hair all the like about the Bad Orange Lady just as impotently.
