There’s an interesting piece in today’s Online Opinion on the difficulties many libertarians/classical liberals have with ‘big government conservatives’ as exemplified by the likes of Bush and Howard. The author, Patrick Baume, points out that one of the reasons for recent Democrat success in the US was libertarians deserting the Republican party in droves.
He wonders if the same thing is possible in Australia.
So what does all this have to do with Australia? While there are probably very few hard core libertarians of the American style in Australia, there is a significant libertarian leaning urban electorate that has come in to play in affluent, but now marginal, seats such as Wentworth and Bennelong in Sydney, Moreton in Brisbane and Boothby in Adelaide.
Although the Howard-Costello Government has never strayed into deficit spending and has indeed maintained strong surpluses, similar rumblings have started here, with conservative commentators becoming increasingly strident in their opposition to the government’s record tax take and “middle class welfare”, in particular family payments.
Opposition Finance spokesman Lindsay Tanner’s attack on “millionaires receiving welfare cheques”, while it may have been aimed at a working class audience, has in fact received considerable sympathy from those very millionaires, who would rather just keep their own money in the first place. Populist moves such as the killing off of the Snowy Hydro float and the obfuscation over Medibank Private have also disturbed many in the business community.
On the social policy side the picture has been bleak for some time. The government’s continued staunch - in principle if not in action - support of the Iraq war and the continued, and active, presence of deeply socially conservative minister Tony Abbott in the sensitive Health portfolio, as well as the prevailing mood indicated by Howard’s moral equivocation on the death penalty and failure to do anything about David Hicks all add to the malaise.
Although there are probably more pro-Iraq war libertarians in Australia than in the US, any support has always been lukewarm and heavily contingent on achieving good outcomes. Baume speculates that the ALP has a window of opportunity to attract some of the libertarian vote, but that they need to move swiftly:
The question remains as to whether the Labor Party has either the policy nous or political desire to go after these voters. The new leadership “dream team” of Rudd and Gillard has exactly zero runs on the board when it comes to economic policy, and while financial spokesmen Swan and Tanner are making all the right noises, it remains to be seen whether they will be given the power to stem the tide of the inevitable pork barrelling to come in the next nine months.
Discuss.
48 Comments
Along with the exchange rate the labor market is the most important component of the economy. The libs have at least attempted to deregulate the labor market to some degree.
Labor has already said they would roll it back. How could any libertarian vote for a party that says we’re going back to the bad old days of labor market restrictions? Add the swill about child caring etc. and we would be back to the European style of restrictions.
Howard should be criticised for the spending increases he has supported. However we should also remember what those dunces in the Labor party have said they will do to labor market reform.
How anyone can say Labor’s finance spokemen are reasonable when we know they will trash labor reform is astounding.
Middle-class welfare and big, regulatory government certainly gives me the irrits. I’m not a huge fan of social conservatism, either.
Sl
The other side are even more socially conservative but in a different way. They think increasing public funding of child care is a great achievment. In fact I would venture that Krudd is about as socially conservative as Howard on most issues.
Careful what you wish for.
When you are talking Labour/Liberal and small government, you are really talking about the softest brick. In practice they are both way off the mark.
That’s the problem, Stewart & JC. Jeezus I wish we had optional preferential in Federal elections.
I agree with this comment by Steve Edwards could easily be used in this argument.
“Of course, this confirms in my mind not only that a large chunk of the Left are romantic suckers who have learnt nothing from history, but also that they are incipient totalitarians who’ll drop their “concern” for civil liberties in a nano-second if there is even a modest chance of ramming their collectivist agenda through unchecked. Most interesting is that the same people are endlessly warning of the unaccountable executive power accumulating in “fascist” John Howard’s hands, yet are quite happy to endorse executive rule-by-decree in Venezuela, far in advance of anything Howard has gone after; this suggests that the Left’s real objection isn’t in the deployment of absolute power, but rather the agent who gets to exercise it (switch Stalin for Trotsky and Everything Would’ve Turned Out Just Fine). If you truly think that makes an iota of practical difference, then I’ve got a bridge in Sydney you might be interested in…”
Edwards… sorry.
I think its a cultural problem. Australia started life as a jail and in many ways it permeates our culture. Many of us still think about the government the way five year olds think about their parents, the source of infallible wisdom and a bottomless purse.
I remember an election night party in inner-city Melb (the one before last) and people moaning about another Howard term etc. I said it was a good thing because it would teach us how to get along without help from the government.
They thought it was a good joke but I was serious.
Fixed, JC. With any sort of luck I haven’t done anything weird to the front of the blog by doing so!
And yes, the more I think about that Chavez petition, the more it disturbs me, especially as quite a few people on it (like Warren Mundine) I always had pegged as sensible centrists.
The Chavez petition is very disturbing, SL. Here is a classic piece from the current Green Left Weekly on Venezuela.(http://www.greenleft.org.au/2007/697/36215)
“Nobody can quite believe their eyes and ears. More than 15 years after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the president of Venezuela, Hugo Chavez, has made it abundantly clear that his country is embarked on a socialist revolution. ”
It gets better….
“On its own, the announcement that the strategic sectors of industry and the country’s central bank will be brought under state control — like Venezuela’s existing policies of income re-distribution in favour of the poor and expanding free health and education provision — is only astonishing because of the neoliberal context of recent decades.” …..
And now, from a liberals point of view comes the real kicker….
“But the revolution in Venezuela is not just about economics and welfare. The structures of popular participation that are developing, and the united socialist party that is being formed, are designed to secure a transfer of power from the rich to the working class and the poor.
Chavez has already begun to replace liberal democracy with a participatory democracy that is responsive to people’s needs, not to the interests of capitalist elites. It is this, together with Chavez’s economic program and anti-imperialist foreign policy, that has led the US and the corporate media to portray him as a dictator in the making ”
So Chavez is dissolving the people and will no doubt elect another !
Morons !
For goings on in Chavez Land there is a good blog I have been reading for a while now.
Written by a reasonable and decent guy it seems.
http://blogs.salon.com/0001330/
is the guy living there?
he should get out when he can.
I wonder how many Libertarians live in those marginal seats around Sydney, the NSW Central Coast and Brisbane that will decide the next election. May I suggest that you could count them on the fingers of a leper’s hand?
I hate social liberals. Can’t they see how much harm has been done thanks to their policy prescriptions?
The shorter Rococo:
Some dummies ruin their lives when given too much freedom. Therefore for their sake the rest of us should give up our liberties.
That’s a very good blog, JC. Thanks.
RL, I’ll make the same comment I usually make in discussions like these: we cannot save people from themselves. And attempting to do so often produces even worse results than doing nothing. Milton Friedman’s essay on prohibition wrt drugs sets out the numbers very effectively.
Rococo
They are all libertarians - the incidence pot smoking and surfing (unencumbered by work) are at their highest levels in those electorates. They are natural liberals.
As a former smoker, I can tell you that excise increases (ie price hikes) on ciggies had absolutely no effect on my consumption. In fact, consumption was highest when death sticks cost the highest proportion of my income. Sin taxes are very regressive and do nothing to change behaviour. I am not so sure about hard drugs though - I think there is room for intervention (or bans) there.
A possible explanation for Warren Mundine’s signature - sometimes when people in that high profile and highly visible position are sensible and unpopuular on some issues they go along with other silly things to placate their supporters and backers.
We saw that 20 years ago in the debate on economic rationalism, when ALP dries like Dawkins went over the top in verbal attacks on the New Right. Possibly a similar strategy by Mundine, at least his stance on Venezuela does no immediate harm in Australia (apart from complete loss of his own credibility if anyone thinks he means it. I will give him the benefit of the doubt right now).
Are Bennelong and Wentworth really marginal seats? Is it very likely that John Howard and Malcolm Turnbull will find it diificult to retain their seats, yet alone lose them, at the next Federal election? I guess stranger things have happened, but I suspect that the most likely outcome is that they will continue to hold their seats with a reasonable degree of comfort.
“Are Bennelong and Wentworth really marginal seats?”
Dunno about Wentworth, but Bennelong certainly is. At the 2004 election, all the north-side seats in Sydney suffered a swing against the Coalition in spite of the wider electoral debacle against the ALP. 2007 won’t be as easy - there is an readily detectable sense of “It’s Time” in the air. My tip is that if the Coalition is defeated, John Howard’s electorate will be on of those to go - not the most marginal, but certainly the next level. His is the type of seat that will go in a government-defeating swing, though not in a situation where the government is “taught a lesson” but retains a small majority.
He would join Stanley Bruce as one of two PMs to lose their seats in a general election.
Patrick Baume seems to have no understanding of the difference between the US and Australia.
The Libertarians in the US didn’t desert the Republicans for the Democrats, they either voted Libertarian or didn’t vote at all, which hurts the Republican vote.
We have compulsory preferential voting.
Good point, Yobbo.
When were we ever anything but nonplussed with his efforts?
I can’t see any difference between Labor and Liberal from a libertarian perspective. They both like to take our taxes and piss them up against the wall.
I also don’t think we can rely on what Kruddy says as an indication of what he’ll do, any more than we can with John Hunt the Coward.
The Liberals say they are fiscally conservative and then tax the crap out of us.
Labor says they’ll regulate the crap out of us and then go and lower tariffs, float the dollar and deregulate the financial markets.
The only rational thing is to vote against the sitting member.
If anyone doesn’t think Bennelong is marginal, have a look at how much Eastwood and Epping have swung towards Labor over the last four elections, not just the last one.
As for Wentworth, I know King was a factor last time, but the inclusion of Darlinghurst and Wolloomooloo I think will gave Malcolm the odd sleepless night.
But I agree Bennelong is more likely to go.
David
The isssue is that Libs don’t want to stick to their party manifesto. If they did libertarians would have less of a problem with them.
Potential candidates like Prodos are good for the party.
I keep saying that the grass roots of the party is far more libertarian than people think.
The best thing that could happen is if the LDP does well over time as that would really put the fire under these guys.
“go and lower tariffs, float the dollar and deregulate the financial markets.”
Sounds like an endorsement for the ALP!
We could do without the minutiae of their regulation, though. Kruddy is very much an unknown quantity on economic issues
Thanks for dropping in, too, Patrick.
Nice to be here, and in reply to Rococo, those outer metropolitan seats around Sydney and Brisbane aren’t marginal anymore, they’re mostly moderately to entirely safe Liberal. That’s the point, Howard has been governing for that constituency, not the traditional liberal constituency, and it might bite him in the bum.
I’ve been over Howard as long as I’ve been libertarian.
Then I read the Liberal Party manifesto and sighed… are those in the Liberal Party even aware of it ?
Jono
The grass roots is very small L liberal in lots of ways. They are not libertarian instinctively but they share lots of values.
However there are a bunch of swamp creatures at the state party structure level who possess no ideology at all. They are simply in it for themselves. They are tuly a disgusting bunch.
The Prodos incident was a good example of what I am talking about. Prodos is essentially a virtuous libertarian and he was trashed by the party structure which is a wholly owned sub of Michael Kroger.
I think the biggest problem is that voting is mandatory in Oz which makes the big parties very complacent about their membership.
Yes JC, a very wise Liberal party insider wrote about this once
http://www.brookesnews.com/051710libparty.html
Yea, I know Jase.
The way they sold labor reform….(NOT) and the way they treated Prodos disgusted me. I continue to maintain that labor reform properly done and sold could have been the single biggest reform since Federation. It could have actually been the “positive” issue for the campaign in 07 instead of being on the defensive about it.
The average backbencher had no clue about this reform. It was truly disgusting.
I know the ABC uses some of these right wing trogs as a set up. They have what’s called the stupid chair when they go in and discuss matters from a right wing perspective.
Hugh Morgan did a fine job of selling the labor reform when he wss invited on the ABC. He announced that the miminum wage was 58% of the median wage. Got that? I don’t and neither does anyone else listening to this total drivel.
During the time this is going one the Fin Review announces he allegedly paid $750,000 for a painting. Nice top line defense they put there in front of the camera, hey. That’s exactly who the little guy wants to listen to when the unions are telling him labor reform means lower wages.
Good stuff, JC. Hope you’ve got the LDP in your sights. Jeez it’d be nice to give John Hunt the Coward a lit firecracker up the bum.
But look here Joe.
You spent that money and you got what you wanted. They trash it but then they take your ideas up anyway. Money well spent. I didn’t know where Howard got that from. It seems to be an idea that is just political poison. And yet enough people understand it so that he ensures his posterity with these ideas of yours and Jackson’s.
Once he perceives he has this enourmous political capital he does the right thing, half out of concern for his own posterity and half out of authentic residual righteousness. But the machine trashing you and your ideas initially is just part of the process.
The normal way of things would be that you would be matyred, Jackson’s ideas would still not be editorial policy at the financial review and these guys would cut Prodos off at the knees insofar as his political career is concerned. But then they steal the ideas of the three of you and we all get the benefit from them.
It’s not to be thought that the three of you had no effect.
This is one of the few first-world countries to suddenly free up the labour market like this recently…..
It came at the end of a sustained campaign by the three of you.
Otherwise it would seem to have come OUT OF A CLEAR BLUE SKY.
And it’s not to be thought that Howard……. having found himself suddenly the international statesman… It’s not to be thought that this double-coincidence was not partly and indirectly somewhat your doing.
You give me too much credit when I deserve no credit at all, GB. It was all Gerry’s work and ideas. He has a first rate mind when it comes to economics. It is amazing the Libs didn’t use him.
Prodos runs a weekly (most weeks anyway) open seminar on capitalism and its benefits.
I can’t recall his name but there is a great fellow in Sydney who ran under the libs for a senate seat. He was too far down the list to make it. But he is just great. Damn, forgot his name.
His work on property rights etc. is simply fantastic. Comes from Manly area.
On the issue of libertarians and their voting patterns, Cato recently published a fascinating study on the subject.
I went to UQ with Julian Sheezel - was even on union council at the same time for a while. Wonder how he finished up in Victoria?
“Wonder how he finished up in Victoria?”
How lucky is that, Hey. For Vic I mean.
I think you’re being facetious, JC
Who me? Naaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
SL
Add the Tories in the UK to the list of big-government Conservatives. I am concluding that small govt politics can only exist in recessions. People get too complacent during the good times
Well, yes. During a recession the tax base shrivels so finding a way to keep costs down starts to seem like a very good idea.
I think the solution is to slash the revenue base during the good times, turn surpluses into deficits and then attack spending. It’s tough to argue for spending cuts when you’re running a $30bn surplus,
Wrong. Taxes are too high.
That too, Mark. I’m talking about how standard pollies see things.
SL
I attended a college with Sheezel - but he had no friends- not one !