The Paleo-Con

Liberal Council Brings Down Labor Budget

2008-06-12T11:05:00.002+10:00

As a paleo-con, I don’t feel the need to blindly defend the Liberal Party no matter what it does. That is why today I am going to take a big shot at my own side.

The Brisbane City Council brought down its budget yesterday. For those who don’t realise, Brisbane City Council is the one and only Council for the entire population of Brisbane – almost 2 million people – and has a Budget larger than Tasmania’s.

The Lord Mayor, Campbell Newman, - a man for whom I usually have great respect – broke his own promise that rate rises would be restricted to a low single digit figure. Even as recently as two weeks ago he was still repeating this mantra, when he must have known that the average increase would be 8.76%, and much higher for apartment owners and investors.

The Brisbane Times today has reported that rents will rise $45 a week thanks to the latest Budget. In a blatant money grab, Cr Newman has decided to value an apartment not on its share of the land which the whole block sits on, but on the whole value of the block of land.

According to The Brisbane Times:

The rates increase for unit owners will rise from 7.9 per cent for a unit on land valued at less than $1 million, to 9 per cent for land valued between $1 million and $5 million, by 16 per cent for land between $5million and $10million and 60 per cent on land worth more than $10million.

Sixty per cent on land worth more than $10 million! And to add insult to injury, these increases will be higher for investors. Investors’ units are rented by battlers attempting to save a deposit for their homes. Cr Newman has just made it a lot harder for them. I don’t know how many Councils in Australia have a differential rating system for owners and investors, but I bet there aren’t too many other Liberal Councils that do. As a Liberal I find it disgraceful, if not socialist.

It seems whoever we vote for, we get a bunch of baby-boomers who bought when property was cheap, and are determined to keep making their property values increase, while ensuring anyone under 30 stays renting for the rest of their lives. Ironic isn’t it – the Liberal Party helping to start a class war.

Much of the Budget is to be spent on upgrades to transport and roads that have been neglected for many years under the Soorley Labor Council, and I applaud this. However, one figure jumps out at me: $14.5 million for the King George Square re-development!!

It has been a mess for ages, as the bus tunnel is built underneath, however last time I saw it, it looked like it was almost finished. Who knows what has been spent on it already? But the only way another $14.5 million could be justified is if they returned the surface of King George Square to the pebble-tex that matched the building, instead of this dismal grey surface the BCC is plastering everywhere, and returned King George mounted on his horse to its original position. But I won’t hold my breath for that. The Lord Mayor is originally from Tasmania. He has no love for the traditional Brisbane that we Queenslanders love – the one with bright colours, not dismal grey. And obviously he’s a republican, since the namesake of King George Square will not be sitting on his horse in the re-developed one.

Brisbane used to be one of the most affordable capital cities. Now it is one of the least. It ranked below all other Australian capital cities in the recently released liveability index. A lot of our problems have been caused by southern migration pushing up demand for housing. Sometimes I think they are purposely trying to make living in Qld worse, having been so jealous for so long of our State of Origin sides, our wonderful climate, and until recently, our low taxes & charges. Is Campbell just one more of these Southerners hell-bent on turning Brisbane into another over-priced, yuppie, cafe-latte set, hell-hole like Sydney and Melbourne? You tell me.

This Budget is anything but a Liberal Budget. To make housing dearer for battlers and to punish those who invest in property with a higher tax rate is pure Labor Party. John Howard would never have brought down a Budget like this. It's un-Liberal and it's un-Queensland!

Love You Brisbane

2008-05-08T20:56:00.003+10:00

The old Channel 7 theme from the 1980s still brings a lump to my throat & reminds me of my childhood more than any other song I can think of.

This weekend Brisbane is celebrating the 20th anniversary of World Expo 88. It was an amazing exposition, and like many people, I have the most wonderful memories of it. To a kid, it was better than Disneyland. It was all the more amazing because when Australia was offered it all the other States turned it down. When Sir Joh put his hand up to hold Expo in Brisbane, many people scoffed. But Sir Joh yet again proved himself to be a visionary, and Qld pulled it off in a world class effort, with former Liberal Deputy Premier Sir Llew Edwards as Chairman.

But what is annoying me in all the publicity recently about the anniversary is that Brisbane was "just a country town" before Expo 88 & that it only got culture and joined the civilised human race in 1988. As someone who really did grow up in a country town, I have to say that Brisbane was an exciting large capital city. The only way in which it resembled a country town was that traffic jams were a rarity (thanks to the heavy spending on infrastructure by the Bjelke-Petersen Govt), and people were more friendly than Melbournians or Sydney siders.

My father and I spent 6 weeks in Brisbane in 1986 while my mother was in hospital. We had a lot of time to see Brisbane in depth. I remember going to the newly opened museum and art gallery in South Brisbane, going to the Lego Show at Myer in the McWhirter's Centre in the Valley, the thrill of the hustle and bustle of traffic around Turbot Street & Wickham Tce, the big skyscrapers, and the excitement when the iconic Riverside expressway came into view. We walked across the Gateway Bridge the day Sir Joh & Prince Philip opened it - another key piece of infrastructure that it has taken till now for Labor to upgrade!

Even now I marvel that the Expressway and SE Freeway was built way back in the late 1960s when it would have carried less than a quarter of the traffic today. It is also a condemnation of the Labor Government that it hasn't been improved since 1989 despite the massive population explosion, and now we have bridges developing cracks & being shut down because they are way past their used-by date.

Brisbane to me in 1986 felt exactly like a big city. Contrary to the nonsense peddled by southerners who didn't live here then, the cosmopolitan media, Joh-haters, and the Labor Party, Brisbane then did have a nightlife, you could get a decent coffee, we had a Chinatown and a large Greek community and no doubt other national communities, the restaurants weren't all closed on Sundays and after 8.30pm at night. If you want to go back to 1968, when Sir Joh became Premier & Brisbane City Hall was the tallest building in town, THAT was a country town. Far from keeping Brisbane as a backwater, it was the Bjelke-Petersen Govt that made Brisbane into a city that could host Expo 88 or the 1982 Commonwealth Games.

No one will ever argue that Expo 88 was anything but a positive influence on Brisbane. But to say it was the defining moment when a country town became a city is simply ridiculous and is not supported by the evidence of those of us who knew Brisbane before Expo & are not driven by some ideological obsession that refuses to acknowledge that anything good was ever done by the Bjelke-Petersen Government. Expo was one part of many things that have seen Brisbane evolve, just as Melbourne, Sydney and other cities have evolved since the 1980s.

So on the 20th Anniversary of Expo 88 here's to the best city in Australia - Love You Brisbane! You have a proud history & an even brighter future.

NSW Magistrate unable to leave personal political views out of court

2008-04-29T18:53:00.004+10:00

Controversial NSW Magistrate, Pat O'Shane, today heard the charges against several men caught during last year's Federal Election distributing fake electoral material in the electorate of Lindsay claiming that Labor supported terrorism and preached forgiveness for the Bali Bombers.

It was a stupid act, not authorised by the Liberal Party, and the offenders have been expelled from the Party. Justice O'Shane chose to give the offenders a lecture rather than convict them. However, her comments show an alarming ideological streak that is inappopriate in a magistrate.

According to ninemsn:

Ms O'Shane lamented the fact that there was not an offence of racial slander in Australia, and said the incident arose "in a political climate of divisiveness and disharmony which had been generated for a number of years".

"It's now recognised that it was altogether an ugly chapter in this country's history," Ms O'Shane said.

"But this country has moved on, we are trying to rebuild an inclusive, civil society and you need to be part of it," she told Mr Craig."

It seems pretty obvious that she is accusing the former Howard Government of creating this "climate of divisiveness and disharmony" which was an "ugly chapter" in Australia's history. And that it is the Rudd Govt who is "trying to rebuild an inclusive, civil society."

These sort of unfounded allegations would not stand up for a minute as evidence in Ms O'Shane's Court if presented by a defendant! What these people did is a crime now and was a crime back then. John Howard condemned the acts as soon as he heard about them. What the offenders did was cynically tap into the real fear that exists in the community since 9/11 that the beliefs of Muslims are incompatible with our free, democratic society, and that they may find themselves waking up to a bomb set off by people who hate our way of life. It is nothing to do with anything done by the Howard Govt. This fear was created by 9/11, the Bali Bombings, the London Bombings and many other terrorist attacks since 2001 which have been traced to Muslim extremists. And this fear has not changed one iota because a new Government was elected.

Ms O'Shane has made it clear where her allegiances lie, and it isn't to fair, impartial justice. Given her Aboriginality and her outspokenness on racial issues, she was probably a poor choice for hearing this case to begin with. It seems clear that, unlike most judges, she cannot divorce her personal opinions and beliefs from her work.

Add to that that in the past few years she has had an Apprehended Violence Order taken out against her by her husband and a drink driving offence, and you have to wonder whether she is a fit person to be sitting in judgement over people, or was her appointment just an attempt by the Labor Party to make sure that the Bench reflects "our multicultural community" rather than upholding the tradition of blind justice which has been the hallmark of Australian democracy since before Federation?

The Biblical basis of our Monarchy

2008-04-21T15:12:00.005+10:00

Since republicanism its rearing its ugly head again, I thought I would post this excellent link to a book called Fabric of Freedom. I first read this book in 1994 & am glad to see it is now online.

It really is a must read for Christians, as D.J. Pinwill's excellent Biblical schollarship shows in this book that the current system of government in Australia with the monarchy at its head, is all ordained by God in the Bible.

Things you may not know include:

* The Union Jack stands for the "Alpha & the Omega" - one of God's names in the Bible
* The Union Jack also signifies the broken Mosaic Covenant & the New Covenenant that washes our sins away.
* That the monarchs of Europe can all trace their ancestry to King David of the Bible, to whom God said: "your House will rule forever."

For the fascinating proof of the above and more, with extensive referencing of Biblical passages, click on the link. In particular, look at the pictures and diagrams of the Union Jack & what it symbolises.

Whilst Kevin Rudd might be a practising Christian, the socialists in the rest of the Labor Party are determined to get rid of the monarchy because it is Christian. Socialists do not believe in organised religion. Both organised religion and a monarch mean that people answer to a higher being than them, and they cannot stand this. You need only look at the old USSR, where they killed the Royal Family and then made Christianity illegal. To this day, Russian Christians are being persecuted by their Government.

Make no mistake, an attempt to make Australia a republic is an attempt to abolish our Christian heritage & remove a Christian symbol & reminder of Christ's sacrifice from our flag. God will surely judge harshly a nation which denies Him like this.

Rudd sensible on unemployed

2008-04-17T10:20:00.003+10:00

It's not easy being unemployed. It never has been. It's not just a simple case of applying for any job available. If you apply for something at a lower level of skill or pay than you have been used to, employers know that you are only going to leave the minute something better comes along, so you don't get the job. But in the simplistic thinking of those who have never experienced unemployment, particularly certain former Coalition Ministers, these people are all just lazy "job snobs" waiting for the perfect job to turn up.

I think this sort of simplistic, compassion-less policy making that pushed otherwise quite conservative people to boot out the Howard Govt. So hearing that the Rudd Govt has told agencies to have more compassion for the unemployed really is good to hear. Those in the Liberal Party who attack Dr Nelson as being "soft" would be wise to sit up & realise that this is the world we live in now. With the economy in such good shape, Australians are never again going to accept mean-ness with money in regards to some of the least well off. $230/wk really isn't a lot to live on, and most people receiving benefits have paid taxes over the years.

Glad to see that, in one area at least, the Rudd Govt is living up to its election promises.

Stone tells it how it is on Aboriginal Affairs

2008-04-16T22:35:00.005+10:00

Excellent article in the latest edition of Quadrant by former Senator and Rhodes Scholar, John Stone, on the problems in our Aboriginal communities.

I love Quadrant. I don't know of any other current affairs magazine in Australia that has the guts to tell it how it is, taking no notice of political correctness, the way it does. I encourage anyone who wants to see conservative ideas continue to have an outlet in this country to subscribe or buy a copy of Quadrant from your newsagent.

Church weddings

2008-04-13T23:03:00.004+10:00

We have a relatively new Rector at St Timothy's*. He has a policy of not marrying people who have been living together. From what I have read this policy is also not unusual in many Sydney parishes. It's a shame, because of the 10 or so Anglican Churches in town, St Timothy's would traditionally have undertaken by far the most weddings. For at least 20 years, every Saturday that I have been past St Timothy's there has been at least one wedding going on. Now it is strangely empty most Saturdays.

St Timothy's is a heritage-listed mid-19th century, sandstone cathedral-like church with a large seating capacity, plenty of parking, and in the centre of town only metres away from Town Hall and two four-star hotels - popular reception venues. And the grounds are just made for wedding photos. Most of the other Anglican Churches in town are of no great beauty. Just mid-20th century buildings that were built as cheaply as possible. For most nominal Anglicans, if St Timothy's wasn't an option, they would probably chose a civil wedding in one of the stunning parks for which the city is quite well known.

According to census stats, 26,000 people in this city identify as Anglican. If you added in Anglicans from the outlying areas & towns who would usually use St Timothy's for a wedding venue, you could probably almost triple that figure. That's a big potential flock that are no longer entering the doors of St Tim's for any reason whatsoever. Not to mention those from other or no denomination.

I see where the Rector is coming from, but does anyone else find it strange that the Church is standing in the way of someone actually getting out of "living in sin"? It means they'll most likely either remain unmarried or have a civil ceremony - which surely is not preferable to a Church wedding? Over to you....

*not its real name.

Sound appointment as GG

2008-04-13T18:23:00.005+10:00

Kevin Rudd is certainly looking after fellow Queenslanders since he became PM. He announced today that the next Governor-General will be the current Governor of Queensland, Her Excellency Ms Quentin Bryce AC.

Being a monarchist, I take a great interest in vice-regal appointments. Given Ms Bryce's former career as:

inaugural Director of the Queensland Women’s Information Service, Office of the Status of Women; Queensland Director of the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission; Federal Sex Discrimination Commissioner,

when she was appointed as Governor of Qld in 2003 I thought she'd be a leftie who would inapproriately intervene in politics and make political speeches the way that Sir William Deane did as Governor-General. However, she has been an exemplary Governor, and has not to my knowledge done anything other than be entirely impartial and fair in carrying out her duties.

Given that there was concern that Labor would appoint a highly political person like Justice Michael Kirby, who would not be able to restrain himself from making left-wing political comment, Ms Bryce is an extremely safe pair of hands. It looks like Australia may be returning to the trend not seen since before WW2 of GGs generally being selected from the ranks of State Governors, given Michael Jeffrey was also previously a State Governor. The unexpected problems caused to the Government by Deane and by Peter Hollingworth have pretty much seen to it that no one untried in a similiar role will be appointed GG again.

Ms Bryce has regularly been voted one of best dressed people in Queensland. So it can only hoped that over one of those State Dinners in Canberra, Ms Bryce can impart some style tips to Therese Rein - perhaps one of the worst dressed people in Australian public life.

So, who will be the next Qld Governor then? Chief Justice Paul de Jersey would be an excellent appointment. A highly intelligent man, who is also Chancellor of the Anglican Diocese of Brisbane. But this is unlikely. In the first instance, I doubt he is ready to retire from the Bench. Secondly, he was a Coalition appointment to the Court & is known to be a "black-letter" lawyer. That is, he believes Judges should only interpret law, not make it. Labor prefer judicial activist Judges that will implement their policy platform from the Bench - making laws they know would never get through Parliament.

I will look forward to The Courier-Mail tomorrow, as it will no doubt contain at least 5 possible new Governors - most of them guesses.

On another issue, 4 Corners ought to be interesting tomorrow night. I first heard about 10 years ago that the Right Faction of the Labor Party in Queensland owned many of the strip joints in Brisbane. It turned out the Brisbane media were fully aware of this, but unwilling to report anything bad about their Labor mates. Hopefully it will all be exposed now.

Finis

2008-04-13T14:23:00.004+10:00

Just got back from Church. Lovely service. Traditional BCP liturgy, just like the ones I have attended in Melbourne, London, NZ, and in the three Qld Dioceses. Sermon was both instructive and humourous. Convinced Dad to go with me. He said it was much as he remembered services in the CofE as a child in rural Qld, with the language updated. The average age of the congregation was quite young. St Luke's runs a soup kitchen & the young homeless people I spoke to after the service seem to have enjoyed it. I should point out that there is no compulsion for the recipients of the soup to attend the service. They chose to do that.

Anyway, afterwards I went to lunch with the Minister, the Church Warden (Dr John) & another lady (daughter of a priest in NSW in the mid 20th century). The last 2 both teach Sunday school among other things. We had a long discussion about this debate. Whilst they all confirmed that my understanding of lay Anglican beliefs is pretty standard for most of Australia bar Sydney and in most of England, NZ, Victoria, and several other Dioceses that those present had visited, they also urged me to end this debate since it is not in any way serving Christ. So end it I will and reach out the olive branch of peace to my fellow Christians in Sydney.

However the fact that we failed to agree on anything much does point pretty strongly to the fact that we are in fact two different denominations, if not more. Who can say which one is the "true" Anglicanism? Dr Muriel Porter argues that Sydney is the true inheritors of Puritan Anglicanism. Possibly this is what Michael Jensen and Craig meant when they said I didn't understand historical Anglicanism. However, puritanism was a pretty brief period in Anglican History. Officially, only the period between when Charles I was beheaded in 1649 & when Charles II was restored to the throne in 1661.

But what matters? So long as one believes that Jesus Christ is Lord & Saviour and genuinely seeks forgiveness for sins, one will end up in Heaven. I know my friends from the Baptist, Catholic, Lutheran and other traditions are going to Heaven and I consider Sydney Anglicans in the same vein.

I leave you with the phrase often used in Anglican churches to send out the flock:

May the peace that passes all understanding, be with you & remain with you always, Amen.

Churchie Does the Right Thing

2008-04-12T19:09:00.004+10:00

Well, I really upset a lot of people in Sydney with the last post. Even a member of the Jensen family took the time to respond! With any luck I have opened their eyes to the fact that Anglicanism as practised in the rest of the Western World is very different to that in Sydney. But somehow I doubt I have made the slightest difference to their views. The responses were all entirely predictable. Sydney people - Christian or not - are not exactly known for being interested in what goes on outside Sydney.

But now to something my fundie friends will be much more likely to agree with me on. Anglican Church Grammar School, or "Churchie" as it is known in Brisbane, has quite rightly said a firm no to boys bringing male partners to the school formal.

Which brings me to ask readers a question about single sex schools and homosexuality. I only know a handful of men who identify as gay. Of them, all but one went to an all boys school. One even admitted that when he finished school he found it much easier to approach men than women for a relationship, as he had no experience of women. Do other readers think that sending a boy to a single sex school makes it more likely that he will become homosexual? Clearly the majority of boys that go to all boys' schools come out straight. But if a boy is inclined towards homosexuality, through either his genes, hormones, or beliefs, is sending him to a single sex school going to make it almost certain that he becomes gay? If so, what should the Church's response be, given many single sex schools are run by various churches?

Kirby, Sydney Anglicans & fundamentalism

2008-04-11T15:16:00.005+10:00

I have debated extensively on this topic over at Craig's Blog , so I won't be accepting comments & debate on my blog on this topic. It's more just a statement of how I feel. And 'incredibly sad' probably sums it up. Sad at the splitting of the Church I love.

A friend told me once that to understand Sydney Diocese, you have to understand that Samuel Marsden (2nd Anglican clergyman to the Colony) hated the Irish Catholics, and so set up the Church of England in Sydney to be as opposite as possible to the RCs. I can believe it.

I really think it is time for the Diocese of Sydney and the rest of the Anglican Communion to amicably go our seperate ways. If it means all those beautiful buildings have to be given to those who consider them to be mere rain shelters (Philip Jensen's description of Cathedrals), then so be it. We shouldn't let money get in the way of things.

There is very little in either practise or belief that is recognisably Anglican about Sydney any more, and I am now informed that Sydney takes the OT literally - something I had thought only existed amongst the Pentecostals & other lunatic fringe churches, not amongst mainstream churches like the Anglican. Scripture, Reason and Tradition - the 3 hallmarks of traditional Anglican theology - have been abandoned for a literal interpretation of the English translation of the whole Bible.

An evangelical friend of mine who has studied at various Anglican theology colleges tells me that in Ancient Greek there is no punctuation, so when Christ said to the thief on the cross "I tell you today you will be in paradise with me," it makes a big difference whether the comma goes before or after 'today'. The Sydney Diocese, assuming it comes BEFORE today use it to call into question the Creeds when it says "He descended into Hell." This is a classic example of what happens when people take a literal interpretation of something that is only a translation & not the original.

So let's see what the Diocese of Sydney don't believe/practice that Anglicans everywhere else do:

1. That the OT is still to be fully obeyed. Other Anglicans believe Article 7 in the 39 Articles and the "Reason Scripture Tradition" idea that dates to the Reformation.

2. That the Apostles' Creed - written by the Early Church fathers and a continuing link not just with the faithful in the past, but with many other denominations who still use it - is incorrect.

3. No Ash Wednesday services - too Catholic apparently

4. No unleavened bread in the Communion - again too Catholic. Except it's actually Jewish.

5. Only Diocese in the World to ban the chausuble. Not that I care about a piece of clothing, but it's just another example of their anti-Catholic paranoia.

6. Most Anglican Churches bereft of crosses. Apparently their faith is so weak that someone might mistake the cross for God himself & start worshipping it.

7. Good Friday is just another happy-clappy party day with no reverence or solemnity.

8. No funeral services for Freemasons, even if you & your father before you worshipped at the Anglican Church all your lives.

9. Rather than going to Lambeth to put your case against the small MINORITY of people who believe in gay Bishops, you just refuse to come to the premiere Anglican Conference that only happens every 1 in 10 years.

10. Removing "Anglican" and your patron saint's name from the title of your church. If they are so ashamed of the Anglican name, why do they stay? I'd say "Anglican Church" holds much better credibility than "Community Church." When people don't state their denomination in their name it seems to me that they are trying to hide something.

I could go on, but my point is not that I mind these people doing all these things - it's a free country after all. It's that why do they stay Anglican & embarrass the rest of us? Why would they even want to stay Anglican when they differ with mainstream Anglicanism on so many points? They would be much more at home with the AOGs, or perhaps Southern Baptists. Or go it alone. Become Jensen & Jensen Community Church. Sydney is a very wealthy Diocese. They could easily do it. With any luck, the ordination of female Bishops in Perth might force their hand into leaving now. That is not an endorsement of female clergy, by the way.

To use a good old Anglican mainstream phrase, I am declaring myself "out of Communion" with Sydney. As far as I am concerned, the Anglican Diocese of Sydney is now a foreign denomination. I just really have no patience for bigotry, sectarianism, literalism, ignorance or fundamentalism. Neither does the rest of the First World part of the Anglican Communion. The Anglican Church I belong to is a welcoming, loving, tolerant, educated one, that lets God do the judging.

SMH editorial on Lambeth Boycott

2008-04-08T18:58:00.004+10:00

I don't usually read the Soviet Morning Herald, so I missed this unusually (for the SMH) sensible editorial on the decision of the Sydney Bishops to boycott the Lambeth Conference, where Anglican Bishops have been gathering every 10 years since the late 1800s. I sometimes get the idea that it is tradition & history that Jensen hates rather than because anything is "un-Biblical", particularly given his comments about Cathedrals being mere "rain shelters".

I don't agree with gay Ministers either, but if a group of MPs boycotted Parliament everytime another groups of MPs said something they disagreed with, they wouldn't be doing a good job for thier constituents. If they intend to remain part of the Anglican Communion, then the Sydney Bishops should be at Lambeth, representing the views of the Anglicans in their Diocese.

Labor hypocrisy on VIP jets

2008-04-07T18:28:00.004+10:00

It's not usual for me to write two entries on the one day, but I just read something that really irritated me. For at least 35 years, the Australian Government has had three VIP RAAF jets. One is always on standby for the GG, one always on standby for the PM, and the other is available for use by Ministers, the Leader of the Opposition, and for emergencies. Compared to Air Force One, or the planes reserved for use by the British Govt, these jets represent good value for money. They are not turned over frequently. In fact the one used by Keating in the early 90s was so old & noisy that it broke the noise limits at Tokyo, and PJK had to take a Qantas jet there.

But Oppositions will oppose, and the media will whinge that it is an extravagance for the PM of the day - when in reality it is a neccessity. So when it came time to replace the VIP jets under Howard, the Govt opted for smaller jets, so that they could not be accused of extravagance. The media were smiling on the other side of their face when they realised that meant they could no longer travel with the PM on his overseas trips. Sadly, this resulted in the tragic plane crash in Indonesia last year that killed two journos.

Now, Labor are in power, and surprise surprise, they are looking at getting bigger VIP jets because the smaller one isn't practical. The so-called perks of office in Australia - particularly the two Prime Ministerial residences and the VIP jets - cost Australians little compared to similiar countries, and the media & Oppositions should really call a truce on petty point-scoring over what are essentials, not perks. As we have seen, it eventually backfires on them. In the case of the VIP jets, very sadly with the death of two journos.

Roll on Costello

2008-04-07T14:30:00.004+10:00

In my experience, apart from several bottles of vintage plonk - most of which turned out to be off - there is little to be gained from correctly predicting the political future. However, recent developments in the Liberal Party leadership have me smiling, as I predicted this only days after the election.

Sadly, almost all agree that Nelson will be rolled by Turnbull sooner or later. While Turnbull is wildly popular with the rank & file - a good reason not to adopt Chris Pyne's idea of letting the membership vote on a leader - anyone in the Liberal Party who had to deal with Turnbull or his Office last year has grave doubts about his ability to listen (quite literally) to anyone else. The Age has reported today that MPs believe that Turnbull will fail like Nelson before him & that Costello will be asked to return to the leadership. All of which I predicted when Costello turned down the leadership after the election.

Now, I spent much of the Howard Government deeply suspicious of Costello. As a Queenslander, and one from regional Qld at that, I had concerns that, despite his modest upbringing, Costello had long ago forgotten what it was like to be a "battler" and was very much in the Melbourne-Canberra-Sydney corporate triangle mode. I never thought he comprehended, or if he did he didn't care, what his brand of economic rationalism and users pays philosophy would do to low-income people in the outer suburbs and in the smaller towns and cities in Australia if he became leader. I have to say that when Turnbull came onto the scene, these concerns paled into insignificance. What made him successful in his corporate life - the ability to bully & cajole people to get his own way every time - is what made him a poor Minister and would make an even poorer leader. He is a one-man band. The arrogance of those around him in particular had Coalition MPs up & down the country swearing about him & his refusal to grant audiences on account of being "too busy", when the PM was always available for a chat. This also comes from only being in office for 4 years & spending virtually none of it on the backbench. He is also way too far to the Left of the Party for the liking of most MPs.

Costello on the other hand has been in Parliament since 1990. He's experienced & he spent 6 years in Opposition before becoming Treasurer. I'm sure he's smart enough to realise that if he wants the leadership he'll need to forget some of his more ideological aspirations with the economy. Pure free market economics is never going to go down well in Australia.

If Nelson must be removed from the leadership, then roll on Costello. If even other MPs are already assuming that Turnbull's leadership will be a trainwreck, then why not skip him altogether and install Costello now?

You know it makes sense. I'm the Paleo-Con.

Thoughtful Times article on maternity leave

2008-04-06T17:21:00.002+10:00

Having worked in a place where a colleague having 2 babies in quick succession and only returning to work part-time in between put a huge strain on me and meant it was impossible to find someone decent to replace her for what was only a temporary contract, I have a great deal of sympathy for the writer of this article.

It Didn't take Labor long to start screwing up the economy

2008-04-05T17:17:00.004+11:00

Since WW2 it's always been the same old story: the Coalition leaves office with the economy in reasonably good shape, and within a couple of years Labor have completely wrecked the economy.

In 1972, Gough Whitlam inherited a resources boom at least as big as today's. The Australian dollar was worth US$1.50 and 400 Yen (Japan only has "cents" not "dollars"). By 1975 we were nearly broke. So broke that Whitlam was trying to arrange loans from shady overseas lenders at huge rates. See Loans Affair. And most of us are familiar with what Keating did to the economy: interest rates of 17%, unemployment in double digits, massive debt and budget deficits etc.

But the general feeling amongst Liberals was that even Labor was going to have a tough time wrecking the almost perfect set of figures we left them this time: unemployment the lowest since 1974; terms of trade the highest in a generation; the AUD hovering at over US$0.90; the setting of interest rates now done by the professionals at the RBA, to avoid another Treasurer with an 8th grade education like Keating vandalizing the economy; and the thing that would really test Labor's ability to run up the debt again: a $10.6bn budget surplus, plus $50bn squirrelled away in the Future Fund. A big difference from a $96bn deficit and no Future Fund in 1996.

So imagine my surprise this morning to read in The Australian that the budget surplus was at risk! The Rudd Government has let it be known that they are going to have to make more cuts, supposedly because of a lower tax take recently. Otherwise, the Budget will slip back into deficit for the first time since the Keating Govt. Well, unemployment has continued to fall since Rudd won Government, so income tax take and GST revenue should be up. Social security costs should also be down.

ANZ bank chief economist Saul Eslake said that "the latest hike in coal and iron ore export prices would pump an extra $8 billion into the economy. They should be able to get to $20 billion without trying very hard."

According to The Australian: the budget numbers published during the last election campaign put the underlying surplus for this financial year at $14.4 billion, and projected further surpluses of $14.3 billion in 2008-09 and $17.7 billion in 2009-10.

Clearly there is something the Government knows that neither we nor private economists know. My bet is it is going to take all that surplus the Howard Government left, and then some, to pay compensation to the "Stolen Generation" now that we have said sorry, which in legal terms is an admittance of liability. However, knowing Labor, it could be just about anything. Rudd has always publicly played a straight bat about not throwing money at a heap of left-wing minority causes the way Keating did. I have never bought it, because those people have to be re-paid for helping campaign for him: the Arts community; the Aboriginal industry; the plethora of environmental organisations that sprung up in time to bash the Howard Govt around in the lead up to the election; the gay & lesbian lobby; the lobbyists for allowing illegal immigrants to remain in Australia; the anti-Iraq lobby; the anti-Christian/anti-private school lobby; the Republican movement; and so on. If he isn't going to legislate for what they want, then he has to buy them off with money - and lots of it.

Who knows what they've done with the surplus. Maybe the Cabinet even divided it between themselves, in the safe knowledge that Cabinet papers are locked away for 30 years. The point is, Rudd has taken only five months - in what are buoyant economic times for Australia - to run down the biggest surplus any Australian Government has ever inherited. Australians are going to be in for a rough ride - higher taxes, lower Government spending on education, health etc. On the up side: at this rate the Coalition will be back in at the next Federal Election!

Howard vs Menzies

2008-04-03T22:21:00.005+11:00

Comparing people in any field from different ages is difficult, if not impossible. Who can say whether Bradman would have scored an average of 99.94 if slow-mo replay had been around in those days to check whether a batsman was in or out of his crease or whether or not he nicked the ball on its way through to the keeper?

So it is difficult in many ways to compare John Howard and Sir Robert Menzies as Prime Ministers of Australia. John Stone, who was Treasury Secretary and then a National Party Senator, wrote last month in Quadrant that despite a number of faults, which he mentioned, he considered John Howard to have been Australia's greatest Prime Minister. In response, Menzies' daughter Heather Henderson, has written to the magazine stating that her father was the best Prime Minister. Whilst it is natural that any child would defend the legacy of a parent, I think some of the jibes against Mr Howard particularly unkind. Without taking away from either man, I also think that Mrs Henderson is wrong.

I grew up in the 1990s idolising Menzies. By the age of 16 I had read every book by and about Menzies. The Forgotten People remains one of the most defining speeches of Australian history. It rings as true today as it did in the 1940s, and it should be compulsory reading for every Liberal. Menzies was the founding father & philosopher-in-chief of one of the two major Australian political parties. He was Australia's longest serving Prime Minister, and led us through the first two years of World War II. No one will ever take any of these things away from him. He received two knighthoods and the Companion of Honour, was a member of the Privy Council, and appointed Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports in succession to Sir Winston Churchill. None of those awards are even available to an Australian any more. John Howard will end his days at best with an AC after his name.

But John Howard governed in far tougher times than Menzies. Take Mrs Henderson's claim about a non-political public service. Menzies was incredibly lucky to have an impartial public service like that. Whitlam began the politicisation of Australia's public service in 1972, by sacking long experienced Department Heads who had served both Labor & Liberal Governments and making his own appointments. Since then the Public Service has been overwhelmingly left-wing. I know conservatives in the federal public service in Canberra. They have to keep their opinions very much to themselves, while those around them make the most left-wing statements with the confidence that everyone around them agrees. Such a hostile public service makes things incredibly tough for a Prime Minister. From 1996-2007 they opposed the Government at every turn. Indeed I have personal experience of a policy idea that was leaked to the Labor Party by the Public Service. Any pro-Liberal appointments made to the Public Service by Howard were only a drop in the bucket compared to the thousands of lefties that work there. Howard could only WISH for an impartial public service like Menzies, but those days are gone. The left have entrenched themselves in many areas of Australian society that were previously impartial.

Take the media. With a few rare exceptions, the media are now overwhelmingly left-wing and hostile to the Liberal Party. In Menzies' day, they tended to be impartial and respectful. Menzies could get away with giving one press conference per week. He only appeared in a televised media conference once or twice, in the very last years of his reign. Even then, the questions were very respectful and not the probing questions a politician of today deals with every day.

John Howard inherited an economy with high interest rates and unemployment around 10% - much higher for youth. He inherited $96 bn worth of debt. He brought us into surplus, brought unemployment to its lowest in 30 years, interest rates to their lowest in 20 years, against a backdrop of the Asian crisis when the rest of our region went into meltdown.

Robert Menzies inherited an economy whose only real problems were a lack of labour, fixed by mass immigration. There were ready markets for our traditional exports, with Australian wool selling for a pound per pound. A highly protected manufacturing sector meant a ready supply of jobs for blue collar workers. Most cars bought in Australia were Holdens. Any foreign cars sold in Australia had to be assembled here, so there were VW plants, Chrysler plants, and plants for a whole heap of now forgotten British cars.

John Howard had to deal with an Australia where free-trade around the world meant that manufacturing was no longer viable here. In 1996 there was a massive wool stockpile in Australia. Synthetic fibres long ago negated the need for wool. Heavily subsidised farmers from Europe and the US were destroying the market for Australian sugar, pork and many others of our traditional exports. Embittered and lowly educated current and former blue collar workers & farmers - many of them traditional Coalition voters - took things out on immigrants, Aboriginals, and ultimately the Coalition, forming One Nation. A set of circumstances unimaginable in the 1950s & 1960s, where goods manufactured in Asia were a joke and no competition for goods made by Australians. There was no concern that an Asian or other non-European might take your job, because the White Australia Policy saw to that. John Howard had to take on many of his own constituency when he introduced stricter gun laws after the Port Arthur massacre. There is no doubt that cost him votes. Massacres in Australia were unheard of in the 1950s & 60s and Menzies never had to legislate in a way that upset so many of his own constituency like Howard did.

By 2008 standards, the Australian economy was highly socialist in Menzies' day.
Everything was regulated. There was a 2-airline policy: Ansett & the Government-owned TAA. It was law that they had to buy the same type of aircraft at the same time. The price of bread, milk, and many other things were regulated by the Government. Milk companies had monopolies over certain geographic areas - something not changed until the Howard Government. Wages were centrally set by the Government for each industry. The Government owned and ran the Commonwealth Bank in competition with private banks, it owned the monopoly telephone provider, the CSIRO, and a dozen other businesses which we would not now consider the Government to have any business in running.

By contrast, there is barely an area of our economic life not reformed by the Howard Government in the interests of freer markets in Australia: tariffs all but abolished, Telstra sold off and other phone companies allowed in, de-regulation of the dairy industry and many others, IR reform, reform of Social Security, and so on. Menzies was happy just to preside over an economy that was doing well by sheer luck as much anything. Apart from abandoning Chifley's rationing and plan to nationalize all banks, it is hard to see what Menzies did at all to make the Australian economy less socialist and give people more choice and freedom.

Menzies played the Communist threat to great advantage, and at the time it was considered a real threat. However, compared to the events that Howard had to grapple with post 9-11, they pale in comparison.

In 1954, two men working for Dr Evatt, the Leader of the Opposition, were charged with spying for the Soviets after the Petrovs defected to Australia and spilt the beans. Doc Evatt, already displaying the signs of madness that led to his eventual breakdown, took time off Parliament to represent them in court against prosecution by the authorities! Can you imagine, if in 2006, two staff members of Kim Beazley were charged with assisting Al Q'aeda, and Kim Beazley had then taken time off Parliament to defend them in Court? Menzies cruised comfortably to victory in the 1954 Elections. Doc Evatt's actions split the Labor Party, with most of the Right Wing leaving to form the Democratic Labor Party (DLP) and preference the Liberals at every elections. The remaining rump of the Labor Party strongly defended the DLP's efforts to remove communist influence from some of Australia's major trade unions, and continued to be unelectable for the remaining time of Menzies' Prime Ministership.

Menzies sent the first troops into Vietnam in 1962, however he retired before this became a very unpopular war. Howard did the right thing and took our troops into Afghanistan and Iraq. Yet from the very outset he had very vocal and influential opposition in the media, the unions, the Labor Party, the chattering classes, the Greens and many other areas. This may have been one of the major contributors to his downfall, but he did it nonetheless, because it was right.

On social policy, Australian opinion in the 1950s was much more cohesive. It would have been unthinkable that anyone would even mention, let alone support, gay marriage, babies for lesbians, gay couples adopting, "safe" injecting rooms, abortion on demand, and so on. It was an era where 80% of people attended church and living together before marriage was very much frowned upon. In the 1990s & 2000s, Howard's admirable Christian stand on these issues, has been painted by many of his opponents as being incredibly old-fashioned and out of touch - though it is more likely that the silent majority are just living up to their name. These were issues Menzies never had to deal with. When his Attorney-General was drawing up laws to make divorce easier, he did not want to know about them, as he believed divorce was completely wrong!

I could go on in this vein for hours, however I would just like to address one of Mrs Henderson's more barbed claims. She said of her father that he had "the wit to know when to go". I guess this really is in the eye of the beholder, because many in the Liberal Party, not the least of them Harold Holt, spent much of the 1960s suggesting he should go. The media and the public were more reverential then, but despite this, there are cartoons from the era with captions such as "The Menzies' Years and Years and Years." There is no evidence to suggest that a change of leader would have made any difference to the election in 2007. No leader could have turned that election around without scrapping many of the Coalition's main policy planks, so to say that Howard didn't have the wit to know when to go is not fair at all.

Menzies and Howard are the two great towering giants of political history in Australia. They governed in very different times, and it will always be difficult to compare them. I will always admire Menzies as Australia's answer to Churchill. But he governed in comparatively easy times, with an impartial public service, a respectful media, good economic conditions and a Labor Party in disarray. Howard had none of these, except the good economic conditions in the latter half of his reign - which were his own doing. For Howard to have acheived so much reform and so much improvement in ordinary Australians' lives against so much opposition, for me makes him our greatest PM.

Another thing I hate about neo-con economics

2008-04-01T22:28:00.003+11:00

Currently unemployment in Australia is hovering at around 4% - the lowest it has been in over 30 years & perhaps John Howard's greatest legacy to Australia.

I saw the Chief Economist of one of Australia's major banks the other night on TV. He stated bluntly what others have danced around for the last few months: "unemployment cannot be allowed to continue being so low." He said this in the context of the problem of high inflation Australia is currently wrestling with.

Why? - you are probably asking yourself. Isn't everyone having a job a good thing? That depends very much to which school of economics you subscribe.

Neo-cons subscribe to the Friedmanite school of economics. Friedmanites have long believed that the natural unemployment rate is around 5%. That is, that it is impossible to get unemployment below that level. Clearly they are looking a bit silly now that unemployment, in Australia at least, has dipped below 5%.

Keynesian theory submits that the natural rate of unemployment is closer to 2%, as was attained throughout most of the 1950s and 60s in Australia and elsewhere. Of course there are many of us who would not call ourselves Keynesian who agree with this theory. To disagree would be to deny the truth of Australia's current unemployment rate.

The truth is, that sub 5% unemployment can be achieved. The catch is that, as things currently stand, low unemployment causes inflation. Breaking this nexus is not easy, but I have to say I object to the idea that around 5% of Australians must permanently suffer so that the rest of us can enjoy low inflation. The idea that to keep a low inflation rate we need to have a constant pool of lowly paid or unemployed workers just to benefit the other 95% really does bristle with me, both as a Christian and as an egalitarian. A permanent underclass in a western country is something we associate with Dickensian England, or with the US where the unemployed can't even count on social security as a fallback.

Although I have studied economics at an undergrad level, I confess I don't know how to achieve REAL full employment without inflation, except to say that it has been done before. I recall a (Labor-voting) Uni lecturer telling our class that the election of Gough Whitlam had less to do with the "It's Time" factor or Vietnam, than that unemployment was over the then unacceptable level of 2%!

What I do know is that I never again want to see a well-off man in a nice Italian suit on the news saying that he would like to see more unemployment, because the resulting inflation is upsetting his comfortable lifestyle. Inflation is not a good thing and affects the poor more than anyone else, but when the cure is worse than the disease, it's time to start looking for a new cure.

Embarrassing day for the Liberals

2008-03-30T21:12:00.007+11:00

Last Friday I read The Courier-Mail, The Sydney Morning Herald and The Australian. In every one of these three papers there were seperate stories about stupid internal factional games being played by the far Right in the Liberal Party.

In Qld you have more on the on-going saga which I previously blogged on: who is to be the new President? Added to that was that all candidates for the Presidency were against any sort of merger with the Nationals. The Editorial, plus dozens of online comments at couriermail.com.au all suggested that the Liberals were out of touch on this & should merge for the sake of those who want to see Labor out of Government in Qld.

The Australian was reporting that a NSW State MP on the Right of the Party is trying to stack out Philip Ruddock in his seat of Berowra.

But the Sydney Morning Herald carried even more embarrassing news. The new Federal Member for Cook, Scott Morrison, attempted to join a branch of the Liberal Party in his own seat, and was rejected. Most branches would be very pleased with the prestige and influence that comes with having the Federal Member in your Branch. But no, this branch was far more concerned that Mr Morrison - a moderate - would try to branch-stack. Given that the Right regularly deny accusations of stacking branches themselves with the explanation that it is legitimate Party development, I find this a little hypocritical. It is this sort of behaviour - by people in both factions of the Party - that are harming our chances of ever re-gaining Government. No thought was given to what embarrassment this might cause the Party publicly. The only consideration was that the personal fiefdom of the local branch warlord/s might be threatened.

But by far the most embarrassing was a Letter to the Editor of the SMH by Anna Kunz. Now I am not saying that Miss Kunz represented herself in this article entirely honestly in saying that she was a raw recruit to the Party. A quick Google of her name turns up that she has undertaken work experience with a well-known Liberal moderate MP, and has views on Iraq that would be at odds with most Party members. However, the Google search also turns up that at school she was an accomplished public speaker and debater, and also competed in the Lions Youth of the Year. Clearly a high-achieving and motivated individual & one we should welcome into the Party.

Sadly this girl's story is all too familiar to me. Although I am a conservative and a traditionalist with every fibre of my being, I too nearly left the Liberal Party only months after joining because I felt that they didn't represent my Centre-Right views. Lucky for me I met a group of people in the Qld Branch of the Party who were more moderate and convinced me that these sort of views weren't shared by ALL members of the Liberal Party.

I know personally several members of the Sydney Uni Liberal Club Executive. They are nearly all members of that ridiculous Facebook group I have mentioned previously: "Liberals for not going soft in Opposition." "Soft" is a term of abuse often yelled out at Young Liberal meetings when a speaker is taking anything but the most Right-wing line on an issue. One can imagine that if Young Liberals were around 2000 years ago, they would have yelled out "SOFT!" to Jesus as He told the prostitute her sins were forgiven and her persecutors that "he without sin should cast the first stone." It's an incredibly immature attitude, but what can you expect when at least one of these people was elevated to President of her Branch while still at High School?!

In a sarcastic fashion, I changed my Facebook status to say that I was "congratulating the extremists of the USyd Liberal Club on their public relations triumph in the SMH." Soon after, some kid born in 1987, whose pic shows him with folded arms and a baseball cap on backwards, wrote on my wall: "So I am extreme for supporting John Howard am I? Get a clue, loser." Given that my Facebook shows that I worked for two Howard Govt MPs, I think this kid would know that a motion of support for John Howard is not the part I object to. Nonetheless, it was pointless trying to debate with such a dogmatic, immature kid. The sad thing is, I wonder how many good people we are losing to the Liberal Party who just drift off without writing a letter to the SMH? Do we really want the Liberal Party to become an increasingly smaller group of ideological zealots, with no room for those who are generally onside with us in terms of being anti-socialist and pro personal freedom because they don't agree with us 100% on everything?

The Liberal Party is not going to return to Govt by being dragged further to the Right. The people of Australia have told us this. Nelson, Bishop and Turnbull are doing an admirable and difficult job of bringing the party back towards the Centre-Right, to where the mainstream of Australians are. But all the USyd Liberal Club can do is bag them. Yes, most Australians are conservative, but they are centre-right, not far right. People like the children in the Liberal Club who think Liberal means being as Right-wing as possible, need to realise that the Liberal Party has always been one of the great Centre-Right parties of the world. There are other parties they can join if they want to be far Right. However, history has shown time and again, that Australians will always reject extremists. Ten years on from winning 11 seats in the Qld Parliament, One Nation is ancient history.

Excellent Courier-Mail editorial on the Qld Liberals' woes

2008-03-28T08:56:00.000+11:00

Liberal Right Show Once Again They Are Anything But Mainstream

2008-03-26T11:14:00.004+11:00

It is generally considered by those in the know in the Liberal Party, that had he won his seat, former Howard Minister Mal Brough would now be Liberal leader.

At its height, a Facebook Group called "Mal Brough's loss in Longman is nothing short of an absolute tragedy" had over 600 members. There was even an attempt to draft him as State Leader of the Liberal Party in Qld. Member for Caloundra Mark McArdle even offered Brough his seat. Brough was widely considered by Party members and ordinary voters alike to have been one of the best and most competent Ministers in the Howard Government. He handled the difficult Community Services and Indigenous Affairs portfolio well, with compassion, and with toughness when required, such as the NT Intervention. A former military man, his incredibly busy office ran like clockwork. No matter how busy they were, service from his office to backbenchers was always prompt, efficient and friendly. A certain would-be leader's office had the reputation of a being rude, arrogant and inefficient, although his portfolio was no more demanding than Brough's.

By any mark, Brough is a Liberal hero. But as they say, a prophet is only without honour in his home town - or home state in this instance. Warwick Parer has announced his resignation as President of the Qld Liberals. Brough is apparently interested in running.

But one senior Liberal figure (who hasn't had the guts to identify him/herself) said: "Brough is not a Liberal. He is not regarded by any of the serious players, on the party's left or right, as a serious player."

What absolute rot! You can bet this was said by a member of the Santoro Right Wing faction. Santo Santoro is a former Howard Govt Minister who was forced to resign over improper share dealings early last year. Before that, he managed to lose the blue ribbon State seat of Clayfield (think Vaucluse for those of you in NSW) to Labor in 2001. As a State MP, he spent so much money on making calls to his factional buddies on his taxpayer-funded mobile phone that State MPs have now had the privelige of mobile phones withdrawn. For some years now Santo has controlled the majority of numbers in the Qld Liberal Party. This coming conference will be the first test of whether he still holds these numbers following his disgrace as a Minister. As he is still the largest fundraiser for the Party, odds are that he will still hold considerable sway.

So who does this disgraced former Minister want as President? Either Gary Hardgrave - another failed Howard Govt Minister who was dropped from the Ministry for poor performance - or Bob Carroll. Bob Carroll was President in the late 1990s. He gave us the "brilliant" strategy of preferencing One Nation at the 1998 State Election, ultimately leaving us with a giant total of 3 MPs in State Parliament after the 2001 election. My Uncle, a life-long conservative voter and Lutheran Deacon, voted Labor for the first time in his life over the One Nation preference deal.

So to sum up, the Liberal Right in Qld, believes:

1. Brough is not a Liberal. He is not regarded by any of the serious players, on the party's left or right, as a serious player

2. It is fine to have a disgraced former Minister calling the shots, and in preference to Mal Brough, to impose on the Liberal Party in Qld another failed Minister or a man who led the Qld Libs to their lowest ebb and did a prefence deal with One Nation.

And these people think they are MAINSTREAM! I am not aware of any media commentator or commonly held belief by the public that Brough is anything but a Liberal. He is regarded as a serious enough player in Canberra that he would now be leader if he hadn't lost his seat. I have friends and acquaintances amongst MPs belonging to both wings of the Federal Liberal Party, and they all respected him and considered him a serious player.

Brough is exactly what the Qld Liberal Party needs to give it some credibility and strong direction from a man who is in touch with public feeling. But the Right want to continue to drag the Party to an unelectable extreme position. Thanks boys. Just what we need - another decade of Labor Govt in Qld.

Behavioural "Disorders"

2008-03-23T10:27:00.004+11:00

Watching Sunrise this morning, I came across the latest idea dreamt up to excuse naughty children and their parents of all responsibility: Oppositional Defiant Disorder. I've heard it all now!

It is in a child's nature to be "oppositional" and "defiant." It doesn't need treatment with drugs. It needs a firm hand & for parents to spend a but more time with their kids. As the Bible tells us: "He who spareth the rod hateth his son: but he that loveth him correcteth him betimes" (Proverbs 13:24) and "Withhold not correction from a child: for if thou strike him with the rod, he shall not die. Thou shalt beat him with the rod, and deliver his soul from hell." (Proverbs 23:13-14)
Admittedly, it is a bit hard in modern times when physical discipline is virtually illegal in many jurisdictions, but the reality is you can't "reason" with a 4-year old.

Similiarly, I question whether most kids suffering from "ADHD" would not lose most of their symptoms if put on a better diet. Sure, some may actually need Ritalin, but I think it would be about 20% of those currently on Ritalin.

In the 1980s, the doctors diagnosed me as "hyperactive." Apparently now days I would be diagnosed as having ADHD. I was put on something called the Feingold diet. No added sugars, no preservatives, and no junk food. I was on this for a year or two, and then reverted to a standard diet. After that I never had any behavioural problems or problems concentrating at school, and my grades were well above average.
But for 21st century parents, it is quicker and easier to whack their kids on drugs than to provide some nutrious home-cooking. Much easier to feed them take-away full of sugars and preservatives, and then use drugs to balance the resultant misbehaviour.

Psychiatry these days does a roaring trade in thinking up excuses to whack our kids on medication. We would do much better to follow the advice in the book that comes from He who really can read our minds - the Bible.

Nelson the true inheritor of the Menzies tradition

2008-03-19T12:45:00.006+11:00

I have just read Liberal leader Brendan Nelson's speech to the Press Club yesterday, and I am inspired.

Yes, I know it's fashionable at the moment to ridicule Dr Nelson at the moment, but then it always has been fashionable to promote style over substance. And you can afford plenty of style when you are an ex-merchant banker!

For all his love of Sir Robert Menzies, John Howard was by his own admission "the most conservative leader the Liberal Party has ever had." In Menzies' day the term paleo-con hadn't been invented, as paleo-con was the only type of conservative. In fact, I and many others mantain that those who call themselves neo-cons are in fact radicals who want to drastically change society. John Howard was like Menzies in some ways, but in many others they were very different. Menzies was never an ideologue.

Dr Nelson pointed out "as Sir Robert Menzies said on numerous occasions in giving advice to his successors in Liberal leadership: he said in part that we are pragmatic, but we are not dogmatic."

Sadly, the Liberal Party has become dogmatic on many economic issues over the last 20years. Many things were done purely for dogmatic reasons, even if they were wholly impractical. My post yesterday on the Single Desk for Wheat is a good example. Dairy deregulation is another, which I will explain on another day.

Dr Nelson also quoted Menzies as saying "what we must look for is a revival of true liberal thought, one that will work for social justice and security.True liberals have great and imperative obligations to the weak, the sick and the unfortunate."

This is a massive contrast to people like Tony Abbott, who said when unemployment was still quite high, that "the solution to unemployment is McJobs and the harvest trail." He also said that anyone who was out of work was just a "job snob" - ignoring the many and varied reasons for unemployment, not to mention that employers simply do not want to employ degree-qualified people to stack shelves. So even Menzies thinks Abbott is not a true Liberal. To Ministers like Abbott, there was no such thing as the weak and the unfortunate - only people who weren't working hard enough. And it is wonderful to hear a Liberal leader reclaiming the phrase "social justice," which too often was claimed by the Left as a by-word for throwing money at all sorts of unworthy causes, but should be embraced by Liberals as meaning that everyone has an equal chance, regardless of whether they have had the comfortable education, upbringing and contacts of a Tony Abbott or grew up on struggle street in somewhere like Mt Druitt or Inala.

Nelson continued "I am accused of being an idealist by my numerous critics. All I can say is thank you, because those who abandon their idealism do so to court irrelevancy." I can hear the hard-headed Right wingers in the party now laughing that idealism is all very well, but without electoral success it means nothing. And they are right.

But Mark 8:36 says "What profit is there if you gain the whole world, yet lose your own soul?"

What is the point of power for its own sake? Power is only a means to an ends. A means of achieving your beliefs. There has to be a middle way of retaining your beliefs, of looking after the less fortunate because it is the right thing - whether or not it is popular, yet still being electorally successful. I know there is, beacause it has been done before - by Menzies, by Fraser, and by many State Coalition Govts.

I would encourage readers to click on the headline of this post and read Nelson's speech. Particularly I would encourage those Christians who felt they could not bring themselves to vote for the old Liberal Government to read the speech and see how the Party's direction has changed. The Coalition has always been very supportive of Christian moral values, in preventing gay marriage, IVF for lesbians, opposing RU-486 and the abortion lobby, funding Christian schools, and so on. But I know that many Christians felt that we fell down on compassion issues. I hope that with Dr Nelson as leader we are now re-dressing the balance and that Christians will be able to come back to the Liberal Party - maybe even join it & ensure that the policy reforms continue to move in a more compassionate directions.

Whatever you believe, please read the speech. Don't write Nelson off the way the media and elements of the Liberal Party have. He is a man of real substance, real compassion, and real guts. My grandfather once took me down to a tree growing by a creek. It was in the middle of a drought & this tree was the only green tree around.
But when we knocked on it, the tree was hollow. Very pretty to look at, but hollow. Of no use for timber. The drab looking trees away from the creek were the ones that were useful as timber. The same in politics. The best speaker, the best TV performer, the best dresser doth not always make the best leader.

It is the man who has something inside him other than pure ambition that makes the best leader. Don't forget John Howard was written off for many years in favour of the flashy Andrew Peacock, yet it was Howard not Peacock that ultimately lead the Party back into Government.

The Difference between Neo-Cons and Paleo-Cons

2008-03-18T18:08:00.004+11:00

No doubt there are many of you who are still struggling to understand what is the difference between a neo-con and a paleo-con. Well, Parliament is currently debating an issue that points it out in simple terms.

Since 1939, wheat exporters have sold all their wheat to a central body - the Australian Wheat Board, who manage and market the crop. This is known as the "single desk" & it makes sense. It means our wheat exporters speak with one single voice. It means that foreign countries can deal with just one body, instead of having to deal with several different middle men to purchase the amount of wheat they want. Wheatgrowers pay a yearly levy to the AWB for marketing and selling the crop, just as many other industries pay to a peak body to promote their product.

Australian wheat growers are not subsidised by the Government - nor am I advocating that they should be. However, let's look at their competition:

- Wheat growers in the United States receive 32% of their income from government subsidies. These subsidies encourage American farmers to produce too much wheat and distort the world market.

- The European Union is even worse. Wheat growers in Europe receive A$17.2 billion a year in subsidies. That's 39% of their income. In 2002-03, Europe exported 12 million tonnes of subsidised wheat and flour. Australia's entire wheat production that year was only 10 million tonnes. The Europeans dumped more wheat and flour than we could grow.

The single desk helps our farmers compete in this world of unfair trade, without costing Australian taxpayers a cent in subsidies. As a result of the desk the Australian wheat industry has one face in international markets, so customers cannot play Australian growers off against each other. It also offers economies of scale by
reductions to transport and storage costs within Australia. AWB was able to reduce its supply chain costs by $5.41 per tonne between 1999 and 2005 by developing its GrainFlow Centres and by negotiating collectively on behalf of Australian wheat growers. In total, the single desk adds $13/tonne or $200 million a year to Australia's export income. Something not to be sneezed at when we have such a high trade deficit.

But the neo-cons within the Liberal Party have long wanted to scrap the single desk. They ran out of time and the Labor Party are now doing it for them. The National Party, who are for the most part paleo-cons, are against scrapping the single desk.
The neo-cons, basing their views once again on textbooks and not reality, claim that the single desk distorts markets, reduces competition, and generally is socialist. It may somehow fit the Friedmanite definition of socialism, but the fact is it works, and we are playing against competitors who have no hesitation in providing massive taxpayer subsidies to their wheat growers, who then have a massive advantage over us. The system is not costing Australian taxpayers a cent.

Many different companies and Government Agencies, including the Defence Force, have an agreement with ABC Childcare centres that allows their employees to enjoy discounts and salary sacrifice for their children's fees. It would be ludicrous to expect the Defence Force or ANZ Bank to negotiate a deal with differently owned childcare centres in every suburb and tin-pot town across Australia. Yet the neo-cons expect the nations of the world to deal with many different sellers of Australian wheat - which let's face it is a uniform commodity. Wheat is wheat.

It begs the question where does this approach end? Woolworths or Coles is a one-stop shop for packaged food, fruit and veges, meat, toiletries, petrol, some electrical goods, and alcohol in most states. A bit like the AWB. Should consumers have to go back to the old days when you made seperate trips to the supermarket, the butcher, the greengrocer, the chemist, a hotel, the local garage and an electrical store to get all those things? Or perhaps each person should have to negotiate direct with the apple farmer, the cattle farmer, the fisherman, the chicken farmer, the vegetable farmer, and so on and so on? No - it's stupid isn't it? But that's what the neo-cons want the countries of the world to do with Australian wheat. The result will be that they will decide it's too hard to buy Australia wheat, and buy from the US or Europe.

This to me is one of the most obvious examples of the difference between neo-cons and paleo-cons. Paleo-cons take the common sense approach: "it works, Australia would receive less export income without it, and it's not costing Australia taxpayers a cent."

Neo-cons head for the library, take down a copy of a Milton Friedman book, and say "Mr Friedman says it's not laissez-faire capitalism, therefore we must abolish it, even if it does mean shooting ourselves in the foot, depriving Australia of $200 million export income a year and sending farmers broke."

I leave it to the reader to decide which approach makes more sense.

Happy 60th Anniversary to Israel - with no thanks from the ALP

2008-03-12T20:36:00.003+11:00

Today was the 60th Anniversary of the founding of the State of Israel. Most Australians of moderate political views, and certainly most Christians, support the existence of this country created as a safe place for the Jews in the wake of the horrific Holocaust that killed more than 6 million of their people.

Today Kevin Rudd proposed a motion in Parliament congratulating Israel on this anniversary. The motion was seconded by Brendan Nelson and supported by the Liberal Party. Though some ALP backbenchers were there to support the motion, many Labor MPs boycotted.

Labor MP Julia Irwin, said, "I find it hard to congratulate a country which carries out human rights abuses each day and shows blatant disregard for the United Nations. I'm disappointed that there was no mention of the human rights abuses that Israel do against the Palestinians on a daily basis."

But what really disgusted me was the full page ad placed in The Australian by the Construction Forestry Mining and Energy Union, the Maritime Union of Australia and South Australian Democrat MP Sandra Kanck.

"We, as informed and concerned Australians, choose to disassociate ourselves from a celebration of the triumph of racism and the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians since the al-Nakba (Catastrophe) of 1948," the advertisement reads.

These people: Labor backbenchers like Julia Irwin, and unions like the CFMEU and the MUA are part of our new Australian Government. A lot of Christians voted for the ALP federally for the first time in many years last election, in the belief that the ALP would not be like the Keating Govt this time around. That they would not embrace extreme minority causes totally out of touch with mainstream Australia, that a Rudd Govt would not demonstrate values inconsistent with Christian beliefs.

Mr Rudd supported the motion, and I have no doubt he is a sincere Christian. However, few of his Party are. They don't support Judeo-Christian people or values. The Left will support anything that helps to bring down the Christian and/or Jewish influence on our public life. Socialists do not believe in organised religion. They believe the State should be the religion. Witness the USSR or China. If they can use Muslims as a battering ram to destroy the Judeo-Christian basis of our society, then they will.

Happy birthday Israel. Pity the Labor and Trade Union Movement couldn't join us in sending you good wishes.

Vale to another hero of traditional conservatism

2008-03-09T15:40:00.007+11:00

Francis, Lord Pym, MC, has died aged 86. Before being elevated to the Lords, he was a British Tory MP from 1961 to 1986. He spent many years as a Whip and later Chief Whip under Heath, then Foreign Secretary & Defence Secretary under Thatcher.

He was purged from the Cabinet along with many others after the 1983 election "when his adherence to the old noblesse oblige style of Conservatism destroyed his prospects in a party that now dismissed such attitudes as unrealistic and out of date." - The Telegraph (click on title to go to article)

A war hero and winner of the Military Cross, expelled from the cabinet of a Conservative Party government for being a traditionalist! Sadly that sort of thing has become all too common in the Australian Liberal Party too, as the carpetbaggers, social climbers and noveau riche join and think the best way to prove themselves is to be as right-wing as possible, and label traditional conservatives who love tradition and the Queen and the Church as Lefties because the traditional conservatives don't believe in gutting social welfare and generally screwing over those less fortunate.

Pym called for “an understanding of people and of circumstances. It calls for a harmony between individual ambition and wider social considerations. It calls for a recognition that we are all interdependent. It calls for tolerance and humour. It calls for leadership that responds to people in the present and anticipates their needs in the future. It precludes dogma, ideology, inflexibility, shortsightedness and intolerance. It asserts that life itself is a balance and that politics must reflect this fact.”

"Precludes dogma." The mark of a true Tory. Traditional conservatism is not a blind ideology. It's a way of life. A real conservative will always find ideology and dogma anathema. Whether it be communism, fascism, or Freidmanism, a true Tory is against any sort of "one size fits all" dogma imposed from above and against policies being implemented because some economist or social theorist wrote it in a book, rather than because it is the practical and sensible thing to do.

His obit in The Telegraph said "Francis Pym will be remembered as a brave, honest, highly competent and gifted man whose politics were old-fashioned and impeccably conducted. That he never achieved the highest office may have been a reflection of the times rather than of the man."

Thank God for people like Lord Pym who stand up against ideologues who believe that Governments should be run by following Mr Freidman's textbooks chapter and verse. As Edmund Burke said: "for evil to prevail, good men need only do nothing."

More musings on the New Right

2008-03-08T11:58:00.002+11:00

I am reading the biography of John Howard by Wayne Errington and Peter Van Onselen that came out last year. Specifically I am reading about the Fraser years when there the argument within the Liberal Party between Keynesians and the New Right began. As someone with a major in Economics, I am the first to state that Keynesian economics had begun to fail badly around the world by the time Fraser was elected in Australia. However, I have never agreed with the other extreme – that everything should be left to the market. We saw the effects of this in the Great Depression, when people starved.

John Howard’s great mentor, Fraser Government Minister Sir John Carrick, told him “Liberalism and laissez-faire can never co-exist. The true Liberal is always concerned about the welfare of the individual.” It is an interesting quote, because it is using the favoured language of the neo-cons – the individual – but turning it on its head somewhat by picturing that individual as the unemployed person, the homeless person, the low waged person, the poorly educated person. The individual the neo-cons usually picture is “rational economic man” to use an economic phrase. “Rational economic man” is comfortably off and just looking to enrich himself further, by a matter of cents in many instances, through the abolition of safety nets – confident that he is rich enough to never need them anyway.

I was talking to two friends in the Liberal Party recently. Like me, they are both professionals originally from the country. One no longer has any family or financial interests in the bush, the other is the son of a country car-dealer, and I am from a large provincial city. So I don’t think it was our abiding interests in fertilizer subsidies or a single wheat export desk that led all three of us to say that we would be in the National Party if there was a branch in Sydney.

No, I think it is because in the country, having compassion for people or giving someone a hand when they are down on their luck is not considered to be left-wing or bleeding heart the way it is by the neo-cons in the City. One sees farmers that have been very successful ruined by a drought or a flood that is no fault of their own and one does not consider it to be a bleeding heart thing to help that family out with school uniforms or food so the kids don't suffer. Unlike the City, in the country you are likely to either know, or know of, the people suffering. They aren’t some stranger whom it is easy to ignore. What affects one family in a small community, affects all.

I saw Andrew Robb being interviewed on Compass the other night. He stated that his Catholic background had given him an attitude that people sometimes fall down through no fault of their own. However, given that Tony Abbott is a strict Catholic, yet has little to no compassion for those worse off than him, I don’t think this totally explains Robb’s compassion. But it all fell into place when I heard Robb say he was brought up on a dairy farm. So was my father, and many of my attitudes to the less fortunate come from him and my grandfather. Of all the types of farmers, dairy farmers are by far the most likely to be living in poverty. I think it is this experience that has helped Mr Robb to come to a compassionate view of people’s circumstances.

I wonder whether living in the City, not knowing our neighbours half the time, has made us callous? It sometimes seems so in parts of the Liberal Party. In Canberra, the difference between the way city Liberals on the one hand, and Liberal and National MPs from the land on the other, treat their staff is remarkable. The Nats by far treat their staff the best, though the Liberal farmers all have good reputations too.

Kruddy's Broken Promises

2008-03-08T11:54:00.002+11:00

It hasn’t taken long for K-Rudd to start breaking his promises, nor to prove what the Coalition campaigned about: that social security bonuses depended on a strong economy.

In the last four Federal Budgets, the Howard Coalition Government provided a bonus of up to $1,600 a year to one of the most vulnerable groups in our community – carers. I remember writing press releases pointing out that this bonus was in no way guaranteed every year, but relied on a strong economy, which the Howard Government was able to provide.

So in comes Kevin 07. The unions are being granted big pay rises as a payoff for helping Labor into Government, Labor are setting up their dozens of inquiries and commissions and these are contributing to rising inflation and interest rates, all just as predicted by the Liberal Party. But Kevin is an economically literate man – unlike many of his predecessors as Labor PMs – and he knows that apart from interest rates, the only real tool a Government has available to it to control inflation are spending cuts.

But where does he decide to cut first? A bonus to the most vulnerable. I couldn’t help but feel pity for the lady on TV who looks after her 37 year old disabled son saying “I can’t believe a Labor Government would do this.” Sadly, I can believe it, which is why I pity her. Labor have duped so many people like her into thinking that they are the touchy-feely Party that will always provide a better deal on social welfare than the nasty, heard-hearted Liberals. There are other areas of spending that could be cut. Every time a Department releases a report, or a new set of stats, dozens of textbook copies of them are automatically sent to each MP, only to sit collecting dust as Electorate Officers access them online. Provide hard copies of these only on request and you’ll save $1600 per carer per year easily.

Another key area that the election was fought on was dental care. Dental care has always been a State responsibility, but like so many other things, they are failing to provide in this area. The Coalition Government stated that while it was happy to provide – as one example - $65 million for a new dental school at Charles Sturt Uni, but was not prepared to bail out the states yet again in an area of their responsibility. Particularly not when the States are receiving all the GST revenue and have never before received so much income. The Labor Government campaigned on re-instating the 3-year Dental plan that they had from 1993-96 to take up the slack from the poorly performing State Governments. So this is exactly what Kevin did when he was elected. However, it was quietly abolished last week after only 3 months, with the money now to be given to the States to provide better dental services. This is not what the people want, Kevin, and it’s not what they elected you for. People took you at your word that the Federal Government would provide in this area, where the State Governments have shown themselves to be incompetent. The States will take this extra money you have given them and do what they always do with it – employ more bureaucrats, just like they have done with their hospitals. The Australian people hoped that by electing a Government of the same political colour as those that rule all the States, that the buck-passing would finally stop. But buck passing to the States is exactly what you have done this week, and the bucks won’t end up in patient care, of that you can be sure.

Queensland Liberals Need to Stop Fighting the Wars of the Past

2008-01-25T11:38:00.001+11:00

The proposed merger of the non-Labor parties in Queensland is a no-brainer – unless you are a Queensland Liberal MP and you’re still fighting the battles of the past.

Queensland conservative politics is unique. In no other State does the National Party hold more seats than the Liberal Party. The conservatives in Queensland rely far more on winning non-metropolitan seats to form Government than anywhere else. Brisbane is a Labor town. Since 1961, Labor has held the Lord Mayoralty for all but nine years.

The Old Money is clustered on and around Hamilton Hill in the electorate of Clayfield, while the New Money lives on acreage in the Moggill electorate. The highly educated burghers of Indooroopilly have now followed the voting patterns of the educated class elsewhere and turned a once safe Liberal seat into safe ALP. Only two seats in the whole of Brisbane can be considered safe.

The rest of Brisbane, and much of the South-East, would rather vote Labor than cast a vote for a Liberal candidate if that means a National Party Premier. With 1,800 southerners a week moving to Queensland, large swathes of the electorate have never experienced a National Party Premier, and aren’t about to start. Though at least with Springborg, the Nationals have gotten away from amateur leaders in tweed jackets and gained a leader who has been in Parliament since the age of 21 and is a professional parliamentarian. The claim that he is "a farmer from the Darling Downs" is disingenuous. He has spent almost all his adult life in Parliament and does not exhibit the roughened hands or sun-damaged skin of a working farmer. His electorate is also the same driving distance from Brisbane as is Noosa.

I detect more than a little snobbery from the university educated Liberals. But a degree isn’t everything. A farmer from the Southern Burnett gave Queensland something the Liberals can only dream about – 19 years of stable united non-Labor Government without the internal squabbles that makes the Queensland Liberals a joke in most people’s eyes.

After the last round of Queensland Liberal leadership squabbles, a Liberal-voting friend in Brisbane said to me, "the public don’t care which faction your leader comes from, we just want someone electable so we can get rid of Labor." This is something the Liberals should dwell on as they worry that a single non-Labor Party would be "too right wing." In any case, the Howard Government was further to the Right than the agrarian-socialist Nationals will ever be. Australians are pragmatic people. They don’t care about ideology. They just want a credible alternative to a Labor Party that is running their State into the ground.

Senator Brandis is another one who has been vocal in his opposition to the merger. With the exception of a brief period where he cosied up to the Right to gain pre-selection, Brandis has been an admirable standard-bearer for small ‘l’ liberalism since the mid-1970s. He was around during the worst arguments between the Queensland non-Labor Parties in the 1980s and it is understandable that he finds it hard to forgive the Nationals. However this sort of refusal to let bygones be bygones is what continues the "troubles" in Ireland and the never-ending Middle Eastern skirmishes. If no one ever forgives, where does it end? A number of Federal MPs have claimed that the Liberal brand is a well respected brand and that we should never merge because of this. They are only half right. At a Federal level, yes, it is a very respected brand. In Queensland, it is a joke. They are the third biggest party, with only eight members in a Parliament of 89 and only two members in the State capital. And for the last five years at least, they have been in a perpetual internecine brawl along factional lines that mean nothing to the average voter. The recent inability to even decide on a leader was high-farce and a complete embarrassment. Losing the Liberal tag at the State level in Queensland would be no loss, though I agree that the word "conservative" should not be used in the new party name. The Federal MPs could continue to run and sit as Liberals or Nationals.

The non-Labor cause in Queensland has reached a stalemate. Queenslanders will not accept another National Party Premier, and despite predictions going back as far as 1968 that it was imminent, the Liberal Party is highly unlikely to become the dominant Coalition partner any time soon. The only solution is a merger, where a leader is selected not as "a National Party farmer from the Darling Downs" or a "Liberal Party lawyer/doctor/dentist from the South-East" but an anti-Labor Queenslander - determined to throw Labor off the Treasury Benches, rather than fight insignificant turf wars between factions, regions, professions, or fighting the political wars of the past.

The Liberal Party owes it to the future of Queensland and those who want to support an alternative to Captain Bligh and her men.

Thatcher Minister a Compassionate Conservative

2008-01-03T23:59:00.001+11:00

Today I read one of the best arguments I have ever seen in favour of a compassionate conservatism. It was written by a very unlikely source - a former Thatcher Government Minister. Thatcher was the original neo-con, who started this whole idea that being conservative means having no pity for those less well off or unluckier than ourselves.

The author was the 6th Lord Carrington, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lord_Carrington , who won the Military Cross in WW2, was High Commissioner to Australia in the 50s, served as Thatcher's Foreign Minister, became Secretary-General to NATO and received two of Britain's highest honours - the CH and the Order of the Garter. A brave and distinguished man, who nevertheless has compassion for those less fortunate, in the best "noblesse oblige" (google it) traditions of the British upper class.

The following passage is from page 48 of his autobiography Reflect on Things Past - The Memoirs of Lord Carrington. He is talking about how nearly all the men with whom he served in the Army voted Labour in the 1945 Election which tipped out Churchill & the Conservatives:

I understand particularly because it seemed to me that luck - merit, certainly, but a great deal of luck - plays a large part in determining who, in life, succeeds. I don't only mean the self-evident luck which decrees that A is born to a good home, decent surroundings, honourable parents, material prospects; while B has none of this. I mean also that luck which puts a person into the right place at the right time, in any calling or walk of life, so that they catch and ride with it. Without luck, few who achieve great things would get started. I admire them. But there were and are a good many people whose luck never placed them near even the bottom-most rung of the ladder of success; and some of them were in my squadron. For them, in every generation, there has to be care and understanding. And it is the duty of those who have enjoyed superior luck - and let it not be denied, may sometimes have displayed superior qualities - to feel that concern and show that understanding.

By all means let the race be to the swift, by all means let there be every effort to 'level upwards', but there should be some consolations prizes in life. And those of us who may feel that the handicapper has been generous in our case have a particular obligation to attend to them.

The above is what many members of Howard Goverment never got. With their comfortable upbringing and seemless transition from private school to law school to successful legal career and then politics people like Abbott (by far the worst offender), Costello, Mirabella, Ciobo, and several other people were completely unable to believe that success was not 100% down to ability and hard-work and owed nothing to upbringing, educational opportunities, connections, and as Lord Carrington notes, LUCK. The so-called "Ginger Group" to which Mirabella and Ciobo belonged, advocated placing welfare recipients on "vouchers" so they "won't waste it all on the pokies." A typical example of the simplistic thinking that characterises the New Right.

Brendan Nelson DOES get what Carrington is saying. But the knives are out for him already. There is a group on Facebook to which belongs a large number of Young Liberals - many of them Opposition staffers who will shape Coaltion policy for years to come - called Liberals for Not Going Soft in Opposition. These naive and overly-ideological young people are determined to retain the attitudes that saw the Coalition turned out federally and saw the NSW Coalition unable to make a dent in Labor's majority in the 2007 State Election - against a Labor Government that is up there with Whitlam's when it comes to an economy that is in tatters and a Treasury that is nearly bankrupt. Doctrinal purity is more important to them than having policies that are acceptable to the average Joe. Most of NSW - the least conservative of any State - considered, and still do consider, the Liberal Party there to be extremists. It is no co-incidence, incidentally, that the most extreme wing of the Anglican Church is also in NSW. There is a large cross-over in membership. NSW Senator Connie Fiervannti-Wells, who holds the unofficial title of Convenor of the National Right - a title she inherited from fellow Sicilian and ultra-conservative Catholic Senator Santo Santoro - recently wrote a laughable article in The Australian saying effectively that the Liberal Party should completely retain the policies which were so roundly rejected by Australians on 24 November. This same convenor of the National Right, whose policies were rejected in two seperate elections last year, sent out invites to a recent Christmas Party for fellow-travellers under the auspices of the ironically named group Liberal Mainstream. Very mainstream, I'd say, when the people of NSW prefer the worst Government since Whitlam to you, and at a federal level rejected you with the biggest swing since the one against the same PM in 1975.

If Lord Carrington, a tough WW2 hero, an hereditary peer from a priveliged background, educated at Eton and Sandurhurst, and Minister in one of the most Right-wing Governments ever seen in an English-speaking country, can acknowledge that success in life is not a simple black and white case of those who work hard and those who don't, and that conservatives need to show some compassion to those less fortunate, then there is no reason Australian conservatives can't also do this. If we don't, we are destined for a long time in Opposition.

The "Vision" Thing

2008-01-03T23:47:00.002+11:00

Since November 24, we've heard a lot from the media and the chattering classes that the Coalition had no "vision" and that it was all about the past for them. I paid it little attention, since a yearning for a Nanny State where the all-powerful Govt has an all encompassing "progressive" agenda is what the Left always want, & the Centre-Right generally believe in providing good economic conditions so people can flourish, a basic safety net for those who can't look after themselves, and leaving the rest up to the individual rather than telling him or her what to do.

However, today I was surprised to hear an intelligent former Electorate Officer to a former right-wing Federal MP express the same sort of sentiments about the Howard Govt having no plan for the future & instead only talked of providing more of the same as the past 11 years. To me, that's exactly what I expect of a conservative Govt - that they get the economy in shape & keep it there, lower taxes, provide basic welfare, & otherwise stay out of my life as much as possible. I don't want a Five-Year-Plan produced by the Australian version of ComIntern.

Have the Whitlam and Hawke/Keating Govts conditioned Australians so much into thinking that a good Government should have an all-pervading Master Plan that unless the Coalition becomes a pale shadow of Labor, all we can expect from now on is to be invited back into Govt just to fix up the economy when the ALP stuffs it, and then get thrown out in favour of the Social Engineers again when we get back to full employment and low interest rates?

Do we need to become like the Tories in England and kiss goodbye any social conservatism, making our only point of difference with Labor that we are 3 shades to the right of them on economic matters? If so, where do social conservatives then find a home in the Australian political spectrum?

Different faces, same attitude in the Qld Police Force

2007-12-30T12:03:00.000+11:00

I really wonder what the Fitzgerald Inquiry achieved. Gambling and prostitution are now legal in Qld, a few polticians went to jail - one for rorting the giant amout of $400 from his travel expenses - , and the cops are still willing to totally subvert hundred of years of legal precedent to "get" someone they don't like.

On Channel 10 News Brisbane on 28 December, it was reported that a man who was over 0.05 was arrested and convicted of drink driving while fitting a new battery to his sister's car & filling it with petrol in Qld. This was despite the fact he didn't even have the keys in his possession. At appeal, the Court ruled that there was possibly the intention to drive the car & that he may be able to find a way of starting it without the keys. So Qld Police can now convict you on what you MIGHT do. Throwing out the age-old precedent that they must either catch you in the act, or prove beyond reasonable doubt.

I MIGHT order my dog to attack and kill someone while walking it. The likelihood of this is negligible, but should I be arrested and convicted?If this had happened in the 1980s, there would have been marching in the streets. But a Labor Govt seems to get away with it.

Police in the story warned people not to go anywhere near a car when over the limit, since case law was now backing up their ability to arrest someone for drink driving on reasonable suspicion!So don't catch a taxi when you're out drinking, don't get a sober person to give you a lift, in fact don't even walk down a footpath next to a parked car. It doesn't matter that you don't have the keys. Just being near it is enough to be found guilty of drink driving.Looks like the Qld police and judiciary have gotten worse if anything since Fitzgerald. Still totally untrustworthy and liable to hit out at random at people who pose no threat to society whatsoever.

Forget protesting about the lack of freedom resulting from anti-terrorist laws brought in since 9/11. This is far likely to affect yourself or those you know, since nearly all of us have a drink from time to time and then walk near a car.