THE FALL OF THE TWO PARTY SYSTEM
FORWARD
Between 63-70% of Australians say we are heading in the
wrong direction. Our country has never been more divided and at a time when
geopolitical influences are threatening.
But our greatest challenge comes from within, influenced by radical changes in
various policies that have impacted on our economy, cost of living, defense,
and culture.
We live under a Democratic Representative Government. But
increasingly it does not feel so. We stand at a crossroad where our political
landscape has changed from the two party system to an emerging something else.
Obviously there must be change to meet the expectations of
the majority of the people, the very essence of a democracy. The following
story is a brief of how we got here and what has developed since. It is a work
in progress that will be upgraded as circumstances change or new developments
appear.
Do we remain with the
status Quo, or revisit our successful past for guidance in our choice of a new
path? And who do we choose and trust to take us along that path?
The facts are there, opinions mine, and the choice
ultimately yours. But somewhere between now and May 2028 we all must make that
choice.
We are no longer the open minded and tolerant people we once
were. We have become polarized. There are no shades of grey. Freedom of speech flows one way where to challenge
or criticize this modern Australia has significant consequences. Where once we
had robust debate, today we have “Cancelling”. The following is recent history
but decisions much earlier would form the cornerstones that would change our
nation, its character and values.
The Whitlam government changing the conditions of
immigration was one of those cornerstones. Speaking our language was no longer
a condition nor was assimilation into our culture or a reasonable understanding
of our history. Where second generation immigrants had previously moved out
from their parent’s homes to live and work within a broader community, they became further exposed to and assimilating
into Australian society. Whitlam’s change created ethnic enclaves where
traditional culture, language, and religion predominated throughout following
generations. With less focus on assimilation there was bound to be a clash of cultures where a predominantly
Judeo-Christian culture met radical elements of Islam.
Climate change science has been around since the late 18th
century but it took one Al Gore and his 1992 book “Earth in Balance,” his
campaign in 2000 and the documentary “An Inconvenient Truth” in 2006 for it to
reach worldwide attention with predictions of a dying planet. The impact would
create a cult-like global movement that would divide society and potentially
impoverish nations in addressing fears built on assumptions and modelling.
Julia Gillard’s parting
gift to society when losing office to Kevin Rudd in a hostile spill, was the Sexual
Discrimination Act, a change to the definition of sexual identity, where a man
could be legally defined as a woman. This ignorance of biology and
contradiction to the laws of procreation have since offered stepping stones to
the division, loss of space, identity, rights and social upheaval biological
women are faced with today.
Whether consciously or subconsciously everything we do in
life is measured against our values. If we abandon or compromise them, or they
are taken from us, we are set adrift. Values determine who and what we are how
our lives are affected, now and into the future.
The eventual realization of that gives us hope.
A roller Coaster Downward
Spiral for Conservative Politics
Two prime ministers, and two opposition leaders played roles in the downward spiral of the Liberal National coalition. PM Malcolm Turnbull who would later be thought of as a brilliant Labour or Teal candidate. PM Scott Morrison, who famously extolled the virtues of a lump of coal in parliament but then drooped it to the pressure of climate change moderates within his party.
Opposition leader Peter Dutton who showed promise with his opposition to The
Voice and later
a proposition for nuclear energy but failed to follow through on the latter.
And finally, Opposition leader Sussan Ley, the beneficiary of a humiliating
defeat, a moderate, faced with objectively dissecting Liberal’s failure, reviewing
policy and strategy, for a hard road back to relevance, stalled, split the
coalition twice and paid the price.
Prime Minister Tony Abbot 18.8.2013 to 14.8.2015
Tony Abbot was the last Liberal prime minister of the Howard
mold. He won a landslide victory (90 coalition seats) from Kevin Rudd’s second
term in office who took it from Julia Gillard in a hostile spill. Abbot, a centre right, is best
remembered for implementing Operation Sovereign Borders, an upgraded version of
Howard’s 2001 Pacific Solution, repealing the Gillard’s carbon tax, free trade
with Japan, China and South Korea. And no one could forget his biting into a
full jacketed raw onion. Abbot’s government was cut short in a spill engineered
by Malcom Turnbull who had been his Minister for Communications. In a following
election Turnbull won 76 coalition seats.
Tony Abbot
Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull 14.8.2015 to 24.8.2018
Turnbull, a well-heeled resident of Point Piper held several
degrees was experienced across a range of professions and oozed charm and led
the lobby for Australia to become a republic. A talented communicator, he became
the darling of the media, especially the ABC.
Turnbull was a moderate, supporter of renewable energy and open to elements of
the growing woke ideology. Slowly, with support from the moderates, the party
began drifting to the left as the party’s values began to change under Turnbull’s
watch.
There were two
observable aspects for a Turnbull legacy. his hard drive on economic policy and
his renewable energy policy brainchild of Snowy 2.0 hydro-electric scheme,
announced to cost $2 billion. Today that project is 70% complete at a cost of
$12 billion and estimated to finally cost $45 billion to complete. As for
Turnbull’s economic drive, it became part of his spill strategy when ousting
Tony Abbot accusing him as unfit in lacking sound and targeted economic policy
which, Turnbull charged, explained Abbot’s 30 consecutive falls in Newspoll’s.
The latter would come back to haunt Turnbull when he surpassed Abbot’s downward
Newspoll record.
Challenged in a spill by Peter Dutton, Turnbull survived 48
to 35. But the party was dissatisfied and within weeks demanded another spill
with Peter Dutton, Scott Morrison and Julie Bishop the challengers. Turnbull
upon seeing the numbers called no contest. Bishop lost the first round, and
Morrison won against Dutton 45 votes to 40.
Today, Malcolm Turnbull maintains his charm, communication
skills and remains the darling of the media. He comments on anything that
interests him but especially the Liberal Party he once led where he is mostly
seen on the ABC, much to the coalition’s dismay.
Malcom Turnbull
Prime Minister
Scott Morrison 24.8.2018 to 23.5.2022
Scott Morrison went on to win the 2019 election he
attributed to a miracle winning 77 coalition seats against a strong polling Bill
Shorten who was declared by pundits and large sections of the media to be in an
unlosable position. Shorten, Labour right. stepped down as opposition leader in
favour of Labour hard left, Anthony Albanese.
Morrison, a religious man who dubbed himself as a “daggy dad”,
came under immense pressure of the renowned Labour propaganda machine that had
clearly started their next election campaign within days of Morrison’s swearing
in. What was Howard’s centre right party had drifted to the left where the
moderate faction began to dominate which led Morrison to compromise, the policy
change in accepting net zero being an example. Morrison began to stumble.
When the Brittany Higgins case became a national scandal
bolstered by Labour’s false allegations of a cover up, Morrison publicly
apologized for the handling of the case. A decision that was unwarranted as it
turned out, and unwise as it offered Labour a credible argument against
Morrison and his government. His family holiday in Hawaii, was ill timed as
sections of Australia burned, but his comment “I don’t hold a fire hose mate”
burned into the public psyche. Both stumbles were gold handled flays for the
Labour’s propaganda machine, and Morrison was severely flogged, with them.
The Labour attacks, Morrison’s stumbles and the party’s move
to the left which began the branding of the party as Labour light saw Morrison
lose the 2022 election to Anthony Albanese leaving the coalition with 77 seats
and Labour to govern by a slim margin. Peter Dutton became opposition leader.
Scott Morrison
Opposition Leader
Peter Dutton 5.6. 2022 to 3.5. 2025
Peter Dutton comes from the centre right of the Liberal
party. A former policeman, soft spoken but passionate about his politics, was
left with a difficult task. The party continued to drift to the left either
adopting or bowing to Labour policies with fading resistance when it came to
vote on those policies even when its rhetoric would seem otherwise. The party faithful noticed. And so did Labour
emboldened by their win and having an expectation of more than two terms they
wanted to ensure it.
Whatever Dutton said or did he was ridiculed. Labour's
propaganda machine was in full swing, and the ridicule had no bounds, often
becoming personal. Dutton suffers from alopecia, a disease that causes baldness
in spots or total. In 2015 he was cruelly called Mr. Potato head. That slight
reappeared with a vengeance. But the greatest slight of all was when government
minister Anika Wells accused Dutton of being a protector of pedophilias.
That said, Dutton did some damage to the party’s standing
himself. Following the lead of the Nationals Dutton prosecuted the No case for
“The Voice’’ and rose in the polls but then rested on his laurels. He then
presented his nuclear energy concept which was met with ridicule and
misinformation by Labour and faltered. During the 2022 election his policies
did not resonate as the difference between Labour's, if any, were marginal. And
his final failure was to demolish Liberal’s economic credentials by entering an
escalating bidding war with them. More of the party faithful began to look
elsewhere and felt the party had abandoned them.
Albanese dominated
the election winning 94 seats leaving the coalition holding 58, Katter party 1,
the greens 4 and the independents including the Teals,10. The Liberal Party
were the greatest losers. With the backing of the Greens and the Teals in the
lower house and the Senate, Albanese had a clear path to establish his
ideological goals.
Peter Dutton
Opposition Leader
Sussan Ley 13.5.25 to 13 2. 26
Shocked, stunned, almost to the point of catatonic the Liberal
party took 10 days of deliberation to choose it next leader. But who would
drink of the poisoned chalice. There were two challengers, Susan Ley and Angus
Taylor. Susan Ley became Opposition leader. Whether that was a win or lose,
history will decide. Even the most astute followers of politics considered it a
temporary chair.
Ley, a moderate politician of long standing and experience, held
the seat of Farrer, a large rural electorate. She enjoyed the enviable reputation
of a woman who achieved much through sheer determination in her pursuits,
profession and self-development. Unfortunately, at times in addressing an
audience, she would overcompensate in her delivery by over gesturing and pronunciation
which came across as insincere. This rightly or wrongly was perceived as rehearsed,
lacking sincerity, and not the heart the people were looking for.
Ley had to face a coalition in turmoil, self-focused, unable
to objectively discuss what went wrong and arguing whether it should move to
the right or left, the latter of which Labour was encouraging. And in this
seemingly bottomless well of indecision the coalition forgot its prime responsibility
of holding the government to scrutiny thereby failing its base that remained
let alone the rest of the nation. Howard’s broad church was in disarray and effectively
dysfunctional.
The first coalition split between the Nationals and Liberals
over policy to which observers thought Ley overacted was not long resolved when
there was another. Ley’s reaction and rhetoric was confusing seeming to on one
hand indicate that the liberals could be an opposition alone. The centre right
within the party had enough and challenged Ley. Two candidates were favoured,
Angus Taylor and Andrew Hastie, but Hastie had no interest. Angus Taylor won
that challenge 34-17 and Sussan Ley would step down as an MP.
Sussan Ley
The Impact of Woke
Culture
The impeding coalition downfall was exacerbated by “woke culture”
that made offending a crime, socially by being as commonly described, “cancelled”,
and in some cases, legally. Sexual identity became legally recognized upon
declaration. Biology or chromosomes no longer applied. Transgender males were
given the right to women’s spaces, and to compete in women’s sport, even the
Olympics. To deny them was punishable under the law. Racism, inequality,
discrimination, misogyny, homophobia, transphobia etc. were seen everywhere no
matter how remote the action or word. And words used for generations were
changed because they may offend someone’s interpretation of woke political
correctness. Having a conversation or making comment became a minefield of
social cancelling or even legal recriminations.
Nowhere was this culture more prevalent than in the
academia, legal and political class. As a friend of mine once said of academia,
“There is nothing worse than an educated idiot.” I trust he forgives me for the
change to “useful idiot” as it turned out. The legal fraternity had to either
prosecute or defend it, And the politicians, well some would never offend with
votes at stake, while the realists had the Echidna approach, and dealt with it
very carefully, though not enough to cause any serious damage. And the media
was not spared this corruption either. The ethics of journalism became viewed
through a woke filter within elements of the broad media. News reporting could
become statements of opinion peppered with bias rather than objectivity and
balance. This, in my opinion, is especially prevalent in our ABC
The impact of woke culture here changed our once admired
national character, our unique sense of humour, our tolerance levels and open
trust formerly shared between Australians in stifling how we communicated.
Equality, Inclusion and Diversity changed our workplace, our parliament and military
forces where merit, incentive, and individual ambition became secondary. We
were becoming part of a heard, doomed to be herded at the government’s
discretion. We were travelling the path towards the very essence of socialism.
Anthony Albanese,
the Socialist’s Socialist
Anthony Albanese’s early life is well recorded being bought
up by his single parent mother and grandparents reliant on their combined
pensions. His political journey began when at 15 he joined Young Labour and
continued his role as an activist while studying economics at the University of
Sydney. Other than a short employment with the Commonwealth bank, Albanese
embarked on his political career taking up a position as a researcher with Labour stalwart Tom Uren. He became entrenched in the Labour far left faction
which had ideological connections to the Australian communist party.
Albanese won his seat of Grayndler in 1996 and worked his
rise through the ranks and various ministries to become deputy prime minister
under Rudd’s second term in 2013 but lost that role later that year when Rudd
was defeated by Tony Abbot.
Following Labour rules, leadership of the party was declared
vacant and Albanese declared his candidacy with the other challenger Bill Shorten
of the Labour right. Shorten was declared the winner. Under Shorten Albanese
was nominated as Shadow minister of infrastructure and transport, Shadow minister
of tourism and a year later, Shadow minister of cities. Albanese held those
shadow ministries throughout Shortens leadership term.
Malcolm Turnbull’s narrow victory in the of 2016 election
would normally attract a Labour leadership challenge with Albanese as the
presumed favourite, but Albanese declined the challenge and Shorten remained
the opposition leader.
A further conservative leadership change saw Scott Morrisson
win his 2019 “miracle election” gaining one more seat (77) than Turnbull’s (76)
where Shorten resigned his leadership. Both Albanese and Chris Bowen announced
their candidacy but Bowen withdrew realizing he did not have the numbers.
Albanese became Opposition leader which heralded a dramatic change in Labour’s
ideological pursuits and one that the conservatives failed to address.
The lead up to the 2022 election saw the Labour propaganda
machine in full swing with Morrison under continuous attack. The
misinformation, accusation, manufactured evidence, and bullying of the Higgins
affair. The mistimed holiday by Morrison and his “fire hose” hose comment were
all played out by Labour. And none of these were adequately challenged by the
conservatives.
Capping this all was the presentation of a new Anthony
Albanese. Gone was the hard left persona, replaced with a thinner man, better
dressed with his new, younger partner on constant show to further soften his
image. He presented himself as a new man with safe economic hands who had a
plan that would address all the nations challenges. A plan that was strong on
rhetoric but bereft of detail, a tactic that would continue as his base
strategy.
Never one strong on detail and caught out at times on that
shortcoming, the Labour's machine adapted with the united team strategy by
surrounding Albanese with various ministers to whom he would defer in press
engagements when frequently unsure of his ground.
Albanese had three main issues to his campaign, safe and
responsible economic management, cost of living and the importance of renewable
energy from the perspective of the environment and the nation becoming a global
renewable powerhouse that would save $275 pa in our power bills.
The electorate bought it and Anthony Albanese became prime
minister.
Anthony Albanese
The Statement from
the Heart that would Rock Australia
Election night
Saturday 22 May 2022. Anthony Albanese becomes Prime Minister of Australia. In
his victory speech he makes a surprising declaration, he will prosecute the
case for the Uluru Statement from the heart. the details of which
comprised a lengthy document, and the process to achieve it named The Voice.
Even his party was surprised. This was far removed from the
main focus of the campaign. It was interpreted as Albanese’s clear stamp in
initiating his legacy for his term in office.
The Voice was
explained as a means for aboriginals and Torres Strait islanders having a
stronger voice, within parliament in what affected them through legislation,
past, present and pending. This would be achieved by an elected body that would
council government within the process of parliament and their rights and powers
would be incorporated within our constitution. The challenge was, that any
constitutional change, requires a referendum. Pollsters were quick in
determining support for any such change which revealed a national support base
of around 65%. There was a need for public debate on the issue which developed
into an organized yes, and no campaign. The yes campaign spent $60M with
most money coming from the corporate sector while the no campaign spent
$20-25M. The cost (federal) of the referendum was $411M.
The referendum was soundly defeated with a 60.06% majority
and the only winning yes vote registered
was by the ACT.
The no vote was generated by a confluence of objections and
positions taken by certain players as well as the failures of Albanese in
prosecuting his case.
The racist argument The yes campaign worked on the
basis that those opposed were racist, uncaring, or both, while the no case
deferred to the constitution as colourblind in the equality of all Australians
regardless of colour, race or creed, and placing any race above any other was
in fact racist.
The fairness argument There were already 11 indigenous
representatives in federal parliament, (3 in the house of representatives and 8
in the senate) who were elected by the population through our representative
government process. By percentage, their representation was greater than any
other ethnic group within our nation.
Albanese’s argument that doing the same has the same
result This was challenged by
stating that adding another layer to an already broken system was not a
solution and there needed to be a Royal Commission into where the tens of
billions of funds were going.
What the voice actually was and what its goals were The
yes case put out a one page document explaining what the voice was and what its
goals were. Aspects of the goals of the document were missing in a document, 26
pages long that had been reduced to one. Challenged by SKY News commentator,
Peta Credlin, PM Albanese denied this and dug in on the one page argument. This
had the effect where some in the population sourced the full document and saw
the discrepancies.
Albanese’s open cheque approach Following the revelation
of a much larger document, and Albanese’s trust me approach in asking the
electorate to vote yes where the government would fill in the details of how it
would proceed later, the electorate began to turn sharply.
Peter Dutton's Liberals join the no campaign With the
Nationals already entrenched in the no campaign, well presented by and calls for the Liberals to join them on
basic ethical grounds rather than their hedging to date, Dutton went all in
further strengthening the opposing case.
The Jacinta Nampijinpa Price and Anthony Mundine effect Price
and Mundine played major roles in the no campaign acting as credible players
having lived and experienced the plight of aboriginal peoples and witnessing
the continuing failures of various government/indigenous systems in addressing
them. There was more than their objection to the voice in that they offered
alternate solutions which, sadly were not taken up after its ultimate defeat.
There was no greater cause for the defeat of the voice than
Albanese himself. It was not thought through. Had many flaws. Was based on, and
relied on emotive virtue signaling. Offered no real solutions. Did not stack
up under scrutiny. And any government that asked for an open check legislation,
especially in the constitution was a government either taking the people for
granted or treating them as fools. This was not Albanese’s first exposure of
lack of transparency or looseness with the truth, and nor would it be his last.
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