Australian parties of the right

1
Australian parties of the right

• Graham Young
• Chief Editor
• On Line Opinion
• Former Vice-President
• and
• Campaign Chairman
• Queensland Liberal Party
• 18th March, 2005

2
Who said this?

• what we must look forissocial justice and
  securitynational power and national progress,
  andthe full development of the individual
  citizen.There is no room in Australia for a
  party of reaction

3
Whats Right?

• Liberal
• National
• One Nation
• Family First
• Christian Democrats

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Whos right?
5
Where do right and left originate?
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• The old one-dimensional categories of 'right'
  and 'left', established for the seating
  arrangement of the French National Assembly of
  1789, are overly simplistic for today's complex
  political landscape. For example, who are the
  'conservatives' in today's Russia? Are they the
  unreconstructed Stalinists, or the reformers who
  have adopted the right-wing views of
  conservatives like Margaret Thatcher?
• Source http//www.politicalcompass.org/

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A better representation?
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Points on the Compass

• Five categories Libertarian, Centrist,
  Authoritarian, Left Liberal, Right Conservative
• Major divide is a question of how the economy is
  organised around individuals or the state.
• Perfectibility of man/original sin/utopia versus
  distopia

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Liberals and Conservatives

• Using Liberal in the classical liberal sense,
  not the USA sense.
• Using Conservative in the English sense more than
  the US sense.

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Liberalism

• Socrates
• Judaism
• Athenian democracy
• There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither
  bond nor free, there is neither male nor female
  for ye are all one in Christ Jesus. Galatians
  328

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Liberalism continued

• Renaissance
• Reformation
• Consciously separate ideology in the 16th Century

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Some Liberal Thinkers

• Jean Jacques Rousseau Man was born free and
  everywhere he is in chains.Du Contrat social,
  Ch. 1, 1762
• John Locke Social Contractarian
• Jefferson We hold these truths to be
  self-evident, that all men are created equal,
  that they are endowed by their Creator with
  certain unalienable Rights, that among these are
  Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
  American Declaration of Independence
• Adam Smith The Wealth of Nations (1776)

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More Liberal thinkers

• John Stuart Mill On Liberty (1859),
  Utilitarianism (1863), Subjection of Women (1869)
  
• L T Hobhouse
• Isaiah Berlin
• F A Hayek The Road to Serfdom (1944)

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Key liberal ideas

• Civil and political rights
• Equality of opportunity, not outcome
• Freedom of speech, thought and association
• Private property
• Individual effort

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Conservatism

• Western conservatives are broadly liberal in that
  they operate in a liberal society.
• Conservative ideologymay be defined as a
  philosophy of imperfection, committed to the idea
  of limits, and directed towards the defence of a
  limited style of politics. Noel OSullivan,
  Conservatism (1976)
•  
• Tend to a darker view of human nature than
  liberals, and take a more organic view of
  society.

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Some Conservative Thinkers

• Thomas Hobbes Leviathan (1651)
• Edmund Burke Reflections on the Revolution in
  France (1790)
• Hegel The Philosophy of Right (1833)
• Oakeshott Rationalism in politics (London,
  1962)
• Hayek The Fatal Conceit (1988)
• Scruton Why I became a conservative (The New
  Criterion, February, 2003) http//www.newcriterion
  .com/archive/21/feb03/burke.htm

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History of Parties of the Right
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Before Labor

• Political parties in our tradition only about 300
  years old.
• Defined initially by attitude towards monarchy.
  Developed from acrimony between Whigs and Tories.
  
• Liberals were the Whigs word derived from
  Scottish Presbyterian Rebels in the Civil War.
  First applied in 1679 to the Country Party
  opposed to James II. Subsequently associated
  with industrialism, non-conformism and reform.
• Tories. Originally supporters of James II, then
  Jacobism. Tended to represent the interests of
  the landed gentry, merchants and Anglicans.
  Became the Conservative party in the 1830s.

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After Labor

• Change in relationship between the parties
  occurred with the birth of the Labour Party in
  1893. First Labour Party in the world in
  Australia. Before that Trades Unionists had been
  occasionally elected to parliament via the
  Liberal Party in England.
• The last Liberal Government in England collapsed
  in the 1920s from then on, as Labor increased
  in importance, Liberals were drawn into the
  Conservative Party.
• Class basis

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Australia

• Anti-Labor or non-Labor
• Class based, but see Judith Brett Australian
  Liberals and the Moral Middle Class From Alfred
  Deakin to John Howard, and John Black - Hit and
  Myth - debunking Labor's interest rate theory
• Sectarian element

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Liberal Party Family Tree

• Liberal Party 1900-1917
• Nationalist Party 1917-31
• United Australia Party 1931-44
• Liberal Party 1944- date

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Free trade versus protectionism

• NSW v Victoria
• I believe it is a mere political trick of the
  most obvious kind to endeavour to describe any
  party, either in the Federal or in the State
  arena, as a Conservative party. There is no such
  party in AustraliaThe real line of cleavage is
  the line between those who believe in
  developmentby State monopolies. George Reid,
  Hansard, 14th July, 1909
• The Deakanite Settlement Paul Kelly, The Age of
  Certainty (1992)

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Modern Liberal Party

• Formed 1994
• These are, in the political and economic sense
  the middle class . They are not rich enough to
  have individual power. They are taken for
  granted by each political party in turn. They
  are not sufficiently lacking in individualism to
  be organized for what in these days we call
  pressure politics. And yet, as I have said,
  they are the backbone of the nation. Robert
  Menzies, The Forgotten People, Radio Broadcast,
  22 May 1942

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Liberal history cont

• Deliberate choice of Liberal rather than
  Conservative
• We took the name Liberal because we were
  determined to be a progressive party, willing to
  make experiments, in no sense reactionary, but
  believing in the individual, his rights and
  enterprise. Robert Menzies
• Freedom and Individual
• The real freedoms are to worship, to think, to
  speak, to choose, to be ambitious, to be
  independent, to be industrious, to acquire skill,
  to seek reward. Robert Menzies, Policy Speech,
  1949 Federal Election

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More Liberal history

• The Liberal Party campaigned on the themes of
• Individualism, but not laissez-faire
• Freedom of Speech and Expression
• Freedom from Want
• Freedom from Fear

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Recent Liberal History

• Malcolm Fraser
• Came to office at time of world change
• Reagan and Thatcher
• Lower tax, privatisation, deregulation
• (including labour markets).

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Liberal present history

• John Howard
• Most ideological. Not conservative
• GST
• Privatisation
• Deregulation (Including labour market)
• Education
• Undone the Deakinite settlement

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National Party

• Founded in 1917 (as the Country Party), largely
  to service the interests of farmers and rural
  communities little philosophical underpinning.
• Strength from power of its leaders
• Influence declining
• Declining rural population
• Growth of the Liberal Party in traditional
  National Party areas
• Emergence of strong rural lobby groups e.g.
  National Farmers Federation
• Over-reached e.g. aggressive attempts to move
  into urban areas from the 1970s failed Joh for
  PM campaign in 1987

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One Nation

• Formed in 1997
• Capitalised on discontent with major, established
  parties
• Raised problems but generally failed to offer any
  solutions
• Relied on populist terms to push causes
• Advocated protectionism and welfarism

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Family First

• Formed by people involved with the Churches of
  Christ
• Vague platform
• Family Impact Statements

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Themes of modern non-Labor

• Reform of Labor laws
• Increased de-regulation/self-regulation
• Privatisation
• Tariff and Industry reform
• Tax reform
• Economic management
• Defence and national security

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Party Organisations

• Liberal Party
• Federal
• Broad-based
• Emphasis on Parliamentary Party

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Party Organisations cont

• National Party
• Federal
• Populist
• Grass roots
• One Nation
• Brand more than traditional political party

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Party organisations cont

• Family First
• Federal
• Broad-based community organisation
• Havent seen copy of constitution

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The future

• Francis Fukuyama The End of History
• Convergence (Third Way)
• Liberal Consensus
• UN Declaration of the Universal Rights of Man