Greg Barns raises the prospect that liberal Liberals might cross the floor to block illiberal government legislation in the Senate. This will take one government senator if the rest of the Senate is opposed, or two if the government can line up an additional vote, say from Family First. As Barns observed, this happened a couple of times under Fraser
And during the 1980s, when the Liberal Party was in opposition, it was liberals such as Ian Macphee, Peter Baume and Fred Chaney who curtailed the impact of the Liberal Party’s social conservatives on matters such as immigration and women’s rights.
Of course Macphee lost preselection and Baume and Chaney were marginalised. But, as Dave Ricardo pointed out in recent comments, if you want to look at what’s happened to the 1980s liberal wing of the Liberal party, you need only look at its remaining representative in Parliament – Philip Ruddock.
John Quiggin 
The Liberal Party was so scarred by the disunity of 1983-1996 that its internal culture changed – public dissent is now more limited and generally takes a more constructive form (eg suggested alternative policies, rather than bad-mouthing colleagues). The mess the ALP is in reinforces the political lesson. If the issue is big enough crossing the floor is possible, but overall I’d class it as unlikely.
A terminological suggestion to avoid the nonsensities of “small ‘l’ liberals” or “liberal liberals” constructions. All Australians, and most people in the OECD, are reformist liberals in that they believe and support the Enlightenments self-reflecting libertarian and equalitarian institutions – individualist families, seperation of Church and State, free press, capitalist markets, constitutionalist democracy etc.
One can still be a liberal whilst preferring a conservative, rather than progressive, inflection of liberal institutions:
conservatives: tradition, integration, rights, social authority
progressives: fashion, differentiation, obligations, individual autonomy
This standard allows one to call Machiavelli a liberal (which he clearly was given his support for the Florentine Open Society) whilst recognising that he was a conservative rather than progressive in his attitude to change & disorder. From this it follows that all AUS parliamentarians, from Bob Brown to Pauline Hanson, are reformist liberals who support the Open Society (there are no reactionary tribalists or revolutionary totalitarians in their number).
Where one stands on the progressive-conservative spectrum is not set in cement. It is relative, not absolute, and depends alot on where ones society stands at the moment.
Progressives have no right to claim the mantle of liberalism all to themselves. Progressive-liberalism can damage liberal institutions by making a fetish of victimological rights, being subject to the whims of cultural fashion, undermining social authorities who guard institutions from external subjugation and internal subversion and mindlessly promoting diverse differentiation.
The AUS polity participated in an orgy of progressive-liberalism from the mid-sixties to the mid-nineties. Some of this was good (Aboriginal citizenship, race neutral NESB immigration), some of this was indifferent (the explosion of liberal Arts), and some of this was bad (multi-culti po-mo identity politics). The bad chickens came home to roost when progressive-liberals, under Keating, ran amok. Mainstream AUS is sick of progressive-liberalism for the moment. Hence the Decline of the Wets (DEMs, ideological GREENs) who got 13% of the total SEN vote in 1996 but declined to 9% in 2004 – a 30% collapse.
Now conservative-liberals, such as Howard, have the upper hand at the moment. They have to repair some of the damage.
AUS is a constitutional democracy and the majority prefer conservative-liberalism at the moment. Progressive-liberals support constitutional democracy so they have little grounds for whinging. They would be better off re-considering some of their failed or unpopular policies.
According to this morning’s Age and Australian, it’s the religious right (in Labor and Family First as well as the Coalition) rather than the liberal Liberals who are straining at the leash, once again on the question of abortion.
A curious aspect of this is that they are seeking to make an issue of the “true financial cost” of terminations. Most of us would question the importance of this consideration relative to others in the abortion debate, but in any case it’s the dampest shot in the right-to-life locker.
The public financial costs of terminating a pregnancy on Medicare are trivial compared to those of medical care for a new mother and child, supporting and educating the child until early adulthood, tax income forgone and transfer payments incurred as a result of the mother’s total or partial withdrawal from paid work, etc.
Not, as I suggested earlier, that such considerations should be primary in the abortion debate.
Is this the invasion of the neo-liberals? Following Andrew and Jack, with some modifications, it seems that the Liberals got over their internal strife by 1993 but that election result scarred and scared them out of good policy making. It is most likely that the good things that Jack nominated like recognition of Aboriginals would have happened under a dry regime without the collateral damage that was inflicted by the progressive left.
Some of us are still looking for a uniting of the non-left with a platform that combines economic rationalism with sensible cultural conservatism to nurture valuable cultural traditions in the same way that we want to sustain valuable parts of our ecosystem. How odd that some greens other progressives are prepared to be cultural vandals!
Now that the Red under their Bed has died, or at least has shrunk to lilliputian dimensions, the shotgun marriage between the god-bothering and hedonistic wings of the coalition may come under some strain.
Barnes shows a blinkered and tendentious understanding of liberalism’s relation to social progress:
otten social conservatives in the Liberal party may not have been all that conservative. Howard’s rotten racism has seen the (mainly Asian) NESB to ESB ratio in the immigration quota has increased. Howard’s rotten sexism has seen more women completing tertiary education, starting businesses and being represented in politics in greater numbers.
No doubt the progressive-liberals in the Liberal party did yeomens work in bringing unreconstruted ultra conservative-liberals kicking and screaming in to the 20th C. But they undid much of their good work on race & gender by pandering to the New Left grievance industry – a very illiberal and unprogressive political formation.
That is the trouble with progressive-liberals: they identify social progress for minorities with the number of sectional regulations passed & govt sinecures created.
It’s more likely that members of the National Party will speak out against government policy, particularly with the sale of Telstra now imminent. I tend to believe that the majority of Liberal sitting members these days are too concerned with basking in John Howard’s dull glow to risk earning JWH’s disfavour.
“Howard’s rotten sexism has seen more women completing tertiary education, starting businesses and being represented in politics in greater numbers”
Of course, feminist commentators such as Anne Summers could (and do) cite lots of statistics to tell a different story.
I would argue that neither the trends Jack cites, nor those which Summers cites, tell the full story on their own.
I would also argue that the indices of the improved status of women which Jack cites, and others such as record high levels of labour market participation, are in large part the result of secular socio-cultural and economic trends which Federal Governments either have limited ability to influence, or are compelled to indirectly influence in a partially pro-feminist direction by other policy priorities such as maximising economic growth.
All governments of capitalist democracies, no matter how socially reactionary or religiose they may wish to be, must keep the economy ticking over, which means willy-nilly fostering those long-run tendencies within capitalism which are disruptive of patriarchal relations in the family and elsewhere and which draw increasing numbers of women into the production process, with all the socio-cultural consequences which flow from that.
Liberal senators have dissented from the government line on committees. The 2001 ANU election survey also suggested dissent among liberal candidates on asylum-seeker policy. There is potential for disagreement. The knowledge that the ALP and minor parties could defeat government legislation may have discouraged potential rebels. The next three years will test whether there has been a shift in Liberal internal culture. if Howard is such a good friend of Asian-Australians why their shift to the ALP?
ntrist” liberal should be progressive on economics and conservative on culture. Therefore, on the question of constraining corporate power, I believe that progressive-liberals in all parties should take a lead by sticking up for the weaker sections of the employee class, reducing market concentration in media & working to improve the occupational opportunities of those on disability pensions.
The question of terrorists suspects is more contentious since these folk are not likely to have full AUS citizenship rights and perhaps their actions preclude these entitlements. Their claims should be treated on the basis of utilitarian national interest rather than humanitarian individual right.
Barns, presumably, warns of:
more anti-terrorist legislation which will erode the legal rights of individuals
and Strocchi spins it into:
The question of terrorist suspects is more contentious since these folk are not likely to have full AUS citizenship rights and perhaps their actions preclude these entitlements. Their claims should be treated on the basis of utilitarian national interest rather than humanitarian individual right.
I am not aware of a single legal right denied to Australian residents but yet available to citizens in the criminal law.
Jack suggests we break dangerous new ground here in our effort to wage the GWOT. Well, he doesn’t really, he’s just playing his usual game of twist someone’s words until a hole appears.
I have just been trying to hunt down a reference for the following but failed.
Someone, I think the late Gordon Reid, WA political scientist, pointed out that at times during the sixties and maybe fifties when the Senate majority was slim (or the govt relied on the DLP) there were more cases of floor crossing than when the majority was large. In circumstances where almost anyone holds veto power, the govt can’t take their Senators for granted.
It remains to be seen if the purging of the wets has changed things.
I’m with Rafe! I couldn’t have put it better myself, though of course you lot have probably noticed how I tend to the turgid when replying at short notice…
I don’t see much floor-crossing on the horizon; the purge of the Wets during the 80s has caused those members given to independent thought ( a small minority at best) to keep one eye on their preselection. A good example is the issue of asylum seekers, which actually caused some significent angst amongst the ‘liberal’ Liberals and even some willing exchanges behind closed doors. But not a syllable of protest made its way on to the floor of the chamber.
The only prospect for dissent might be the full sale of Telstra, which is making the Nationals and some rural Liberals twitchy. But I suspect some judicious pork-barrelling will likely head off any potential revolt.
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Life trumps liberty, even on Jefferson’s ultra-liberal ethic. wbb prefers to crank out the ritualistic libertarian line, bending over to back-breaking angles to protect the rights of suspected terrorist perps. But I suggest that realistic communitarians have a superior moral obligation: to defend their civic state.
wbb’s words have a strangely unrealistic pre-911 air about them. I am not “breaking dangerous ground” by urging tougher security measures. We are already treading on “dangerous ground”, given the mortal scale of this terrorist outrage. The scale of domestic anti-terrorist measures is venal by comparison.
And the problem is likely to get worse as theology maddens more people whilst technology empowers them, a fact noted by more prescient analysts than wbb.
Einstein suggested explanations be as simple as possible, but no simpler. As I indicated, the rights of stateless terrorist perps & suspects are inherently contentious given their ambiguous political status & the monstrous threat that some of them pose. I dont expect wbb to be up to Einsteinian scales of savvvies but is it too much to ask him to spare us the faux dopey pantomine. Or maybe he really is that dumb?
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Here is the mail: Permanent residents do not have the right to vote, which entail a sub-citizen political status. The law grants residents lesser rights, because experience has shown that full citizens are typically more likely to be loyal and trustworthy.
In any case, I am not so much interested in the source of the agents legal status (ritalistic legalism again!) as the destination of their political actions. Terrorism is an act of war against the state, ie a political, rather than common criminal, violation of the law. Such violations (treason, desertion) are always considered more heinous than ordinary crime. Whether it is Australian residents, citizens or illegal aliens you are just as dead if you get blown up by a terrorist (ask the Bali bombing victims.)
The state’s primary moral duty is to protect its citizens and lawful residents from unlawful vioence and if this means acquiring more power and using counter-active or pre-emptive force then so be it.
wbb may beg to differ, but he has no right to take the high moral ground. This is a standard rhetorical tactic of progressive-liberals but it is wearing a bit thin amongst those members of the general community who dislike the idea of being attacked by mass-homicidal theocratic maniacs.
It was pee-cee identiy politic (by Republicans!) pandering to the Arab ethnic vote & Saudi business that caused US immigration officials to drop their guard & constrained security officials in the course of their investigations. wbb and his chorus of mindless libertarians are free to whinge on behalf of the rights of defendants, but what defence does this give the innocent victims who were incinerated?
No doubt we are all in dire mortal danger as Strocchi warns. Nonetheless, and without moralising, it’s an open question the degree to which we will differently choose to rewrite the legal code in response. And I have not expressed an opinion on that.
My point was that Strocchi suggested that legal entitlements could be usefully made to depend on whether a person’s status was citizen or permanent resident. Or maybe he was rather distinguishing between citizens/permanent residents and temporary visa holders. Either way it should be irrelevant. And not as Strocchi knee-jerkwise imagines for sanctimonious moral reasons of equality, but rather for the reason that there is no practical advantage to the community to do so.
Whether it is Australian residents, citizens or illegal non-citizens you are just as dead if you get blown up by them (no need to ask anyone.)
And that Strocchi, who loves to hand out the Dumbo of the Year Award, would write this:
the rights of stateless terrorist perps & suspects are inherently contentious
is curious. The status of the above is the opposite of contentious. They get immediate and indefinite detention under the existing Migration Act (1958). The end result is either expulsion or arrested to help the plod with their enquiries. Not sure how Strocchi proposes to blame Theophanous for Willie Brigitte’s return to the wild.
ystal ball that can guarantee terrorists, over the next generation, will not get their hands on customised genocidal pathogens or portable nuclear weapons then I will be happy to turn the alarm volume down. However, unlike Bill Joy, wbb does not have any record of useful prediction in this area so I prefer to not take my chances with his derisive drivel.
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st that we undermine existing entitlements to deal with this problem. I pointed out that existing entitlements are inadequate to deal with the problem of defining their status and civil entitlements. Hence the contention. Its not that difficult a point to grasp, unless one really perseveres at obtuseness. [test]
ficulties with wither the political theory of terrorism or logical comprehension or maybe both. He is begging the question in even more egregious fashion than usual and one begins to wonder whether he is actually lost in his faux dummie character. I did not limit the class of possible terrorists to permanent residents. They could be illegal aliens, tourists, blow-ins, diplomatic reps. or any number of other categories or, as in the case of Al Quaeda perps, a new and contentious category.
wbb assumes the state knows where and who the terrorists are and their MO. But these are the very facts that are in contention, even in well known cases like Hicks et al. The non-contentious status of terrorists would be news to those parties contending their status in the US Supreme Court and various organs of public opinion. The proper treatment of Gitmo detainees is only the most controversial aspect of this problem.
wbb does not seem to grasp the fact that “things have changed”. Modern terrorism has exposed major deficiencies in the legal categories developed since the Treaty of Westphalia.
But all this legalistic sophistry distorts the Big Picture. I really dont care all that much what a terrorist suspect/perp’s legal status is. If they are guilty of terrorist crimes in my book they are outlaws and they forfeit the full rights associated with lawful membership of a civic agency. I just want my political agencies, at whatever scale, given the power to deal with the threat. If the state can neutralise them without much fuss, then all well and good.
Fussing and bothering over the legal status of members of the terrorist community & their fellow travellers is part of the problem, not the solution and a major factor in why we have come to grief. It causes endless bureaucratic buck-passing, over-lawyering and identity politicking. wbb wants us to buy into this legalistic libertarian quagmire whilst mass-murderers run amok in our, & vulnerable Islamic states, midst.
All of this is obvious to those not committed to defending progressive-liberal shibboleths at all costs. No wonder the Wets are in Decline. They take forever to pounce, meanwhile the caravan has moved on.
“I really dont care all that much what a terrorist suspect/perp’s legal status is. If they are guilty of terrorist crimes in my book they are outlaws and they forfeit the full rights associated with lawful membership of a civic agency. I just want my political agencies, at whatever scale, given the power to deal with the threat. If the state can neutralise them without much fuss, then all well and good.”
Thus the manifesto of an illiberal statist. You’ve conclusively demonstrated you value state power over individual rights, Jack. You’re no liberal, and if you’re going to be a hypocrite, please do us the kindness of stating so upfront. It saves so much time.
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Thus Fyodor displays the knee-jerk sanctimony of a progressive-liberal. And in doing so gives a textbook example of the stupid and nasty SOPs of his (“soft on terrorist”?) prog-lib ilk. First he (il-)logically draws a false ideological inference and then (im-)morally slanders the adversary. His intellectual machinery is a shonky as his ideological morality.
Lets deal with Fyodor’s (un-)intellectual mendacities first. He falsely identifies the liberal-progressive entitlement fetish of with liberalism per se. I have argued here & above that liberalism is a broad church which can vary progressive to conservative tendencies, depending on the state of social evolution. Howard is just as much, and even more of a liberal (helped three nations to democratise!), than his petty & silly critics.
Fyodor mendaciously indicates that I support the complete abrogation of individual rights for all people, particularly terrorist suspects/perps. This is a blatant lie. I support the Open Society for all law respecting persons (including criminals & enemy PoWs). Civiilan decapitating & child murdering terrorists recognise fewer obligations so they deserve fewer, but not no, civil entitlements than law-respecting person, common criminals & normal enemy PoWs. This is nothing more than justice.
Here is a re-statement,in pre-emptive self defence against the Fyodor & wbb ilk, of my views on this subject.
1. Unlawful combatants waging terroristic war against civilians warrant treatment according to national (or regional, global) utilitarian, rather than individual humanitarian, principles. This does not preclude granting them rights, only that their libertarian rights are not presumptively superior to communitarian interests.
2. I am not that fussed with defining terrorist entitlements up front, owing to their ambiguous status & contentious facts attending their MO. Legalistic haggling over rights & pandering to identity politicians is a symptom, not therapy, for the virus of terrorism.
3. Whatever their legal status I want the state to have the power & use it to stop terrorists before they kill multitudes of law-abiding individuals (who also have rights) & takeover vulnerable states. Fydor et al Wets seems sanguine – on spurious progressive grounds – about using necessary force to constrain terrorists, even though terrorist methods are illiberal alright and terrorist aims are the antithesis of liberalism. Thus are our po-mo, pee-cee progressives complicit in the suicide of a liberal civitas.
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Fyodor’s im(moral) defamities redux. The only conclusive proof here demonstrated is Fyodor’s unscrupulous rhetorical sleaziness.
Terrorists are not the only, or even the majority, of indviduals who deserve rights. But one could be forgiven for thinking that is the case given the implications of Fydor’s argument.
I have always been the strongest possible supporter of the Open Society. In order to protect freedom, as Popper’s paradox of democracy example showed, one must accept some constraints on freedom (eg democracy cannot vote to abolish majority rule).
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Who died and appointed Fyodor the Pope of Liberalism? For someone who styles himself as a critic of authority he seems rather authoritarian.
Unlike Fyodor I do not just pay lip service to Popper’s ideal. I am prepared to fight against those who wish to destroy the institutions that regulate the Open Society and the indivduals who incarnate it.
Fyodor, OTOH, seems happy to take the real risk that terrorists will massacre more lawful persons, just so he can preen his libertarian credentials in public. He could save us the nauseating exhibition of moral vanity by confining it to his wanking parlour.
Things have changed. Its the war on terrorism, stupid! War itself is a “legal crime” which clearly requires relaxing normal humanitarian constraints on the treatment of individuals (taxation, conscription, manslaughter etc). Terrorist war introduces even more onerous challenges to liberal policy. And terrorist war in the age of theo-war & techno-weapons ramps up that threat.
The progressive-liberal sectarian & tribalist pandering deal is off, for the duration of the GWOT. The progressives should step aside gracefully and let the conservatives repair the damage.
The intelligent masses have the sense to realise this & have voted accordingly. But the intellectual elites, as Orwell once noted, will believe any folly if it feels good.
Jackpot!
I could say blah x 3, but our audience require a little more content. You’ve stated as plain as can be that you support illiberal statist policies. Stop the hypocrisy, you clown.
There’s at least one issue on which Jack S is indisputably liberal – the use of bold formatting.
Might I tempt fate by suggesting that bolding what you obviously think to be the key points of your argument doesn’t in itself make them any more convincing or credible. Much more likely that you will just annoy the unfortunate reader. (See?)
Back in my schoolteaching days I often had cause to chide students who embellished their essays with excessive formatting. I found it often indicated an attempt to compensate for a lack of substance with an over-indulgence in style.
Fyodor — 3/2/2005 @ 11:33 am BLAH X 1 indicts himself:
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I stated many times that I support a conservative, rather than progressive, qualification of liberalism. It is a lie and slander to assert the contrary, but it would be unfair to sue Fyodor for his tendentious and mendacious interpretations as he has trouble getting his tiny little mind around complex concepts.
The (hard-headed, soft-hearted) conservative-liberal policy is necessary to protect vulnerable institutions and individuals from Fyodor’s brand of morally vainglorious progressiveness.
It is a hollow victory when the contestant awards himself the crown. Especially when said contestant shuns the contest in full. But it is clear from Fyodor’s words that he prefers and onanistic orgy of self-congratulation to a fair fight any day.
tim g — 3/2/2005 @ 4:23 pm presumes to lecture me on bold emphasis:
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I forgot to close one emphasis tag, so sue me. But no need to get your pedagogical knickers into a twist.
The current incarnation of Quiggin blog is not as user-friendly, to testing and using formats, as the old one.
tim g — 3/2/2005 @ 4:23 pm presumes to lecture me on bold emphasis:
No, Jack – you’re the lecturer. I was just winding you up. Lighten up, my friend. You’ll live longer.
I have been quite heartened that Senator Jeannie Ferris is showing clearly that she sees abortion as an important right for women.
For the women of Australia the mullahs issuing fatwas look little different to the fanatical priests who are willing to deny women the choice to control their bodies and their lives.
There are still men who kill a woman for becoming pregnant at an inconvenient time – what price an illegal abortion under those circumstances?
Liberal women should cross the floor if it is needed to give all women the control of their destiny.
Jack,
I’m not fighting with anyone. As usual, you’re fighting with yourself.
The bizarre aspect to this grudge match of Jack vs. Jack is that you’re losing…again!
Fyodor — 4/2/2005 @ 6:41 am makes a gobsmacking surmise of his representations to this thread:
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It was only the other day ( 3/2/2005 @ 11:33 am) that Fyodor was found guilty of making inflammable comments directed against the present party:
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Since this utterance, if nothing else, contains fighting words it would seem that Fyodor’s own words explicitly refute himself. Shooting oneself in the foot in public is a form of self-destructive conflict alright so perhaps Fyodor, instead of projecting, should take his own pacific advice and quit while he is behind. And use his intellectual powers to engage, rather than evade or caricature, contrary arguments.
Jack,
You clearly stated your preference for illiberal statism over liberal individual rights. It could not be plainer that you are a hypocrite in declaring yourself to be liberal. The person you’re “fighting” with is yourself. Be honest about it and move on.
Strocchi – 10:23 02/02/2005 AD or 10:23 17/06/0003 A911:
Terrorists are not the only, or even the majority, of indviduals who deserve rights.
But they are. Oh, they are. Not just the majority, but the totality of those who deserve rights.
Strocchi boldly and shamelessly seeks to deny terrorists the same rights available to white westerners. Terrorists are, on the contrary, those who most deserve rights. Every time they decapitate a proxy for the western capitalist hegemony, they are expressing an inner pain that is a profoundly poetical response that evidences not only their deservedness of all standard rights but also an extra dollop of identity-based rights. Their actions never fail to move me to tears at the childlike innocence of their powerless rage.
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Like experiment all leftists I yearn to reach out and hug them but I am thwarted by the state instruments of repression, global capitalism and unterminated html tags.