I’ve been too busy to post much, but I’ve written a number of articles over the past month or so that might be interesting to readers here. This one, published by various Fairfax papers looks at the damp squib of the G20 finance ministers meeting, and links it to the Abbott government’s elevation of tribalism over good government, and even over market liberal ideology.
There’s a follow-up here from Charles Richardson at Crikey and something more on similar lines by Rob Burgess at the Business Spectator
John Quiggin 
Sorry to be boring and repetitive, but the ALP & LNP are driven by both tribalism AND ideology.
Sadly, the ideology is shared – i.e. free-market fundamentalist neo-liberalism (with some different colouring around the edges to distinguish the two tribes).
The tribalism is utilised by both to further the commonly shared ideology. “Yay red team. Boo blue team.” The illusion of a genuine contest where the winner will be guaranteed to carry on the shared ideological program.
This weekend is “March in March”. Despite the denials, it is by silent default an ALP supporting event. The whole theme is exclusively anti-Abbott, anti-LNP government. Implicit but unstated is the obvious corollary “anti-LNP? Vote ALP instead”.
Publicising itself as “grass roots” when it is implicitly ALP annoys me.
As I said in another thread, I sincerely wish the best to the genuinely non-partisan protesters but I can’t join in on this one.
I don’t really want to be repetitious, but here’s my slightly modified comment on Charles Richardson’s piece at his Crikey blog:
If “politics is the art of compromise,” then it is an art unknown to contemporary politicians.
You (Richardson) say “So what’s new? Hasn’t politics always been largely tribal in nature? Well, yes and no.” Yet the fear of excessive partisanship in government brought about by tribal loyalties has been around for a long time. Recall James Madison’s words in the Federalist no. 10 (which I paraphrase): A faction is a group of citizens with interests that are adverse to the rights of other citizens or to the best interests of the whole nation. Because of the nature of man, such groups (political factions cum parties) are inevitable. Moreover, in a free society, they are unavoidable, because they result from the different interests and opinions that arise from persons differently situated, especially with respect to the ownership of property. And then, we have George Washington in his 1796 farewell address, warning that political factions are “likely, in the course of time and things, to become potent engines, by which cunning, ambitious and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people and to usurp for themselves the reins of government.”
Madison thought that a large enough democratic republic and the multiple jurisdictions of a federation would have such diversity that the effects of political factions would be buffered or muted. Unfortunately, history has proved him wrong.
You’re both missing the point. The fact that political parties exist (which is what Washington means by factionalism, and the only point made by Megan) is not at issue here.
Of course, political parties are partisan: that’s true by definition. The question is whether they represent a coherent ideological viewpoint, or simply a collection of tribal groups defined by their hatred of other tribal groups. The answer, almost invariably, is a mixture of the two, but Abbott has gone much further in the direction of tribalism than any Australian government in recent history.
I’ll be going along to March in March and I’m certainly no ALP tribal partisan Megan.
I will go because whatever the intent or the conceptions of the event brought to it by the majority of those attending, a great many of those who go will simply want to demur on the reactionary consensus, and those of us who bring more than “I don’t like it” or “down with Abbott” get to talk with large numbers of people who want to know how this disaster happened and what they can do to unpick it and build something better.
A demonstration is the easiest way that large numbers of politically atomised folk can become part of something larger than their circle of friends, and for a few precious minutes be part of something as loud as the boss class press that tells them they only count to the extent that they accept its memes du jour. For a moment, they count because they turned up. Those of us who celebrate their courage in dissenting from the boss class-shaped consensus should want them to feel energised and determined to shape a new consensus, based on equity and inclusion and the legitimate needs of the humanity they see about them, reminding them that ALP tribalism is merely a maladaptive response to the powerlessness they felt that brought them here.
@John Quiggin
No John, I haven’t missed the point.
I will set aside Washington’s words (since you seem to know better than I what he means). However, Madison got it right. Madison’s studies of ancient Greek and Roman political structures allowed him to see the dangers of government plagued by self-interested factions. He knew (from his studies) that such groups would inevitably arise in an otherwise free society because people with tightly held viewpoints (be they philosophic,religious, cultural, etc. differences) consolidate into partisan groups. Tribalism occurs when these groups become intolerant to the views of others.
For liberal democracy to succeed, we need people with different word views to come together and move forward on common ground. John Rawls would call these “reasonable” people operating in a just society. Unfortunately, when factions become tribal, reasonableness goes out the window (hence my “politics is the art of compromise” comment). I take it that this is the situation you say Australia is in with the Abbott government.
I meant “world” not “word” in the first line second paragraph.
@JKUU I read JQ’s point to be that Abbott & Co don’t even possess an internally-coherent foundation from which to maintain principled intolerance to other ‘views’. It’s not really about ‘views’, and arguably no longer even entirely about the basest available type of foundation (self-interest). It’s crude Us vs Them. Even the apparent intolerance is obviously a crude manufacture.
“Treason doth never prosper: what’s the reason?
Why if it prosper, none dare call it treason.” – John Harrington.
Labor has committed treason against the working class by adopting the policies of neo-conservative capitalism. This is the treason Labor fellow travellers never mention.
So, it as Megan has said. The two party, one ideology system gives the voters little real choice. This is the phenomenon that JQ, if I recall correctly, shows no interest in analysing. He prefers to talk about tribalism. I don’t recall him giving an analysis about how “tribalism” is different from ideology. If he did such an analysis he might find that tribalism is about symbolism, rallying around symbols, and that the purpose of the symbols is to stand as a rallying point for an ideology. Tribalism leads straight back to ideology. Tribalism rallies the emotional to an ideology. Ideology rallies the intellectuals to ideology.
Tribalism exists to rally the goons, the mindless votes, the brainless muscle, that every oppressive ideology needs. Tribalism is a tool of oppressive ideology. I’d like to think that JQ gets this and I have missed his point. I hope so.
@JKUU
“Tribalism occurs when these groups become intolerant to the views of others.”
It isn’t even views, so much as culture. Abbott and his supporters have in mind a caricature of their enemies: unionists as beer drinking thugs (see Rachel Nolan who has the same stereotype), latte-sipping inner -city lefties, dreadlocked greenies etc etc.
If you look at Direct Action vs Carbon Price, it’s not that Abbott hates greenies because they want a carbon price or even because they believe in climate science. He rejects climate science and carbon prices because he hates greenies.
Also, what Fran said. I’m certainly no ALP tribalist, and, while I can’t make it to the March in March, I’ve given a statement to be read there.
In other words, with Abbott, there is “ideology in his tribalism.”
@John Quiggin
Look at my post at #8. You need to come up with a coherent theory explaining how and why “tribalism” is the same as or different from ideology and how it might relate to ideology. Your implied thesis, that modern “tribalism” is unrelated to ideology, in particular to class interest, I find highly implausible. Anyway, you would need to define what you mean by (modern) “tribalism” as a first step.
The closest you come to a definition about tribalism is that is about (unexplained) hate. “He (Abbott) rejects climate science and carbon prices because he hates greenies.”
Surely, you have to ask why he hates Greenies. The answer is immediately clear. All we have to do is look at a little history. Abbott’s class hates Greenies because Greenies are an impediment to the unhindered exploitation of the environment for gain by the capitalist and rentier class.
@Ikonoclast
Your position is self-contradictory. If the two parties share much the same ideology, as they do, then it can’t be the case that the support base of one party represents a mortal threat to that ideology.
Greenies (ie mainstream environmentalists and supporters of Labor or the Greens party) aren’t a threat to the capitalist class as a whole and indeed get plenty of support from the dominant component of that class, the finance sector. After all, the long term survival of capitalism depends on the long term survival of the planet, and plenty of capitalists can see that. Greenies are a nuisance to a subgroup of capitalists (miners, loggers etc) who are part of Abbott’s tribal base, and are hated by the kinds of people who listen to Alan Jones and Andrew Bolt, even though these people have no economic stake in the issue at all.
Have all and sundry just noticed that Abbott is a conservative rather than a liberal!
@Fran Barlow
As I said, I sincerely wish the best for non-partisan attendees but this is one (rare) occasion where I won’t go along – and I’m not advocating that others don’t go, I simply wanted to explain why I won’t.
I agree very much with what you say about the utility of protest gatherings. If they had come at the protest as being against a whole suite of objectionable policies they would necessarily have a theme of “sending a message Abbott and Shorten”. I looked into the organisers and there are links to the ALP (nothing wrong with links, I object to pretending they’re not).
My objection is that tribalists can harness the energy of idealists for their own goals and we can do without the tribalists.
That is a risk, but it’s one well worth taking, given that the tribalists, who, by definition, are far better organised and resourced than us do that in every other place. We however, have the better ideas and it being unclear of the extent to which anyone is rusted onto the tribe, there is no better place to be at that time to reach those whose commitment to tribe maybe trivial, reflexive or non-existent.
If there is something you’d like to put to such folk, you ought to attend, if only to contest the field. Influence is acquired not merely by title but by work and custom, and in my experience, these latter are the more insistent.
Jim Rose #14 is close to the mark. Abbott reminds me a lot of John Howard in his later years, in that they have no particular desire to change anything. They want to be in government to prevent assorted radicals, socialists, foreign threats etc upsetting the comfortable status quo that has treated them so well. That involves looking after friends, both domestic and international, and hurting enemies whenever the opportunity arises. Conservatism of a quite pragmatic kind, with no real desire to improve the world and scepticism that it is even possible to do so.
I’m seeing some early pictures from’March in March’ and at the head of one column was a large “Labor” banner.
The consequence of Abbott’s tribalism is that his mob completely ignore vital changes such as
http://arctic-news.blogspot.com.au/search?q=high+methane+levels+over
Study this carefully. This is the end game setting in permanently. There is no recovery in our civilisation’s time once this process is in full flow.
I’ve spent way too much time attempting to understand the Jo Nova syndrome. The core substance appears to be that the Libertarian drive hates taxes, to an irrational extent. No doubt there is more under the surface in that there is a tribal thing going where they are convinced that addressing climate change is pointless and any action would require government expenditure or induced private money diverted for no useful purpose. To isolate their following from any change of understanding they have mounted a massive programme of demonising scientists, at least those scientists that produce any research that threatens their position.
Need I say that intentional ignorance of fact this is mind bogglingly unbelievable in this day and age. The Abbott tribe appear to be in lock step with the Libertarian Tribe only falling short when taxes cannot be removed in a manner to satisfy the expectations of the Libertarian Zealots.
Nova recently went to great lengths to isolate herself from the label “Denialist”, prefering the bet hedging term “Skeptic” despite every article on her sight screaming denial of that our world faces anything other than the occasional inconvenient summer.
Our Global environmental peril is magnified not in that there are no solutions, as there are, but in that we are barred from even talking about them when and where it matters, such as in the G8 conference where Abbott specifically deleted those subjects from the agenda. This is tribalism taken to extremes.
What sort of a person does that???
The point of the post is that Abbott is not a conservative in any sense in which any serious conservative thinker, or a reputable university politics textbook, would define the term. He and a large percentage of his colleagues possess an essentially adolescent worldview in which certain groups of people are framed as baddies, things that are valued by these groups of people are therefore framed as “bad” not on their actual merits but simply because these groups value them, and the goal of government becomes the infliction of vengeance on the baddies and the destruction of whatever it is that they value.
To me one of the indicators of the mentality at work was a comment by Abbott’s old friend and comrade Greg Sheridan on Q&A when it discussed the wall-punching allegations against Abbott from his Sydney University days. Sheridan’s defence of Abbott included the assertion that the leftists that he and Abbott were opposing were “bad people”. It is one think for Sheridan and Abbott to have thought this way when they were both 18 year old students; it is quite another to hear that sort of talk coming from the same people when they are mature men in their mid-50s.
@Megan I didn’t notice whether or not there was a Labor banner at today’s Lismore march. The emphases were clearly issues rather than organisations. Apart from generic anti-Abbottism the dominant banner types referenced climate breakdown, CSG/fracking (as might be expected by anyone knowing the area), and the Pacific gulag.
@John Quiggin
I don’t agree that my position is self-contradictory. You claim, “… it can’t be the case that the support base of one party represents a mortal threat to that ideology.” This assumes that Greenies form part of the support base of Labor. Greenies do not support the Labor Party and have not done so for some time. They support parties like the Greens, Green Left, International Socialists etc. They left Labor after it became obvious that Labor had gone over to the other side.
Then you say, “Greenies (ie mainstream environmentalists and supporters of Labor or the Greens party) aren’t a threat to the capitalist class as a whole and indeed get plenty of support from the dominant component of that class, the finance sector.”
I think it is using all too broad a brush to claim that Greenies support Labor as well as the Greens. Greenies are a (mild and marginalised) threat to the capitalist class as a whole. The capitalist class as a whole (the whole 1% of them) support BAU which is endless growth based on the inexhaustible resource model. Any Green concern at all conflicts with this model: must inevitably conflict with this model. If the finance capitalists (as opposed to industrial or primary production capitalists) appear to support Greens at times I would suggest 99% of it Greenwashing and Astroturfing and the other 1% is NIMBY concern. Capitalists always like a little “pristine” wilderness to reside near or fly to (when not going to ski resorts).
Then you say, “After all, the long term survival of capitalism depends on the long term survival of the planet, and plenty of capitalists can see that.” I am sorry, that one made me laugh. I have never seen any evidence that capitalists understand this at all. If they had understood, they would have taken serious, effective action as soon as Limits to Growth and Global Warming research laid out the reality of what we were facing. Instead, we saw a renewed push for endless growth capitalism particularly from about 1991 until the GFC and then it has continued pretty much non-stop after the implications of the GFC were rapidly swept under the carpet.
We can never solve these problems without changing the system of ownership. When a tiny percentage of the population own the means of production, own the mass media and own the politicians, we will never get decisions which are in the interests of the majority of the people.
BTW, you have never answered the question of what you mean by (modern) “tribalism”. “Tribalism” in this sense is an imprecise “catch-all” by which you attempt to explain (explain away?) social and political conflicts after rejecting the obvious fact that these conflicts are still clearly about well-defined class interests.
I think that if one looks at the percentage of the population expressing pro-environmental sentiments as measured by reputable studies such as the successive Australian Election Studies and Australian Social Attitude Surveys, and then compares it with the actual vote for the Greens, the parties Ikonoclast mentions and other minor parties and independents that emphasise environmental concerns, it is impossible to avoid the conclusion that a considerable number of greenies do support Labor. Whether they should do so is a matter on which people here will differ, but there is little room for doubting that they do.
I agree with John Quiggin. Abbott isn’t ideological in the traditional sense. His game is political fight, and it worked a treat in opposition because he was opposing everything unconstrained by reason, logic or principal.
Now that he is in government and faces a weak and confused ALP his game is petty retribution. He is a vindictive leader with no forward looking policies except reward for his friends and payback for his enemies. His own party will soon lose patience with him and replace him, all they need is a sufficiently big stuff up or bad poll to give them a face saving excuse. I’m sure it won’t be that long. Unfortunately he will do a lot of damage in the meantime.
If as seems likely everywhere but the ACT goes Liberal it will be like being spreadeagled on thin ice that is likely to crack. In Tasmania a poll found 71% of people opposed tearing up the forest peace deal. That tearing up could be just a week from now. Elsewhere the public are blaming the socialists and their taxes for the job layoffs. However the highly visible mass exodus is yet to happen for employees of Holden, Alcoa and Qantas. If the public still blames previous governments when it happens I’d say collectively the public is not the full quid.
@Hermit
Unless I’m very mistaken, it looks like the Greens have been almost obliterated in Tasmania (from 5 seats to 1 at present count) and ALP also taking a beating. Antony Green has already called it for LNP to form government.
The Greens getting into bed with the ALP obviously wasn’t a good idea, unless the idea was to ensure there would be no electable “left”.
@Megan
According to the ABC website several Greens are back and it was PUP that was shunned by the voters. Premier-elect Hodgman after a 16 year apprenticeship in opposition says his first order of business is to tear up the forest peace deal that even timber companies supported. It could also mean that violent protests are coming back after falling silent for some time. That and no likely economic improvement during Hodgman’s term don’t augur well.
see http://blogs.abc.net.au/antonygreen/2012/09/the-greens-versus-labor-geographic-and-educational-dimensions.html for an explanation of the drop in the green vote.
Scratch a green voter and you will find a hip-pocket voter with a large super to protect.
I am a bit worried that using the term “tribalism” as a pejorative epithet and synonym for blind, illogical hating runs the danger of evincing progressivist chauvinism and cultural supremacism; ie. of denigrating people from tribal cultures. I think it’s a bad choice of term.
Furthermore, the term, as used by its proponents in the discussion above, appears to me to be devoid of definable social or political or ideological content. It is purely an emotional word and as such does not further any discussion. The phenomena under discussion are not about “modern tribalism” (a meaningless term). The whole thing is about class interests and the clash of class interests. Intra-class conflict occurs as well as inter-class conflict. Indeed, the ruling class is particularly adept at promoting intra-class conflict. It’s a divide and rule tactic.
If you call any particular instance of intra-class or inter-class conflict “modern tribalism” it only means you haven’t done the class interest analysis and you haven’t determined which resources or which power displays or which status displays the dispute is over. Power displays and status displays are always at base demonstrations of rights to control and possession of real resources, including other humans when so objectified. Hating arises when wishes to control and possess are thwarted.
@Hermit
Antony Green says, according to ABC site, ALP to hold 5 and Greens 2.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not cheering the LNP landslide (I live in Qld, so I wouldn’t wish that on anyone). What I’m saying is the same thing I said about NSW, Qld, Fed – evrything that happens from now on is the ALP’s fault. They abandoned all principle to be neo-cons and got punished electorally for that.
@Jim Rose
Well, Green and Greenie are too loosely used. I have a few Green sentiments and quite a lot of Green ideology I “aspire” to live up to. I have solar PV but too many cars in the family garage. I vote for the Greens these days. Does this make me a Greenie? No, it just makes a hypocrite.
If I was a real Greenie, I would live in much smaller, simpler house with far less mod-cons. I would be mostly vegetarian. I would own no cars. I would walk or cycle everywhere. I would never fly in a passenger jet aircraft or go on holidays which require fossil fuel to get there. I would have far less possessions. I would work hard every day at home even in retirement home-growing, repairing, maintaining, ekeing out and doing without to make everything last as long as possible and to consume as little as possible.
There are very few real Greenies. It takes enormous dedication, hard work and self-denial to be a real Greenie in an age of environment damaging over-production. Very few people are that virtuous. But as T.S. Eliot wrote;
“Virtues are forced upon us by our impudent crimes”.
Eventually, the natural world will force us back to genuine, austere virtues. Or in the case of people my age, we’ll just die. There is no way we will be young enough or tough enough to live in balance with nature.
@Megan
I agree Hermit. It is hard to do the self-denying, virtuous thing. Pay more for green power, live simpler etc. But it is easier if the difficulties are shared and we all make a virtue of (eventual) necessity. Labor was the major party that should have led and facilitated the movement to a greener, low consumption society to help save the planet. As a shared enterprise with mutual encouragement we all could have and would have made a better effort. (Imagine if everyone praised you for getting a smaller car or selling the car and using public transport. Imagine if conspcicuous consumption drew widespread censure and ridicule.)
But instead Labor sold out and became indistinguishable from the LNP. So then the people’s choice was Clayton’s Necons or Real Neocons. (Hmm, does the Clayton’s reference date me.)
In Tasmania the Greens will retain between 3 and 5 seats, although the primary vote fall is undeniable. In SA the Greens primary vote has increased, although it’s too early in the count to know what this will mean in terms of Legislative Council representation.
Update: the ABC computer is predicting a close-run thing between Greens and Shooters & Fishers for the last Legislative Council seat in SA, with under 30% of the vote counted. The Greens vote will most likely improve as more votes are counted.
Further update: with 42% counted the Legislative Council prediction is 4 ALP, 4 Liberal, 1 Family First, 1 Green and 1 Xenophoid.
@Megan
Doubtless that’s so — accepting responsibility for a government that is on the way down makes no tactical sense, and that’s especially the case when Federally, the ALP is also going down.
The tricky thing is that if The Greens had stood on the sidelines then a new election would have to have to have been held. Unless the Liberals had achieved a majority, or less probably, The Greens, the same question would have been posed again. So in effect, The Greens would have been pitching for a Liberal government or saying that there could be no government unless we won. That wouldn’t have gone anywhere good.
Nor could we have insisted on being senior partner. The ALP would have pressed for a new election. So in the end, the only thing that could have happened did happen.
@Fran Barlow
I agree with the idea that in Tas the Greens had to make that choice, and the LNP had said ‘no way’, so it had to be ALP or back to the polls. BUT, I don’t think they handled it well in either the deal (don’t know the details) or in the execution. I think of the other ‘Nick’ in the UK from the Lib Dems who is in a similar sleeping arrangement with David Cameron while they sell off the NHS.
Hermit: I never had cause to read the “TASMANIAN FORESTS AGREEMENT ACT 2013” but I just did. In order to rip it up they would have to find something of substance in it – there is nothing. Everything is aspirational, weasel-words, minister’s discretion, House can declare something square to be round, no recourse etc….
As a piece of legislation you could drive a logging truck through it in its current form without amending or repealing a word.
For example: “substantial active protest means an activity that has a negative material impact on forest operations legally carried out or on any processing of timber legally carried out”
And (section 24a): “Either House of Parliament may make a determination that there has been a failure of durability including, but not limited to, substantial active protests or substantial market disruption”
The forest peace deal might be waffly but it brought a stop to this kind of thing
@Hermit
You mean it allowed that kind of psycho to roam free without being forced to violently attack and abuse a peaceful protester?
That’s an interesting point of view. It reminds me of the infamous Israeli response to resistance:
“I am able to forgive you for killing my child, but I can never forgive you for forcing me to kill your child.”
The parallel is exact.
About 20 years ago I was doing business with someone from “Stihl” in Brisbane and he was telling me about “greenies” who “spike” trees. I had no idea what this meant, and he explained that these greenies drive steel reo rods into trees so that when loggers try to chop them down with chainsaws they hit the spike and the chainsaw kicks back and chops off the worker’s arm or otherwise seriously injures them.
I actually believed that for several years and told people about it. Then I discovered that it was a lie put about by the logging industry (and the chainsaw industry).
I hate liars.
Capitalism won’t be “happy” until it has despoiled and destroyed everything. I’ve lived long enough to know that Green attitudes and Green politics are now in retreat. People were more concerned about the environment twenty or thirty years ago than they are now. The environment had more real protections 20 or 30 years ago than it has now. Greenwashing and astroturfing have completely confused the issue. Much environmental “protection” these days is fake. Its pure 1984 language now. Protection these days means exploitation.
Every process of destruction of our environment is accelerating. The only phenomena that will likely stop it are global economic collapse and die-off of the human population. The only hope is that a “salutary event” occurs early in this process. A “salutary event” will be a major ecological or climate disaster killing or displacing milllions to tens of millions in a clearly defined area and unambiguously attributable to ecological or climate change factors. The motivating effect of the salutary disaster will be enhanced if it happens to hit Westerners.
If humans finally realise they are in imminent danger of extinction they ought to be able change course significantly. Of course, if too much damage is already baked into the cake it will still be too late.
@Ikonoclast: but Capitalism can keep on keeping on well into the process. Illich’s useful ‘disvalues’ notion explains much: growth-oriented capitalism can only work by ensuring people are unhappy enough to spend more, and at a certain point of material development it must do this by systematically degrading free sources of happiness. A pleasant environment, affordable food and housing, social conviviality, security, and increasing leisure time are inherently inimical to it.
Labor vote has halved since 2007, greens halved their vote since 2010. The left is on the nose.
Now even rocket scientists have succumbed to doom and gloom
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/earth-insight/2014/mar/14/nasa-civilisation-irreversible-collapse-study-scientists
If economic growth (say as measured by per capita GDP) is coming to an end perhaps the trend towards electing conservative governments is a last throw of the dice. It is not hard to envision the economy being more crook in say 2016 than now. I suspect that the centre left will get back into power across Australia maybe not the ALP as we know it. The emphasis will be more on the personal safety net not corporate welfare and reality denial.
@Hermit
I suspect as economic and environmental catastrophes spread and deepen, more fatherly leadership is the likely prospect. Positive feedback.
@Hermit
The money quote (though hardly anything not previously highlighted by Tainter etc) from the article you linked:
Abbott and Co. are components of this buffering process, that’s all.
@Megan Recently the ABC went to Hounville and interviewed a number of timber workers. They indicated that campaigns by “greenies” were more of nuisance value – the primary reasons for the downfall in their industry were a high AUD and the downturn in domestic building, particularly after the GFC.
They also thought the forest agreement was OK, it gave them certainty and no agreement was bad.
I’ll avoid comment on ALP.
With the current Abbott-led government, it seems to me that the vast majority of the cabinet, aside from being men, have a particular religious perspective, world view. While a certain amount of self-selection (i.e. where the main cohort of LNP members come from) could explain this to an extent, it certainly looks to me as if the religious outlook took on an importance in people’s placement within the new government, an importance that is disturbing for a supposedly secular society, if it is true.
I remember how the previous Liberal government made a public push for Intelligent Design to be a part of the science curriculum at school, and through the mechanism of private schools, this took place. When politicians push particular barrows of interest into the curriculum for a subject in which they have limited knowledge—especially because of their own education—it is a concern. When it is religious material masquerading as science, it is immoral to do this, surely. My personal view is that religious material is best left to what people indulge themselves in after school, outside of work hours (excepting those who are religious workers, I suppose).
I hope to be quite wrong on this, but I have a deep concern that sooner or later a push will be on to shift manifestly religious ideas into school subjects, as “the other side of the debate”, or some similar claim. With such a strongly homogeneous cabinet, it won’t take much of a religiously inspired lobby group to make inroads, I’d think.
As a final comment in this vein, the staunch rejection of climate scientists as having any merit in contribution to understanding climate systems, we see the anti-science view as dominant in the cabinet; they agree with the science on something when it suits their policy (or ideological) objectives, happily rejecting it outright when it is contrary to their world view, their belief of the world as they wish it to be, not as it actually is.
This is certainly tribalism going beyond mere political ideology.
Just in case anyone was wondering voting patterns in Australia have remained fairly even over time.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elections_in_Australia#Primary.2C_Two_Party_Preferred_.28TPP.29_and_seat_results_since_1937