Former Aus PM Paul Keating -- aka the Lizard of Oz -- has deservedly unloaded on the pathetic race-baiting of newish Aus Liberal Party leader Angus Taylor. "Many people, me included, wished him well in fighting One Nation with a conservatism anchored in principles. How dispiriting is his cowardice."
The Liberal party, battling an extreme version of itself – One Nation – has again fallen back to its default political policy: racism.
Angus Taylor, announcing a policy at primary odds with an immigrant nation, says a Liberal government under his leadership will adopt Trump ICE-style policies to weed and “boot out” people who fail to adhere to “national values” and who are responsible for the erosion of national culture including the Balkanisation of communities.
And, to hammer the point, sitting beside Taylor at his policy launch was Mr Racial Opportunism himself, John Winston Howard, late of anti-Asian migration in 1988 – the picket fence suburban racism of his first round as Liberal leader, and the wilful anti-humanitarianism of his electorally-driven Tampa atrocity of 2001. ...
Angus Taylor came to the Liberal leadership with a reputation of being mainstream Liberal; that is, a keeper of the Liberal party’s best longer-term instincts both in social and economic policy.
And many people, myself included, wished him well in consolidating the Liberal base and in fighting One Nation with a conservatism anchored in principles. If not righteous, decent.
But by adopting racism with its shabby appeal to differentiation and primal instincts, Angus Taylor marks himself out as a political leader unworthy of the leadership of a party that has managed Australia for the greater part of the last century and which celebrated the country’s unifying values.
Racism is not simply immoral and abhorrent, it is absurd. The notion that some of us are in some way different to the rest of us – in some way born differently, of some alien biology. ...
The blight of Pauline Hanson is that her dumb bigotry offers a fantasy. The fantasy that Australia in the modern age can return to a monoculture. A monoculture which fails to acknowledge or accept that a continent of our scale is able to turn its back on the multilateralism of neighbouring states or on the vitality of their societies. And, more than that, shun them while disparaging any contribution they may make or bring to us as migrants.
How dispiriting for the rest of us is Angus Taylor’s cowardice in not even attempting to stand and argue for principles that have been integral to Australia’s strength – principles his party has long championed.
RELATED:
=>Welfare State Leaves Boat-People to Die
Thursday, 30 August 2001, 11:01 am | Libertarianz Party
"New Zealanders who wish the 434 Afghan refugees on board the Tampa moored off Christmas Island would just 'go away' are exposing the dark underbelly at the heart of the Welfare State," says Libertarianz Leader Peter Cresswell....
=>Better Way for Boat-People
Thursday, 30 August 2001, 11:06 am | Libertarianz Party
"There is a better way forward for politicians wrestling with a way to deal with the 434 homeless Afghan refugees that no country wants to admit," suggested Libertarianz leader Peter Cresswell today....
4 comments:
I'm going to disagree, mainly because I heard Taylor's speech in full, and Keating is a disingenuous shill for Beijing (so his version of events is not to be trusted). Hanson is an idiot, but there is an issue which is apparent from what happened on October 7th, when groups of men came out to show their delight at the attack by Hamas, and more disturbingly shouting "Where's the Jews" at the Opera House. How should a small community inside a country respond when that country allows significant numbers of people to migrate to it who literally hate them and want them eradicated, and with or without foreign assistance (ASIO has already confirmed Iran facilitated two attacks in Australia) actively go about doing so? Yes the criminal law exists, but it is the soft hatred. I know Jews in London who face this now, more than they did in the 70s when the National Front was at its peak. I don't know the exact answer, but making migration conditional on abiding by criminal law, and some basic values of a free society around respecting the right of others to live their lives in peace does not seem unreasonable. It isn't racist (as much as the ALP which was never fussed about Islamist hate preachers until after it was too late, like to tout this). It's about not letting the greatest strength of freedom be its weakness - by enabling those who hate it to use it.
The blight of the Muslim is that his dumb bigotry offers a fantasy.
I've suggested several times that a form of sponsorship could work for immigration, with sponsors taking some legal responsibility for their sponsee -- and with repatriation for the sponsee if they acquire a criminal conviction.
This would favour those immigrants who are honestly seeking to escape from their shitty situation.
It's true that some parties to the 'Axis of Upheaval' (e.g., Iran, Hungary, Russia) have intentionally engendered migrant crises as a form of upheaval, tantamount to military action. In which case, migrant nations should explicitly call that out, rather than castigate the innocent.
But these are just grist to Hanson's mill. It's *every* immigrant she's against.
I should also point out the irrationality of Taylor calling for the state to go through people's phones at the airport to see if they conform to Aussie values -- one of which used to be free speech!
The sponsorship idea is excellent, and Hanson is a moron (it slipped out when she said there are "no good Muslims" and tried to say that the only "good" ones were ones that bought into literal interpretation of the Koran - which grossly oversimplifies the wide variety of Islamic sects, including many badly oppressed by others). Like I said, I don't know the exact answer, going through people's phones is madness, but requiring migrants to sign up to being peaceful and to lose residency if they embark on proselytising about wiping certain people out isn't a bad idea. The step beyond that is prohibition of specific ideologies which is one helluva slippery slope which we know could bite any one of us
Post a Comment