Showing posts with label Coalition. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Coalition. Show all posts

Tuesday 23 May 2023

Where to from here? A perspective on the Liberal and National Coalition



The Echo, 18 May 2023, excerpts from “A case for a Lib-Nats reformation” by Catherine Cusack:



Catherine Cusack is a former Liberal NSW MLC 
Photo Tree Faerie
Trump Fatigue Syndrome (TFS) has been defined by   American Professor, John Rennie Short, as ‘a depressing sense of watching the same drama over and over again. And just like being stuck in a movie theatre watching a badly scripted and poorly produced B movie, it begins with feelings of exhaustion, then panic, with the realisation that it may never end.’ 


So I audibly groaned when a friend sent me one of Donald Trump’s latest pearlers……


The Washington Post speculated his claim that some children are ‘deservedly’ unloved by their parents, is a ‘dog whistle’ to older conservative white Americans. It resonates with those who fear increasing diversity in America, and blame the younger generation of voters for caring about climate change and voting for Democrats, like Barrack Obama and Joe Biden.


Whatever the logic, it is clear a toxic and rampant Trump is back and the hijacked Republican Party can’t control or stop him.


Being found to be a ‘sexual abuser’ only seems to have energised his base. Trump’s angry brand –denying facts, deriding minorities and bullying opponents – is likely to invade at least the next 18 months of newsfeeds, through to the November 2024 presidential election.


Emboldened fringe right wing groups


The impact in Australia has been to embolden fringe right wing groups, including neo-Nazis and evangelical Christians who, for years, have backed minor religious parties like Fred Nile’s old ‘Call to Australia’ Party. That strategy has been replaced with a clandestine USA tactic of infiltrating the major conservative parties.


For example, here in the federal seat of Richmond, where we were looking for local leadership after the floods, the Nationals selected a Pentecostal Christian candidate whose stated mission was to ‘bring God’s Kingdom to politics’.


The past week has seen extraordinary disarray and increasingly selfish behaviour derailing conservative politics. In Victoria, a religious right Liberals MP, Moira Deeming, was expelled from the Parliamentary wing of the Liberal Party after threatening to sue her own leader.


In Tasmania, two right wing Liberals resigned, putting the last Liberal government into minority, because they disagreed with a decision to fund an AFL stadium.


And here in NSW, Nationals MLC, Ben Franklin, betrayed his parliamentary colleagues, who wanted to keep pressure on Labor in the hung Upper House. In order to reduce the number of LNP votes, Labor offered Ben the highly paid, prestigious office of Upper House presidency.


By accepting, Mr Franklin has rendered the entire Liberals-National coalition irrelevant in opposition for four years.


The moral decay of conservative politics


Instead of learning from multiple election defeats, the moral decay of conservative politics in Australia seems to be accelerating.


I am one of many long time Liberals who have left in recent years, owing to a lurch to the right in policy and the unethical LNP deals, which have handed portfolios, including education, most of environment, Aboriginal Affairs, the Women’s portfolio, and even Sydney Water, to the NSW Nationals – a party so backwards they are still voting against daylight savings and in favour of subsidies to turn koala habitat into woodchips.


In Sydney, thousands of moderate Liberal voters have rejected these policies, turning instead to the Teals as representing their views better than the LNP. In regional NSW, many have turned to the Independents as an alternative to the Nationals.


Electing independent MPs is, in my view, a temporary fix for the problem. What is required is a full-scale reformation of Australian centre right politics – a reformed, or new, party that seeks to return to the patrician values of virtuous politics; cleansing itself of religious extremists and political bigots.


Dissolving the LNP Coalition agreement


Step one on the journey to reform conservative politics has got to be dissolving the LNP Coalition agreement, thus freeing both the Liberals and National Party to be true to their roots, and authentically represent their communities…….


The next year will tell if Australian Liberals have the depth and fortitude to detach from the Nationals, to choose their own path, or whether they are doomed like American Republicans to keep repeating the same Trumpian drama.


Saturday 16 May 2015

Want to know how responsible the NSW North Coast Member for Page is for our economic, environmental & social predicament?


It would appear that Kevin Hogan is your run-of-the-mill hypocrite.

This is how Nationals MP for Page for the NSW North Coast finally presented himself to the electorate up to May 2015:

FEDERAL Member for Page Kevin Hogan has told Federal Parliament how a visit to the coal seam gas mining fields in Chinchilla convinced him to continue his opposition to CSG in the Clarence Valley.
On Thursday Mr Hogan addressed Federal Parliament about his concerns about the impact of CSG mining in his electorate.
He said he came to the conclusion that CSG was inappropriate for Page after he visited Chinchilla in Queensland in January 2013 to speak with community members about the impact of the industry there.
"I tried to envisage what the industry would look like in my region," he said.
"I could not see how the industry could work without being extremely invasive given the nature of our topography and small land owning. It would be exceptionally detrimental to neighbouring properties."....

* This is how the member for the federal seat of  Page, Nationals MP actually voted on key issues since 2006, according to Open Australia:

*Voted very strongly against a carbon price. votes
*Voted moderately against increasing scrutiny of asylum seeker management. votes
*Voted very strongly against increasing trade unions' powers in the workplace. votes
*Voted moderately against implementing refugee and protection conventions. votes
*Voted moderately for temporary protection visas. votes
*Voted very strongly for increasing or removing the debt limit. votes
*Voted very strongly against a minerals resource rent tax . votes
*Voted very strongly against increasing protection of Australia's fresh water. votes
*Voted strongly for regional processing of asylum seekers. votes
*Voted very strongly against increasing marine conservation. votes
*Voted very strongly for unconventional gas mining. votes
*Voted very strongly against restricting foreign ownership. votes
*Voted very strongly against increasing investment in renewable energy. votes
*Voted very strongly for privatising government assets. votes
*Voted very strongly against increasing funding for university education. votes
*Voted very strongly for increasing the price of subsidised medicine. votes
*Voted very strongly against increasing the age pension. votes
*Voted very strongly for decreasing availability of welfare payments. votes
*Voted very strongly for an emissions reduction fund. votes
*Voted very strongly for increasing funding for road infrastructure. votes
*Voted very strongly for decreasing ABC and SBS funding. votes [my red bolding{

Never rebels against their party in this parliament.

Wednesday 22 January 2014

A Clarence valley voice in a wider forum


Clarence valley resident Charles Lincoln hold strong views on how the Abbott government regards pensioners. Mr Lincoln voiced his opinion in a contribution to the letters section of The Sun Herald (January 19).

Pension fears

 We have returned the Conservatives to power and as pensioners it appears that we may have done the wrong thing, as we now find that this government has openly stated that the pensioners are rorting the system with regards to concessional rebates on council rates (''Retirees furious over rate rort claim'', January 12).

This concession has not been raised with regards to the cost of living adjustments for seven decades.

So if this concessional rebate is a rort, in the eyes of the Federal Government, does it mean that all of the other pensioner concessions such as chemist prescriptions, doctor visits, transport and many more are also rorts?

Pensioners and all self-funded retirees must watch closely to make sure that the concessions that they have at present are not further eroded to improve the bottom line of the government, because increases in pensions are only 28 per cent of the average wage and each time that the CPI is increased we get further behind. 

Charles Lincoln, Gulmarrad