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October 31, 2006
Therein lies the contradiction at the heart of Australian conservatism: traditional Judeo-Christian values + the free market. It is a contradiction because the workings of the latter undermines the values of the former.
Bruce Petty
All that is missing from the cartoon is the big state---statism. This is covered over by all the furious rhetoric about the nanny state, welfare dependency and individual choice.
The myth is that the avowed believers in the free market, deregulation, and small government are in power in Canberra, and have there for ten years ensuring that the commonwealth government is lean and mean after the excesses of the ALP. To the dismay of the libertarians what we have is statism as well as individual respsonsibility.
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People vote for different reasons though. I doubt many worry too much about the serious philosphical divides between the parties. Generally, they go with the 'safe option'. I have gone that way, voting for both parties at different times.