February 14, 2009
The Australian's continual and unrelenting attacks on environmentalists and the Greens in the name of conservatism indicates a particular political viewpoint. But what does Australian conservatism stand for? It sure isn't Burke's organic unity that replenishes and fortifies civil society by adjusting to changing conditions.
Though the conservatives grouped around The Australian do acknowledge that land use, agriculture, fishing, tourism, health, forestry, environment, infrastructure and climate change are linked, they remain deeply opposed to an integrated policy in these areas and is not willing to make a realistic adjustment to the changed conditions. Or more accurately, though the conservatives around The Australian do acknowledge the interconnections, or relationships, between the natural world (its resources and its health) and people (their social needs and health) and economic activity (its sustainability), they consistently place the economic interest (reduced to the short-term profit-seeking economic interest) above the social and environmental.
Economics in the form of wealth creation rules over the wellbeing of the population. This gives rise to an understanding of policy making which assumes that the social, environmental and economic are competitive with one another, if not in opposition.
In attacking different forms of policy making in the name of the culture wars, this movement conservatism largely defines itself by what it seeks to destroy:----- "statist" social programs; "socialized medicine" or public health care ; "big labor"; "activist" High Court Judges , the " liberal left bias of the media elite"; "tenured radicals" on university faculties; "experts" in and out of government; and the new class. This populist attack is rooted in cultural hostility, it is conducted in terms of a civil war and its language is that of "friends" and "enemies." This civil warfare conducted by movement conservatism undermines rather than replenishes civil society.
Though it is clear what Australian conservatism is against is clear, it is not clear what it stands for apart from the blind faith in a deregulated, Wall Street-centric market. The core positive appears to be the free market, by which is meant undoing the welfare state and returning to pre-1930 market liberalism. It stands for a return to the past; a counterrevolution, since welfare state capitalism has been the bipartisan basis for governing Australia for over 50 years.
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From the little I heard of him on RN it sounds like the world according to Chairman Rupert.