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September 4, 2010
In Roots of the rural revolt in The Australian Gabrielle Chan says that the
2010 episode of "bush leverage" is a result of a backlash by conservatives against a conservative government because rural voters feel that John Howard failed to protect them from the disruptive changes of a deregulated economy.
Chan's argument is that the regional backlash is a rural revolt against neo-liberal economics and policies pursued by both the Liberal and Labor parties.
Many interpret this rural revolt as a reaction to modernisation and as a heritage of the past based on tradition and on refusal of modernity that needs to be negated in the name of ongoing economic reform. It is a revolt that expresses itself in a highly emotional and simplistic discourse that is directed at the ‘gut feelings’ of the people and advocates simple solutions to complex problems.
What Chan calls a rural revolt has emerged into the formation of regional populism. This populism, as I argue in philosophy. com can be understood as an appeal to ‘the people’ against both the established structure of power and the dominant ideas and values of Australian politics and society. The context of this emergent populism from the heartland is the political collapse of the two ideological camps represented by Labor and Liberal.
Tony Windsor, the member for New England, show why populism should not be dismissed as a pathological form of politics that deserves to be mocked. He recently pointed out that a hung Parliament presents country Australia with a very real opportunity to lay a platform for future generations.
In his maiden speech in 2002 Windsor spelt out his approach to a better deal for regional Australia:
We are in a unique situation politically, and have been have been for the last decade... where the basic policy framework that the nation is operating under has been by way of agreement by both sides of the parliament. We have had the Labor Party, the Liberal Party and the National Party agreeing with a basic policy framework. I take issue with that agreement taking place over this last decade, and take issue with some of the patchy benefits of that economic framework, particularly, but not only, for country people.
He highlighted that country Australia has the potential to have the balance of power—irrespective of who is in power in this chamber—and influence the political process far more than it has in the past. There has been a lack of flexibility. The only way to influence that is through the federal chamber.
Windsor's populism is a critique of the democratic limitations within liberal democracies. He says:
Some of the rules applying to competition policy, with its economic rationalist approach on many of these issues, have no flexibility in regard to smallness, distance and remoteness. The very policies that are emanating from this place, whether they be fuel policy or aged care policy—even policies relating to country doctors, or the lack thereof—are emanating from that basic policy framework, which has not delivered equity to country constituents in particular...If that policy is not changed to recognise distance, smallness, remoteness and some degree of social equity, you will continue to see a shrinkage of regional Australia, something which should be abhorred.
He says that the message a neo-liberal mode of governance sends to country communities is to proceed to your nearest major regional centre, go to the coast, go to Sydney or go to buggery.
Populists like Windsor aim to 'give power back to the people' and it calls for more political participation. So this populism can be interpreted as a political logic which aims at attacking the centre of the democratic system, by giving a different interpretation of the principle of the sovereignty of the people.
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The Coalition's strategy places it off side with the Independents working to ensure a better deal for regional Australia. Peter van Onselen writes that:
That cannot go down too well with the Independents