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June 25, 2012
Paul Kelly in The Australian spells out The Coalition's blueprint to decisively change Australia's national policy that goes beyond the attempt to destroy Labor and establish conservative hegemony.
He says that Abbott and the Coalition now stand, above all, for three core ideas.
The first is a deep commitment to the prudent state typified by surplus budgets, debt reductions, dismantling "Labor values" spending and an attack of sorts on the entitlement culture, an idea pushed by economic spokesman Joe Hockey, long seized by the fiscal task he faces.
Second, the Coalition seeks a rebalancing between enterprise and the environment with a sweeping agenda to dismantle Labor "green and red tape", purge regulatory complexity, facilitate development, promote northern Australia as an export food bowl and run environmental policies that are more direct and practical ...
Third, as a social fabric conservative Abbott wants to curb the idea that "government knows best", limit interference in people's lives, cut social engineering and, as a perpetual volunteer in his personal life, promote Edmund Burke's concept of "little platoons"-Abbott's notion of social communities based on individual initiative and much greater personal responsibility.
Interesting isn't it--the traditional commitment to the free market and small government is buried. It has to be because Abbott's conservatism represents big authoritative government in spite of the rhetoric about Edmund Burke's concept of "little platoons".
The small government + free market rhetoric epitomized in Abbott's slogan "bigger government means smaller citizens" mostly refers to the dismantling of the environmental state rather than empowering citizens to deepen the democracy in representative democracy. It is about knifing the environmental state swiftly on behalf of Australia from the United States.
The rhetoric about Edmund Burke's concept of "little platoons"--- which refers to social communities based on individual initiative, social solidarity (traditionalism) and much greater personal responsibility---fills the poverty gap that emerges from the winding back on the welfare state that is covered up by surplus budgets, debt reductions, and ending the entitlement culture. It is more volunteers taking over the legitimate functions of the state rather than ordinary citizens working co-productively with the professionals for solutions to social problems.
This is conservatism not liberalism and the market capitalism that underpins it, a conservatism that is organic-corporate-hierarchical in nature.
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Ordinary Australians have absolutely no idea about all this and the Gillard Govt. seems unable or unwilling to tell them. I have never seen a Govt. less able to defend itself than this one - except perhaps the short-lived McMahon Govt. of 1971-72.