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November 22, 2005
Judith Brett's paper on the limits of Liberalism is quite interesting on the cross over between liberalism and conservatism in Australia. Some quotes:
"...liberalism is basically the political common sense within which all Australian political thinking takes place, but it is a much richer tradition than that which is carried forward by the Liberal Party. A lot of liberal thinking is actually in the Labor Party."
That is true. And, I would add, a lot of conservatism. There is a very strong current of social conservatism and political authoritarianism running through the ALP Right that detests--has a big hatred for---social liberals of the inner city professional class.
And:
Although Howard now says they are also conservatives, I don't know that they have been such strong conservatives, in an articulated way that would be recognisable as conservative political thinking. They do not back authority for its own sake; they will back it in terms of the rule of law and constitutionalism. They see themselves as the party of the Constitution and of parliament and of the government's rights to do certain things as an elected government. But they do not put forward arguments about other sorts of traditional institutions.
But they--Howard's mob-- do link culture, history and tradition. There is almost has a Burkean feel here, which becomes especially noticeable in the turn against the use of human rights deployed around refugees and aslyum seekers. They--Howard's mob--- have turned against the rule of law with the national security state. The authoirty of the state stands supreme, does it not?
And:
Somehow, in the process of migration all we got was liberalism. I don't think we got any conservatism at all. When people talk about Australian conservatism, it makes sense in the Australian context but it does not bear any relationship to what conservatism means in any other societies. Maybe it is starting to now, with Howard. Maybe now there is something that he can be trying to preserve in terms of the memory of World War I, but I think this is fairly new.
Brett is inching towards see conservatism developing out the traditions of the Liberal Party. Yet the language of Australia's Liberal traditions - and the moral values in which it is imbedded - in her Australian Liberals and the Moral Middle Class: From Alfred Deakin to John Howard book highlights tradition, which is a conservative word.
Maybe it is a case of looking through a different window to the liberal one? Then we may see the shape of an Australian conservatism. Did we not get conservatism with the Catholic Church?
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