Category: Liberal Party

15 Jun

1 Comment

An election that will resolve nothing

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Labor, unsurprisingly, refuses to concede any policy mandate for a Turnbull victory. Nor do the Greens, the Nick Xenophon Team or most of the independents. The mandate theory, once applying to an elected government’s program, has been corrupted to mean every party and independent has a mandate against the government. This year’s policy contest may […]

17 Aug

11 Comments

End times for Abbott’s prime ministership?

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Let’s get something clear right away — same-sex marriage has not been and will not be the kind of issue that could destroy Tony Abbott’s prime ministership. Electorally, despite overwhelming popular support for equal marriage rights, it has consistently been a lower-order issue in terms of votes. And within the party room Abbott is on the […]

29 Dec

3 Comments

Australian politics 2014: Decline & decomposition

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Abbott has to perform well as prime minister next year, not just to preserve his leadership and give the Coalition a chance of re-election but also to restore public faith in the political class and Australia’s system of parliamentary democracy. The year 2015 has to see a restoration of political stability in the national interest. […]

01 Nov

1 Comment

Naomi Klein, the ‘shock doctrine’ & Whitlam’s dismissal

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In the latest post at her personal blog, An Integral State, Left Flank’s ELIZABETH HUMPHRYS challenges Naomi Klein’s celebrated “shock doctrine” thesis of neoliberal transformation by looking at the Whitlam dismissal and the Fraser government’s failure to drive through neoliberal reform. But despite these concurrent ‘shocks’ — the deepest economic crisis since the Great Depression […]

14 Sep

8 Comments

A federal ICAC? ‘Accountability’ & the decay of politics

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It’s been enjoyable indeed to watch the humiliation of both sides of NSW politics on the ICAC witness stand. But, unlike Peter Hartcher in the Sydney Morning Herald — or the Greens, who have been pushing the idea for some time — I don’t think a federal ICAC would either solve the problem of “political […]

08 Sep

Comments Off on The capitalist state, neoliberalism and industrial arbitration

The capitalist state, neoliberalism and industrial arbitration

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Left Flank’s ELIZABETH HUMPHRYS has launched a new website for her own work, An Integral State: Notes on Marx & Gramsci. The latest post is her paper from the roundtable on Leo Panitch & Sam Gindin’s Deutscher Prize winning book The Making of Global Capitalism, at the Historical Materialism Australasia conference last weekend in Sydney. […]

11 Jun

9 Comments

Post-Budget: Just what the hell is Abbott up to?

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In today’s Sydney Morning Herald, Economics Editor Ross Gittins portrays Tony Abbott as a political “chameleon” who went from being a soft “populist” before the election — backing Labor’s spending commitments, promising minimal cuts despite saying that the Budget deficit needed to be reversed, etc. — to “an inflexible ‘conviction politician’ who doesn’t seem much worried […]

01 Jun

29 Comments

The Left and Tony Abbott’s ‘inevitable downfall’

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GUEST POST BY SIMON COPLAND Eight months in and the Abbott government seems to already be at the point of no return. After the disaster of the budget, the government has hit a new low in polling — one that, given the political “skills” displayed, seems very difficult reverse. As I’ve predicted in the past, […]

18 May

9 Comments

Dazed & confused: The Left, Palmer & Budget 2014

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We are very concerned about the risk that savings are falling too heavily on some families and young people trying to find work. —Jennifer Westacott, Chief Executive of the Business Council of Australia I don’t think even the colleagues realise the extent to which Tony has locked in a strategy from which he cannot turn […]