Does no one recall Tony Abbott as a loyal deputy of John Howard, Australia’s excuse for a national leader, the man who made us an accomplice of George W. Bush, the intellectually disabled US commander-in-chief who waged two unwarranted wars against relatively militarily defenceless faraway nations, in the process probably making himself the world’s biggest mass killer so far this century?
If the latest Australian political opinion polls are indicators, it seems few do. The scurrilous Abbott continues to fly high as he piously radiates his hubris in the wake of Julia Gillard’s latest policy implosion, tragically yet again on refugee policy.
A substantial majority of voters say they will make Abbott John Howard Mk II come the federal poll sometime late next year, perhaps even sooner if Gillard’s fragile minority Labor Government tears asunder.
What has/is Australia come/coming to? How is it that we can approve behaviour that flies in the face of the spirit of the conventions of the United Nations, the organisation set up to promote peace and human understanding after the 20th century’s second bout of global lunacy (World War II, 1939-45) generated, it must be remembered, by civilised Europe, of which Australia today is still mostly a product.
The Labor backflip on refugees is yet more proof of the big parties’ inability to resist pandering to the inherent racism that stains the Australian character. It reveals, yet again, just how much the behaviour of apartheid South Africa, through much of the second half of the past century, enabled our post-White Australia society to keep that stain under wraps. Now, with apartheid out of the headlines these past two decades, the stain is seeping through, there to be seen by all those willing to face the reality.
It cannot be denied that John Howard, worshipper of Robert Gordon Menzies, mid-century champion of the White Australia policy, unashamedly paraded our racism. Even before his Lazarus act, he let us voters know he didn’t have much time for Asians coming to Australia. And, as prime minister, no-one was going to tell him who would be allowed to come into our country.
And, in an eleventh hour 2007 pre-election bid to curry favour with the anti-Abos (with the help of his then ministerial MP Mal Brough), he bludgeoned his way (military and police in the vanguard) into northern Aboriginal societies. The intervention, as it became known and was sadly continued by Labor’s Kevin Rudd after he knocked off Howard is still in effect, in modified form, today.
Sure, the intervention may have channelled a bit more assistance through to battered Aboriginal mothers and hungry, under-educated children. But in the 21st century was this any way to treat with the indigenous peoples we had destroyed, or brushed aside, with such contempt as we established our civilised Western society?
Nowadays, it’s not uncommon to see macho Abbott throwing around his brawn (of which there is far more evidence than his intellect) to demonstrate he’s ready to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with his indigenous mates up north. (Will he continue to show such bonhomie towards them once he’s got Mal B. Rough back on his team?)
It’s been an unfair federal political contest these past few years. While the unemployed Abbott has been free to cavort around the nation, and make a spectacle of himself overseas, PM Gillard has been doggedly (usually with dignity) battling on three fronts: to hold her fragile government together; to fend off the deranged jingoistic destructiveness of the Opposition; and, most importantly and with great conventional economic success to keep the country running. I doubt Abbott could ever juggle three so unevenly weighted clubs with such aplomb.
Fortunately for Gillard, the three lower house independents that make her administration possible despite occasional moments when they must have been tempted to walk away from their pact with Labor have stuck by her.
Their support, with that of the Greens in the upper house, has made her government hugely successful in getting hundreds of bills through parliament. Much good law has come into effect but it is law that, sadly, gets no respect from Liberal-National MP knockers or appreciation from most voters.
Historians one day will look back on the Gillard years as a period of much long-sighted decision-making; and of unrelenting and destructive Tory negativity. As things stand, history is also likely to show that Australia, post-Gillard, was in for another bout of visionless conservative political idiocy.
Tasmania’s Andrew Wilkie and NSWs Rob Oakeshott and Tony Windsor deserve much credit for standing solid with Gillard in the face of Abbott’s mindless white-anters; and for giving Australia an amazingly stable government considering the knife-edge Labor has been on.
Each independent, in his way, has contributed a consistent stream of good sense and judgement in backing a party that is not naturally to their liking. And I’d rely on Tony Windsor’s word any day before those of the weaselly Abbott. In fact, I might even be tempted to bet my arse on it. – Bob Hawkins
