Religious conservativism, fundamentalism and the punitive authoritarian tendencies of the Abbott Government

Tony Abbott before reading during a liturgy at St Charbel’s Maronite church.

AAP image courtesy of the Saturday Paper

 

'If the government seems to be out of step with social expectations it is because Abbott is governing for the far-right numbers that installed him as party leader.'

Mike Seccombe

 

The Abbott Government Cabinet and backbench are unquestionably the most extreme right-wing Christian conservative government in living memory, and as such are totally unrepresentative of the beliefs and values of the wider society.

 

The intense religious conservatism of the Abbott Government  partly explains its increasingly authoritarian tendencies, its unpopularity and policy paralysis.

 

At the heart of the Abbott Government is the confluence of four (4) forms of fundamentalist thought, including religious fundamentalism, market fundamentalism, nationalistic and military fundamentalism (including an obsession with anti-terror, border protection and citizenship) and education and cultural fundamentalism (as evidenced by its stance on disparate issues such as its assault on the ABC, the attacks on environmentalists and civil society activists, the denial of climate change and attacks of climate change scientists and advocates,  the School Chaplaincy Program, generous funding of faith based private schools and opposition to gay marriage).

 

As a result there is growing acknowledgement of, and concern about the increasingly authoritarian tendencies of the Abbott Government (see articles here, here, here, here, here and here)

 

In the Saturday Paper, Mike Seccombe reminds us of the influence of religious conservatism and the Christian right wing on the Abbott Government.

 

"Paradoxically, even as modern Australia continues to become less religious and particularly less Christian, we are governed by probably the most obviously religious government the country has had.

 

Prime Minister Tony Abbott’s devout Catholicism and his background as a trainee priest are well known. But it’s not just him. Almost half his frontbench are practising Catholics, a statistic that would no doubt astound the party’s founder, Robert Menzies. Among the rest are several who adhere to Protestant sects that Menzies would have considered decidedly non-mainstream."

 

Marion Maddox has written about the insidious rise and influence of the religious right under John Howard in her book God Under Howard: The Rise of the Religious Right in Australia.

 

Maddox argued that  John Howard harnessed the conservative social agenda and market-based ideology of religious fundamentalists  to stay in power. Maddox argued that the Christian right gained influence at the heart of the Howard Government and posed an unprecedented threat to Australia's democratic culture.

 

Maddox has also written of the rise and influence of 'prosperity gospel' on conservative politics and conservative politicians.  This is a form of religious (and political conservatism) that worships financial acquisition and guilt free-even obligatory- consumption with the claim that financial and material success is a reflection of the will of god.

Is the Abbott Government the most incompetent Government in the last 40 years?

Disaster upon disaster consumes the Abbott Government, which is now described as the most incompetent Australian Government in 40 years. 

For the second time in 6 months the Prime Minister’s leadership is now under serious threat as a consequence of his aggressively partisan approach and inherent conservatism.

In Friday’s AFR Laura Tingle describes along list of tactical disasters swirling around the Abbott Government, while in the Monthly Sean Kelly describes a Prime Minister lurching from crisis to crisis

The first Parliamentary week started badly with the PM forced to jettison Bronywn Bishop, his ‘captain’s pick’ as Parliamentary Speaker over an entitlements scandal that dragged on for weeks.

Polls released on Monday showed the Abbott Government trailing a struggling ALP by up to ten percentage points on a two party preferred basis

The PM’s handling of the same sex marriage debate divided his Cabinet and alienated many of his Parliamentary supporters. His manoeuvring on same sex marriage was calculated to shore up support from his conservative base by quashing a conscience vote and preventing a private members bill from passing through Parliament.

Abbott roped in the Nationals to a 6 hour party meeting to discuss same sex marriage, prompting Christopher Pyne to label the PM’s action as ‘branch stacking’.

Abbott’s proposal of a ‘people’s vote’ is designed to prevent same sex marriage and created deep Cabinet divisions as Ministers argued in public about whether a referendum or plebiscite was the best strategy.

On Thursday came the devastating revelations that Justice Dyson Heydon- the former High Court judge appointed by the Prime Minister to lead the Royal Commission into trade union corruption and governance and links with Australian Labour Party- was the headline attraction at a Liberal Party fundraiser.

 The revelations point to Heydon’s political allegiance that renders him potentially incapable of delivering Royal Commission findings perceived as unbiased.

 The revelations have damaged not just the credibility of the Royal Commission, but also the Government.

Wendy Bacon on the Graincorp decision : A small victory over corporate power?

The decision by the Abbott Government to block the sale of  the Australian Graincorp** to  Archer Daniels Midland (ADM), the multinational agribusiness conglomerate, is an important short term victory in the struggle against global corporate power in this country.

Short term because the sale is only delayed and ADM is able to increase their ownership of Graincorp over time, putting them in a stronger position to come back with a larger offer at  later date.

But despite the longer term uncertainty over the future of Graincorp, the importance of this victory must be recognised. 

As Wendy Bacon, Professor of Journalism at the Centre for Independent Journalism writes in New Matilda in this superb piece of investigative journalism, the Government's decision to block the sale was the result of a complex set of political alliances and forces that coalesced around ADM's long record of questionable corporate and financial practices.

Although the decision was portrayed in the mainstream media as the Abbott Government caving in to pressure from their National Party coalition partners, Bacon demonstrates that the decision was the result of serious public concern about ADM's record of corruption and tax minimization, its involvement in a series of court cases over unlawful and unethical practices, and concern that ADM would use its market power to the detriment of Australian growers and Australians more generally.

** Graincorp has a near monopoly of Australia's grain exports, as well as major controlling interests in the supply of seeds, oils and malt in Australia. The sale of Graincorp to ADM was widely opposed in Australia by farmers groups, the National Party and the Greens, as well as a whole range of agricultural and campaigning groups. But the sale was actively supported by Graincorp itself, the ALP Opposition Party, lobbying firms acting for ADM, various financial and corporate interests, and a whole swathe of financial and investment companies who were saw the opportunity to make a fortune out of the sale.

Margo Kingston is back exposing Tony Abott's slush fund

The former political journalist Margo Kingston has returned to the public fray with her exposure of the criminal activities of the Leader of the Opposition Tony Abbott. 

In a number of recent pieces in New Matilda and Independent Australia Kingston restates her argument made originally in 2003 that Tony Abbott willfully misled the Australian Electoral Commission about his "Australia for Honest Politics" slush fund. Abbott set up the fund and used the money from the slush fund  to pursue the case against Pauline Hanson for electoral fraud and to destroy One Nation, a rival political party that was splitting the Conservative vote.

Kingston argues that by avoiding disclosure of donors to his very own "slush fund", Abbott engaged in unlawful behavior and also misled Parliament and the media.

Kingston's recent pieces can be read here and here

For 15 years  until she retired from political journalism in 2005 Margo Kingston was a high profile political journalist with the Sydney Morning Herald in the Canberra press gallery. She established and edited the mainstream media's first blog, Webdiary,  initially on smh.com.au. Since retiring from journalism she has been studying nursing and is a volunteer memoire writer at a hospice.

Kingston was one of the few investigative journalists in the Canberra Press Gallery willing to critique the hubris she saw on a daily basis. Kingston took up and fought numerous cases against the Howard Government, as documented in her books Not Happy, John! Defending our Democracy (Penguin, 2004) and Still Not Happy, John (Penguin, 2007).

Here is Margo writing in 2003 about Abbott's slush fund:

Abbott then sought to destroy One Nation. He put together a slush fund to promote legal action against One Nation and pay the legal fees of disaffected One Nation members.

Oh, and he lied to the Australian people when he denied any involvement in agreeing to pay legal fees. And now he's trapped.

The Australian people are outraged that the system has jailed Hanson, the symptom of public disillusionment with politics, while the disease - the behaviour of the cartel which owns politics today - divides the spoils of power and privilege.

They're outraged because the big end of politics gets away with just about anything, despite the fact that their experience, knowledge and resources mean that they have no excuse, while a bunch of amateur-hour political novices get thrown in jail for foolishly trying to work the system their way.

Abbott is a frightened rabbit in a very bright spotlight, a man with such raw, amoral contempt for the Australian people that he called his secret slush fund Australians for Honest Politics. He can say goodbye to ever being prime minister.

To give the trust fund he set up to secretly help destroy a competitor such a name was to go a step beyond whatever-it-takes cynicism to an insider joke at the people's expense. They will never trust Abbott again.

Why doesn't Tony Abbott attack middle class and corporate welfare?

Cartoon by Fiona Katauskas, New Matilda








Just why are politicians and business leaders who attack public provision of social welfare to the marginalized, the disadvantaged and the disabled never as vociferous in attacking "middle class" and corporate welfare?

This week Opposition Leader Tony Abbott and his Coalition colleagues announced that they are planning a full out assault on welfare recipients, claiming that the current provisions are too generous and need to be scaled back, and that many welfare recipients receive public funds to which they should not be entitled.

But his Education spokesman Christopher Pyne has promised to continue controversial school funding arrangements that means that more than 1000 private schools receive more public funding than they are entitled to.

So rather than mount an attack on middle class and corporate welfare, Pyne and his fellow Coalition members plan to continue and extend a policy that allows private schools to obtain more public funding than they should.

Under the model, introduced by the Howard government in 2001, the Commonwealth allocates funding to private schools according to a formula that measures the socio-economic status of a school community.

But because the Coalition promised no school would be worse off under their system, 1083 schools have had their entitlements preserved fully indexed at pre-existing levels.

But Mr Pyne told the National Press Club yesterday the Coalition would keep the current arrangements.

''When new schools begin, they know the environment in which they are going to be operating,'' Mr Pyne said. But he said any reduction of funding to existing schools would have a ''massive impact'', making private schools lift their fees."

Tony Abbott: conviction politician or lying opportunist?

Annabell Crabb in the ABC Drum on the Jesuit educated Tony Abbott:

" Is there any other politician who has ever enjoyed such a persistent reputation for conviction politics, while so regularly changing his mind?"

Who will form Australia's next 'minority' government?

image courtesy ABC

The mainstream media suggests that all signs point to the three country Independents supporting the incumbent Gillard government, thereby allowing Labor to form a minority government. With lower house Independents Adam Bandt and Andrew Wilkie already supporting Labor and  the formation of a Greens-Labor alliance in the Senate enabling Labor to govern with Senate support, the view being expressed by the mainstream media is understandable.

But I am not so sure. My view has always been that the three Independents will support a Coalition government (see here) and I still hold that view. But, by the end of this week we will know one way or the other.

Like many of Australians I am hopeful that the cracks that have appeared in in the hegemony of the two party system will continue to widen and that the Independents and Greens will exercise their power for serious reform.

The scare mongering and fear about the shift to the left is palpable. The Murdoch rags are railing against the Greens' ascension to power and are making all sorts of predictions about this leftist takeover of the reigns of governments. How we wish!!

The remergence of "dog whistle" politics

In his Australia Day speech to the Australia Day Council Opposition Leader Tony Abbott has embraced the dog whistling strategy of John Howard, his political mentor, by appealing to the racist leanings of voters.

Howard was the master of "dog whistle politics" and built a number of election victories upon appeals to racially charged Australian nationalism. Abbott's speech to the Australia Day Council is a perfect example of the style of political talk that has come to be known as "dog whistling".

Dog whistling is a form of political speech that uses particular words, phrases and ideas to appeal to conscious and unconscious racist concepts and attitudes in targeted population groups. Politicians use certain words and phrases to send a sharp message which, like a dog whistle that is inaudible to humans, is heard primarily by the people at which it is aimed.

Abbott's speech is littered with phrases and ideas such as "ethnic gangs", "ethnic street crime" " lack of respect for Australian values" "illegal immigrants", "people smugglers", "borders under threat", "queue jumpers", "tough border protection". These phrases activate and engage racial stereotypes, prejudices and imagined fears in voters. In his speech Tony Abbott avoids any overtly racist terminology, often criticizing and disowning the prejudice and racist attitudes that he seeks to connect with and engage.

Here is the skill of politicians like Tony Abbott who deploy dog whistling politics- plausible deniability. They have the ability to appear reasonable and balanced and deny or deflect criticism from those critical of the prejudice and racism to which they are covertly appealing.