elonore lopez

[Alex Hawke’s] vision for Australia, influenced by his admiration for Reagan, Thatcher and Howard, involves lowering taxes and winding back the welfare state. But, as he acknowledges, the battle over economic rationalism has been all but won; his right-wing moral agenda is the harder sell. Alex has championed raising the age of consent, which he considers a child protection issue to stop gay men preying on the young. He also warns me that “abortion is not going to be off the agenda”, then adds, with a smile: “It’s going to be back, probably bigger and better.”

We talk about a range of issues. On the stolen generation, he tells me: “There is no generation. I think Keith Windschuttle has got it exactly right.” Alex is sitting with his back to the casino’s windows, and it is strange to look out at Hobart’s harbour and mountains while hearing him profess agreement with the thesis that Tasmanian Aborigines have only themselves to blame for their annihilation. “There has been this deliberate attempt to rewrite history. To say we came here and raped and pillaged and murdered — and they do, they carry on awfully about it — is quite appalling.”

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Chloe Hooper, “Young Libs in the Chocolate Factory,” The Monthly, June 2005

Hawke was the leader of the Young Liberals when this article was published. Today he is the Federal member for Mitchell, which includes Baulkham Hills. 

Another great quote:

When the moderates are asked how they feel about the moral conservatives, they tend to quote — with a degree of self-consolation — John Howard’s line about the Liberal Party being a broad church. This metaphor does not entirely work for Alex. “People say it’s a broad church. My response to that is you’ve got to agree it’s a church. It’s not a brothel, for instance. If people want to legalise drug-injecting rooms, lower the age of consent, go with all these trendy things, this is not the party that believes in those things. We’re not that broad.”

n.b.: “trendy”: Anna Wintour watch!

This article is good as commentary on both Australian political parties. This is how you become a leading figure in Australian government; go through all these shitty student politics events, holding pretend elections, until you’ve shaken enough hands to be considered ready for upgrading to the big leagues. During 2008, when the Barack Obama vs Hillary Clinton contest entranced the world, some Australians idly pondered the benefits of introducing a primary system here. The idea never took off, and most people misunderstood that Americans use the primary system for all races, not just presidential ones. A primary for party leadership would never work in Australia, because we have a parliamentary system, and a popular vote that foisted a leader on to the parliamentary party would be a recipe for instability. What would make sense as a reform is using open primaries to select candidates for lower house seats. Instead of paid-up party members pre-selecting candidates, on primary day, voters would go to an AEC-run booth, and vote for their preferred candidate for their preferred party. The winner for each party would contest the general election. It’s far less glamorous than what we saw in the Obama vs Clinton showdown, but it would do a lot to rid the system of the career politicians and party hacks to which we are so accustomed in Australian political life.

(via screwrocknroll)

On the latter part of what is suggested here, a primary system in which party members select candidates for seats, that is actually what the Liberal Party had a shot at had Peter Reith beat Alan Stockdale for the party presidency. Reith can be an arsehole on specific policy issues, but he was spot-on in this respect on how the internal democracy of the Liberal Party can be bolstered. Up until now, that internal democracy, the freedom to dissent, has always been something that

(Source: elonore-lopez)