America already has Trump. Australia has Scott the
evangelist Morrison, and Britain has just chosen Boris Johnson as their PM. Scott
Morrison belongs to a church that believes that personal wealth is a sign that
God is shining on you for God’s sake!!!! The fact that such characters have risen
to be heads of nations bothers me for many reasons, and I grapple with the idea
that the contemporary world has made such choices.
I wrote elsewhere about
how I felt about the Trump triumph, and that feeling of being on the sidelines
grows stronger. My brother suggested I read up on ‘the eclipse of liberalism’
to try and put these feelings into some kind of context and I’ve begun that
process.
It’s strange for someone like me to accept that my views and
values are liberal. So called small ‘l’ liberal. In Australia the Liberal Party
is of the right, and when someone is referred to as ‘a Liberal’ it is usually
to denote someone that has conservative views and more likely leans towards the
political right, and vote for the Liberal Party.
I have learned that there is an optimistic tradition within
Western democracies which holds that the world is on an inevitable trajectory towards
a more moral and ethical future; that we as a species would continue to evolve
and come to see a kind of collective enlightenment where people are cared
for, and mutual understanding of human differences would flourish. That certainly
sums up how I had seen my world until recently, and that’s why Trump’s victory
came as such a shock. It has been surprising to learn that me and my kind (small
‘l’ liberals in a democratic nation) are merely a type peculiar to a certain
set of circumstances and that many in the world don’t see existence as an inevitable
path to a collective moral and ethical betterment. Trump voters are clearly in this camp.
To flesh this out a little more I want to list some of the
issues that might illustrate what I’m talking about:
Mental health care: funding for treatment and care of
those with mental health needs has been progressively cut over the last decade.
The result: a health system bogged down by people with mental health needs seeking
treatment and taking up hospital beds because there is nowhere else for them to
go. Ditto for the prison system. It is estimated that upwards of 40% of prisoners
have mental health issues and would be better treated in more appropriate facilities
and not jailed. (For the record Holland has closed more than 20 prisons since
2013.)
Detention of refugees: Australia has imprisoned
several hundred refugees on offshore islands for 6 years now. In the 70s and 80s
Australia had a bipartisan approach that used a system of offshore refugee camps
to methodically process applications for asylum and refugee status. There was
an orderly and continuous flow of migrants from war zones that was humane and
of practical advantage to an Australian economy that always depends on a level
of migration to help it grow. The present charismatic governor of South
Australia, Hieu Van Le, and comedian/painter Anh Do are two who found our shores
via this enlightened bipartisan approach. Now we just round boat people up, dump
them on an offshore island under insufferable and (secret) conditions and leave
them there.
Levels of welfare: Australia has not increased the
Newstart allowance, the primary source of income for unemployed people for 25
years!!!
Privatisation: bit by bit, little by little, our governments
of all political persuasions surrender provision of basic services to the
private sector. Here in South Australia we have been hit particularly hard by
extreme increases in the price of gas, water, and electricity – all since privatisation.
And soon our trains will go the same way. And health services. Bit by bit basic
services are sold to the private sector who of course run them as businesses to
make a profit and gouge the consumer accordingly.
Climate change; when over 90% of the world’s scientific
community believe that, based on all the available evidence, climate change is
a fact and that it is at least in part man made, the refusal of conservative
governments to accept and confront these facts with proactive solutions is just
monumental stupidity. The world’s leading naturalist, David Attenborough, is
surprised and dismayed that Australia is governed by those who continue to deny
the science behind climate change.
The Planet: nothing else matters. And yet we continue
to plunder – coal. Dump plastic in the oceans. Sell our water to wealthy agriculturalists
and shrug as tens of thousands of fish die in our national river system. Do
nothing as foreign seals devour native species in the Coorong. Australia has
the highest rate of animal extinctions on the planet by a golden mile. And we
would rather open another coal mine and further endanger one of the world’s
greatest natural resources, our Great Barrier Reef. And don’t believe the nay-sayers
- Australia can run on sun and wind and hydro energy. Germany has committed to
closing all coal plants by 2030, and nuclear power plants by 2022.
Freedom of the press: recently ABC journalists had
their computers and files confiscated by Federal police because they dared investigate
a story about alleged appalling behaviour of Australian soldiers in Afghanistan.
And now they want to finger-print these same journalists. There is an
organisation called the Institution of Public Affairs (IPA) that is closely
aligned with conservative forces and whose avowed agenda is to ‘privatise’
(read shut down) the ABC. These attempts to curtail a free press are the tip of
an iceberg. They are coupled with a series of incremental incursions on the rights
to privacy of average Australians – all in response to an undue obsession with
terrorism – and are part of a slippery slope to an authoritarian state.
There are many other issues I could add but this will do for
a start. I have probably conflated a number of issues here but according to my
liberal values levels of public spending on education, health, and welfare should
never be cut. They should be indexed against the cost of living and never
become the focus of political wrangling. A humane and decent society has at its
core a desire and willingness to assist and reach out to those in need. Australia’s
foreign aid budget is the least generous it has ever been. We refuse to pay the
unemployed a decent minimum dole, we lock up people who need proper mental
health care, and we maroon people seeking asylum in offshore hell holes for years
on end. Australia was not like this once. When did we get so mean? Where is our
heart?
I feel as if the wheel has turned quite honestly. I feel
like these small ‘l’ liberal values are no longer what drives us. I don’t see a
society that cares about its weakest and most vulnerable citizens anymore. I
don’t see any sense of an ethical or social responsibility that might guide how
we treat the underdog and show compassion as a society. Of course there are
individuals doing good deeds out there every day, but as a nation I believe Australia
has lost its soul. Liberalism has indeed been eclipsed.
There are pockets of hope, and they seem to be mostly in
Europe. I have already mentioned Holland and Germany; Finland is achieving
remarkable things in education and is enjoying all time low recidivism rates by
making prison cells more like hotel rooms – the focus is on rehabilitation not
punishment. But we here in Australia have just voted for a government that
eschews such liberalism and panders to some ‘quiet Australians’ who just want to
‘get on’ – whatever that means. I think it’s code for ‘bugger you Jack. I’m OK’;
a government that seems stuck in past paradigms without any of the kindnesses
of previous eras. And now we can sit back and watch the incompetent wrecking
ball that is Boris Johnson, cheered on by his mate Donald, before he wines and
dines Scomo.
It simply beggars belief, but a significant part of the English
speaking world has lurched to the right.
