Article item posted on Tuesday, December 1st 2009 at 3:59 pm

In making Tony Abbott their leader, the Liberal Party have declared themselves unelectable and destroyed their future.

Tony Abbott is an intelligent and articulate man.  But the hard-line Catholic conservative beliefs he articulates are poison to middle Australia – where governments are made and lost.

Were he to become Prime Minister, our country would be a centre of commerce, not a civilization.  He would enact a huge increase in economic inequality:

• Further tax cuts for high earners while ‘bracket creep’ raises taxes on middle incomes
• Major cuts to social security that help the poorest and weakest
• The emasculation of trade unions – a la Work Choices
• A counter-revolution in education where opportunity at all levels must be bought

In the dark days at the end of World War Two, Robert Menzies dusted off the famous essay ‘The Forgotten Man’ by William Graham Sumner (1840-1910)[1] and declared himself the champion of middle Australia.

His rationale was the workers were protected by the union movement and the wealthy could bloody well look after themselves.  His ‘Forgotten Man’ speeches galvanized the country after the suffering of war and put the Liberal Party in power for an entire generation.

By current standards, Menzies sounds like a conservative though he wasn’t – he was a liberal who oversaw the greatest lift in living standards in our history.  He embraced the economics of John Maynard Keynes and the small ‘L’ liberal credo that recognized government must do what individuals and business cannot do themselves, and that some activities, notably education, are too important to be decided solely by market prices.

The Liberal Party’s core constituents are business leaders and blue-collar conservatives, whose tenuous existence makes them fear change. Menzies used his stature to stare down their insistent demands for monopoly rights and social repression and instead provided the measured progress middle Australia requires of government.

The Emissions Trading Scheme that destroyed the Liberal leadership requires both these groups to change by  pricing carbon emissions.  For business this introduces an era of creative destruction as we replace our industrial kit with less damaging alternatives.  And blue-collar conservatives see only hard-to-evade costs, for benefits they cannot see, imagine or touch.

Malcolm Turnbull was leading his party down this path of measured progress.  Instead, they have plotted a different course and consigned themselves to oblivion.

The ALP will delightedly invite voters to kick the Liberal rump.  And we will.

David Collyer is currently contesting the Higgins by election for the Australian Democrats against Clive Hamilton for The Greens and Kelly O’Dwyer for the Liberal Party,

Tags: articulate man, australia, Australian Democrats, australian liberal party, australians, blog, bracket creep, business, choices, Climate Change, conservative beliefs, conservatives, dark days, david collyer, democrat, democratic, democrats, earners, economic foundations, economic inequality, emasculation, fiscal conservatism, howard government, individual liberty, john maynard keynes, kevin rudd, labor government, labour party, liberal party, man speeches, middle australia, middle incomes, money, monopoly rights, ordinary man, political thought, politics, revolution in education, robert menzies, rudd, sectional interests, self interest, senator, socialists, sound foundations, tony abbott, trade unions, victorians, william graham, william graham sumner, world war two

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