Hope instead of instability 2, October 21, 2005 AD
The President
of the Old Boy's Club and the Prefect
Malcolm Fraser, former Liberal Prime Minister from 1975-1983, is not happy. The Federal Government under John Howard's Liberal Coalition has departed from the rule of law. The country's basic democratic principles are being undermined by anti-terrorism legislation that Fraser says needs to be resisted on a wide front. The Government demonstrates its lack of legitimacy by failing to hold the "middle ground" on security. A report of his comments can be found in Melbourne's "The Age" newspaper of October 20. Fraser was delivering the Stephen Murray-Smith Memorial Lecture at Melbourne University.
http://members.ozemail.com.au/~bcwearne/basis22
The former PM's swingeing attack on Howard may in time have a positive result. Why? It has the potential of bringing out into the open a deep failure within the Liberal Party with respect to its view of law. It no longer holds to a non-authoritarian, non State absolutist view of the Government's task. Liberals have historically opposed the kinds of emphases that are now part of the Coalition's agenda. John Howard's persistent pragmatic promotion of himself as the leading representative of "his side of politics" has left him in non-man's land with an approach to law and legal issues that borders on totalitarian.
The Liberal Party and its Coalition in Parliament has always been able to call upon a good supply of lawyers among its crop of parliamentarians. The Prime Minister himself is one of them. But the comment of the former PM indicates that there is something deeply awry with the Liberal Party's view of law and jurisprudence. These proposed legislative developments compromise the Liberal Party in a fundamental way. That is also what these comments by a former Liberal Prime Minister mean. These comments should have been coming from within the non-Parliamentary ranks of the Liberal Party itself. But the party has obviously lost its way. It's goal is now simply to be the party of government. It no longer has any reason to ensure that its parliamentarians are actually passing laws that are consistent with Liberal Party principles because within the Liberal Party itself its principles have been given second place to the overall aim of getting into and staying in office. The media sneers at Labor, but Fraser's critique indicates that the Liberal Party too is in a parlous state.
Despite its decade-long electoral success its principles, those precepts which govern the day to day working of its parliamentarians, are in a shambles. That is what Mr Fraser has confirmed.
There is intense irony here because many who shouted "We want Gough!" in 1975 will now be barracking from the sidelines for Fraser, hoping he brings about Howard's downfall. But Fraser's comments have all the consistency of a president of the old boys club who got the job because his bullying "'got things done" when he was head prefect. Now he accuses the latest head prefect of going beyond the bounds of propriety, of losing "middle ground" respect. But that is typical. Reports of Fraser's speech do not indicate any attempt by him to invoke Westminster parliamentary principles. He is not known for his contribution to the reform of the Liberal Parliamentary Party's standards of conduct.
We now approach the 30th anniversary of the sacking of the Whitlam government and Fraser is in the thick of it again identifying 'reprehensible circumstances' this time accusing a Liberal Prime Minister of undermining the rule of law and human rights. It is not clear to me how Fraser's "middle ground" can be a basis for a renewed Liberal Party commitment to due process and justice.
But maybe with all his inconsistency Mr Fraser does the country a service. He forces us to think again. What is politics? How should it politics be organised?
And more importantly how should Christians view politics? How should we in a non-pragmatic way contribute to our country and region, and the globe by rendering a political service that seeks public justice for everybody?
|
October 2005 © Hope Instead of Instability, is a series written by Bruce C Wearne (PhD), 29 Lawrence Rd., Point Lonsdale Vic 3225 AUSTRALIA, 61-3-5258-3913. Each edition may be photocopied or retransmitted in its entirety but not otherwise published, reprinted or transmitted without permission. The aim of the series is to promote a renewal in principled pluralist thinking about Australian and South West Pacific politics from a Christian standpoint. Email responses are welcome and can be sent to bcwearne@ozemail.com.au http://members.ozemail.com.au/~bcwearne/index.html |