Allan Patience

The Murdoch media and its political minions in the Coalition have declared that Bill Shorten is conducting a class war against hardworking Australian “aspirationalists”. The pseudo-conservatives in the media and the parliament equate Labor’s opposition to their taxation policies with seriously undermining the Australian economy while destabilizing Australian society. (more…)

The Italian election has shown, very clearly, that ordinary voters are deeply angry with mainstream politicians and political parties. What is true of Italy is also true of Australia. The political class sneeringly dismisses voter anger as “populism”, blindly believe it will evaporate once voters come to their senses. They’re wrong. Anger is mounting exponentially across the country. Voters are looking for alternatives – any alternative – than to vote for the narcissists currently governing us. This poses a serious danger to the political system – but it also offers a golden opportunity for Labor. (more…)

How do we explain the phenomenon of a Bernie Sanders, who almost certainly would have won the US presidency if he’d been the Democrat candidate running against Trump? How do we account for the astounding failure of, first, David Cameron and now Theresa May, to maintain the Conservative Party’s dominance of contemporary British politics? How is it that a political maverick like Jeremy Corbyn can drag a recalcitrant British Labour Party kicking and screaming to the brink of government in the UK? These questions point to the failure of old politics and the urgent need to imagine a new politics for progressing the West into the twenty-first century. (more…)

The neoliberal war on western economies is finally collapsing under its own contradictions. In Australia its attacks on public wellbeing have been devastating. Politicians in thrall to the neoliberal ideology have vandalized manufacturing industries. Productivity and wage levels remain static. Inequality has ballooned while CEOs have plundered profits to enrich themselves while depressing workers’ wages and returns to shareholders. Neoliberalism was the midwife of the Global Financial Crisis and is the ugly sister of alt-right extremism, populism and racism in all the advanced economies – witness Trump in the USA and Brexit in the UK. The good news is that its end is nigh. What, then, is the way forward? (more…)

Unsurprisingly, very few Australians have any interest in their Constitution. It was designed in the closing stages of the 19^th century by mostly older white men (no women were involved) for a “horse and buggy” era. It is an awfully dull document, originally an Act of the British parliament, intended to persuade a gaggle of recalcitrant colonies to come together into a federal compact. In contemporary Australia there is no serious educating of citizens about the extent of federal powers, the complexities of federal-state relations, whether the Constitution is truly protective of human rights, and just how adaptive it is to the challenges of the contemporary world. (more…)

The National Party receives about 7 % of the vote nation-wide in general elections. This is less than the Greens. Meanwhile over-all support for the Nationals is trending downwards. As a minority rump within the Coalition they nonetheless wield power that is way out of proportion to their representation in parliament. Coalition politics it seems is in thrall to the populist right. (more…)

Police raids on political parties or associated institutions at any time should raise concerns – and the hackles – among democratically minded citizens. The recent raids on AWU offices in Sydney and Melbourne, seemingly in search for “dirt” on Bill Shorten’s time as head of the Union, should be ringing alarm bells. Are the police acting independently, as our weak Prime Minister claims? Is this an attempt to silence one of the country’s most effective political advocacy groups – to wit, GetUp!? Are the federal police seeking to curry favour with an incumbent government by going after the Leader of the Opposition? Is it all of the above? Or is it simply Canberra’s latest bureaucratic SNAFU?   (more…)

Tony Abbott has announced his intention to stay in politics in order to protect and promote what he calls “liberal conservative values.” He claims his values are at the very heart of Liberal Party philosophy. Meanwhile Cory Bernardi seeks to trump this by asserting that his new party is the one true home of Australian conservatism. What this latest ideological imbroglio points to is the fact that the Australian Liberal Party has always been an unconsummated marriage between liberalism and conservatism. Perhaps Liberal Party supporters need reminding that nearly all unconsummated marriages end up in bitter divorce. (more…)

The ugly chickens of the neoliberal era in Australian public policy are relentlessly coming home to roost: stagnating wages, high unemployment (especially among young people), declining standards in public hospitals, schools, universities, and TAFE institutes, homelessness on the increase, more beggars on the streets, increased social conflict (crime, racist violence, domestic violence, home invasions, road rage, car-jackings, sexual harassment), the death of manufacturing, more and more people experiencing anger, despair, anxiety and depression, unprecedented growth in socio-economic inequality, big corporations bullying governments and the general public (big banks, mining companies, media organisations) … (more…)

Madness in the Coalition’s ranks over the Finkel report and sleaziness in ALP ranks over clandestine foreign donations are just the latest evidence that the current pack of parliamentarians is incapable of governing in the interests of all Australians. What this country needs is a strong political enema to clean out the political constipation from which the country is now suffering.  (more…)