Conservatives always seek unimpeded power and Scott Morrison is no exception. Some cynics suggest this is a ‘right to rule’ mentality, but it is not. It is a duty. A ‘right to rule’ is arrogance; a ‘duty’ is more sinister because it is steeped in moral certainty.
This was the core of a conversation with my father after the Dismissal in 1975. He was shocked but not surprised and revealed his own experience in the period after WWII.
My father was a confirmed conservative. A retired military officer, after the war he was appointed secretary of the Employers Federation as it was then called, all impeccably conventional. Some time in early 1949 he was summoned to a meeting at Parliament House. There in the Members dining room he was duchessed by a Liberal member and an ex-military associate.
The Liberal party was then crammed with dashing young ex-military candidates for the upcoming 1949 election, and the political atmospherics were poisonous. Chifley had courted political opprobrium by his insistence on Bank Nationalisation in the face of High Court rejection, Menzies was in heightened hysteria and the banking and insurance industry were mobilising grassroots opposition.
The dining room conversation was prosaic, only interrupted by jovial greetings from passing conservative politicians, but in the midst of the mundane commentary the topic veered onto the upcoming election. What if Labor were to win? It would be catastrophic. The crisis was dire. Could they depend on him as a military man to heed the call if necessary, for King and Country?
It only then began to dawn on my father that he was being asked, if necessary, if the ‘wrong’ election result occurred, to be part of a coup. There in the middle of the parliamentary dining room! It struck him as bizarre, such enormity contemplated in the midst of pedestrian conversation and an ordinary meal. Parliamentary food was particularly poor at that time.
He exited as gracefully as he could and only really appreciated the significance later as he reflected on the discussion. He found out later that politician’s companion was a member of the secretive Association under the aegis of General Blamey – later to be made Field Marshall by Menzies – and whom my father, like many military men, loathed.
My father was badly shaken by the experience. It violated to the core values he held dear, but what most disturbed him was the ease with which they had considered the prospect. There was an absolute belief in a duty to uphold order against chaos and provide ‘proper’ governance, despite the violation of democratic propriety, to uphold a higher calling.
He was so taken aback he never voted conservative again and maintained to his death that the conservative Liberals could never be trusted to uphold democratic principles. And that was only confirmed by the events of 1975, which he saw as the coup they had always harboured, and Kerr as the vain and odious instrument of their intention.
My father had long passed when the actions of High Court Judge Anthony Mason were revealed in 2012, but it would have confirmed his instincts. Mason was a conservative jurist with a humane outlook and an incrementally progressive inclination but in 1975 his advice to his ‘friend’ Kerr on the Dismissal of the Whitlam government was a gross violation of his judicial office.
You could understand it in a dogged Tory like Garfield Barwick, but Mason was above all a man of duty and propriety. His odd naïveté however led to his seduction by the cabal of ‘decent’ and ‘earnest’ men about him and warped his judicial duty. He should have run a mile like my father, though I suspect part of my father’s reaction was simple terror, the terror that comes from stark realisation.
And so today you have Scott Morrison shifting quickly to suspend parliament and to rule by regulation without scrutiny. This is the default conservative position though now, of course, is not the time to question or criticise. It never is. The times are urgent, but the speed with which the instruments of democratic process were shed is obscene in its haste.
It is supposed to be about the public and the national interest, but it is really about partisan advantage and sidelining the Opposition as each morning the prime minister intones another escalation in response. His fawning acolyte in the Australian, Greg Sheridan paints him as a great ‘war time’ leader without any sense of the comic absurdity.
This is not about the public or greater good but partisan advantage. Why else would you announce an ‘investment allowance’ that seems primarily directed at marketing Mercedes or a scheme to ‘access’ to superannuation that seems primarily aimed at wrecking industry super funds. This is about the next election that will be called at its most advantageous timing to celebrate the national saviour, the Messiah from the Shire.
It is all about a sacred duty to rule, free of the filth of criticism. Christian Porter summed it up well” “parliament is pointless when more important duty beckons”. Whatever the bumbling reality and it has worked wondrously in the past. The essence of 1975 was the creation of a crisis while advancing Liberal rule as the instrument of solution, stability and order.
The unfolding of this crisis is similarly an instrument of restricting rights and democratic scrutiny by entrenching partisan executive dominance and making parliament increasingly irrelevant.
Michael Powell lectured in Australian History and is a Conjoint Senior Lecturer at The University of Newcastle and Adjunct Researcher UTAS
This post kindly provided to us by one of our many occasional contributors.
Comments
7 responses to “MICHAEL POWELL Morrison seeking unimpeded power”
I’d just like to highlight what no-one else here has: the stupefying passivity of Labor.
Labor agreed to this revised Parliamentary schedule. It did not have to.
Labor wimped out against a grassroots political opposing of the Kerr coup. And was praised for doing so!
Labor adopted neo-liberalism when elected to government in 1983: it did not have to.
Why is no-one else not pointing a relevant and baleful figure at a Party whose Leader denies that he leads “Her Majesty’s Loyal Opposition”? (He asserts repeatedly that he simply leads the Labor Party. How “loyal: is that?)
The increasingly irrelevant Labor Party. As its election results testify.
Thank you for showing the prelude to the Whitlam coup, and the terrifying “duty” to destroy democracy that Morrison is taking for himself.
There had really been a class warfare after the central bank Act was even taken to the Privy Council, but I did not know how far the Menzies lot had been planning to go. Chifley’s threat was only a response to the Act’s failing, care of bankers and, eventually, Australia still got a central bank (later called the RBA). And bankers were still furious until Menzies told the RBA “to be kind to banks”!
I clearly remember the events of November 11th 1975 as if it was yesterday .There is no doubt that the C.I.A played a significant role as the U.S. was clearly worried that Whitlam would turf them out of Pine Gap and North West Cape. Frazer clearly believed that their loss in 1972 was a aberration as they were “the Party born to rule”. The dirty tricks have continued right to the present. I just wonder what it will take to wake up the lazy easily scared Aussie voter?
The ALP sale of the Commonwealth Bank so incensed some old stalwarts that they vowed never to vote ALP again, until the late Howard & Abbot governments, but that decision pales into insignificance by the decisions to take Australia to war in several theatres without a parliamentary discussion or vote. Australians are being forced to accept that in death scenarios the parliament is irrelevant.
Morrison is even more “entitled” than most conservatives. I don’t think it presumptuous to suggest that he may actually believe that, as one of the few “elect”, his Prime Ministership is part of God’s plan. This is sickening. It may also account for his protection of colleagues who are clearly unsuited in every way to the positions of responsibility they hold.
Before he was elected, Leigh Sales on 7.30 asked him who would be responsible for the decisions his government would take. Morrison’s response, “I will,” was chilling. He clearly takes NO responsibility for the myriad rorts, failings, deceptions, climate silencing, social injustices, refugee trashing, deals for mates, etc etc etc. When anything is raised – it is always, always someone else’s fault. Worse, he sees himself above democratic processes, especially the checks and balances that should save us from exactly this. He was anyway planning minimal sitting days in Parliament in 2020. Mid-COVID, he is running the country in consultation with a select group of mainly men of his ilk and certainly of his liking who are NOT elected, while utterly sidelining scrutiny from those we actually did elect to represent our interests. His silencing/sidelining of Albanese while calling his Cabinet “National” simply shows he has no grasp of what democracy means. All of this possible because he gets such weak scrutiny from most in the mainstream media. That was, in large part, my topic in this P & I article: https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/stephanie-dowrick-are-moderates-failing-to-keep-us-safe/ The situation, of course, has worsened since.
I am not frightened of the Covid-19 as much as I frightened of the neo-liberal government of Scott Morrison, whose ideology ignores the elephants in the room.
1. Too many people globally using too many finite resources too fast
(in other words consumption and populations need to dramatically drop – NOW)
2. The inequality across the board – as enabled and encouraged by the
neo-liberal politics and the cult of religions needs to be addressed
immediately.
3. Technology of renewables will not “save” us…we heard all about this in the 70s, 80s, 90s….technology might help IF other changes are made in terms of consumption and priorities but too many people believe that new technology will allow them to continue to consume at the current rate….remember…we all live on the same ball of dirt with a finite
carrying capacity.
As in all animal populations – and we sometimes forget we are animals – massive die-off will occur when the populations exceed carrying capacity. I think the current estimate is about 30 years for humans if no change is made.
As ever…I’m hoping like hell to eat my words.
The convenience of Covid-19 manifests itself as Fear. It all comes down to fear.
Suspension of Parliament. Governance by media event. Nationwide house arrest. Contact tracing. Dob in a neighbour to become relevant.
And No Touching!
Astonishing, or not, what can be accomplished once Fear is enshrined.
We sit (huddle) in front of our screens watching the numbers, hoping against hope that the Angel of Death passes over.
And we are cautioned to hate China, the Yellow Peril with Commie on top. They shop in wet markets and buy bat soup.
Welcome to Corona Time.