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Out of Proportion 

Recent elections in both the UK and France highlight major flaws in their electoral systems, with lessons for Australia. 

Compare the pair:

UK Labour (2024 UK election)

  • National vote share: 33.8%
  • Seats won (% of chamber): 63.38

Australian Labor Party (2022 Australian Federal election)

  • National vote share (2pp): 52.13% 
  • Seats won (% of chamber): 51

How can an electoral system be considered fair when one party (Labour) can take 34% of the national vote and win a ‘landslide’ election, while another (Reform) can take almost 15% and go home with 0.8% of the seats (5 out of 650)? It’s a similar story in France, where National Rally comfortably won the popular vote but will walk away with less seats than Macron’s centrists and the NPF. 

Political candidates and parties receive public electoral funding in Australia on a per-vote basis.

It highlights the importance of two key pillars of Australia’s electoral system, but also points to a couple of weaknesses. 

I believe the UK election highlighted the fact that first past the post voting is neither fair nor representative. In an election dominated by an almost universal will to unseat the Conservatives, Labour and the Liberal Democrats often campaigned on prior results or current polling to indicate that voters should vote ‘tactically’ to ensure the Tories lost.

On the other hand, Nigel Farage’s Reform Party did not encourage such a practice, instead seeking to simply gain votes at everyone’s expense. As a result, the right-wing vote was regularly ‘split’ and either Labour or the Lib Dems were able to take the highest vote share.

Apart from the national vote being wildly out of proportion to the composition of Parliament, it is unfortunate that parties should gain votes tactically. It is regrettable that voters, rather than choose their preferred party/candidate, feel compelled to vote for the one they feel is most likely to defeat an incumbent they dislike. There’s no way to know how many votes for each party represent a genuine first preference for them. 

The secondary issue here is the lack of a vehicle for proportional representation. If the UK had a second (democratically elected) house of parliament that was elected via proportional representation, its make-up would more closely resemble the national vote share, at the same time negating the need for any tactical voting. 

To bring us back to Australia, although preferential voting in the House of Representatives mostly renders tactical voting unnecessary, there are exceptions. The two-party preferred (2pp) system can influence voters under certain conditions to change their first preference in order to ensure a supposedly more viable candidate is not eliminated early – this occurred in ‘Teal’ seats at the 2022 Federal Election. 

UK election highlighted the fact that first past the post voting is neither fair nor representative.

This issue is compounded by the fact that political candidates and parties receive public electoral funding in Australia on a per-vote basis. This practice should ultimately end, not only for the aforementioned factors that influence voters, but due to the ongoing advantage it gives larger political players. 

The other meaningful change that I’d make to Australia’s electoral system would be to abolish any districting within our state upper houses. By creating geographic segments within the overall electorate, the vote quota needed to gain a seat increases – again locking out smaller players and denying their voters representation. In my home state of Victoria, new legislation (similar to recent reforms in WA) could remove our upper house regions, creating a state-wide proportional race for the Legislative Council.  

So don’t knock preferential voting: it allows for the most genuine expression of voter intention, and proportional representation ensures even the small players take their rightful place in the chambers. The alternatives are not fit for purpose. 

Childcare – Why should you pay for it?

Starting before they are born, our governments spend a lot of money on children. 

The Commonwealth budget for education alone is $67 billion, and in NSW $24 billion. Add the other states and territories, plus health care, and as the saying goes, pretty soon you’re talking real money. 

While our society obviously values children highly, it is rare that anyone questions why so much of their cost is socialised. Having children is, after all, a choice. Other lifestyle choices do not attract such taxpayer generosity.

Among the taxpayers who provide the funds are many who do not have children themselves. Some are yet to start a family, while others have chosen not to have them. But there are also those who, for various reasons, would very much like to become parents but cannot. 

A strong case is always necessary to justify spending other people’s money, but a particularly convincing case is required to justify compelling those who cannot have children to pay for other people’s children. It’s like obliging paraplegics to pay for the running shoes of the able bodied. 

The government thinks there is a strong case for childcare. It wants women to return to the workforce as soon as possible, so they resume paying tax and contributing to government revenue. With state and federal governments all addicted to spending more than they collect, they have a strong incentive to increase taxpayer numbers. 

The government also argues that the less time women are out of the workforce, the more they retain their work skills. This is presented as a benefit to the women, as women who return to work more quickly typically earn higher incomes. However, they also pay more tax. 

For the mothers of the children, the case is not so clear. Some women are obviously career oriented and anxious to return to the workforce as soon as possible. However, there are many who would prefer to care for their children themselves, especially while they are small, rather than entrust them to strangers in childcare facilities. Motherhood is a powerful instinct, and most jobs are rarely more engaging than raising a child. 

The government also argues that the less time women are out of the workforce.

The key reason most do not remain at home is economic: single income families with children typically struggle to pay a mortgage or rent plus general living expenses, vehicle expenses and the rest. 

The underlying cause of this is government policies, particularly high income taxes, excise on essentials such as fuel, and the regulation and taxes that lead to expensive housing. Remove these and it would be a lot easier to live on one income. 

From the point of view of the children, the case for childcare is even less compelling. Mothers have been caring for their children for thousands of years and have not recently become incompetent. 

But we are told that it is no longer sufficient to simply keep children safe, happy and entertained while their parents are at work; the children must now be educated by qualified early childhood educators. It is now known as early childhood education and care (ECEC).

Moreover, whereas childcare workers were once just sensible, caring people, most with children or grandchildren of their own, they must now hold post-school – and sometimes even university-level – qualifications. Mothers who have successfully raised four children of their own cannot become childcare workers unless they have obtained the appropriate qualification, while those who have a qualification but no prior childminding experience are fine.

There has also been a ratcheting up of regulation of the physical environment, the programs and routines offered, plus the ratio of staff to children in childcare centres. 

For the most part this has been driven by middle-class parental guilt. That is, parents seeking to justify the decision to place their children in childcare are demanding standards that allow them to believe their offspring are receiving a better start in life than if they stayed at home. It makes them feel better about leaving the kids with someone else. 

Unfortunately, there is no evidence to show that these standards are enhancing children’s outcomes. This was conceded in the Productivity Commission Inquiry Report into Childcare and Early Childhood Learning. The evidence indicates that the only children who benefit from ECEC are from dysfunctional households, such as those where substance abuse is an issue. 

Furthermore, the ramped-up regulation and credentialism have made childcare seriously expensive. Even moderately well-paid parents baulk when the cost is almost as much as they can earn by going to work. For the poorest parents, especially single mothers who have a strong need to return to work, it is simply out of reach.  

A strong case is always necessary to justify spending other people’s money,

Childcare advocates, especially those with a pecuniary interest, are seeking to convince the government to implement a universal ECEC system, based on recognising early childhood education as a fundamental need. Naturally they claim this should be provided at minimal cost to parents, arguing it would give children the support they need to thrive into adulthood, while parents, particularly women, would be better able to balance work and care responsibilities.

This is a profoundly elitist view, based on the assumption that virtually all women prefer to return to work, and that virtually all children benefit from early childcare education. As previously discussed, neither is true. Moreover, the cost of such a system, tens of billions of dollars, would be borne by taxpayers.

What is never considered is changing the incentives so mothers do not feel so pressured to return to work. If income taxes were significantly reduced by, for example, allowing single income households to split their income between working and non-working parents, the pressure would ease. If the cost of childcare was tax deductible, it would help. If fuel excise plus GST did not take over half the cost of fuel, households would have more money for other purposes. If housing was not so heavily taxed and regulated by local, state and federal governments, there would be more houses at affordable prices. 

And if childcare was less regulated, with only those opting for early childhood education paying for it, the cost of ordinary childcare to mothers who genuinely need it would be more affordable. 

As it stands, ECEC is a taxpayer-funded elite middle-class racket. Rather than hit taxpayers for ever increasing subsidies, the sector needs to be substantially deregulated.  Middle and upper-middle class families who expect gold-plated, diamond-encrusted childcare – with its university educated workers and low staff ratios – should pay for it themselves.

The Coming Populist Revolt

Populism occurs when the masses revolt against the elites’ view of the world. Elite opinion does not often deal directly with popular opinion, that is, with the people who have to pay for elite opinion. When elites get it wrong, the masses revolt through the ballot; the Voice referendum being a good example. The question is, when is the next chance?

Currently, the elite consensus on issues like net zero, immigration and identity politics is so far removed from the reality of the masses that it is no wonder they are pushing back. The populist revolt, should it occur, will play out at three levels – international, national and personal.

International

Net zero is a preposterous notion. The world population is eight billion people. By 2050, it could be 10 billion people, a 25 per cent increase. These people will need energy. World energy consumption is 600 BTUs. By 2050, it could be 900 BTUs, a 50 per cent increase: more people, higher living standards, more energy. Electricity generation will rise mainly in the Asia-Pacific among developing nations. Renewables do not generally feature in developing countries’ energy mixes anywhere near developed nations’ proportions.

Women have gained formal and substantive equality in Australia.

Of 144 nations tracked for net zero, only 26 have placed in law their commitment to net zero by 2050 (or sooner). For example, the Maldives has pledged net zero by 2030 but it has no plan or accountability mechanism; it is pure hot air. Even Goody Two-Shoes Finland leaves out aviation and shipping and has plans but no mechanism for carbon removal. The US (2050), Russia (2060), China (2060), India (2070) and Brazil (2050) have a ‘policy document’, but nothing in law.

Australia has a plan written in law that is sure to kill the nation’s wealth. Industrial and economic mayhem, loss of reliable energy and higher energy prices will reduce living standards. Minister Bowen’s deployment targets are logistically impossible in the time frame.

Kenneth Schultz estimates a total cost of $1.4 trillion for the Coalition’s renewables-nuclear option. He estimates the cost for Labor’s renewables-battery option at $4.4 trillion, nine times the federal government’s total annual revenue.

National 

Migration in Europe and Australia is dangerous at levels that challenge national unity. Numbers count. If one million Palestinians settled in Australia in a short period, for example, the result would undermine Australian society. Palestinians would settle in a few suburbs and recreate a Palestinian society, i.e. one that recreates the hatred extant in Gaza and the West Bank.

Values also count. Australia would do well to distinguish migrants by the nature of their observance, which is apparent in the laws on marriage, succession, or rape in marriage among our key Islamic migrant source countries: Lebanon, Pakistan, Indonesia and Malaysia. A striking feature of those laws is that they distinguish the application of the law by religion. Religion first; the rule of law second. The question is how to distinguish this at an individual level. Classing people by source country is too crude and unfair, but not to distinguish people would be foolhardy. Why should Australia invite those unlikely to integrate or, worse, become an enemy?

Those who appreciate the benefits of the nation-state would support Prime Minister John Howard’s view that, ‘We will decide who comes to this country and the circumstances in which they come.’ Howard and the Australian electorate recognised that some people are not welcome as they are unlikely to fit in. In the long term, Australia will be much more Indian and Chinese. Of the three million permanent migrants who arrived in Australia since 2000, almost 450,000 were from India, and nearly 350,000 were from China. The assumption of integration must be reinforced.

The easy assumptions of integration post-World War II no longer hold. Since 2022, the Netherlands has required a substantial investment from a person applying for permanent residence before that privilege is granted. The civic integration requirements are set out in the Civic Integration Act 2021. The point of the Netherlands law is that applicants must be sufficiently integrated before they become permanent.

The populist revolt, should it occur, will play out at three levels – international, national and personal.

Personal

Women have gained formal and substantive equality in Australia. They are free to sing the praises of Palestine. Homosexuals are free to marry and raise children. But the trans lobby wants to abolish gender, which is dangerous to the mental health of trans people. Sex must be understood in evolutionary terms. There must be sperm and eggs for reproduction. Two women do not create a child, and two men do not create a child. They may care for them, and we wish them well. The proposition that sex is not binary, that it is socially determined, is dangerous, especially to those who find that they are not at ease with their sex and want to reassign their sex to suit their ‘gender’.

Anyone should be free to express themselves as male or female. But when sex is detached from reproduction, there are consequences. As Zachary Elliott argues in Binary: Debunking the Sex Spectrum Myth, ‘If we abandon sex as an important category in our society, how can we conduct safe and effective medical research and treatment; fight sex-based injustices; record accurate crime statistics; maintain fair, safe, and competitive sports categories; and implement equal opportunities for both sexes?’

There is a claim that almost two per cent of the population is intersex, neither male nor female. The numbers consist almost entirely of those who suffer developmental disorders, such as late-onset congenital adrenal hyperplasia. People with these conditions account for nearly all the males or females who do not appear to be one or the other. The disorders occur in nature and do not result in good health. They are not socially determined.

Populism in the service of correcting the madness of net zero, overplayed migration and undermined sexual identity are ground zero for the populist fightback. The masses await the right leader and the right policies. Populism? More please!

Gary Johns is Chairman of Close the Gap Research 

This article was first published in The Spectator.

Can libertarianism become a brand in Australia?

Dean Russell, a staff member at The Foundation for Economic Education (FEE), was the first to propose that America’s classical liberals and individualists rebrand themselves as “libertarians.” In an article published by FEE in 1955, Russell wrote: “Let those of us who love liberty trade-mark and reserve for our use the good and honourable word ‘libertarian.’” 

That good and honourable term was actually coined, or at least first used in print, by William Belsham in 1789. At that time, and until its political repurposing by Russell, it denoted a distinct philosophical school in the context of debates about free will. The opponents of philosophical libertarians then were necessitarians.

The context for Russell’s proposal was the perversion of the term “liberal” in the American political context at the hands of big government New Deal interventionists. This development led to the rather awkward, and unusual, situation of political opponents using exactly the same language to define themselves. The libertarian rebrand was, if nothing else, an admission of defeat: the term “liberal” had been irredeemably corrupted in the eyes of American liberals who identified with the tradition of nineteenth century liberalism and the principles of the American revolution. Yet, it proved to be wildly successful and is now in wide usage by America’s liberty lovers in all their diversity and eccentricity. Indeed, there now exists a robust “libertarian” ecosystem in America, replete with think tanks, academics, journalists, magazines, personalities, the odd celebrity and a political party to boot.

The truth is that the liberalism rebranded libertarianism in America, and only belatedly in Australia

However, this linguistic turn, which proved so successful in the American context, has struggled to find relevance and application in other contexts like Australia. Here, “liberal” has stubbornly retained its nineteenth century brand connotations, if not its genuine ideological content. Thanks to the dominance of the Liberal Party as the right-hand pole in Australia’s bipolar political contest, the term “liberal” continues to evoke in the minds of many political consumers something right of centre, as amorphous, incoherent and ill-defined as that may be. This brand phenomenon has served as a bulwark against the kind of leftward semantic evolution that the term “liberal” underwent in early twentieth century America. 

Moreover, the most ambitious among those who now embrace the term “conservative” to describe their political identity still find the Liberal Party of Australia to be the most conducive vehicle for political influence, notwithstanding pressures and temptations from Australia’s motley collection of right-wing populist minor parties. As such, Australia’s Liberal Party boasts an influential conservative wing, described routinely in left-friendly media outlets as the “hard right” or “far right.” This association of the term “conservative” with “liberal,” let alone “hard right” with “liberal,” is an association that simply does not exist in the American political market. It is a peculiar distinctive of the Australian political landscape, a quirk, as it were. It does, however, provide yet further explanation for why the term “liberal” has resisted its American descent into the semantics of liberal progressivism, at least in the minds of the public, and through them the political vernacular of Australia 

The term “liberal” had been irredeemably corrupted in the eyes of American liberals

The fact that Australia’s most successful libertarian party was founded under the name Liberal Democrats in 2001 and only changed its name to the Libertarian party in 2023 speaks volumes about the fortunes of the term “liberal” in Australia (there were legal reasons to change the name). It speaks, on the one hand, to the classical liberal connotations of the term in Australia of 2001, the golden age of Howard’s Broad Church, with its putative synthesis of Millian liberalism and Burkean conservativism. Its name change, on the other hand, in an era in which so-called “moderate” liberals in the Liberal Party stand for woke-lite social policy and a slightly less interventionist economic policy than the Australian Labor Party, signals the final severance of the conjunction “classical” and “liberal in the Australian context, more than 200 years after it arrived in the Australian continent with European settlement, and 68 years after a libertarian rebrand in America. 

The Liberal Party is now constituted by incompatible liberal progressives and conservatives, neither of whom show any real interest in advancing the classical liberal cause. While an uneasy truce prevails following the sectarian civil war of the immediate past, they now inhabit a rather unhappy marriage of convenience. They sleep in separate bedrooms, but stay together for the sake of the kids, in this case the chance at electoral success. Meanwhile, Australia’s classical liberals have deserted the Liberal Party and thrown in their lot with Australia’s radical liberals to embrace, albeit with some consternation and anxiety, the label “libertarian.”

The challenge confronting Australia’s nascent libertarian movement, now that it has finally parted ways with the term “liberal,” is to galvanise Australia’s small but passionate band of liberty lovers around a term that is foreign to the Australian political lexicon. More challenging still, there is the task of cultivating a libertarian constituency that prizes and prioritises individual freedom, property rights, unhampered markets, limited government and peaceful international relations in a country whose founding mythos and national identity are not centred around the concept of liberty, as they are in America. The truth is that the liberalism rebranded libertarianism in America, and only belatedly in Australia, are different species of the genus “liberalism,” each with their own distinct origins, political histories and intellectual development. All political ideologies face a temptation in the Australian context to simply ape and regurgitate the loud, exciting and flamboyant political ideas and innovations that inevitably flow downstream from America to Australia. This is a particular temptation for Australia’s right-wing heirs of the liberal tradition who have recently chosen to embrace the language of the much more highly developed and institutionalised ecosystem in America. If libertarianism is to have any future at all in Australia, it will need to take inspiration from the best that American libertarianism has to offer and adapt, refine and develop it for the unique socio-political environment of Australia. 

Smoke ‘Em If You Got ‘Em

For those of us who still occasionally like to check in on what the mainstream media is doing, there has been a topic that has got chins wagging and jowls flapping lately: “the tobacco wars”. 

While the mainstream media, in typical fashion, has sensationalised the story, it is true that black and grey market tobacco is abundant in the community.

BLACK, WHITE AND GREY

As a (recently quit) smoker, I see it everywhere. My smoker friends brag about the newest place they discovered, with even cheaper prices, while they pull a cigarette out of their fully branded pack. In fact, I can’t remember the last time I saw a drab-brown (plain packaging) pack of cigarettes. And I wouldn’t be much of a libertarian if I didn’t confess that I haven’t bought a pack of cigarettes through a shop compelled to display a “retail tobacco merchant license” in well over a year.

The obvious appeal of black and grey market tobacco is the near-two-thirds savings. I can buy a 20-pack of Marlboro Reds for under $20, while an authorised tobacco merchant is selling the same pack for over $50 (which I had to look up because it has been that long). And as more shopfronts pop up, the price is pushed down – a testament to the free market. 

Anybody serious about removing the illicit tobacco market

Even your poorest friends can afford to smoke chop-chop, illegally grown roll-your-own tobacco, at 50c per gram – a sixth of the price compared to roll-your-own tobacco in the authorised market.

ALL IS FAIR IN LOVE AND WAR

Despite the fact that, I would guess, most smokers are paying less for cigarettes than they have in over a decade, there are serious concerns that accompany a rising illicit market for an addictive product. Bikies and organised crime groups are starting to muscle in on the market, aggressively extorting tobacco merchants (as opposed to the more passive extortion of tobacco tax) and violently vandalising competitors.

Stories of tobacco shops being vandalised and torched are becoming a near-weekly occurrence. And while I have little sympathy for organised criminals, it is not only criminals being affected: legitimate tobacco merchants are in their crosshairs and innocent victims are inevitably caught in the blaze. So week-in and week-out, the mainstream media trots out some new “expert” on the matter who declares another hair-brained measure will solve this problem once and for all.

One of the more popular new measures being touted is to implement a licensing system to regulate tobacco merchants, similar to booze. The one problem with that is it already exists and has done precisely nothing to stem the flow of illicit tobacco. In South Australia, where I live, we have a had a tobacco merchant licensing system for as long as I have been a smoker (15 years) and illegal tobacco – and the organised crime that comes with it – is thriving.

Even your poorest friends can afford to smoke chop-chop, illegally grown roll-your-own tobacco

STATING THE OBVIOUS

At the risk of sounding like another idiot who has the solution for this problem once and for all, there is actually an incredibly obvious solution to this problem: lower the price of cigarettes. There is only one way for those “evil”, “scary” big tobacco companies to sell their products at a loss and for merchants to make pennies on the dollar: abolish (or at least significantly reduce) tobacco tax. Well over half the price of the average pack of cigarettes or pouch of roll-your-own tobacco goes to the government in tobacco excise alone. Tobacco, like petrol, is also double-dipped on tax with an additional 10 per cent of GST.

So while even someone with a cursory understanding of economics knows the only way to combat this problem is to compete on price – especially in a market where almost all forms of non-price competition have been outlawed – the obvious remains unspoken. To even suggest we use the only realistic solution to combat the illicit tobacco market, while also removing the most regressive tax in Australian history, is complete heresy.

UP IN SMOKE

Instead, we’ll pile on more regulations, evaporating the few legitimate tobacco merchants left, and “crackdown” on illicit tobacco, as governments continuously claim to do for no avail. We have known for a long time now that prohibition never works, and now we know that a surreptitious prohibition, via ever-increasing prices, achieves the same result.

Anybody serious about removing the illicit tobacco market, preventing organised crime from gaining a foothold in another industry and legitimately saving the lives of those caught in the collateral damage, knows the answer to this problem. Now it’s time to say it out loud.

Does Australia Need a Bill of Rights?

Does Australia need a Bill of Rights? After all, Australia is, it surprises many to learn, the only Western democracy with neither a constitutional nor legislated Bill of Rights. Various attempts over the years to legislate one have failed.

The closest Australia ever got to a Constitutional free speech right was in 1992, when the High Court ruled that the Constitution carried an implied right to free speech — in political matters only. As the Chief Justice observed:

To sustain a representative democracy embodying the principles prescribed by the Constitution, freedom of public discussion of political and economic matters is essential:  it would be a parody of democracy to confer on the people a power to choose their Parliament but to deny the freedom of public discussion from which the people derive their political judgments.   

If that sounds like a reach, later High Court rulings found that it was. When a public servant who had been sacked for criticising the government on Twitter appealed the sacking on the grounds of such an implied right to political speech, she lost. The court ruled that there is no personal right to free speech, but a restriction on legislative power, which “extends only so far as is necessary to preserve and protect the system of representative and responsible government mandated by the Constitution”.

The Australian government is, very quietly, once again resurrecting the idea of a legislated “Human Rights Act”

If anyone still doubted that Australians’ basic rights are not protected from government overreach, the last five years should have put a brutal end to such illusions.

But Canada has a Bill of Rights, and so does New Zealand, and yet their governments were no less draconian in crushing basic rights, from informed consent, to free assembly, to free speech.

So it looks like a Bill of Rights is worth precisely shit when the government boot comes down.

Or is it?

For all its faults, the United States’ Bill of Rights is holding up reasonably well against sustained assault by the state and its corporate attack dogs.

The difference lies in how a Bill of Rights is framed: to whit, which view of freedom is at its heart.

There are, in essence, two basic conceptual frameworks of freedom, with very different outcomes. These are positive liberty and negative liberty. At first blush, “positive liberty” may seem like the preferred option. It’s “positive”, after all!

In fact, positive liberty is the stomping ground of collectivist ideologies which are almost invariably associated with the worst shackles placed on individual freedom. That’s because positive liberty is better understood as “freedom to”.

That is, the freedom to act only within the constraints set down by law and society. Anti-discrimination laws are an example of positive freedom: citizens are free to act only within the bounds established by the laws enacted by the state. You are free to say only this and not that. You are only as free as the state decides to let you be. You can choose any colour, so long as it’s black.

Negative liberty is very different. Negative liberty is the “freedom from”. Freedom from constraint. Negative liberty establishes what citizens can tell the state it is not allowed to do. It is the type of freedom associated with classical liberalism and libertarianism. The US First Amendment is a negative liberty: Congress shall make no law… The Second Amendment is in the same vein: the peoples’ right shall not be infringed.

The other great difference between the USA’s, and NZ’s and Canada’s, Bills of Rights is that the United States’ is Constitutional; NZ’s and Canada’s are legislative.

A Constitutional law is the absolute bedrock law of the land. No matter what the government of the day may legislate, it must conform to the Constitution.

Legislation can be overturned by a simple vote in parliament. Or, like NZ’s, it can be restricted such that it cannot override any other legislation. Unlike the US Supreme Court, a NZ court cannot strike down or override any act of parliament with reference to the Bill of Rights. Which makes it a moot point as to why it exists at all.

The only way to get a Constitutional Bill of Rights in Australia would be by referendum. Good luck with that. The Australian Constitution was framed such that amending it is extremely difficult: a proposed amendment must secure not only a national majority of voters, but a majority of voters in a majority of states as well. Australians have, by and large, chosen to validate that high hurdle: of 45 referendums since Federation, only eight have ever been passed.

No referendum has ever passed without bipartisan support (and few indeed of those that had bipartisan support). Given that a legislated Bill of Rights has never made it past parliament, the chances of it passing referendum seem almost nil.

A major reason that a Bill of Rights has never passed parliament, let alone been proposed at referendum, is the suspicion voiced by former prime minister John Howard that such a Bill would transfer power from elected representatives to unelected judges and bureaucrats. It’s not hard to see the wisdom of his observation: consider, after all, just how much power health bureaucrats seized during the pandemic.

The closest Australia ever got to a Constitutional free speech right was in 1992

Even the High Court’s “implied right to free speech” decision could be seen as just the sort of judicial overreach Howard warns against. As the US Supreme Court did in 1973 with Roe vs. Wade, the Australian High Court took it on itself to invent a potentially far-reaching decision out of Constitutional thin air. More recent High Court decisions, which affectively affirm the role of magic — a supposed Aboriginal “spiritual connection to the land” — in law show that such unelected judges are the last people to whom we should trust our rights.

As it happens, the Australian government is, very quietly, once again resurrecting the idea of a legislated “Human Rights Act” — and it’s even worse than you might think. 

As should surprise no-one, given its origin in a left-wing government, it’s mired, waist-deep, in a mindset of positive liberty. That is, it’s all about what the state will allow Australians to do — not what Australians can tell the state what it cannot do.

For instance, freedom of religious belief is only allowed at the discretion of a judge. A judge can restrict religious freedom any time he or she considers it “reasonable” and “justified”. Religious freedom may be restricted in order to “protect public safety, order, health, morals or the rights of ­others”.

Who wants to take bets on how politically-appointed judges will interpret that one?

Freedom of speech gets even shorter shrift. Speech may be restricted — again, at a judge’s discretion — “in order to respect the rights and reputations of others or to protect national security, public order or public heath”. Ask Zoe Buhler, the Victorian mum arrested, pregnant, in her pyjamas, and crying, in front of her children, simply for posting the details of an anti-lockdown protest on Facebook, how that one’s likely to play out.

Perhaps the most alarming aspects of the proposed Human Rights Act is that it would include a mechanism that would enable everyone to sue for monetary compensation whenever they decided that their rights had been breached. Again, we only need to look at how aggrieved activists, most notably the “rainbow” lobby, have weaponised the existing “human rights” infrastructure to threaten critics and impose a chilly pall of silence on matters of essential public debate.

While it may be bad enough that Australia lacks any formal Bill of Rights, the threat of an ill-intentioned, badly framed one is infinitely worse.

It all comes down, in the end, to what Tony Abbott so famously asked during Australia’s last referendum campaign: do you really trust politicians?

Anyone who still does, clearly spent the last five years either in a deep coma, or developing a slavish taste for boot leather.

Slaying the dragon of censorship.

Is there no wild beast more savage than man when his passions are armed with power?

This is the question the ancient Greek historian, Plutarch, asked in relation to the actions of the newly formed triumvirate of Octavian (soon to be Rome’s first emperor, Augustus), Antony, and Lepidus as they turned on their Roman countrymen in their quest for power in the final stages of the fall of the Roman Republic in 43 BC.

It is a reasonable question to be asked of anyone aiming to assume leadership over their fellow citizens, no matter the period in history. That we have enough warnings of the traps which men fall into, should be uppermost in our minds when it comes to seeing our democracies as fair and reasonable.

At least we are only de-platformed, never to be seen in cyberspace again!

The most prescient warning, articulated in what I consider the best advice when setting up government, was penned by the Roman historian, Livy.

“The study of history is the best medicine for a sick mind; for in history you have a record of the infinite variety of human experience plainly set out for all to see; and in that record you can find for yourself and your country both examples and warnings; fine things to take as models, base things, rotten through and through, to avoid.”

To the question of power, I argue that it is even more pertinent today in our modern liberal democracy, because we were led to believe that modernity has ushered in a more humane, decent, and enlightened way to conduct our lives. 

Recent events, however, prove otherwise. 

Much has been written about the powers sought by Australia’s e-Safety Commissioner, Julie Inman-Grant, to silence Australians as if we were kindergarten children who cry out for guidance at every turn in the playground. 

By now we ought to be used to unfettered power being sought and wielded by senior bureaucrats; the recent four years of mandates and scare tactics being a prime example. But we should never get used to our political representatives further bolstering those powers without consulting the people first. 

It is frightening to consider what might lay before us here in Australia, with the recent announcement by opposition leader, Peter Dutton, that the Liberal Party in government would introduce a ban on social media for children under 16 years of age. 

This is the mainstream party that apparently espouses the values of individual liberty.

Dutton says that facial recognition to determine somebody’s age is “appropriate.” That, therefore, would leave anyone over 16 needing to comply with this ultimatum if they want to have a social media presence.

No doubt the government will call it “choice.” We will be told it is all in the name of safety; in this case, keeping children safe online. Nobody disputes the gold standard of being able to keep children safe from harm, but to punish law-abiding citizens by extinguishing their individual right to express themselves and associate with others in a peaceful way, is wrong. 

Is there no wild beast more savage than man when his passions are armed with power?

I guess we should consider ourselves fortunate compared to the punishment dished out in the ancient world. 

As the Roman Republic lay dying in the late first century BC, Cicero offended Marc Antony in several of his speeches, declaring Antony an enemy of the state. 

For his efforts of expressing views to save his beloved Republic from a would-be tyrant in Antony, Cicero had his head and hands cut off, the latter pinned to the rostra in the forum. It was said to be a reminder of what happens to those who disagree with the ruling elite of the day but it was, for Antony, a statement of revenge upon the man who consistently delivered powerful invectives against his character.

At least we are only de-platformed, never to be seen in cyberspace again!

But the words of Cicero are still as meaningful today as they were when he warned his fellow senators that “servitude is the worst of all evils.” 

It is with a degree of risk that we stand up publicly and declare his warnings today, but to do so with the eloquence of a man who is considered by many to have been Rome’s greatest politician, would be sweet indeed:

“To be slaves to libertines, bullies, foul profligates, gamblers, and drunkards, that is the ultimate in misery joined with the ultimate in dishonour.”

UAE Facilitating Australian Crime?

A recent article in the Age (https://www.theage.com.au/national/australian-drug-smuggling-suspects-right-at-home-as-dubai-makes-world-s-worst-welcome-20240514-p5jdg7.html) argues that authorities in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) are immoral for not preventing Australia’s most revered mega criminals from visiting and buying property there. According to the Age, we should all be outraged that the UAE is not doing the job Australian law enforcement is failing to do. 

But apparently it is no failure of Australian law enforcement that they knew Australian gangsters were trafficking huge quantities of illegal narcotics into Australia (not from the UAE). The Australian authorities were able to quantify and track it all, but they did not care to stop it. 

It is also no failure of Australian law enforcement that all those illicit drugs were trafficked throughout the country and distributed to, ultimately, tens of thousands of Australian customers in hundreds of thousands of illegal transactions, all of which were able to be quantified, but not stopped. Australian law enforcement apparently knew all about the millions of dollars collected inside Australia, who collected it and where it was kept, and were able to document it all in great detail and share it with journalists. 

Everybody knows what is going on, including Australian law enforcement. And that’s just fine.

But apparently it is UAE law enforcement that failed to…?

Apparently it is also no failure of Australian law enforcement that they knew the names and faces of these gangsters, knew the “outlaw bikie gangs” to which they belonged, knew where they were, knew what they did, and knew they were all engaged in “organised crime”. But apparently it is UAE law enforcement that needs to answer for not…?

Apparently, the UAE is outrageously immoral because it welcomes valid Australian-passport-holders to meet and talk with one another. It is inferred that, without the UAE, these gangsters would have nowhere to plan their nefarious activities. The article does not explain exactly how members of Australian crime gangs can form gangs, or engage in organised crime, in Australia, without ever meeting inside Australia. Nor does it explain how or why Australian border force lets known drug-smuggling, outlaw bikie gang members jump on planes and leave Australia for the UAE, with an Australian-government issued passport? Presumably, that’s the fault of the UAE too?

All of this does beg the question: if the UAE is full of despicable, violent, armed robbers from Australia, why is the UAE so safe? Why are there so few armed robberies in the UAE? Why are there so few outlaw bikie gangs in the UAE? Is it too hot to ride bikes or handle guns? Or is Australian law enforcement missing a step or two from the ‘Idiots Guide to Law Enforcement’ handbook?

It also seems strange how, in Melbourne, for example, regular people often talk about a night club or restaurant as being owned by a particular well-known criminal in a similar manner to Californians discussing which movie star owns which Hollywood Hills mansion. Somehow, in Australia, it is not just acceptable to buy luxury property with the proceeds of crime, there is also a celebrity status attached. On the other hand, buying property in Dubai is crossing a line.

The United Arab Emirates (UAE) are immoral for not preventing Australia’s most revered mega criminals from visiting and buying property there.

Similarly, massive money laundering takes place in plain sight in Australia. Customers of beauty salons and fitness centres, for example, often know the criminal bikie gang that funded the multi-million dollar fit-out of their salon or gym. Everybody knows what is going on, including Australian law enforcement. And that’s just fine.

Strangely, in Dubai you will never hear of a building or restaurant being owned by a drug dealing, outlaw bikie criminal. A Sheik perhaps, or a politician or oligarch. But even someone who made their fortune as a violent criminal in Australia is not referred to as the “criminal bikie who owns (X) Restaurant” in Dubai. That’s mostly because, if that armed-robbing, criminal bikie from Australia tried any of their violent thuggery in Dubai, they know it would not end as positively or comfortably as it seems to in Australia.

Which all begs the question: is it really fair for Australia to accuse the UAE of facilitating criminality, when all of that criminality is actually taking place in Australia, in full knowledge and view of Australian law enforcement, which does nothing to stop the criminals doing the crimes or leaving with all their proceeds of crime? 

Should the UAE automatically treat all Australians like violent criminals, seeing as the UAE cannot trust the Australian authorities to do anything about criminality inside Australia? Or at some point is someone going to ask what the hell the Australian authorities are doing that they treat all of us like criminals, except the people who actually are?

Freedom, Moral Norms and the State

Are moral norms compatible with individual freedoms? The answer should be an obvious “yes”, yet in Western liberal democracies like Australia there appears to be growing doubt, confusion and uncertainty. A society that permits individual freedoms necessarily results in moral pluralism. Moral pluralism, in turn, manifests in the existence of diverse moral norms, which is to say moral speech and practices that not only diverge, but conflict. Add migration and a policy of multiculturalism to individual freedoms, and a society characterised by a high degree of normative moral pluralism is assured. This is precisely what has occurred in Australia. 

Until recently, this kind of moral diversity (cloaked in the language of cultural diversity) was a cause for celebration, at least by Australia’s urbane, educated elite. Today, that same elite increasingly regards moral diversity as something threatening and harmful. Individuals and groups that find moral criticism, which is to say moral diversity, confronting, challenging and offensive, now demand protection from the “harmful” moral speech and practices of others. That is, they demand the state involve itself in matters of moral conflict amongst citizens. 

The clamour for state intervention in the arbitration, policing and implementation of moral norms is particularly evident in the culture war. Progressive and conservative protagonists in this putative “war” appear to agree on at least one thing: moral differences are political problems that ultimately can only be resolved via the “social apparatus of coercion and compulsion,” to use Ludwig von Mises’s description of the state. 

To treat the state as the arbiter of the conflicting moral beliefs found amongst its citizens is to turn moral difference into political conflict. 

Once the state is deemed to be the appropriate apparatus for arbitrating moral disputes between citizens, it becomes a political prize worth fighting for among those engaged in moral dispute precisely for the fact that it promises to place immense coercive powers in the hands of its victor. In this way the state becomes a tool for implementing a unitary moral vision through the prohibition and suppression of alternative moral norms deemed unpalatable. 

If gaining control of the social apparatus that is the state proves unattainable, its organs can always be lobbied and pressured to further the culture warrior’s moral agenda through legislation, litigation, appointments and funding decisions. Failing that, those seeking to vanquish their moral enemies can employ what John Stuart Mill termed “social tyranny” to hound, harass, troll and ultimately cancel moral heretics. 

The tragedy of the culture wars is how little is at stake in the issues at the centre of the conflict versus how much is at stake in the statist aims and ambitions of the warring parties. Instead of enlisting the state and its courts to sue a Christian baker who refuses to bake an LGBTQ-themed cake for a same-sex couple, the couple could simply procure their desired cake from another business and move on with their lives. 

Similarly, instead of hyperventilating about drag queen story hour in cities thousands of miles away from their home and clamouring for the state to intervene to ban them, offended conservatives could simply exercise their freedom to not attend such events and, again, move on with their lives. In fact, there is nothing to prevent either party from publicly expressing their respective displeasure at the other with as much vim and vigour as they see fit. There is wide scope for spleens to be vented in a free society.

But increasingly, people seem to be incapable of living comfortably in a society containing individuals who adhere to moral norms that clash or conflict with their own, particularly the young people we have managed to transform into nervous wrecks, in no small part because we do not instil in them the resilience that is required to live in the midst of pluralism, along with the inevitable conflict and criticism that comes with the territory. What’s worse, growing numbers seem to be affronted by the very idea that society would even permit individuals the freedom to articulate and practice moral norms they deem to be objectionable. 

The problem, of course, as stated earlier, is that individual freedom unavoidably leads to moral pluralism, which guarantees that free citizens will have to tolerate moral difference, divergence and sometimes offense if they genuinely want to live in a free world. The alternative is moral authoritarianism, cloaked in the language of social justice, natural law or Biblical virtue. 

This brings us to libertarianism. Libertarianism has its own normative moral vision just like any other ideology. What distinguishes it, however, is that its moral vision is limited and aims specifically at fostering pluralism, not mitigating or eliminating it. “The libertarian creed rests upon one central axiom,” Murray Rothbard wrote in For a New Liberty, “that no man or group of men may aggress against the person or property of anyone else.” 

Moral pluralism, in turn, manifests in the existence of diverse moral norms, which is to say moral speech and practices that not only diverge, but conflict.

While more can be, and has been, said (and debated) about this central axiom, one encounters consensus among libertarians that the nonaggression principle is at the epicentre of libertarian moral norms. The limiting principle of nonaggression does two things in relation to morality. Firstly, it limits moral freedom to acts and practices that do not constitute aggression against other individuals. Secondly, it rules out any effort to impose, prohibit or suppress moral speech, acts or practices by using either violence or coercion, provided the speech, act or practice in question itself observes the nonaggression principle. 

Note that the libertarian nonaggression principle does not necessitate moral neutrality, agnosticism or relativism on the part of citizens. Well-defined and articulate moral norms—entire moral codes, for that matter—can be held and adhered to with as much passion and dogmatism as each citizen feels compelled to. They must simply respect the right of others to dissent, and then commit to not using violence or coercion to impose their moral dogma on others. Advocating, propagating, arguing, debating, persuading, cajoling, urging, pleading: none of these activities constitute violations of the nonaggression principle. 

Moral relativism is possible within a libertarian moral order. However, it is not demanded by it. Moral norms are compatible with the exercise of individual freedoms within the governing principle of nonaggression. The state, on the other hand, ought to adopt a disposition of neutrality and agnosticism in relation to moral questions and disputes that do not involve violations of the nonaggression principle. The moral role of the state is to protect citizens from aggression (this function is performed by protective associations in the private law society of anarcho-capitalism). The definition and boundaries of nonaggression are necessarily questions that the state must form a view about, for obvious reasons. What pronouns someone uses, what books children can read at school and what people are allowed to say publicly about the institution of marriage are not.

To treat the state as the arbiter of the conflicting moral beliefs found amongst its citizens is to turn moral difference into political conflict. This is both unnecessary and undesirable. And it is libertarians who should be sounding the alarm. All other political ideologies operate according to normative moral systems that are to be implemented for the common good, for the sake of divine injunction, to comply with the natural law or to bring into being some promised utopia. The liberation moral vision, in contrast, is designed to foster a free society that respects and protects moral diversity. A society that can tolerate diverse and even conflicting moral norms can afford to limit the scope of the state. A society that cannot tolerate moral diversity needs a large, powerful, interventionist state to sort out all its moral differences.

The New Coalition?

While falling well short on some key issues, it’s been heartening at least to see the Federal Coalition leading the discourse and taking some risks on genuine reform. 

Left in ruins after being swept from office in 2022, many commentators questioned the viability of the Liberal party.  But within two years they have surged back into relevance, and with a flavour less antithetical to libertarians.  

It began early in 2023 when the National Party declared its stance on the Voice referendum, and Dutton duly followed, despite some resistance within the Liberals. This crucial first step allowed Australians to see that Dutton’s Liberals were delineated from Labor, and despite healthy early polling for the ‘yes’ case, Dutton’s gamble paid off handsomely and the Albanese honeymoon ended abruptly. 

The Liberal state divisions are much slower on the uptake, as evidenced by their staunch refusal to adopt Dutton’s nuclear proposal.

Then, whispers on vaping prohibition, super for housing, an overhaul of immigration, and of course the big one: nuclear power. Nationals deputy leader Perin Davey was even floating the idea of income splitting between household partners!  Recognising his lack of personability and charisma, Dutton has opted to take a series of policy reforms to the next election with an eye to vastly expanding the Coalition’s electoral map as its traditional base shrinks.  

Lo and behold, they have already taken the lead in several recent national polls and, incredibly, Dutton overtook Albanese as preferred PM in the latest Resolve poll – something I thought I would never see. It may be that in time Dutton will again lose control of the narrative; Australians are typically sceptical of reform agendas from opposition (see Bill Shorten, 2019), but there’s some encouragement for libertarians here.

It appears the unfolding political realignment is presenting the Liberals with an opportunity to reinvent themselves as the party of working Australians. The ‘teal wave’ of 2022, that also saw blue ribbon seats such as Higgins and Ryan fall to Labor and the Greens, was a blessing in disguise. Many of the nagging progressive moderates of the party were flushed out of metropolitan strongholds, leaving Dutton with no choice but to devise a new path to victory. Thus, faced with poor prospects with young voters and the opportunity to re-home the politically jaded working class, Dutton is unveiling his new coalition. 

As libertarians, we still have important work to do. Firstly, the Coalition maintains terrible policy in areas such as online safety, while their shadow cabinet currently boasts the leftovers of a government that completely failed to effectively manage the budget for a decade. 

The National Party declared its stance on the Voice referendum

Secondly, the Liberal state divisions are much slower on the uptake, as evidenced by their staunch refusal to adopt Dutton’s nuclear proposal. Metropolitan centres still dominate their electoral prospects and the old risk averse attitude still prevails: in Queensland for example, LNP leader David Crisafulli is paralysed, terrified of losing an unlosable state election, while in Victoria John Pesutto and his inner city moderates still control the party. 

Undoubtably, libertarians still have a major opportunity to shape public policy. While it’s encouraging to see the Coalition adopt a reform agenda with some sensible policy that promotes free choice and prosperity, they are still a long way from their classical liberal roots. At the state level, libertarians have a unique opportunity to help set the agenda and give voice to the aspirational working class. Imagine, for a moment, if the Liberal Party had spoken up on behalf of those campaigning against the excesses of Covid mania and mandates. Imagine also if they had meekly embraced bipartisanship on the Voice.

It is worth reflecting on the positive change we see in the Liberal Party. They are perhaps the most powerful vessel for libertarian policies, having proven under Dutton that they can take on the left and win. It’s indicative of our political influence in action. However, we must be merciless when they stray back towards populist authoritarianism.

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