Here it is, accurate and to the point:
THE PRICE OF BEING JUST LIKE ANOTHER “LABOR PARTY”
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In this election, the Liberal-National Coalition recorded its worst primary vote in the modern era at 36 per cent. Many traditional Liberal Party supporters deserted the Coalition, voting for minor right-of-centre parties.
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The Labor Party, which will now form a government, equally achieved its lowest primary vote in almost 100 years, receiving only 32 per cent of all the primary votes.
In sum, Labor won the election by default as voters did not display any willingness to embrace this party as well.
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As law professor James Allan points out, ‘Both major parties scored woefully low first preference counties. In any country with a first-past-the-post, voting system both big parties would be reeling.’
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Now, the time has come to evaluate the reasons for the monumental demise of Scott Morrison and the Coalition.
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Morrison’s lack of competent leadership was on full display in his response to the pandemic. For example, he established a “National Cabinet”, the existence of which is not based on the Australian Constitution.
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This enabled the Premiers of the states and the Chief Ministers of the territories to grab the reins of power by introducing emergency legislation, bypassing Parliament, and degrading the basic principles of democracy.
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The states and territories then introduced Chinese Communist Party-inspired methods of lockdowns, border closures, mask and vaccine mandates which devastated the economy and turned Australia into a debt-ridden country, repayment of which will take many generations.
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Instead of upholding the rule of law, Morrison backed the imposition of de facto martial laws by the states and territories, which resulted in untold harm to millions of Australians, including causing a dangerous spike in mental health illnesses, especially among young Australians, and feeding negative educational outcomes.
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Morrison also claimed that the federal government did not have the constitutional power to itself address the pandemic because ‘health’ comes within the legislative power of the states. However, as carefully explained in our recent book, in relying on the external affairs powers and utilising the quarantine power, the Morrison government would have been able to take charge of the fight against the pandemic without creating the chaos, so characteristic of Australia’s response to the pandemic.
Undoubtedly, one of the primary reasons for the Coalition loss at the election was the constant attempt to appease the left on Climate Change alarmism.
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According to Rowan Dean, ‘Morrison, through his cowardice on the climate issue and so many other issues – in particular the abandonment of the nation during Covid to the outrageous human rights abuses of the Labor premiers – and cultural issues such as religious freedom, has decimated the Liberal Party.’
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The decision of the Prime Minister to support Daniel Andrews was particularly contemptible, telling the Federal Parliament that it was the ‘right decision of the Victorian Premier’ to impose draconian lockdowns.
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His egregious silence following the arrest of a pregnant woman in her pyjamas, in her own home and in front of her children, for daring to question these measures on social media speaks volumes. This attitude is consistent with Morrison’s past statements on his lack of belief in the importance of free speech in a thriving liberal democracy.
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As can be seen, Scott Morrison led a deeply illiberal government that was responsible for the worst violations of human rights in Australia’s history.
Under this disastrous leadership, the Coalition government was directly responsible for a remarkable increase in the violation of fundamental human rights.
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As John Ruddick commented in The Spectator Australia, ‘lacking any depth, Scott Morrison’s guiding principle is to be a little to the right of a very left Labor party and that’s delivering us two left-wing parties’.
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Of course, if you betray your base, you lose. And Morrison completely betrayed the base of his party who believe in conservative and classical liberal values. He espoused, or condoned, typically left-leaning policies and actions.
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Above all, the Liberal Party lost the election primarily because they forgot what it meant to be Liberals.
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In a keynote speech delivered on January 21, 1943, ironically about the founding principles of this party, its founder Robert Menzies declared:
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“When we have the all-powerful State, the people will then be the servants of that State and the minds of those people will be servile minds, because there will only be one master – the State inhuman but all-powerful!”
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This is precisely the challenge our nation presently faces, especially now that we are under a new Labor government.
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Arguably, Scott Morrison failed traditional voters of his own party by embracing some of these very destructive ideas and abandoning the key Liberal principles of smaller government, lower taxes, fiscal responsibility and, above all, individual liberty.
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When the Liberal Party moves so close to the values of the Labor Party, it dismays its own best supporters without gaining any new ones. And since Morrison and the Coalition were anything but truly Liberals, they have no one but themselves to blame for the sound electoral defeat two Saturdays ago.
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TO READ MORE, VISIT THE WEBSITE OF THE SPECTATOR AUSTRALIA
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Augusto Zimmermann is Professor and Head of Law at Sheridan Institute of Higher Education in Perth. He is also President of the Western Australian Legal Theory Association, Adjunct Professor at the University of Notre Dame Australia, and, from 2012 to 2017, he served as a Law Reform Commissioner in Western Australia. While serving as Associate Dean (Research) at Murdoch Law School, he was awarded the Vice Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Research, in 2012.
Gabriël A. Moens AM is an Emeritus Professor of Law at the University of Queensland, and served as Pro Vice-Chancellor and Dean of Law at Murdoch University. In 2003, Moens was awarded the Australian Centenary Medal by the Prime Minister for services to education. He has taught extensively across Australia, Asia, Europe, and the United States. Moens has recently published two novels “A Twisted Choice” (Boolarong Press, 2020) and “The Coincidence” (Connor Court Publishing, 2021).