Political Corrections

with Mungo MacCallum

The worst is yet to come

Just when we thought it couldn't get any worse, it has.

It now appears that the last election has moved the Coalition so far to the right that John Howard and Peter Costello have taken over the role of moderates. The Christian fundamentalists, the diehard reactionaries, the right-to-rulers and the downright crazies are preparing to pursue a social agenda which is so far off the planet that the leadership is calling for restraint.

It is, of course, Howard's own fault; in his war against political correctness (otherwise known as tolerance for other religions, races and life styles, or simple good manners) he has welcomed all sorts of nastiness into the political mainstream; he has encouraged those who previously confined their prejudice and bigotry to grumbling in pubs to bring them out into the open.

He has consistently blurred the traditional division between church and state, not least by his unfortunate appointment of Archbishop Peter Hollingworth as Governor-General.

He and his media hounds have sneered at and denigrated those who called for decency and compassion as bleeding hearts, do-gooders, chardonnay-sippers, the chattering classes.

They have rejoiced as the political scene has become more simplistic and brutal, more dominated by greed and fear. They have insisted that complex issues should be reduced to straightforward black and white: good against evil, us against them.

And now, having achieved, either directly or through proxy, the power they were urged to seek, the carefully nurtured neo-cons want action - rewards for their mates and punishments for their enemies.

Their wish list will not make pleasant reading for traditional liberals: it will include such perennials as the return of capital punishment for criminals and corporal punishment for schools, the restriction of gay rights, deportation for foreign born criminals, and perhaps castration (chemical or otherwise) for sex offenders - just the usual fare for a sunny Sunday afternoon.

Most of these matters are of course state responsibilities; but this will not deter the zealots among the new and old federal members, who have already seen their absolutist prime minister embrace such state issues as gun laws, drugs, gambling and euthanasia, to name but the most obvious. This has already become clear in the immediate post-election resurrection of the abortion debate, a debate Howard and Costello are being forced to hose down.

Like much of the loose cannon stuff that has come out of the government in the last few years, the fact that the abortion argument actually reached cabinet level is the fault of the Mad Monk, Health Minister Tony Abbott. Abbott, a serious (if not always strict) Roman Catholic, has tossed the idea up in the past, only to see it knocked down by his rival Costello.

But the post-election euphoria, with the prospects of total control and new and eager forces massing in the party room, was an irresistible opportunity to try again. He gained immediate and predictable support from the Christian right, including the silly National Party leader John Anderson, and a bonus with the entry of the Governor-General, Major General Whatsisname.

Initially Howard ran with it, at least to the extent of hinting that a private member's bill on the subject would not be unwelcome to the government. But when Abbott went on a recruiting campaign among the backbenchers to get such a bill up, Howard rapidly had second thoughts.

First, such a bill would prove a messy distraction from the government's real agenda, divisive not only among the general community, which didn't matter, but among his own supporters and within his own party room, which very definitely did matter; the last thing he wanted was shows of independence and defiance before he had even taken over the Senate.

Second, nothing useful could be achieved without radically interfering with the Medicare provisions, which he did not want to do - at least not yet - or by providing more access to family planning advice and contraception, which Abbott and his fellow Catholics did not want to do, now or ever.

And third the whole thing was a massive beat up, and would be revealed as such by any proper debate or inquiry; in spite of Abbott's references to an epidemic of abortions, the figures were actually going down, not up, and there was absolutely no evidence of any real public disquiet: only the usual suspects were excited about it.

Howard, chivvied on by Costello, backed away to regroup. The dynamic duo will now try to redirect the backbench enthusiasts towards what they see as more productive areas: the final destruction of the trade unions, the disempowerment and forcible assimilation of indigenous Australians, the taming of the universities, the dismantling of the media laws, the sale of the rest of bloody Telstra, and ultimately the total domination of Australian culture through the re-introduction of the feudal system and the associated dark ages.

Within this framework there will be the opportunity to outlaw abortion, but not quite yet. The new members will have to settle for something a bit less sexy in the meantime. And if they start getting too toey, they should consider the example of their glorious leader.

After all, it has taken him more than 30 years in parliament to achieve the absolute power that was always his destiny. If he could wait for a whole generation, then surely they can put up with just a few more months.