Cory Bernardi Quits the Very Liberal Party – “It’s not me, it’s you.“
The future of Australian political journalism careers continues to brighten as yet another major upheaval in federal politics evolves by the hour. In addition to the embarrassing spectacle it’s been since Rudd led us into personality politics and the subsequent revolving door of national leadership, the international spotlight has fallen on many examples of just how frustrated ordinary Westerners are with the fake news of mainstream media.
No, we’re not ecstatic with ceding our sovereignty to unelected bureaucrats killing us with kindness. The echo chamber of pollsters and media got Brexit quite wrong. Watch out the United Nations.
No, we’re not ashamed to be cheering for the Republican nominated billionaire celebrity whose greatest achievement is such arrogance that he refuses to be schooled by Hollywood or media. He rejects their white-guilt, check-your-privilege dogma that everyone’s a bigot and a racist and has a phobia. That, and he’s not Hillary. You may call conservatives a “basket of deplorables”, but that says more about political elitism (you) more than anything else.
No, we’re not happy with the stark lack of conservative patriots in Australia, but thank you SO MUCH for drawing such constant attention to Pauline Hanson day after day, hour after hour – as you did with Trump. Anyone thoroughly disillusioned by Liberal Party leaders who consistently insist that Islamic State et al. aren’t really Islamic and that us paying twice or thrice as much for electricity and water will avoid the oft-prophesied and overdue apocalypse, now knows where to protest at the ballot – the only place our voice isn’t screamed down by shrill activists in the media. *Ahem*, Tony Jones.
We’re frustrated, alright! Yes, us. The silent majority, abandoning the major parties in such droves that they colluded to “fix” (with cartelesque behaviour) the grim spectre of a wildly representative Senate. And oh boy, didn’t that backfire spectacularly, a la Pauline?
What can I say about the Liberal Party? Allegedly the major conservative party in Australia, yet they chose for their leader a social liberal, an advocate of homosexual marriage and making Australia a republic, an apologist of Islam, and so deluded by the climate cult that he actually fought for a tax to change the world’s temperature of all things.
Ah, Malcolm? Conservatives believe in marriage – traditional marriage. Remember the bipartisan support for the enshrinement of marriage in both houses of Parliament just over a dozen years ago? That was a conservative Prime Minister.
And Malcolm. Conservatives don’t believe critics of a pernicious ideology with 1400 years of consistent headlines and history of violence in faithful imitation of its warlord founder have a phobia. Critique of fundamental Islam isn’t irrational fear. It’s just intelligent, objective reading of history and Islam’s sacred texts. Leftists criticize Christianity, which also is not a race. Conservatives critique all ideas with even-handed academic standards, such as comparing the life examples and explicit teachings of their founders. Do you?
Malcolm, Malcolm, Malcolm. A tax to change the temperature? Really? Are big new taxes how Conservatives run economies now? Isn’t that that simply propagating bigger government with more incursion into personal liberty? If not conservative, aren’t you at least a Menzies liberal? Big government, big tax – not conservative.
So many conservatives I know are at least voting for one or more minor conservative parties before the coalition in their preferences; if not actually taking their membership, donations and volunteer power there. Unfortunately the multiplicity of conservative minor options is probably the biggest cause of their relative insignificance.
There’s Family First (which I’ve been a past candidate for), who are attempting to appeal to as many conservatives as possible with sound economic and social policies. But they have consistently lacked a controversial or outspoken figurehead to demand media attention – the unfortunate information choice for most Australians.
That doesn’t work for an sensationalist media. Mainstream media affections and aggressions are not drawn to big ideas, but big personalities like Clive Palmer, Bob Katter, Pauline Hanson and light Green Nick Xenophon.
You have the Australian Christians, an offshoot of Fred Nile’s party and basically Family First 2.0, but branded narrowly and appealing to Christians and thus excluding most people who don’t regularly go to church.
The new and shiny Australian Liberty Alliance attracted many people longing for a voice that recognised that the emperor had no clothes, that barbaric ideologies are inherently incompatible with Australian culture and laws. The lack of sensible and balanced commentary and immigration priorities from both major parties attracted both sensible conservatives and the handful of neo nazi wack jobs that litter every population. The media sucked all their oxygen as well though, and opted instead for the personality they can more easily focus their disdain on.
This disdain by the media is what actually fed Pauline Hanson’s remarkable victory. After all, to mainstream conservatives, if the media hate her and we hate their incessant leftist guilt trips, she mustn’t be too bad and worth giving a go. Anything’s got to be better than the constant stream of politically correct campaigning from the major parties which amounts to “at least we’re not as bad as them”.
Yes, the big spending, big borrowing, big taxing, big government major parties are now so closely aligned far left of conservative that social idiocy like “Safe Schools” gets implemented by Tony Abbott and “independently” reviewed as not so bad under Malcolm Turnbull.
What is a conservative to do?
Member for Forde, Bert van Manen, a church-going Christian and allegedly a “strong conservative” told me in no uncertain terms that he unswervingly believed in traditional marriage, and had Bill Shorten actually respected election results (which no self-respecting leftist ever would) he would have fought tooth and nail for the no case. But he would respect the electorate and vote however they did in a plebiscite, even against his conscience and convictions if need be.
This is a typical reflection on the LNP and federal coalition I left many years ago, because I’m actually a strong conservative, and I’m looking for a strong conservative party to represent me which is worth me supporting.
That’s not been the LNP or Liberal/Nationals for a long time. May I suggest, nearly a decade?
I volunteered for Family First in the Griffith by-election after Kevin Rudd ran for the hills (or the UN, or whatever next ego trip he pursued). Terri Butler won that by-election, and recently settled proceedings held to determine exactly how much contempt she showed for a uni student expressing frustration at institutional racism – the exclusion of people from facilities based on race. She is pro abortion and pro homosexual marriage.
Who did the LNP offer as a “conservative” contrast to Ms Butler? Bill Glasson – pro abortion and pro homosexual marriage – not socially conservative: in fact, indistinguishable from a Labor candidate other than economically, maybe.
Yes, there are many strong conservatives in the Liberal / National Federal coalition. They’re probably among if not all the people who voted for Tony Abbott in the spill, and are obviously fast becoming a minority. They were the people who would rather lose for the right reasons than retain power at any cost to their convictions.
The problem is the party itself has no convictions. There are no policies that are mandatory for candidates or party leaders to personally support, obviously. Do you support eroding family structures with the redefinition of marriage, state-sanctioned killing unborn babies, and assisted suicide? Come on in, we’re the Liberal Party and “We’re a broad church. We’ll support anything if it’s popular!“
Don’t get me wrong. If it’s a choice between Liberal and Labor, I choose Liberal. But I don’t want the Liberals to win. I actually don’t care if the best representative of me is Liberal, Labor, Family First or One Nation. I don’t care if they’re Christian or atheist.
I want Australians to win. The only thing that I’m voting for is a candidate who will vote on the floor of Parliament how I would: a representative – not a party.
Cory Bernardi has been transparently laying the groundwork and doing his due diligence for a real conservative major party for a while. Building his database and preparing his fans, he is now primed to end the conviction-less catastrophe we call the Liberal Party.
I don’t care if I’m being harsh, it’s true. I only hope the other conservatives in the party join him. There is no reasonable hope of reformation for the major “conservative” party of John Howard. Not when they’re willing to change leaders whilst in government because they foolishly believed the pollsters. Only a completely new generation, sweeping away the compromised clowns will achieve that.
Christopher Pyne typifies the mindless “party first, people second” mantra of the compromised Liberals with calls to do the “honourable” thing and resign. How ironic, especially in the party that watched in glee as Labor twice betrayed a sitting PM and got punished for it anyway, only to then repeat the same circus act with complete disregard for the voters they led to believe in their campaigning would be their Prime Minister.
Cory Bernardi was elected as a Liberal. The honourable course is for him to resign his seat and for him to recontest it as an independent.
— Christopher Pyne (@cpyne) February 6, 2017
Liberal Party members dutifully lined up this morning to attack the anticipated move by Bernardi to form an actually conservative major party, allegedly because of their concern for the voters and not their own careers and power, a weak attempt at misdirection.
But the conversation isn’t about the propriety of switching parties soon after an election. If anyone doubts the very popular Bernardi would have simply pushed Bob Day out of the SA senate spots and been there anyway if he’d stood as he now is, they’re fooling only themselves. The loss is the Liberal Party’s, not the voters’, and the only honest conversation is about how can the Liberal Party have so thoroughly abandoned its conservative base.
The media and Labor (is there a difference?) thinks Turnbull is controlled by the right. But they think everybody right of them is Hitler, so you can completely dismiss their commentary. Try and sift through the contemptuous commentary for the scraps facts that can be considered facts, and then seek independent verification. They’ll make this all about Turnbull’s leadership and Bernardi’s loyalty, but it’s about neither.
It’s about Brexit in the UK. It’s about Trump in the USA. It’s about Geert Wilders in Holland. It’s Marine Le Pen in France. It’s about One Nation in Australia.
We the people are tired of being made to feel guilty for finishing school, getting a job, and getting married before we have kids. We’re tired of more than half the population living off everyone else’s taxes.
We’re tired of being financially punished for working hard and being successful, for risking it all to run a business and making as much profit as possible while financial rewards abound for failure in education, employment and family.
We’re tired of being called racists and bigots because we think the Judeo-Christian values and traditions, which this nation and others like it were founded on and made us this successful and prosperous, will continue to do very nicely for the future of our children and grandchildren, thank you very much.
We’re tired of the current major parties, Labor, Liberal/National and The Greens, sticking their grubby hands in our pockets and our lives and telling us how guilty we are for not demolishing the family values, fundamentals like “mum and dad”, “boys and girls”, that make any society successful.
We desperately want a major conservative party with very real shots at government who will ignore the shrill media and rabid leftists, and demonstrate inspired statesmanship and wise leadership, instead of simply following from the front with constant glances over their shoulder to see if the media and polls have got their thumbs up or down.
We want Australia to advance, free of big government and taxation. We want us all to win. We want politicians, like Cory Bernardi, to choose convictions over career today and every time.
