Raising Hell: Issue 72: The Coalition's Libertarian Maoists Are Revolting
"We made history but we didn't change a fucking thing," Lawyer who successfully prosecuted PG&E for manslaughter, as quoted in "California Burning" (2022).
The day the federal Coalition committed itself to campaigning against the Indigenous Voice to Parliament, Liberal MP Keith Wolahan had the honour of becoming the second conservative political figure to have the shit kicked out of him by Sky News host Chris Kenny.
Kenny’s first victim was Nationals leader David Littleproud some months back when the Coalition junior partner announced it would align itself against the proposal. Both the exchange with Wolahan and the demolition of Littleproud was published in a written summary on the Sky News website under the same headline, and both went about the same way. Both assumed a soft interview from a conservative ally and both seemed to forget Kenny has been a supporter of constitutional recognition. As Kenny introduced Wolahan, he framed his guest as a representative of a party determined to strap a suicide vest to itself in order to take down the idea of The Voice (my words, not Kenny’s) — much to the chagrin of the relatively new Coalition MP.
Having been on the receiving end of treatment normally reserved for those on the left, Wolahan stared, darkly down the barrel of the camera. When the Member for Menzies was finally allowed to speak, he told Kenny that he “took issue” with the presenter’s characterisation of the Coalition’s wrecking job on The Voice as leaving the party “hopelessly divided over the central national project of reconciliation”. In defence of the Coalition, Wolohan said the party’s position would have been different had the Labor Party’s proposal had been “more modest”.
“Today there was a lot more yes, than no,” Wolahan said.
It was a tortured defence that would have more sense had Opposition leader Peter Dutton not committed Liberals to a hard “no” at any upcoming referendum — a position which several Liberal MPs anonymously told the Daily Telegraph was not what had actually been agreed to in the party room. What followed was the usual contentious back and forth you would expect.
Mostly, though, it was a spectacle worth mentioning because it was funny. Otherwise, none of this should have been a surprise. The Coalition spent ten years in power making sure it did nothing on Indigenous Affairs and the strategy now appears to be to run interference on a fairly modest proposal for The Voice by counter offering with a smaller, weaker alternative which will never get within earshot of federal cabinet. In essence, the Coalition’s vision is to recreate the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission (ATSIC), the body originally abolished by former Prime Minister John Howard who at the time declared, “the experiment in elected representation for Indigenous people has been a failure”. What the party learned then, and must remember now, is that any representative body not-hard wired into the Constitution can be brushed aside at a whim — which is precisely why its members are now making noise about the need for such a body. Free of euphemism, the Coalition position is and pretty has always been: “we’re not going to agree to anything which means we’ll be told what to do by a bunch of Blackfellas”.
Much of this has been covered, better elsewhere by people more knowledgeable than me. That said, it is worth repeating now after the result in Aston has left the federal Coalition, and many of its state affiliates, operating from the rural countryside like Maoist insurgents. And not unlike Maoist insurgents, the party finds itself dominated a hardcore cadre of zealous ideologues hell bent on achieving their narrow vision of a society: small government, free market libertarian weirdos.
Chief among them is Wolahan. Back in February 2021, I wrote a short profile about Keith Wolahan for NITV that examined his background and involvement with the Samuel Griffith Society. The group is the Australian equivalent of the US Federalist Society. The basic gist is that these guys are a group of highly organised, hyper-conservative lawyers who endorse a ruthlessly literalist interpretation of the US Constitution. Their influence extends not just to training and vetting judges, but also Republican Party Candidates which, over decade, has been responsible for helping wind back Roe v Wade.
For more on the broader anti-democratic goals of the small government, libertarian movement as a whole, it is worth checking out Nancy MacLean’s 2017 book, Democracy in Chains as a history on the evolution of its ideas from one particular thinker. Here in Australia, the Samuel Griffith Society is not as influential — yet — but has been working to organise a similar revanchist campaign against any attempt to change —well, anything. Founded in 1992 by former Nationals Senator John Stone in 1992 to promote a state’s rights agenda, the organisation galvanised around the Mabo decision. Fast forward three decades to the campaign around the Voice, and the Society are talking as if it is some existential threat.
In Wolahan’s case, the Liberal MP cultivated their backing before being selected as a Liberal Party candidate, but he is not the only candidate with an association. Shadow minister for Indigenous Affairs, Julian Leeser, who has been running point on The Voice referendum is a member. It is also worth a mention that Leeser headed up the no-campaign on the Republic and so far, the Coalition approach to tanking The Voice is proceeding along similar lines.
These two are not alone —Dr Dominic Kelly, who has tracked these groups, provided much of the background in an analysis he wrote for The Market Herald. Among the most prominent is NT Senator Jacinta Price and Warren Mundine, both of whom are associated with the Centre for Independent Studies, a Sydney-based libertarian think-tank that trades on its reputation as a more polished Institute of Public Affairs. Another involved with the Samuel Griffith Society is constitutional lawyer Greg Craven — who has received a bit of press as a talking head in coverage of the Voice.
For these guys and their friends, the proposal for the Voice is more than a referendum on Indigenous issues. Essentially those who find themselves ascendant within the Coalition today find are treating The Voice as the thin-end of a lefty wedge that can be ramped up over time and they are determined to come out swinging against it as a result. What this means is that The Voice has become the latest battle in a long-term proxy war to ensure nothing in this country changes, ever.
Like investigations? Love politics? Walter Marsh, friend of Raising Hell, has a new book about on the early days of Rupert Murdoch through Scribe. Walter delved into the archives to find out when the future media baron broke bad. Pre-order now.
For the Fortnight: March 29 to April 11
Reporting In
Where I recap what I’ve been doing this last fortnight so you know I’m not just using your money to stimulate the local economy …
I’m not really one for writing in public, but this last fortnight I’ve been making progress on breaking ground of the manuscript. I hope to the have the initial chapters complete in the next few weeks before I can assess what I have and what needs further work. In the meantime, I did published one story this last fortnight while filling in blogging the war in Ukraine with The Guardian:
“‘Hits very close to home’: Nashville shooting reporter recounts story of attack at her” (The Guardian AU, 28 March 2023).
You Hate To See It
A dyspeptic, snark-ridden and highly ironic round-up of the news from our shared hellscape…
Pity the Lorax
Yeah, sure, the oil industry has successfully managed to insert itself into the drivers seat on climate change at this critical juncture of human history and increased concentrations of greenhouse gas may collapse a deep ocean current
similar to the basic plot of the terrible 2004 disaster film The Day After Tomorrow/ But forget all that for a second. It appears humanity is so fatalistic about the prospect of catastrophic climate change, one Serbian start-up has made it their mission to disrupt the very concept of trees. Using nanotechnology, these “liquid trees” can be formed to mimic the texture of wood. The company boasts that the fibres are strong, tough and conductive — and able to be molded into any shape — and are a real game changer in climate action. Or something.
Cheaper Than A Movie, No More
What can $88 and the shirt off the back get you in New York? Consider The Füde Dinner Experience, brainchild of model and artist Charlie Ann Max. The concept is simple: a group of strangers clad in the buff, sit around a rectangular table illuminated by candlelight to get in touch with their inner selves, throw off the shackles of patriarchal sexualisation of the body and enhance body positivity. One recent dinner promised to help diners reconnect with their menstrual cycle. There is, of course, nothing wrong with shucking a dozen natural oysters au natural and in close proximity to strangers, but then you can also do that for free, any time and nearly anywhere — with enogh creativity.
May A Thousand Landlords Bloom
To Australia now where the creaking heap of this country’s pyramid of debt is heaving under the strain of rising interest rate rises. According to the latest Financial Stability Review, almost 15% of borrowers have “negative spare cash flow” with 9% expected to “run out of savings buffers by the middle of next year, even if they slash spending unless rates fall”. But it gets better! Around 880,000 fixed loans are expected to come off ultra-cheap variable rate loans below 2% this year — and with many borrowers unable to refinance their mortgage, the Reserve Bank of Australia expects many will be trapped as “mortgage prisoners” unable to finance their loans — hooray!
How Victorian
Confronted with a severe labour shortage, one successful cafe in country New South Wales that planned to expand its operation with a commercial jam factory has found an exciting new way to disrupt the labour market: child labour. With the town of Jugiong’s population sitting at around 200, the cafe needed a solution so they turned to the local school. As there’s no minimum working age in New South Wales ways, the cafe and its owners turned to the local primary school whose students now make up the majority of the 100-strong workforce. "So many of our managers now are the ones that have started at 11,” said Treen Brooker, head of wellbeing and culture.
The Other Line
The Saudi’s may be making big promises about Neom and the line, but the good people of Soluszowa, Poland — who all live on a single street — already did it first, better and apparently with less fuss.
Failing Upward
Where we recognise and celebrate the true stupidity of the rich, powerful and influential…
You might say we here at Raising Hell’s elite satire unit don’t understand politics — and you’d be right. As the Albanese government begins to carve out a first term in office by un-fucking the country, a commitment was made to give $33m to sure-up keep Trove, the National Library’s digital archive alive. “It takes us a step closer to ending the budget cuts and culture wars of the previous government,” Arts Minister Tony Burkes said — followed by a series of oo-ras and yippies from people rightly celebrating the continuation of a vital service. Yet buried in the fine print was something odd. The reason for all this trouble in the first place was not just Coalition neglect, but an “efficiency dividend” first introduced in 1987 by the Hawke Labor government. The basic principle was to make big national art galleries and theatre companies sleek, efficient, innovative outfits by slashing their funding at a rate of 1.25% annually. The arts sector had long been lobbying against the dividend and yet now the government had a chance to remove a tool of neoliberal austerity, the decision was made to make sure things stay just a little bit shit. And in thirty years, when another cycle of austerity and neglect has followed a change in electoral fortunes, it will of course all come full circle and the same battle will have to be fought to save Trove, again.
But hey, why genuinely change anything for the better when good press is so damn cheap?
Good Reads, Good Times
To share the love, here are some of the best or more interesting reads from the last fortnight. If some are behind the paywall, get yourself a 12ftladder…
Joshua Kaplan, Justin Elliot and Alex Mierjski have this great investigation on the not-so-conservative lifestyle of Conservative Supreme Court Judge Clarence Thomas in ProPublica.
The ABC did some excellent work this last fortnight with a package taking apart a Holocaust deny-ing, sov-cit head of MyPlace, Darren Bergwerf for its audience who are the most vulnerable to his sort of folksy bullshit.
For those interested, a bunch of lawyers have signed a pledge in the UK refusing to support new fossil fuel projects and work on prosecution cases targeting peaceful climate protesters.
Quinn Slobodan, has an excerpt from an upcoming book published in the Baffler which is a fantastic read on the toxic history of libertarianism and its slow march to embracing old-world, confederate fascism.
Before You Go (Go)…
Are you a public sector bureaucrat whose tyrannical boss is behaving badly? Have you recently come into possession of documents showing some rich guy is trying to move their ill-gotten-gains to Curacao? Did you take a low-paying job with an evil corporation registered in Delaware that is burying toxic waste under playgrounds? If your conscience is keeping you up at night, or you’d just plain like to see some wrong-doers cast into the sea, we here at Raising Hell can suggest a course of action: leak! You can securely make contact through Signal — contact me first for how. Alternatively you can send us your hard copies to: PO Box 134, Welland SA 5007
And if you’ve come this far, consider supporting me further by picking up one of my books, leaving a review or by just telling a friend about Raising Hell!