Andrew Leigh (Fraser, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I am a fan of the US e-zine Slate. John Dickerson had a piece in Slate a couple of weeks ago that I thought was pretty apposite to Australian politics at the moment. It was titled 'Is there any place for Jeb Bush in the GOP?' and it was about the radical shift to the Right of the US Republican Party. The author quoted Jeb Bush as saying, 'Ronald Reagan would have … a hard time in the Republican Party' today, and wrote about the fact that the modern US Republican Party has now moved from a party of small 'l' liberalism to being a party of conservatism and reaction, a party that is defined by its anti-tax rhetoric. Grover Norquist has asked for all Republican candidates to sign his anti-tax pledge. Mitt Romney, the frontrunner, has done so, and a moderate like Jeb Bush is left with no place to go.

Reading the piece I was struck by what has happened to the modern Liberal Party in Australia—a party that once stood for market values, that once stood for an open Australian economy, but that now increasingly stands against markets, whether they are markets in carbon or in water. It stands against an open economy, runs scare campaigns on foreign investment and spends its time trashing Australia's reputation in the world.

There is an old Liberal Party that valued the role of the Australian Public Service, that saw the Australian Public Service as having a proud role to play in building a better Australia. The Liberal Party of Menzies believed in the Public Service, but we have just heard from the member for Canning what the modern Liberal Party thinks of public servants. He thinks they are people who feed on others. That is what he just told the House, that Canberrans, public servants, are people who feed on others.

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