Michael Danby (Melbourne Ports, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Euripides said: 'Those whom the gods wish to destroy they first make mad.' Surveying the conservative movement in Australia these last weeks, one recognises the truth of that ancient wisdom. The astonished, angry face of Mr Jac Nasser on TV last night at the decision of the Queensland Premier to impose a mining tax that will be larger than the federal government's in its effect especially on the coking coal industry, and the almost comic performance of the Liberal Party's major fundraiser, Mr Palmer, on Lateline last night, all come to the serious point of what is happening in Queensland. Closing breast cancer screening and closing a TB clinic at Brisbane Hospital—do you imagine that, across, Australia people are not concerned that this is the kind of Australia that a conservative government would stand for?

In New South Wales, Mr O'Farrell's cuts to education include cuts to Catholic and independent schools—$66 million a year from their recurrent funding. These are schools that have teachers and programs already in place for next year and the cuts were done without consultation. The Catholic bishops, I believe, got two days notice.

Schools will have to close. No wonder the New South Wales Liberal caucus is in revolt.

Moving to what one might call the intellectual front, if one looks at the Australian Spectator, the palaeoconservative flagship, one sees that it more and more resembles the world view of the isolationist Pat Buchanan. The Australian Spectator has not only sectarian attacks on other conservatives such as Gerard Henderson in its current edition but it has the idea that there should be an investigation into war crimes of the Iraq War. I would remind all of the people who support the Australian Spectator that Mr John Howard, a former conservative Prime Minister of Australia, would be subject to such an investigation by the very people being advocated by the Australian Spectator.

Finally, on my friends at the Institute of Public Affairs: I cannot imagine the great Liberal conservatives, fundraisers such as Charles Goode and Hugh Morgan, support the free-market fanatics of the IPA who appeared before the inquiry of the Joint Standing Committee on Intelligence and Security, denigrating the security services, denigrating what they call the national security state, saying it was unnecessary for the security services to intercept telephones and ensure that terrorist events do not happen in Australia. Look at the events in Melbourne this morning.

My only conclusion is that their hubris, as we know, leads to nemesis. I think the conservatives across Australia are counting on a victory at the federal election. They have already put it in the bag and they are behaving in the most outrageous fashion by making some truly extreme statements and acting in a way that shows what they really believe.

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