Post by NFA on Sept 1, 2020 21:21:42 GMT 8
The above is the title of one of a multitude of great articles at Quadrant with this one written by Patrick Morgan
An exerpt,
The ALP has historically been run by the majority Right, the only electable grouping. In the Victorian and federal branches of the party the Left is finally completing its long-term takeover of the party by purging the Right. Julia Gillard was its first left-wing federal leader, as the Left had the numbers in the parliamentary party. But the public was not quite ready to elect a radical federal government outfit; Gillard ran a minority show with the help of two outsiders. The branches are now strongly Green Left, and for the first time the parliamentary party and the federal executive are both in the hands of the Left, with Albanese replacing Shorten as leader.
In the Victorian branch something more radical has been happening. Daniel Andrews is the first Left Victorian ALP leader, and with support from the CFMEU hardly a moderate voice. Beyond Victoria he is the flag bearer of a loose, extra-parliamentary coalition of protesters, activists, media and academic sympathisers, radical unionists, greens and so on. It is a counter-government movement; it acts not as an opposition, but ignores accepted centres of authority and instead sets up its own authority system (all power to the soviets) which if accepted will accrue power to itself. Andrews acts in the new federal cabinet to sideline some of its agreements and to question its desired unanimity. He issues curt, ten-second sound grabs in a brush-off tone, to deflect queries rather than to defend his manoeuvres at length.
In addition, as Victoria loosens its links with the federal system, it has established formal links with the Chinese government by signing the Belt and Road agreement, and informal links through pro-Chinese activists, some of whom are the ALP’s and Andrews’s own staffers. The Victorian government seems on occasions as sympathetic to Beijing as it is to Canberra. At a time when China is exerting maximum external pressure, these internal connections raise worrying questions about Australia’s sovereignty.
In an emergency caused by China the culprit has not, as one would normally expect, acted to mitigate the worldwide problem it has caused. On the contrary China has gone on the offensive, taking advantage of the vulnerable position of frozen Western societies to exploit our new weakness. China has adopted a stand-off tone, as it now reprimands us in the way it does its recalcitrant provinces like Hong Kong, Taiwan, Tibet and the Xinjiang Uighurs. It now treats us as though we are already part of its far-flung co-prosperity sphere, which we should recognise, and whose orders we should obey. The Chinese ambassador in Canberra acts as a local satrap conveying Chinese Communist Party orders to us his subjects, and insisting on obedience and humility in his realm. This is the meaning of the Chinese Trade Minister refusing to answer Simon Birmingham’s phone calls—China is in the business of issuing warnings and demands, but not of treating others as separate sovereign entities it will freely negotiate with as equals.
Totalitarian regimes attempt to alter reality by imposing an ideological straitjacket on it. Of course at the moment this is an ambitious try-on, which can’t be enforced in reality, as China has few friends because of its recent gross behaviour, but its present gambit is more likely to become reality the more it is not resisted with resolute action.
In the Victorian branch something more radical has been happening. Daniel Andrews is the first Left Victorian ALP leader, and with support from the CFMEU hardly a moderate voice. Beyond Victoria he is the flag bearer of a loose, extra-parliamentary coalition of protesters, activists, media and academic sympathisers, radical unionists, greens and so on. It is a counter-government movement; it acts not as an opposition, but ignores accepted centres of authority and instead sets up its own authority system (all power to the soviets) which if accepted will accrue power to itself. Andrews acts in the new federal cabinet to sideline some of its agreements and to question its desired unanimity. He issues curt, ten-second sound grabs in a brush-off tone, to deflect queries rather than to defend his manoeuvres at length.
In addition, as Victoria loosens its links with the federal system, it has established formal links with the Chinese government by signing the Belt and Road agreement, and informal links through pro-Chinese activists, some of whom are the ALP’s and Andrews’s own staffers. The Victorian government seems on occasions as sympathetic to Beijing as it is to Canberra. At a time when China is exerting maximum external pressure, these internal connections raise worrying questions about Australia’s sovereignty.
In an emergency caused by China the culprit has not, as one would normally expect, acted to mitigate the worldwide problem it has caused. On the contrary China has gone on the offensive, taking advantage of the vulnerable position of frozen Western societies to exploit our new weakness. China has adopted a stand-off tone, as it now reprimands us in the way it does its recalcitrant provinces like Hong Kong, Taiwan, Tibet and the Xinjiang Uighurs. It now treats us as though we are already part of its far-flung co-prosperity sphere, which we should recognise, and whose orders we should obey. The Chinese ambassador in Canberra acts as a local satrap conveying Chinese Communist Party orders to us his subjects, and insisting on obedience and humility in his realm. This is the meaning of the Chinese Trade Minister refusing to answer Simon Birmingham’s phone calls—China is in the business of issuing warnings and demands, but not of treating others as separate sovereign entities it will freely negotiate with as equals.
Totalitarian regimes attempt to alter reality by imposing an ideological straitjacket on it. Of course at the moment this is an ambitious try-on, which can’t be enforced in reality, as China has few friends because of its recent gross behaviour, but its present gambit is more likely to become reality the more it is not resisted with resolute action.