The Lefties who cried foul over Howard’s policies have lost their voices
It ought be nearly impossible to move through the streets of any Australian capital at the moment, what with them all jammed to the shopfronts by furious Leftist protesters. Anyone in charge of a large-scale papier maché operation — no Leftist protest is complete without a giant puppet head — might expect to be running triple shifts.
After all, we’re presently overrun with the sort of issues that previously drove the Left into a frenzy of indignant street chanting. The federal government has just signed a deal to send asylum-seekers to Malaysia, a nation that is not a signatory to the United Nations’ refugee convention. The government’s planet-rescuing carbon tax excludes agriculture and petrol, which renders it a token measure capable only of damaging the local economy while doing nothing about alleged global warming. The government is cosying up to Big Coal, promising that this demonised industry has a viable future.
And, by the way, we still have troops in Afghanistan, and the Labor Prime Minister is such a fan of the US that she almost cries just talking about it. Yet the protests that were so much a part of John Howard’s time as PM are barely visible under the reign of Julia Gillard (who, despite being the second individual to sack a Labor prime minister since Sir John Kerr ousted Gough Whitlam in 1975, never suffered even a fraction of Kerr’s vilification).
It’s almost as though those street- stomping activists of the Howard era were more motivated by a loathing of the former Liberal PM than they were over any matters of principal. Consider, for only a second, how the bearded-and-shouty wing of Australia’s Left would have responded if it had been former Liberal immigration minister Philip Ruddock instead of Labor’s Chris Bowen announcing a human being swap with Malaysia.
More articles from: Tim Blair | this section
Post this entry to: del.icio.us | Digg | Newsvine | NowPublic | Reddit
‘Lunch with Peter is an agony; it’s a nightmare,’ complained…
London London is in drought: it says so on the…
Parliament begins each sitting day with the Lord’s Prayer. This…
So it has come to this: we are so disillusioned…
It is a rare thing for an opera to be…
1,700 Unusual Christmas Presents Request Catalogue 01935 815 195 Quote SPEC10 for 10% discount www.presentfinder.co.uk
Pimilco based Florist with online ordering Web: www.olivebranch.net Tel: 020 7630 1868 Fax: 020 7233 8844
62 Shore Road, Warsash, Southampton, SO31 9FT Telephone: 01489 578867 Web site: www.ruffs.co.uk
Apollo Magazine | Corporate | Advertising | Privacy | Terms
Spectator, 22 Old Queen Street, London, SW1H 9HP
All Articles and Content Copyright ©2012 by The Spectator | All Rights Reserved
Rosina Benson
August 4th, 2011 9:35pm Report this commentThank you Tim
Jazza
August 5th, 2011 12:53am Report this commentWell said ,Tim
That's our Australia today!
The silence from the left's hypocrites in all the media is deafening!
I know a few former leftist voters who are white hot against people trading as am I, a conservative
(BTW- It is not "principal" but "principle" you need in that piece.)
Kalashnikat in Colorado
August 5th, 2011 1:29am Report this commentSorta like here...it was all about Bush's "illegal" war in Iraq...until it was Obama's "kinetic action" in Libya...and he didn't even have the stones to have his own Senate approve it by resolution...he opinion-shopped til he found a State Department lawyer willing to sell his soul and say it was ok, because the Counsel to the President wouldn't give him a green light.
Peter Priest
August 5th, 2011 5:37am Report this commentIt is disturbing that only Tim Blair - with Andrew Bolt referring to his article - have raised these serious issues as far as I know. it also confirms why the Left and most media cannot be trusted or relied on. Even today in these very uncertain world financial times, Julia Gillard & Co are still determined to seriously damage our economy and jobs with her useless carbon tax. While some media are dealing in trivialities by chasing after Malcolm Turnbull for a comment over Nick Minchin's criticism of him in the Letters pages of the Australian.
Martin L
August 5th, 2011 6:06am Report this comment"Labor should invite Beijing’s best bovine carbon calculators out to Australia for a conclusive cow count"
Sounds fun...I'd pay good money to watch that.
dazzac
August 5th, 2011 7:50am Report this commentTim, Tim you don't understand! When a conservative government enacts policy X its automatically bad because conservatives are baby eating, Islamophobic, climate denying nutjobs; who want to achieve global domination on the back of child slavery in Africa.
When Labour enact policy X - they are of course acting on behalf of all Australians, working for the common good and limited by the negativity of the divisive opposition.
Get with the program!
Trivalve
August 5th, 2011 8:35am Report this commentThat's 'principle', not 'principal'.
Chris in Canberra
August 11th, 2011 4:04am Report this commentMulticulturalism, anyone ?
Just ask them in Birmingham.
(Somewhat off message but just ask them in Birmingham).
Back to top