Grattan on Friday: Hanson’s ‘outsider’ politics a challenge for Turnbull as he sits in ‘sensible centre’

Malcolm Turnbull has reasserted this week that the Liberal Party needs to be in the ‘sensible centre’.
AAP/Lukas Coch

Michelle Grattan, University of Canberra

Now that the Liberals and commentators have overdosed on a debate about where the party’s founder stood on the centre-right spectrum, could someone go to a shopping centre and ask a dozen people under 40 who Robert Menzies was?

How many would know? And if the mall happened to be in multicultural western Sydney, what chance “Ming” would have any recognition?

This week’s argument may have meaning for the Liberal tribe, and in the context of Malcolm Turnbull’s fightback against the conservatives who are making his life hell. But to many families in the suburbs and the regions, it would likely come across as just irrelevant “insider” stuff.

While a lot of people just shrug impatiently at insider politics, a substantial number have turned to “outsider” players. The challenge to the Coalition vote from the confronting “outsider” Pauline Hanson brand was clear in polls out this week.

Newspoll had Pauline Hanson’s One Nation on 11% for the second poll running. This was ahead of the Greens, who were at 10% in the latest poll, and 9% in the previous one.

ReachTEL polling commissioned by The Australia Institute, a progressive think-tank, and done on June 8 in the seats of six ministers and the prime minister, shows very diverse but some substantial results for One Nation. The figures are: Cook (Scott Morrison) 16.7%; Curtin (Julie Bishop) 4.3%; Dickson (Peter Dutton) 14.1%; Flinders (Greg Hunt) 8.9%; Kooyong (Josh Frydenberg) 3.6%; Sturt (Christopher Pyne) 3.8%; and Wentworth (Turnbull) 8.1%. If the “undecideds” were distributed, the figures would be higher.

According to polling analyst John Stirton: “In 27 separate polls this year (from Newspoll, ReachTEL, Essential and YouGov 50 Acres) One Nation has averaged 9% of the primary vote, although there is some polarisation with Newspoll and ReachTEL tending to be above average (10-11%) while Essential and YouGov have been below average (7-8%).”

Although it’s unclear how much of the One Nation vote would hold at an election, the Newspoll level should be of concern to the Coalition, especially as the minor party has had a lot of bad publicity recently from internal scandals.

It’s a national figure for a party whose support is lumpy. We know it is particularly strong in regional Queensland. How strong will be tested in the coming state election, when the Liberal National Party (LNP) will be looking to harvest One Nation preferences, formally or informally.

Unlike the situation with the Greens and Labor, where the ALP can rely on receiving the overwhelming bulk of Green preferences, the One Nation flow on to the LNP will be less disciplined. Some One Nation voters would be former Labor supporters.

The test major parties face from “outsider” players is explored in a new book by respected British political commentator Steve Richards, The Rise of the Outsiders: How Mainstream Politics Lost its Way. He looks at the phenomenon across national boundaries, including a modest reference to Hanson and the Australian experience.

In an era of globalisation and rapid change, the answer to the question “who rules?” can be unclear. Richards notes that insiders’ power is less than it looks. “Elections, opinion polls, the media, constitutional checks and balances and the near-impossibility of managing a party’s internal tensions mean that elected power is fragile and often fleeting,” he writes.

“Most leaders or governments in democracies rule precariously, partly because they pay so much attention to the voters.

“Yet voters regard the democratically elected as out of touch, part of a lofty, arrogant elite. The opposite is closer to the truth.

”… Elected leaders rule in an era of extreme mistrust. If they do not do x, y or z, the instinct of some voters is to assume that those they elected are liars … At the very least some voters feel ignored and overlooked … The instinct to mistrust elected leaders is fuelled by some media outlets …”

The outsiders offer simplicity and clarity, albeit their messages are simplistic. They are fancy-free and so can be self-contradictory in the positions they take – although things become more complicated if, as with Donald Trump, they win power and become the new insiders. (Hanson has a lot of Senate power, but it doesn’t seem to have affected the view of her as an outsider.)

Richards argues that one inadvertently positive contribution the outsiders have made “is to trigger constructive questions from mainstream parties about what form the centre ground takes, and tentative questions about the role of government in a globalised economy”.

In the Australian context, this week Turnbull has reasserted that the Liberal Party needs to be in the “sensible centre”. We have recently also had the Coalition embrace a more active role for government than the Liberals would have advocated three or four years ago – such as a stated willingness to invest in a coal-fired power station, and the use of export controls to ensure a bigger supply of gas for the local market.

It seems obvious that the best place for the Coalition to pitch its tent is the “sensible centre”. That, we know – or believe – is where elections are decided. Turnbull is competing for swinging votes that could go to either him or Bill Shorten.

Many of these voters are pragmatic, uninterested in ideological wars, or in what Menzies might say if he were alive now. They just want things done – about power prices, health, education, whatever.

But that 11% is a different kettle of fish, or maybe it contains several kettles. They are deeply cynical about today’s political process and major parties; the siren call of Hanson, and some in the media, picks up on that.

These people, like some in the Liberal base – and they are overlapping cohorts – will be more drawn to Tony Abbott’s manifesto than Turnbull’s sensible centre.

The Turnbull government has genuflected to them by playing gesture politics in immigration, revamping foreign worker arrangements, and proposing the English test for potential citizens be ridiculously tough. It will have a careful eye to the demands of the coal lobby as it tries to land its clean energy target.

But those attracted to “outsider” politics would prefer the Abbott-style bald negativity toward immigrants and renewables.

The Liberals enjoy pointing to the two core constituencies Labor has to juggle – lower- and middle-income workers, and affluent inner-city progressives. But the Coalition has its own dual constituencies – the mainstreamers, and the punishers on the right whose power is a protest vote.

https://www.podbean.com/media/player/b9kr9-6cf745?from=yiiadmin

Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

Turnbull finds the ‘sensible centre’ a slippery patch

The reference to Tony Abbott in his London speech gave Malcolm Turnbull some body armour.
Lukas Coch/AAP

Michelle Grattan, University of Canberra

It’s passing strange when Eric Abetz, the navy-blue conservative sacked from the ministry by Malcolm Turnbull, is out defending a prime ministerial speech on the Liberal Party’s history and positioning.

But, then again, these are indeed the strangest of times on the non-left side of federal politics.

Turnbull’s Monday address in London to the centre-right Policy Exchange think-tank presented a fairly conventional set of references to Robert Menzies’ founding of the Liberal Party, most of which you’d find in the standard texts on the party’s past.

He noted that Menzies: “went to great pains not to call his new political party, consolidating the centre right of Australian politics, ‘conservative’ – but rather the Liberal Party which he firmly anchored in the centre of Australian politics.

“He wanted to stand apart from the big money, business establishment politics of traditional ‘conservative’ parties of the right, as well as from the socialist tradition of the Australian Labor Party, the political wing of the union movement.”

He quoted Menzies’ words: “We took the name ‘Liberal’ because we were determined to be a progressive party, willing to make experiments, in no sense reactionary but believing in the individual, his right and his enterprise, and rejecting the socialist panacea.”

Turnbull declared: “The sensible centre, to use my predecessor Tony Abbott’s phrase, was the place to be and it remains the place to be now.”

Talk of the two streams in the Liberal Party (John Howard’s “broad church”) is familiar. Wars over Menzies’ philosophical legacy have long been waged among the faithful. Menzies is an icon that both conservatives and liberals in the party try to claim for their own. And every Liberal leader wants, indeed needs, to link to Menzies.

In fact they can all find succour from the Menzies well – he was prime minister for a long time, a pragmatist, and dealt with and responded to varying circumstances.

If Turnbull on Monday was having a calculated slap at conservatives in the party, it was a pretty mild one. If he was emphasising he’s a centrist, that is hardly a surprise, although when he translates it into policy it annoys the hell out of those on the right.

Turnbull had made the same point in his April 1 speech to the Victorian Liberal council, when he told it that Menzies knew the future “was in the sensible centre”. “Menzies was proudly liberal and conservative and he understood that you build on the continuity of the great institutions which gave our democracy birth … but above all, you build from the centre, bringing people together and that is our commitment.”

The reference to Abbott in his London speech gave Turnbull some body armour.

It was actually a latish insert. It was in the speech Turnbull delivered, and in the version sent out at 3:32am EST. But the excerpts handed out very much earlier to the travelling media and reported in Tuesday morning’s papers in Australia did not contain it.

As it turned out, it was a judicious addition.

Abetz picked up on the Abbott reference to dispute a media report that said Turnbull’s remarks were likely to inflame the internal party battle. “I’m not sure how Prime Minister Turnbull quoting Prime Minister Abbott approvingly could be inflammatory.”

Of course everything Turnbull now says is taken as inflammatory. Being ready to combust is the default position of Turnbull’s party enemies (though not Abetz or some other notables on this occasion), the right in general, and a good section of the media.

Former Victorian Liberal premier Jeff Kennett was scathing, questioning why “Malcolm has chosen to actually have a brawl with his own from overseas”, showing “an appalling lack of political judgment”. Shock-jock Alan Jones described the speech as “rather indecipherable”. Former Liberal senator Cory Bernardi claimed: “I have no doubt that Sir Robert Menzies would be joining the Australian Conservatives.”

While what he said in the London speech was perfectly reasonable, as well as being previously walked territory, whether he should have said it is open to argument.

The cautious approach would have been for Turnbull, when making an address overseas, to avoid anything that could lead to trouble in the ranks. Until the speech, his trip had given him a respite from the wrangling.

On the other hand, if Turnbull can’t say a few obvious – indeed can we say sensible – things, he will have forfeited his leadership in everything but the title.

https://www.podbean.com/media/player/b9kr9-6cf745?from=yiiadmin

Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

Article: Morgan Freeman on the Sandy Hook Shooting

The link below is to an article that reports on what actor and activist Morgan Freeman has had to say about the tragic shooting in Newtown, Connecticut. What do you think – is he right?

I personally think he says a lot of sensible things, though I would tweak a few of the thoughts – i.e. gun control for one.

For more visit:
http://www.examiner.com/article/morgan-freeman-s-food-for-thought-regarding-the-sandy-hook-shooting

Anti-Christian Motives Suspected in Evangelist’s Slaying in India

Hostilities common in area in Bihar state; victim had been part of team attacked in 2008.

NEW DELHI, May 11 (CDN) — The gruesome nature of the May 2 murder of an evangelist in Bihar state who had no enmity with anyone has led area Christians to suspect anti-Christian motives.

The mutilated body of Ravi Murmu, 32, was found in Jamalpur, Munger district, with the right hand nearly severed by means of a sharp weapon, and the jaw and neck were similarly slashed.

“Efforts were made to chop off his hand and neck, trying to separate it from his body,” Shekhar Kumar, a member of his church, told Compass.

Police are investigating but have made no arrests so far.

“All his belongings were intact, which included his motorbike, Bible, cell phone, wristwatch and some cash,” Murmu’s brother-in-law, Shiv Kumar, told Compass. “This seems to be a planned murder. That is why Ravi was targeted when he was alone. To me the motive seems to be anti-Christian.”

Murmu’s pastor, Yunus Mandal of Bethel Brethren Assembly in Jamalpur, agreed.

“The intention behind the murder evidently is not robbery,” Mandal said. “I am suspicious that Hindu fundamentalists have done this, but this could also be the handiwork of the Naxalites [Maoist rebels].”

Kumar and Murmu’s widow, Rinku Murmu, both said the evangelist had no enmity with anyone, and that anti-Christian sentiment was the only motive they could surmise.

Murmu was returning from showing a film about the life of Jesus, “Dayasagar,” in nearby Lakshmanpur. He had accompanied a team of seven evangelists showing the film but was alone when attacked. The murder is estimated to have taken place between 9:30 and 10 p.m.

He is survived by his wife, 8-year-old daughter Celesty and his widowed mother.

Past Assault

Pastor Mandal’s wife, Mary Mandal, said anti-Christian hostilities are common in the area but did not reach Murmu.

“It is 32 years that my husband is ministering in Jamalpur, and he has faced threats day in and day out,” she told Compass. “But we never imagined such a thing would happen to Ravi.”

About a year and half ago, however, Murmu was attacked along with others in another part of the state, Pastor Mandal said.

“Ravi Murmu, myself and a team of 10 Christians were visiting the Newada area of Bihar, about 160 kilometers [99 miles] from Jamalpur, for the purpose of preaching the gospel,” he said. “There we were attacked by about 15 members of the [Hindu extremist] Bajrang Dal.”

In the assault Pastor Mandal suffered serious injury to his eye, which bled profusely, he said.

“Ravi at that time was also beaten up and sustained injuries on the face and to his teeth,” he said. “They would have killed us, but they found money in our possession worth about 180 U.S. dollars, and so they looted it and fled.”

In 2008, he added, members of the local Hindu student union protested when a family decided to follow Christ after a healing through prayer. But overall, Murmu had amicable relations with everyone, he said.

“Ravi was a very open-hearted, kind, honest, balanced and sensible human being,” Pastor Mandal said. “He was a pearl of our assembly. The loss is immense.”

Police detained two people in connection with the murder but later let them go.

Church members requested that Compass not speak with local police, fearing that resentful officers would further antagonize them; already police have asked pointed questions of the seven others on the evangelism team and of Murmu’s widow, as well as searching their homes, they said.

An autopsy was performed on May 3, but the report has not yet been submitted to police or handed over to the family members, they said.

Lonely Road

Rinku Murmu said she and her husband were to celebrate their 11th wedding anniversary on June 23.

She told Compass that her husband had preached Christ in Lakshmanpur for two years.

“He left home as usual but had informed me that he would come home late, as they had plans to show the film about Jesus to the villagers,” she said. “The next morning at 6 o’ clock, someone came home to inform me that a mutilated body has been found and that I should go and identify it. I could not believe it, and I took Pastor Mandal along with me.”

Murmu’s body was found on Margret road, East Colony area of Lakshmanpur, about four kilometers (less than two miles) from his house. One leg was stuck under the motorcycle.

“He was killed ruthlessly,” said Pastor Mandal.

Shekhar Kumar, who was one of the seven team members showing the film that day, told Compass that they had publicized the film for nearly 10 days and had also invited surrounding villagers.

“About 150 to 200 people had gathered to watch the film – there were Christians as well as Hindus,” Kumar said. “The generator broke down in the middle of the film, and even after many efforts we could not repair it.”

The team announced to the gathering that the rest of the film would be continued the next day, and they went home.

“The road divides at one point – one part goes towards Ravi and Pastor Mandal’s house, and the other goes toward Choti Keshavpur village, where the six of us live,” Kumar said. “Departing at that point, we said goodbye to Ravi, and he went alone on that deserted road. It was around 9:30 p.m. at that time.”

Pastor Mandal, who had returned earlier, had taken the same road half an hour ahead of Murmu, he added.

Murmu’s wife told police that she had called her husband’s cell phone at 10 p.m. from a neighbor’s house and he did not answer the call, so police estimated the murder to have taken place between 9:30 and 10 p.m.

“I pray that God would change the hearts of those who have done this,” Rinku Murmu said. “My prayer is that one day they too would carry the cross of Christ and share the Good News.”

Report from Compass Direct News