"The advancing army of clean-cut arch-conservative Young Liberals has its first scalp in John Brogden, and has delivered control of the NSW Liberal Party to the hard right." Frank Walker, NSW zealots wrest control
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The term "clean-cut" sends shivers down my spine. Looking at Alex Hawke, it's easy to see why. His is the face of smug, totalitarian zealotry. Currently an influential staffer for David Clarke, the prominent Christian right-wing Liberal NSW MP, Hawke has risen to power as the direct result of ten years of John Howard's sanctimonious rancour. Among Young Liberals, Hawke represents the most successful of the many toxic blod clots thrown off by Howard's poisonous heart.
"Moderate Young Liberals are afraid to go to Young Liberal Council meetings as they are ridiculed, shouted down and bullied by the Alex-Hawke-led hard right," said one Young Lib (in Frank Walker, above).
"The Young Libs are now run like a military operation," said anoher. "David Clarke is the general and Alex Hawke is the colonel with all these burly sergeants out in the field organising standover operations, branch stackings and recruiting."
This doesn't just sound like the Hitler Youth, it is a carbon copy.
Here is what is on their agenda:
• End the long-held policy of mandatory gender equality in the party. (Echoing John Howard's drive to keep women at home as Stepford wives, nannies or the equivalent of black mammys.)
• Send undercover agents to kidnap or kill those responsible for the Bali bombing.
• Throw Malcolm Fraser out of the Liberal Party for his "liberal" views.
• Condemn Liberal MP Petro Georgiou for his moderate stance on detainees.
• Reject republicanism, ban abortion, close down heroin injecting rooms, light the torches and hunt down single mothers, homosexuals and anyone else who doesn't fit their image of Christian-Capitalist, Neo-Aryan rectitude.
John Howard has introduced totalitarianism to this country, and Howard Jugend like Alex Hawke are hearing his message loud and clear.
Spot on Theo - on an only slightly related note...
I work behind the bar at a private club in Melbourne which is frequented by a number of senior academics and politicians.
The other day I was at the urinal, pointing percy, when I was joined in my absent-minded urination by Malcolm Fraser. He was closely followed by Barry Jones. Here I was at the pisser flanked by big Mal and Barry the Brain and bugger me if they weren't chatting away merrily on all sorts of topics. Lowly old me was even admitted to the conversation and given straightforward answers to any points I raised about workplace reform or abortion policy.
This is all mainly irrelevant, but as I left the bathroom it hit me that I had just been talking with a former PM and an ALP silverback. It seems when you're standing in front of a panel of stainless steel with your old fella hanging out, politicians suddenly become magically communicative - human even.
Is there any way we can harness this to get our poor old country headed back on the straight and narrow rather than the collision course with disaster that it seems to be on now? Maybe we could just encase parliament house in stainless steel. Or install urinals in front of all lecturns so that when someone steps up to the microphone this magic levelling device will force them to speak plain English?
Just a thought.
Posted by Christopher Watson on September 5, 2005