In the days after the night before a senator used nazi rhetoric in the Australian parliament, I watched with interest to see who would say what about possibly the most straightforward question in public discourse: is nazi rhetoric bad? Is it wrong?
The answer is yes. This is both objective moral fact and global consensus.
In the 2010 federal election, the Liberal Democrat Party in New South Wales polled around 96,000 votes. In 2013 their first-placed candidate polled around 416,000 votes. This analysis shows that the party increased its vote by over 50 times, or 5000% between 2007 and 2013.
Wow! That party is on the up and up! It must be quite something, right?
On 25 August 2017, Australian prime minister Malcolm Turnbull uploaded a 526-word post condemning two minor acts of vandalism to Facebook. The post begins:
Like Valentines day and Halloween, which were non-events when I was growing up, the twenty-first century incarnation of ANZAC Day bears no resemblance whatsoever to when World War vets were alive and marching and telling interviewers that war is an unmitigated disaster of the human project that we should always, always caution against under any and all circumstances.
Late last year, the Nationals member for Lyne in New South Wales was appointed assistant minister for children and families. In a tired and predictable charade, this comfortable white man appointed to a well-paid position is learning for the first time of harsh conditions in which many First Peoples live since the theft of their country.
One of the most persistent features of colonial jurisprudence is its aggressive insistence on defining colonised peoples on its own terms. In his 1797 work Law of Nations, Emer de Vattel conflated cultivation with civilisation, ironically assuming to definie Aboriginal people by his perspective on their relationship to land.
Almost everything we are formally taught about our system of government is deeply anchored in vested dishonesty. All the formal claims to democratic principle fall short. Here is how those structural designs benefit as undeserving a character as Barnaby Joyce.
So much to take credit for, so little effort! A Royal Commissions instigated by a Labor Prime Minister; a Yes campaign in which the work done and harm suffered was by people other than the political class; a by-election won by a conservative man called John; a MYEFO presaged by strategic leaks to produce misleading headlines!
The gargantuan Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse has come to a close. Its scale is almost impossible to comprehend: more than 1.2 million documents; testimony from over 8,000 people; a 21-volume final report; more than 400 recommendations.
Nobody with ears could mistake the words of recently re-elected Nationals Party leader Barnaby Joyce for stirring speechmaking. But in a close run thing, the indulgent nonsense from Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, when the House of Representatives eventually reconvened to debate marriage equality, was the bigger oratorical mess.