What Barry should fear
With a landslide victory in the Lower House, Premier Barry will be frustrated if he finds his progressive legislation blocked in the Upper House, by pressure from his own Religious Right, and the Shooters and Fishers Party and the CDP.
Progress and reformation are necessary, but the kinds of people he will be dealing with are reactionary and unwilling for anything to happen for the first time.
Just before Christmas I gave some final comments in the House as I knew I may not get re-elected and I wanted to warn those of my colleagues with whom I had served for nine years, my greatest concerns. I said, “I wish to make a comment on political trends. I believe the extreme Left with their radical social engineering are to be watched, but the extreme Right is to be feared. Beware any group that unfurls the banners that have White Australia or the League of Rights on them. Democracy is created by hopeful people, but it is ruined by our self-importance.”
Unfortunately with the balance of power in the hands of the most manipulative people in Parliament, this is likely to be true. They will be offering Barry O’Farrell support for his routine legislation which the Greens and Labor will not support and in order to get it passed Barry O’Farrell will be led to make promises for what they hold dear.
The Uglies-influenced Liberal Party plus the CDP (funded by the Exclusive Brethren and other fundamentalist groups) will want their agenda including teaching creationism in schools as science rather than one of their faith beliefs. They will also want their anti-Islamic face coverings Bill and a winding back of equality in the homosexual community. This will lead to social conflict on a great scale. Book burners and elephant shooters do not make for good bed-fellows.
None of these will pass as the Greens. Labor and some pro-gay Nationals and Liberals will combine against them. But that doesn’t matter, as the CDP uses such occasions to reinforce itself with its community of rusted-on believers and give the impression that it is standing up for its values.
The Shooters and Fishers want shooting in our National Parks, the rights for 12 years olds to shoot, and fishing in our Marine breeding grounds, and the abolition of protected Marine Parks.
These agenda items and more, from the extreme fundamentalist and conservative right, are to be feared for their ramifications.