Sinclair Davidson’s post in the daily tells you everything you need to know about the problems besetting libertarianism in Australia.Davidson focuses on the new laws surrounding abortion provision in Victoria – which oblige a doctor with a conscientious objection to abortion, to refer a woman seeking such a procedure to a doctor that the first doctor knows does not have an objection to abortion.
A sensible way to accommodate religious objection while making sure that women in difficult circumstances will not be denied a legal procedure, you might think. According to Davidson you would be wrong.
This is a form of conscription, and a breach of several clauses of the Constitution, including the thing about rail gauges.
In the comments section, Tim Vines puts him right about why it’s nothing of the sort.
But the main question is why libertarians would be so exercised about this small law, while big attacks on liberty continue.
Robert Doyle, for example, has become the Ken Livingstone of Melbourne, turning the place into a CCTV festooned, hyper-regulated, new Labour nursery. He’s reversed the relationship between normal and pathological behaviour in terms of drinking and much more, so that the whole act of going out and having a drink is inherently seen as in need of justification.
Objections from Melbourne’s libertarians? Naming Doyle? There are none. They don’t have the guts to tackle a Liberal openly
But legal abortion – that’s another matter. Is it because it’s something w…w….w..omen do?
Pathetic. The Dungeons and Dragons crowd of politics.
14 Comments
Guy, my own modest effort here. My colleague Tim Wilson wrote a lot about the 2am lockout, and the Hulls anti-discrimination stuff. I’ve written a lot about alcohol and urban violence issues, much of which has touched on Melbourne City Council’s (and other inner-urban councils’) over-zealous regulation. I think you’re being a touch unfair to the few Melbourne libertarians we have!
Yes, you have Chris. But in this article above, and elsewhere you have never once, not once, had the stones to say that Robert Doyle has become the driver of this. More than anyone he’s channelled old conservative paternalist notions and fused them with hi-tech British new labour approaches, to create a noxious brew. And in article after article, you simply use it as a stick to beat Labor with.
Those of us on the left concerned about this have attacked Labor. Step up and attack the repressive strands in yr own political tradition. Name it. And name the people doing it.
Otherwise it’s just gutless bs.
Can’t get your Sinclair link to work – my problem or yours?
Guy, yes, conservative governments/politicians can be the most egregious social regulators. And Doyle is particularly obscene. But the 2am lockout and the ban on new late-night licenses predates his election, and they are state govt policies. Remember, Melbourne CBD isn’t the only jurisdiction that has been impacted. Doyle is bad, often obnoxious. But your belief that he is the source of this, or even a particulary unusual incarnation doesn’t hold. Have you read some of Overland’s views?
And you’ll have to believe me when I say it’s no partisan thing – but when you have labor state and federal – and while local govt has little power over anything but planning – most of my commentary is going to be directed towards labor. And nobody cares about state opposition policies.
Saying all that, if you have material on CCTV growth, I’d love to see it.
Chris, Doyle just introduced a mobile CCTV camera – mounted on the top of a car – to drive thru the streets of Melbourne. A Ken Livingstone special. He was all over the papers and radio with it 3 weeks ago.
Doyle is the one who introduced the ‘move-on’ busking policies you objected to in a Sunday Age article. And much more besides.
The point is, you are running a particular line – that all these restrictions are a labor-style nanny state thing – that is simply not true. This is a dual process, in which each side of politics draws on its own traditions for the same result – state repression.
I think it is both more important and courageous to challenge your own side – and if the state opposition started to talk about liberty they might get some traction and differentiation.
So i repeat – if you’re really interested in combatting this sot of stuff, you will attack its manifestation on your own side. Otherwise, you’re just a thinktank shil labor-bashing. The more you do it, the more Labor will use it as a source of identity. You fail to acknowledge one thing – these policies are very very popular.
The Right arrgghhh – your timidity is its own punishment. You never challenge each other on ideas, and so you die on the vine.
Guy, I agree completely, but you are misrepresenting what I have written about the Nanny State in order to cast me as a partisan hack.
Nowhere (nowhere that I can remember, that is) have I said the Nanny State is just a lefty thing. In fact, I have said otherwise. And here. And I wrote a short book about how bipartisan over-regulation is.
Perhaps you would like me to dedicate a column to right-wing Nanny Statism. If you have any other ideas for my columns, please do let me know.
But while the VAST majority of nanny state policies come from state and federal governments – and “non-aligned” local governments – perhaps a focus on Labor politicians is not that surprising. I really do apologise for that.
Guy – although generally I agree with your post, I’m not sure Doyle is the best example. Chris has a point re the stupidity in Melbourne – although Doyle undoubtedly bears some responsibility, the ALP is equally (if not more) deserving of censure.
Chris – despite the above, Guy’s point does still hold. Where were the libertarian protests against the Howard govts anti-terror laws? These were outrageously and unjustifiably repressive laws that as I recall were *welcomed* by members of your organisation, among others. And your statement that ‘nobody cares about state opposition policies’ is bizarre – surely as the alternative government their policies are worthy of scrutiny (especially when you’re criticising the goverment’s current approach)?
Well Chris, both the things you quote are from IPA publications. In your Sunday Age columns, you are, I’m afraid to say, the model of a partisan hack. You simply won’t criticise your own side at any length.
My point is that you do a greater service to your own side by giving them a public flogging about their own cowardice than you do attacking Labor, all the time.
You don’t land a blow on Labor. You might start to have an influence if you persuaded your own party to develop a more comprehensive policy on these matters, which would give them something to attack Labor with. Instead they’re all over the shop.
But please. Duck the tough fight. Let your own party float on as a political ghost ship. We’ve seen this before.
You guys are the Bill Hartley of the Right. Long may you reign.
Seriously Guy, you’ve jumped from hypocrite to two-faced. So what’s your thesis again? Open-minded when talking to the right, hack when talking to the left? What evidence would convince you that you’re wrong? A piece attacking the conservative line on asylum seekers, perhaps? And what are IPA publications if -not- an attempt to convince my own side.
Let’s face it, you overshot in your opening post and have had to bend over backwards to keep your “hypocrisy” line. There are many hypocrites on the right. But your level of argument is no better than that “Teh Left” style that the right indulges in too often.
This is off topic, but Guy, I am in desperate need of some of your erudite commentary on this subject: Clive James has well and truly jumped the shark:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/8322513.stm
This will only be fun to watch if you’re both as witty and eloquent in response as we gladly expect..
Otherwise a succint 5000 words from Robert Manne might be a blessing here on in …
Jigantor – and my organisation has been pro-hard line on refugees too. I can only write about and defend -my- views. I’m with you on anti-terror (I’ve only been active so long!) Terrorism is a police issue, not a super-special-war issue that needs super-special new liberty-restricting laws.
Let’s debate state opposition policies when we discover what they are! Opposition policies change so often that they’re barely worth talking about, unless they are particularly interesting or an election is on – happy to debate them when it’s a good use of our time! That not a partisan view, just a timesaving one. Goverment policies are just more interesting to argue about – it’s a bit more, well, important.
As someone who plays Dungeons and Dragons related games with about a 50:50 sex ratio of players, I’d like to object to being compared to the (pseudo)libertarian lobby. D&D geeks have a consciousness of how far distant they are from the rest of society that the IPA completely lacks
Well yes, Guy is being less than kind with the truth. The new legislation requires doctors to perform abortions in certain circumstances even if this is abhorrent to them.
Think of an analogous scenario: If Australia reintroduced the death penalty and made it a requirement that all medical practitioners must be prepared to administer a lethal injection or face deregistration, Guy would no doubt work himself up into a sweaty lather of moral panic.