|dev|null wrote on Aug 22
nd, 2014 at 10:34am:
That’s a very good question. In the early 20th century, it was a political axiom in Australia that Catholics were untrustworthy because they owed their allegiance to Rome - a foreign state. For many years, Catholics were denied promotions in the public service and prevented from high office.
Menzies used exactly the same argument on communists during the Cold War in his attempt to ban the Communist Party of Australia. The Catholics made good during the Menzies years by splitting from the ALP and supporting the Liberal Party in the DLP.
Tony Abbott’s first political membership was that very party, the DLP. He used to visit its founder, Bob Santamaria, for cosy afternoon chats. At university, Tony Abbott used to stick posters of the pope around campus.
Tony Abbott, it seems, wants Muslims to be on a team he’s never belonged to. In fact, Tony Abbott’s entire political stance comes from the position of outsider.
I doubt very much that Abbott would have thought up Team Australia. This sounds like a focus-group driven exercise implimented with no thought or consultation whatsoever with those whom it’s meant to apply to. It has Mark Textor all over it, the far-right Liberal strategist who cut his teeth on Republican campaigns in the US. Team Australia is most likely a patented American model that started out as Team America.
It’s pitched at Herbie and Shakey’s Western Sydney set, not the Abu demographic. It’s solely about saving marginal seats at the next election. It’s been sitting in Peta Credlin’s bottom draw, waiting for a moment of desperation just like the Libs are facing now.
Team Australia is for the One Nation crowd, and it’s so nakedly phoney every Liberal I’ve seen discussing it seems to be cringing with embarrassment. Libs like Malcolm Turnbull won’t touch it.
Team Australia will fade into obscurity like a bad reality TV show - as every schoolboy knows.
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