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Saturday, July 22nd, 2017
Time |
Event |
12:18a |
History doesn't repeat itself, but it rhymes http://www.metafilter.com/168359/History-doesnt-repeat-itself-but-it-rhymes Sixty-odd years ago, at the height of the Cold War, the Australian Labor Party (a predominantly working class political party founded in the union movement, and with a large, largely Irish and Italian, Catholic constituency) was torn apart when a faction of social and religious conservatives, citing the threat of Communism, split off to form the Democratic Labor Party. Led by Catholic hardliner B.A. Santamaria, the DLP would keep the ALP in opposition for almost two decades, giving the (right of centre, and then predominantly mainstream Protestant) Liberal Party a long spell in office. Now, lead by Santamaria's intellectual heirs, the same thing may be happening again this time to the Liberal Party. The two heirs are the former Prime Minister and lapsed seminarian Tony Abbott, best known for undermining governments, biting into raw onions and other displays of machismo, who cited Santamaria as his inspiration for entering politics, and Cory Bernardi, a fellow ultraconservative, who recently left the Liberal Party to found a new party, the Australian Conservatives. Abbott is pushing the Liberal Party to change its candidate selection processes, allowing the rank and file (recently swollen with the membership of outer-suburban megachurches) more control, while Bernardi's Conservatives (recently merged with the Pentecostal/Dominionist party Family First) are threatening to take part of the Liberals' member base should this fail. | 12:32a |
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