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Tony Abbott’s Followers (3)
Tony Abbott
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Australia: A History
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“Fraser was naturally economically cautious: a pragmatist who disliked utopian thinking of any kind. We have to accept, he once said, ‘that while we strive for perfection, we will not reach it in this world, nor our sons after us. Recognition of this truth,’ he continued, ‘should soften the radical, bring tolerance to the fanatic, temper the extremes of love and hate.’1 This bent of mind (perhaps best encapsulated in his wry observation that ‘life wasn’t meant to be easy’) made him a formidable foe to the utopianism of social democrats, but also – to the consternation of some of his colleagues – sceptical of small-government enthusiasm on his own side.”
― Australia: A History
― Australia: A History
“In mid-2025, Australia remains relatively prosperous and untroubled. Yet as much as ever before in our history, there is a nagging sense that the country has been marking time or even drifting backwards, influenced by the politics of climate and identity. In common with much of the Anglosphere, we’re materially rich but spiritually poor. The explosion of mental ill-health is one symptom of people’s widespread loss of a sense of life’s deeper meaning and purpose. It’s worth noting that Australians telling the census that they adhered to a religious faith has dropped from over 90 per cent in the 1960s to just over 50 per cent in 2021. An early chronicler of this growing malaise was (my one-time mentor) B.A. Santamaria, of whom Cardinal George Pell said: ‘He could not remove or much deflect the mighty forces damaging faith and morals in the Western world but … managed to alert an increasing number of us to the folly of embracing the forces seeking our destruction.’8 Religious faith, it should be said, is not the only source of meaning and purpose but it’s long been our main one.”
― Australia: A History
― Australia: A History
“Its frankness made the government uncomfortable. The report found ‘many Australians are not convinced that immigrants are making a commitment to their new country’.6 It blamed this failure on government policy that was too often dictated by sectional interest groups. It was a prophetic anticipation of subsequent recurring backlashes, yet it was not anti-immigration: it recommended, in fact, an increase in migrant numbers. Rather, it focused on what had to be done to win community support by encouraging migrants to integrate. In doing so, it broke a number of progressive shibboleths, reaffirming the need for a positive Australian identity based on a common commitment to: ‘parliamentary democracy, the rule of law and equality before the law, freedom of the individual, freedom of speech, freedom of religion, equality of women, universal education’. It recommended ‘linking the grant of citizenship with a declaration to respect the fundamental institutions and principles in Australian society’.7 The FitzGerald Report demonstrated that concern over migration was not limited to a handful of conservative commentators. In August 1988, Newspoll research found 77 per cent of respondents believed that Asian migration should be slowed.8 Even Charlie Perkins, by then the head of the Federal Department of Aboriginal Affairs, suggested a curb on Asian migration and a rebalancing of immigration policy.9 So, this was hardly the expression of racist grievance that some progressives made it out to be.”
― Australia: A History
― Australia: A History
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