Why the war on wokeness is actually killing conservatives in Australia

The recent Liberal party room vote to overturn support for NetZero suggests the Coalition is likely heading towards yet another bout of intense navel-gazing over who should be leader, and which faction should be in charge. 

Although this topic is of intense interest to the media — as shown by the extensive coverage given to it — it seems it is of far less interest to the public, as shown by the Coalition’s historically-low poll numbers.  

Some have suggested that the Coalition could or should split, others have gone even further and claimed various factions should go it alone.  

Of course, the growing divide between moderates and conservatives in Australia mirrors a global trend. In the UK, it has manifested as the rise of Reform, in the US, it’s Trump and MAGA.  

You can even see the same rhetoric and issues being copy-pasted onto Australian politics, despite the obvious differences in our circumstances.  

For example, Australia does not have anything like the immigration issues plaguing the US and UK — in fact some of the commentators in those countries are suggesting adopting our immigration system might be the cure for their problems.  

The issues front and centre for these movements are overwhelmingly cultural; and even where the issues touch on areas of economics (like immigration), they are viewed through a cultural lens.  

It is in this context that both movements decisively reject liberalism, in whatever form. Relevantly, these nominally-conservative movements have no time for the small government, free market, classical liberalism foundation that was once an article of faith in US and UK conservative politics during the Reagan and Thatcher revolutions of the 80s. 

MAGA openly prefers ‘post-liberal’ thinking and doesn’t have any time for limited government: in their worldview, power is to be used to crush your enemies internal and external, foreign and domestic.  

Unfortunately for its boosters, despite some successes — especially in relation to Israel (not exactly a unifying topic for MAGA) — many areas of the US government are little better than a dumpster fire.  

Anti-vaxxers are now changing health policies based on their pseudo-scientific nonsense, resulting in preventable deaths from childhood illnesses. The budget is a shambles. The government is misusing the judicial system to prosecute its political opponents. Foreign governments are openly paying for access and support.  

However, there is one obvious aspect in which the MAGA movement has been a ‘success’: Trump won the election.  

As cynics may suggest winning elections, not good government, is the true objective of modern political parties, it is no wonder some politicians think MAGA is worth emulating.  

But less cynically, Australian conservatives — however much they might be impressed by the way MAGA has fought back against woke ideas — would do well to understand that a successful movement cannot be defined forever by what it opposes.  

Conservatives may well respond that their aim is building (or rebuilding) a successful culture. However, this depends far more on good economics than it does on bullying socialists and banning wokism. 

Indeed, it’s worth understanding that the voters MAGA and Reform largely rely on are spurred by a feeling of economic displacement. Several major books in the 2010s, notably by Charles Murray and David Goodhart, identified the dislocation of the working class during the 1990s and 2000s, and its impact on societal harmony.  

Although it is commonly argued this dislocation came from foreign trade and the hollowing-out of manufacturing, this explanation has surprisingly little explanatory power, especially when considering the counter example of Australia.  

After all, Australia opened up to trade to a greater extent than the US or the UK during that period. Australia experienced a significant and ongoing decline in manufacturing employment.  

Yet Australia did not have anything like the same social decay. Murray, in particular, charts massive increases in divorce and single parenthood in white working-class American families. While Australia initially followed this trend, things quickly stabilised. Why? 

The likely reason is surprisingly simple. Following the economic challenges of the 1970s and the adjustment process in the 1980s of the reform movement, Australia enjoyed several decades of widespread wage growth, and the US and the UK didn’t. 

And it turns out that economic growth, especially widespread economic growth, is really important to the formation of families and the success of marriages.  

When wages are growing, inflation is under control and unemployment is low, social cohesion is high. The opposite is also true.  

In other words, it is not free trade and free markets that decimated local communities but sclerotic policies and attitudes of government that prized maintaining the status quo at all costs.  

Sustained, widespread, wages growth can only reliably be generated by free markets. Markets also generate the wealth necessary to support a thriving community sector and sustain a welfare state.  

Crony capitalism, state-led development, protectionism, mercantilism, or whatever brand of socialism you prefer: none of them can do these two things.  

This means that a political party that cares about marriage and families, that values social cohesion, stability and vibrancy must also embrace classical liberalism.  

There is much that can be done — in industrial relations, tax policy, superannuation and elsewhere — to recreate a growthoriented economy. 

The long-term viability of the conservative political project is actually tied closely to the economic fortunes of the country; something many previous Coalition leaders and prime ministers knew instinctively. 

It’s past time for the current generation of leaders to figure out that lesson and get to work. 

Simon Cowan is Research Director at the Centre for Independent Studies.