Mark Latham: The silent majority have a new advocate — Tony Abbott has got his mojo back

LOVE him or hate him, former prime minister Tony Abbott is right: we need a bold new policy direction for Australia’s future, says Mark Latham.

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EIGHTEEN months after he lost the prime ministership and four months after Donald Trump showed the way forward in the US presidential election, Tony Abbott has embraced the policy direction of the Outsiders juggernaut.

On Thursday he called on the Turnbull government to “say to the people of Australia we’ll cut the renewable energy target to help with your power bills, we’ll cut immigration to make housing more affordable, we’ll scrap the Human Rights Commission to stop official bullying (and) we’ll stop all new (budget) spending to end ripping off our grandkids.”

Belatedly, he’s seen the light. Abbott knows his government failed in the core task facing mainstream politicians internationally: to reverse the Leftist takeover of key public institutions such as the ABC, SBS, Human Rights Commission, universities and government schools.

He knows the Turnbull government has not only dodged this fight, it has embraced Leftist ideology.

Tony Abbott has got his mojo back as a policy advocate. He’s speaking for the fed-up, silent majority, says Mark Latham. Picture: AAP

Just when we thought Turnbull and his Liberal deputy Julie Bishop could not be any more weak-kneed in the culture wars, earlier this month we learnt they had spent taxpayer money funding a roving Australian ambassador in the Middle East, supposedly in support of multiculturalism.

Perhaps this controversy was a tipping point for Abbott: the realisation that his side of politics had surrendered unconditionally to the identity politics and cultural Marxism of the New Left. No patriot could stand by and watch our country debased so wilfully.

I support the abolition of the Human Rights Commission in its current form.

It needs to be replaced by a new community-building body, recognising that the greatest threat to human rights in Australia is from Leftist identity segregation and Islamic fundamentalism.

FORMER PM TONY ABBOTT’S FULL SPEECH

We need to proudly teach the benefits of Western civilisation in our schools and universities.

We need to unashamedly deport dual passport holders who advocate cultural apartheid.

This rule should also apply to non-Muslims campaigning for racial and religious purity.

As a nation, we have been way too naive and soft on those who seek to divide us and destroy our way of life.

Overall, multiculturalism has been a success for Australia. We can’t allow it to be undermined by supremacists, from the extreme Left or Right, who regard their creed as the only one deserving of respect.

People need to be able to cross ethnic and other identity boundaries to build trust, understanding and tolerance — a genuine social democracy. This is a battle for our civilisation, not a time for weakly accommodating those who want to do us harm.

It’s also a fight against the undue influence of interest groups in Canberra.

In the great debate about housing affordability, Abbott has acknowledged an essential truth: excessive demand for housing drives up prices, no less than inadequate land supply.

Big Australia has been a disaster for young homebuyers. Each year our 200,000-plus immigration program turbocharges and overheats the housing market.

Labor and the Coalition have caved in to pro-immigration groups, property developers, big retailers and foolhardy Treasury officials who use planeloads of new arrivals to artificially inflate Australia’s GDP numbers.

The national interest demands a big cut to immigration to keep the Great Australian Dream of home ownership alive.

Abbott has got his mojo back as a policy advocate.

Tony Abbott has embraced the policy direction of the Outsiders juggernaut, says Mark Latham. Picture: AAP

He’s speaking for the fed-up, silent majority — the Aussie larrikins and battlers in the outer suburbs and regions who don’t have a megaphone in hand at the ABC, The Project or Fairfax Media to advance their agenda.

All they have is their vote and currently, it’s parked with Pauline Hanson, virtually by default.

Last Wednesday night I spoke at the Northern Sydney Conservative Forum, a crowded room of hundreds of disillusioned Liberals at the Roseville Golf Club.

Turnbull barely had a vote in the place.

The hostility towards the machine men of the NSW Liberal Party (run by one man, Michael Photios) was as severe as any I’ve seen in politics (including Labor’s Sussex Street machine).

The traditional two-party system is crumbling.

While Roseville’s Liberals told me of their disgust with Turnbull and Photios, Laborites in southwest Sydney are complaining about Bill Shorten. He’s seen as a political flunkey, a two-bit opportunist who has sold out to the inner-city elites.

Under Shorten’s leadership, the ALP has been overrun by identity politics.

This is the kind of nonsense that’s fuelling the growth of the Outsiders movement.

Love him or hate him, Abbott is right: we need a bold new policy direction for Australia’s future.