Talk’s not enough, freedom needs a political strategy

Scott Morrison was right in principle to say bossy government ought to step back and make room for Australians to recover their freedom, now that the highly vaccinated period of the pandemic has succeeded the mostly complied-with regimen of lockdowns. In his Sydney Institute speech on Monday, the Prime Minister said “we will never, if ever we did, take for granted again” our freedom. He’s right to talk up freedom because there is a long history of temporary incursions by government that become permanent. The idea of liberty often finds weak support in Australia, where despite the myth of the rule-defying larrikin there is a long tradition of ready compliance with government authority. This difference in political culture explains why some overexcited American pundits declared that Australia with its lockdowns and quarantine rules had become a Covid totalitarian state.

In truth, the global trend in developed countries, especially since World War II, has been the seemingly unstoppable growth of the state. The supposedly savage spending cuts of Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher only slowed the pace of that crowding out of the private sector by the public. On Monday, Mr Morrison didn’t explain in any detail how “can-do capitalism” might be given more room to do its wealth creation thing.

He was on the money when he suggested “the left of politics” might want to use pandemic power as a “pretext for a more expansive government role and reach into society – across economic, social and cultural domains”. But Mr Morrison will be up against it if he does intend to do more than talk about the virtue of smaller government. Ever since the global financial crisis, the progressive commentariat has pushed the narrative that “neo-liberalism” is a culpable, failed ideology. Staggering sums of money have been put on the tab to stimulate our way through the pandemic, and there is little sign of a strong constituency to lighten the debt burden left to future generations. Mr Morrison, understandably, is focused on the short-term challenge of winning next year’s election. His political pragmatism and his low-key pitch to middle Australia are easily underestimated. But the Coalition base is restive and hungry for some conviction politics. And if Mr Morrison is to build support for less red tape – and more opportunity for individual initiative and entrepreneurship – he will have to engage in a more serious and sustained contest of ideas. In various political fights, he has shown by his position that he favours freedom of speech and other bedrock values of liberal democracy. But he often seems unable to cut through with a message that galvanises others to join the cause.

Back in 2017, when there was talk of the Coalition repealing an overbroad provision of anti-discrimination laws hostile to free speech, Mr Morrison’s response was to say: “I know this issue doesn’t create one job, doesn’t open one business.” That was a wrong note. Woke lawfare has the potential to create a grifter’s trade costly for business and oppressive for free thinkers. These days, the word independent seems in danger of losing its meaning. On Monday, arts administrator Jo Dyer emerged as the latest independent candidate under the banner of “Voices of”. It’s fair comment that these independents tend to target the Liberal Party and in effect favour Labor and the Greens. Less remarked on is the fact urban progressive candidates increasingly tend to regard dissent from leftist dogma as “hate speech”, and are keen to use state power and other people’s money to engineer “solutions” to whatever single issues preoccupy them. This is bad news for civil society, and the Prime Minister knows this. In his Sydney Institute speech, Mr Morrison invoked Edmund Burke’s “little platoons” of family, faith and friends. But he will have to do more than name-check a bygone conservative hero; he needs to energise an effective Australian platform for freedom.