Thirsting for a sip of the amazing American brew

A TASTE of the small-government, anti-spending Tea Party would do a world of good to conservatives in Australia and Europe.

THERE is something very American, and something rather beguiling, about the Tea Party movement that is gripping the US. People are getting up off their couches, pushing away from their dining tables, taking to the streets to demand less government. It's so rare and refreshing, you need the italics in there.

Many of these people have never protested before. A million miles from the beltway, they lead ordinary lives, working hard, many unemployed, rearing a family, worrying about the future. And they're horrified by what is happening in Washington.

In the psyche of so many of these Americans, there's a commitment to individual liberty and freedom from government seldom found elsewhere. Put it down to their history, their founders, their constitution. It sits in their DNA.

If you could extract it and bottle it, send the first shipment to Europe. On the Continent, workers are protesting against their governments making essential and overdue spending cuts. In the US, the people are protesting for spending cuts. The italics again. They want austerity.

In Australia, we could do with a sip of this American brew. We don't have the same history. Our economy is doing better than theirs. But good ideas are universal.

The federal Finance Department's brief in the Red Book to the Gillard government says a budget surplus in 2012-13 depends on spending cuts. Leading economists agree. Wind back the stimulus and trim spending, JP Morgan chief economist Stephen Walters said last week. Or else the Reserve Bank will eventually do the heavy lifting by raising interest rates, he added.

And watch and learn from the Tea Party movement, I say. Don't do what Tea Party critics have done: ignore and insult a genuinely grassroots movement committed to simple ideas about smaller government and personal freedom. Early on, Barack Obama's reaction to the voice of millions of these Americans was: "Huh?" Then came the presidential smugness. "I've been a little amused over the last couple of days where people have been having these rallies about taxes," he told an elite group of Democrat donors in April. "You would think they would be saying thank you."

What became an article of faith for Left liberals treating Sarah Palin as a dumb-nut redneck is being repeated against the Tea Party. The New York Times mocked the movement as the "growling face of a new fringe in American politics". So it's fine for people to march against the war in Iraq. But protest against big-spending government? How terribly fringe.

Republican Karl Rove derided Tea Party candidate Christine O'Donnell as "nutty". Maybe she is, dabbling as she did in witchcraft in the 1980s. But it's not about Palin or O'Donnell. It's the people power behind them that matters. And millions of Americans are angry and engaged. Ridiculing them has only riled them more.

It is an indictment of both sides of the American political class that this movement exists. In Sydney last week, Grover Norquist, founder of Americans for Tax Reform, told The Australian that spending less was just not a focus during the Bush administration. "Taxpayers would say, 'Cut my taxes.' Gun owners would say, 'Leave my guns alone'; the religious Right would say, 'Leave my church, synagogue, mosque alone'; businessmen and women would say, 'Leave my business alone.' " Plenty of people were saying: leave me alone - a fine American tradition - but no one was saying spend less.

Now, plenty are saying spend less. Obama's $US787 billion ($822bn) stimulus package and $US940bn healthcare takeover have ignited a grassroots movement that makes GetUp! and Move On look like Astroturf. There is no Tea Party party. There is no leader. The Tea Party is a leaderless army of Americans sceptical about the multiplier effect of trillion-dollar stimulus packages and fed up with big government spending money it doesn't have, driving up debt and deficits, forcing tax hikes on citizens, their children and grandchildren to pay for its profligacy.

In Give Us Liberty, Dick Armey and Matt Kibbe explore the beginnings. A 53-year-old Florida grandmother, Mary Rakovich, who turned out to protest when Obama came to town in February last year to celebrate his stimulus package. A Seattle schoolteacher, Keli Carender, who set up her own Porkulus Protest. An impromptu on-air rant by CNBC business analyst Rick Santelli against the government rewarding irresponsible behaviour with taxpayer dollars. The traders around him cheered. The rant went viral. And on it goes. This is what drives the Left crazy. You can't control the Tea Party movement. Its ideas won't go away.

Those ideas are simple ones laid down by America's founding fathers. That the constitution should mean what it says when it grants government power to do certain things, leaving the rest up to the individual. That less government allows individuals to spend more of their own money as they see fit. Put simply, it's what British journalist Toby Harnden saw on a homemade sign tied to a gate of a modest home in a black neighourhood in Florida: "No more big plans with my money".

If the masses of protests are any guide, there are no thank-you notes coming Obama's way. And establishment spend-and-tax Republicans have been been replaced with Tea Party candidates in seven significant Senate races: Florida, Kentucky, Colorado, Nevada, Arkansas, Utah and Delaware. While some commentators have asked whether Tea Party candidates can "close the sale" by attracting voters beyond the base, Norquist says five of those seven candidates are polling ahead of the Democrats. What Jonathan Rauch best described as a "lava-like" movement is spreading across the US.

If only it could move across the Pacific Ocean. Those observers, such as former Queensland premier Peter Beattie, who have likened the Tea Party movement to the 1998 rise in Australia of One Nation, have misread this fascinating phenomenon. One Nation was a top-down party that depended on a leader who made an easy target, Pauline Hanson. It never had across-the-continent support. And it pursued illiberal ideas that would never stand the test of time. The demise of One Nation was a victory of common sense over anger. By contrast, Tea Party anger is fuelling a return to commonsense ideas about cutting spending and reducing the size of government.

Someone please spike the drinks at Liberal Party HQ with this fine imported brew. Had the Liberals finessed their message along similar lines before the August election, they may have picked up seats they should have won to take government. Maybe they're learning for next time.