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In case you haven’t noticed it, the whole world has been turned on its head

Politics is in a topsy-turvy realignment as the right adopts much of what might have once been seen as views of the left.

Politics is in a topsy-turvy realignment as the right adopts much of what might have once been seen as views of the left. Photo: TND

How many times have you heard the aphorism “the world has gone crazy”? Especially of late.

Our central political beliefs are being turned on their head, and then some. Left and right have seemingly crossed over.

As a people, or indeed a nation, we tend to have anchor points in group thought across a generation, such as – global trade is good, intervention in the market place is verboten, and individual rights are fundamental to our liberal democratic society. Well, at least we did until recently.

In the space of just two weeks the federal Opposition Leader Peter Dutton has turned those paradigms on their head, purposefully so.

First, by proposing the partial nationalisation of the nation’s energy network to usher in a new era of nuclear energy. Wham!

Then signalling that Liberal MPs and senators will side with the National Party and Greens in the federal parliament to vote to impose divestiture on big grocery companies because of their oligopolistic hold on supply chains, especially farmers, and price gouging consumers. Bam!

If Labor had proposed that in the past 40 years, the terms “reds under the beds” and “communists “ would have abounded. This is heady stuff folks, a big sweeping realignment of the left, centre and right in Australian politics. Make no mistake about that.

On reflection why should Australia be different to North America, Europe and the UK. There is a generation of pissed-off punters, for whom globalisation delivered nothing, or at least that’s what they now believe.

We did it, for what?

Globally renowned Harvard professor Michael Sandel, in his most recent book The Tyranny of Merit, chronicles the rise of left-wing individualism, based on the concept of a meritocracy, which he so brilliantly called the “rhetoric of rising”.

It became an article of faith, that through education, we could create a level playing field where all benefitted. Learn new skills, retool, work smarter, etc and Bob’s your uncle.

As we now know, that didn’t happen. The working class was used to being stiffed, but the middle class certainly wasn’t, and deeply resents it.

The central tenet, that if you both studied and worked hard you could make it, was in fact a chimera. Worse still, if you didn’t make it, it was your fault.

Sandel is no newcomer to society’s chagrin with the order of things. Back in 1998 he wrote Democracy’s Discontent, which first raised a loss of faith in our institutions and the need to value blue-collar work, and rekindle civic virtues and a more generous public life.

He is no screaming lefty – to the contrary, he talks about the intellectual left’s “bonfire of vanities”. In truth, they created the space for Donald Trump, Benjamin Netanyahu and their ilk to sow their divisive simplistic trope.

Large numbers of working class voters in America rejected Hillary Clinton, more than they embraced Trump, and so on the list goes around the globe.

Many have forgotten Mark Latham’s furtive “triangulation” theory of politics in the mid-90s when, as Labor opposition leader, he tried to flip the political narrative from economics to such things as reading for kids, among other switch hits.

It was a political strategy of wrong-footing your opponent above all else.

Dutton gets all that; he has represented an outer-metropolitan seat for close on 20 years and understands crossover politics. He has hitched his star to the tradie vote and outlying metropolitan and regional seats.

In short, he is eschewing the teals, greens and inner-city intellectual core of the modern Labor Party for a narrow, but rich, vein of seats .

No one in the Coalition has yet forgotten John Howard’s battlers’ success. But nor should they dismiss the impact of WorkChoices on that cohort. It was Howard’s bête noire. Yes, tradies are aspirational folk, but touch their penalty payments?

Can Dutton do it? Is he believable? What about industrial relations. Would you have Albo or Dutto at your suburban barbecue? The questions abound.

Back in good old Queensland, budding premier David Crisafulli has largely eschewed following Dutton down the populist climate-change sceptic and pro-nuclear road. Indeed, he has matched Premier Steven Miles’ policy stance opting for the centre.

Are you confused yet?

It might also just be that Crisafulli is the front-runner in Queensland, while nationally Dutton has to be bold in coming from behind and winning back government after one term in office.

Forget most of what you once thought about what the parties believe, modern politics looks like a spaghetti junction. It’s all malleable and interchangeable and loops back on itself.

One thing is for certain, even the magnetic North and South poles flip over every 300,000 years.

This was originally published by InQueensland

Greg Hallam is a former chief executive of the Local Government Association of Queensland. He writes regularly for InQueensland

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