jacky

The compromises they make to hold their party in line always see everyone veering right. Pesutto walked back the Liberal commitment to the Treaty process - a slap in the face to Indigenous Victorians. Prior to that, the process was supported by ALL Liberals and Nationals in the previous parliament under Matthew Guy and Peter Walsh. (Well, all of them except Tim Smith, who called it "woke tokenism".) Pesutto then fought to prevent loggable state-funded State Forests being turned into protected National Parks. Wilson (another so-called-moderate) continued all of the Pesutto era conservative backdowns, and then some. She went from "Yes" to the Voice to "No" on a far simpler Victorian Treaty. Then Wilson committed to expanding gas in Victoria. It's a move that will please Wilson's inevitable One Nation allies (who will be crucial for Wilson passing every vote through the upper house), by further enriching One Nation's key backer, Gina Rinehart. (That's because Rinehart's Gippsland gas investments were stranded for a decade under the moratorium on onshore gas + fracking ban, and will directly benefit from Wilson's commitment to onshore gas.) Maybe the recipe for a Liberal Conservative is "Moderate + Power"? More power? Less moderate. Gotta appease the hard-right if you want it - whether that's One Nation, reversing the decision to boot Renee Heath from the party room, or bringing Deeming's backers into the fold. In his poem, Kipling warned about "Dane-geld" bargains. Militarily-weak English kings would raise taxes to pay vikings protection money - to avoid the threat of invasion. But a cheap bargain quickly became expensive, and eventually attracted the destruction it was supposed to prevent - ultimately leading to the Danish Conquest of England. Perhaps in the same way these compromises act as "Dane-geld" - a protection racket that keeps the hard-right at bay today, only for them to turn their numbers on you tomorrow. au.rollingstone.com/politics…