Monthly Archives: March 2021

Lyndon B. Johnson, as US President, with Hubert H. Humphrey, as US Vice President. (AP)

It was once said that the moral test of government is how that government treats those who are in the dawn of life, the children; those who are in the twilight of life, the elderly; and those who are in the shadows of life, the sick, the needy and the handicapped.

These words of the late Minnesota Sen. Hubert H. Humphrey have always best defined for me what it means to be a liberal Democrat. I still believe them to govern my political philosophy.

The key is belief in government not as the problem but as the needed counterpoint to over-concentrated power to level the playing field, as progressive presidents from Teddy Roosevelt to Franklin Delano Roosevelt to John Kennedy to Bill Clinton would say, for equal opportunity, individual responsibility and social justice for the average American.

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In recent months, however, some people who sincerely believe they are liberals are being quoted in the national media and on the blogosphere as if their definition of liberalism is the only one.

For example, if a Democrat is on record as pro-choice, pro-gay marriage, pro-ObamaCare, pro-minimum wage, pro-labor, pro-strong environmental regulation or pro-preschool supported by taxes, if that Democrat also believes in the value of business, believes in the private sector as being the best job creator and often more efficient than government, that Democrat still risks being called a conservative or, to many even worse, a centrist.

This reminds me of something I wrote about my own personal liberal political hero in the 1960s, the late Sen. Robert F. Kennedy of New York, brother of former President Kennedy. Here is what I wrote in my 2006 book, "Scandal: How Gotcha Politics Is Destroying America:"

When Kennedy announced the Bedford-Stuyvesant redevelopment plan, which used Republican-style market incentives and tax breaks for business to spur jobs in the urban inner city, he was criticized by a well-known and respected Democratic socialist writer, Michael Harrington, as putting too much trust in private business. Kennedys reportedly responded: The difference between me and [Republican conservatives] is I mean what I say.

... Kennedy also prayed with Cesar Chavez in the grape fields of California to win collective bargaining rights and justice for agricultural workers. ... He was sometimes rough, often described as ruthless ... but was seen by both left and right as blunt-speaking, passionate and authentic. ... His followers ran the gamut, from culturally conservative blue collar workers who became Reagan Democrats in the 1980s to the poorest African Americans and Hispanics in Americas underclass. The results of the May 1968 Indiana Democratic primary were a dramatic indication of this. He carried 9 of the 11 congressional districts, won 17 of the 25 rural southern counties, won more than 85 percent of the African American vote, and carried the seven [white] backlash counties that segregationist George Wallace had won in the 1964 Democratic presidential primary.

So, although RFK is remembered as a liberal for his 1968 anti-war and anti-poverty presidential campaign ... he represented someone who is neither left, nor right, but both; liked and disliked by both; pro-business but also pro-regulation; religious and even moralistic about family values and faith, but tolerant of dissent and committed to the separation of Church and State. Most importantly, Robert Kennedy connected with people who wanted their problems solved.

Believe it or not, I actually read over the weekend in an Associated Press article that there are some self-described liberals who challenge President Obamas liberal credentials because he attempted to negotiate a grand bargain with Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) last year to try to reduce budget deficits and a $16 trillion national debt (now approaching $17 trillion, or about equal to gross domestic product).

What would Hubert Humphrey and Robert Kennedy say if they were alive today, about a government that uses credit cards every day to pay for all its programs and plans to dump all the receipts on the laps of its children and grandchildren, expecting them to pay the tab?

I believe both men would regard such a government, unwilling to raise taxes and cut spending and reform entitlements to avoid passing the tab to our children, as neither moral nor liberal.

If you are a liberal, what do you think?

This column appears first and weekly in The Hill and the Hill.com.

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What is a liberal? What is a conservative? | Fox News

One day in March 2015, I sat in a theater in New York City and took careful notes as a series of personages led by Hillary Clinton and Melinda Gates described the dazzling sunburst of liberation that was coming our way thanks to entrepreneurs, foundations and Silicon Valley. The presentation I remember most vividly was that of a famous TV actor who rhapsodized about the wonders of Twitter, Facebook and the rest: No matter which platform you prefer, she told us, social media has given us all an extraordinary new world, where anyone, no matter their gender, can share their story across communities, continents and computer screens. A whole new world without ceilings.

Six years later and liberals cant wait for that extraordinary new world to end. Today we know that social media is what gives you things like Donald Trumps lying tweets, the QAnon conspiracy theory and the Capitol riot of 6 January. Social media, we now know, is a volcano of misinformation, a non-stop wallow in hatred and lies, generated for fun and profit, and these days liberal politicians are openly pleading with social medias corporate masters to pleez clamp a ceiling on it, to stop people from sharing their false and dangerous stories.

A reality crisis is the startling name a New York Times story recently applied to this dismal situation. An information disorder is the more medical-sounding label that other authorities choose to give it. Either way, the diagnosis goes, we Americans are drowning in the semiotic swirl. We have come loose from the shared material world, lost ourselves in an endless maze of foreign disinformation and rightwing conspiracy theory.

In response, Joe Biden has called upon us as a nation to defend the truth and defeat the lies. A renowned CNN journalist advocates a harm reduction model to minimize information pollution and deliver the rational views that the public wants. A New York Times writer has suggested the president appoint a federal reality czar who would help the Silicon Valley platform monopolies mute the siren song of QAnon and thus usher us into a new age of sincerity.

These days Democratic politicians lean on anyone with power over platforms to shut down the propaganda of the right. Former Democratic officials pen op-eds calling on us to get over free speech. Journalists fantasize about how easily and painlessly Silicon Valley might monitor and root out objectionable speech. In a recent HBO documentary on the subject, journalist after journalist can be seen rationalizing that, because social media platforms are private companies, the first amendment doesnt apply to them and, I suppose, neither should the American tradition of free-ranging, anything-goes political speech.

In the absence of such censorship, we are told, the danger is stark. In a story about Steve Bannons ongoing Trumpist podcasts, for example, ProPublica informs us that extremism experts say the rhetoric still feeds into an alternative reality that breeds anger and cynicism, which may ultimately lead to violence.

In liberal circles these days there is a palpable horror of the uncurated world, of thought spaces flourishing outside the consensus, of unauthorized voices blabbing freely in some arena where there is no moderator to whom someone might be turned in. The remedy for bad speech, we now believe, is not more speech, as per Justice Brandeiss famous formula, but an extremism expert shushing the world.

What an enormous task that shushing will be! American political culture is and always has been a matter of myth and idealism and selective memory. Selling, not studying, is our peculiar national talent. Hollywood, not historians, is who writes our sacred national epics. There were liars-for-hire in this country long before Roger Stone came along. Our politics has been a bath in bullshit since forever. People pitching the dumbest of ideas prosper fantastically in this country if their ideas happen to be what the ruling class would prefer to believe.

Debunking was how the literary left used to respond to Americas Niagara of nonsense. Criticism, analysis, mockery and protest: these were our weapons. We were rational-minded skeptics, and we had a grand old time deflating creationists, faith healers, puffed-up militarists and corporate liars of every description.

Censorship and blacklisting were, with important exceptions, the weapons of the puritanical right: those were their means of lashing out against rap music or suggestive plays or leftwingers who were gainfully employed.

What explains the clampdown mania among liberals? The most obvious answer is because they need an excuse. Consider the history: the right has enjoyed tremendous success over the last few decades, and it is true that conservatives capacity for hallucinatory fake-populist appeals has helped them to succeed. But that success has also happened because the Democrats, determined to make themselves the party of the affluent and the highly educated, have allowed the right to get away with it.

There have been countless times over the years where Democrats might have reappraised this dumb strategy and changed course. But again and again they chose not to, blaming their failure on everything but their glorious postindustrial vision. In 2016, for example, liberals chose to blame Russia for their loss rather than look in the mirror. On other occasions they assured one another that they had no problems with white blue-collar workers until it became undeniable that they did, whereupon liberals chose to blame such people for rejecting them.

And now we cluck over a lamentable information disorder. The Republicans didnt suffer the landslide defeat they deserved last November; the right is still as potent as ever; therefore Trumpist untruth is responsible for the malfunctioning public mind. Under no circumstances was it the result of the Democrats own lackluster performance, their refusal to reach out to the alienated millions with some kind of FDR-style vision of social solidarity.

Or perhaps this new taste for censorship is an indication of Democratic healthiness. This is a party that has courted professional-managerial elites for decades, and now they have succeeded in winning them over, along with most of the wealthy areas where such people live. Liberals scold and supervise like an offended ruling class because to a certain extent thats who they are. More and more, they represent the well-credentialed people who monitor us in the workplace, and more and more do they act like it.

What all this censorship talk really is, though, is a declaration of defeat defeat before the Biden administration has really begun. To give up on free speech is to despair of reason itself. (Misinformation, we read in the New York Times, is impervious to critical thinking.) The people simply cannot be persuaded; something more forceful is in order; they must be guided by we, the enlightened; and the first step in such a program is to shut off Americas many burbling fountains of bad takes.

Let me confess: every time I read one of these stories calling on us to get over free speech or calling on Mark Zuckerberg to press that big red mute button on our political opponents, I feel a wave of incredulity sweep over me. Liberals believe in liberty, I tell myself. This cant really be happening here in the USA.

But, folks, it is happening. And the folly of it all is beyond belief. To say that this will give the right an issue to campaign on is almost too obvious. To point out that it will play straight into the rights class-based grievance-fantasies requires only a little more sophistication. To say that it is a betrayal of everything we were taught liberalism stood for a betrayal that we will spend years living down may be too complex a thought for our punditburo to consider, but it is nevertheless true.

Originally posted here:

Liberals want to blame rightwing 'misinformation' for our problems. Get real - The Guardian

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In a 2015 speech to the NSW Liberal Party State Council, then prime minister Malcolm Turnbull declared we are not run by factions. It was a claim that had the party faithful rolling in the aisles.

While Labor organises along strict Left-Right lines (with some smaller sub-factions, often allied with a specific union) the Liberal Party is far more byzantine. Nevertheless, factions or ideological groupings play an important role in organising the modern parliamentary party.

To report this story, The Sun-Herald and The Sunday Age conducted more than 50 interviews with 39 MPs in the 91-member federal parliamentary Liberal Party.

What emerged was agreement on two key points.

There are three broad groupings within the party a Moderate or Modern Liberals wing, with Finance Minister Simon Birmingham as its leader; a Morrison Club/Centre-Right grouping led by the Prime Minister; and a National Right group led by Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton.

The second key point is that MPs (except for the unaligned few) are drawn to one of these three groups by overlapping interests that span their state of origin and the region theyre from, allegiance to a powerful individual, faith, ideology, philosophical interests and their year of election.

The NSW and South Australian divisions of the party are the most similar to Labor in that they have a factional structure (Moderate, National Right and in the case of NSW, Centre Right). In Victoria factional allegiances are largely based on personalities and the party has been riven by divisions for at least a decade since the faction led by former federal treasurer Peter Costello and powerbroker Michael Kroger fell apart. Treasurer Josh Frydenberg close to Kroger and National Right powerbroker Michael Sukkar leads the Victorian ambition faction after he thrashed his friend, Health Minister Greg Hunt, in the contest for the deputy Liberal leadership in 2018, while the Costello group has largely faded away.

The running joke among party moderates is that in Queensland, WA and Tasmania there are no moderates like Canberras version of the Tasmanian Tiger or the Grampians Puma, there are people who swear they exist, but they rarely break cover in public.

So how do Liberal MPs align when it comes to factions? How can they be in more than one group? Who is in the ambition faction? Who is in the Prayer Group? And who are the Monkey Pod Lunch Conservatives?

To understand how the Liberal Party works, a good starting point is former Howard government minister David Kemps 1973 essay A Leader and a Philosophy. Liberal factions tend to be very different to Labors factions, Kemp says, they arent organised in the same way and they tend to cut across each other on different issues, its not as clear-cut and there is much more fluidity.

The groupings in the Liberal Party tend to be around personalities and issues but you get people with similar views in different groups.

This observation is crucial. In the 1980s and 90s there were the dries, who emphasised free-market economics and conservative social policy, and the wets, who favoured more progressive social policy and bigger government, but those groups are no more.

These days the Moderate faction is the leading advocate of free-market economics whereas the National Right is more concerned with social issues: religious freedoms, gender identity, national security and, until recently, opposing same-sex marriage.

Climate change is still a lightning rod: the Moderates favour stronger action to mitigate it, the National Right counts some sceptics among its number and the Centre Right takes a pragmatic, middle-of-the-pack approach (as it does on many other issues).

Personalities in the Liberal constellation of alliances and leaders accrue personal loyalty over time especially from those they bring into parliament, such as the 15 new MPs who won their seats in 2019.

While the partys factional lines are on clearest display during leadership spills, the groups are always present, working behind the scenes. And while the party does not rely on factions to organise and manage policy debates to the extent that Labor does, the groupings play a key role in managing competing interests.

Assistant Minister to the Prime Minister Ben Morton with Prime Minister Scott Morrison in May 2019.Credit:Alex Ellinghausen

Scott Morrison is the titular head of the Morrison Club/Centre Right group. Outside NSW, where the Centre Right is an organised faction, this grouping is the least formally structured of the three main groups. It doesnt meet on a regular basis and is really several overlapping groups with shared interests and Morrison as its figurehead.

The groups unifying philosophy is pragmatism - that means an adherence to free-market economics (but with enough flexibility to splash billions to prop up the economy during the COVID-19 pandemic) and relatively conservative social values.

As one member of the group puts it, we realise you dont win elections by yelling at people about abortion. We are dry economically and socially conservative but not in an in your face way.

Morrisons club primarily consists of MPs who entered parliament when he did, in 2007: Alex Hawke, the factional organiser of the Centre Right in NSW, Queenslander Stuart Robert and West Australian Steve Irons. This core group is also defined by their shared faith (all are members of the Prayer Group more on that below) and their lets get things done approach.

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Ben Morton, another West Australian and, like Morrison, a former state division director, is one of the PMs closest and most able lieutenants but if Morrison were not in the parliament, Mortons philosophical home would be the National Right.

In NSW, Morrison and Hawke have five other rusted-on supporters in Hollie Hughes, Melissa McIntosh, Lucy Wicks, Julian Leeser and Jim Molan. Environment Minister Sussan Ley, also from NSW, is part of the Morrison Club but historically has been a moderate and so isnt considered a core member of the Centre Right.

About half of Treasurer Josh Frydenbergs Victorian group, including Hunt, Trade Minister Dan Tehan and a handful of others, belong to the Morrison Club. A large cohort of Queenslanders, many of them first-termers, people of faith or both, and some MPs from other states are also members of the Morrison Club. In all, about half of the Prayer Group belongs to the Centre Right while the other half is in the National Right.

Both Moderates and National Right members argue that some MPs self-nominate as members of the Centre Right because its the Morrison Club personal loyalty to the PM matters, particularly for the class of 2019.

MPs who have historically been moderates but are in the Morrison Club include Hunt, Ley, Hughes, Anne Ruston, Jason Wood, Julian Leeser, Sarah Henderson and Rowan Ramsey.

On the day that Morrison leaves parliament, its likely the Centre Right will begin to lose members back to the other two factions unless Frydenberg, the clear heir apparent to the Liberal leadership, can hold the club together. Its important to remember that back in 2014 there was a (Joe) Hockey Club but political trajectories can reverse in an instant.

Treasurer Josh Frydenberg, who is part of the Morrison Club, and Finance Minister Simon Birmingham, a Moderate. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen

Simon Birmingham, Marise Payne and Paul Fletcher are the three most influential Moderates in the federal Liberal Party. All three are cut from similar cloth and are quieter personalities than their factional predecessors Christopher Pyne, Julie Bishop and George Brandis.

The Moderates dont have a weekly meeting when parliament sits. Instead, they meet to discuss specific policies or legislation on a more ad hoc basis.

A grouping within the larger is dubbed the New Guard Moderates or Modern Liberals. Elected in 2016 or 2019, they typically represent inner-city lower house seats or are in the Senate.

This group are more economically dry than their elder colleagues, progressive on social issues and, if anything, willing to advocate for more ambitious climate change policy. As one member puts it: We are Menzies Liberals, the live and let live people. And we are the old dries and wets at the same time.

The New Guard have landed the chairmanships of some of parliaments most important committees, including mental health (Fiona Martin), taxation (Jason Falinski), economics (Tim Wilson), Fintech (Andrew Bragg) and treaties (Dave Sharma).

Nearly three years on from the spill, the PM has broad support across the party from all three factions.

As chief political correspondent David Crowe wrote in Venom, his book about the fall of Turnbull and the rise of Morrison, Morrison beat Dutton and Julie Bishop in the 2018 leadership contest because his core group of about 15 supporters was able to weld together an alliance that also included the Moderates, securing him his 45-40 victory in the party room.

Nearly three years on from the spill, the PM a natural conservative, not an ideological conservative, as one of his allies puts it has broad support from all three factions.

But that doesnt mean the Moderates are always happy with the PMs policy approach. Some feel he takes the Moderates support for granted; and they believe that, in a post-Morrison era, a lot of people in the Centre Right, in particular, will move back to us.

Peter Dutton is possibly the least well-understood conservative in Parliament.Credit:Alex Ellinghausen

The National Right (sometimes called the Hard Right) is the most organised faction in the Liberal Party and is undergoing a changing of the guard. For years its figureheads were Tony Abbott, Eric Abetz and Kevin Andrews. Abbott has, of course, left the building, Andrews has lost preselection and Abetz is facing a challenge from his former staffer, Jonathon Duniam, for the top spot on the Tasmanian Senate ticket.

Peter Dutton, the notional leader of the faction, is perhaps the least well-understood conservative in the parliament. He is best described as a national security conservative rather than a religious conservative, and is arguably more socially progressive than the Prime Minister.

Michaelia Cash has begun to fill that vacuum, as has rising star MP Andrew Hastie, but Mathias Cormann casts a long shadow in the west.

The exit of Mathias Cormann, Duttons close friend, has left a big gap in the National Right and in WA in particular. Senator Michaelia Cash has begun to fill that vacuum, as has MP Andrew Hastie, but the former senator casts a long shadow in the west. Angus Taylor is an important figure, insofar as hes a member of the cabinet, but doesnt tend to wield influence in factional brawls over preselections.

Victorias Michael Sukkar and the ACTs Zed Seselja have risen through the ranks and are now involved in everything from organising the annual National Right dinner to influencing internal policy debates (incidentally, the Moderates have a similar annual meal known as the Black Hand dinner, while the Centre Right doesnt have a comparable event but some attend the National Right meal).

Sukkar also wields significant influence over preselection in his home state. Hastie, as well as Queenslander Amanda Stoker and South Australian Tony Pasin, are also increasingly influential.

The National Right is more likely to speak with one voice on social policy rather than economic policy. As a member of the faction puts it, the group believes in government that is as big as it has to be and the acceptance that the future of the Liberal Party is in the outer suburbs and the regions.

We believe in defending the value of institutions that have stood the test of time.

Philosophically, the National Right and the Morrison Club have a lot in common - its a question of degrees of emphasis on specific policies - and many members could be at home in either group.

The fact that many MPs belong to more than one group underscores the partys less formal factional alignments and how interests overlap.

Key sub-groups include the Prayer Group, the Monkey Pod Lunch Conservatives, Frydenbergs Victorian group, the Rural and Regional Liberals, the Veterans group and the Morrison-Hawke Centre Right in NSW.

The Prayer Group has, at its core, the Prime Minister and some of his key allies including Irons and Robert. While some of its members are Pentecostal Christians like the PM, its not an exclusive club there are also Catholic members and Julian Leeser, who is Jewish.The group also includes members of the National Right such as Andrew Hastie, Amanda Stoker and Jonathon Duniam underscoring the confluence of interests among the National Right and the Centre Right.

Convened by Peter Dutton, the group shares a philosophical outlook, discusses policy and shares takeaway lunch on a Tuesday.

The Monkey Pod Lunch group first revealed back in 2015, and named after the tropical hardwood tree table in a meeting room in the ministerial wing of Parliament House is a group of like-minded National Right conservatives. Convened by Dutton, the group discusses policy and shares takeaway lunch on a Tuesday.

The Rural and Regional grouping of Liberals, convened by South Australian Rowan Ramsey and with at least 19 members, exists to advance regional Liberal interests in contra-distinction to the 21 Nationals MPs. Though they wouldnt be considered a faction, this Liberal group is designed to ensure the party maintains a strong presence in the bush.

Other groupings include Frydenbergs Victorian ambition faction, which takes in members of the Centre Right and the National Right. This group has 10 members, meets semi-regularly when in Canberra, and works to ensure its preferred Victorian candidates are preselected, but at a national level is split in two.

Theres also a Veterans group with eight members that includes Stuart Robert, Andrew Hastie, Phillip Thompson, Gavin Pearce, Jim Molan, Vince Connelly, Andrew McLachlan and David Fawcett but not Defence Minister Linda Reynolds, a former brigadier in the Army Reserve.

Celia Hammond (here being congratulated after her maiden speech in 2019 by Treasurer Josh Frydenberg and Prime Minister Scott Morrison) has ties to all three main groupings.Credit:Alex Ellinghausen

Then there are the independents. House Speaker Tony Smith and Senate president Scott Ryan (both Victorians) were, back in the day, dyed-in-the- wool members of the Costello faction in Victoria but that faction no longer exists. Tim Wilson, Jane Hume and Katie Allen are (broadly speaking) members of the Moderates but would be more likely to describe themselves as Classical, or even Menzies, Liberals.

WA Senator Dean Smith now tells colleagues he is a faction of one.

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WA senator Dean Smith is by disposition an arch-conservative (and monarchist) but he was also a leading proponent of same-sex marriage and now tells colleagues he is a faction of one. Fellow West Australian Celia Hammond straddles all three groups she was backed by the National Rights Cormann to take Julie Bishops seat, is a member of the Prayer Group and holds progressive views on climate change.

Fairfax MP Ted OBrien is not factionally aligned but is one of the key organisers of a Team Queensland group of MPs (which could be considered another grouping). Fellow Queenslander Andrew Laming is considered so mercurial as to be an independent.

The independents have plenty in common with each of the three groups but they also underscore just how fluid Liberal Party allegiances can be.

Read also: Whos who in Labors Left and Right factions?

An earlier version of this article said that Senator James Paterson is a member of the New Guard Moderates sub-faction. This is not correct, he is in the National Right. The article has also been updated to reflect the fact that Senator Andrew Bragg is chair of the Fintech committee.

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Whos who in the Liberals left, right and centre factions? - Sydney Morning Herald

Yet the centre-right prime minister, Mark Rutte, is still likely to form a government

DUTCH POLITICS are absurdly complicated. The Netherlands has a proportional representation system with no minimum threshold (most EU countries have one at 5%), ensuring a large number of parties and a constant churn of new ones. Voters are more evenly divided than ever between them. The prime minister, Mark Rutte, a brilliant and imperturbably cheerful tactician, has nonetheless managed to stay atop the heap for ten years, through three ruling coalitions. Last year he was hit with the covid-19 pandemic and with a child-benefits scandal that forced his government to resign just two months before an election. Yet there was never much doubt that when the votes were counted, he and his centre-right Liberal (VVD) party would again come in first. Preliminary results after the ballot on March 17th showed that the VVD had won 23%, well ahead of any other party.

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Second place, however, was a big surprise: D66, a left-leaning, liberal pro-European party. Its leader Sigrid Kaag, the current trade minister, is a former UN diplomat who presented herself as a candidate to become the Netherlands first female prime minister. D66 won 15%, one of the best results in its history. For his part, Mr Rutte moved towards the centre during the campaign, imitating left-wing parties rhetoric on social policy. And with the exception of the populist right, every party emphatically backed strong climate policies. For a country that spent last summer leading Europes frugal club of countries opposed to greater fiscal integration and nearly torpedoed the blocs 750bn ($900bn) covid-19 relief fund, the election may signal an important shift.

Mr Rutte owes his victory partly to approval of his handling of covid-19. The Netherlands has not done very wellinfection rates have been higher than in peers like Germany and Denmark, and track-and-trace and vaccination programmes have been slow. But most voters seemed not to mind, while others blamed the health minister, a Christian Democrat. During the campaign most of the opposition avoided the issue. As for the child-benefits scandal (in which the tax authority financially ruined thousands of parents over false accusations of fraud), it was not the VVD leader but the head of Labour who quit over his role in the affair.

Yet even for the teflon-coated Mr Rutte, forming a coalition will be difficult. Between 15 and 17 parties have made it into parliament, depending on the final count. Together, the VVD, D66 and the Christian Democrats have exactly half the seats. But the Christian Democrats vote share fell to just 10%, from 13% in the previous election. Their leader, Wopke Hoekstra, currently finance minister, had been billed as a contender for Mr Ruttes job but ran a clumsy campaign with no clear theme. They may prefer a spell in opposition to rebuild their strength, making Mr Ruttes task harder.

The populist right split into more parties, but grew overall. The Party for Freedom (PVV), led by the anti-Muslim firebrand Geert Wilders, had hoped to finish second but settled for third with 11%. A smaller far-right party, Forum for Democracy, grew to 5%, while a new one, JA21, won 2%. All are considered untouchable by the major parties. On the left, Labour, the GreenLeft party and the far-left Socialists were pummelled, each winning 5-6%. Mr Rutte is unlikely to want more than one of them in his cabinet.

That leaves the great swirl of small-to-tiny Dutch parties. They often forecast trends that take longer to materialise in other countries. Four years ago the arrival of Forum for Democracy seemed to augur a new wave of alt-right populism, but that party fractured in November over racism and anti-semitism. The Party for the Animals, the worlds first animal-rights party to win parliamentary representation, got 4%. Identity politics is going strong: DENK, a party representing Dutch Muslims, won 2%. Meanwhile Volt, a new pan-European liberal party that runs in every country in the EU, rose in the polls in the final weeks of the campaign and won 2%.

The VVDs turn to the centre and the success of D66 suggest the next Dutch government may be a tad less parsimonious in future EU fiscal debates. But much depends on which parties join the coalition. In 2017 forming a government took over six months. Mr Rutte says the covid-19 crisis requires more urgent action, and wants speedy negotiations with D66 and the Christian Democrats. But Ms Kaag wants to bring in more parties on the left. She will be happy to take her time.

This article appeared in the Europe section of the print edition under the headline "Suddenly Sigrid"

See the original post here:

A Dutch election boosts both pro-EU liberals and the far right - The Economist

Founders for the New College of Floridas first collegiate rowing team this month gathered at Nathan Benderson Park for a small ceremony. Toni Ginsberg-Klemmt, the New College student-turned-coach of New Crew SRQ, brimmed with emotion as she stood by the shore of the Olympic-caliber rowing course. Looking toward administration and a handful of gathered students, she said I could not have been able to do it without you guys.

Thats a fairly common sentiment among the alumni for New College, the honors college and only dedicated liberal arts school in Floridas State University System. Dr. Donal OShea, President of the institution, can rattle off the numbers about the school. Its the states top producer of Fulbright Scholars and the top supplier of students for PhDs in math. This week, U.S. News & World Report listed the school as one of the top 100 liberal arts colleges in the country and the no. 6 public college in the nation, behind only the three U.S. military academies, the Virginia Military Institute and St. Marys College in Maryland.

But knowing students who attend the Sarasota school retain the ability to experience and accomplish dreams is a huge priority. New College, with fewer than 1,000 undergraduate students for now, provides an environment small enough that it brims with opportunities for students to form organizations, whether its a crew team or a student publication. Students also enjoy a greater ability to work with advisers and tailor an education curriculum that best suits them.

Its why people who work here are really committed to being a public institution, OShea said. I cant overstate how important I feel it is that this is not an elite thing.

Its an experience closer to what students find on private college campuses. New Colleges average class size is 12, the student-to-faculty ratio at the school 7 to 1. Alumni and supporters of the school say its a treasure within the university system, proving the equivalent of an Ivy League education for a fraction of the price, especially to Florida students.

Mary Ruiz, chair of the Board of Trustees, first acquainted herself with the Sarasota campus as a student in 1973. She started her education when the school was still a private institution; it converted to a public institution before her graduation. She remains proud of the education at a tiny liberal arts college available for public tuition rates.

People who could never aspire to that level of education can easily access it here, she said.

Annual tuition for Florida residents attending New College this year was $6,916, with out-of-state students paying $29,994. By comparison, annual tuition at Stetson University rang in at $49,140 for the 2020-21 school year. For Harvard University, its $51,904.

And of course, a high percentage of students at New College qualify for scholarships from the state or outside organizations. The average SAT score for incoming freshman is 1257 and the average high school grade point average is 3.87.

And while some dismiss pure academia as unhelpful for Florida filling workforce gaps see attempts to pay change Bright Futures scholarships based on the job prospects of pursued degrees Ruiz sees the opposite. While the business consultant values the MBA she earned from the University of South Florida after completing her bachelors at New College, its that undergrad degree that has proven more useful in her career and efforts as an entrepreneur. And while lessons about financial obligations taught in business school become dated over years, the perseverance and leadership learned at New College remains as useful now as ever.

Its the nonconventional curriculum construction at the school that contributes to disciplined academia, Ruiz said. Rather than spoon-feeding a list of classes students must take to complete a major, a common practice at state universities, New College requires students to create a contract of learning with an adviser that gets renewed each year.

If forces students to be self-reliant, and forces them to have a sense of agency, she said. It inspires an incredible work ethic. As an honors college, its very demanding. Once you get through a New College degree, nothing the world can throw you will phase you.

That also speaks to a frequent criticism OShea hears. How can college be rigorous when the school for the most part eschews traditional grades? The college President suggests the individual demands and attention from faculty put a higher level of expectation on New College students.

Its not just putting every student on a single scale, he said. But its much more akin to a performance review. Its very easy and reductive just assigning a letter , and it doesnt tell you a whole lot.

The results, OShea suggests, can be seen in student performance once they leave the institution. About one in six graduates pursue PhDs, he said. Prestigious alumni include former Rep. Lincoln Diaz-Balart and former Georgia state Sen. Samuel Zamarripa.

But there are also a significant number of entrepreneurs. Ruiz counts in those ranks, as the founder of Ruiz Strategic Consulting and former CEO of Centerstone of Sarasota.

Norm Worthington, the founder of cloud communications firm Star2Star, in January sold the business for $437 million in a major acquisition by Sangoma.

Maxeme Tuchman, founder of Miami-based Caribu, just made Inc. Magazines Female Founders 100 list for her software app allowing parents to read and draw with their children long-distance. That company, founded in 2016, pulled in an investment by AOL co-founder Steve Case.

New College leaders contend their student body may not be earning degrees geared toward specific careers, thats because todays students will be the ones creating tomorrows jobs, and theres no telling what skills those positions will require.

Still, the school faces scrutiny each year, often surrounding the cost per student to provide this level of education.

Where we get in trouble is when you compare us to these schools that have 50,000 or 60,000 students, they can conceal some of those high costs in areas like sciences, OShea said. Research projects at New College can require access to labs and materials, the same as they do at a major university, but those costs wont be diluted by a few thousands low-cost English and Literature degrees.

Lawmakers representing the region say the benefits of New College to the state are clear.

New College is a very special institution, said Sen. Joe Gruters, a Sarasota Republican. That it has continuously been ranked as one of the top liberal arts colleges and one of the best values for students by U.S. News & World Report shows its extremely valuable for our local community.

Rep. Fiona McFarland, a Sarasota Republican, echoed the sentiment. Its a great school and we are tremendously proud to have it here, she said. Its one of the jewels in the crown of Sarasotas diverse education offerings.

The lawmakers agreed theres likely efficiencies any institution in Florida can improve, especially in this tough budget year.

Rep. Will Robinson, a Bradenton Republican, also represents the campus, and he has heard complaints about the per student costs, too. But the institution remains a critical piece of the states higher education inventory.

Theres such diverse value not just to Southwest Florida but to all of Florida, he said. Im familiar with the cost per degree. But that doesnt change what I feel about the college or the value it has for the students or for my community.

OShea agrees theres always reasons to evaluate spending. He also stressed New College has aimed to improve its financial standing in recent years. Its beginning to see outcomes from several years of efforts to increase enrollment. The college received upward of 1,380 applications already for the fall, beating prior years, and the school typically sees the most applications come in during March or April.

The school expects this year to hit its targets as far as student enrollment.

Like any university, New College continues to evolve with the times and with the personalities in charge. OShea, an internationally regarded mathematician in charge on New College since the summer of 2012, announced earlier this year he will retire in June. Ruiz said the college remains in the throes of an expansive search for a new President. That means shes talking as much as possible with students and faculty about what many want to see in the administration for the school moving forward. The commitment to a rigorous public education remains a priority for all parties, she said.

People will ask me all the time, arent you just an arts and sciences college? Yes, we are, she said. And we believe in results.

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New College ranked among the best value liberal arts colleges in the nation - Florida Politics

In her book How to Lose a Country, on how democracy is eroded by the populist right, the Turkish writer Ece Temelkuran warns that too often opponents of this creeping authoritarianism, which is challenging countries around the world, dont fully register what is happening until it is too late.

Theres an assumption that some force or institution will kick in to halt the march but such faith is misguided. All these trusted, cast-iron fulcrums are eventually melted down, she writes, and the country is left to face the brutal power of the regime without the curbing, imaginary protection of any state institution or democratic practice.

Increasingly, it has felt as though parts of the British press are not up to the curbing democratic practice of holding our government to account. As the Conservatives metastasised into a nativist populist project and won a parliamentary majority, there were too few alarm bells or flashing lights. Instead, a normalising media patter set up Boris Johnson as ascones-and-jam-eating, freedom-loving, socially liberal prime minister.Well, now his government has passed ashockingly authoritarian policing bill, a severe crackdown on protest that also criminalises Gypsy and traveller communities. One MPdescribed the bills rulesas so loose and lazy they would make a dictator blush. The contrast between political reality and media portrayal could hardly be starker.

Dozens of Conservative MPs were sacked or had resigned over Brexit and the hard right turn the party had taken. In thewords of one of them, Nick Boles; Johnson truly is Britains Trump He is turning the Conservative and Unionist Party into the English National Party. He must be stopped. The alarm bell was ringing, but the right-wing media muffled it.

Even the scandalous pandemic mismanagement of the past year is cast as a sorry product of the PMs liberal inclinations. On Johnsons lockdown delays,Robert Peston, political editor for ITV News, wrote: If Boris Johnson has a political philosophy, it is that he will not restrict our liberties unless there is an overwhelming reason to do so. Commentators echo briefings on Johnsons reluctance to limits our freedoms. Aterrible political failurecosting tens of thousands of lives was thus rearranged as an unfortunate excess of liberal decency.

And so, the reality ofan increasingly draconian governmentkeeps bouncing off the surface of media analysis. This inability to appraise our politics is partly due to the deflecting force of British exceptionalism: that an authoritarian slide can only happen in other, faraway countries. A superiority complex that interprets crises elsewhere as the product of ancient hatreds, sectarianism or political immaturity afflicts a blindness to how quickly things can fall apart, anywhere, once they begin to break.

Perhaps it is also difficult to spot authoritarianism when it comes from the ideological camp that you sit with. It doesnt help that Britains media and political classes often feed from the same elite pond, producing a familiarity that might cloud judgement. On top of which, Johnsonsjokey charm is cultivated to melt criticism, so that commentators are disarmed by the political equivalent of a pickup artist.

Whatever the reasons, the result is free-falling despair among progressives who warned of the political tornado that is now wrecking Britain. Our judiciary and lawyers are attacked by the government and its media cheerleaders and so, too, areprobing journalists.

The government has sought toundermine the rule of law, by carving out exceptions to it, and has the Human Rights Act and liberal institutions such as the Electoral Commissionin its sights. This government has banned schools from using material from anti-capitalist groups and claimed that teaching about white privilege is illegal. Meanwhile, the Labour leadership seems terrified of confronting or perhaps doesnt quite grasp the populist-right climate we are in. All of which is simultaneously shocking and isolating because, as Temelkuran notes: If your moral values are not politically organised, you can end up feeling quite alone. This is why protest movements are so often galvanised at such moments, and why we are now seeing defiant campaigns andpersistent legal challengesto the governments authoritarian measures.

The power that still remains is the collective power of each other. But what also remains, still, is the unshakeable sense that there really should be more media sirens blaring.

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Boris Johnson was portrayed as a liberal, but his draconian government is wrecking Britain - The Independent

The latest outrage is from the world of academia. Scholar Pratap Bhanu Mehta resigned from liberal Ashoka University ostensibly because the founders were upset that his columns in the Indian Express were becoming increasingly critical of the governmentwhich they were, thank the lord! Such a welcome relief from his 2014-2015 columns where he behaved like an indulgent uncle.

Back to the founders: Do you find it odd that people who create what they call a liberal university, and underline the liberal tag in a show-offy manner (with haloes gleaming on their fat heads) are not remotely interested in defending democratic values? This behaviour is not all that strange when you consider that the founders are businessmen, and it is a truth universally acknowledged that Indian businessmen believe that anyone associated with them should not criticise the mummy-daddy sarkar, because then the mummy-daddy sarkar will not give them sweeties and how on earth will they turn into smug fat cats?

In solidarity, Mehtas colleague, Arvind Subramanian (former Chief Economic Advisor to the Modi government, best known for his All is well reassurances when all wasnt well), also resigned.

Then other scholars from across the world who had also cheerfully assured us in 2014 that we had nothing to fear from the scary Modi government jumped in to defend Mehta and described him in the sort of glowing terms that are best suited for obituaries. Sigh. As for me, Im jumping up and down too. Up, because these people have finally realised their earlier judgement errors, and down because of the gravity of the situation.

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Reality Bites: A Tale of Two Liberal Indian Universities, one old and the other new - National Herald

Tom Mulcair was the leader of the New Democratic Party of Canada between 2012 and 2017.

Since the Fall, Justin Trudeau has been champing at the bit to launch into a general election. In October, the Liberals threatened the opposition parties that if they insisted on pushing for a new committee to study the WE Charity scandal, it would be a confidence vote that could send Canadians to the polls. Trudeau wasnt bluffing. He couldnt decently have called an election just as the second wave of the pandemic was hitting, but if he could blame the opposition, he could get away with it.

Opposition parties live for the next election. That an election was seen by them as a potential threat and not a godsend, spoke volumes about the Liberals strength and their own lack of preparedness.

Recent polls have the Official Opposition Conservatives at 30 per cent. Even at his low water mark in terms of personal popularity, Stephen Harper still managed to get 32 per cent of the vote in the 2015 campaign.

In their elections held during the pandemic, both New Brunswicks Conservative and B.C.s NDP minority governments were rewarded with majorities. Saskatchewan returned its government with a renewed majority. The Federal Liberals want their turn.

Its easy to understand. After a year of restrictions and lockdowns, people are exhausted and want some hope. The parties that had been there to help, got rewarded. Thats an object lesson for the Conservatives as we head into a likely late Spring election. You have to have something other than frustrated grievances on offer.

The Liberals know that a Conservative Party below 30 per cent is their key to a majority victory. Over the past few weeks weve seen the Liberals check off boxes for promises on everything from a new language policy to guns. It hasnt all been smooth sailing but theyve been clearing the way.

When Chrystia Freeland announced that we would not have a budget in March, you could sense the trap being set and the ballot question come into focus: do you want to re-elect the Liberals, who took care of you and your family; or do you want the Conservatives, who will bring tough times and austerity?

Freelands yet-to-be-scheduled budget will have a big honking plan for post-pandemic stimulus spending and more deficits to go with it. The Conservatives will rail that the Liberals overspent to the tune of $100 billion prior to the pandemic and when it hitthe cupboard was bare. Theyll complain that we shouldve had a budget long before. Theyll ask how such amounts could ever be paid back. It will all be true and it will all be for naught.

When the U.S. can cough up a further $1.9 trillion to sail its way out of the post-pandemic doldrums, surely nothing Trudeau and Freeland can spend will appear worrisome by comparison.

A small clue as to the Conservative challenge could be seen in last weeks activities that commemorated one year of pandemic. There were solemn events in various capitals across the country, including Ottawa. Trudeau, always at his best when emoting, was striking just the right chord.

Then it was Erin OTooles turn. It was tone deaf. Instead of empathy, caring and emotion, he rhymed off the governments shortcomings. Dissing its performance on vaccines, making wobbly comparisons to the U.S. vaccine delivery (yep, they manufacture them, we dont). It was a recipe for a return to opposition.

The vaccine argument is over, that ship has sailed, Trudeau pulled off his Carbomite manoeuvre. Whatever had to be changed or added to the original contracts has been. We may have given up the right to sue, we may have greatly increased what we had to pay, it doesnt matter. People are getting vaccinated from coast-to-coast-to coast and well have largely moved on by June.

Somewhere the keeper of the Big Red Playbook is thumbing through the chapters covering the 1972 and 1974 Canadian general elections. In 72 Trudeau Pre lost his majority after just one term. The flamboyant object of Trudeaumania had been given a lesson in humility. He made friends with David Lewiss NDP to govern for a while, then opened a withering fire on them as he called a general election for the Summer of 1974. The rest is history and Trudeau would reign (almost) uninterrupted well into the 1980s.

Trudeau fils can hardly wait to try his hand and seems unconcerned about any opponent.

Jagmeet Singh has done a very good job preparing his troops for the election. His fundraising has been strong and his support remains at a historically solid 20 per cent. He has some very seasoned advisors who have deep government experience, notably in Manitoba. Theyre ready for battle and know the task ahead. Their deft handling of the Green Partys attempt to make up an insurrection in New Brunswick during the last campaign showed expertise. That bench strength will serve him well once again.

Tragically, some elements of his caucus have chosen to ride their anti-Israel hobby horse at this precise moment and it will take all of Singhs considerable skills not to let it become an unnecessary distraction. Even as historical elements from his Partys fringes try to ignite the issue, Singh will be required to waste precious energy and time explaining that talk of Israel apartheid and shmoozing with Jeremy Corbin are out of line with established NDP policy and out of synch with Canadian voters.

Annamie Paul remains an exceptional political figure in her own right. She knows environmental issues better than any party leader and is solid in debate in both French and in English. Unfortunately for her, like Banquos ghost, Elizabeth May still haunts the hallways and can be counted upon to scold the other parties and help Trudeau whenever she can, most recently berating their tomfoolery. Its difficult to see how that can help the new Green leader take on those same Liberals.

The Bloc is chugging along, leader Yves-Franois Blanchet has been careful not to make himself the author of the governments defeat, most recently backing the Liberals Bill on medically-assisted dying. His party is always at the unique whim of the electors in La Belle Province. The Bloc has bounced between its high as official opposition and its low of only four seats, since being founded. Blanchet will try his best not do anything to compromise the 30-plus ridings he won in the last campaign.

Blanchet will be vying for the same seats OToole hoped to compete for in Francois Legaults heartland outside Montral. Given OTooles underperformance to date, Bloc seats are probably at greater risk in the event of a Liberal resurgence. Legault could still prove to be a wild card, though, because he is ideologically close to the Conservatives. Legault also knows that a strong Bloc could help its provincial separatist sister, the Parti Quebecois, a rival for Legaults CAQ in next years general provincial election. Fifty shades of blue in the Quebec countryside.

Peter MacKay once famously said that Andrew Scheer had missed scoring on an empty net in failing to defeat Trudeau, despite the blackface scandal and other weaknesses.

That may not have been entirely fair.

What anyone facing Trudeau has to learn is that youre not running against a politician, youre running against a celebrity. Thats why going on the attack often backfires. Canadians may not like all of the Liberals policies or their politicians but they feel that theyve known Trudeau all his life and, like indulgent parents, at times seem willing to excuse even the worst behaviour.

This will be a campaign like no other. By any fair measure, the Liberals have done exceedingly well in managing the social parts of the pandemic but failed miserably at others, in particular protection at our borders.

Trudeau is facing a third potential finding by the ethics Commissioner that he broke the rules. Will Canadians be as forgiving as ever, or will it be three strikes youre out as far as some voters are concerned?

Watching the opposition parties whiff on their attempts to pin down the defence minister on issues of sexual misconduct in the military, and completely muff their most recent outing with the Keilburgers, its hard to conclude that Trudeaus confidence is misplaced.

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What to expect from the Liberals: an election, ASAP - Maclean's

Illustration: John ShakespeareCredit:The Sydney Morning Herald

I was abused by a family member, groomed from the age of eight. Its affected my whole life and the decisions I have made. Its a common story you hear from anybody in that situation and its a good example of why we need to have a national conversation about these things. It is such a prevalent issue.

The speed with which Janine Hendrys spontaneous tweet how many women would you need to form a circle surrounding Parliament House? turned into a 100,000-person national rally is a pretty good clue. It took only two weeks. It was not a celebrity-led event; it had no organisational backing, no money.

We have a once-in-a-generation opportunity now for real change, says Archer. Youve got your head in the sand if you cant see the momentum behind this push for justice, for change, for people to have their voices heard.

But its the policy of the government to put its head in the sand. The leadership is trying to move on to its preferred topics, its preferred political battlegrounds of the economy, the vaccination program, national security.

Scott Morrison judged at the outset that the demand for justice for women was just a passing enthusiasm. That was a month ago. He was wrong. Hes hated every moment of the campaign, the news, the noise. Two of his cabinet ministers are on leave, the government has lost ground in the polls, its lost control of the political agenda.

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The government has bungled badly and just wants the whole women problem to disappear, as if 52 per cent of the electorate is some special-interest clique that can be relegated with a couple of standard crisis-management techniques and talking points dictated by political backroom apparatchiks with all the life experience of an introverted monk in a cloistered order.

Morrison declined the invitation to join the rally. Instead, he offered to meet three or four delegates in his office. The organisers declined: Given that so many have come to the steps of Parliament to make their voices heard, the question is, why cant the Prime Minister take the last few steps through the front door and hear them directly?

In the event, at least 15 Coalition MPs and senators were prepared to venture outside their high-security hideout to meet their fellow citizens. Should Morrison have taken those last few steps? Bridget Archer says its hard for her to know whether it would have been helpful.

I think what would be good now is to follow up, she says. We have to keep the momentum or it will be lost.

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Another Liberal backbencher, Russell Broadbent, has written to Morrison proposing a national summit of womens groups to discuss the subject.

Archer supports this idea. I dont think the Prime Minister or the Opposition Leader is to be expected to magically fix it all. But we cant point to the record amount we are investing in health or in domestic violence, even though its true, because its not enough. It doesnt matter how much youre tipping in if the bucket has a hole in it. Weve done that with sexual violence and its got worse.

Something is not working. The missing piece is cultural change, and that is a structural issue. We cant presume to know it all. You have to listen. Something along the lines of a national summit would be a really good start, and then build on that.

It would need to be bipartisan if it was to work. Archer says she is consulting womens groups about such an idea. In the next couple of days I will certainly be putting my views to the Prime Minister.

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Shell be up against the conventional political playbook for such inconveniences. And she knows it. She summarises accurately the political play to date: The Labor Party has been saying for a few weeks that the Liberals have a problem with women. Now the Liberal party has been saying you, Labor, dont have the moral high ground, which has been one of the reasons that the Prime Ministers office has been cheerleading the Liberals Nicolle Flint as she repeatedly accuses Labor of tacitly endorsing a sexist hate campaign against her at the 2019 election.

This week is the closing of the political loop on that yes, both sides are guilty of mistreating women, Archer says. We are missing the point. The whole country has a problem of culture, of increased levels of violence and disrespect against women.

Chanel Contoss petition, with thousands of testimonials of current and former schoolgirls detailing sexual assault, is one indicator.

Another is the NSW Police Commissioner, Mick Fullers expression of frustration this week with the annual 15,000 reports of sexual assault: Men continue to get away with it less than 2 per cent of the reports lead to guilty verdicts in court. His proposal for an app as a way of registering sexual consent may be impractical, but it was a genuine effort to find new ways to deal with an intractable problem.

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Closing the loop on the political play the two major parties inflicting damage on each other is not the end of the story and it isnt even the beginning, says Archer.

The other element of the standard playbook is the look busy trick. The government is busy with urgent priorities just now. Archers response: The Australian people rightly expect their government to walk and chew gum at the same time. Yes, there is a vaccine rollout, and there is an economic recovery plan. You know what? This is an equally important issue of national significance. What are you saying if you say other things are more important? Thats the problem. Thats exactly the problem.

The politics is the process of strangling the humanity. The political week started with the rally demanding attention for the women of Australia; it ended with a parade of politicians talking about themselves and each other. We have to turn our gaze away from ourselves and back onto the people of Australia, Archer urges.

If the national interest isnt compelling enough, theres also a political incentive. The Coalition once enjoyed an enormous lead over Labor in its share of womens votes. In 1967 the Coalition had an advantage of 9 per cent over Labor, as the ANUs Australian Electoral Study shows.

Thats been declining consistently and went to nothing towards the end of the Howard period, says the ANUs Ian McAllister. Women were exactly divided between the main parties in their support for a while.

The long-term trend of women to be less conservative and more progressive is witnessed across much of the Western world, for three reasons, McAllister explains: a growing proportion of women went into higher education; likewise they went into the work force; and women, once more religious then men, lost that tendency.

Under Julia Gillard, Labor won a surge of women voters, its advantage 7 per cent for a while. Most of that has gone, but Labor still held a 2 per cent edge over the government among women at the 2019 election.

Former prime minister Julia Gillard welcomed another woman to Labors ranks when Senator Marielle Smith delivered her first parliamentary speech in September 2019.Credit:Alex Ellinghausen

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All of which suggests that factors such as leadership and the handling of gender issues in Parliament may well have an influence on voting preference, McAllister concludes.

In other words, if its not too late, the powerful current demanding justice for women today isnt necessarily just a danger to be dodged; it can be intelligently approached and humanely handled, a political asset to be salvaged.

The women and the men of Australia are telling us that the time is now and they are looking for leadership, says Bridget Archer.

Spoken like a true leader.

Peter Hartcher is political editor and international editor of The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.

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The first Liberal MP to join the March 4 Justice: her heartfelt message for the PM - Sydney Morning Herald

For Canberra Liberals Leader Elizabeth Lee, the last few weeks have been "emotionally charged".

Late last year, she decided to go public with claims she'd been sexually harrassed by former High Court Judge Dyson Heydon in 2013.

Mr Heydon has emphatically denied any allegation of sexual harrassment.

Over the past few weeks, she's been reflecting on her decision to speak out, while watching on as women have made allegations of sexual assault, sexism and misogyny at Australia's federal Parliament.

They included Brittany Higgins, a former Liberal staffer who claims she was raped by a colleague in a ministerial office.

When the March 4 Justice protest was held on the lawn of that same building, Ms Lee joined their ranks.

ABC News: Tom Maddocks

Ms Lee said those recent events had reinforced her belief in the importance of women in leadership positions telling their stories.

It was a conviction that was also galvanisedin the aftermath of her accusation against Justice Heydon, when she received an outpouring of support.

"A lot of women who I know and who I don't know, reached out to me and said 'thank you for sharing because a similar experience happened to me and made me realise I'm not alone'," she said.

"As somebody especially from a multicultural background, there is so much stigma attached to coming out and revealing that you've had an experience."

Ms Lee said she wantedto set an example forwomen from diverse backgrounds "to let them know that it's not their fault".

She said too often, people who had experienced sexual harassment or abuse blamed themselves for what had occurred.

"A lot of the time that's where it goes a self-blame game," she said.

From the start, she was aware of the significance of her appointment to the top job.

"There was a lot of interest when I was elected leader of my party. The first woman leader for my party for about 20 years, but also of the female leadership team with my deputy Giulia Jones," she said.

"I think that was really welcomed by the community."

She said she was encouraged by the fact that women were strongly represented in the ACT Legislative Assembly.

"I think it helps enormously, because the public has spoken very loudly that they want to see women in leadership roles," she said.

ABC News: Dylan Anderson

Ms Lee contends there isa big difference between the culture on Capital Hill and what happensup the road at the ACT Legislative Assembly, but she warns no workplace is immune.

"What we've been hearing is just horrific," she said.

"The other thing that we've realised from these instances that have come up is that we can't be complacent in any workplace.

"It's about making sure that our leaders, across the country, across all political parties, know that this is not limited and it's not unique to politics and that we do need to look at this very seriously across the board."

Ms Lee would notbe drawn on whether she thinks there needs to be an inquiry into the allegationagainst Attorney-General Christian Porter, but said she hassince spoken to Prime Minister Scott Morrison about issues for women in parliament.

"He himself actually raised his concerns about what was happening as well," she said.

"So I am under no delusions about the importance of what is happening, the gravity of the situation and that is why politicians from all parties have been very concerned and have expressed that concern."

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Canberra Liberals leader Elizabeth Lee on the importance of speaking out about injustice as a woman in leadership - ABC News