Fascism - What is the likelihood of it really taking hold in Australia?

[Gethelred]

I don't want to catastrophise either, but I think war-gaming dire potential futures for Oz is well worth doing. The right is on the march in so many countries and we're in a globalised world.

Having said that, I really hope you're right. The Lucky Country indeed.

But even there - if, by a quirk of history, Australia has accidentally put in place several mechanisms that obviate a fascist takeover (I really don't think a convincing case can be made that any of the bulwarks we enjoy were specifically introduced as a guard against fascism - we actually had a very strong and popular fascist movement here in the 20s and 30s, with the secret armies and so on) - what can we do to embed those bulwarks and prevent their remioval or weakening?

And what can we learn from those happy accidents of our history that can be applied to future, as yet unanticipated threats from fascism?

IMO - given that I'm not a fascism expert - the push for efficiency in government and the removal of regulation works in fascism's favour. It reduces the guardrails, turns regulation into unspoken rules which fascists can then discard. It decreases the bureaucratic rules and governance that they need to navigate to achieve power within democratic institutions, and frankly the more byzantine and seemingly absurd the better off we are because - as stated - fascists in the most part aren't intelligent.

Government is always a compromise from a few different directions, but one of the largest compromises made is to impede or bar the unscrupulous and awful from power whilst still allowing access for causes people will support. The entire point of elections and the filtering mechanisms of government is to place checks on power at every point to stop one one hand unworthies and whatnot - from both a right wing and a left wing perspective - from getting a hold of the reigns and to limit what they can actually do once there.

So - with that in mind - the less unwritten, uncodified interactions between individuals and power, ensuring that at every point it requires more than one, more than two, more than three people whose positions are reliant on substantial portions of the voter base, the better. Force people to work together, and force them to work within a rigid ruleset. Prevent and subvert any attempts at deregulation and a decrease in transparency as it will provide space and darkness within which fascists can work.

Maintain the compromise of government at the genuine crux of locking itself into immobility with too many checks over power to achieve anything whilst still being able to maintain itself and move to confront catastrophe. Codify all 'done things' into actual regulation with consequences upon breaking those regulations.

 

[Grin]

I remember at uni when I was young, there were well meaning, deluded dicks talking about communist revolution. This right wing violent fantasy is no less delusional. Just a different demographic

 

[CD Xbow]

I remember at uni when I was young, there were well meaning, deluded dicks talking about communist revolution. This right wing violent fantasy is no less delusional. Just a different demographic

If you are old enough they could be the same folks.

 

[Northalives]

If you are old enough they could be the same folks.

hahahahaha, that's brilliant!!

 

[SBD Gonzalez]

I remember at uni when I was young, there were well meaning, deluded dicks talking about communist revolution. This right wing violent fantasy is no less delusional. Just a different demographic

Unfortunately, a much better financed demographic. A lot of the backers of Regress, sorry, Advance, are very wealthy indeed.

 

[Gralin]

I've said it elsewhere on the forum, but I don't find his opinions on Australia terribly compelling. He's merely pointed to the presence of a right wing racist element in our past, as though that alone was enough to make Australia uniquely vulnerable.

I also question how much of that article is interview and how much is pretext for something the journalist in question wanted to say anyway.

my view is the risk of Australia sliding into fascism isn't the general population

its how governments and owners of capital are going to react to unrest among the population as conditions get worse in the chase for more profit

we're far from immune from that particular thing and we've seen a lot of authoritarian legislation passed at state and federal levels over the last few years

laws to curtail protest, increased police powers etc

 

[Gethelred]

my view is the risk of Australia sliding into fascism isn't the general population

its how governments and owners of capital are going to react to unrest among the population as conditions get worse in the chase for more profit

we're far from immune from that particular thing and we've seen a lot of authoritarian legislation passed at state and federal levels over the last few years

laws to curtail protest, increased police powers etc

I'd argue that what we're seeing there isn't fascism, but neo-feudalism wearing its skin to protect its interests.

After all, Musk, Bezos, Zuckerberg and co don't really need Trump. A trained monkey could do what he's doing; hollowing out government, reducing any oversight over them, enforcing law and property rights as well as keeping the peace specifically when and where the wealthy want that peace. The fascist side of what Trump is doing lasts only as long as it needs to - until they no longer need him or it to win elections, having either subverted the democratic process enough that only a single party makes it through or the full Coke/Pepsification of a two party system ensures their will be done regardless of democratic norms - before that skin comes off.

The increased police powers and surveillance serve corporate purposes far, far more than they serve governments. A government employee is bound by statute, limited significantly as to what they can do legally with that information. Business can do whatever they want with that data provided they don't get caught.

The above is truer of America than it is here, and is already fait accompli in China; a one party system controlled by businesses owned by those within the government. Here, we had Murdoch aspiring to it happening and Rinehart/Forrest wanting the same thing, but the IPA can't tie their ****ing shoelaces. The Heritage Foundation have implemented long term plans for much of US history; the IPA have made masterpieces throughout history of misreading public mood and printing work after work without anything resembling substance.

And unlike the Yanks, we don't crave entertainment from our politics. We want to not have to think about it; steady hand at the tiller and all that. Stability and safety. We might be okay with government increasing CCTV and declaring free speech zones within which protest can occur - 'For our protection' - but we're not okay at all with business interests ****ing around with our lives.

Howard promised stability for most of his tenure, then he ****ed it with Workchoices.

 

[Gralin]

I'd argue that what we're seeing there isn't fascism, but neo-feudalism wearing its skin to protect its interests.

After all, Musk, Bezos, Zuckerberg and co don't really need Trump. A trained monkey could do what he's doing; hollowing out government, reducing any oversight over them, enforcing law and property rights as well as keeping the peace specifically when and where the wealthy want that peace. The fascist side of what Trump is doing lasts only as long as it needs to - until they no longer need him or it to win elections, having either subverted the democratic process enough that only a single party makes it through or the full Coke/Pepsification of a two party system ensures their will be done regardless of democratic norms - before that skin comes off.

The increased police powers and surveillance serve corporate purposes far, far more than they serve governments. A government employee is bound by statute, limited significantly as to what they can do legally with that information. Business can do whatever they want with that data provided they don't get caught.

The above is truer of America than it is here, and is already fait accompli in China; a one party system controlled by businesses owned by those within the government. Here, we had Murdoch aspiring to it happening and Rinehart/Forrest wanting the same thing, but the IPA can't tie their ****ing shoelaces. The Heritage Foundation have implemented long term plans for much of US history; the IPA have made masterpieces throughout history of misreading public mood and printing work after work without anything resembling substance.

And unlike the Yanks, we don't crave entertainment from our politics. We want to not have to think about it; steady hand at the tiller and all that. Stability and safety. We might be okay with government increasing CCTV and declaring free speech zones within which protest can occur - 'For our protection' - but we're not okay at all with business interests ****ing around with our lives.

Howard promised stability for most of his tenure, then he ****ed it with Workchoices.

as you say I think it depends who's hand is on the tiller

its interesting what sets people off, I've got a mate who went a ways down the path to being red pilled watching youtube while in an unhappy marriage

now he's a ways down government control rabbit holes via Isaac Butterfield etc due to things like the emergency services levy in Victoria and his inability to find work currently, a couple of years ago he was praising Labor and posting FJs clips now he's calling them communists

whats happening in the world is certainly making people more susceptible to this sort of stuff and as you say its more likely to benefit your Musks, Zucks, Bezos, Thiels (a name that needs to be watched more) of the world than your government officials

 

[Gethelred]

as you say I think it depends who's hand is on the tiller

its interesting what sets people off, I've got a mate who went a ways down the path to being red pilled watching youtube while in an unhappy marriage

now he's a ways down government control rabbit holes via Isaac Butterfield etc due to things like the emergency services levy in Victoria and his inability to find work currently, a couple of years ago he was praising Labor and posting FJs clips now he's calling them communists

whats happening in the world is certainly making people more susceptible to this sort of stuff and as you say its more likely to benefit your Musks, Zucks, Bezos, Thiels (a name that needs to be watched more) of the world than your government officials

I quite honestly think that until we're a full 3-4 generations into the internet we're not going to be able to truly come to grips with the myriad ways in which we can be influenced by it, and that's provided we ever get the chance for government to actually pull it back within the realm of control again. The next generation - the first generation who grows up with the internet, the ones who will actually have an understanding of how it works and how to even attempt harnessing it or regulating it with any sense of purpose - is going to be so, so far behind the tech bros that their task will be nigh impossible, even with a government's power.

It might very well just be the genie's out the bottle and we're a bit ****ed, at least unless someone goes Rache Bartmoss on the internet and ****s it for everyone.

 

[Gough]

I quite honestly think that until we're a full 3-4 generations into the internet we're not going to be able to truly come to grips with the myriad ways in which we can be influenced by it, and that's provided we ever get the chance for government to actually pull it back within the realm of control again. The next generation - the first generation who grows up with the internet, the ones who will actually have an understanding of how it works and how to even attempt harnessing it or regulating it with any sense of purpose - is going to be so, so far behind the tech bros that their task will be nigh impossible, even with a government's power.

It might very well just be the genie's out the bottle and we're a bit ****ed, at least unless someone goes Rache Bartmoss on the internet and ****s it for everyone.

The generation that first grew up with the internet are all adults now, and high school kids don't know a world without smart phones.

 

[Gralin]

I quite honestly think that until we're a full 3-4 generations into the internet we're not going to be able to truly come to grips with the myriad ways in which we can be influenced by it, and that's provided we ever get the chance for government to actually pull it back within the realm of control again. The next generation - the first generation who grows up with the internet, the ones who will actually have an understanding of how it works and how to even attempt harnessing it or regulating it with any sense of purpose - is going to be so, so far behind the tech bros that their task will be nigh impossible, even with a government's power.

It might very well just be the genie's out the bottle and we're a bit ****ed, at least unless someone goes Rache Bartmoss on the internet and ****s it for everyone.

currently the entire internet is being turned into an AI slop machine where real information will be extremely hard to find

the current push is to get everyone relying on AI for answers and thinking which is going to be even more damaging that what we've had so far

and yeah I doubt we can put the genie back in the bottle

 

[schneebly111]

If Fascism comes to Australia it’s not going to be from a party of the right. It’ll be the L/NP being taken over by far right elements, and if you can’t see this then look at Hastie’s dogwhistling or Jacinta’s comments this past month. At heart they aren’t dissimilar to One Nation.

Now you’ll all say “but Schneebs, we’ve got compulsory voting, we’ve got an independent AEC, we’ve got a more moderate system”.

Let me say this. What would be saying today if Dutton and the LNP had distanced themselves from Trump instead of embracing him, if they had dropped some of their more contentious policies like work from home and been a bit more focused on cost of living. Not too much, but just enough. Then their 51-49 lead in the polls in Feb 2025 would have held and right now we’d be talking about a right wing PM Dutton being pressured to go further right wing.

It was not a close call in the end but I don’t think it would have taken much for Dutton and the Libs to get elected. I think we should all remember this before hailing Albo as some election winning genius. If made leader Andrew Hastie will be gushed over by the media and labelled a ‘war hero’, and none of his extreme positions will get much light.

That’s how fascism will arrive, not in black uniforms but with glowing praise.

 

[Gethelred]

The generation that first grew up with the internet are all adults now, and high school kids don't know a world without smart phones.

That's completely different from a child for whom the internet has always existed, though. There's a generation of what are still children who are not yet at policy making levels of government who have a more innate understanding of what the internet is and does than anyone who didn't grow up with it did.

I speak for my very specific subset of Gen Y, who were raised beside it, when I say that we simply cannot adapt fast enough. We get stuck on things, bits of tech that wind up only having passing reference, the same way older people do; we're just a little better at moving with the times.

Essentially, the internet is changing how interaction works both with it and other people at such increasing rates that the only solution will be for those who can play the game and communicate alongside the variety of interfaces and specific programs that are in vogue and are capable of adjusting when things change on the fly, because they've lived their entire lives changing and adapting in this way.

We came to it too late, my generation; we took to it like mammals to water, but that doesn't make us the creatures of the deep.

 

[SBD Gonzalez]

If Fascism comes to Australia it’s not going to be from a party of the right. It’ll be the L/NP being taken over by far right elements, and if you can’t see this then look at Hastie’s dogwhistling or Jacinta’s comments this past month. At heart they aren’t dissimilar to One Nation.

Now you’ll all say “but Schneebs, we’ve got compulsory voting, we’ve got an independent AEC, we’ve got a more moderate system”.

Let me say this. What would be saying today if Dutton and the LNP had distanced themselves from Trump instead of embracing him, if they had dropped some of their more contentious policies like work from home and been a bit more focused on cost of living. Not too much, but just enough. Then their 51-49 lead in the polls in Feb 2025 would have held and right now we’d be talking about a right wing PM Dutton being pressured to go further right wing.

It was not a close call in the end but I don’t think it would have taken much for Dutton and the Libs to get elected. I think we should all remember this before hailing Albo as some election winning genius. If made leader Andrew Hastie will be gushed over by the media and labelled a ‘war hero’, and none of his extreme positions will get much light.

That’s how fascism will arrive, not in black uniforms but with glowing praise.

Yep, you could make a case we really dodged a bullet there, mostly by luck.

Or you could make a case that we dodged a bullet because Australian voters aren’t as dumb as Dutton assumed they’d be.

 

[schneebly111]

Yep, you could make a case we really dodged a bullet there, mostly by luck.

Or you could make a case that we dodged a bullet because Australian voters aren’t as dumb as Dutton assumed they’d be.

Up until Feb the LNP had a clear 2PP advantage in the polls. At times it was 52-48 ahead. This changed by late Feb, and by first week of March ALP began to pull ahead.

Dutton was the same person he was for his entire political career, but what changed? Well he had tagged his party as having the “same energy” as Trump, and after one month of Trump 2.0 a lot of Australians saw he was worse than 1.0. I actually know a lot of Australians who were willing to give Trump 2.0 a chance but a month in admitting he was worse.

Hastie, although probably more MAGA in his rhetoric, has actually smartly not salivated specifically over Trump and has carefully distanced himself from the man, but not the policies.

 

[SBD Gonzalez]

Up until Feb the LNP had a clear 2PP advantage in the polls. At times it was 52-48 ahead. This changed by late Feb, and by first week of March ALP began to pull ahead.

Dutton was the same person he was for his entire political career, but what changed? Well he had tagged his party as having the “same energy” as Trump, and after one month of Trump 2.0 a lot of Australians saw he was worse than 1.0. I actually know a lot of Australians who were willing to give Trump 2.0 a chance but a month in admitting he was worse.

Hastie, although probably more MAGA in his rhetoric, has actually smartly not salivated specifically over Trump and has carefully distanced himself from the man, but not the policies.

Yep, absolutely not the time for complacency. We all need to call out the Hasties for their true, malign agenda.

 

[Saint]

The problem of sliding into fascism isn't the Liberals. The interests in charge of that party have always wanted fascism, where capital controls the levers of everything and anything which might upset economic activity is illegal.

The problem is that the ALP are clearly owned by the Gas companies, they kowtow to the same media bosses and are more worried about their own wealth and assets than the welfare of Unionists or, God forbid, the general population.

It's only a matter of time until the same people who own the Libs also fully own the ALP.

They'll keep up the charade of left vs right, but we're still sliding further right.

When the environment starts getting more severe, when housing unaffordability continues to increase as freedoms are limited and monopolies consolidate even more in the media, when Amazon displaces more retail, when corporations buy out more farmers, who will people turn to to fix these problems? The far-right party or the right-party both funded by corporate interests and with a media environment completely owned by the same corporate interests?

 

[SBD Gonzalez]

In undeniable proof that The Monthly reads my BF posts, their latest issue has a piece by Julia Baird on the fragile health of Australia's democracy.

Haven't read it yet but here it is.

Watershed: How resilient is Australia’s democracy?

This year’s Boyer Lectures will consider whether our democratic system will hold in the face of global headwinds

www.themonthly.com.au

And I see that Ms Baird is the presenter of the Boyer Lectures this year, with five speakers on exactly the theme of this article. Will definitely watch that.

Watershed: How resilient is Australia’s democracy?

This year’s Boyer Lectures will consider whether our democratic system will hold in the face of global headwinds

www.themonthly.com.au

 

[Carringbush2010]

Yep, you could make a case we really dodged a bullet there, mostly by luck.

Or you could make a case that we dodged a bullet because Australian voters aren’t as dumb as Dutton assumed they’d be.

^ This, the bolded.

 

[kranky al]

Australia is comparatively stable compared to the US and most of Europe, but I wouldn’t say we’re immune. We’ve had some degree of luck - we should probably count our blessings for Pauline Hanson, so that while other countries might have savvy, charismatic far right leaders, we have a moronic sourpuss who carries enormous baggage and falls out with everyone associated with her (aside the insane, even stupider sovereign citizen guy with her in the Senate from Queensland).

It’s also worth noting that one of the key fascist signifiers in Europe and the US (the indefinite incarceration of people attempting to enter the country without authorisation) has been bipartisan policy in Australia for over a decade, so I’m not sure we should praise our system for safeguarding against extremism (compulsory voting didn’t stop Brazil electing Bolsonaro, the Westminster system won’t stop Farage). What is safeguarding us is that we’ve a better quality of life than most of the other countries that have seen huge backwards steps in that area and that allow people to point the finger at immigrants etc. That said, if the issues that everybody knows are issues - housing, the deterioration of health services etc are ones that governments are ideologically unable to address, eventually people will turn to a he demagogues offering a new solution.

I think the quality of life thing is just 10/20 years behind the uk / us.

Wait till this crop of kids who are 17-20 now hit 30-40 and are even further from home ownership than they were when they were 20…. That’s when the less educated amongst them can be primed to vote for the people who put them in that position under the pretext of “it’s tha immergrunts fault”

Labor doing absolutely sfa about housing affordability is just setting it up. We need to grandfather all negative gearing beyond a certain dollar value and use the savings to make the family home a tax deduction.

Head it off at the pass without losing an election to the entrenched interests.

 

[Gralin]

I think the quality of life thing is just 10/20 years behind the uk / us.

Wait till this crop of kids who are 17-20 now hit 30-40 and are even further from home ownership than they were when they were 20…. That’s when the less educated amongst them can be primed to vote for the people who put them in that position under the pretext of “it’s tha immergrunts fault”

Labor doing absolutely sfa about housing affordability is just setting it up. We need to grandfather all negative gearing beyond a certain dollar value and use the savings to make the family home a tax deduction.

Head it off at the pass without losing an election to the entrenched interests.

Recent report said 1 in 7 Australians are living in poverty right now, almost 800,000 children among them

That's around 3.4m people

This is fertile ground for fascism to take hold

 

[Gough]

The modern right have an advantage in that so many of it's supporters are dumber than dog shit so blaming immigrants for the failure of a decade and a half of austerity economics is a pretty easy sell to them.

 

[SBD Gonzalez]

The modern right have an advantage in that so many of it's supporters are dumber than dog shit so blaming immigrants for the failure of a decade and a half of austerity economics is a pretty easy sell to them.

It’s a big problem, because one thing we have to always concede in democracy is that everyone has a right to a vote. That must never be questioned.

For some reason, posts from former Deputy PM John Anderson have been popping up on my Facebook feed.

His posts are standard conservative stuff, but FMD, some of the moronic, scarcely-comprehensible comments they attract are beyond belief.

There’s no ignoring the fact that the current right wing is a magnet for barely-coherent troglodytes.

But, as I say, they have an inalienable right to vote, so we have to deal with that.

 

[Gralin]

There's a reason part of the fascist playbook is destroying knowledge and access to education

 

[Number37]

It's disturbing to read how far away from fascism people think our country is.

Exhibit A:
Bernard Collaery and Witness K.
Witness K was the head of technical operations at ASIS.
In 2003 ASIS was ordered by the Foreign Minister to spy on East Timor.
Witness K made a formal complaint to the Inspector General of Intelligence & Security about the FM & the spying.
ASIS then sacked Witness K.
The Inspector General gave permission to Witness K to get legal advice & assistance from Collaery.
Collaery then prepared a brief that alleged the govt acted illegally to defraud East Timor.

In 2018, 15 years later, the AG Christian Porter gave permission to the DPP to prosecute Witness K and Bernard C for breaching s39 Intelligence Services Act, which is effectively; what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas.
ie Witness K AND Bernard C got charged because Witness K spoke to Bernard C about what happened in Vegas....after getting permission to do so.

This was all done in secret, literally a secret trial, and only came to light because independent MP Andrew Wilkie used parliamentary privilege to reveal what was happening.
A secret prosecution, a secret trial, all because Alexander Downer didn't like getting outed for spying on East Timor in order to rip them off.

Point 1: The case of Witness K and Bernard C is identical to what Trump is doing to his enemies right now.
Point 2: We deliberately breached international law in order to steal an unfair share of the Sunrise Gas fields from one of the poorest nations on the planet, at the same time as pretending we are their friend.
Point 3: Secret trials, political retribution, abusing power imbalances to take advantage of the vulnerable. These are the kinds of things fascists do.