Judith Brett argues that the Liberal Party's political identity is predominantly nationalism and the subservience of the individual to the national cause. By comparison Labor's identity was derived from the working class and devoted to the economic and social equality of this group. But what of the identity politics of Australian Republicans? Charles Harpur has the answer.
Identity and Narrative Judith Brett argues that the Liberal Party differentiated itself from Labor, and weaved a political narrative for its political legitimacy through a group or communal style of nationalism;
Liberals conceptualised people's political being first and foremost as citizens. This was a direct challenge to Labor's appeal to people's class consciousness and its understanding of relations between different social interests in terms of class conflict. Liberals set 'citizens', who entered the public world to promote the common good, against the 'workers', concerned only with the interests of a part. To act in politics other than a citizen was illegitimate. Liberals were citizens and they thought everyone else should be too.Juduth Brett defines what is meant by citizenship though, as it is different to what is taken as the common meaning of the word today;
This meaning of citizenship is quite different from its contemporary use which refers almost exclusively to the individuals formal relationship to the state, and emphasises rights and entitlements conferred by the state, rather than duties and obligations of individuals to their political community.All the major parties in Australia, Liberals, Labor, Greens and Democrats, construct a narrative in an attempt to create a political legitimacy for electoral appeal, and ultimately governance. What is the Republican identity? Charles Harpur gives insight in his notes to "The Tree of Liberty";
For the republican spirit of this and others, of not all of my national poems, I can offer no apology. Why, indeed, should I? Believing, as I do, that men progress as sequently from monarchial to republican ideas (when they do make any moral and social progress at all), as they do from fuedal and despotic ones to those of a limited monarchy. This is strikingly evident in the political tendencies of all modern colonies.Republicanism is the path to human transcendence. It is constantly striving for the highest form of social and political organisation. This will lead to higher moral and ethical behaviour. Harpur's insight is that it is our political environment which leads to our moral, ethical and social decay. Whether it is Karl Rove, or Lynton Crosby and Mark Textor or their numerous followers and mimics; the moral and ethical has been removed from the political process. This is exacerbated by the representative form of government effectively isolating the citizen's experience, values and beliefs from the political operations of government. The party marketeers claim to represent, or even embody, these values and beliefs, but this is just cynical, results driven marketing. The representative form of government is not only uncitizen, it often actively hostile to those who's power it embodies. This is why the necessity to secure political rights is paramount. The decay inherent in government cannot be the cause, or means to externalise that violence onto those under its jurisdiction. Harpur believed that humanity contained within itself moral and ethical perfection; which is blunted by the necessity of having to live, survive and struggle under an imperfect political system. The flaws of the political system of the time, render the individual unable to display their moral and ethical perfection. Representative government has proven itself politically, morally, ethically and socially bankrupt. This is the current environment the individual must live in and the cost inferior and depraved political practice dumps on the polity. Republicanism is the process of achieving the highest form of political organisation so that the intrusion of the ethical and moral values of individuals by the political process is minimised. Republicans are democrats too. The establishment of constitutional and statutory processes so that the negative passions of government and power politics is minimised is as a Republican goal. Since government skews the perfectibility of social, moral, ethical and cultural found in the people, any process must subsume the pyrimidical and isolated nature of present government. This means introducing the people to government directly. cam
Let civilized men be but placed for a few generations beyond the direct action of courtly and aristocratical influences, and the idea of Equality becomes fundamental in their sense of political and social obligation. They are republicans, in short, and mostly democrats also, before they can render a definite reason, it may be, for the faith that is in them. And this results, I repeat it, from a moral and social progress purely natural to civilized men, though quickened by peculiar circumstances.
