Marxist-Left Winning the Battle of Emotion, Ideas: Former Australian PM

Students participate in a global walkout for climate change in downtown Los Angeles, Calif., on March 15, 2019. Frederic J. Brown/AFP/Getty Images

The Marxist-left is winning the battle of ideas and emotion at a great economic cost to Western countries, says former Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott.

In a warning to centre-right political leaders around the world, Mr. Abbott said neo-Marxists were successfully prosecuting the climate change agenda and “culture wars” which includes current debates over gender diversity and the upcoming referendum to change Australia’s Constitution.

“For Reagan and Thatcher, the big task was to defeat the Marxism embodied in the old Soviet Union. For today’s centre-right leaders, the big task is to counter the neo-Marxism that permeates vast swathes of our institutions,” he wrote in The Telegraph newspaper.

“In some ways, it is a more dangerous foe because it’s internal.”

Mr. Abbott said the push for more action on climate change or race equality naturally leads to the need for bigger government—a complete reversal of the 1980s when political leaders successfully shrank government bureaucracies and allowed the free market to prosper.

Former Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott addresses the media during a press conference at Parliament House in Canberra, Australia, on July 18, 2014. Mark Nolan/Getty Images

“How do political parties flourish then, whose programme has been to advance freedom, to protect institutions, and to strengthen the country, when more and more of their one-time voters think that economic growth hurts the environment and that the country is fundamentally shamed by the dispossession of its original inhabitants?” he said.

Marxism has, in fact, moved from its original goals of controlling the economy to infiltrating and manipulating culture.

“So it’s now not socialism, but environmentalism, that requires vast government controls: over how our electricity is produced, how we warm our houses, and soon how we feed ourselves, and how we move around, in order to combat climate change,” Mr. Abbott said.

The former prime minister also said the left was good at “exploiting our humane instincts to undermine our cultural practices,” forcing institutions to take “coercive measures” against things like white privilege.

“It is no longer enough to treat minorities with respect: there have to be ‘pride’ weeks, and the pretence that biological men are really women ... And it seems the societies that were the first to abolish slavery, and to empower minorities, are now thought by some commentators to be guilty of racism and oppression,” he said.

Mr. Abbott said centre-right political leaders needed to not only prosecute arguments around the benefits of lower taxes and less regulation but also counteract the “culture war.”

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Full Steam Ahead for Climate Change, Racial Equality

The former prime minister’s words come as Western nations like the United States, UK, Australia, and the European Union continue their aggressive push towards net zero targets.

In the United States, the Biden administration’s Inflation Reduction Act pledges $783 billion towards climate change initiatives, including building renewable energy sources (wind, solar, and hydrogen), battery storage, as well as electric vehicle incentives.

The Act will spur—and bankroll—an entire pipeline of development globally around renewable energy, notably mining for critical minerals like lithium.

Meanwhile, in Australia, voters will go to the polls later this year to vote on a proposed change to the Constitution.

Demonstrators take part in a Black Lives Matter protest in Sydney on July 5, 2020, to call for an end to Aboriginal deaths in custody in Australia. Peter Parks/AFP via Getty Images

The Voice centres on whether to change the preamble of the Constitution to recognise Indigenous peoples and embed a near-permanent advisory body in Parliament.

This body would have the power to make “representations” to the executive and legislative arms of government on all matters deemed relevant to Aboriginals and Torres Strait Islanders.

Advocates see The Voice as the latest advancement in reconciliation and dealing with chronic issues in Indigenous communities, such as unemployment, domestic violence, alcoholism, youth crime, and welfare dependency.

But some detractors say the proposal is not needed because, on the whole, many Indigenous people have integrated successfully into mainstream society; others warn adding another layer of bureaucracy will not help Aboriginal communities on the ground.

While a former member of the Communist Party of Australia, Geoff McDonald revealed how the Aboriginal “land rights” movement was also targeted by Marxists during the 1960s.

“I do not disagree with the concept of special areas of land being kept for Aboriginals. But the issue is not really about land rights, as I learned first during my training with the Communist Party,” he wrote in his book Red Over Black: Behind the Aboriginal Land Rights (1982).

Mr. McDonald, now deceased, said he heard communist leaders and politicians Jack Miles and Lance Sharkey talk about how this was the “first step towards making Australia a Communist country.”

“Communists describe the Aborigines as victims of ‘colonial imperialism’ and claim that they must be ‘liberated.’ But only to enable the eventual establishment of communist internationalism to triumph,” Mr. McDonald said, also revealing that communist regimes had a history of singling out Indigenous people “for specialised training” to promote Marxism.