Seizing power and crushing rivals form the first two episodes of the Netflix Series How to Become a Tyrant.

Or think of it as a step-by-step process to creating a one-Party state.  (In January 1934, Hitler abolished State governments.  Perhaps here he was onto something.)

ELIMINATED

We should never forget that Hitler came to power through a democratic process of sorts. It was only after he attained “office” that he then set out to achieve “power”.

Hitler had assumed office as Chancellor of Germany in January 1933. By the time he eliminated other political Parties, he had already passed the Enabling Act which allowed him to sidestep the Reichstag to create new laws.

Sounds a little like public health orders, by-passing parliamentary debate, rule by press conference and the National Cabinet.

The Enabling Act allowed the Fuhrer to punish “enemies of the State”.

He had his decree “To Combat Treason against the German Nation and Treasonable Activities” after someone set fire to the parliamentary building.

“Treasonable activities” also sounds a little familiar, worryingly.  Masks?  Vaccines?  Walking the dog for more than an hour?  Freedom of association – with anyone, including family? Staying indoors after 9pm?  What about the right to protest?

The early thirties in Germany brought rule by fear.  August 2021 should go down as Australia’s own gleichschaltung.

For a mere week or so ago, under cover of COVID, the government in Canberra set out basically to kill off new and small political parties.

The Electoral Legislation Amendment (Party Registration Integrity) Bill 2021 had its second reading on 12 August. 

The Bill has two basic elements. 

The first is to ensure that all new and, indeed, existing, political parties have not 500, as obtains now, but 1500 members in order to be registered.

The great liberal principle of non-retrospectivity has been neatly parked too, in the interests of, well, nothing other than the self-interest of the existing major Parties.

DE-REGISTRATION

Existing Parties have a mere three months to jump from 500 to 1500 members or face de-registration and the consequent inability to stand candidates at the upcoming Federal poll.

According to the minister introducing the Bill, this will ensure that there is “a genuine base of community support” for Parties.  I actually thought that support for Parties was measured at the ballot box. 

The minister might reflect upon the fact – amply established in the recent Upper Hunter by-election in NSW – that it is, increasingly, the major Parties, that are demonstrating the lack of a “genuine base of community support”.

Faith in the tweedledee-tweedledum parties has gone off a cliff.  A growing number of us are now onto all the scams and lies of the political class. 

Oh, and what about public funding of Parties/candidates that obtain at least five per cent of the vote in an election?  Does not this provide a measure of restraint in relation to new Party formation and ensure community accountability?

The second intention of the Bill is to stop new Parties using words in their titles which already exist in other Parties, ostensibly to avoid “community confusion”, but in reality, to protect the Liberal Party from new imitators who, for a range of ideological reasons, wish to convey a sense of their own “real” liberalism as a contrast to the failures of the original version. 

The two most obvious targets are the libertarians of the Liberal Democrats, whose latest recruit, Campbell Newman, may or may not prove to be an electoral problem for Senator Amanda Stoker in Queensland, and the new wets’ Party, the “New Liberals”.

Given what has happened to the “old” Liberals in recent years, one can only wonder who on God’s earth thinks the Liberal Party isn’t sufficiently Leftist.  The New Liberals must be borderline communists.

The legislation is another step in the corporatisation of Party politics in Australia.  Corporatism is, of course, a fundamental guiding principle of fascism.

HEINOUS

Its heinous impacts on liberalism, individual rights and democracy have been felt in business, local government, national sports administration – just ask Israel Folau – and, sadly, the churches, to highlight merely some of the more obvious examples.

It has been argued that “COVID cronyism” has guided much of the awful policy responses to the virus. This is true enough.

Every step towards greater corporatisation is an inevitable step down a very slippery slope, and crushing grass roots democracy will diminish us all.

The low-faluting arguments in support of the legislation aren’t just embarrassingly self-serving. They are fundamentally harmful to our polity.

Disturbingly, the introduction of this repulsive legislation has gone all but unnoticed in the popular media. I am guessing that most people wouldn’t even know it is happening.

As naked power grabs go, it isn’t bad. And, by definition, it is more than likely to garner appeal with Labor, almost fully one half of Australia’s own one-Party State.

David Flint calls the arrangement a corrupting duopoly. It is another example of the elites ganging up on the populace, of removing rights of proper representation and accountability, of rendering we-the-people ever more mute and powerless.

Sorry, it is more than an “example”.  It is part of a cleverly crafted, malevolent strategy to entrench the political class in power. Just like Hitler did, starting in 1933.

FORCIBLY

In the grip of the COVID super State, individuals and groups, Edmund Burke’s “little platoons”, have been isolated, prevented from communicating freely with others, masked up, forcibly prevented from domestic and international escape (I mean travel), stopped from protesting and vilified for having the temerity to speak up about basic human rights. Made enemies of the State, to coin a phrase.

Any political solution other than the McEwen option – that is, a principled minority of government backbenchers in any of our parliaments threatening to leave their governments unless fundamental rights and freedoms are restored to their electors – is now looking ever more remote.

Prior to this new legislation, at least we had recourse to getting minor parties a few paltry seats in the Senate and other upper houses, to “keep the bastards honest”.

Now that will be immensely more difficult.  As people around the neighbourhood keep asking, in this age of totalitarian control – what on earth is really going on?  What are they up to?  It doesn’t make sense, so there must be something else afoot.

Now, it might well be argued that Australia’s “micro parties” do a pretty good job of rendering themselves political eunuchs, without any help needed from the major parties.

Certainly, this is the case with the right-of-centre bastardisation currently going on, what with the now defunct Australian Conservatives, the Australia One Party, Family First, the Australian Family Party, One Nation, the Fishers, Shooters & Farmers, Katter, Palmer, the Australian Federation Party, and Australia’s Representatives, as well as the aforementioned Liberal Democrats.

As an example of the outcomes of all this, the Upper Hunter by-election was gifted to the Nationals because nearly one quarter of the disenchanted vote was split between One Nation and the Shooters. This lot will need more than a preference whisperer to pull out a victory any time soon.