The question must be asked. If the LNP faithful so despises sleaze cultist Scott Morrison that they won’t vote for him, why on earth would the rest of us?
NSW Liberals are on the brink of civil war as party bosses hurriedly try to revive a failed deal to end the long-running dispute over preselections in more than 10 close federal seats.
Increasingly restive Liberals accuse the Prime Minister Scott Morrison and his key factional lieutenant in NSW, Immigration Minister Alex Hawke, of damaging the party by refusing to agree to a factional deal.
A leaked copy of the plan, now backed by the majority of members in the party’s dominant moderate faction and its conservatives, was set to be put to a vote on Friday.
Obtained by The New Daily, it is the seventh version of a deal widely circulated among party members, which was to be introduced by prominent Liberal moderate Sally Betts.
The plan would oblige party bosses, including Mr Hawke, to progress the preselection process, which has currently been held up by delays, which critics say are part of a deliberate stalling tactic to protect sitting MPs from potential challenges.
But a vote was stopped by the party’s president and former Howard government Minister Philip Ruddock, who ruled that a vote at such notice would contravene party processes.
The party’s NSW directors are now locked in furious negotiations in an attempt to secure a deal over the next two days, or face the federal party forcing a resolution upon members and an almost certain legal challenge in response.
The ongoing failure to secure candidates for divisions such as the ultra-marginal seat of Eden-Monaro is also a point of major contention.
“If they are at all confident of their support, what are they so afraid of?” one MP said.
“People are so angry. We’re not going to be getting people to man booths for the election.
“Morrison has just brought this on himself.”
Why has it come to this? The Pentecostal duo:
The two main factions blame Mr Morrison’s close ally in NSW, Alex Hawke, the secretive Immigration Minister, for holding up the selection of candidates.
…“Hawke has been up front that elections will not give us the candidates they want,” said one participant in the negotiations. “We’re in procedural warfare. Everyone’s hands are tied.”
What kind of candidates do Morrison’s missionaries want? Over even John Howard’s dead body:
A rare, glowing endorsement written by Mr Howard for St Vincent’s Hospital cardiologist Michael Feneley labels him an “outstanding person” and an “ideal candidate”.
…“The Liberal Party is in need of candidates who have achieved esteem and success in the real world. Professor Feneley certainly falls into this category”.
The endorsement comes despite the Prime Minister’s backing for businesswomen and Pentecostal preacher Jemima Gleeson.
Finally, what is the goal of stacking the LNP with Morrison sleaze cultists:
Scott Morrison may be Australia’s second most famous Pentecostal after his mentor, Hillsong founder Brian Houston, but he is far from the norm. Those who subscribe to the youthful, feel-good, glam-rock, self-help teachings of the Pentecostal church tend not to be white, 50-something and male.
Elle Hardy, author of a new book on the global rise of the Pentecostal church [says] Pentecostals are increasingly “concerned with the here and now” and that secular society, or the elites, are taking over the world and they need to fight back.
“Reshaping America and the world so that Christ can return just so happens to look a lot like gaining power in the here and now,” writes Hardy.
…Hardy makes the point that Christian Dominionism is about seeing a religiously run America that conforms to Pentecostal values.
“It’s pretty clear that a lot on the religious right in America have given up on democracy, they know they have lost the battle, and you hear instead the line that the US is a republic, not a democracy,” Hardy says.
“It’s about conquering and victory. That’s where the seven mountains come in because if you can control the seven pillars of society, you can transform society.”
Donald Trump was a gift to the Pentecostalists. His rise, along with Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro, Hungary’s Viktor Orban and Rodrigo Duterte in the Philippines, lies in no small part to the rise of Pentecostals. The movement has a penchant for populist, strong-arm leaders with a flair for entertaining the masses, on one hand, while simultaneously scorning the cultural Marxists with their post-modern notions of gay marriage, gender identity, racial and sexual equality.
A 2019 US study found that 53 per cent of Pentecostals agreed that Trump had been anointed by God.
“Long a shelter for the marginalised and the dispossessed, in an age of gross inequality, Pentecostalism is becoming synonymous with an anti-liberal worldview,” writes Hardy.
Along with a raft of other bad actors, Hardy says it comes as little surprise that the “Stop the Steal” storming of the Capitol in Washington DC on January 6, 2021 involved 7M soldiers.
As one pastor who spoke to the crowd that day put it: “We are not just in a culture war, we are in a kingdom war.” At the same time, a Pentecostal magazine put up a Facebook post that said: “There are but two parties right now, traitors and patriots.”
This sectarian freakshow has no place in our politics and the NSW liberal party faithful know it.
