More Adams rubbish

Hero to pols who were left right out | Phillip Adams | The Australian

Phillip Adams has yet another reality challenged column in the Australian today.

He has repeated the theme many times recently: that John Howard's Liberal Party has become solidly right wing, not the "broad church" of old. He also claims that, unlike in the 1960's, there is no cross party co-operation or friendships any more.

Nice theory, but only if you ignore the following examples:

* Howard withdrew his recent migration law changes to avoid the defeat they obviously faced because of the number of Libs (and probably National Barnaby Joyce) would made it clear they would not vote for it.

* Liberal women are not shy of supporting their own legislation for particular "womens' issues" such as the availability of the "abortion drug" and on stem cell research.

* Warren Entsch, of all people, speaks out on gay law reform all the time. (Although it is clear that there is no strong move to support gay marriage type laws in the Liberals.)

* It is clear that there still are cross party friendships, if you watch Sunrise and see the amiable exchanges every week between Kevin Rudd and Joe Hockey. (They also did the Kokoda track together recently.) I get the feeling that Lindsay Tanner might have the respect and (possibly) friendship of a few on the other side as well. It was pretty clear that Christopher Pyne and Mark Latham were friendly enough at a personal level when they used to do their Lateline stuff. I recall Jacki Kelly talking recently of inviting Labor women to some private party of hers.

Actually, I have found it encouraging that polite and friendly personal contact across the parties appears to have been a feature of the current government.

Adams seems not only wrong about this, but quite hypocritical, in that his great political hero Paul Keating gave every appearance of a politician who could in no way tolerate having a personal friendship with someone from the other side. (And who from the Liberals would want to be be close to him, given the highly personal and nasty character of his parliamentary attacks.)

Give it up Phil, this is a stupid argument.