In a recent interview, Senator Jane Hume claimed that Australians no longer understand the “Liberal values” that define her party. The May 2025 federal election suggests otherwise. Australians didn’t just understand Liberal values – they rejected them, as evidenced by the party’s historic loss of seats. From unlawful policies to broken promises, here’s a sample of what Australians understood all too well:
We understood the Robodebt scheme, which hounded welfare recipients for fictitious debts, causing distress and contributing to suicides. A Royal Commission deemed it unlawful and cruel, yet the Liberal leadership’s muted expressions of regret fell short of the accountability the victims deserved.
We understood the fear-mongering targeting African and Middle Eastern communities and how it fuelled division and ignored data showing no disproportionate crime spike.
We understood that when last in government there were allegations of corruption, including sports rorts (misallocation of sports grants to marginal electorates) and pork-barrelling.
We understood the broken promises, such as failing to establish a robust federal anti-corruption commission (ICAC).
We understood the Paladin affair, where a little-known security outfit – whose registered address was a small shack on Kangaroo Island – received a $423 million contract to run services on Manus Island. The deal was a closed tender – no open competition.
We understood the refugee policies, in particular the heartless policy of locking away Biloela’s Murugappan family, two of which were Australian-born girls.
We understood the Liberal Party’s opposition to the Voice referendum, which leaned on misinformation and fear rather than engaging with the proposal’s text. Polls showed widespread public confusion, fueled by a campaign that prioritised politics over dialogue.
We understood the Indue Card which imposed unnecessary restrictions on selected welfare recipients – Indigenous Australians – stigmatising them and complicating their financial management. We understood that if elected, there was a suggestion it would be re-introduced and possibly extended to all welfare recipients.
We understood the Liberal Party’s reluctance to prioritise climate action, reflected in their modest 2030 emissions target of 26-28% below 2005 levels, far below what scientists say is needed to avert catastrophic warming.
We understood the plan to sack 36,000 Canberra-based public servants. We also understood that not a lot of thought went into that one.
We understood the lust for populist policies. My favourite was the “let’s jump on board the Trump bandwagon” because he’s the best role-model. Until, of course, he wasn’t.
We understood the values – or lack of them – in handling national emergencies, namely the 2019-2020 bushfires and the vaccine rollout during the COVID-19 pandemic. We understood that going on holidays during the fires might have been a priority for some, and we understood why the vaccine rollout was botched. Incompetence springs to mind.
Australians didn’t misunderstand Liberal values – they saw them for what they were. The May election, which left the Liberal Party with a diminished presence in parliament, proves it. The clearer our understanding, the longer they’ll remain on the opposition benches.
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Take a bedpan of brown brimmers, lustrous logs of active bowellery, add some vanity, stupidity, incomprehensibility, insolence, structured unawareness, deep solemn ignorance, cultured righteousness, all spiced with super selfdeception, and MIX. Then, with your skills as a sculptor, mould an attractive bust of a modern Aussie liberal polly, a fragrant failure offering excuses for recent electoral defeat. Is it a “Hume”? One thing.., it needs flushing, right now! (you nasty bugger.)
What an INCREDIBLE level of smug arrogance this condescending member of the LNP, Senator Jane Hume, displays! So typical of the appalling hubris that runs right throughout the contemptuous right-wing political sociopaths in the LNP. Such is the stratospheric conceit and total lack of self-awareness that is so inherent right throughout the LNP cabinet which is OVERFLOWING with lying, conniving, totally inept and callously inhumane political psychopaths, misogynistic predators and condescending elitists.
It is so typical of haughty members of the LNP to have the GALL to blame voters for their OWN appalling level of unpopularity and inevitable failure to win the trust and votes of the Australian public whom they continue to misrepresent and betray then have the GALL to condemn! No wonder the Labor Party won so convincingly!
Clearly, humility and self-awareness are completely FOREIGN concepts to the smug, pretentious and thoroughly arrogant elitists who take up every seat in the LNP. Inevitably, this appalling lack of insight will continue to lose the LNP votes until the LNP eventually sink into political obscurity UNLESS, of course, the haughty, condescending members of the LNP (like Jane Hume) deem to come down off their self-made pedestals and, if at all possible, develop enough compassion, foresight and understanding of ordinary working- and middle-class Australians to initiate a connection with us! Of course, given the appalling level of hubris, unwarranted egotism and contemptuous arrogance portrayed by every member of the LNP, the chances of any connection between them and ordinary Australians (who are not signed-up, entitled members of the Top 1%) is highly unlikely.
The level of unwarranted elitism that runs right throughout the LNP – going back decades – has now become established and, understandably, has created a HUGE and ever-widening rift between the LNP and the overwhelming majority of fair-minded Australians. Ordinary working- and middle-class Australians have NEVER wanted, nor have any connection to, the type of snobbery and inherent elitism that is more in tune with the pompous elitists in the UK Tories and continues to be totally alien to our egalitarian way of life in this wonderful nation of ours! The LNP’s born-to-rule arrogance will cause them to become more unpopular and, inevitably, become totally obsolete in our nation that values fair-mindedness and prizes equality – unless they quickly, and sincerely, do a 180 degree turn-around. HOWEVER, given the LNP’s inherent arrogance, their rusted-on misogyny, their condescending contempt for anyone who isn’t a white male Anglo Saxon and their ultra-conservatism and total lack of willingness to change, such a turn-around is highly unlikely to occur!
This a great article, going to the core of coalition “philosophies”
Thank you, Paul.
That’s the second thank you I owe you.
I believe that Australians understand Liberal values all too well, and resoundingly reject them.
A great article Michael — what a summary!
The libs are like headless chooks at the moment, they don’t know which way to turn, don’t know which figure from the liberal pantheon to turn to in order to gain some traction.
And there’s a reason for that.
Liberalism itself is a facade with no substance behind it. It’s a fake concept.
It’s worth taking a look behind the facade.
The primary value of liberalism, the value they proudly parade to the world as being sacred, beyond criticism, is liberty. Absolute freedom. And they claim a monopoly on freedom, because it’s all they have.
And so we hear a lot of fulsome rhetoric about the importance of the freedoms that liberalism has provided to the world. Some of us almost swoon over how wonderful liberalism has been, not just for society, but for the human soul. It is alleged that the world would be a chaotic mess without the existence of these liberal freedoms.
Well, the world actually is a chaotic mess, but people in a swoon do not allow uncomfortable details to intrude on their fantasy.
Because liberty under liberalism is a fantasy.
It pulls people in, seduces them, by appearing to be simple, straightforward and free of bias. By appearing to be non-judgemental.
We are free, the story goes, to act as we wish with one condition that is so tiny, that it’s close to irrelevant.
That condition is that we cannot interfere with the freedoms of others.
But is that condition actually so insignificant?
Non-interference with others is simply an essential feature of the high-density living that became part of the human story as far back as the agricultural revolution, and possibly earlier.
Non-interference is not some insightful concept handed down from enlightened theorists of liberalism. It’s been around forever.
And is it as liberating as liberals allege?
Not in the slightest. It’s almost the opposite.
It encourages freedom in isolation.
Because we must be alone if we wish to enjoy uninterrupted freedom. Or liberty that is free from interference from others.
But from time to time we all like to enjoy freedom in association with others. Freedom to go to the footy, to play a round of golf. Suddenly we have voluntarily joined a group, a gathering, a society, and that group has rules.
Every group we join, no matter how casually or fleetingly, has rules that must be complied with.
So the personal freedom that allegedly flows from liberalism, and is allegedly so precious, is a carefully contrived myth.
The only place in which we find personal freedom is in our own homes, or when alone in nature.
We are social creatures, which means that personal freedom is at best a secondary consideration for us.
We can certainly assert our personal freedoms and rights within the community, as we should, but we have to exercise care in that because … the community has rules.
The need to comply with rules sheds more light on the liberal narrative.
Liberty within liberalism is the liberty of the prison yard.
Does that sound a bit over the top?
Let’s see.
You can do what you want in a prison yard, with the same conditions as in liberal society, (non- interference with others) but you are still a prisoner, still confined. Trying to leave, to operate outside the prison system is not permitted and will be dealt with harshly.
This has its equivalent in liberal democracy.
The equivalent in a liberal democracy is any attempt to leave the liberal financial system. In a liberal system you have many options and choices to make, you can do many things, but you are not permitted to leave the financial system. If you attempt to leave, attempt to set up an alternative financial system, you will be dealt with harshly. Just ask Saddam. Or Gadaffii.
So you are free within liberalism as long as you are compliant.
Ask yourself — is this freedom?
Or is it the freedom portrayed in Orwell’s novel “1984”.
This is the problem the Libs face now — how to spin Orwell’s fake freedom as something to aspire to.
“Liberal values are very much Australia’s values, and I don’t think that Australia understands that anymore.” It wasn’t enough to read those words. I had to type them out. Say them out loud. Feel the the bloated, kafkaesque irrationality of them in my mouth.
Clearly, Jane Hume was home schooled.
Exactly Paul.
I posted a comment on that before seeing yours.
You put it much better than me.
Tell you what Jane … come back with some costed well-thought out policies and just maybe we won’t kick you born-to-rule lickspittles into the gutter again.
Otherwise you best find another job where you can do bugger-all and expect to get well paid.
There is an old adage that says;
“The meaning of your communication is in the response you receive.”
If the liberal and national parties, but the liberals in particular, feel that Australians no longer understand the “liberal values”, instead of blaming the people the liberals need to look at their message.
But having said that, it would be a diligent person indeed who could not only find any liberal values but understand them.
Mick:
Otherwise you best find another job where you can do bugger-all and expect to get well paid.
Politcal “commentator” on Sky After Dark?
Great article. Hume is so grubby I liken her to a female Morriscum, the epitomy of everything wrong with the Lieberals.
The liberal and National Party are so arrogant and up themselves that they beggar belief. Even after the complete annihilation of their so called ethics. Their disgraceful dishonesty during their last two terms in office still need to be tried in court or under parliamentary procedure. Jane Humes lack of respect for hard working Australians would have her denying that anything untoward ever happened, just like the holocaust never happened.
“Liberal Values”.
Like yesterday, when the ABC censored out an adequate interview with someone of Gaza.
Events suggest you get leg amputated without anaesthetic.
The humanity- imagine saving on expensive anaethstetics: what conservative values?
They are just trialling this in Gaza at the moment.
Oh dear, no room in the shadow ministry forJane.
I see that Jane Hume has been dropped from the coalition Shadow Ministry – evidently, she was unable to articulate Liberal Values – seems a bit harsh, she probably thought it was a trick question, like how long is a bit of string.
Good Grief, they have made Jacinta Price shadow minister for defence industry and shadow minister for defence personnel – a first term Senator who jumped ship from the Nationals.
Go figure !
Terry,
I wonder if they want a useful idiot to be the face, but someone who hasn’t the brains to work out if those behind the scenes are running fiddles and scams
The Libs here in Tasmania are considering doing what just about every Lib gubmint (state and federal) does time and again when they rack up big debt: “We need lots of cash, including money for that effing football stadium, so let’s flog off state owned businesses to try and cover the debts we’ve been running up for years.”
@6.49 am
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/live/2025/may/29/australia-news-live-coalition-labor-net-zero-climate-change-woodside-north-west-shelf-tasmania-budget-ntwnfb?filterKeyEvents=false&page=with%3Ablock-683754fd8f08190365751c08#block-683754fd8f08190365751c08
Hume comments on her dumping from the Shadow Cabinet:
“I’m not here to make friends. I’m here to make a difference.”
Yeh, right. Based on Michael’s graphic at the top of this thread, none of it for the better.
Isn’t it well past the time for Australians to be done with these self-assessed born-to-rule types of people? It’s a fact, isn’t it, that it’s impossible to count on a three-fingered hand the number of positive outcomes that have been delivered by these so-called ‘natural leaders and economic masters’.
Long may they inhabit the wastelands and suffer the costs of their incompetencies.
Liberal values – ha ha ha ha haaar! For the account of ordinary folk, that’s gotta be a full oxymoron now.
At least they could be partially honest and change their name to the Neoliberal Party of Australia, such is their capture by and persistence with the devastations of neoliberalism, and its hurtling towards kleptocratic authoritarianism and fascistic rule, along with their toadying for the incessant rise of the feckless corporate corsairs.