Here we have a manifestation of the hate-filled mentality of the Labor Party and the political class it represents

Take a good look at this photo. What do you see? On the surface a female body in a skimpy bikini whose colours are of the national flag. The near naked woman is holding an Australian flag upside down and she is wearing a grotesque mask of John Howard, Australia's second longest serving prime minister and its second most successful and effective after Sir Robert Menzies. It is two years since John Howard lost government and his seat of Bennelong.

The woman appeared on stage in a crumpled men's suit, weaved around to music and then stripped down to the bikini, as you see here. What was obviously meant to be a striptease dance went on until another female body in bikini and wearing a similarly grotesque mask of former US president George Bush joined her on stage. The two danced some more, then got on the floor to simulate copulation. All the time the audience raved and shouted and squealed and laughed uproariously. It was noteworthy that the loud delightful squeals of the women rose above the general rave.

Is this a photo capturing a moment of a fun pub night fuelled by great quantities of alcohol more than two years ago? No, it was last Wednesday, 9 November. The occasion was the celebration of former President of the ACTU and ALP Prime Minister Bob Hawke's eightieth birthday at Sydney Opera House's restaurant, Guillaume At Bennelong.

Among the illustrious guests for this meeting of the ALP nobility were Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, Simon Crean, Greg Combet and aspirant ALP royal Maxine McKew who took John Howard's seat of Bennelong after the electorate went bonkers for a day. One of the reports said that former Prime Minister Paul Keating 'stole in a back door' without his 'partner' (or is that cover?) actress Julianne Newbould. So this was no mere boozy night at a favourite pub with the ugly unrestrainable riff-raff of the ALP, you know, the types who yell abuse, get up violent demonstrations, and intimidate with the sort of leftist thuggery we have seen for fifty years. It was the representation of the core and essence of the ALP 'true believers'. And it was an exhibition of the mentality of that core and essence.

John Howard enjoys the unique position in Australian society of being its most vilified member. Twenty-five years long he has been the target and object of every type of insult, slander, ridicule, and mockery. His size, physical features and manner of speaking have been lampooned endlessly - as if every female member of the ALP is an Aphrodite and every male member an Adonis. His views has been distorted, misrepresented and lied about. And it all comes from the same class, Australia's dominant political class, the class represented by the Australian Labor Party.

It does not matter that John Howard left public office two years ago. The hatred has gone on unabated, the feminist Age giving reams of space to its constituency for their mad incoherent bile. You have to marvel at the intensity and obsessiveness of it all. The crude and adolescent exhibition at Hawke's birthday celebration is simply a highpoint and a continuation of that hatred. This sort of exhibition of deep-seated hatred has many political implications one of which is the political effect of the unutterable hypocrisy of the class.

Andrew Bolt wrote an entirely accurate comment in The Herald-Sun about the hypocrisy of the Labor Party in general and their feminists in particular comparing the outcry in response to one of Sam Newman's crass exhibitions on Nine's Footy Show with the Hawke celebration striptease. The feminist outcry against Newman and the Footy Show resulted in an out-of-court settlement of a thank-you-very-much sum for the woman who felt aggrieved. When it comes to the hated Howard it's a very different story. I urge people to read Bolt's piece. And then the comments afterwards. Another important political point illustrated by the Hawke show is the ridicule and abuse the Labor Party and its followers apply to discredit their opponents and shut them up. I have commented on this previously. The point, however, that I want to focus on here is the broader meaning of the class's unrelenting hatred of John Howard.

The core reason the Labor Party and its class hate John Howard is his system of beliefs. Howard represents a system of moral and political beliefs that is antithetical to the system of beliefs that motivate Australia's dominant class. Feminists are in a permanent rage over his political success precisely because he has thwarted their political aims. Now this is the key point: Howard's system of beliefs is the same set of beliefs his constituency - the people who kept him in power - hold. These people are today's equivalent of Menzies' forgotten people of more than sixty years ago, people who generally have no direct group representation in the political culture. The class hatred towards Howard is class hatred towards people who share his beliefs. Most people who share his beliefs have seen our Christian liberal-democratic society decay over fifty years. But they seem now to have forgotten that the decay has been the result of the hegemony of a class who has contempt for those beliefs. They urgently need to remind themselves of the cause.

Thus the real dynamic issue in Australia's political culture is its moral fibre to which climate change, the economy and other such issues are subordinate. Indeed, a return to traditional social values, customs and organisation is a far better guarantee of action being taken on the environment and equitable economic policies than the moral free-for-all materialism of the prevailing class.

By an act of Providence the man most equipped to take over from Menzies and John Howard has unexpectedly come into the leadership of the Liberal Party. Ordinary people in Australia who want a return to decency in life cannot afford to squander the opportunity or the circumstances. The same campaign of ridicule and misrepresentation has already started. We must join with Tony Abbott in the struggle for the moral rejuvenation of Australian society, and not let him fall prey to the dishonourable tactics of those that hate him for what he stands for - and so doing hate the rest of us.

Comment: gerard@gerardcharleswilson.com