Fear-driven politics aimed at ageing voters has long been the strategy of Australia's Liberal Party, writesBen Laycock.

OUR POPULATION IS getting older.

This is an existentialproblemfor a political party that relies on the elderly for political survival, like theLiberal Party, for example.

Old people generally dont live as long as young people. All too soon, they become too old to vote, having ceased to exist. Then they must be replaced by a fresh batch of newly old people.

We tend to suffer from increasing anxiety as we age. It behoves the Liberal party to add substance to this vague and nebulous anxiety. Potential recruits must be inculcated into the lexicon of fears.

A recent poll shows a seismic shift in voters views on Australias place in the world after Trump's re-election. Independent Australia discusses why Australian voters are becoming more independent as Election Day nears.

Robert Menzies(or "Pig Iron Bob"as my dad used to call him) began his tenure as Australias longest-serving Prime Minister in 1949, just after that awful war. A war won decisively by the Soviet Union, with a little help from their friends/enemies. Communism was taking the world by storm. Well, not if Bob was going to haveanything to do with it.

The astute Mr Menzies instituted a deep and abiding fear of Communism 'Reds under the beds'.It worked a treat. His campaign split the Labor Party asunder and kept the Liberals in power for 23 years. Thereign was only broken by former Labor Prime MinisterGough Whitlamin 1972.

By then, the fear of Australia becoming a Communist dictatorship was wearing a bit thin. The Libs couldnt even maintain a fear of the yellow hordes sweeping down from the North (via Vietnam, of course).

It was time to generate a whole new set of freshly minted fears: Fear of "womens lib", fear of promiscuity (after thepillbecame freely available), fear of "the permissive society",fear of those weird psychedelic drugs the young people were taking, fear of young people themselves, who were not doing what they were told.

Not forgetting of course, the perennial fears that feed the anxiety of theelderly, fears nurtured and maintained to this day: Fear of drugs, fear of strangers from far off lands, fear of Aborigines, fear of "sexual deviants",fear of crime, fear of children who commitcrime, fear of children who might commit a crime, fear of children who look like they might commit a crime.

Fear, its awinnerjust askOpposition LeaderPeter Duttonor Pig Iron Bob.

"Pig iron" was the nickname for iron ore way back whenMenzies wassellingshit loads of the stuff to the Japanese, of all people, almost right up until the moment war began. The crafty Japanese turnedour pig iron into ships and planes designed especially for surprise visits to Australia unannounced, uninvited, unwelcome visits. They returned much of our pig iron in the form of bombs.

An increasingly malevolent LNP,clutching desperately for power in Queensland, take their stereotypicallaw and order campaigna jackbooted step further tonow target vulnerable children.

After languishing at the bottom of Darwin Harbour for many years, making excellent fish habitat, the Japanese kindly offered toremoveall those rusty old ships and planes. They were becoming a hazard for the giant cargo vessels delivering goods to the now-thriving metropolis of Darwin, including quite a lot of stuff from Japan, like Toyotas.

Ironically enough, some of those Toyotas were made from the very pig iron we sent them so long ago. No doubt, after the Toyotas have become rusting hulks on the side of the road for a few years, our Japanese friends will kindly offer to take them back and turn them into something useful again, as is their want. Lets hope they dont come back in the form of bombs.

Asluck would have it, we have found yet another thrivingmarketfor our iron ore China.

Have a guess what China is making with it.

Ben Laycocklives in the bush in a small hamlet called Barkers Creek. He writes about almost everything, with a focus on climate change.

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