How rational is Tony?

Economic rationalism is destroying the world.

I have just finished reading Isabelle Allende's The House of the Spirits. Her portrait of the conservative Senator Trueba makes me think of Australia's "Liberals".

Led by Tony Abbott, the Liberals are dismantling the good that has been done for our country, just because it was done by the Labor Party. Programs and departments are being closed, leaving the environment and science untended. The Disability Support Scheme is now in his sights and I want to weep for what is being done in our names to innocent asylum seekers who have tried to reach Australia because they thought they would get a "fair go". Senator Ludlum's speech was so much more eloquent than I could be.

Pip (who works in the sustainability field) was telling me recently that a business friend was surprised at what wasn't being reported in the news. Abbott has not yet been able to repeal the "big bad tax" on carbon that isn't actually a tax. This woman had nothing but praise for a system which gathered money and then redirected it to businesses, allowing them to make the changes necessary to be more "green" and sustainable, and also more competitive in the market: a result which would surely be acceptable to the conservatives who run this country. Instead, the Liberals continue to harvest the "tax", but the money is no longer being directed as intended. Why? What are they doing with this money?

I can't help but wonder whether all the posturing about the need for the government to make cuts is just a cover for the changes they are making to deliver their hard-hearted ideology. Meanwhile Abbott takes a business trip to crow about trade agreements he is signing, all of which were the result of years of negotiations by the Labor government.

When Senator Trueba and his cronies were unhappy at the democratic election of a Communist president, they tried every trick they could think of. Consumer goods disappeared from the shelves and rumour abounded. When economic squeezing didn't work, they enlisted the help of the military, supporting a coup that overthrew the communists. But the soldiers had no intention of handing over power, and before too long the country was being savaged by a military dictatorship worse than anything Senator Trueba could have imagined.

What will be the cost to Australia of Abbott's single-minded conviction that economic rationalism is the best basis for government? The belief that the best reason to dismantle a program is that it was begun by the Labor Party? The refusal to see that welfare is about both compassion and common sense? What will be the consequence of his intention to exploit rather than save our fragile environment?