This is a sane and intelligent assessment of the relevance of such matters as the Tea Party to our position in Australia. We are a "collectivist" society in that we do believe, unlike Margaret Thatcher, that we are a community and there is need for mutual support. The size of the Qld Premier's purely voluntary fund for flood relief is a clear indicator of this collectivist as opposed to the individualistic view. Not every one shares this view and Ms Albrechtsen would probably agree with the young Queensland man on TV the other night who asserted that since he worked hard and earned more money than most people, nevertheless he should get the full flood relief funding. I used, in my younger days, to annoy people at dinner parties by my assertion that my comfortable life was due primarily to the start in life that my parents were able to give me and very little to do with any intrinsic merit on my part!!

Sadly, the Albrechtsens of this world do not write for the people.
She considers hereself to be a grand philosopher, dropping little gems of wisdom from on high. As such and the fact that she writes for The Australian, make her a person with little credibility. The fact that the ABC in their scraping of the barrel for Q & A, drag her out occasionally to pontificate on subjects of little interest to her, allows others to see her as she really is.

It is hard enough to get Australians away from their Saturday sports to vote for two parties and the feckless politicians that offer themselves up for the confortable life. The ability to understand or even care about a third would be just too much. We are the people that tolerate Gillard and Abbott, two of the most unworthy people ever to be seen on an election poster and if they are the leaders, imagine the overall quality of the remainder. You've seen them, the clowns on the hill supported by the faceless gnomes on the back bench, nodding as required, contributing nothing of any pith and moment. They make up the numbers for the performers in the front row, the ones that decide the future of this country.

A decidedly dismal thought.

In the US, this so-called Tea Party is bankrolled by the Koch brothers, oil dripping out of every pore and a bank balance up there with the top ten, such people with their own their agenda. Certainly not designed to improve the lot of the working man but as a leverage point for their power, their future plans, having Congress do their bidding, all of which are regarded as having little to do with social justice, democracy, improved lifestyle and progress.

Such worthy plans would occupy little time in the busy days of the Koch brothers. They have bigger fish to fry such as removing Union negotiationg powers as they have already engineered in Minnesota this week.

Now "down with unions" sounds much more like an article in The Australian.

Did Albrechtsen not mention that

Rhys Stanley writes

'the fact that the ABC in their scraping of the barrel for Q & A, drag her out occasionally to pontificate on subjects of little interest to her, allows others to see her as she really is.'

maybe Rhys prefers the charming Deveny who thinks the young 12 year old Irwin girl needs to be laid. And of course this vile hater of Howard is an expert on everything from climate change to economics. Scraping to the bottom of the barrel yes but certainly not with Janet Albrechtsen.

Australia has already had a "Tea Party" moment, Mr Chris Lewis, it was called "One Nation" and it won 14 state seats in Queensland alone, before both Liberal and Labor used the legal gerrymander of combining their preferences to destroy the Party at a Federal election.

While there may be differences between "One Nation" and the US "Tea Party" over specific issues, the common cause was that the majority of white Australians was sick and tired of being marginalised and ignored by the Tweedledee/Tweedledum- two party system.

I think that the message that "Ome Nation" and "the Tea Party" is sending to their respective politicians,is to stop sucking up to minorities in order to get their minority votes, or you are going to lose the majority vote.

The Labor Party is a great example of this. It is a party which has run out of rank and file suburban branch members. For decades, the wishes of ordinary Labor Party branch members was simply ignored by the executive. It did not matter how many resolutions a branch passed, or how many other branches held similar views, the Labor party executive refused to act on anything that they disagreed with.

What is the point of being in a political party, if the people who are running the party could not care less what you or the other ordinary members think?

Yes Janet is an ignorant twit when it comes to social commentary - full of sound and fury and signifying nothing except her own preening self-importance.

Meanwhile I find that these two references give important insights into the origins and intentions of both the Tea Party and right-wing USA politics altogether.

http://thinkprogress.org/2011/02/21/zombie-johnbirch-walker

http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/lynde-and-harry-bradley-foundation

Note that Janet and the Australian CIS (for which she used to work) are closely associated with some of the propaganda outfits listed in the second reference

Chris, I agree that the possibility of a Tea Party style movement in Australia is remote at this point.

However, given that Australian churches have exemption from anti discrimination legislation in the matter of the employment of homosexuals, given that church schools are permitted to expel homosexual students for their sexual preference alone; given that Christian sexual conservatives, as represented by the anti choice feminist Melinda Tankard Reist, are powerful enough to censor various expressions of popular culture they don't approve of, we do have a situation we should be aware of and concerned about.

These Australian conservative activists have learned from and adopted the tactics of the US religious right and Tea Party movements.

Given that the Australian Christian Lobby is so powerful it persuaded the atheist Julia Gillard to state some 12 hours after ousting Kevin that she would not be legalising gay marriage, (right up there on everybody's lists of concerns that momentous day) we would be silly to pretend these movements in our country do not have power.

Research in the USA now proves close ties between the religious right and the Tea Party,
http://www.noplaceforsheep.com - the reality of a dominionist theocracy is accepted.

The US Constitution plays a significant role in the daily life of ordinary Americans, as I know from spending considerable time there twice a year, living in the community. There is nothing comparable in our country, especially the right to free speech and the right to bear arms so valued by Tea Party supporters, neo cons and "ordinary" Americans. These are rabidly valued at a grass roots level and I can't think of any equivalent in Australia.

While far from the sole concerns of the Tea Party, these attitudes form their support base.
I can't think of similar principles around which "ordinary" Australians might rally and form a Tea Party. Race perhaps. Boat people and immigration?

Even so, I think Albrechtson is wrong in predicting (hoping) for a Tea Party here.