Howard’s Brutopia

In the October issue of The Monthly, I discussed how right-wing Christian extremism has become John Howard's religious handmaiden in his political project to reshape Australia. I argued, too, that the campaigns of the religious Right were one front among many in Howard's political offensive against the Left, now known widely as the "culture war". And, sure enough, within a week of the essay's publication, several of the prime minister's more prominent cultural warriors - including Andrew Bolt in the Herald Sun and Christopher Pearson in the Australian - began the counter-offensive.