Tea Party Spreads to Australia?

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


Freedom Works recently traveled England to teach anti-tax Brits about grassroots activism, fueling speculation America’s tea party movement is beginning to spread overseas. Now there are signs that the American anti-government activists are inspiring Australians to pick up their pitchforks as well. The Australian reports:

An anti-tax, anti-government Tea Party has set up shop in Australia, inspired by the US-based movement that has turned the Republican Party upside down.

The Australian T.E.A. Party (an acronym for Taxed Enough Already) will be targeting pre-selections across the country and heavily promotes its links to “our friends” in the United States…[Spokesman David] Goodridge says the Australian party has not received US funding – “that would not be appropriate, they don’t want to interfere” – but it is looking to update and adapt US training videos for its own purposes…

In his first post on the T.E.A. Party’s website, Mr Goodridge argues that between big business and unions there is “a distinction without a difference in that the average Aussie is getting done over it is just a different set or subset of rapists doing the screwing”.

The Australian TEA Party, which prominently highlights the recent victories of Christine O’Donnell and Joe Miller in the GOP Senate primaries, also claims that the tea party has already become a “Worldwide Movement” that has “over 50 million people” who are “natural” tea party supporters. (The site also offers a cute explainer on the original “Boston Tea Party” and how Americans, too, rebelled against their British colonial overlords.)

Admittedly, the Aussies’ tea party site is still a bit rough around the edges, and so far, the main domestic campaign the group highlights is a crusade against local animal-keeping laws. And sure, the claims about a global tea party movement may be a bit overblown. But the groundwork for an anti-government rebellion has already been laid in Australia, at least. Over the summer, conservative elements in the ruling Labor party helped bring Australia’s Prime Minister Julia Gillard to power. Gillard won by running against her predecessor Kevin Rudd’s “Big Australia” plan, which supported liberal immigration policies, increased population growth, and a robust federal government. Under Rudd, Australia also witnessed a fierce backlash against immigration and unauthorized immigrants—yet another reactionary uprising that has its American counterpart.

WE'LL BE BLUNT

It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

The short of it: Last year, we had to cut $1 million from our budget so we could have any chance of breaking even by the time our fiscal year ended in June. And despite a huge rally from so many of you leading up to the deadline, we still came up a bit short on the whole. We can’t let that happen again. We have no wiggle room to begin with, and now we have a hole to dig out of.

Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

The upshot: Being able to rally $253,000 in donations over these next few weeks is vitally important simply because it is the number that keeps us right on track, helping make sure we don't end up with a bigger gap than can be filled again, helping us avoid any significant (and knowable) cash-flow crunches for now. We used to be more nonchalant about coming up short this time of year, thinking we can make it by the time June rolls around. Not anymore.

Because the in-depth journalism on underreported beats and unique perspectives on the daily news you turn to Mother Jones for is only possible because readers fund us. Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism we exist to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we need readers to show up for us big time—again.

Getting just 10 percent of the people who care enough about our work to be reading this blurb to part with a few bucks would be utterly transformative for us, and that's very much what we need to keep charging hard in this financially uncertain, high-stakes year.

If you can right now, please support the journalism you get from Mother Jones with a donation at whatever amount works for you. And please do it now, before you move on to whatever you're about to do next and think maybe you'll get to it later, because every gift matters and we really need to see a strong response if we're going to raise the $253,000 we need in less than three weeks.

payment methods

WE'LL BE BLUNT

It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

The short of it: Last year, we had to cut $1 million from our budget so we could have any chance of breaking even by the time our fiscal year ended in June. And despite a huge rally from so many of you leading up to the deadline, we still came up a bit short on the whole. We can’t let that happen again. We have no wiggle room to begin with, and now we have a hole to dig out of.

Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

The upshot: Being able to rally $253,000 in donations over these next few weeks is vitally important simply because it is the number that keeps us right on track, helping make sure we don't end up with a bigger gap than can be filled again, helping us avoid any significant (and knowable) cash-flow crunches for now. We used to be more nonchalant about coming up short this time of year, thinking we can make it by the time June rolls around. Not anymore.

Because the in-depth journalism on underreported beats and unique perspectives on the daily news you turn to Mother Jones for is only possible because readers fund us. Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism we exist to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we need readers to show up for us big time—again.

Getting just 10 percent of the people who care enough about our work to be reading this blurb to part with a few bucks would be utterly transformative for us, and that's very much what we need to keep charging hard in this financially uncertain, high-stakes year.

If you can right now, please support the journalism you get from Mother Jones with a donation at whatever amount works for you. And please do it now, before you move on to whatever you're about to do next and think maybe you'll get to it later, because every gift matters and we really need to see a strong response if we're going to raise the $253,000 we need in less than three weeks.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate