Who's my saviour now?
The Treasurer's Budget Speech (ABC-TV, Peter Costello, Budget Speech to Parliament, May 9, 2006, 7.30pm) contains another rhetorical appeal to insecurity, with the usual inference that relief from such a state is best provided by 'responsible government'.
This was shown strongly through his declaration that 'we have had terrorist attacks [...] there were moments when we were vulnerable'.
Australians abroad have unfortunately been victims of terrorist attacks, but in the last twenty-three years there have been no attacks at home, and 'we' seems to deliberately overreach its collective authority.
There will also always be moments when people are vulnerable--the Treasurer is deepening appeal by adding what is really an unrelated statement (i.e. there were also unremarked moments when 'we' were hungry, or sad, or unwell.)
Were 'we' any less vulnerable during the entire Cold War, with the threat of nuclear annihilation an omnipresent and long-used justification for various kinds of security state activity and now-familiar erosion of civil rights?
Appeal to vulnerability was also a favourite of the Vietnam War era (e.g. the 'domino theory') and earlier (Menzies justification for his anti-communist legislation)--a historically useful device that conservative government language frequently employs, especially with loaded terms and phrases like 'politically motivated violence' (Fraser, Howard), 'terror' (Fraser, Howard), and 'communist threat' (Fraser, Menzies, et al.)
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