Bill "Bring It On" Shorten: A Point of Difference or Which Way is Left?

Here was an opportunity to redefine, learn from past mistakes and more importantly-focus on the future. The Labor Party Conference in Melbourne comrades. Bringing together enough intelligence, vision and passion to make a difference. New blood and calls for the way the party representing the left in Australia does business. And at a time when we need leadership, vision, commitment.

Why? Let me count on one ham fisted hand of gnarled knuckles the current issues we face:

• Children and women abused in detention prisons and it is not allowed to be called out as a crime
• Humanitarian whistleblowers could be prosecuted
• Refugees, asylum seekers and conditional refugees and detention; off shore processing NIMBY
• The stripping back of work place conditions, the relentless progress of casualisation of labour (Myers the latest cab to take this path-dont shop there!)
• Youth not able to get permanent jobs and completing education that leads to nowt
• And paying through the back teeth for the education or being at the mercy of private providers who teach them nowt
• The disenfranchisement of a generation who will not have permanent work, buy a house and have what little they can save taken in bills, gouging and rorting
• The shrinking of the social welfare safety net
• Work till your past seventy even if you are buggered and past it
• Go without health care because you can't afford it and turn up at emergency where you wait in a corridor to die; our health services swamped and struggling to deliver care
• Womens superannuation and pay scales still being less than mens
• Big end of town still being run by old white men
• The disintegration, privatisation of infrastructure and asset stripping
• Politicians spending expenses like there is no tomorrow while telling the rest of us we have to tighten our belts and make efficiencies
• A public service being gutted (and that includes fireies, ambos, nurses and teachers) while CEO  pay rates still soar
• The underfunding of health, education, public housing, disability services, mental health and aged care provisions
• People with mental health issues living on the street
• The disgrace that passes for support to indigenous communities and services
• The intervention and the strangling of resources to remote communities
• The disgrace that passes for in 2015-violence against women and children is still prevalent
• Not enough legal aid
• The rise of fascism (Reclaim Australia is a fascist movement)
• The selling off of our food bowl regions for mining
• Not supporting long term investment of our waterways for irrigation
• No planning on climate change, or to manage for consequences of extreme weather patterns
• The lack of affordable housing (And where have the obscene amount of dollars taken from selling Millers Point in Sydney gone towards public housing Mr Baird?)
• The inability to fund alternative energy resources such as solar panels and wind farms
• Letting banks and big business pass on costs at the expense of increasing poverty in basics such as utilities, health insurance fees, food (yes and the States hunger to introduce GST)
• Allowing the poor to become poorer
• More roads not more and more efficient, user friendly, affordable public transport
• Disproportionate taxation (how can big companies and banks get away with not paying a fair tax take when they asset strip by way of huge profits gained from unfair gouging such as credit card fees, Telco charges)

So is and will this conference provide leadership on how to tackle the above? To oppose the current mob? Can Labor still call itself the party of the disenfranchised, the dispossessed and as Fanon said so long ago "The wretched of the earth"- those where hope is lost and they are sinking to become unheard and unrepresented-victims of the free market and capitalism who are not seen as consumers (can't afford it) and jettisoned out of that equation because they can't pay their way. No instead we have factional positioning, union arm twisting votes, Julia aprons, stage managed presidential leadership cringe and the suffocation by faction of change. Its the same old, same old. Deals! Deals! Deals! And outside the doors, the same injustices, inequality continues...

"Bring It On" Bill claims he can win an election fought on climate change, just as long as Labor agrees to a policy supporting turning back the boats. In a rush of breath so fast it was almost unheard-of course we would increase our refugee intake. Tanya apparently got the concessions. After all we have to be electable by the definition of "The Telegraph" and its skimmers.

As the Sydney Herald editor calls it:
"Yet Shorten's argument was as sound as it was courageous. He concluded that stopping deaths at sea by stopping maritime attempts in unseaworthy boats via people smuggling, is the right policy setting. "
Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-opinion/bill-shorten-shores-up-his-position-with-strong-alp-national-conference-win-20150725-gikfp6.html#ixzz3gxSJeOBT

Oh really? We don't know as we are not told, the conditions under which people have been turned back and to where. It is just a decision based on getting elected. So as not to be condemned by history as 'unelectable for having vision and balls (but we will be condemned by doing nothing and not taking an opportunity to go to the community and say boat turning/detention and hiding what we do off shore is just plain wrong. Labor so scared of the shade of Ms Gillard or Mr Rudd. To be unelectable is such a Blair whinge. What happened to debate? To convincing an electorate on the strength of what is right. This leadership is saying they don't trust their electorate. In reality, they are not out there in the workplace, the streets and communities talking, listening and giving leadership to addressing the issues currently ripping us apart. Listen to English Labour talking about electing a truly left wing leader, Jeremy Corbyn. Seen as a rank outsider, he is now emerging as a serious contender. Why? Because people know the point of difference with Cameron. They know what he stands for as demonstrated by those MPs supporting his leadership push.

 "They say Labour did not lose the election because it was too leftwing, but because it “failed to challenge the fundamental economic consensus on austerity. This cost all of us votes.”


It was not inspiring earlier this week to hear future Labor leader in waiting Tanya Plibersek parroting stale Nat/Lib rhetoric (as above with Shorten at the conference) to support this motion... "to prevent needless deaths at sea." And then give her vote over so she didn't have to take a stand. At least Albo raised his hand and said accepting turning the boats back as Labor policy was a red line we should not cross. What a man! And good on those people leaping on the stage to oppose this shameful piece of deal making. And Bill Shorten as a credible leader or a wind-up-doll? Stage managed to seem stronger than he has been, to me he is still a presedential style wind up doll saying Vote for ME! Vote for ME! Labor, you've sold your balls for votes. And where is your point of difference with the NatLibs? Buggered if I can see it from this one!