Keith DeLacy Memoir rips into Labor party, saying it faces a crisis which could lead to its political extinction
Queensland Labor elder Keith DeLacy has pulled no punched in his analysis of the political left of 2021, saying it has having a “sneering contempt for working-class people”. See his topic-by-topic annihilation from racism to Rudd.
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Labor elder Keith DeLacy has accused the political left having a “sneering contempt for working class people”, says the ALP faces a crisis which could lead to its political extinction and attacked the “overreach” of #MeToo, reconciliation and equal opportunity activists.
In an explosive memoir, Keith DeLacy, 81, the man in charge of the purse strings during the Goss era from 1989-1995, says he lies awake at night worried about Queensland’s ballooning debt – now close to $100bn – that he believes will never be paid off. He said the Left faction of the Labor Party had lost its way, a hostage to overreach and identity politics of the worst kind
Mr DeLacy, says that the #MeToo movement has left male executives reluctant to comfort and support female colleagues, that it is hardly the end of the world if some women choose to enter lesser paying jobs or stay home to raise a family and that for some activists reconciliation is only about the “intoxication of battle and the warm glow of victimhood”.
On the eve of the launch of his memoir, A Philosophical Journey, Mr DeLacy said the “woke’’ brigade within the Left faction of Labor were turning off average Australians and would ultimately “kill themselves’’.
“Revolutions always eat their own children,’’ he said.
“Most Australians are not in the front line of politics yet they have a reasonable and sensible view of the world.
“Yet the Left are telling them that you are a racist and that your sons and grandsons are sexual monsters, rapists.
“They won’t cop that and nor should they.’’
On white privilege he said: “Most people that get to the top do it through hard work and application. And attitude. Not because of intrinsic privilege. And I hate to say it, most people (not all) who end up on struggle street do so because of their own personal shortcomings.”
Mr DeLacy, who is battling health challenges, and despite being part of a big-spending Labor government, was regarded as a treasurer of austerity and restraint.
Sir Leo Hielscher, 95, who worked with 15 treasurers over 68 years in the public service, said Mr DeLacy was the best he had seen, as did former Queensland Investment Corporation chairman Jim Kennedy, 93.
In his book, Mr DeLacy eviscerates former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and former federal Treasurer Wayne Swan.
He says Rudd was all about Rudd, and he hijacked the Goss Government with his Machiavellian ways.
“Kevin was only about Kevin,’’ he said.
“The ALP started to lose me during the Rudd and Gillard governments … it soon became clear that Rudd was not about fixing things, he was about announcing them”
Mr DeLacy said Swan was all about class warfare.
“He was anti-business,’’ he said.
Mr DeLacy said the Left had dumped Labor’s true calling of looking after the working man to pursue zealotry climate change policy that “kills economies’’ and panders to inner city elites.
In the book, DeLacy says the Labor Party has abandoned its grassroots – the worker – and it now contained inner city progressives “who have nothing more than a patronising, sneering contempt for working class people and their culture’’.
Labor’s obsession with climate change, identity politics, cancel culture and its love affair with the #Metoo and Black Lives Matter movements had resulted in “ideological carcinomas’’ that were killing the modern day Labor Party.
“The Labor Party has now joined the elites when it used to fight them,’’ he said.
Mr DeLacy believes former long-serving premier Sir Joh Bjelke Petersen was not corrupt, but naive to those around him.
“(Former Cabinet Minister) Russ Hinze, on the other hand, would take anything,’’ he said.
Mr DeLacy said former premier Wayne Goss, who he served as Treasurer for six years, was the most gifted politician he had ever met.
“He was a champion,’’ he said.
“He deserved more in politics.’’
DE LACY UNLEASHES
IDENTITY POLITICS
The trouble is that many of the people who promote these progressive causes have nothing more than a patronising, sneering contempt for working class people and their culture.”
“…this country needs to accept that a person’s race, gender and sexuality are irrelevant to their worth. What counts is having a go.”
#ME TOO
…it is in danger of losing the mainstream because of the over-reach. There are many women out there who have sons, and husbands, and vex how these loved ones are going to negotiate the rocky shoals of the #MeToo tsunami.
“Many male executives are now reluctant to relate one on one with females, to offer comfort and support, whether working, travelling, mentoring...”
RECONCILIATION
…the reconciliation overtures of Indigenous Australians, i.e., Constitutional Recognition, and the Voice to Parliament, are in my view now in danger of being killed by the self-defeating exuberance of the Black Lives Matter protests who unfairly stain the motives of all Australians…”
“It seems for some people it is not progress and reconciliation they want, it is the intoxication of the battle and the warm glow of victimhood.”
WHITE PRIVILEGE
Most people that get to the top do it through hard work and application. And attitude. Not because of intrinsic privilege. And I hate to say it, most people (not all) who end up on struggle street do so because of their own personal shortcomings.”
RACISM
The more racism recedes as a factor in modern society the more the left activists see it everywhere.”
“…it is a gross sham to pretend that the arrival of British settlement and Western civilisation on these shores heralded the destruction of a pre-existing Garden of Eden.”
EQUAL OPPORTUNITY
Women occupy a vital and expanding role in both our workforce and society, and virtually all of the in-built discriminations of the past no longer exist.”
There is arguably some progress still to be made. But it is hardly the end of the world if some women make a choice to enter lower paid occupations or respond to a biological need for parenting.”
SEXISM
Cries of sexism have in many instances now become the default setting for some women whenever things don’t go their way.”
KEVIN RUDD
The ALP started to lose me during the Rudd and Gillard governments.”
“… it soon became clear that Rudd was not about fixing things, he was about announcing them.”
THE ALP
The Labor Party used to be the party of the coal miner, the shearer, the cane cutter, the blue collar worker, the tradie and the less well-off. In other words it was the workers’ party, opposed to the elites and the establishment. But it seems many members have thrown in their lot with the elites, the virtue peddlers, the bed wetters, all at the expense of their own.”
“Many (but not all) ALP members are genuinely hostile towards business. Profit and private sector are dirty words.”
DEBT
Running up debt like there is no tomorrow is a cardinal sin in my view, asking our children and grandchildren to fund our lifestyles. We are stealing their childhood.”
“…the loss of the Triple A rating, and the uncontrolled spending and expansion of debt, under
Labor’s watch in Queensland, has been hard for me to digest.”
“Labor (and the left generally) seems to have developed an addiction to debt, as though it is good…”
WELFARE
Sometimes the solutions look mean, but the alternative, sentencing people to a life of welfare, is the meanest trick of all.”
“What we need in Australia is a much more comprehensive profiling (including family history) of welfare recipients and incarcerated persons. We can’t address the problem of recidivism and anti-social behaviour unless we understand its causes. As they say, what gets measured gets managed.”
ENVIRONMENT
…in my eyes this is the greatest exercise in collective insanity in the annals of the human race, a monomaniacal obsession unmatched in history.”
“…reducing fossil fuel use means reducing economic development and condemning poor societies to remain poor. How can anybody justify that?”
POLITICAL CORRECTNESS
this progressive, politically correct infatuation … has virtually killed off the larrikin and legendary sense of working class humour.”
EDUCATION
Is that what we want as a nation: a dumbed down curriculum, delivering a dumbed down education, producing second rate performers, all costing more and more.”
JOBS
A party, any party, saying they are for jobs jobs jobs doesn’t create jobs.”
WAYNE SWAN
Federal treasurer Wayne Swan could not open his mouth without attacking the private sector by invoking the class war and the politics of envy. He saw business as the enemy and made no secret of the fact.”
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