Left claims high moral ground - from gutter

WARREN Mundine knows what makes the Labor Party tick, he’s a former party ­president.

He also knows what bigotry and racism look like — he’s an Aboriginal Australian. Drawing on his experiences both within the ALP leadership and as an Aboriginal, it is his considered view that Labor’s extraordinary attacks on the job-creating China free trade agreement are bigoted and racist. Mundine is the latest in an ever-growing line of luminaries to attack the vicious campaign being run against the China deal by Opposition leader Bill Shorten and the historically corrupt rogue trade union, the CFMEU. Former Labor Prime Minister Bob Hawke, former NSW Premier Bob Carr, Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews, South Australian Premier Jay Weatherill, ACT Chief ­Minister Andrew Barr and NSW Opposition leader Luke Foley support the agreement and have all warned Shorten to stop putting it at risk with his calculated insults and ­mendacious claims about its content. “As a former president of the Labor Party I am angry about it, and I am not the only one. You’ve seen former prime ministers of the Labor Party, you’ve seen premiers ... all telling the Labor Party to get on with it,” he said last week. In a heartfelt article published in The Australian ­Financial Review, he appraised the Labor Party’s history of ­racism and concluded that in its opposition to the China free trade agreement, racism ­remained ­entrenched within the ALP ­despite the squeaks from the self-proclaimed ­progressives. “No one likes being called a bigot but the left/progressive side of politics — like Labor and the unions — especially hate it. They see themselves as the moral high ground on social issues. Actually, their history is tarnished by deep bigotry,” he wrote. From the White Australia policy enacted in 1901 by the new Protectionist/Labor coalition federal government, a Protectionist/Labor coalition, up to the anti-Asian stance taken as recently as the 1960s, Labor has been the party of ­racism and Mundine noted that while Australia had changed, Labor’s “xenophobia sometimes resurfaces, such as in the 1980s Asian immigration debate”. “We’re seeing it again today in the union campaign against the China/Australia FTA. “Like protectionist arguments of old, the campaign is dressed up in economics — protecting Australian jobs. It’s a nonsense argument built on misinformation and lies. And Federal Labor is indulging it,” he wrote. Mundine singled out the CFMEU’s Michael O’Connor, the brother of Opposition employment and workplace relations spokesman Brendan O’Connor, for particular attention noting that his ­campaign was “antagonistic, ‘them against us’” and ­pandered to xenophobia. He condemned it for its “false claims” that safety standards, workplace conditions and migration laws were being eroded. “Having lived under the shadow of racism my whole life, the bigoted anti-ChAFTA campaign makes me deeply angry,” he said. Warning that “Labor is now losing its way”, he cautioned that failure to conclude the agreement would “be an act of vandalism by Labor against Australia’s economy and Australia/China relations”. “Labor say they’re ‘on the side of the angels’ on this. They’re not. They’re dancing with the devil and history will judge them harshly for it,” he wrote. Labor’s embrace of overt racism was demonstrated when the NSW ALP ran an anti-Chinese campaign directed at potential Chinese investment in NSW power assets during the March state election. Fifteen years ago Shorten told a rally of striking workers that “free trade is bullshit” and despite his claims to the contrary, he is still stuck in that mindset because of the political debt he owes to his trade union puppet masters. Clear-eyed Labor supporters less beholden to the trade union movement know that the current labour market ­requirements in the free trade agreements with Korea, Japan and Chile are identical to those underpinning the China ­agreement. The Abbott government is on solid ground in its opposition to Labor’s lying campaign and its attempts to scuttle the deal by reopening negotiations. It has increased the rate of jobs growth ten times since it came to office and has surprised the world with its record for job creation following years of wasted opportunity under Labor’s economy-destroying government. The biggest threat to the best prospect of continuing job creation and diversification and economic growth is the Labor/trade union campaign against closer trade ties with our largest trading partner. The xenophobic campaign being run by Shorten and the CFMEU is ­suicidal. The union bosses are drawing on a $12 million war chest to fund advertising and hope to sway the voters of Canning when they go to the polls next weekend to elect a successor to the popular former Liberal MP Don Randall. But there is a lot more at stake than the WA seat. Mundine struck a raw nerve when he pointed out the Left/progressive side of politics like to lay claim to the moral high ground on social issues but on this issue, they are displaying blatant bigotry. Hypocrisy is not new to the Left/progressives but the stand against China strikes at the future economic security of Australia and must be abandoned before it does even further damage.