Shorten's hypocrisy knows no bounds

FEDERAL Labor is asking way, way too much of the public with its high-minded moralistic posturing over Liberal Senator Arthur Sinodinos. Sinodinos, who stood aside as assistant treasurer on Wednesday to give the government clear air in the lead-up to the May Budget, has been called as a witness in the current NSW ICAC hearings into whether former NSW Labor heavyweights Eddie Obeid, Joe Tripodi and Tony Kelly misused their positions to favour Australian Water Holdings. No allegations of any criminal activity have been made against the NSW Senator, a former chief of staff to former prime minister John Howard, with an enviable reputation for honesty and integrity. Yet former AWU boss and Labor leader Bill Shorten, who is likely to be called before the royal commission headed by former High Court justice Dyson Heydon into alleged trade union corruption, has occupied almost all Question Time with his attempts to besmirch Sinodinos and by association, Prime Minister Tony Abbott. As Education Minister firmly told Parliament on Thursday, the Abbott government “will not be judged by the party of Craig Thomson, and the party of Michael Williamson, and the party of the AWU slush fund, and the party of Eddie Obeid and Ian Macdonald”. Thomson, the former Health Services Union official and former Labor MP, has been found guilty in the Melbourne Magistrates Court of misusing union members funds to pay for prostitutes and personal expenses. He will be sentenced next Tuesday. Williamson, a former national president of the ALP and a former head of the Health Services Union, pleaded guilty last October 15 to four charges of cheating or defrauding as a director, fabricating invoices and recruiting someone to hinder a police investigation. His bail has been revoked and he in prison awaiting final sentencing this Friday. The AWU slush fund affair is likely to see former Labor prime minister Julia Gillard called before the Heydon royal commission where she is likely to be asked to explain her role in assisting her then boyfriend Bruce Wilson establish a fund that was kept secret from both Wilson’s union, and Gillard’s employers, the Labor law firm Slater & Gordon. Both Obeid and Macdonald were found to be corrupt by the NSW ICAC in connection with the issuance of mining licenses. Little wonder that Pyne pulled Shorten up firmly. Labor has clung to tainted MPs, even defended them, when the stench of corruption was evident to all (except, perhaps, Labor’s media arm, the ABC). As Shorten and some unwise souls on the Opposition benches feigned outrage, Pyne walked through them through Labor’s sad record, reminding the smarting Opposition MPs that their party lacked all credibility and left itself shamefully exposed on the topics of ministerial accountability and parliamentary standards. He said Labor presided over a “sewer” in the past three years with “an endless list of atrocities committed against this parliament”. He reminded the House that Labor had not only suborned former Liberal MP Peter Slipper by offering him the Speakership (replacing the universally respected Labor MP Harry Jenkins) but had kept Thomson in their party room until April 29, 2012, even though there a cloud had been hanging over the former NSW Central Coast MP as early as January, 2009, well before the 2010 election, when the Fair Work Commission commenced its inquiry into the HSU’s Victorian No. 1 Branch. So concerned was Labor about the allegations engulfing Thomson that former prime minister Gillard’s chief of staff Ben Hubbard rang the then Industrial Registrar Doug Williams in early 2009 to inquire into whether Thomson was under investigation – before the fraud allegations were made public. Then, despite the New South Wales police launching Strike Force Carnarvon, in September, 2011, despite the Victorian police fraud squad’s confirmation of its investigation into Thomson in October, 2011, despite Fair Work Australia’s publication of its investigation into the HSU in April 2012, and its release of its investigation into the Victorian HSU No. 1 Branch, Labor continued to protect Thomson and his caucus vote. No allegations, I repeat, have been made against Sinodinos. He has been called before ICAC as a witness. Labor has had its share of MPs and ministers called as witnesses before ICAC, not least being former climate change minister Greg Combet who was questioned about a letter he wrote supporting a controversial mining licence sought by union official John Maitland. The noisy Senator Doug Cameron was called to give evidence about the Obeids. In neither case did the Liberals demand either be stripped or their responsibilities or disciplined. The contrast between the behaviour of the two principal parties in Australian politics could not be greater. Labor is the party of smear, innuendo and hypocrisy. There is probably no greater example of Labor’s gutter tactics than the ugliness revealed by Gillard herself during the confected frenzy of her extremely personal tirade against Tony Abbott during which she falsely claimed he was a misogynist as she attempted to distract the public from her personal appointment of Slipper, a man who had made the most appalling references to women’s sexual organs, to the highest parliamentary office. “I will not be lectured about sexism and misogyny by this man,” she shrieked. “Not now, not ever.” Pathetic and baseless charges eagerly seized upon by the mindless twitterati who chose to ignore Gillard’s moral deceit and betrayal of principle in regard to Slipper’s promotion. “Not now, not ever,” Gillard screeched theatrically. Well, “not now, not ever”, should anyone from Labor try and lecture anyone about morality, about ethics or parliamentary standards. Labor over the past six years has demonstrated it lacks all understanding of the terms.