Some things never change in party politics — unfair opportunism is one of them
OPINION: Some things never change in party politics. The example of just one federal election candidate shows that rank, unfair opportunism is one of them .
Analysis
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WESTERN Australian Labor officials will not know which emotion to surf on first today – the euphoria of finding their state Parliamentary party eight points up in the polls or a messy big whoopsie following the revelation their Fremantle candidate had some youthful exuberance crimes in the bottom drawer.
Labor’s Chris Brown, backed by the Maritime Union of Australia (one of those “registered organisations” to which Malcolm Turnbull glues the sobriquet “militant”), got involved in some rough and tumble when he was a teenager in the 1980s including assaulting a police officer during a 12-person fight which earned him a 12 month suspended sentence.
Now this is public — he told Labor officials about it four weeks ago — the ALP wants to disendorse him with the national executive hooking up the phones before lunch.
Brown hopes he can appeal to the better nature of the executive — whose membership has a kill or be killed and bury the bodies MO outside election campaigns. Good luck with that.
He says the conviction was “spent” after a successful legal appeal five years ago and his union’s national secretary Christy Cain is furious at the thought of Brown getting punted.
“On the waterfront ... we’re not all members of the Salvation Army but I have got to say this is an absolute miscarriage of justice,” said Cain, in a suitably measured response.
Cynics will say Bill Shorten and Labor, under attack for links to “militant” unions are using Brown as a sacrificial offering to distance themselves from the MUA and its mates in the CFMEU.
This is straight out of Kevin Rudd’s playbook. He jumped on Electrical Trades Union official Kevin Harkins in 2009 and had him dumped from the Tasmanian senate ticket — to prove his anti-Union credentials.
Some things never change and rank, unfair opportunism is one of them.
Originally published as Some things never change in party politics — unfair opportunism is one of them
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