Mark Butler’s hypocrisy is beyond belief

Labor Front bencher Mark Butler. Picture: Sarah Reed

If there was an award for the most shameless, self-serving MP, there would be plenty of competition but Mark Butler would win hands down.

As Labor’s national president, he gave a scorching speech just six months ago lashing faction leaders for carving up seats in parliament for themselves and denying party members a say. He labelled this “backroom buffoonery”.

Butler campaigned for re-election as president on a platform of boosting party democracy, transparency and accountability. He pledged to end deal-making by “factional warlords”. But he got thrashed by Wayne Swan. However, Butler promised to keep up the fight.

Then his seat of Port Adelaide was abolished in an electoral redistribution. Suddenly, his survival mattered more than principle. The fight for democracy was short-lived. Faced with political extinction, he reverted to the backroom union and party factional boss he has always been.

As I predicted, Butler did a cross-factional deal to keep himself in parliament. He will take the seat of Hindmarsh from his left faction colleague Steve Georganas, who will move to the seat of Adelaide and the right faction will take a Senate seat from the left.

Of course, both Butler and Georganas say they are happy with this and will seek preselection in their respective new seats. But this is just part of the political pantomime that Butler has played for decades. The preselections are already sewn up. The South Australian factions don’t support democracy.

So much for a woman replacing the retiring Kate Ellis in Adelaide. Bill Shorten wanted the right faction to endorse a woman for the seat. The left faction had apparently promised a Senate seat to Butler’s former chief of staff Karen Grogan. But she has been thrown under the proverbial bus.

Another woman has been sacrificed by another factional deal done by blokes to save one of their own. But the way things work in South Australia, Grogan may well get a seat somewhere soon enough thanks to another cross factional stitch-up

This backroom deal to save Butler’s political career would make the bruvvers lunching at Golden Century in Sydney’s Chinatown — just a stone’s throw from NSW Labor’s Sussex Street head office — proud. Butler has outdone them for bravado and audacity.

“Factional leaders,” Butler said during his re-election campaign for Labor national president, “refuse to relinquish their stranglehold on the last bastions of machine politics.” He promised to end these backroom deals. But that was, evidently, a hoax.

Jack Lang, the former NSW Labor premier, used to say that you should always back self interest because at least you know it is trying. Butler proved this in spades. Has he no shame or self-respect?

The scale of Mark Butler’s hypocrisy is beyond belief. His fight against backroom buffoonery was a short one because the backroom boys had one more buffoon to shoehorn back into parliament.