Corbyn copycat: Bill Shorten has seen the future and it looks like 1970s London
Labor leader Bill Shorten speaking at the National Press Club, Tuesday:
You have to argue for it, you have to organise for it, you have to push for it — even if that means taking on vested and powerful interests.
British Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn speaking at the London School of Economics, June 17, 2016:
We will confront powerful interests ...
More togetherness? Shorten at the NPC, Tuesday:
I believe politics should be better than the bare minimum, better than a low-risk, low-ambition pursuit of the lowest common denominator. And I’m going to spend 2018 explaining to people why I think we can do better.
Corbyn at the LSE, June 17, 2016:
So Labour will be ambitious and bold at the 2020 election, we will make big promises ... There is no point being in politics if you are not ambitious …
On the other side of the time-space continuum. Shorten continued:
... the most corrosive sentiment awash in Western democracies around the world is the idea that politicians are only in it for themselves. And that’s simply not true.
Are they reading each other’s minds? Corbyn ramps it up at the LSE:
It (the British MPs’ expenses scandal) provided clear evidence for the cynics, “politicians are all in it for themselves”. ... I don’t think it is true ...
Maybe Shorten and Corbyn have been muttering the Vulcan mind meld chant to themselves? Star Trek, November 17, 1966:
My mind to your mind ... my thoughts to your thoughts ...
Shorten at the NPC, Tuesday:
And what are the Liberals doing about it? They’re attacking unions who fight for pay rises for workers.
Blood brothers? Corbyn at the Labour Party conference, September 27 last year:
... a Conservative government that never misses a chance to attack trade unions and weaken people’s rights at work.
They’re hand in hand on policy as well as motherhood statements. Shorten again:
If we want new industries and new technologies creating new jobs here, then we have to back the transition to renewables.
Oh dear. Corbyn at the Labour conference, September 27 last year:
Action on climate change is a powerful spur to investment in the green industries and jobs of the future.
In other news, Peter Greste gets mad over reporting of foreign interference laws. The former foreign correspondent takes to Twitter, Tuesday night:
Hey does it take @NYTimes to raise this issue when ought to be on the front pages of every Aussie paper?
Greste must have got a shock the next morning when he read this Aussie paper. Primrose Riordan, page one, The Australian, yesterday:
Media companies ... say new laws aimed at fighting growing foreign interference could see journalists ... jailed for possessing classified information, even before publishing.
Don’t fret, Peter, we’re on it. Riordan, again on page one, The Australian, Tuesday:
Catholic bishops have warned the Turnbull government that new treason laws aimed at exposing spies could force priests and nuns to register as foreign agents of the Pope.