Hanson-Young heats up Greens civil war and breaks with Di Natale on ALP super plot
Greens leader Richard Di Natale talks about Labor’s tax grab with Melbourne’s The Age, yesterday:
The Greens do have concerns about the possible unintended consequences these changes could have on struggling pensioners in particular and we’ll be looking at this proposal very closely to ensure that they are not worse off.
Greens finance spokesman Sarah Hanson-Young takes another view, ABC Radio Adelaide, Wednesday:
I think actually Labor has done some good work here …
So not all the Greens are that concerned? Di Natale in The Age:
We want to make sure that these proposed changes don’t accidentally end up hurting the very people Labor says they want to help.
Do they want to make sure? Do they really? Hanson-Young on ABC Radio Adelaide, continued:
If you’re rich enough to put your money into shares … I suggest that you’re probably not down the bottom of the pile …
SHY has broken ranks before. The senator considers voting for the gay marriage plebiscite, Sky News, September 1, 2016:
Nothing isn’t an option for me.
That led to a diktat from Di Natale. The Greens leader’s statement, September 13, 2016:
No matter what the enabling legislation for a plebiscite looks like, the Greens will vote against it.
Hanson-Young and Di Natale have also tussled over internal politics. SHY’s statement, August 25, 2016:
I fought hard to keep the immigration portfolio, but ultimately it was a decision of the leader of the party.
Fights in the NSW and Victorian branches. Now Hanson-Young. Di Natale must regret saying this on ABC Four Corners, June 23 last year:
We’re a strong … political force.
Over in the UK, Theresa May had strong words on Russia. The British Prime Minister in the House of Commons, Wednesday:
They have treated the use of a military-grade nerve agent in Europe with sarcasm, contempt and defiance.
Her Majesty’s Opposition on the other hand? A statement from Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn ’s top spokesman Seumas Milne, Wednesday:
There is a history between (Iraqi) WMDs and (British) intelligence which is problematic … the breakup of the Soviet state led to all sorts of material ending up in random hands.
Hardly surprising that Milne’s a Putin apologist when you look at the newspaper he once worked for. Milne’s old regular column in The Guardian, March 4, 2015:
Putin’s authoritarian conservatism may offer little for Russia’s future, but this anti-Russian incitement is dangerous folly. There certainly has been military expansionism. But it has overwhelmingly come from NATO, not Moscow.
What does his old newspaper think of Milne now? Guardian editor-in-chief Katharine Viner’s email to staff, January 19 last year:
I would like to thank Seumas for his brilliant Guardian journalism, and we hope he’ll write for us again in the future.
The Guardian always has and always will love those pesky Ruskies. Resignation letter of then literary editor Richard Gott, December 8, 1994:
I lunched with Russians during the Cold War … I took red gold …