When the Democrats lost an election that their media camp-followers had assured them they had in the bag, they turned their fury outward. Reeling from a similarly unexpected (to them) loss, the Australian Labor Party is turning its rage inward. The party and the labour movement, in general, are setting on each other like a pack of starved junkyard dogs.
The ongoing controversy — fuelled by Anthony Albanese’s bid to expel Mr Setka from the Labor Party and ACTU secretary Sally McManus’s push for him to resign from the CFMEU — is causing ructions across the union movement.
Still, we’re dealing with the lefties who babble class-warfare nonsense about “the bosses”, even as they lick the bosses’ boots in return for kickbacks and political patronage. So a heapin’ helpin’ of hypocrisy is to be expected.
Retired CFMEU official Joe McDonald was accused of hypocrisy for backing Mr Setka, despite being a passionate campaigner against domestic violence because his mother was abused.
In a union discussion forum on Facebook, an AMWU union organiser posted video of an impassioned speech by Mr McDonald to the ALP national conference in 2015, in which he spoke of his late mother’s suffering at the hands of his father and urged male perpetrators of violence to “F..king stop it, f..king fix it, do something about it.”
Over recent days, Mr McDonald has posted photos of himself with Mr Setka, along with the caption “I stand with Setka”…
In 2017, the Labor Party gave an outstanding service award to Mr McDonald, who holds the record as the nation’s most prosecuted union boss over convictions for assault, threats, trespass, contempt of court and industrial law breaches.
theaustralian
Despite his 60-charge-long rap sheet, Setka is obviously a light-weight who has a lot of catching-up to do. After all, it was none other than Sally McManus who defended union thugs’ right to break the law.
This has been a failure of leadership. McManus has a blind spot when it comes to the CFMEU. She has ignored its officials being repeatedly convicted and fined. Remember when she said it was OK for the CFMEU to break the law if the union disagreed with it?
theaustralian
Meanwhile, the unions are making sure their political puppets know whose boss. Labor may have tweaked the 60/40 rule that used to guarantee a majority on party decision-making to union delegates, but unions are still the muscle, and they’re not about to let anyone as inconsequential as elected members forget it.
The Electrical Trades Union is threatening to audit federal and Victorian Labor MPs for any history of domestic violence allegations in retaliation for the ALP and unions moving against Victorian construction union boss John Setka.
ETU Victorian secretary, Troy Gray, a close ally of Mr Setka, said today the union would conduct the audit of Labor MPs “to make sure they’re clean…there definitely will be some nervous politicians out there because we will audit them.”
theaustralian
This is the first real acid test of Albanese’ and McManus’ leadership. If they wimp out on this, you can bet the Morrison government will have a field day.
Definitely time to pass the popcorn, sit back, and enjoy the show.