BILL SHORTEN & I

READING DAVID MARR'S QUARTERLY ESSAY ABOUT LABOR LEADER
BILL SHORTEN - FACTION MAN 

I spent the late teenage years in suburban Melbourne transitioning from Pom to Australian citizen, which is why I liked reading about the Labor Leader Bill Shorten's formative years.

I WANT TO LIKE HIM. David Marr says Shorten scored Brownie Points for his rapport and recruitment of young people at Monash University. 
The energy and idealism of youth, yes! I was a Pied Piper too - at school was voted Student Rep and organiser for live bands and discos!
While Bill was recruiting a new generation of ALP members and attracting Prominent and Influential Party figures to his fundraising events, I was a new Australian oblivious to all which wasn't in front of me...I booked La Femme to play Huntingdale High in 1980 after seeing them perform in Melbourne's thriving new wave/ pub /music scene(no ID then).

ACTU President Bob Hawke wanted to be my man too, as I was turning 18 and could vote for the first time.

1982 was a defining year - suffering from undiagnosed Depression, I left an office job which I thought was killing my soul. 
My tears of despair at hearing it would take 6 weeks to receive the dole, created compassion in the Centrelink officer and I kept a roof over my head.

I heard the call to action by Bob Hawke. His message was hopefull, but I was turned away as I hadn't registered to vote! Nobody had told me, but I still had some benefit from a Labor Government in the Commonwealth Employment Scheme.

THE BUZZ WORD OF THE 1980'S - NETWORK! 

On the tight-rope of a fringe existence in St.Kilda I was attracted to a theatre poster which led me into helping form a Youth Arts component of Fringe Network, 
a resource for artists.

IDENITITY POLITICS AS MELOURNE FRINGE

Based in Brunswick St. Fitzroy the C.E.P. provided 6 month wages, and sent off to learn how to touch-type!

Brunswick St Fitzroy

I was flying high as Fringe Network Secretary/Board Director/Arts administrator and Festival Programmer and Performance Poet!


Shorten created NETWORK too, a youth faction of Young Labor at Monash. 

ALL THAT GLITTERS IN THE IRISH DNA from the Goldfields of Ballarat to the Coal Mines of Ipswich.
I met my husband at the first Melbourne Fringe Festival of 1983 and we became Partners in Puppetry. link here:

When Premier Joh and his cronies had left main stage in Queensland and Wayne Goss was the Labor man in charge we headed North for health and economic prospects. We felt at home in working-class Ipswich, but moved out into the Brisbane Valley because Roy wanted to plant trees.

THEN, Pauline Hanson scared us....We had to do our bit to fight Racism and Right wing haranguing by force of Reason and Humanism.

Something which was a revelation was ALP/DLP history. Many local branch ALP members were Roman Catholics like Bill Shorten. 
I went to Frank Hardy's Power without Glory for a literary summary of those post-war clashing of ideologies!

Bill's often going on about talking up Labor values for working people/families, but I was always puzzled by the Party not winning the participation of Unemployed workers.

Treasurer Wayne Swann ruled out the unemployed getting an extra $50.00 per week and Bill doesn't see that social democracy means building the party with victims of the worst of Capitalism.


Journalist David Marr opens his essay with the most important word in Politics, The Numbers.

I wouldn't read Machievelli's The Prince until Tory Tony Abbott became Prime Minister so now as I read the Quarterly Essay I wonder if  Leader of the Opposition Shorten has a knot of guilt about anything, and I guess that's what the Royal Commission into Trade Unions has been trying to find out with $80million of tax-payers money for Tory Tony's dirty digging.

How corrupted does an M.P's Conscience get?

If the means justify the ends, the silence by The Left and Right of the ALP on human rights violations towards asyslum seekers is abhorrent.
 Australia's Immigration "Border Force" actions and contracted Security operators off-shore detention behaviour is something they can live with for the pay packet, power and privileges, from Superannuation to gifting each other thousands of dollars for each others campaigns.
 Silence is sinister not golden.

Right Faction Labor man Bill Shorten with a Docklands political pedigree has been given the schooling and entre to the business networks via Unions and marriage.

 Becoming a Friend of Israel is something I didn't learn about in the elective of HSC Politics. but I have learned about it via observations with my local MP Shayne Neumann when he was part of a debate about ALP policy on Palestine.

What does it take to be a Politician? And to what end do you use the Power for?
Shayne Neumann MP for Blair and Bill Shorten MP in Ipswich Queensland during a Flood Insurance Inquiry.

Kurt Vonnegut  author of God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater (aka Pearls Before Swine), wasn't on my reading list either. My husband has read widely and offered this relevant to our understanding.

“The what?”

The Money River, where the wealth of the nation flows. We were born on the banks of it. We can slurp from that mighty river to our hearts’ content. And we even take slurping lessons, so we can slurp more efficiently.

“Slurping lessons?”

From lawyers! From tax consultants! We’re born close enough to the river to drown ourselves and the next ten generations in wealth, simply using dippers and buckets. But we still hire the experts to teach us the use of aqueducts, dams, reservoirs, siphons, bucket brigades, and the Archimedes’ screw. And our teachers in turn become rich, and their children become buyers of lessons in slurping.

“It’s still possible for an American to make a fortune on his own.”

Sure—provided somebody tells him when he’s young enough that there is a Money River, that there’s nothing fair about it, that he had damn well better forget about hard work and the merit system and honesty and all that crap, and get to where the river is. ‘Go where the rich and powerful are,’ I’d tell him, ‘and learn their ways. They can be flattered and they can be scared. Please them enormously or scare them enormously, and one moonless night they will put their fingers to their lips, warning you not to make a sound. And they will lead you through the dark to the widest, deepest river of wealth ever known to man. You’ll be shown your place on the riverbank, and handed a bucket all your own. Slurp as much as you want, but try to keep the racket of your slurping down. A poor man might hear.

Another thing Bill Shorten and I have is visiting Victorian State MP for Oakleigh, Race Matthews.
I had been to his office as a 17 year old homeless student in fear I wouldn't be able to stay at school. He put me in touch with a local youth worker and not long after I had a room in a house which supported my Year 12 study.
I would have been a good candidate for being a mere member of the ALP, even to hand me a pamphlet.
Bill Shorten showed more promise. He had formed a 

 In the school holidays I worked with Mum and the middle-aged, menopausal Greek women clocking on already in a sweat! 
Didn't see any Union organisers promising better working conditions in the heat of the metal sheds around Clayton.

Marr shows what a men's club Shorten has risen from.

SAVE OUR SOULS - SOS

Dear Bill Shorten, 

Here we are at Ipswich Trades Hall - launching Shayne Neumann for Blair. I voted for you being a Labor member since 2007, branch secretary and Labor Women's Policy Committee in Queensland. It's the kind of participation I joined for. 
Mingling with the Labor loyalists,  I had to inform you I was becoming disillusioned with our out of sight out of mind refugee policies. I said you shouldn't damn the Greens as they are the one voice on the national stage which speak for me. 

                                         When I read and hear the ALP being endorsed as a 'Values Party'(Qld Labor Times Spring issue 2014), you must mean except asylum seekers. Why are you not saying it is wrong to call people by number than name akin to the very regimes these people are fleeing from?

Please explain how we value our VALUES in the National Party platform of the ALP on human rights and our obligations under International Law of which we once were a proud signatory to.

As our former dearly departed former Labor Leader said: "Punters know the horse named Morality rarely gets past the post, whereas the nag Self-Interest always runs a good race." Gough Whitlam

Please read this, thanks to the Saturday Paper, worthy of subscription just for being there to receive this link to:  Open letter: Living in the hell called Nauru | The Saturday Paper

Is this humane? Is this worth billions, when they could come and stay at my place? There is more moral outrage and action by Parliament when Cattle are treated cruelly than our supposed Party of Compassion - so silently sweeping the corridors claiming there is less harm keeping kids in concentration camps with men made to be torturers.

Seven years of membership - reminding those who should know it is not a crime to seek asylum in a boat, or in a plane, or on a train! According to our signed alliances we all have Human Rights. It's enshrined in our National Party Platform.

Why did our join? Was it because the ALP was the lesser of two evils? I am cursed with believing the best of all possible worlds will be fulfilled, but everybody speak with forked tongue...

ALP National Platform:

Labor is a party of human rights. Labor believes in a just and tolerant society that fully protects the 

rights and freedoms of all people in Australia. Labor supports the Universal Declaration of Human 

Rights and the international treaties to which we are a signatory.

Human rights

26 Labor believes a Human Rights Framework that reflects our international obligations is necessary in 

reflecting our commitment to fundamental rights across social and economic policies. We are committed 

to promoting the awareness and understanding of human rights, supporting the international human 

rights instruments to which Australia is a signatory, and properly funding the Australian Human Rights 

Commission. Labor will adhere to Australia’s international human rights obligations and will seek to have 

them incorporated into the domestic law of Australia, and have them taken into account in administrative 

decision-making and whenever new laws and policies are developed.

27 Labor has introduced a new Human Rights Framework that:

● is investing in a comprehensive suite of education initiatives to promote a greater understanding 

of human rights across the community

● through the National Action Plan on Human Rights requires each new Bill introduced into Parliament 

is accompanied by a statement of compatibility with our international human rights obligations

● establishing a new Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights to provide greater scrutiny of 

legislation for compliance with our international human rights obligations

● develops federal anti-discrimination laws into a single Act to remove unnecessary regulatory 

overlap and make the system more user-friendly

● provides for a review of legislation, policies and practices for compliance with the seven core UN 

Human Rights treaties to which Australia is a party (which are listed in the framework).

28 Labor will review its Human Rights Framework legislation in 2014 and that review will consider 

whether the Human Rights Framework could be enhanced through a statutory charter of human rights or other similar instrument

I am informed by the Australian Guardian about the actions of  the Minister for Immigration Scott Morrisson:

The high court case in December concerns a Pakistani boat arrival 

who has been in immigration detention on Christmas Island since 

May 2012.

He is an ethnic Hazara and a Shia Muslim. Australia has found he is a refugee, with a well-founded fear of persecution by Sunni extremists in his home country.

He has passed all security and character checks.

It is illegal for Australia to send the man back to Pakistan. Immigration authorities are obliged to grant him a visa, the high court said.

The man was initially allowed to apply for a visa, but legislative changes and Morrison’s imposed cap on visa numbers have stalled the process.

After the high court ruled the government was “bound to … grant him a protection visa”, Morrison issued a “conclusive certificate” – which cannot be appealed – ruling it was not in the “national interest” for him to have a visa.

The man remains in immigration detention.

“The issue at the heart of this proceeding is whether the minister may achieve by administrative fiat the outcome presently denied to the minister through the parliament,” Stephen Lloyd, acting for the Pakistani man, told the high court.

“The minister seeks to use mechanisms under the Migration Act to attain an unlawful end.”

Stephen Donaghue, for the government, told the high court Morrison did have the power to limit the number of visas to be granted, and that the government must keep “unlawful non-citizens” in detention while a visa determination was made.

Donaghue told the court there was “no duty” on Morrison to grant a visa to a person found to be a refugee and requiring Australia’s protection. Morrison was able to insist upon additional criteria to be met before granting a visa, he said.

(And most of these MP's stand up and say Jesus is their Saviour!)
Laugh till we cry - Watch Shaun Macallef Mad as Hell - on National Security

NEWS FLASH FROM NEW MATILDA: teen-asylum-seekers-fear-their-lives-after-weekend-violence-nauru#comment-78977

ANTHONY'S ANGELS

There is no rational explanation how people pick a person to lead them. It's like picking a horse for some. As the recent Federal election showed by picking arch-Conservative, with a muscular soldier Jesuit's discipline...Anthony(Tony) Abbott is now Australian Prime Minister with a Senate of even far-right, far-out members to decide our destiny.

The Gospel according to most LNP's is proving to be anti-woman, anti-science, anti-christian. There is Hope in our Under18's though as this article reports: A HARD-RIGHT LESSON FOR JESUIT STUDENTS OF SYDNEY

Thankfully the ALP has provided the best therapy to it's members to restore hope and integrity to it's mission of a 'Fair Go' by letting them select their preferred Challenger and one day Champion for the good old cause.

We have two quality candidates in Anthony Albanese and Bill Shorten. Surprisingly they were ready to spring into a fresh campaign with their comrades.

I'm not in a Faction like I'm not in a Religion. However I am more like-minded with the Left of progressive politics, so when I received my favourite female M.P.s letter in my e-mail in-box to support Anthony Albanese I was pulled up smart to take my ballot paper and put him first (but I didn't have the postal vote yet).

Then something else happened in the annals of my Her Story - being a Faction - Free Spirit, I took a Flight of Fancy and decided to put my number 1 next to BILL SHORTEN. This Sabbath I share with you the Mystery of the prime example of being touched(in the many meanings of the word):

Is Divine Providence at work giving the Papist's a fair go in the big house on the hill in Canberra?

Press to my personally spiritual preaching at  - http://www.spiritedsheela.blogspot.com.au

Sharng the good news to my ancestors: women have the vote and are vicars!
St.Giles Anglican Parish Church Bredon, Worcestershire 2009.

CARRYING THE TORCH OF LABOR VALUES AND VISION

BILL SHORTEN MP for Maribyrnong in Victoria

TOOK TIME OUT TO VISIT THE TRADES HALL IN IPSWICH TO CHEER ON THE TROOPS IN THE CAMPAIGN TO RE-ELECT OUR SHAYNE NEUMANN MP FOR BLAIR.

Here is my spontaneous effort to record his words - it does turn out upwards!

THE LABOR LIGHTS ON THE IPSWICH HILL

IPSWICH TRADES HALL, QUEENSLAND FED SEAT OF BLAIR

SOMERSET BRANCH MEMBER THANKED FOR HER MIGHTY PHONE-POLLING EFFORTS

MY DAUGHTER SAID I AM RUSTED ON LABOR...

I let Bill know that the ABC's survey at  http://www.abc.net.au/votecompass/  confirms what many members Left of centre feel, me(and my husband) as GREENS, with Christine Milne sharing my top leader position with Kevin Rudd on 83%!!!

Is This The Most Dangerous Woman In Australia? | The Global Mail

The Minister questioned their methods, obviously, but I let him know our distress with the ALP was on Refugee policy, and gay marriage resistance. On a lighter note I said my views were more aligned with Melbourne but we had to flee from Kennett's Government, economic refugees.

As I said to Shayne later on, what I want is a Labor Government. It's the only time the country progresses, but Christine Milne(Greens) expresses every word as true to my own, which is why I support Labor for Refugees - there are enough people of like-mind who are fighting within the Party for humanitarian principles to be secured - following the UN Conventions we are signatory to.