BILL SHORTEN RESIGN NOW AND GIVE WAY TO A REAL LEADER
ANTHONY ALBANESE
Where to from here?
Is Bill Shorten living up to the Labor tradition? AIMN reader Sir ScotchMistery certainly doesn’t think so.
This afternoon I sat down to finalise my email for the day, and in my
inbox, signed by Bill Shorten, was the following missive, which as I
read it just had me so angry, I felt I should make a reply.
Unfortunately, the emails from the Labor Party don’t actually allow
you to reply to them, so rather than have my efforts go to waste, I
thought to pop them together and send them through to The AIMN because
I’m sure I’m not alone.
Gough Whitlam offered us a vision of what Australia might be
– a modern, multicultural nation, where opportunity belongs to everyone.
Free university education and universal healthcare. The Racial
Discrimination, Aboriginal Land Rights and the Family Law
Act. Protection of the Great Barrier Reef from oil drilling.
Gough ended conscription, the death penalty and he made Advance
Australia Fair our national anthem. He put our suburbs at the centre of
national debate.
Gough Whitlam spent his entire political life reaching for higher
ground – he redefined our country and changed the life of a generation,
and generations beyond.
He inspired us all in some way and he will continue to inspire us.
There will be more tears shed for Gough Whitlam today than perhaps any other leader in Australian history.
Our thoughts are with his family – a family that has given so much to
our nation. Especially Margaret, a great Australian in her own right.
I know he deeply appreciated the Birthday message you recently sent, his family said those messages meant a lot to him. If you’d like to offer your condolences to the Whitlam family you can leave your message here, as I have done.
We’ll compile the messages in a book which we will pass onto his family.
We’ll also retain a copy in the Labor archives so generations to come
have a record of just how much Gough Whitlam meant to us all.
‘It’s time’ Gough told us. And because of him, because of his life and his legacy, it’s always time.
Gough fought the good fight, and Labor will continue that fight in his honour.
Bill
– a modern, multicultural nation, where opportunity belongs to everyone.
Free university education and universal healthcare. The Racial
Discrimination, Aboriginal Land Rights and the Family Law
Act. Protection of the Great Barrier Reef from oil drilling.
Gough ended conscription, the death penalty and he made Advance
Australia Fair our national anthem. He put our suburbs at the centre of
national debate.
Gough Whitlam spent his entire political life reaching for higher
ground – he redefined our country and changed the life of a generation,
and generations beyond.
He inspired us all in some way and he will continue to inspire us.
There will be more tears shed for Gough Whitlam today than perhaps any other leader in Australian history.
Our thoughts are with his family – a family that has given so much to
our nation. Especially Margaret, a great Australian in her own right.
I know he deeply appreciated the Birthday message you recently sent, his family said those messages meant a lot to him. If you’d like to offer your condolences to the Whitlam family you can leave your message here, as I have done.
We’ll compile the messages in a book which we will pass onto his family.
We’ll also retain a copy in the Labor archives so generations to come
have a record of just how much Gough Whitlam meant to us all.
‘It’s time’ Gough told us. And because of him, because of his life and his legacy, it’s always time.
Gough fought the good fight, and Labor will continue that fight in his honour.
Bill
You really have to give the man credit for having a pair of balls.
As far as I can see there is very little difference between Bill
Shorten and Tony Abbott in terms of policy and the ability/need to
follow the instructions of the United States, whether it be for
“security”, “privacy”, the Transpacific Partnership (TPP), or going to
war, if nothing else is a surety in this life after taxes and death the
current crop of ALP “representatives” can be depended upon to not be
able to be depended upon by Australians.
When the people of Indi in Victoria decided that Sophie Mirabella was
not representing them terribly well, they sat down as a group and
formed “a voice for Indi”.
They raised enough funds from 3000 volunteers to run a campaign based
on what the community wanted not based on what the party thought they
needed and Cathy McGowan was the end result. She was not originally
running herself and that is the important difference. The community got
together and decided what they wanted, and then went to find somebody to
do the job.
Australia needs a new political paradigm, where the entire process is
not wrapped up in two parties whose only goal is re-election and those
of us who depend on them for decent government and don’t get it, also
don’t complain about it too much. We are treated as though it’s our duty
to be misrepresented on a daily basis, to be lied to, to be treated as
fools, and then made to feel stupid when we suddenly realise that we
knew all along what was going to happen the matter whether we have an
ALP or an LNP government. Whoever sat in the box seat was going to be
screwing us.
So here we are with about 16 months to go of the Abbott government.
Do we sit back and take it as they dish it out to us, or do we begin the
process of developing our own Indi? Let’s just have a quick look at the
logistics.
You need a bunch of interested people in your area who are prepared to put the work in. This becomes the committee.
You need an online presence that you can send people to using social
media. You need to find somebody on your committee who is prepared to
put the effort in with Twitter and Facebook. Have a look at the website
“nation builder”. They can get you started.
You need to be able to expand the group of people who come forward immediately. These then become your volunteers.
You need to teach your volunteers using your committee how to talk to
people persuasively about a situation that you are already committed
to.
You need to discuss with individuals in your community, what they
actually want from their Parliamentary representative. This is not about
what they want from the party, it’s about what they want for their
community.
You need to start with older people who have the most to lose in the short term from maintenance of the status quo.
You need to bring young people on board who will assist with things
like getting the word out, talking to their friends, getting involved
with the technology to get the word out.
You need to start fundraising. With 3000 odd volunteers, Indi managed
to raise $180,000 to run their campaign. On its own, that’s not enough,
but with a good bunch of volunteers it will be a definite start and
will assist you in preparing flyers, T-shirts and so on.
You need to believe you can do it.
When it’s all condensed down to that level, it isn’t an impossible
task. It is a challenge but the question you have to ask yourself is “do
I want this bad enough?” If the answer to that question is “yes” the
whole process becomes the first step in the road to change.
Sir ScotchMistery
Late of the ALP now dedicated non-partisan.
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