Shorten at the Royal Commission
Bill Shorten failed to declare a donation from a labour hire company that funded his campaign director for the 2007 federal election, but denies gaining any personal advantage from the deal, the unions royal commission has heard.
The former union boss revealed to the unions inquiry he had only declared a $40,000 donation from labour-hire company Unibilt, made in 2007, on Monday.
Just as well it only $40k and not something valuable like a bottle of port or he would have had to resign.
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The Coalition has abused the royal commission process in unprecedented ways in their taxpayer funded attack on the opposition.
Denis Atkins puts it well – This royal commission is a political whack job designed to damage Shorten
Labor should play them at their own game. How about a royal commission into rampant corruption in the Newman government? It would make the Fitzgerald Inquiry look like a teddy bear’s picnic.
The Coalition ran an inquiry into the HIP which killed 4 young men. When Labor are returned – and they will be – let’s have a royal commission into our adventure in Vietnam. Rich pickings there. After all, about 500 died in that debacle.
Tim Fischer was talking recently about scams in the conscription process. Why not do the job properly?
http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-opinion/was-conscription-a-scam-tim-fischer-thinks-so-20150529-ghbsqv.html
Vietnam…Newman…distractions! Sticking to the subject I note the Commissioner attacked Shorten’s credibility as a witness. You should keep up 17etc – the reports make for great reading. The Union movement need to be brought to order and legislation raised that will force them to operate within the law as companies are.
The RC is designed to outline reasons why this must happen. If Shorten and the unions are made to look bad by the RC then it is because they are.
that will force them to operate within the law as companies are
Surely you jest, Kev. Many Australian companies and almost all multi-nationals break the law with impunity – https://independentaustralia.net/business/business-display/control-fraud-australian-banksters-rort-with-impunity,7061
They are white-collar, of course, neat and clean and well advised.
Many of the laws are written to protect them and their dodgy practices. We need laws which force companies, particularly multi-nationals, to pay their fair share of tax. The malfeasance in the case of these entities dwarfs what is being alleged in the TURC. We’re talking billions stolen from you and me, Australian taxpayers –
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/news/multinationals-face-tax-avoidance-crackdown/story-e6frg906-1227350498619
That’s my point. True, companies do break the law but that establishes the fact that there are laws for them to break. In the case of unions there seems to be few laws relating to governance and financial auditing and where there are they are ignored and no one takes them to task over it.
They should be brought under the same governance and financial rules as companies and this should be audited by ASIC.
This exercise has nothing to do with probity, and everything to do with power.
The Coalition is still smarting from the Workchoices debacle, and is determined to destroy the union movement. Setting up the TURC and milking the taxpayer to pay for it is part of that strategy.
They are unlikely to succeed, but if they did, this would become the kind of industrial relations situation which would become the rule rather than the exception -http://www.fairwork.gov.au/about-us/news-and-media-releases/2015-media-releases/january-2015/20150105-dont-get-ripped-off-this-harvest-season
That is not the environment that I want my kids to deal with during their working lives. It resembles the situation in the USA with its large component of ruthlessly exploited working poor. Australians don’t aspire to that.
Now my service may not have been voluntary, but one of the things I was fighting for (and certainly what my dad was fighting for in WW2) was the right for workers to organise and form unions as a safeguard against exploitation which is the default without the existence of organised Labour. One of the first institutions to be attacked by fascist governments has always been the trade union movement.
The current administration is simply showing its true colours.
No one is trying to destroy the union movement they just want to bring it into the fold.Your kids are not going to be ripped off and we not heading down the American path. If you took the time to read up on the TURC you would notice that the evidence is pointing to the fact that the union bosses are looking after themselves, not the workers. Millions rorted from members donations; deals done with construction companies that advantage the union bosses and “ruthlessly” disadvantages your “exploited working poor”.
Your Dad fought to stop the Japanese taking over the Asia Pacific region (presuming he fought in the Pacific campaigns) and you fought to stop Communism doing the same. I would point out that while your father, my father and you and I were fighting to stop the the aforementioned invasions your beloved union mates on the docks and elsewhere in Australia were fighting to support the enemy.
I would point out that while your father, my father and you and I were fighting to stop the the aforementioned invasions your beloved union mates on the docks and elsewhere in Australia were fighting to support the enemy.
Says who? The only person who makes this allegation is Hal Colebatch – unsuccessful Liberal candidate in the 1977 and 1993 state elections for the seat of Perth.
His work of fiction – Australia’s Secret War: How Unionists Sabotaged Our Troops in World War II took twenty years to find a publisher, and has been discredited by genuine historians over and over again since release. In the end, the only organisation that would publish it was Quadrant, the literary arm of the Liberal Party.
To quote just one – Rowan Cahill in Overland, 14 January 1-2. –
Colebatch has form, as they say in the classics. He is the third son of the short-term (one-month) twelfth premier of West Australia, who accompanied strikebreakers onto the waterfront during the bitter Fremantle wharf crisis of 1919, an inflammatory action which contributed to the death of trade union loyalist Tom Edwards following a police battoning. In many ways Australia’s Secret War is a pioneering contribution to the new ‘anti-leftist’ history of Australia as envisaged by the Abbott government’s Education Minister Christopher Pyne, and an ideological contribution to the Abbott government’s looming war against the Australian trade union movement.
Colebatch is light on detail and careless with factual history. He was extremely creative in that he actually brought our unit (7RAR) into existence over 20 years before the reality, by referring to a “7th Battalion” in his work of fiction. There was a 2/7th in the 6th Division a 2/27th in the 7th, and a 2/17th in the 9th. He makes no distinction. It’s all the same to him.
Then, of course, he had the Americans with their 16 Vultee Vengeance dive bombers returning from a raid on Rabaul crashing into the sea because the radar station at their base on Green Island was down. Colebatch alleged that the radio valves had been stolen by wharfies. Slight problem there – the Yanks did not fly the Vultee Vengeance in combat in PNG, so they made no raid on Rabaul. This is a fairy tale.
His primary sources are interviews with allegedly WW2 servicemen. It reminds me a great deal of the statement “every Nasho who served in Vietnam was a volunteer”, a myth desperately clung to by revisionists in the absence of any corroborating written primary sources.
I’d place more credibility on what my dad told me of his experiences in PNG in WW2 than what Colebatch wrote. Dad would talk a great deal about the “Battle of Brisbane”, – http://www.ozatwar.com/ozatwar/bob.htm but in the many conversations I had with him when we swapped yarns about our respective service experiences there was never any mention of wharfies disrupting the war effort. I do remember him telling me about the 22 wharfies killed at Darwin on 19th February 1942. I wonder how their friends, family and colleagues feel about Colebatch’s collective condemnation of the whole union movement?
And then there’s the over 200 merchant seaman – union members all – who died when their vessels were sunk by Japanese subs in the Australian littoral. The overall fatality rate among seamen members of the SUA during the Second World War was 8.5 per cent, a rate higher than that sustained by Australia’s fighting services. Check the AWM – https://www.awm.gov.au/encyclopedia/merchant_navy/
When I returned to Oz in December 1970, my mother gave me all the letters I had written whilst in country. If you look at the postmarks, you’ll note that they are as regular as clockwork. That is not what you’d expect if the mail was being deliberately disrupted.
Colebatch’s book is another orchestrated attack on the organized Labour movement. The reality of the history (A Labor PM led the nation through the most perilous episode in our history and the whole nation, including the union movement, lined up behind his government) does not sit well with the extreme Right, so they marshall all their resources in an attempt to rewrite it.
Says who? The only person who makes this allegation is Hal Colebatch Sorry mate, common knowledge and we knew long before Colebatch. You’ve penned a long piece based on denying just one author when the incidents of the wharfies barracking for any communist regime is well known and wide spread. They were communist themselves for Christ sake.
The mail problem during Vietnam was the other way mate – postage from Aus to Vietnam.
I am with you on the disruption to mail issue Kev. During our all expenses paid tour of Vietnam I was a married man (not a married person, Ms 17…..) My wife wrote each and every day. I recall not receiving a batch of letters and enquiring about the reason. I was informed that union action in Australia had stopped shipping. The next mail call I received double the quantity. If you do a bit of reading instead of accepting what you are told by other union minded persons you will find that the Maritime unions were the main instigators of anti-Vietnam opposition and of course your favourite…..conscription. Communists supporting communists, but you knew that. Their history during aforementioned conflicts is not only attested to by Colebatch but by others…..look it up…..you are a teacher so I guess you can read.
You’ve penned a long piece based on denying just one author when the incidents of the wharfies barracking for any communist regime is well known and wide spread.
“just one author” infers there are others.
Who are they? Where, in the official accounts of WW2, Korea and Vietnam, is this recount of the alleged consistent Communist plotting by the unions to harm Australian service personnel? If it had been such a major issue, the official historians would have discussed it at length.
Let’s look at one occurrence during the war in Vietnam that neatly illustrates my point –
I suggest a reading of Chapter 3 of Ekins and McNeill’s “Fighting to the Finish” where the issue of delayed mail is discussed* –
For some months, members of the Amalgamated Postal Workers Union (APWU) had been conducting strikes in Australia over pay and working conditions. Their latest strike was believed to have held up mail to Vietnam by about a week…..Claims by the APWU that were not affecting mail deliveries to Vietmam angered Australian servicemen…….The men of a signals unit at Vung Tau produced a leaflet that urged soldiers to “show them what we think of the lousy postal strike conveniently timed for Christmas”.
And that was about the extent of it. You may ask why the authors used the term “was believed”. The mail may have been delayed by about a week if it had been caught up in a localised strike which had nothing to do with Vietnam. A few pissed-off diggers in Vung Tau with time on their hands – no doubt some of whom were Nashos not all that happy about being there, cobbled up a poster and a slogan that was stuck on a parcel or two and created a ruckus when seen by postal clerks on arrival in Oz. This made the print media, and as is said these days “went viral” for a day or two in (mostly) the Sydney press.
So what really happened was that there was media publicity about a proposed strike and any delay that occurred for any reason was automatically put down to industrial action. Any anti-union sentiment that was around at the time was hyped and used.
My personal experience as a soldier who was a member of an extended family which wrote almost embarrassingly often was that the mail was extremely reliable.
That in a nutshell, is the context of Colebatch’s exploitative fiction. It is not history.
This meme is extremist dogma and has nothing to do with reality. History is a discipline. It should never be used to justify base political smear.
*Fighting to the Finish – The Australian Army and the Vietnam War – Ashley Ekins with Ian McNeill – Allen & Unwin – 2102 – p79 – Chapter 3 – Changing Approaches, October – November, 1968.
Ms. 1735069, Just checking the date of the article quoted by you from “Fighting to the finish”…..October to November 1968. Does that indicate that your reference source is restricted to that timeline? If that is so you should try to remember the next five years or so.
To be sure 17… that may be the biggest pile of wallop of cod you have ever produced.
You quote an 8.5% casualty rate for the SUA.
Try this: “The most costly missions were with RAF Bomber Command and Australian aircrews flew in virtually every major operation. Although their numbers amounted to less than 2 per cent of Australia’s World War II enlistments, the 3486 men who were killed in Bomber Command accounted for almost 20 per cent of all Australian combat deaths.”
18,777 Australians were killed in WWII and of these 3,486 died in Bomber Command. That’s a loss rate of 18.5% as against your misty eyed 8.5% for the SUA.
A few minutes Googling produced reviews of Colbach’s book by left wingers in which, while criticising his book, they nevertheless provided examples of maritime union misbehaviour in WWII.
And, it didn’t stop there – it went on into Malaysia, Korea and Vietnam. Even your hero Paul Ham red cards the maritime unions in his book on Vietnam, while Ashley Ekins and Ian McNeill gave a thumbs down in “Fighting to the Finish”.
It isn’t complicated 17…
You quote an 8.5% casualty rate for the SUA.
Which is correct. What’s your point?
The casualty rate for merchant seamen (union members) was higher than for most active service postings. That historical fact is not altered by the higher casualty rate of aircrew. Explain what part of that is codswallop.
A few minutes Googling produced reviews of Colbach’s book by left wingers in which, while criticising his book, they nevertheless provided examples of maritime union misbehaviour in WWII.
Be careful Googling. If you persist with it long enough, you’ll discover that the moon landings were all hoaxes, the CIA was responsible for 9/11 and you should wear a tinfoil hat at all times as protection against hostile mind controlling transmissions.
Even your hero Paul Ham red cards the maritime unions in his book on Vietnam, while Ashley Ekins and Ian McNeill gave a thumbs down in “Fighting to the Finish”.
I posted above what Ekins and McNeill had to say about the unions. To call it “thumbs down” is your interpretation of what they recorded as history. Whilst I should not need to point it out, there’s a difference between reading history and interpreting it, which you apparently haven’t cottoned on to yet. You can interpret Ekins and McNeill’s dry record of events as “thumbs down” if you wish, but they are historians, not opinion writers – hence their careful “was believed” wording. Contrast their disciplined treatment with that of Colebatch’s series of conclusions drawn from anecdote – the sure sign of an opinionista, not an historian.
Then you refer to Ham* – pleased you did. Here are extracts from his references to union action. The first (p 259) is when Lyndon Johnson’s bodyguards got wind of a rumoured assassination when the President was visiting in 1966. The rumour had it that the attempt would take place in Townsville. As Ham writes –
Meanwhile the word was out that they were going to kill the President in Townsville, warned Charles (Chuck) Lipsen, a presidential bodyguard. Lipsen, who had “never heard of the damn place” was aghast at the groundless rumours. He decided to approach local union bosses to help him lock down the town.
So the president’s bodyguard was looking for union support to keep his Commander-in-Chief safe.
He obviously hadn’t heard about how dangerous the unions were.
Ham makes another passing reference (on p 280) when he is writing about how the troops were entertained. He talks about beer consumption –
The process of self-demolition usually began with the first beer in the company boozer: the Australians typically drank Victoria Bitter, Tooheys or XXXX……An Australian beer shortage was thus unthinkable. In the worst case scenario, the troops resorted to American or Vietnamese beer. On 1 November, 1967, for example, a stern memo warned that the troops faced a “cut in beer rations” as supplies from Australia were delayed……In time their fury at the union’s refusal to load HMAS Jeparit acquired a darker dimension.
He doesn’t actually report whether, or how often, beer rations were delayed by union action, but in my experience in 1970, at least by then it wasn’t an issue, as there was plenty of grog, and it seemed always available. Maybe if there had been shortages there wouldn’t have been so many newly-minted alcoholics on RTA. But then. I’m only reporting my experience – anecdote – something that Colebatch does consistently.
If union action had been a major issue affecting the progress of the war, an historian as thorough as Ham would have given it much more serious treatment.
Ham makes further reference to the Jeparit on p 275 –
Unions exerted little influence on ALP policy towards Vietnam. The militant dockside unions were ignored, and the ALP stood aside as the Holt government dealt a pre-emptive strike against the most disruptive union leaders……….Even so, throughout the war, HMAS Jeparit, HMAS Boonaroo and other transport vessels faced the threat of constant delays caused by union action.
Again, he doesn’t specify whether the threats were made good. I’d assume if they had been, it would have been chronicled when it happened, as he did later (see below). I challenge anyone reading this to identify through primary source material the frequency and extent of these delays. Anecdotes and warries don’t cut it. Again, if union interference had been such a major issue, it would have been recorded and chronicled.
Then (on p519) Ham reports on reaction to the My Lai massacre –
Union bosses ordered their members to strike in protest at My Lai. In November 1969, the Watersider Workers’ Federation refused to reload the Jeparit……….This time the ACTU did nothing to restrain them………and the Royal Australian Navy had to reload the ship.
This was Ham’s first (and only) report of action as opposed to threat. Given what triggered it, the wharfies felt justified. After all, 504 civilians were massacred in cold blood. Ham writes –
Most were old men, women, boys girls and babies; 182 women (of whom seventeen were pregnant); 173 children (of whom fifty-six were younger than five months old)………..they “beat women with rifle butts and raped some and sodomized others before shooting them”. They broke for lunch and then resumed the massacre…….
The mistake the wharfies made of course, was that it wasn’t Australians behaving this way, but our esteemed allies – but you can understand the outrage. It’s not that much different from what we feel today when we read about ISIS atrocities. The Yanks behaving like ISIS? It happened.
In the washup, Ham (and Ekins and McNeill) report union action opposing the war in Vietnam, but they don’t regard it in the same light as Colebatch, as they are in the business of recording history, not re-writing it to suit a predetermined meme.
Their accounts verify that when it was said and done, much more was said than done, and it doesn’t fit the narrative of sustained treacherous effective disruption. Putting that in the context of the time (when the bulk of the Australian population was ambivalent about the war – to the extent that a random group of young men had to be conscripted to provide enough manpower to sustain it) it can be seen as what it really was, the hallmark of a pluralist community. In that community, people could organise, and if they believed their government was wrong, they were free to protest about it, even to the extent of withdrawing the only power they had, their labour, in the process.
It’s worth recording that when the Australian people were given the opportunity to outlaw the Communist party in a referendum in 1951, they reacted in the same way as they did to the conscription referenda in WW1.
Aussies are a level headed lot……..
Yeah, I agree most authors do rely on anecdotal evidence. Such as no, there was never any opt out parades for Vietnam. Well now we know that was an out and out fucking lie don’t we. And you and your fucking mates perpetuated that lie.
Well now we know that was an out and out fucking lie don’t we. And you and your fucking mates perpetuated that lie
Who are “we”?
Those who perpetuate the myth (disproved most recently by Dapin) that every Nasho who served in Vietnam was a volunteer? He interviewed 150 Nashos in his research for his book. I guess they must all be “my fucking mates”.
Another slur is the idea, promoted by the army but decried by the government of the day, that every nasho in South Vietnam was a volunteer.
A man might be sent there even if he was newly married, politically opposed to the war, threatening to go AWOL and claiming compassionate exemption.
I found one specialist soldier whose service record shows he was all those things — and he still found himself in Vung Tau in 1970.
Source – http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/opinion/memories-of-australias-part-in-the-vietnam-war-are-clouded-by-myth/story-fni0ffsx-1227102783788
There’s a further myth that servicemen were told not to wear their uniforms in the street to avoid hostility from protesters. In fact, the order was given for the comfort of officers stationed in Melbourne or Canberra, who might have to attend social engagements directly after work.
That is 100% wrong and seems to be written from an anti officer perspective. I stayed in the Army and I can tell you we had a fortress mentality and generally socialized in barracks and stayed well away from the general civilian population to avoid confrontation with your mates.
Friends in Canberra were definitely ordered not to wear uniform in town during the years when Whitlam and is communist deputy were in power.
Maybe the Army didn’t want to remind the government that we had been killing their mates.
Yea…some some found their way to Vietnam when they didn’t want to but seriously, who would want them. We would rather the vast majority who accepted their lot in life and tried to make the best of it. Had lunch yesterday with a few old 7RAR commanders and the subject came up about Nashos and for the life of us we couldn’t recall any who didn’t think it had been a benefit to them. I didn’t mention you – there’s always an exception.
to avoid confrontation with your mates
This “your mates” meme is wearing a bit thin.
A free Australian (as I was with the exception of the years 69/70) who holds an opinion which does not agree with yours, is not automatically a Communist sympathiser. If you examine the newspaper reports of (for example) the Moratoriums in this country you’ll note that the crowds (over 100000 in Melbourne) were comprised essentially of middle-class Aussies – not Communists or Anarchists.
My extended family participated in the march in Brisbane, mainly because of the conscription issue. They believed that the notion of conscripting some 20 year olds to fight in an undeclared war when the majority of their peers were surfing, boozing, and enjoying the Australian good life was simply unfair and morally bankrupt. None of them were Communists (a bizarre proposition considering they were all of Irish Catholic heritage).
Maybe the Army didn’t want to remind the government that we had been killing their mates.
Again the “their mates” meme. That is simply inaccurate. The people we were fighting had no more to do with the Labor government than they had to do with their Coalition predecessors. Do you really believe that members of D445 had any idea who was in government in Australia?
Yea…some some (sic) found their way to Vietnam when they didn’t want to but seriously, who would want them
That comes from the same bundle of myths (featured on this website – http://7rar.asn.au/wp/?page_id=870) as – “Only the ones dumb enough not to get out of it were sent”. That statement and what you have said above is offensive to any Nasho who served. Many were like me – and did make the best of it. Two years in the army was simply a better proposition than two years in the clink. Show me anywhere where I have complained that my service did me any harm – I survived it, and I am grateful for that. I learned a very important lesson – that soldiers can be political collateral – to be used to keep a government in power way past their use-by date.
I ended up with two degrees and a post-graduate qualification as a consequence of getting started at U of Q under a rehab scholarship. The Dept of Labour and National Service supported me through the first year, but I did the rest with nine years of hard slog (part-time evening study, teaching during the day and attending classes at night). But none of that has anything to do with the morality of conscription.
A few basic facts –
1. Being critical of the war and conscription did not make someone a Communist. If this was true, by 1969, according to the opinion polling about the war, Australia was full of Communists.
2. Many Nashos didn’t want to be in the army and didn’t want to be in Vietnam. Logically, if they had, they would have volunteered. They nevertheless served their time honourably, and were indistinguishable from regs in country.
3. There is one group of Nashos for whom conscription has not been “a benefit”. I’m talking about those who didn’t come back alive. Did their situations come up in your discussion?
…the crowds (over 100000 in Melbourne) were comprised essentially of middle-class Aussies – not Communists or Anarchists.
True, but they were led by communists and anarchists. Who do you think organized the marches – the RSL?
Look up Save our Sons an the Fairlea Five. Communists to the core. I recall reading an article by Jean McLean describing her trip to Vietnam after the war when she and her friends were thanked for their contribution to communist cause. She was effusive in her praise of the wonders of post-invasion communist Vietnam.
your mates wearing a bit thin. OK, presumptuous of me but I thought you’d be a a monty to vote for the great Nasho scheme destroyer Gough.
Being critical of the war and conscription did not make someone a Communist
True but there was only one beneficiary of the Moratoriums – the communists. With Jim Cairns organizing the marches for his USSR mates and then inviting NVA Generals to a luncheon in Sydney while some of our boys were still recovering from their wounds is simply treason of the worse kind.
True, but they were led by communists and anarchists
Also true – Jim Cairns was not a member of the Communist Party. The word “communist” is used to label anyone to the left of the person speaking at the moment.
It would make as much sense for me to label B.A. Santamaria (Tony Abbott’s hero) a “Fascist”.
She was effusive in her praise of the wonders of post-invasion communist Vietnam
Read a few travel blogs lately? Do the authors, when they praise the country, automatically become Communists?
presumptuous of me but I thought you’d be a a monty to vote for the great Nasho scheme destroyer Gough
Like the majority of Australians in 1972, I voted Labor. One very strong plank of Labor policy was the termination of conscription. That was what the Australian people wanted. I think it’s called “democracy”.
some of our boys were still recovering from their wounds is simply treason of the worse kind
Even now, many are still recovering/or not, as the case may be – http://www.aihw.gov.au/publication-detail/?id=6442467094
You could justifiably accuse those who sent them to war as “treacherous”.
Their treason lay in using these men as collateral, not to preserve their country’s security, but to preserve their political necks. That is the worst kind of betrayal.
Owen puts it well –
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie; Dulce et Decorum est
Pro patria mori.
(Dulce et Decorum Est – Wilfred Owen 1917).
Well sprayed 17…, apart from the bodyline bowlers I don’t think you missed anyone.
If you can’t work out what I was getting at in regard to SUA vs RAAF casualties in Bomber Command in WWII, I can’t help you – but it’s not complicated.
I note you did not refer to union intransigence during the Malaysian and Korean campaigns- might that be because pro-Communist unions were supporting the Communist side?
In your piece about my alleged interpretation of what the authors of “Fighting to the Finish” wrote, you omitted this “One year later, in December 1969, the perception [ie., union hold-up of supplies] became reality. Members of the Waterside Workers Federation in Sydney refused to load the ship Jeparit with supplies for Vietnam, including soldiers’ beer for Christmas.” Despite the fact the My Lai massacre which caused the stoppage had nothing to do with Australian troops, you wrote: “the wharfies felt justified [in their action]”. That probably makes sense to you 17… But to most of us, it was treacherous bastardry.
I think too it’s time you brushed up on consistency. I cannot find the reference as the search engine on Kev’s blog will not allow me to find “anecdote” within the text. However, you will remember criticising some months ago a contribution because it was anecdotal. The subject was abuse of the welfare scheme in a country town, and you wanted proof. The writer’s personal knowledge of the incident was not acceptable to you. However, when it comes to putting your own case forward anecdotal evidence is entirely acceptable.
Make up your mind 17…. Anecdotal evidence is acceptable or it is not. If it is not, kindly leave your conversations with your father out of it.
You concluded with: “Aussies are a level headed lot…” Indeed we are. A poll just published shows we are the most sceptical of all when it comes to believing in man made climate change.
I note you did not refer to union intransigence during the Malaysian and Korean campaigns- might that be because pro-Communist unions were supporting the Communist side?
If you believe this to be the case, post chapter and verse.
But to most of us, it was treacherous bastardry.
Reacting (albeit – misdirected) to the senseless rape and slaughter of hundreds of defenseless civilians is “treacherous bastardry”? I would call it a reasonable human reaction.
I think too it’s time you brushed up on consistency.
If you scroll up to my post of 15th July, you will note that I am entirely consistent about anecdote – But then, I’m only reporting my experience – anecdote – something that Colebatch does consistently.
A poll just published shows we are the most sceptical of all when it comes to believing in man made climate change.
I’m not sure which polling you’re referring to, but that doesn’t wash with these – http://www.lowyinstitute.org/lowyinstitutepollinteractive/climate-change-and-energy/
And – http://ipsos.com.au/Ipsos_docs/CC2015/Ipsos_Climate_Change_Report_2015.pdf
One question numbers, a simple yes or no will do.
When you learned via this site that there was at least two people that had been on an opt out parade, did you get in contact with the author and inform him of the fact that you and your mates were wrong?
When you learned via this site that there was (sic) at least two people that had been on an opt out parade
If I went on what I “learned” on this site, I would be guilty of rewriting history from the specific to the universal.
Dapin traveled up to Brisbane and interviewed me after reading my memoir. We had a very pleasant few hours at the Regatta. He interviewed 150 Nashos – I was just one of them. My memoir is cited in his bibliography.
I told him exactly my experience. He recorded it on tape. I honestly can’t remember whether “opt out” parades were part of the discourse, but if they had been, I would have told him the truth, viz I was never part of such an exercise. Unlike a few who post here, I didn’t assume that my individual experience applied to all.
Dapin interviewed many Nashos and the conclusions he came to were based on those interviews. In addition, the AWM has an enormous amount of material available to the assiduous researcher. As far as I know, there is no official documentation of “opt-out” parades. Feel free to cite the AWM database to show where every Nasho was given an opportunity to opt out.
Now I have never said or written that these parades never happened. What I have said is that I was never given the opportunity to “opt-out”. That is simply the truth. To claim that because someone has a recollection of an opt-out parade means that every Nasho had that same opportunity, is, to put it crudely, bullshit.
The myth that had persisted – that every Nasho who served in Vietnam was a volunteer – has been found by Dapin, based on many interviews with Nashos to be just that – a myth. I found that particular myth thoroughly offensive, and always believed that the remaining statements referring to it should be corrected in the interest of historical truth.
I note with some satisfaction that the Anzac commemoration site has been rewritten recently and there is no longer any reference to it- http://www.anzacday.org.au/history/vietnam/default.html
I had email correspondence with them a few years ago, challenging their account. I don’t kid myself that this was the reason for the edit, but I’m guessing that they did their own research.
I’m sorry if that doesn’t fit your narrative ….not my problem.
Ms. 1735099…..the fact that you did not have the required intestinal fortitude to parade before the C.O. seeking exemption from the trip to SVN, does not mean it did not happen. I would have thought, given your aversion to being told what to do, that you would have made some enquiries in that regard…..silly me. I am sure that had you paraded before Ronald Grey telling him that you didn’t trust him with the OH and S provisions, as applied to the job at hand, he would not have needed union intervention to comply with your request. Grey was a strong leader, not perfect, but he would not have wanted you along for the ride. You killed a few trees applying for your annual deferments until time ran out and then capitulated. Face it, Bobby. Stop whinging and seek treatment.
You killed a few trees applying for your annual deferments until time ran out and then capitulated.
Absolute bullshit.
I was called up during a tertiary course. My deferment was automatic. I wrote no letters because it wasn’t necessary.
In addition, the NS Act stipulated that members of a profession (such as teaching) were granted deferment until they had completed one year of practice in whatever that profession was. This was for very practical reasons, as anyone graduating, and then heading straight into the army would have been well and truly disadvantaged career-wise in comparison with his peers.
As it was, I believe I’m still owed the difference between what I actually earned in the army, and what I would have earned if I had stayed teaching for the two years. Some states (not Qld under dear old Joh who didn’t put his wallet where his fervently anti-Communist mouth was) provided this “make-up pay” as it was called.
It would have amounted to a tidy sum, ($27,550.59 in today’s money) as calculated by Slater and Gordon, when I enquired with them last year about the possibility of a class action on behalf of Nashos employed by the government at the time.
Their verdict was interesting. They said that the case would undoubtedly succeed on the basis of legal principle and precedent, but was outside the statute of limitations because of the time delay.
There was a missed opportunity – our own kind of “stolen wages”.
Still whinging and giving another example of not having the strength of your convictions at the relevant time, hence no “claim” for reimbursement of “lost” wages. Or perhaps your chosen legal firm ascertained that the statute of limitations was well and truly over and to assuage your ego informed you that yes the thought was good but a little late…..Slater and Gordon are astute enough to keep you happy with a view to making some money out of you later.
Joh may not have been the most popular bloke around, but your description in that one sentence gives huge insight into which political party you wish was in existence in Australia today. Your constant defence of Cairns and claims that because he was not a paid up member of the Communist Party he was not therefore a Communist are ludicrous. Cairns applied to join the Communist Party and was knocked back, more than likely part of the reason was his prior service in the Police Force (educated guess). Belief in an ideology and giving active support to the party do not require paying dues to the party. How many Chinese do you think are paid up members you goose? Your heroes are Communists Bobby, you vote Green while you wave the red flag and that makes you more left than a Labor voter.
Joh may not have been the most popular bloke around
Masterful understatement – he was the biggest crook unhung.
So rather than show yourself up as being an unreliable source, you and your 6 mates perpetuated the lie. You are the most arrogant, bombastic, conceited piece of shit that I have run into for a long time.
Now (sic) that one up yourself.
There, there.
Feel better now?
As I said, totally up yourself. And yes thank you I do feel better now, after reading pages and pages of your pure crap, it feels good to have spoilt your Sunday.
But then again, all you catholics have to do is go to confession and all is good again. Much like pedo priests.
Jim Cairns was not a member of the Communist Party. The word “communist” is used to label anyone to the left of the person speaking at the moment.
Jim was a self confessed commo and president of the Australian USSR Society during the war. I don’t care if he carried a card or not.
Oh, and the word “communist” is used to describe a communist – nothing more, nothing less.
What McLean wrote about her trip to Vietnam was straight out of the Communists Propaganda Manual and nothing to do with a travel blog. If you refuse to read up on these people then at least come up with something better than that as a counter.
Like the majority of Australians in 1972, I voted Labor Actually, more people voted for parties other than the ALP but there was more votes for the ALP than for the Libs.