Labor lines up to take on the Greens

July 8th, 2012

FAKE NEWS for the Zionist agenda

NSW Opposition Leader John Robertson has backed calls by Labor heavyweights Sam Dastyari and Paul Howes for the party to distance itself from the Greens but stopped short of advocating their last-place preferencing on how-to-vote cards.

Mr Howes, national secretary of the right-wing Australian Workers Union (AWU), has described the Greens as Opposition Leader Tony Abbott’s “secret weapon” following a proposal from Mr Dastyari, the NSW Labor secretary, for the ALP to no longer automatically favour the Greens in any future preference negotiations.

Mr Howes says the Greens are “cannibalising the progressive vote” by splitting it in two in many seats and that “not automatically preferencing the Greens is a good step in the right direction”.

“They are Tony Abbott’s secret weapon,” he told Sunday News Ltd papers.

Mr Dastyari, convenor of the NSW right Centre Unity faction, told Sky News on Sunday: “For too long, too many people in the Labor party have been dealing with the Greens with kid gloves.

“We haven’t actually taken the challenge up to them – we need to do that.”

Mr Robertson, also from the NSW right, has declined to declare whether or not he agrees with Mr Dastyari ahead of the state party conference which will hear the preferencing proposal.

But he described the Greens as “a real issue” for the Labor party.

“It is appropriate for us to confront this issue as a party and make sure we deal with it,” he told reporters in western Sydney on Sunday.

“That’s a matter for the party to decide and I’m not going to have a public debate here about what the party makes as its decisions in the lead-up to elections.”

He pointed out that former Greens leader Bob Brown had wanted his party to supplant Labor on the left.

“The Greens and Bob Brown when he was leader made the point that he sees the Greens replacing the Labor party,” Mr Robertson said.

Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young said Mr Dastyari had “insulted a good swag of the people that they (Labor) rely on, election-in and election-out”.

“Sam Dastyari did say in his interview … that there’s a difference between the Greens’ values and the Labor values and that’s right: the Greens have values and the Labor party doesn’t,” she said.

Commenting on Mr Dastyari’s proposal, Prime Minister Julia Gillard said the ALP was its own party with its own unique policies.

“For this government which I lead, we will always pursue Labor values and a Labor vision,” she told reporters in Brisbane.

“We will be prepared to work with others who help us enact those Labor values and that Labor vision.”

Meanwhile, Greens leader Christine Milne said comments from Kevin Rudd’s wife about his possible return as Labor leader were “destabilising” the government.

Mr Rudd’s wife Therese Rein told Fairfax newspapers on Saturday her husband could return to the federal Labor leadership, but only if he was invited.

Senator Milne said Mr Rudd should come out and state his intentions on the leadership rather than have family members speak on his behalf.

“This is Team Rudd letting everybody know that Kevin is ready to be begged to take it on,” she told Network Ten on Sunday.

“It’s actually destabilising the government,” she said.

” … you have to wonder if the NSW disease isn’t spreading into the Labor party generally.

“And you have to wonder how the prime minister must be feeling about (it).”

Following Senator Milne’s initial comments on Saturday, Ms Rein tweeted: “is she saying that as an individual and as a woman I’m not speaking my own mind?”

“Or that what I say has Kevin’s consent.

“She obviously doesn’t know me very well hasn’t read the actual text of the interview.”

Senator Milne dismissed Ms Rein’s tweets as “faux outrage”.