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The Forum > Article Comments > The moral degeneration of the Labor Left > Comments

The moral degeneration of the Labor Left : Comments

By Marko Beljac, published 15/1/2010

The Labor Left likes to pretend that it is the conscience of the Party, yet in reality it has become a self serving faction.

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Pelican:"Trouble is if you champion the cause of disadvantaged women and they start realising their goals, they, by your definition, become just another middle class princess."

And if they do, they no longer need support because they're no longer disadvantaged. Simple, isn't it? Do you genuinely think that middle-class people require government support? If they do, we've fallen a long, long way since I was a child.

Your characterisation of Labor politics as a patriarchal machine is quite wrong in today's world, when affirmative action policies mean that a minimally-qualified woman will gain pre-selection over better-qualified men. Add to that the dominance of women in the white-collar unions (for similar and related reasons) and you have a very different picture to the one you're trying to paint.

Chris C, it seems you largely agrree with my list of time-servers. I'm prepared to accept your view of Kosky's talents in the absence of sufficient interest to follow it up. I don't agree about Macklin: she's done virtually nothing in her role as Minister and she wasn't up to much as a Shadow.

JLDeland:"It is very easy to sit online and anonymously fire off cow-pats at public individuals from a safe distance."

Not as easy as getting a "job for the girls" within the Labor Party...
Posted by Antiseptic, Thursday, 21 January 2010 7:29:32 AM
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Anti
I wasn't arguing for more middle class welfare - we don't need it or should aspire to it IMO. Please quote where I have stated such.

I was arguing that by your definition any women who achieves any level of success in the workforce is a middle class princess. It seems women can't win. They either wallow in the disadvantaged end or be ridiculed and derided in the middle classes and above.

Your experience of Labor is very different to mine and I have worked for Labor although never an ALP member. Most of safe vacant seats have been given to Labor men like Combet, Shorten, and now it looks as if two Federal Canberra seats may become vacant. It is only men that look to be in the running for those so far.

You are kidding yourself if you think the previous positive discrimination for women in some sectors is any different than the safe position of the boys club for some quite untalented men.

Lets just encourage the talented and those who achieve success on their own merits rather than get too bogged down in gender. A one-sided bias on gender politics is not going to help the Labor Left one iota.
Posted by pelican, Thursday, 21 January 2010 6:53:47 PM
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Pelican:"I wasn't arguing for more middle class welfare - we don't need it or should aspire to it IMO"

Ah, I see, so you're actually in agreement with my point then. I must have been confused by the fact you were arguing with me about it...

Pelican:"by your definition any women who achieves any level of success in the workforce is a middle class princess"

Rubbish. That's your straw m...woman. My concern is that there has been massive social upheaval that does little for the disadvantaged women you mention, but whose plight is used to justify ever greater featherbedding for middle-class women who don't need it.

My business premises used to be in a small industrial estate that included several small factories manufacturing such items as sports uniforms, food products and similar process-type operations. The staff in each case were mostly women and mostly of PI origin and they worked their bums off on casual wages, often being sent home with little notice because a delivery had failed to arrive or something.

I'd be willing to bet that you, as a middle class Government employee on a good wage, received just as much in the way of Government handouts as they did - possibly more, since you're more aware of your entitlements, I suspect.

M ex-wife, with 4 uni degrees and working on a fifth while she takes home her $75k public service wage lives in a Qld Housing Commission house. She recently asked me to sign a document in relation to the child custody arrangements for Centrelink because she had discovered she was "missing out" on some payment or other worth $25 a week.

To date, the Government has subsidised her education to the tune of over $100k, which she repays at the peppercorn rate demanded by HECS.

Would you like to guess how much I claim in govt handouts? Here's a clue: you couldn't buy a pot of beer with it.
Posted by Antiseptic, Friday, 22 January 2010 6:57:54 AM
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Well that explains why you think the way you do. Probably no point in engaging at all but one last try.

You make a few assumptions about government handouts. Do you really assume that middle class women only receive government handouts. Where are they - so far I don't qualify for any.

The only time we have ever claimed a government handout was the Parenting Allowance some years ago while living on one income - definitely not living the middle class life at that stage, having both decided to raise our kids at home for the most part.

We have also paid a heap in taxes. I am only a part-time government employee earning a fair wage but not excessive and have actually downshifted both financially and in status. It helps not to be materialistic.

There is so little value in materialism, yet I would have to say my husband and I are both middle class. I would not label him a prince at all (I assume you think middle class men are princes too in the interests of fairness). He has always worked hard and been a good dad.

You never have a good word to say about women unless they remain disadvantaged it seems.
Posted by pelican, Friday, 22 January 2010 9:48:38 PM
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Antiseptic,

I don’t ‘largely agree with [your] list of time-servers’. I just commented on two you mentioned about whom I have a firm opinion.
Posted by Chris C, Saturday, 23 January 2010 3:59:03 PM
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Pelican:"Do you really assume that middle class women only receive government handouts"

Of course not, when have I ever claimed that? OTOH, middle class women do receive such handouts and they have no justifiable claim, it seems to me.

By all means give the disadvantaged a hand up, but once they're on their feet, let them stand on their own. at present, that is the situation for men and to a lesser extent married women, but for any single woman with kids there is a bonanza of handouts available, many of which are only means-tested at extremely high levels.

Does my ex-wife genuinely require the Government to subsidise her rent through the Housing Commission? She can continue to have them do so even if she earns up to $90k. She's just demanded they increase the height of the fence because she has decided she wants a dog. Is she really incapable of paying for that herself?

No doubt several of the process workers I mentioned earlier would quite like a nice cheap Housing Commission place, instead of the squalid, insecure private rentals available on their budget.

The world of Feminist activism is littered with such single mothers, from Eva Cox to Elspeth McInnes and all the rest of the panoply. each and every one has continued to drain the public purse even after any genuine need existed and as they have risen within bureaucracy, academia and politics (all of which have had "affirmative action" policies for years) they have agitated for more and more fetherbedding for themselves and those like them, all the while claiming to be "victims".

It's nothing more than sponging.

Chris C:"I don’t ‘largely agree"

Perhaps you might point out why. Bald statements don't make for good conversations.
You say I never have a good word to say about women. that's not even remotely true. I admire women who work hard and don't expect to be treated as princesses merely for their possession of a vagina. Sadly, in today's world, that sort of woman is pretty thin on the ground.
Posted by Antiseptic, Sunday, 24 January 2010 8:30:21 AM
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