Contributed by Ugly
The raid on the Melbourne and Sydney of the Australian Workers Union is a disgrace that has the stink of a hatched government plot, to use a strong arm to deflect attention from its own failures.
Thanks to an error made by someone in the minister Michaelia Cash’s office, it is known that the raid was known about before it took place and it looks like the media was deliberately notified for the purposes of a photo shoot.
The error was not in doing it, but in admitting that it has happened.
It is a direct violation of what is supposed to be a separation between government and the forces of the law and some serious questions need to be answered. If these answers are not forthcoming, the minister and her government must be held to account for what can only be described as a gross violation of democratic rights.
As it is, the targeted union is being tried by media. This is not the first time this has occurred, and it is a sad commentary on the degeneration of the Australian political process in recent times.
Senator Cash has been exposed as a liar, after having denied any prior knowledge, before undeniable proof that this is unlikely was put before her.
She had to back down by saying: ‘I have just been advised that, without my knowledge, one staff member in my office in the course of discussions with journalists indicated that he had received information that a raid may take place”.
This is not good enough. The incident deserves a thorough public investigation. Without this, people are going to rightly consider that a cover up is taking place.
Whether one is for them or not, it doesn’t take all that much to realise that a desperate attempt to smear Bill Shorten and the Labor Party is taking place.
It also throws into relief the effort being made to destroy GetUp, by creating a picture that ties in the accusation that the organisation is a political tool being used by Shorten and Labor, not on the back of evidence, but by creating a media.
The second violation of democratic rights that has occurred is that the charge is made first and then action is taken to make sure it sticks. It is a reversal of just and fair legal process that created a very dangerous precedent.
The Australian Workers Union was selected because Bill Shorten was once its secretary.
GetUp is being attacked and had its office raided as well, because of its campaigns have proved to be a thorn in the government’s side. To run these campaigns, it receives donations from many places. This does not compromise its independence.
To suggest otherwise is to target all organisations that rely on public donations.
The union movement, including ACTU leader Sally McManus are falling in behind the defense of the Australian Workers Union. Support is going to GetUp as well.
This nasty business can be knocked on the head.
Response from the Australian Workers Union
Video from Qldaah
I couldnt believe this, when this broke. The smell of corruption rose in the area. Why did Michaela not call the police! Because she doesn’t want it investigated.
This is yet another vile, politically-motivated set-up by a discredited, deceitful and desperate government that, clearly, has no hesitation in stooping to gutter level and spending countless millions of hard-earned taxpayer dollars on grubby smear campaigns, unspeakably corrupt raids and not one, not two but three manipulative and compromised Royal Commissions against the ALP that amounted to nothing except costing Australian taxpayers a staggering $240 Million! This is a government that has proven, over and over again, to have zero credibility, not one ounce of integrity and to be absolutely driven by a self-serving agenda that has only one priority: to enhance the personal wealth and careers of themselves and their cronies in the top 1%. The lying, morally bankrupt fascists in the LNP are, indeed, the worst, most depraved sociopaths in our political history!