Let’s talk about the Liberal party “thugs”
The Howard government has been very vocal about so called union "thugs" - using incidences of inappropriate behaviour on part of a couple of union officials to attack Labor's affiliation with the union movement and to run a scare campaign about union "thugs" taking over Australia should Labor win the election. Those suggestions are of course arrant nonsense, but truth and rationality are not pre-requisites in scare campaigns.
But perhaps Mr Howard would have done better looking a bit closer to home - because if (as it may very well be) a bit of abusive language is unacceptable behaviour for union officials, the conduct of Howard's liberal party mates if not any better.
Jim Aitken
Let's start with the Liberal party member Jim Aitken who was just convicted of assaulting a union media officer. The incident history is quite interesting. Apparently Mr Aitken, as a principal of a real estate agency, put one of his workers on an AWA, which reduced her take-home pay by as much as $30,000 a year. In response, the local Your Rights at Work Committee staged a peaceful protest outside the real estate agency. The protesters were greeted with a multitude of photographers, video surveillance and police. Mr Aitken declined to explain his actions, preferring to threaten legal action and sneer "this is much bigger than you people" when asked for a response by Workers Online.
The matter did not end there, however. One of the protesters was a National Union of Workers union officer Mark Ptolemy. About a month later, as Mr Ptolemy was working at a community fair stall, he was approached by Mr Aitken who reportedly verbally abused him for about an hour, calling him "a paedophile, homosexual and a union thug." (this is also a good example of Liberals' views on homosexuality), physically pushed him around and threatened to send thugs to his house to break his legs. Ptolemy, who feared the incident may escalate contacted the police and charges were laid. That Aitken acted like a thug has now been proven in a court of law.
It is as yet unclear whether Howard will take action and move to expel Aitken from the Liberal party as Kevin Rudd, rightly or wrongly, forced the expulsion of misbehaving union members.
Bill Heffernan
When it comes to consistently inappropriate behaviour, Howard's close friend, Bill Heffernan surely takes the cake. Few can forget his outrageous abuse of parliamentary privilege when he used forged documents to make very serious and completely false allegations against Justice Michael Kirby. He got away with having to resign as Parliamentary secretary and an apology. Close personal friendship with the Prime Minister is obviously useful in avoiding more serious sanctions (notably, Coalition sentaors all voted against a censure motion).
Not so long ago he alleged that Julia Gillard is unfit for leadership because she is socially "barren". Again, he got away with making an apology, which he undoubtedly did not mean.
Lets not forget a host of other incidents, such as gatecrashing a Labor party press conference given by Senator Conroy, interjecting repeatedly and standing behind Conroy and pulling faces, having an altercation with a Nationals Senator Fiona Nash, during which he told her to "blow it out her backside" and stealing how to vote cards from Greens volunteers at this year's NSW election and standing for four hours outside the polling booth stirring up trouble, including shouting "If you want to decriminalise drugs for your children, vote Green.'' Heffernan would not return the how to vote cards until police were called. His excuse? He wanted to have a bit of fun because "Sydney is as boring as bat shit".
A week ago Heffernan admitted to impersonating an ASIO officer and Senator Barnaby Joyce in a number of telephone calls concerning Cubbie Station. Under the Criminal Code Act (Cth), impersonating a public official is a criminal offence (see Divisions 142 and 148). So what is Heffernan's defence to breaking the law - he was just having some fun! "Can't a bloke have any fun any more?" he said. Needless to say, "having fun" is not a defence to any offences he may have committed.
So will Howard move to expel Heffernan from the Liberal party for his behaviour? I wouldn't count on it.
And the others…
Former Howard government minister, Gary Hardgrave and another Liberal party MP Andrew Laming are under investigation and are facing possible charges for rorting taxpayer funds to pay for campaign material. The alleged rort of some $67,000 pales into insignificance when compared with about $2 billion of taxpayer money used by Howard to advertise himself.
The Libs have had other more mundane incidents, such as the resignation of Aged Service Minister Senator Santoro earlier this year after "forgetting to disclose 70 parcels of shares and Human Services Minister Ian Campbell being forced to resign after admitting to a meeting with Brian Burke.
The Liberals are not short of "thugs" themselves, and some of these remain very close to the party power base. Despite this the Howard government is hypocritical (and desperate) enough to impute to the Labor party the misbehaviour of a couple of union members and to continue running its "union thugs" scare campaigns, but it would be foolish to forget the maxim that those living in glass houses should be careful with casting stones left right and centre.
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