Noel Pearson on Kim Beazley

Another good weekend quote from Noel Pearson, writing in relation to the Noongar peoples land rights win in South Western Western Australia.

'Both Kim Beazley and John Howard support the WA Government's decision to appeal. Howard's aspiration to limit the extent of native title to a minimum is at least consistent with his well-known convictions. Beazley was a minister in the government that enacted the Native Title Act in 1993 under the leadership of Keating and Gareth Evans. Beazley's position on Noongar is a measure of the man: he has no convictions.'

Shame Beazley shame.

Neglecting the Keating economic legacy is bad enough by itself, but repudiating Labor's committment to Native Title is unforgiveable. He's a nice enough bloke, but the time has come for him to go. You can't try and enter the values debate if you have no values to defend- end of story.

While Pearson decries Beazley selling out Labors soul, Greg Combet is caught eloquently defending labor principals and values on the same page. He writes:

'The freedom of people to associate in a union and the right of workers to collectively bargain are internationally recognised human rights. These are not new, radical, revolutionary or economically irresponsible ideas.

They are contained in the UN Charter of Human Rights and the core labour standards of the International Labour Organisation, both of which Australia is a signatory to. The principles that underpin these rights are widely recognised as essential to the effective functioning of a successful liberal democracy.

In free and democratic societies, collective bargaining is a fundamental mechanism through which individual employees are able to rebalance the inequality in power and negotiating positions in the workplace between a single worker and their employer.'

Could this man be the next ALP figure to win a Federal election? I'd rather Combet than another Beazleyite conservative like Shorten, Rudd or Swan that's for sure.