My material on the unfortunate gravitation of the Australian Democrats to
top-down oligarchic control by unprincipled careerists has evoked some
significant private responses. Every communication has supported what I
claim. Some have requested and/or provided additional material which has now
been included in a developing site at http://www.nettrek.com.au/~brian/e.htm
I hope this documentation will help participants in anti-establishment
political entities (including the Greens, Neither and One Nation) understand
that well-intentioned principles are always at risk from pragmatic 'friends'
as well as avowed opponents. It might appear to be a natural law in politics
that principle will be undermined, diluted and betrayed. The successful
perversion of the excellent aspirations and constitution of the original
Democrats provides lessons which must not be ignored by political reformers
and other persons of goodwill.
Regards
Brian Jenkins
-----Original Message-----
From: Brian Jenkins <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: Neither <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Date: Monday, 22 February 1999 2:23
Subject: Australia Undemocrats
|The Kernot-Lees Ambush of the WA Democrats
|
|http://www.nettrek.com.au/~brian/#F
|
|I have posted on my website a long and intriguing document to help answer
|questions I am often asked about the peculiar disintegration of the WA
|division of the Australian Democrats following the 1993 election.
|
|The minutes of a dramatic meeting in July 1993 record a key episode in the
|history of how the Democrats' National Executive established top-down
|control over a party which had practised participatory democracy since 1977
|and which once boasted the watchwords "honesty, tolerance and compassion".
|
|A generation of officers of the party's Western Australian division was
|purged in two stages--by prohibiting selected persons from nominating for
|party office, then by a mass expulsion (in July 1994), resulting in
|detrition of the statewide membership to fewer than 50 individuals. In
|essence, this was done because (in the wake of the corrupt WA Inc
|Government), WA Democrats could not be relied on to support cosy preference
|deals being made with Labor by the then leader Cheryl Kernot and deputy Meg
|Lees (who personally took charge of the WA "problem", with a WA acolyte,
|Helen Hodgson--now a State MLC--as her local deputy).
|
|The document is a contemporary handwritten record of how WA Democrats
|received the news that they were prohibited from holding their annual
|officebearers election unless candidates were acceptable to the national
|executive junta. As prime targets, both I and my wife Jean (a former
|Democrat senator) made detailed submissions to this meeting, which I have
|reproduced in full. Jean was never advised of the charges against her. She
|was expelled in 1994 by the same junta and has on two occasions been
refused
|readmission to the party.
|
|The turncoat party leader Cheryl Kernot formally embraced to the Labor
Party
|in 1998, but most of the backroom architects of the betrayal of the
|Australian Democrats' founding principles are still in positions of power.
|All are named in this revealing record. Keith Lees (former partner of Meg
|Lees) was assigned the role of hatchet man. He handsomely projects the
|unpleasant duplicity of his colleagues. Connoisseurs will also be able to
|spot a few WA fifth columnists and opportunists in the room.
|
|Brian Jenkins
|(former Secretary of the WA Democrats, resigned 1993)
|[EMAIL PROTECTED]
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|----------------------------------------------------------------
|This is the Neither public email list, open for the public and general
discussion.
|
|To unsubscribe click here
Mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]?Subject=unsubscribe
|To subscribe click here
Mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]?Subject=subscribe
|
|For information on [EMAIL PROTECTED]
|http://www.neither.org/lists/public-list.htm
|For archives
|http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]
|
