The man formerly known as Hilary Bray wants you all to know that Senator Lee Rhiannon has a deep dark secret to hide.
MOST Australian teenagers setting off on a trip to Europe collect as many contacts as possible before they leave, but Lee Brown’s were more colourful than most.
A meeting was set up between Brown, now Greens senator Lee Rhiannon, and a man identified as the KGB station chief in Australia.
Oh. My. God. Communists? Sir Robert Menzies save us, people talked to Communists? This is an amazing piece of information, quite a scoop for Christian Kerr, I mean the only other place that I’ve read accusations about Rhiannon’s links to the Soviets is in Gerard Henderson’s “Media Watch Dog“, but now that they’re being printed in The Australian they must be serious.
So does this mean that Rhiannon is a secret commie in green clothes, and how did Kerr get access to this information?
There is no evidence that Rhiannon, seen as an outside contender for the leadership of the Greens, ever worked as a Soviet agent. But her activities earned her an ASIO file that runs to five volumes and more than 800 pages for the nine-year period 1969 to 1978, which has been released.
Now I make no claim to knowing anything about how our security services operate, but it would seem to me that if ASIO had any kind of concerns about Lee Rhiannon’s connections to a foreign government then they’d be unlikely to release those details to anyone. It’s no secret that Rhiannon’s parents were members of the Communist Party of Australia, or that she was a member of the party’s youth wing, yet the way that Kerr reveals it all you’d think that it was some shocking revelation.
There are two issues that this obsession with Rhiannon’s past raise. Firstly, who gets to decide which contact with foreign governments are OK and which are problematic? The Wikileaks cables have revealed that a range of Australian politicians are more than willing to pass private information along to the US embassy, while the list of our leaders who have taken sponsored study trips to Israel is also fairly long. Are these international links given a pass because they’re the “good guys”? Where do we draw the line? Are Scandinavian countries considered too socialist to be safe, or can we tell them when we’re planning to roll a PM?
Secondly, even if Rhiannon does see herself as a big state communist, why is that a problem? Even if she managed to turn the Greens into the second coming of the Communist Party she and her party would still have to face the electorate every three years. The fact is that people are free to hold and express any political views they like in this country, even when they run for public office. No-one seemed too concerned when former Communist Party member Fred Hollows was made Australian of the Year, so why the obsession with Lee Rhiannon? Rhiannon’s political beliefs are a matter for her party, as they work to develop the policies that they will present to the electorate, fretting that she’s some kind of manchurian candidate just makes you look like a paranoid fool.
I hope that Kerr isn’t planning on modelling his column too closely on Hendo’s “Media Watch Dog”, I don’t think that people could cope with any more correspondence.
30 Comments
That bit’s kind of boltesque. (And why isn’t Andy all over this yet, it’s fertile ground for boltcraft, sowing smear and dark innuendo.)
Phillip Adams was a communist from the age of about 16, but left the party disillusioned at age 19. He then melted into the capitalist superstructure to amass a tidy personal fortune in advertising.
Didn’t matter. ASIO’s file on Adams grew to proportions similar to the one on Rhiannon.
So this is a scoop? I don’t think so. ASIO is as ASIO does.
I hear Tony Abbott has had meetings with the officials of a Rome-based shadowy international organisation with a history of child abuse.
Don’t forget that Rupert Murdoch had a bust of Karl Marx in hi college rooms. Oh, and Christopher Pearson and Keith Widschuttle used to be Trots, like Frank Furedi and Brendan O’Neill.
ASIO even had a file on Barry Humphreys, let alone such subservies as Richard Neville.
Oooh – is that a Spoonerism?
Meant subversives of course.
But subservies has a certain ring to it.
Spoonerism? – “Three cheers for our queer old dean!”
Malapropism? – “…she’s as headstrong as an allegory on the banks of Nile.”
Whatever. Small laptop keyboards have a habit of twitching your sintent.
My favourite bit was your second quote: “But her activities earned her an ASIO file … which has been released”. Well? Surely our intrepid reporter has gone through it with a fine-toothed comb … and? Nah, can’t be arsed shuffling through 800 pages of scuttlebutt, why not buy three coffees for some old-timers and some anonymous quotes.
Lee Rhiannon is “an outside chance” of leading the Greens in the same way Sid Sidebottom is an outside chance of leading the ALP, and Alex Somlyay is gunning for Abbott.
@Angra: technically, metathesis
Well, to be fair, there’s a bit of a difference between just “talking to Communists” and talking to the KGB station chief. And the point isn’t that Rhiannon’s parents “were members of the Communist Party of Australia” – the CPA was independent. They were in the Socialist Party of Australia, which split from the CPA when it opposed the invasion of Czechoslovakia and was totally controlled from Moscow. If that was a scoop, it’d be pretty significant. My problem with it is that of course it’s not, it’s all old news. There’s been no secret at all about Rhiannon’s past; as you say, whether it’s important now is something for the voters to decide.
One I prepared earlier
http://blogs.crikey.com.au/purepoison/2012/01/26/australia-day/comment-page-1/#comment-74663
It’s the sort of stuff gerard writes. I wonder if he managed to convince kerr to post it under his name to sort of dilute the obsession a bit.
The cold war is over, guys. We won. Or, rather, the soviets lost less than we did.
“There was smoothment at the nation as the word had got around,
that the Bolt from old Negate had got away…”
Maybe we can contuine?
hi All,
I think subservies should mean
Here’s a starter. I’m sure you can do better –
“There was smoothment at the nation for the word had passed around
That the Bolt from old Negate had got away,
And had joined the wild bush tories — he was worth a thousand copies,
So all the cracks had gathered to the fray.
All the tried and noted writers from the papers near and far
Had mustered at the Murdochs overnight,
For the bullshits love hard riding where the wild bull-shitters are,
And the subbies snuff the battle with delight.
Piers was the old man with his hair as white as snow;
And rode as hard as Satan when Keating won the cup,
But few could write beside him when his blood was fairly up –
He could go wherever labour man could go.
And Paul of Magic Water came to lend a hand,
No better shithead ever held the reins;
For never lefties threw him while the subbies grip would stand,
He learnt to write while dribbling on emu plains.
And Miranda came to join them, a doughty girl with class,
She never let a fact distact her, even though it went right up her arse.”
They must be really concerned about Liberal voters turning to the Greens. Nobody else will be too affected by reds under the bed stories – they’re speaking to their rusted-ons.
John Reidy – brilliant, and as the accidental originator I wholly endorse free and unlimited public use of the term ‘subservies’ under Copyleft law.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyleft
Bewdy, Angra…though the Devine Ms M doesn’t quite scan (which is fairly apposite in itself).
I know it’s a tad unkind (like Miranda would spare anyones feelings), but i genuinely do think of horses (faces) when Miranda has appeared on QnA
jus sayin’
“yet the way that Kerr reveals it all you’d think that it was some shocking revelation.”
Not a shocking revelation but still worth reminding voters…….
“yet the way that Kerr reveals it all you’d think that it was some shocking revelation.”
Not a shocking revelation but still worth reminding voters…….
Oh please! I have an ASIO file too. All of the 40,000 previous members of the communist party from the beginning of intelligence gathering until 1984 have ASIO files. Every Trotskyite and former Trot would have ASIO files. In Queensland under Bjelke Petersen every member of the Labor Party, any politically interested person, every member and former member of the CPA, of every Trot splinter group, every conservation group, every aboriginal activist, every activist of any kind had Special Branch files. Information was routinely shared with ASIO so there would be files on all of them. This means a lot of paper about a lot of people. We used to hope that they would be very very bored reading about us. These facts are well documented.
sottile6 @18
What I want to know is …. how many of these ASIO file-writers went on to successful careers as authors? These guys must have been typing like fiends to generate all of this material. Remember – this was before ctrl-c / ctrl-v, and they wouldn’t have even had wikipedia to nick material from. That was some fierce creative resource they had there.
My contribution:
C’mon guys and gals, we can do it! Here’s another verse…
So Piers he rode to wheel them – he was writing on the wing
Where the best and rightist riders take their place,
And he raced his nonsense past them, and he made the papers ring
With his apt quip, as he met them face to face.
Then they halted for a moment, while he swung the dreaded cash,
But they saw their well-loved party full in view,
And they charged beneath the apt quip with a sharp and sudden dash,
And off into the party scrub they flew.
MOC at #21,
I don’t think the ASIO guys went on to be authors – but staff writers in the gossip magazines would have suited them perfectly…
Then fast the rightists followed, where the migrants deep and black
Resounded to the thunder as they read,
And the apt quips woke the echoes, and they fiercely answered back
From shills and shags that beetled overhead.
And rightward, ever rightward, wild lefties held their way,
And party cash and rumouring grew wide;
And Murdoch mutterred fiercely, “We may bid the mob good day,
No man can hold them down the rightist side.”
Actually good old ABP’s original doesn’t scan quite perfectly either.
When they reached the party’s summit, even Piers took a pull (!),
It well might make the boldest hold their breath,
The wild bull-crap grew thickly, and the hidden ground was full
Of shit-holes, and any slip was death.
But the man from Abbott’s Quiver let the redneck have his head,
And he swung his apt quip round and gave a cheer,
And he raced him down the ratings like a roadie in a bed,
While the others just sniffed coke in very fear.
Because?
Piers was right among the writers as they climbed the further hill,
And the pollies at the party standing mute,
Saw him ply the apt quip fiercely, he was right among them still,
As he raced across the dailies in pursuit.
Then they lost him for a moment, where some party hacks were met
In the cafes, but a final glimpse reveals
On a dim and distant hillside the crazy lefties racing yet,
With the man from Abbotts Quiver at their heels.
And he ran them single-handed till beliefs were far from home.
He followed like a cockroach on their track,
Till they halted scorned and beaten, then he turned their heads for home,
And alone and unassisted brought them back.
But his redneck Daily Tele he could scarcely raise a trot,
He was blood from hip to shoulder from the war;
But his Greenies hate undaunted, and his courage fiery hot,
For never yet was liberal truth a cur.
At William Street, East Sydney, where the blue-rinse lovelies raise
Their torn and rugged boob-jobs up on high,
Where the thoughts are clear as crystal, and the lib truths fairly blaze
At midnight in the rightist’s bleary eye,
And where around The Tory Showplace, crap-beds sweep and sway
To the breezes, and the rightist truths are writ,
The man from Abbotts Quiver is a household word today,
And the Boltists tell the story of his wit.
Finis.
Amen
Angra,
you have outdone yourself, I am in awe, I think my favourite single line is
Banjo would be proud that his verse is still being used to highlight bulls..t .
Its to long to twitter but a great read