In bed with the enemy

Opinion by PETER HEHIR

The scene is from Ghostbusters and our heroes are in the Mayor’s office, where the following exchange takes place.

 Bill Murray’s character is attempting to win over the Mayor and he kicks it off with;

 “A disaster of biblical proportions.”

“What do you mean biblical?” says the Mayor.

“What he means is Old Testament” offers Dan Ackroyd.

“Yeah Mayor. Old Testament. Real wrath of God type stuff. Fire and brimstone coming down from the sky. Rivers and seas boiling” continues Bill.

“Forty years of darkness. Earthquakes and volcanoes” says Harold Ramis.

“The dead rising from the graves” chimes in Ernie Hudson.

Murray continues: “Human sacrifice. Dogs and cats living together. Mass hysteria…

“Enough! I get the point” says the Mayor.

Something extraordinary is taking place in New York. Actually not all that different to what has been happening on the Inner West Council (IWC).

There the “dogs and cats living together” are the Liberal and Labor councillors who have cosied up since 2017 to ensure that the party elected by the majority of the voters of the Inner West is without a voice.

It doesn’t matter which side of politics that you belong to, the thought of selling out your principles and getting into bed with the enemy has to be unthinkable!

It certainly is to me and to almost all of those of my generation. The divisions were pretty clear. It generally went like this:

White collar versus blue collar, capital versus labour, right versus left, bosses versus unions, private enterprise versus the public service, employers versus workers, capitalists versus socialists, rich versus poor, middle class versus working class, protestant versus catholic, the bourgeoisie versus the proletariat.

Political views were inherited. It was a matter of the family, the religion and the social demographic that you were raised in that determined your view of the world, how you voted and who you voted for.

Sure there were a few rebellious individuals who dared to question the family position and the status quo by beginning to think for themselves and they then finally jumped over the fence, sometimes causing a rift in the family that took some time to heal, if indeed it ever did.

But the status quo was the status quo and there was a grudgingly held acceptance that those in power sort of knew what they were doing, regardless of which side of the fence they were on.

What was at the heart of their decision making was what was best for the entire community, because we’re a democracy.

Government of the people, by the people, for the people is the overarching tenet. Any primary school kid will tell you that.

Well, those days are long gone. That’s all been tossed out with the detritus of history.

It’s now the Government of the people, by the elite, for the benefit of the few. No way can we truly say with hand on heart, that we live in a democracy.

There’s bugger all difference between Liberal and Labor today, something that the rusted-on supporters of both parties quietly whisper about in private.

It’s the lobbyists who run the show.

Ask yourself where is the social and environmental conscience of the Labor party?

They don’t have one!

Those that did have left and joined the Greens. Others like me – I was once the President of the Rozelle Branch of the ALP – became so disillusioned that we abandoned politics altogether.

It’s true that the Greens are some way from becoming a genuine political force in their own right. They need to demonstrate that they understand the connection between exploiting the environment, untrammelled immigration, the fallacy of sustainable growth, social justice, what grassroots democracy really means – it isn’t just about hugging trees.

Until they develop and only advocate policies that truly embrace all four of the pillars espoused by the co-founders of the West German Greens; Petra Kelly, Rudolph Bahro and Petra’s accused murderer Gert Bastion; policies that ensure social justice, that address the violence and its cause in our communities – not just focus on playgrounds, parks and gardens – they will never be taken seriously; nor will they resonate with enough electors to become the third party that we in Australia so desperately need.

If you are a traditional Labor or Liberal voter and you live in the Inner West Council area, please, just pause and reflect for a moment.

Ask yourself why in all hell aren’t you really pissed off with the two parties, who formed the unholy IWC alliance, and who have given us WestConnex and the Western Harbour Tunnel?

The IWC can’t be blamed for the present attack on Callan Park – or can they? The attitude of the previous majority of the elected community representatives to the Friends of Callan Park is a matter of public record.

They aren’t responsible for the light rail carriages that are cracking up and that the Light Rail to Dulwich Hill is now in mothballs for 18 months.

Or the idiocy that the carriages on the other light rail lines are a different gauge, that the Metro that puts a good percentage of railway employees out of a job (no drivers, no guards) and hardly any seats, with four people per square metre standing from Central to Parramatta, in a carriage that isn’t compatible with either of those on the Light Rail!

But the NSW Government certainly are responsible for these cock ups, including mothballing the six original light rail trains that could right now be keeping the Dulwich Hill to Central line open!

We should all be outraged that the Liberal/Labor junta conspired!; and that the conspiracy drove the IWC into a massive deficit, simply because they blindly danced to the tune sung by their political masters in Canberra and Macquarie Street, led by our very own Pied Piper.

If we are to survive as a community, local residents must take back control of our local councils!

Leichhardt, Marrickville and Ashfield Councils have to be reinstated and brought back into surplus.

We also have to ensure that we express our outrage at the shabby treatment we’ve been extended and let the major parties know that we aren’t going to line the pockets of their puppets with our inflated rates any longer.

Vote Yes! to de-amalgamate on December 4^th!

And also give both of the major party candidates the bums rush they all so rightly deserve.

Especially the ALP ex-mayor, who lives nowhere near Balmain – yet has no qualms in describing himself as “Local Labor”, presumably in an attempt to either distance himself from the Sussex Street ALP puppeteers; or perhaps in a transparent attempt to endear himself to peninsula dwellers, or both.

A mayor who was recently heavily fined for his threat of a defamation action against a fellow councillor and subsequently lost his mayoral sinecure.

The time for a new broom is long overdue – one that sweeps clean…