Open letter to Bill shorten

Dear Bill,

I have been an ALP supporter and voter all my life and recently joined the Party. This doesn't mean I wasn't active all those years. In 1975 I made the ALP TV. spots for the Dismissal election on a pro bono basis.

I write to you today to offer my support and also to highlight some issues.

The LNP over the past few years has spent a lot of taxpayer money trying to blacken your name including the recent botched AFP raid on union offices. So far they have come up with a crooked judge and a handful of nothing.  

Mud has a habit of sticking though and I have heard from Labor voters that they are not sure about you. The fact that you have remained positive and are policy driven., showed who you are on Q&A and other forums still do not register with some.

I believe you are doing the best for the party while the LNP are trying their hardest to destabilise our party.  It would be great to see you, Penny, Tanya and Albo together on a platform to show the electorate how a democratic party with capable individuals works.

As an immigrant who came with my parents in 1950, survivors of war-torn Europe, I find that our current dialogue about refugees is badly distorted and particularly by potato head who has amassed an enormous amount of power, way beyond his capabilities, to do real harm to many innocent people.

There a number of myths about our current immigration policies.

1. We are amongst the world's most generous in taking people in.  Not even close. Probably at the bottom of the top 20.

2. The refugees are illegal. Not true. Under The Geneva Convention, which we signed, anyone can present at our borders and ask for asylum. Putting these people in a concentration camp is not the answer of a civilised society.
We are big enough and capable enough to absorb more people who will, in turn, add value to the rich multicultural mix that we now have.

3. Climate change. While the COALition is wedded to coal and gas the truth is that the market, which they so believe in except when they don't, has shown that coal is dead. Even Trump is being trumped by states who are moving rapidly to renewables as are Victoria, WA, SA, Tasmania and the ACT. The very idea of the Adani mine going ahead is anathema to a majority of voters and is plain wrong. You need to send a very clear signal that we are not having it.  The COALition showed us who they are with the lump of coal stunt in the Parliament. We know and we are different. he damage already done to the Great Barrier Reef and beyond is the legacy of the LNP and their years of inaction. Greg Hunt, as Minister for Lying about the Environment, did incalculable damage which he is now transferring to our health.

4. Talent. The ALP has a very talented caucus and front bench with skill sets the others don't even know they lack. It would be good to encourage and pick backbenchers to utilise social media and make themselves better known more widely. Choose some for TV spots. We have talented First Nation people and women. Our strengths should be evident, not by speaking about them, but by allowing the exemplars to speak and be seen and heard in areas of their expertise.
People like Mark Dreyfus and Tanya Plibersek are already noted for their prowess but we have depth.


5. Negative Malcolm has some glaring deficits from his resignation as leader because of the climate change issue, to his knowingly destroying the NBN, simply because it was a Labor initiative, to his spectacular failure in the Parliament in the Godwin Gretch affair which seems to be forgotten.
He projects an aura of confidence in his own brilliance but we need to call him out. Snowy 2.0? A thought bubble. Hand income tax to the states? Ditto. Help the big end of town with tax avoidance (Panama Papers), well we can just legislate for that. Meanwhile, the reliably hopeless Scomo, waits for his turn to get the brass ring.

6. The LNP have made an untruth, that they are the best managers of the economy, into a given. The ALP has gone some way to dispelling that lie but we need to provide more detail and context, for instance, that the structural deficit we now have is from the actions of Howard and Costello buying elections and destroying our bottom line.  This when they didn't understand that the mini boom and its rivers of gold had to end.

​This is a difficult issue to get across in a three-word slogan but it would be better to start that discussion outside the election phase to redress the public perception. The Conversation has had academic papers on this so maybe a non-partisan approach would be a good starting point.

Yes, it's a mess, but we will prevail.

Bob Weis

Generation Films

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