What doe he mean "White Australian mentality"?
Posted on 09/16/2005 11:01:13 PM PDT by naturalman1975
Mark Latham would not have been elected Labor leader if the party had known of his anti-American views, opposition defence spokesman Robert McClelland said today.
The latest extract from the former Labor leader's soon to be published diaries reveals Mr Latham believed the US alliance was "the last manifestation of the White Australia mentality" and should be dropped.
He said the alliance was a funnel that had drawn Australia into unnecessary wars, including in Vietnam and Iraq.
Mr McClelland said today the Labor Party was at odds with its former leader's views.
"The Australian Labor Party has a 65-year commitment to the United States alliance ... and that remains the case despite Mark Latham's 11th hour statement indicating his position," he said.
"I can assure you there are no greater supporters of the United States alliance than Kim Beazley, myself and Kevin Rudd ... and indeed the entire Labor caucus.
"There is no doubt that Mark Latham would not have been elected as leader of the Australian Labor party had he indicated these views."
Mr McClelland said he personally had asked Mr Latham what his position was on the United States alliance during the leadership contest.
"He indicated to me then that he had a strong commitment to it," he said.
"(If he hadn't) I certainly would not have voted for him, and I know a number of others would not have voted for him."
In fact, Mr Latham even held his first press conference as Labor leader in front of an American flag, Mr McClelland said.
"His first press conference as leader he placed himself in front of the American flag rather than the Australian flag to convince the voters of Australia that he was committed to the alliance," he said.
"He was misleading not only his colleagues but also the Australian public."
Mr McClelland said the Labor Party delivered on the Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with the US, despite Mr Latham's views.
"We actually delivered to the government the Free Trade Agreement, they had not had the numbers in the Senate," he said.
"Mark Latham's views were superseded by the overwhelming view of the caucus, so that's an indication he was out of touch.
"It was an indication of inconsistency, at the very least on his part, but worse than that I think blank hypocrisy."
Asked if Labor MPs were considering taking legal action against Mr Latham over some of the allegations in his new book, a spokesman for Mr McClelland said a number of frontbenchers had sought legal advice.
"Nothing has been initiated at this stage but they are reserving the right to initiate defamation proceedings," the spokesman said.
Seems like Australia has its own leftist "useful idiots," just as we do.
"last manifestation of the White Australia mentality"? What the hell is he talking about?
It is hard to rip all the Countries that hat us when we have the Democrat party in our own Country that hates us just as much. It was a bad post but you might understand the point.
I don't know that it is in any way correct to say that the U.S. "got" Australia involved in Vietnam. The Aussies were acting in their own strategic interests. Vietnam was a nearby neighbor. It may have helped their internal arguments that they weren't going in alone and would have the U.S. there too, but the unanswerable question is whether they would have gone in anyway.
"White Australia" was the informal name for the old Australian immigration policy. I.e., Euros allowed, nobody else. Ended in the 60's.
White Australia was the bogeyman of the Australian left, like McCarthyism in the US.
I guess Latham thinks of the US alliance as something Australia is in as a "white people stick together" sort of thing.
Mr Latham apparently believes that Australia's alliance with the United States is based on racism.
People like Mr Latham don't believe that Australia has any reason to fear war on invasion. They believe that all the countries of South East Asia are our friends, and will be our friends forever. Therefore we don't need to worry about the risk of war, because nobody else could attack us and Asian nations are friendly.
While it's true that many Asian nations are our friends, and while most Australians hope that that will remain the case, most of us are aware that things changed. We faced invasion in 1942 from Japan. We were at the end of the row of dominoes if communism had ever succeeded in conquering South East Asia. And to our northwest is the world's most populous Moslem nation. We certainly do need to be aware of these facts.
Our reasons for being worried about the possibility of attack from South East Asia has nothing to do with racism - it has to do with geography. But that doesn't stop people like Latham alleging that it's race related.
And because he sees things in this way, the only reason he can see for Australia maintaining defence ties with the United States is because we're worried about being overrun by Asians.
I see. Latham is no different than the garden variety American leftist. In other words, his country is guilty of whatever it's charged with, indigenous societies are pure, admirable and oppressed, while everybody to his right is a rich racist warmonger who sees things only in terms of color (which he and all the other "good people" ignore, of course).
Poor sap.
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