Goodbye Martin Ferguson … I look forward to ignoring you …

In 1996 just after Ferguson was first elected to Parliament, I had dinner with him and a table full of ALP and union clones.

The conversation was dull and as I looked around the table I realised that the majority of the other guests were silent and in awe of Ferguson.

In an attempt to stimulate the evening I stated that I had listened to Laurie Ferguson (Martin’s brother) give an erudite speech on the needed liberation of East Timor, then a province of Indonesia and how the deaths of thousand of Timorese had occurred and Australia needed to speak up.

The other guests picked up and nodded agreement at my comments, conversation started, two others at the table became Senators in the following years and these two engaged in a knowledgable exposition of the topic and the table became animated until …

Martin Ferguson opened his mouth with the following comment: “It’s buggered Gareth’s career, he’ll never get the numbers now”, not being a member of a union or a member of the ALP and just being a handbag to my then partner I pursued Ferguson on his comments, asking what he meant.

Slowly the rest of the guests, dropped their bottom jaw and stayed silent as Ferguson launched into a dissertation that related not to the crimes of Timor but the negative effect these had on his party and to a particular member, Gareth Evans and how hopefully these crimes would derail Gareth’s career.

This was the start of my contempt for the ALP as I realised that the rest of the table with their silence agreed with Ferguson and said not a thing. My evening ended early as I voiced my displeasure and left.

Over the years we have watched as many ALP members have written books describing the lack of ethics within the factions, how the party is chasing away its members and full of self serving hypocrites who pursue their own ambitions ahead of any other.

This ‘party of principle’ with a ‘light on the hill’ now supports the parasitic poker machines that cripple the most vulnerable of our community.

They side with oligarchs who own the machines and encourage them to spread into the poorest suburbs and the die hards of the party whose only vision is their own career band together once again and sing ‘solidarity together’ and renege on their promises to stifle this parasitic scourge.

They take whatever they can, employ their know-nothing relatives, appoint party members above others to judicial posts and it takes a Crime Commission to eliminate the Obeids – not their ethics or rules.

I look forward to ignoring Ferguson’s book, no doubt this future ALP saint will run the line that the factions were wrong to eliminate Rudd and how he was the ants pants of integrity with only reform on his mind.