Thursday, September 27, 2007

The Labor Party & child-sex

Labor’s ex-NSW Aboriginal affairs minister Milton Orkopoulos has denied committing child sex offenses. He is facing 37 charges of child sex and of supplying drugs to children for sex. Premier Morris Lemma denies knowing anything in advance about these alleged offenses which justified his retention as a Minister until he was formally charged though his good friend David Tierney apparently knew as did others.

Labor’s ex-Federal Minister for Aboriginal Affairs has now died just a few days before he faced 21 charges all relating to child sex offences. NT police allegedly found child porn on his computer’s hard drive in July 2004 and several aboriginal kids record sexual attacks. Police believe that the car crash where he injured himself was a suicide attempt and Paul Toohey in The Bulletin this week (subscription required) states that he was believed to have attempted suicide in hospital soon afterwards. Collins is claimed to have died because of cancer but he weighed over 200 km at death – he didn’t 'fade away'. Pity - he should have faced his accusers.

Collins was a smart man – a Minister in both Hawke and Keating Governments. A leading light in the ALP intelligensia. According to Toohey he was also a very nasty man. Abusing kids - aboriginal or other - is real nasty.

Labor’s ex speaker in Queensland Bill D’Arcy was charged with 41 child sex crimes in January 2000. He is now serving a 10 year prison term – pretty light given the scale of the devastation he unleashed and the lives he ruined.

And of course former Queensland Labor Leader (and Baptist lay-minister!) Keith Wright was jailed for eight years in 1993 for indecently dealing with and raping and molesting underage girls while a couple of years back former Labor Party official Neville Hilton ran a child brothel in Albion Park NSW and was sentenced to 4 years jail. As Tim Blair remarked - at least Hilton was doing his bit for youth unemployment. No, that is a cheap quip. I cannot imagine anything more despicable than selling young kids into prostitution.

I don't see any left-wing blogs discussing these issues or their persistent tendency to recur within the ALP's highest ranks. The Labor Party needs to look at itself and ask why the comradely culture of union hacks, hypocrites and bleeding-heart liars produces these outcomes.


Update: Phillip Adams farewells his old mate Collins here. I wonder how broadminded Phillip would have reacted if the claims of child- sex abuse had been directed to someone on the other side of politics. Sympathy for the alleged victims?

9 comments:

Damien Eldridge said...

This is a bit of a stretch isn't it, Harry?

Consider the following analogy (which happens to be true). There are (at least) three teachers who are rumoured to have been paedophiles that were at the school I attended in Canberra from year 4 to year 12 while I was there. My understanding is that at least one of them was charged and found guilty while another of them committed suicide after being charged. There is a rumour that the remaining one has also been charged and found guilty.

I think it is a bit silly to suggest that there is a problem with the teaching profession because some teachers do terrible things. Similarly, I think it is a bit silly to suggest that there is something endemic to the ALP because some members have done terrible things.

For the record, the school I am referring to is Marist College Canberra. I will not post the names.

Damien Eldridge said...

In my previous comment, when I say "There are (at least) three ---", I mean that there are three that I have heard rumours about. I do not know whether or not there are others.

hc said...

No stretch at all.

I hope the school was investigated.

Why are those on the left so happy to condemn the world for asll its failings and to direct such bitter tirades at conservative political morality. Is it 'inner demons' and psychpathology not idealism that drives them.

It is certainly gross hypocrisy. And how about a bit of removing the needle from their own eye?

Look at the hysterical obsessions over at LP and tell me this is normal. Do you observe the same kind of drama on the conservative sides of politics or the same aberrant behaviour?

Anonymous said...

At least the kiddy fiddlers weren't anti-union. If they were we'd lynch them.

Anonymous said...

I absolutely agree that these are despicable acts and should meet the full force of the law.

But why make a link to some supposed superiority of conservative inner morality? Given the high rates of child sex abuse by the clergy, does this imply that Christian morality is inferior?

hc said...

The child-sex issue is pplagued with hypocrisy. Dirty clergymen preaching morality but buggering little boys are just as bad as 'high-minded' politicians who preach social justice for aboriginals and decry their unfair treatment but bugger their children.

I simply asked whether the same type of behaviour emerges on the conservative side of politics. My guess is conservatives have fewer inner demons and are generally less hysterical.

Its a matter of 'methinks they do protest too much'.

Anonymous said...

I think you make more sense when you stick to economics, Harry.

Private schools have been rife with teachers who profess conservative views and preach high-sounding morals and then go and molest their students.

Before taking such conjectures further you would need to prove that there is a statistically significant higher incidence of child abuse amongst non-conservatives than conservatives - not just point out a handful of high profile cases on one side.

hc said...

Mark, In making conjectures you need some evidence but hardly statistical proof. It wouldn't be a conjecture then but a theory.

I disagree that impressionist evidence is irrelevant here. Detailed statistical studies might be difficult.

I simply noted a big unmentionable - the high number of child sex offenses associated with senior people in the ALP over recent years. My conjecture is that there are less on the conservative side of politics.

In the absence of evidence I'll stick with that conjecture.

Comments on the role of hypocritical conservative Christians have already been made on this thread.

You wonder if the latter's vocational choices are motivated by predation possibilities or whether predation stems from celibacy requirements.

I wonder if the ALP which is notorious for its carping negativity about society doesn't just contain a lot of very unhappy souls. BoB Collns was allegedly frightened to get drunk lest his inner self reveal itself.

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