At last, a journalist from the lamestream media spots the galactic hypocrisy in Wayne Swan’s rants against 3 local miners.
Without actually calling it that, of course (emphasis added):
Swan’s pronouncements strike a jarring note, for three reasons. First, the contemporary playbook for “vested interest” campaigning was written not by the miners but by the unions.
It was the ACTU’s campaign against Howard’s Work Choices that established the power of an aggressive third-party thrust into politics. The union movement’s $30 million Your Rights at Work campaign discredited Work Choices, forced the Howard government into retreat and, finally, helped destroy the Coalition government. In the final humiliation, it even contributed to Howard’s loss of his seat of Bennelong. Swan was a beneficiary of this campaign.
Second, the miners that Swan demonised are not the miners that successfully emasculated his original mining tax. It was BHP Billiton, Rio and Xstrata that aggressively campaigned against the tax and funded its $22 million worth of lobbying and advertising, and it was Twiggy Forrest who went into private negotiations with Kevin Rudd to try to reach a compromise on the tax.
It was the three multinationals that helped discredit the Rudd government, accelerated Rudd’s downfall and forced the Gillard government to come to terms. Yet Swan does not mention these three multinationals in his critique of vested interests. Swan does not criticise the “vested interests” to whom he capitulated but the ones who were shut out of the negotiations. He is, in effect, punishing them for continuing to complain about a special deal to which he would not admit them.
The rest of Fairfax political editor Peter Hartcher’s article is well worth reading too. Even if it does continue to refrain from calling a spade a spade.
A little tip, Peter. That “jarring note” you feel, is called your Conscience.
The polar opposition between Wayne’s words, and his actions, pricks the inner sense of right and wrong once known as “morality” that we all possess, but few (especially politicians, and journalists) ever seem to recognise. Much less heed. And even less … act upon.
For the full story on Wayne Swan’s hypocrisy … and treason … not just on the mining tax, but on the carbon dioxide derivatives scam too, see this blog’s writeup of almost a week earlier – The Galactic Hypocrisy Of Wayne Swan.
Barnaby Is Right 
If Tony Abbott was slagging off the miners instead of Wayne Swan, the ABC/Fairfax mob would be accusing him of driving down their share prices so that his wicked, wicked mates could profit from the short-selling of mining stocks.
While I agree with you on the laziness of journalists, I think a large part of the blame needs to fall at the feet of Palmer and Forest. They have not mounted a credible defence in the media, by linking Swan to the Big 3 foriegn nationals. Forest’s decision to take out full page ads defenidng himself and his company (when Swan had accused the trio of using their wealth to peddle influence in the media) was a spectacular own goal.
If people realised the three aussie miners are small fish in the mining industry and Swan has in fact dudded them in favour of three large multi nationals, public opinion would turn even more against Swan.
Great work by Peter Hartcher, except it should have been the crux of the article, not the mere footnote it was.