Australia: Labor Green Loons refuse to accept what they demand others suffer

The Greens stupendous rejection of their own policy should be a warning to all those who blithely support these buffoons.

Piers Akerman
Daily Telegraph
November 272015

GRASSROOTS GREENS A GAGGLE OF GEESE

THE complete and utter hypocritical lunacy of inner-urban Greens was demonstrated outstandingly this week by Leichhardt Council’s four Greens councillors, who voted against plans to house refugees in unused buildings on the Callan Park site — formerly a home for the mentally ill.

Despite the high-profile publicity-seeking leadership of Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young and her coterie of proponents of an open border Australia, the Leichhardt Greens denied themselves an opportunity to show their convictions were more than #hashtags and self-aggrandising tweets.

Their print media backer, The Sydney Morning Herald, in an opinionated story masquerading as news, attempted to blame local government politicking and “right-wing anti-Islamic extremists” for the local Greens’ failure to stand by their federal colleagues’ commitment to house refugees in the empty Callan Park buildings.

Nope. It was just the Greens displaying their usual stupidity.

The Rozelle site has been begging for occupation and, in the heart of the Green-Left belt, what better place to house the refugees the compassionistas have been bellyaching about? Certainly Leichhardt Labor councillor Simon Emsley thought the council could do worse, and called on the council to approach the state and federal governments to create a “permanent refugee welcome centre: on the site of the former mental hospital at Callan Park, and create temporary accommodation to increase the Syrian refugee intake in the inner west.

But his charitable thought went nowhere when all four Leichhardt Council Greens representatives — Rochelle Porteous, Craig Channells, Daniel Kogoy and Michele McKenzie — voted against the proposal.

Displaying extraordinary naivety, Emsley told The Daily Telegraph he was shocked the Greens voted against the plan: “Given the committed advocacy role played by prominent national leaders of The Greens party I had assumed local Greens councillors would have thrown their full support behind the idea of the inner west playing a practical role to support refugee settlement.”

The Greens claim they might have supported the motion if it also contained amendments that included writing to Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and Opposition Leader Bill Shorten “calling for an end to mandatory detention, all asylum seekers to be processed onshore and be permitted to stay in the community on bridging visas with the right to work while their refugee status is determined.”

The claim is pretty hollow. Another motion put up by independent councillor John Stamolis including these amendments was also opposed by the Greens. The Greens stupendous rejection of their own policy should be a warning to all those who blithely support these buffoons.