The SA Politics Thread

[cruel_world00]

Hey stumpy if you're going to go on a tirade, why not get the spelling of the person's name right?

MALINAUSKAS.

Small, yet important detail.

And don't say I'm being pedantic. This is the internet after all.

[Hooligan]

Without being rude i have to ask, Do you have any hobbies Stumpjumper?

[rev]

Just ignore him.
When someone bites, he goes on another rant.
99% of what he says is all based on what he thinks and claims to know because people he claims to know but wont reveal their names, tell him.

For someone who claims to be so well connected that he is in the know on so many things regarding politics in this country, he sure does spend a lot of time trying to convince random people on an Internet forum don't you think?

If he was as connected as he likes to pretend, he would be doing something about the alleged problems he likes to complain about in this thread.


Just another liberal staffer. He can deny it, again. But it's rather obvious.

[stumpjumper]

Sorry about the mis-spelling. Malinauskas (100 times...)

I'm far from being a Liberal staffer. I'm a contractor involved in planning and building, and I'm not a member of any political party or group.

I know a few people in the media but other than hearing a few rumours from them I'm no better connected politically than anyone else. I read the papers, listen to the radio and use the internet.

My 'rants' concern what I consider to be an outrage - the inappropriate power wielded in SA by the unrepresentative executive of one union.

Instead of complaining about the argument, why not refute it? Instead of making ad hominem attacks, why not disprove the thesis that a structural imbalance within the ALP means that in SA, the election of a Labor government means government by the executive of the SDA?

In a way, I'm complaining here abouty the same thing that a lot of other posters complain about - the tendency of South Australians to shrug and put up with sh*t when they shouldn't have to.

People in SA put up with boring, low-cost development - what can you do, they say - it's development. At least Sensational Adelaide discusses development, even if there's what I think is an unsophisticated tendency to applaud height as if it's the hallmark of good planning and design.

I'm complaining that people put up with unimaginitive, poor quality government when they shouldn't. Whether you consider the 'official' government, the parliamentary Labor party, or the (I say) real government - the SDA, almost all of the people who govern us are a uniform type: school to uni to union or political staffer to preselection to parliament. They don't really have an understanding of how the rest of us live, and they don't know the value of money.

And I complain about it here because that's the title of this thread.

Either I'm completely wrong, or off my head, or people really are the complacent drones I suspect, happy to accept mediocrity in government as well as the built environment.

[stumpjumper]

The few who are interested or care that representative, democatric government in SA is under continuing attack may wish to read this. I'm writing it partially in response to rev's complaint that

'99% of what he says is all based on what he thinks and claims to know because people he claims to know but won't reveal their names, tell him.'

There are plenty of names and accusations here, all verifiable.

On Friday July 29th 2011, Peter Malinauskas, the 30-year-old state secretary of the Shop, Distributive and Allied Employees Association (‘the SDA’ or ‘the Shoppies’, South Australia’s most powerful union), accompanied by state treasurer Jack Snelling, a former SDA official, walked into Premier Mike Rann’s office and sacked him.

The SDA claims a membership of 23,000 - a total inflated by including the Northern Territory - drawn from the retail, fast food and warehouse industries. The majority of SDA members are young, casual employees who have their union fee deducted from their pay but take no part in the union’s activities. However, the tiny, close-knit executive of the SDA is very busy – in constant communication with its operatives at all levels and areas of government and the public service in South Australia. What the SDA is doing is running South Australia on a day to day basis, dictating every move of the elected government and scripting Cabinet policy.

How? Simple arithmetic.

ACTU-affiliated unions, like the SDA, are guaranteed 50% of the votes at ALP conferences. Never mind that only around 10% of the electorate belongs to a union. Its membership numbers deliver the SDA a controlling bloc of delegates to Labor’s state conference. In turn, this clique controls policy. For example, the SDA policy is anti gay marriage, abortion and IVF, although SDA members have never been polled for their opinion on these issues. Rather than represent its members, the SDA hierarchy uses them merely as numbers to gain dominance within the ALP.

For years the grassroots membership of the ALP has been sidelined from pre-selection decisions. Branches are stacked; candidates chosen by party headquarters are simply imposed on safe seats.

Specifically, drones and union hacks of dubious talent from the SDA, unfit to face the voters in Lower House seats, are given a secure place on the Upper House ticket and installed for eight-year terms of comfortable, undistinguished anonymity. The presence of these obedient hacks gives the SDA the numbers in the party room to dictate ministerial appointments, lucrative parliamentary committee roles and nice little earners for family members and other cronies.

In fact, it suits the SDA far better to have the least ambitious, least talented, least imaginative zombies possible in the Upper House, where they do no harm but can be trained to say yes on demand, no matter what the question.

The SDA controls parliament through its control of Labor’s dominant right-wing Labor Unity faction and wages an endless internal war against its arch-enemy, the socialist Left.

In SA, SDA MPs tend to be far-right Catholics (Michael Atkinson, a devotee of the Latin Mass, is a perfect example) who use their influence to deliver preferment and taxpayer dollars to the Catholic Church. Nowhere else in Australia has a Catholic clergyman - Monsignor David Cappo - been given a place in Cabinet, brazenly transgressing the constitutional separation of church and state. Throughout his appointment, Monsignor Cappo, in his roles as the so-called Independent Commissioner for Social Inclusion, advisor to the Executive Committee of State Cabinet and member of the South Australian Economic Development Board has run political interference for the Rann government on a range of controversial issues.

The worst consequence of this system of patronage is that ability and character play no part in preselection or ministerial promotion: you simply rise to the head of the SDA queue, it’s your turn, and in you go to do your duty supporting every demand of the SDA executive. Matters currently before the courts in SA may expose a sad example of this policy of deliberate appointment of weak characters.

As well as obtaining lucrative cash distributions from the public purse, the SDA delivers direct benefits to its members by undemocratically dictating the very laws that govern the state. The most obvious example is the SDA’s complete control of the state’s shopping hours.
Direct grants of taxpayers’ money to the SDA by the government are commonplace, often under the guise of ‘workplace safety’ grants. In 2007 the SDA was given $450,000 was given to subsidize ‘safety information schemes’ which turned out to be a series of lavishly produced recruitment commercials for the union.

The SDA works largely on the principle of favour bestowed, debt owed. During its years in power (ie the period of the Rann government) the SDA has made senior appointments to public office of at least 36 of its officials and their cronies - brothers, sisters, wives, de factos and girlfriends.
Remember as you peruse this roll of honour that the basic salary of an MP is $138,910, plus electoral allowance of $42,000 (which does not have to be accounted for), a $50,000 car for $7000 a year, and an additional $10-18,000 for each committee served on. Ministers receive a 70% loading to bring their salary to $243,092. With care, a parliamentary appointment can be the basis of a considerable personal or family fortune.
Let’s start at the top:

Senator Don Farrell, known throughout the ALP as ‘The Godfather’, is a former state secretary and national president of the SDA who exercises a stranglehold on power within the South Australian ALP. Farrell was one of a small cabal of factional conspirators who deposed Kevin Rudd as Prime Minister (to be rewarded with a promotion to parliamentary secretary by Julia Gillard). This was the first time most Australians had heard his name. But long before he was elected to any public office, Don Farrell orchestrated the elevation of Mike Rann to parliamentary leader in 1994. He has been the patron of other rapid risers from the ranks of the SDA, notably former checkout chick and uni dropout now federal MP for Adelaide and Rudd/Gillard minister Kate Ellis, who was awarded pre-selection at the age of 26.

Farrell’s father, Edward (Ted) was a serial candidate for the strongly Catholic Democratic Labor Party in the 1960s and 70s, an early indication of the Catholic bias that permeates Rann Labor. Don Farrell had himself pre-selected as ALP candidate for the federal seat of Adelaide in 1988 but failed to win many votes.

In 2008 Farrell decided to make sure of his future by taking number one position on Labor’s Senate ticket for SA. To do this, he kicked incumbent senator Linda Kirk off the ticket on very dubious grounds. Farrell has hardly been heard since in SA, although he is Parliamentary Secretary for Water, with responsibilities for the River Murray.

Don Farrell had his wife Nimfa Farrell installed on Senator Linda Kirk’s parliamentary staff - salary range $90-100,000 - but resigned in mid-2003 after a falling out which led to Ms. Kirk being dumped from the Senate ticket. On 28/2/07, Linda Kirk told The Advertiser of Farrell’s ‘absolute power’ over preselection by the Right, and claimed he had pressured her to resign after his wife left her staff.

A former industrial officer for the SDA, Linda Kirk served a single term in the Senate 2002-08. After being forced from Labor’s Senate ticket, she was promptly given a $127,000-a-year job by Kevin Rudd as senior member of the Migration and Refugee Review Tribunal. Unlike many SDA appointees, it could be said she had some qualifications after her service on parliamentary committees related to these issues.

Under Don Farrell’s patronage, and via her SDA membership, attractive Kate Ellis had a meteoric rise. At 23, after spending six years studying unsuccessfully for an Arts degree at Flinders University, Ellis dropped out of uni to join the pool of doggedly loyal ‘talent’ awaiting their turn to get onto the political gravy train. Kate soon caught the roving eye of Kevin Foley, an SDA affiliated MP, who hired her as a ministerial adviser (on ‘foreign trade’ says Kate’s CV) on a salary of $93,000. Not a bad starting salary for an unqualified uni dropout. From there, the rise of the good-looking one-time checkout chick was rapid. The SDA had her preselected for the federal seat of Adelaide, where she beat the incumbent Liberal who was recovering from cancer surgery in Queensland and did not campaign. Ellis became federal MP for Adelaide at age 26 and Australia’s youngest ever federal minister. She has since been relieved of the more challenging ministries of Sport and Youth, but retains Status of Women and Early Childcare together with Employment Participation. Ellis is notable for her legendary 130% staff turnover, a record for any parliamentary office.

Kate Ellis’s brother, Matt Ellis, is Health & Safety Officer of the SDA.

At age 27, former Woolworths Mitcham trolley boy and checkout operator Peter Malinauskas succeeded Don Farrell as SA state secretary of the SDA. He was promptly installed in a $50,000-a-year position on the board of Workcover, while still an undergraduate studying economics at the University of Adelaide. He replaced Unions SA secretary Janet Giles, who resigned in protest at new, SDA-sponsored laws which significantly disadvantage injured workers and produce the worst return-to-work outcomes in Australia. The appointment was one of the last decisions by outgoing Industrial Relations Minister and former SDA organizer Michael Wright. Malinauskas joined former provincial racecourse manager Philip Bentley, Mike Rann’s best friend, and Sandra de Poi, fiancee of Labor MP Leon Bignell, on the Workcover board. Since the Rann Government took office in 2002, Workcover’s unfunded liabilities have blown out from $68 million to $1.2 billion, while slashing workers’ rights and benefits.

Rob Malinauskas, younger brother of Peter Malinauskas, and in his early 20s, was catapulted from being a lowly cadet journalist at The Advertiser on $40,000 per year to political adviser on $120,000 per year, first as an adviser to then Treasurer and former SDA organizer Kevin Foley and later to Corrections Minister and former SDA officer Tom Koutsantonis.

Peter Malinauskas’ sister Elizabeth Malinauskas was appointed liaison officer for Attorney-General John Rau on a salary of $93,293.
Peter Malinauskas’ ex-girlfriend Elizabeth Hollidge was a junior solicitor in the law firm of Scammell & Co., where her father is a partner. While with Peter Malinauskas, Elizabeth Hollidge became a ministerial adviser to former SDA advocate Attorney-General Michael Atkinson on $93,293 per year and was recently appointed to the SA Development and Advisory Committee on an additional $35,000 per year, a role for which she has no discernible qualifications.

For most of his premiership, Rann’s Cabinet included eight ‘SDA’ members. On promotion to Cabinet, however, they appear to have suffered selective amnesia. With the exception of Tom Koutsantonis, their connections to the SDA have been completely excised from their formal biographies on government and party websites.

Kevin Foley joined the SDA as a shelf-stacker and trolleyboy after leaving school at 15. He was warehoused as an adviser to Bannon government minister Lynn Arnold before becoming Arnold's chief of staff when Arnold replaced the disgraced John Bannon as premier. Foley was the member for Hart before parachuting into Labor’s safest seat of Port Adelaide. Foley’s membership of the SDA faction protected him from the consequences of his often loutish behaviour in and out of parliament. Foley’s ministerial offices incubated numerous young SDA drones, launching them into public service positions not advertised on merit or competitively selected.

SDA mentor Michael Atkinson was briefly a journalist at the Advertiser before becoming an adviser and press secretary to former federal ALP minister and SDA advocate Chris Hurford. Despite Atkinson's limited legal experience, the SDA appointed him Attorney-General in the Rann government, a post he held for eight years. Atkinson's poorly drafted legislation was regularly subject to amendment and, in the case of anti-bikie association laws, was thrown out by the High Court. Atkinson has sued numerous of his many critics for defamation at taxpayers’ expense, and when successful has pocketed the proceeds. Taxpayers footed the bill when Magistrate Andrew Cannon successfully sued Atkinson for defamation and a suit by Advertiser journalist Colin James was recently settled for an estimated $100,000 of taxpayers' money.

Mr. Atkinson lived in the home of fellow SDA MP Bernard Finnigan for three months after his divorce from his wife, Joan, who is the communications officer for the SDA, having previously worked for Catholic Communications Adelaide. Michael Atkinson resigned from the front bench one day after the 2010 election.

A Young Labor stalwart, Tom Koutsantonis was an industrial officer for the SDA before his election to the state seat of Peake (now West Torrens) in 1997 at the age of 26. In 2009, his appointment as Minister for Road Safety lasted 47 days before he was forced to shift portfolios when his driving record of 58 speeding offences became public. He is now Minister for Mineral Resources Development, Industry and Trade, Small Business and Correctional Services. Other salaried positions include membership of the Economic Development Board of SA. Questions have been asked about Mr. Koutsantonis’s conduct of the application by Marathon Resources to mine in the Arkaroola region of the Flinders Ranges, and how this may have related to the dismissal of Premier Mike Rann from office on the orders of SDA supremo Don Farrell.

SDA staffer Jack Snelling was elected as MP for Playford in 1997, aged 24. After serving as Speaker of the Lower House, he was briefly Minister for Science, Road Safety and Veterans Affairs before his elevation to Treasurer in the wake of Kevin Foley’s removal at the hands of the SDA faction. Mr. Snelling supported local SDA boss Malinauskas when Malinauskas informed Premier Mike Rann that the SDA had decided he had to go.

SDA organiser Tom Kenyon followed the standard career path from to electorate officer and ministerial adviser before being installed as Member for Newland in 2006 and fast-tracked into cabinet as Minister for Road Safety. Mr. Kenyon is the protégé of former ALP Senator John Quirke, at whose behest he is alleged to have falsely vilified former Burnside councillor Rob Gilbert under parliamentary privilege. John Quirke’s wife Davina Quirke was a Burnside councillor. Tom Kenyon's brother works in Julia Gillard's office.

State convenor of the Labor Unity (Right) faction 1995-2002, SDA MP Trish White was MP for Taylor from 1994 until her retirement in 2010. Retirement has been good to Trish. On top of her superannuation of $93,300 per year, Ms White received lucrative directorships of the Motor Accident Commission and Australia Post, despite having no qualifications for the board of multibillion-dollar public enterprises. White is also a strategic adviser to global corporation Worley.

Bernard Finnegan joined the SDA in 1995 as a protégé of Don Farrell, and was assistant state secretary for five years before being parachuted unelected into the Upper House to fill a casual vacancy. An enthusiastic joiner of parliamentary committees - and who wouldn’t be, at $18,000 a pop. Bernard was parliamentary secretary to Premier Mike Rann until appointed Minister for Local Government in 2011. There he lasted 72 days until he abruptly resigned without explanation. Since, he has been suspended from the ALP, equally without explanation (although child pornography apparently has a lot to do with it), and now attendeds parliament only for a minute or tow every session - just often enough to remain on the public payroll.

Former SDA member Lindsay Simmons was warehoused as a member of the Equal Opportunity Tribunal before becoming the failed federal ALP candidate for Sturt and then the one-term state MP for Morialta, 2006-2010. One rare venture into the headlines was for allegedly abusing her hairdresser. On involuntarily leaving parliament, Lindsay was consoled by an appointment to the Training and Skills Commission, on $30,000 a year or $3750 a meeting.

Leesa Vlahos has followed the classic SDA career path. After joining the union as a shop assistant at Myers, she progressed through the electoral offices of Martyn Evans in Bonython and Senators Foreman and Quirke to assistant state secretary of the SDA (1998-2006), while also a director of the ALP cash-raiser SA Progressive Business. In 2007 she succeeded another SDA drone, Trish White, as MP for Taylor and quickly found herself on three parliamentary committees.

The SDA slotted Carmel Zollo into a safe Upper House seat in 1997, although she was born in the Campania region of Italy, not the more favoured Puglia. Via lucrative service on numerous committees she became a completely undistinguished Minister for Correctional Services and Road Safety until replaced by younger SDA appointees Tom Koutsantonis and Tom Kenyon.

SDA-affiliated Annette Hurley was state MP for Napier 1993-2002 but stood for and lost the marginal seat of Light in 2002. She was promptly found a Senate seat in 2005 and, under Don Farrell’s patronage, even before she had entered parliament was appointed Shadow Minister for Citizenship and Multicultural Affairs. Hurley's remarkable talents earned her membership of no fewer than 14 parliamentary committees at $10-18,000 each, before new PM Kevin Rudd dumped her from his cabinet in 2007. The SDA dropped Hurley from Labor’s Senate ticket in 2010, but she found immediate consolation as SA director of ALP spin consultants Hawker Britton. On the rare occasions Senator Hurley made the news, it was for her voracious appetite for travel on the public purse to exotic locations, culminating in a lap of honour to Bhutan.

Nick Champion embodies the classic SDA rise to stardom: from trolley boy to SDA organiser, then training officer and health & safety officer before reaching the head of the queue in 2007 and taking his seat in federal parliament as MP for Wakefield. On the way the green pastures, Champion helped organise fellow SDA protege Kate Ellis' first election campaign

Former SDA organiser Amanda Rishworth was the failed ALP candidate for the state seat of Fisher in 2006 and won Kingston in the 2007 federal election. Amanda chairs the House of Representatives standing committee on education and employment, and enjoys study tours abroad.

SDA supported Lee Odenwalder, former community liaison officer to Health Minister Lea Stevens (2003-05) for the safe Labor seat of Little Para in 2010 ahead of the man who had been promised the job, Kyam Maher. Mr. Maher was rewarded for quietly standing aside with the post of State ALP Secretary, replacing former SDA official Michael Brown who was an adviser to ministers Michael Atkinson, Kevin Foley and Paul Holloway before becoming ALP State Secretary. Michael Brown was responsible for the dodgy how-to-vote card scam which helped Leon Bignell win his seat and Labor retain government.

Some ambitious MPs have sought preferment by affiliating with the SDA, although they’ve never worked in a shop. Among these is Michael O’Brien, a self-made millionaire and the only former businessman in Cabinet. Membership of the SDA helped get O’Brien elevated to Cabinet.

Conor O’Brien, son of Michael O’Brien, is being groomed for office as an SDA organiser.

Chloe Fox, a former English teacher, became the member for Bright in 2006 and, although often touted as ministerial talent, not least by herself, was overlooked. In July 2011, Chloe joined the SDA and was promptly promoted to Cabinet as Minister for Transport. Chloe was welcomed into the SDA by going for a taxpayer-funded trip around the world with the SDA’s Michael Atkinson.

The next generation of candidates from the SDA is being warehoused in various public offices at taxpayer expense:

At 25, Daniel Romeo was appointed Attorney-General John Rau’s chief of staff. At the same time as public servants’ pay rises were capped at 2.5%, young Daniel’s salary was increased by 26% to $115,000. Previously employed in then Treasurer Kevin Foley’s office, Romeo was noted for running up a debt of $39,495 on his government credit card between June 2008 and May 2009. Romeo’s wife, Sonia Menechella Romeo, is now assistant state secretary of the SDA.

Former SDA organiser Anna Bradley was hired as adviser to then Planning Minister Paul Holloway and remains in the public service.

Former SDA organiser Eamon Burke was hired as adviser to then Police Minister Michael Wright and remains in the system.

Peter Louca, ex SDA organizer and failed candidate for Mayo in 1996 was appointed chief of staff by then Attorney-General Michael Atkinson and remains in the political pipeline.

Shannon Sampson, SDA industrial officer, is a ministerial adviser.

Stephen Campbell, SDA industrial officer, hired as chief of staff to Rory McEwen and is still a ministerial adviser.

Zoe Bettison, former SDA organizer and associate director of ALP spin consultant Hawker Britton, replaced Mike Rann in parliament.

Brigid Mahoney, a former adviser to Minister Gail Gago, defected from the Left to the SDA/Right faction, and is now senior policy consultant in the Department of Health.

The SDA routinely fields younger candidates in unwinnable seats as practice for the career path ahead. Among these:

Ben Dineen - ‘Young Labor’ yes-man, candidate for Bragg in 2010.

Quentin Black - Twice-failed candidate for Hartley.

Moira Deslandes - Former chief of staff to Trish White, failed candidate for Mawson.

Mia Handshin - Failed candidate for federal seat of Sturt, hired as adviser to Kate Ellis.

Nor is local government immune from SDA influence, as it infiltrates councils to finesse controversial development deals and selloffs of public open space. The SDA, through Michael Atkinson, dominated Charles Sturt before becoming spectacularly undone there, although Atkinson and the SDA officially deny having anything to do with the council, and the SDA is central to the troubles besetting Burnside Council. Not much is known about this area of the SDA’s activities, but a typical operator could be Lucas Jones, a precocious 21 year old councillor at Tea Tree Gully who has been found guilty for the third time of a breach of Tea Tree Gully council's code of conduct, for ‘disruptive and aggressive behaviour’ towards ratepayers attending a council meeting. The spirit of Kevin Foley lives on. In true SDA style, young Lucas has previously been employed in the offices of Leesa Vlahos and Tom Kenyon.

[crawf]

In total 3,565 words #bored #wideawake

Though I must say I can't believe you don't have your own personal blog.

[stumpjumper]

Everything I said can easily be verified. In fact the Shoppies are so confident now that they're coming out of the shadows - viz. Malinauskas strutting along with his lackey Snelling to dismiss Rann.

I honestly can't believe that no-one is worried by this. The most serious part of it is that the influence of this union is growing stronger and more extensive, like a spreading virus.

It may not do too much damage while it's benign, but what if it becomes aggressive, or tries to defend itself? What if the SDA started to wear, say, uniforms?

Such questions might seem ridiculous, but look again at the facts, starting with the SDA deciding who holds our highest office - in front of national media.

How happy and secure does that make you feel, given the feeble nature of the Opposition in SA?

By the way I don't have a blog because I haven't got much to say - just the same one or two points, like Cato the Elder who attended the senate in Rome every day for years and always made the same short speech: 'Carthargo delenda est' - 'Carthage must be destroyed'. Carthage was a threat to Rome, and eventually the Senate listened. Carthage was destroyed.

I'm not claiming any great political insight or even special knowledge. It just seems obvious to me that when an unelected group of probably no more than three or four people (the core of the SDA executive, to spell it out) decides who is our Premier (even publicly sacking them mid-term), who sits in Cabinet, and 'owns' nearly half the ministry, then our little democracy is well and truly under threat, if it still actually exists.

'The SDA is a threat to our democracy and must be constrained.'

[Hooligan]

I heard the SDA are Nazi's that are going to be riding dinosaurs that have friggin' laser beams on their heads soon.

[monotonehell]

I heard the SDA are Nazi's that are going to be riding dinosaurs that have friggin' laser beams on their heads soon.

Monotonehell is a grammar Nazi.

[jk1237]

I'm going to have to do the:

tl;dr

in response to Stumpjumpers thesis

[cruel_world00]

David Rann, son of Premier Mike Rann is also an SDA official, hoping for a political career.

This part is inaccurate for two parts. That's not Mike's son's name, nor does he work for the SDA or have any interest in a political career.

Small detail in an otherwise sprawling diatribe,... but you can't make unsubstantiated claims, regardless of size.

[stumpjumper]

Thanks, c_w. I have checked two sources (one the parliamentary record) - Mike Rann had two children with his first wife Jenny Russell: David and Eleanor. I cannot corroborate the single source for David Rann working for the SDA, so I've removed the reference entirely.

[stumpjumper]

jk1237, I'm sorry you feel that way. It is a long piece because there is extensive information. It's not really a good idea to use length as the factor which decides whether something is important or not.

However, here it is in a distilled version: The policies, ministerial appointments and pre-selections of a Labor government in South Australia are not controlled by the elected representatives, They are controlled by the executive of the Shop, Distributive and Allied Employees Association, a socially conservative, Catholic dominated union whose power derives from its high number of largely disinterested members (23,000 in SA including retail assistants fast food casuals etc) giving the SDA the dominant vote at ALP conferences where unions are guaranteed 50% of the vote.

The result makes 31 year old SDA secretary Mr Peter Malinauskas the most powerful man in the democracy of South Australia, despite being neither elected nor responsible to the people of South Australia. SDA supremo Don Farrell, who plays a long game, began grooming Malinauskas years ago when Malinauskas was a shelf filler at Woolworths, Mitcham. Malinauskas now sits at the right hand of Farrell, iPhone at the ready, to do his master's will.

There is abundant proof of this. For example, the state's premier, Mike Rann, announced that he would retire in March 2012 and waould be replaced by John Rau. Farrell instructed Malinauskas to get rid of Rann in October 2011 and replace him with Jay Weatherill. And so it was. In October 2011, Malinauskas, in company with SDA-appointed treasurer, ex-SDA organiser Jack Snelling, visted Rann in his office, terminated his premiership and replaced him with Jay Weatherill.

Did you vote for Malinauskas, or for a party that installed Malinauskas as our chief executive?

Put very simply: The parliamentary Labor Party in South Australia is merely a rubber stamp for the wishes of Don Farrell, channelled via his puppet Peter Malinauskas.

That should worry every South Australian. If it doesn't, you don't deserve to have a vote.

[stumpjumper]

Note on the dominant SA Labor 'Labor Unity' faction.

This faction is the Right wing of the Labor Party in SA. It is controlled from Canberra by SDA power figures and deeply conservative Catholics Don Farrell and Joe de Bruyn through local puppet Peter Malinauskas and a network of tame MPs and staffers.

Labor Unity can be broken down into three groups, according to religious conviction:

The 'pragmatic Right': Rau, Breuer, Geraghty, Wortley, Wright and possibly Sibbons - all of whom are sometimes not too comfortable with Unity's Catholic conservatism.

The 'pragmatic religious Right': (Foley - replacement Susan Close is Labor Left), Holloway, Fox, Odenwalder and Vlahos.

The 'religious right': Finnigan, Snelling, Atkinson, Koutsantonis, Kenyon, Zollo and possibly O’Brien.

All members of the last two groups have been installed in parliament by the SDA, with Fox a slightly special case but now a fully fledged SDA drone.

The religious right are very religious. Here's a description of the interior of the unfortunate Bernard Finnegan's house at Clearview: "...like going into a monastery – austere, religious tapestries on the wall, prayer kneelers and praying areas".

The connections of the SDA with the Catholic Church are interesting. Digging around the subject reveals memberships of the National Civic Council and Opus Dei at the top of the SDA.

Why the SDA and its conservative, religious elders have chosen SA to dominate politically is another question. Strange times.

[stumpjumper]

by [Shuz] » Tue Oct 25, 2011 1:41 pm

Stumpy, didn't you know that Peter Malinouskas rocked up at State Parliament last Friday, just before Labor Caucus voted in Jay as the new Premier? Presumably so that he could overlook the proceedings and make sure that everything went to (his) plan. Why this wasn't brought into question and scrutiny by the media is beyond me.

I've been told by a lower house MP that often either Peter or Rob Malinauskas sits in the gallery of the House of Assembly, taking notes and ducking in and out to talk to people and to talk on the phone.