Bob Gould, 2007
Source: Green Left Weekly discussion list, May 16, 2007
Proofreading, editing, mark-up: Steve Painter
Piers Ackerman this morning makes a bit of a hero of the late, unlamented reactionary Tory politician Jo Gullett. He quotes as good coin from Gullett’s memoir lying slanders of Australian waterfront workers.
Gullett provides no real evidence for his slanders, just makes assertions. Is this the same Jo Gullett who in his later role as a conservative member of parliament, launched a vicious anti-Jewish attack in the Australian parliament, under privilege, on a boatload of Holocaust survivors, and on Arthur Calwell, the Labor minister for immigration, for helping to settle these refugees in Australia.
Following is from the Hansard record of the antisemite Gullett’s speech to parliament.
“It is time to consider these refugees arriving from Poland and elsewhere purely on their merits as migrants and in an unsentimental light. In the last 50 years these people have swarmed all over Europe, coming principally from Armenia, Russia and the Balkans. We should remember that they are European neither by race, standards, nor culture. They are, in fact, an Eastern people. In 2000 years no one but Britain has been successfully able to absorb them, and for the most part they owe loyalty and allegiance to none. They secured a stranglehold on Germany after the last war during the inflation period, and in a very large part, brought upon themselves the persecution which they subsequently suffered.
“In the United States they are enormously rife, especially in New York where there are 3.5 millions of them; where they own practically everything, and where they are the leaders of the most violent anti-British campaigns. In addition, they are practically in a state of war with Great Britain in Palestine, and almost daily they carry out their murderous attacks and assaults against British subjects.
“One could respect them more if they who are so ready to flog professional soldiers of their old friend and ally had shown an equal determination and courage to the threat of extermination by Hitler and the Nazis. These are the people who, at the direction of international Jewish organisations, are being foisted upon us who are to become the dumping ground for the world’s unabsorbable at the dictates of the Minister for Immigration.
“I believe that this is contrary to the desire of the overwhelming part of the people of this country, and if this policy is continued, we shall bitterly rue the day.”
Does Ackerman believe that his hero, Gullett, is as much as an expert on the Jewish question as he apparently is on wharfies?