“Go after bully boy bosses, not unionists!” Sam Wainwright the Socialist Alliance’s candidate for Fremantle

Sam Wainwright

Socialist Alliance candidate says to Rudd: “Go after bully boy bosses, not unionists!”

Sam Wainwright the Socialist Alliance’s candidate for Fremantle and activist in the Maritime Union of Australia has rejected Kevin Rudd’s rationale for expelling CFMEU WA Assistant Secretary Joe McDonald.

Wainwright commented, “Joe said ‘I’ll be back’ and called Howard a ‘burnt out dictator’. All pretty mild stuff really. I’d like to add that Howard’s a war criminal and murderer for supporting Bush’s illegal and immoral oil grab in Iraq, a war that’s cost around a million lives. So let’s get some perspective on so-called thuggish behaviour.”


He continued, “Rudd’s fallen into the trap set for him by Howard by accepting the need to crack down on unionists in order to make himself look respectable to big business. It gives credibility to Howard and it’s assumed the proportions of a witch hunt. Furthermore it’s completely hypocritical. Why is there no call for heads to roll among bullying bosses?”



Wainwright added, “If Howard’s definition of thuggish behaviour were to be taken seriously then there would be no union official worthy of the name left in Australia. There are only two occasions in the last four years when we’ve stopped work on the Fremantle waterfront, both over serious safety issues, the most recent over a spate of deaths in the industry. Does that make us thugs too?”


Commenting on Howard’s trouble in the polls Wainwright said, “The killer for the coalition is WorkChoices, it stinks and everyone knows it. What we need is to keep the pressure on Labor to repeal all of it, not the bodgie WorkChoices Lite that Rudd is talking about.”


Wainwright issued a challenge to Labor candidate Melissa Parke, “If Labor wins government the Greens have said they will move to abolish all of WorkChoices. Which way will you vote?”


In response to the expulsion of unionists from the ALP Wainwright has fitted his car out with a coffin and the slogan ‘Know where you stand, Bury Howard and all of WorkChoices’. Wainwright said, “Yes it’s provocative but it needs to be said. Anyway Rudd can’t expel me from the ALP because I resigned over ten years ago!”


For further comment

Phone: Sam Wainwright 0412 751 508

Email: fremantle@socialist-alliance.org