Establishing the "link":
What we discovered through the Internet was an undeniable link between the ALP and the extreme left wing radicals who were using this new media as a key ploy to promote their un-Australian desire to "shut down" Pauline Hanson's One Nation Party's meetings amongst the promotion of a raft of other un-Australian activities. Their voice was Left Link - recognised by the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) as a "national organisation". (This copy of the ACTU links page was downloaded at this time.)
Following our five links to Labor's anarchy revelation the ACTU web master removed the reference to "national organisations" on this page. Here is the current ACTU links page - still listing Left Link (under Australia).
Media "hesitation":
Despite the extraordinary revelation to the mainstream media that extremist left wing groups were being promoted by the ALP and the ACTU on the Internet no one wanted to know.
Using the Left Link Internet site (*alternate Left Link site - as at July 1997) we were able to uncover a number of left wing groups driving the violence and verbal abuse against people attending the various One Nation launches.
In the weeks before the newspapers, television and radio stations countrywide had been hammering One Nation with baseless allegations of being hijacked by right wing radicals and here we had proof that the ALP were in fact the bona-fide focus of the left wing extremists but still the fickle mainstream media did not want to know.
Pursuing the media on Left Link's
activities:
In the middle of August after weeks of keeping a close eye on Left Link posts we were able to use one in particular to good effect.
The post was by none other than Lorenzo Ervin the ex-Black Panther terrorist who had been forcefully evicted from Australia not long before.
In the post publicised by Left Link in a response to a press release by the Aboriginal Nyungah Circle of Elders, Ervin reveals how he is organising a boycott of the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games.
The post was referred to selected media and resulted in a press release by Pauline Hanson's One Nation once again referring to the underground arm of the ALP.... but the media did not run with the story - once again burying their heads, collectively, in the sand until the Queensland Times picked it up on Tuesday the following week.
Dandenong incident,
8th July 1997:
At the time that the
"5 clicks"
exposé on the ALP and its relationship with Left Link was released
a guest of a One Nation branch launch was
assaulted
by three cowardly protesters at Dandenong.
Media attention was suddenly drawn to the background of the protesters despite the information having been provided to them earlier. The link between the ACTU, the ALP and the extreme left-wing groups who caused the violence was totally overlooked by the mainstream media. Whether this was by accident or by design we will never know, but the irony was that the unsubstantiated claims that One Nation attracted right-wing extremists previously made by Beazley and Howard still hovered in the background through stilted reports in the mainstream media.
What we do know is that the ACTU's national organisation, Left Link, allowed extreme left wing radicals to publicly condone the violence taking place at One Nation meetings.
Here is what Ian Rintoul spokesman for the International Socialist
Organisation
said following that meeting, "We don't condone individual vigilant
acts against Hanson supporters, but we are for militant protests and mass
action to close meetings down."
Rintoul's posts are carried on Left Link.
Ian Rintoul, whose anti-Hanson comments were widely publicised by the media, was arrested with twelve others on a number of charges by the police in early October during the Prosper Australia rally in Brisbane. Of course his arrest was never publicised by the media.
In an article Aboriginal leader Noel Pearson said, "They (the commercial television stations) just send a camera with a blood sports commentator attached to One Nation meetings." (Source: Courier Mail, July 1997)
Anti-Racism Committee:
On the 14th July 1997 the Brisbane Anti-Racism Campaign Committee (ARC) had its monthly meeting in ACTU House in Peel Street. As you will see later in this feature we were able to tie the so-called Anti-Racism Committee up directly as a faction of Beazley's bovver boys....
One Nation had an informer at the meeting who produced an intelligence report which was forwarded to GWB. The report included a claim that the ARC were planning a physical attack on Pauline Hanson which "should only be attempted when they (ARC) can organise more protesters, ie over 500, as a 'few loose cannons' are more significant among a small group than a much larger one". That Friday the 18th July 1997, Pauline Hanson was to attend a special dinner for One Nation supporters in Geelong. It was claimed by Stephen Jolly, the leader of left wing group Militant and Geelong protest organiser at the time, that "this would be the biggest protest since Vietnam". The very real threat against Hanson could not be ignored.
On top of this other violence-supporting left wing extremist groups were planning their protests for the Geelong dinner - with the unseen blessing of the ACTU.
