Return to "Confronting the
ALP"
The media reports on the source of the protests at One Nation meetings was always covered up - it was only when the Queensland Times in Ipswich published a letter by Scott Balson on Saturday 19th July that the link between the ALP and the extreme left wing groups was finally revealed by the media.
Ann Scott, the leading contender to challenge for Oxley for the Australian Labor Party at the time, wrote on Thursday 24th July in reply to the letter, "Scott Balson's comments would be laughable if they were not so serious.".
In reply, Scott Balson, issued a simple challenge, "I will happily demonstrate exactly what I mean in a public forum of your choosing - all I need is a phone line and power". This challenge many months later is yet to be answered by Mrs Scott or the ALP.
A new challenge issued earlier to Ann Scott or any ALP candidate who stood for Oxley went out by letter to the Queensland Times after Wayne Goss put up his hand and after no response was received to the earlier public challenge was received. The new challenge was prompted by Lorenzo Ervin's threat to organise a boycott of the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games - a threat publicised by the ALP's violent arm Left Link.
Once again no response was received from the ALP. A letter in the Queensland Times in early September by a Mr Stokes expressing concern about the alleged links that Mr Balson had raised in his earlier challenge gave him the opportunity to write his third public challenge to the ALP to demonstrate the links between the ALP and Lorenzo Ervin. This letter was published by the Queensland Times on the 9th September 1997 but never received a response from the ALP.
The ALP never responded to this letter nor the next which appeared on Wednesday the 8th October 1997 and clearly revealed the tie-up between the violent Anti-Racism Committee and the ALP. The letter was written following the violent Prosper Australia rally in Brisbane on Saturday 4th October with violent incidents which led to the setting up of the ALP Thug Files.
It was this during week that outspoken One Nation (Oxley branch) and RSL member Reg Bishop called the RSL "gutless" for refusing to attend the Prosper Australia rally the Saturday before.
The ALP had decided that week to select federal candidates nationwide from those who had been put up for pre-selection at various branches. Wayne Goss, the man who would displace Anne Scott's nomination had, in the mean time been taken to hospital and had a malignant tumour removed from his brain. His ability to contest Hanson's seat of Oxley against Anne Scott became a real question.
Mrs Anne Scott suddenly and miraculously reappeared from nowhere with a letter to The Queensland Times that Saturday the 11th October slamming Pauline Hanson's One Nation and Reg Bishop for his remarks on the RSL - portraying them to be One Nation policy.
This gave Mr Balson the opportunity to, once again, challenge Mrs Anne Scott and the ALP on their promotion of the Sydney 2000 Boycott and the new evidence of their direct involvement in the Anti-Racism Committee.
The response, written on Sunday 12th October appeared in The Queensland Times on Wednesday 15th October 1997 with some interesting omissions regarding Wayne Goss' involvement in the Heiner inquiry into the shredding of documents being sought by the courts in Queensland.
For many months after this altercation with the ALP heirarchy Mrs Anne Scott "disappeared" from the letters page - until early January when she literally bombarded the QT with letters day after day slamming Pauline Hanson, and signing as ALP preselection candidate for Oxley. We knew that Goss was going to back out because of the shredding scandal.
Scott Balson again challenged Anne Scott in the QT on 14th January 1998 to an open forum to demonstrate the ALP's deceit - this time adding the MAI (multilateral agreement on investment) to the list of issues to demonstrate.
The very next day Wayne Goss did back out of politics - on 15th January 1998 - citing family having more value than politics.
Mrs Scott responded a few days later refusing to take up the challenge dismissing the claims, once again, as "ridiculous" and querying my political ambitions. Her response got her into trouble with her own party - as reported in The Courier Mail the next day: ‘We expect some leadership against Hanson, not acceptance of her position,’ said one Labor activist.
Mrs Scott's gave me the opportunity to reply to her request for "further information about MAI" and set in place the wheels for Pauline Hanson to bring the issue into the public arena through a press conference held on Wednesday 21st January 1998.
Ms Hanson's press conference on MAI at this time was headline news in the Queensland Times on the 22nd January 1998 and
As a result of Mrs Scott's letter requesting further information on MAI a US correspondent, John Hamilton from Columbia, wrote a letter which appeared in the Queensland Times on the 23rd January:
"Please explain to Mrs Scott, ALP preselection candidate for Oxley, that to Australia MAI, Multilateral Agreement on Investment, negotiated in secret by the OECD, beyond the reach of public opinion in Paris since 1995 means it is an instrument of the IMF, the World Bank, the OECD, the WTO and the world's 29 most powerful multi-national corporations that will be full power over the governments of the world and it hides under a shadowy misnomer known called "economic rationalism" but there is nothing rational about it. Put bluntly, it involves the insatiable pursuit of profit, and to hell with the human race and its environment."
In my response to Mrs Scott I made it clear that I had no political ambitions.
At the same time an Aborigine, Sonny Thompson, wrote to the Queensland Times saying, "S Balson has got to be kidding when he says that ‘Hanson’s voice is so important to all Australians’." Giving me the opportunity to ask Sonny Thompson to take up the challenge for a public forum to prove what I was saying was true.
This segment is ongoing and will be added to as the "letter wars" with the ALP progress.
Return to "Confronting the
ALP"