A Myth Is Born 4

Whatever could The Australian's contributing editor, Peter van Onselen, possibly mean by this:

"... the lessons from Marrickville and Balmain are not to take voters for granted by preselecting candidates with controversial pedigrees." (Green dream turns to ashes, 31/3/11)

Keeping in mind the abuse hurled at both Fiona Byrne ("advocating a polite modern rendering of Kristallnacht") and Jamie Parker ("wanted to turn Balmain power station into a gas chamber"), quoted in my last post, is he suggesting that...?

No, of course not! How could I possibly have thought such a thing? No, read on a bit and you see that he's actually referring, courtesy of his disinterested interlocutor Anthony Albanese, federal Labor minister and husband of state Labor MP for Marrickville, Carmel Tebbutt, to "the Israel boycott voted for by Byrne on the Marrickville Council."

But wait a minute! What's that got to do with Byrne's and Parker's "controversial pedigree"? What is Van Onselen really getting at here?

Ah, I see, can't fool MERC: Fiona's really Fatima and Jamie's really Jamil!

As Van Onselen goes on to write, "Local resident and Australian Workers Union national secretary Paul Howes is convinced that if the Greens had selected another candidate they would have won the seat."

So there you go Greens - if only you hadn't run those two Arabs!