Culture

Bill Shorten Shows Signs Of Actual Life; Delivers Rousing Speech In Rowdy Sydney Pub

"We will have a country where women are treated equally, and we will have a country where we are known for our commitment to multiculturalism."

by Steph Harmon  7 July 2015

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It’s been a tough few months for the Labor party. A failed bid to own marriage equality. Unpopular hardline policies towards asylum seekers. Alleged internal leadership tension. Plummeting poll numbers. The Killing Season. The zingers.

Tomorrow, ALP Leader Bill Shorten faces the Royal Commission into Trade Union Governance and Corruption to answer questions about some of the deals struck while he was at the helm of the Australian Workers’ Union — a Commission which the party’s employment and industrial relations spokesman Brendan O’Connor has attacked as a “sensational” and “prejudicial” “political witch hunt”. And later this month, the National ALP Party Conference comes to Melbourne — where one expects Some Grievances Will Be Aired.

It would take a particularly magical moment to win back the support of the party faithful, let alone the party ambivalent — but in a clip doing the rounds today, Bill Shorten is certainly trying his darnedest. Nothing says ‘Strayan Labor like standing in the middle of a rowdy pub after what seems to be a few beers, yelling rousing and slightly-slurred proclamations about “a fair go” as the crowd “WA-HEYYYYY!!!”s robustly in the background.

“One day I hope that you belong in a country where marriage equality is legitimate; where Aboriginal and Torres Straight Islander Australians (sic) are on the national birth certificate of the constitution; where people can organise to have a strong minimum wage and they will not be subject to a Royal Commission; where we will have a Medicare system that is defined by your Medicare card, not your credit card; where you can go to university and not have to pay a hundred thousand dollars,” Shorten says, listing off the party’s greatest hits in a crowdpleasing speech that was filmed in Sydney’s Covent Garden pub on Sunday night, and obtained by the ABC.

“We will have a country where women are treated equally, and we will have a country where we are known for our commitment to multiculturalism [and] immigration, and where no matter who you are and who your parents are, this is a country of a fair go, and you can get ahead based upon how hard you work, and how much you care about your fellow Australians.”