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Michael Kroger’s shabby ambition is destroying the Victorian Liberal Party
Gerard Jackson
There is an old saying that a fish rots from the head downwards. The unofficial head of the Victorian State Liberal Party is Michael Kroger, a fifth rate Machiavellian player whose faction has grabbed total control of the Party’s administrative structure. The results have been pitiful. Unless Bracks does something incredibly stupid the Liberal Party is heading for political annihilation in the November election — and Kroger will be responsible for it, not that he would ever be man enough to admit it.
The Richmond seat is an excellent example of Kroger’s bad judgment and infantile meddling. The Liberal Party needs a 27 per cent swing to win the seat that Labor has held for 98 years. Unable to find a candidate who had the commitment to contest the seat Prodos Marinakis offered his candidacy in all good faith. Considering that he was the only one to do so is a self-evident no-brainer — except to Kroger and his 104 Exhibition Street sock puppets.
Marinakis is, without a doubt, an eccentric and colourful character — but he is not stupid. What is more, he actually gives considerable thought to political philosophy and the morality of power, something that will never be said of Kroger and his coterie of lickspittles. As he is a well known figure in Richmond where he has lived most of his life his selection was a foregone conclusion, until one of Kroger’s bullying marionettes decided to lay down the law — meaning Kroger’s law.
Prodos rang Exhibition Street, the Party’s head office, to speak with Tony Barry. They were no more than a minute into their conversation when Barry decided to let loose with a barrage of obscenities, the F word being his favourite. It seems that this foul-mouthed bullying coward did not think Marinakis has sufficient intelligence to even tie his shoe laces. Needless to say, Marinakis saw no reason to put up with Barry’s obscenities and terminated the exchange.
Realising he had made a tactical error the despicable Mr Barry — and they don’t come much despicable than this creep — then made it known among the Party’s hierarchy that Marinakis had abused him on the phone and screamed obscenities at him. There’s no doubt about it, Kroger certainly knows how to pick ‘em. A couple of days later a friend of mine had coffee with a high-ranking member of the Party who told him that Marinakis had not only abused Barry on the phone but that his website had racist links. (There is no doubt that Kroger’s hacks are down in the sewer with the worst of them).
A journalist from the leftwing Age investigated the charges of racist links and found them to be ludicrous. If Kroger is even half a man he will ferret out the vicious monkeys responsible for this malevolent lie and fire them on the spot. Fat chance.
Instead of doing the decent thing, the corrupt creatures who are destroying the Party decided that the best tactic was to gag Marinakis. What this boils down to is that Kroger’s pet rats can smear Marinakis at will but he cannot tell the truth about them. Yep, they’re a real sweet bunch of guys. Not content with censoring him they decided to readvertise the Richmond candidacy while still keeping Marinakis as a candidate. (Lenin could have learnt a thing or two from this gang).
Now the rules clearly state that if the candidate is guilty of “conduct which is gravely detrimental to the Party and which is calculated or likely to affect the outcome of such preselection, by any applicant for preselection, or any person acting with the express or implied concurrence of such applicant for preselection, then the Administrative Committee shall have the power to exclude such applicant for preselection”.
By no stretch of the imagination can Marinakis be honestly accused of breaking Party rules, something that cannot be said of Tony Barry who the Party bigwigs refuse to even reprimand for his foul behaviour. So there appears to be two sets of rules: one for the imperious Kroger and his slimy appointees and one for the poor schmucks who actually believe in what the Party claims to stand for.
So why doesn’t Kroger simply throw Marinakis out? Because by keeping him as an applicant Kroger and his crew, including Julian Sheezel, can use the rules to gag him. Fortunately for us Australians who really believe in a fair go the picture is becoming increasingly clear. A rumour has come out of Exhibition Street that they have found a suitable puppet to replace Marinakis by the 10 May, by which time they hope it will be too late for him and his supporters to do anything. Another rumour claims that it is now their intention not to contest Richmond after all while still silencing Marinakis.
It’s clear that Kroger’s hatchet men are determined to destroy Prodos Marinakis’ attempt to contest the seat. Why Kroger, Barry and Julian Sheezel (at school the kids used to call him Sleezle) are intent on this course of action is something known only to themselves? But as a member of the Toorak Set this millionaire and his heavily moneyed pals believe they are the Party and what they say goes.
Sheezel’s character can be gauged by the unseemly way he made a grovelling apology to Steve Mayne of Crikey. This is the same Sheezel who treats ordinary members with aristocratic disdain. Shortly after his apology Crikey smeared Prodos Marinakis as a crook. Not long after that Barry and others in Exhibition Street accused Marinakis of having racist links and of abusing a Party official. It would seem that apologising to Mayne has its own rewards.
The moral failings and outlandish arrogance of these men has totally blinded them to the corruption they have brought on the Party. Their incompetent appointments reveal their lousy judgment. No one in his right mind would appoint a cowardly sleazebag like Barry to a position of influence. And yet this yobbo has ambitions for a parliamentary seat!
Like Julian Sheezel, Barry is an arrogant and overbearing economic illiterate. He fancies himself as a master tactician. God help us. Yet he cannot even defend the government’s labour market reforms without parroting economic nonsense. Even worse, neither can Kroger. And Bracks knows it. He has set up a unit with the sole object of targeting the Liberal Party labour market reform legislation. And what have the three stooges done about it? Nothing. They are unprincipled, unscrupulous, short-sighted and — dare I say it — politically dumb.
They care only about their grimy little ambitions. They are not serious people and they don’t give a damn about the Party. Ordinary members — people like Prodos Marinakis — who consider ideas important are treated with undisguised contempt by these Toorak scions who behave like Roman patricians.
When I once asked a Party official about people who would like to contribute ideas to the party and not just money I was told that “Such people are only good for handing out flyers. The people with the real brains are in Exhibition Street”. (I think this twerp really meant Toorak). Now if this doesn’t tell you what the likes of Kroger and his lackeys really think of the membership nothing ever will. It reminds me of what a journalist said to me last year about the Libs: “They’ve got some great people in the Party but for some reason they just won’t us them”. For this you can blame Kroger and his incestuous Toorak clique
Oddly enough Hugh Morgan is the only one among the whole lot who does have an inkling of what the left is really about these days. Unfortunately his ingrained snobbery and severe intellectual limitations have created an insurmountable obstacle to any genuine understanding of the leftist phenomenon. In order to overcome his obvious intellectual shortcomings he put Ray Evans on WMC’s payroll as his unofficial speechwriter.
Unfortunately Evans has the temperament of venomous fishwife and a grasp of economics that would shame any man in the street. (I wonder if he still believes that if people can only get a dollar an hour they should take it and be grateful?) As expected he turned out to be one of the worst advocates of labour market reform imaginable. To be more precise, he and the rest of the arrogant gang at the HR Nicholls Society are probably the best allies the ACTU has in its fight against reform.
Evans’ appointment clearly exposed Morgan as another awful judge of character. Making the situation worse is Morgan’s disconnection from the real world. This multimillionaire who lives in a Toorak mansion had the gall to go on television and tell viewers that people on the minimum wage were making too much money — and this was just after he paid $750,000 for a painting. It’s excruciatingly obvious that Morgan is not the brightest of men.
Ronnie Walker is another shameless member of this destructive clique. Here’s a man who made a fortune not from serving consumers but by milking Victorian taxpayers. He was also one of the Party’s top bagmen. He showed his loyalty to the Party by promoting Bracks at the Commonwealth Games. One certainly wouldn’t want to get between Ronnie’s egotistical seven foot frame and a dollar. As for Party loyalty, that’s for bozo’s like Prodos Marinakis and little old ladies in Brighton.
I began this article with the observation that a fish rots from the head down. I think the current corrupt state of the Victorian Liberal Party is proof of that.
Gerard Jackson is Brookes’ economics editor
BrookesNews.Com
Monday 8 May 2006