Votes for killers

Votes for killers



POINTS THE FINGER: Desperate Greens party leader blames Rupert Murdoch and political opponents for his own “votes for killers” policy

The Hobart Mercury is making excuses for the Greens political party on their extraordinary policy to give convicted killers and rapists serving their jail sentence the right to vote.

They refused to run highly regarded News Limited Canberra press gallery correspondent Simon Benson’s story drawing attention to a policy clearly stated on the Greens party’s own website:

Prison Reform: legislate to give the fundamental democratic right to vote in elections to all people serving custodial sentences

Reluctantly today the Mercury have run a yarn on page five that reads like it’s a Greens party press release on the issue.

Edition 1 -WED 10 MAR 2010, Page 005
McKim slams Port Arthur `smear tactic’
By MICHAEL STEDMAN

GREENS leader Nick McKim has furiously accused his political opponents of running a smear campaign based on his party’s policy that could allow Port Arthur killer Martin Bryant to vote.
Mr McKim condemned “disgraceful reporting” by the interstate News Limited papers — but not the Mercury — of his party’s policy, which would extend voting rights to prisoners serving sentences longer than three years.
The Tasmanian Liberals and Labor yesterday turned it into an election issue.
Liberal justice spokeswoman Vanessa Goodwin said the Greens policy was extreme.
”This is yet further proof that despite pretending to be mainstream, Nick McKim and the Greens are still fundamentally a party of the extremes,” Dr Goodwin said.
Human Services Minister Lin Thorp said: “This is the first time the Greens leader has come under any real scrutiny in this campaign.”
Mr McKim yesterday clarified the policy, saying Supreme Court judges would be given the discretion to remove a person’s right to vote if they were convicted of heinous crimes.
However, Ms Thorp said Mr McKim needed to explain why the published policy on the Greens’ website made no mention of judges being given discretion over voting rights for prisoners.
He bristled when questioned about the policy.
”I would urge you to be very careful about falling for this because ultimately you are now asking questions off the back of a disgrace and that disgrace is the Murdoch tabloid empire trying to politicise one of the most awful events in this state’s history,” Mr McKim said.
He accused his political opponents of “peddling the story” behind the scenes, including bombarding talkback radio with SMS messages and set-up phone calls.
Mr McKim said the policy was developed with consultation with Greens members.
South Australia has a long-standing law in place to give everyone the right to vote, including the entire prison population.

McKim – who paints himself as a more moderate and sensible Greens party leader than those before him – in the Mercury article conjured up two conspiracies for one article that reported on a policy described on their own website.

Conspiracy theory #1: More fully explored in the wire, McKim reckons Rupert Murdoch has an active and ongoing interest in the Tasmanian election and in particular in shafting him, McKim. He attacked Mr Murdoch saying "They are obviously doing it because Rupert Murdoch doesn’t like the Greens…It’s an incorrect beat-up by the Murdoch press, presumably to further the political direction of Rupert Murdoch, and it’s a disgrace.”

Despite this provocation in a bizarre and nasty attack on their proprietor, the Mercury has let McKim off very lightly. Presumably if News Corp had wanted to give the Tasmania Greens political party a hard time, the article might have appeared in his newspaper that is actually published in Tasmania.

Under pressure, the real man emerges. McKim – under the first bit of scutiny his party and policies have received in this election – went berserk, rampaging around with accusations and plots and conspiracies. When all that happened is a public discussion of his own policy.

Conspiracy theory #2: Seemingly in conflict with his Rupe-did-it fable, McKim thinks that his “political opponents” have been “peddling the story behind the scenes.” And yet this policy – as we examined yesterday – is published for all the world to see in the policy section of the Tasmanian Greens political party website under “Justice”.

No justice it seems for the families left behind after the Port Arthur massacre, some of whom might be inclined to vote Greens but if they do so will be supporting giving the vote to Martin Bryant, the devious psychopath multi-millionaire who killed thirty-five people in one day and is currently serving thirty-five life sentences.

McKim – caught out by his own policy – tried a backflip of sorts by insisting that his clearly stated policy needed “clarification” insisting that it would be Supreme Court judges given discretion to remove the voting franchise for those convicted of crimes. That’s not what his own website says, not even now. And the Mercury let him get away with it.

The Mercury’s kid-glove treatment of the Greens political party leader Nick McKim is puzzling. In one day, McKim attempted to back-flip on a policy on the run, smeared the Mercury’s proprietor and other News Limited publications that ran the story, made up a tall tale about his political opponents while still publicly advocating restoring the vote for murderers and pedophiles and the Mercury reports Greens party concerns about a “smear.”

McKim’s Malice in Tasmania’s natural Wonderland gets curiouser and curiouser.