Interviewer: Some of your critics have said
that you used the Beaconsfield
BS: Well, this is the sort of personal smear which the
Far Right like to indulge in.
Int: Personal smear?
BS: Sure. It isn’t my fault I’ve got a big head shaped
like a peanut. It is something I’ve learned to live with, of course, but it
hasn’t been easy. At school, for instance, I couldn’t participate in a lot of
organised sports, which was very depressing for a little Aussie battler. I
mean, I’m more Australian than Abbott and look at him: he wants people to earn
take responsibility for their own lives, which is about as un-Australian as you
can get, and he played rugby, does boxing, swimming, cycling, triathlons …
Int: Well, its not that big, surely you could have played some sports. What about
cricket?
BS: Nah, no good.
Int: It was no good?
BS: No, I was no good. I kept getting hit in the head
and the school didn’t have a helmet big enough, which is exactly why we have to
stop this Far Right ideologue Abbott from slashing $80 billion from education
funding. If schools don’t get that money …
Int: Okay, we’ll get to the politics
later. If we could just continue on this theme: cricket was out, what about
swimming.
BS: No good. I tried. I’m a little Aussie battler.
Tried my heart out, but it just didn’t work.
Int: You couldn’t swim?
BS: No, no. It was the bow wave.
Int: Created too much resistance and
slowed you down?
BS: Nah, the wash from the bow wave kept knocking the
other kid’s eggs off their spoons. They complained and had me kicked out.
Int: That must have been a painful
experience for a young child, how did you deal with it?
BS: Well, it was painful, but in a way it was the incident,
or the conflict resolution skills it taught me, that made me realise that the
union movement would be my life’s calling.
Int: You have said that bringing
parties together was a speciality of yours. Was this the start of you
developing that skill set?
BS: No. I found out where the other kids lived, rode
over on my bike and left a spoon and a broken egg outside their front door. They
got the message pretty quick, I think.
Int: Yes, well, back to sport. You
mention the Prime Minister was a boxer. Surely that could have been something
you could have tried?
BS: Nah. With this head? No, it wasn’t something I was
interested in anyway. I’m a sensitive man. I abhor violence, well, on a
personal level. If there is a matter in dispute I’d prefer to resolve it by
negotiation. If I can’t do it, I’ll often call on some friends to fix it and
make the other party see sense.
Int: That sounds …
BS: It’s the Labor way. The union way because what you
get from the union movement – a movement that lies at the heart of all that is good about vis country – is honesty. There is
no deceit, no playing games: it is a movement that prides itself on calling a
shovel a shovel.
Int: Just to digress for a moment and
follow up a point you mentioned just there about honesty in the union movement:
the Royal Commision into Union Corruption …
BS: It’s a witch hunt. Nothing but a witch hunt
perpetrated an extreme right wing Prime Minister afraid to face us on a level
playing field.
Int: A witch hunt?
BS: It is designed purely to smear the name of a great
Australian Labor Prime Minister, Julia Gillard. It is designed to hunt down
Gillard, ergo it is a witch hunt.
Int: Hhmm. An interesting
juxtaposition, but they are your words and if you are happy to speak them I’m
happy to let them stand. Just on the issue of the spoken word, I notice your
speech impediment has disappeared: have you been having therapy for it?
BS: Speech impediment?
Int: Yes. You know, vis and vat, the
fankless task vat is an opposition leader’s lot, but you are fankful for ve
support of ve member for Kingsford-Smith Matt Fisslefwaite?
BS: Oh, that! Ve fankful fing? Nah, that’s just a put
on to enhance my working class credentials. I mean, let’s be honest: middle
class parents, fee-paying private school Jesuit education, Arts/Law degree,
Union career, triple figure salary – not to mention the Super board fees - never
done an honest day’s work in my life: what worker in his right mind is going to
think I can relate to him? Never going to happen.
Int: Hhmm, I see, but why the speech
thing? Why not just get a job on the production line for a few years?
BS: Well, basically, if I was a manual labourer or
process worker I’d never get ALP pre-selection. Obviously though, I needed some
way to connect to the people who make the thingimajiggies and doo-dahs and
things, so I went for the speech thing.
Int: You think that has endeared you to
Labor voters?
BS: For sure. Everybody knows that your actual worker
isn’t that smart, so if I say ‘fink’ and ‘fank’ it is only natural that they
are going to think I’m the same as them. It’s a pretty simple concept, but
let’s face it, when you are dealing with ALP voters you aren’t exactly going up
against rocket scientists.
Int: Er, hhmm. Well, we’d best leave it
there Mr Shorten. The next time we speak we’ll look at the origin of some of
the nicknames you’ve picked up over your working life. Names such as Showbag
Bill, Dicky Knee …
BS: What? Dicky Knee? I’ve never been called that.
Where the fuck did you get that from?
Int: Oh. Er, it was common currency
among the media pack during the whole Beaconsfield
BS: No, I didn’t know about it! Which organisation do
you work for?
It can’t be
ABC because my mate Malcolm owns the ABC. Do you want to work in this town
again? Do you want a spoon outside your door? How about some broken eggs, mate?
You just watch yourself. I’m the friend of the working man. I eat fucking pies,
mate, and everybody knows that pies are working man’s food. You want to give me
cold pies? No working man likes cold pies, mate, and right now you are looking
like a cold pie to me.
Int: Bill Shorten, thanks for your
time.
BS: Fanks bruvver.
