Steve Doszpot is in a tizz and appears to be saying Andrew Barr is a racist for suggesting that the Assembly Liberals are racist.
That the whole debate is about lily skinned europeans on every turn just ads to the weirdness.
So what’s going on here?
OK for reasons not entirely clear Andrew Barr has effectively sacked nine local child protection workers so he can parachute in a team of British personnel. The ABC has a bit on this. Why he would, or would not, want to do this is beyond me but I doubt it was just for giggles.
Steve Doszpot has a partial quote of what Andrew was saying in fiery Assembly debate today:
- “…in a party that includes Mr Seselja and Mr Doszpot has a problem with skilled migrants…” (sic)
Steve considers this to be outrageous:
- “Andrew Barr has shown his true colours today and I take personal offence at the way in which Mr Barr chose to single out two members of the Assembly purely because of our last names.
“My family fled political and religious persecution to seek a better life in Australia – Mr Barr is certainly scraping the barrel when he chooses to raise my ethnic heritage in order to deflect a hard hitting question from the Opposition.
“Because members of the Opposition have names such as Doszpot and Seselja it seems we cannot raise legitimate concerns without fear of our heritage being used against us.
“This is discrimination of the worst and most insidious kind.
I’d hazard to say this is possibly not the worst form of discrimination in the sad and sorry history of the practice.
UPDATED: Andrew Barr has returned fire:
- “Judging by his media release issued this afternoon, Liberal MLA Steve Doszpot has finally realised that it is not fair to discriminate against anyone based on their country of origin.
“Now that Mr Doszpot gets it, I look forward to him telling Mrs Dunne and to her publicly apologising to these fantastic staff and their families who have come from the UK to make a contribution to our city and to the most vulnerable people in our community,” Mr Barr said.