Now this is what political water carrying looks like. The defender: Bill Shorten, Australia's Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations. The defendee: Australia's Prime Minister Julia Gillard.
Reports The Guardian:
Bill Shorten, the Australian workplace relations minister, was asked by Sky News Australia whether he felt the parliamentary speaker, Peter Slipper, should be allowed to go back to his job after being accused of sexual harassment and misuse of funds.
Aware Gillard was abroad, but unaware of what she'd said on the matter, Shorten replied: "I haven't seen what she's said, but let me say I support what it is she said." Pressed by an astonished presenter to confirm he backed his boss even though he didn't know what she'd said, he nodded: "I support what she said ... My view is what the prime minister's view is."
Saaaa-lute! Mitt Romney would sell of three of his vacation homes for that kind of team discipline.
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It is the classic rule of parliamentary politics:
"Where you stand depends upon where you sit."
Heck the GOP already does that! But glad to see the sheep have reached high places down under! Bold leaders! What she said baah baah (and yes I'm aware that's my Aussie team).
Holy crap the facebook comments on this are getting out of hand.
All Australians aren't sheep! Thanks for judging us by one video and trying to seem politically superior. Jeez, if only we had some crazy US politicans to judge your entire country by! Oh that's right: there's the entire GOP.
Australian politicians are very party loyal. They vote and act within their party's guidelines for the most part and he is actually doing an excellent job of doing so. It's different to the US but not an indication of lack of intelligence.
He could buy 20 more vacation homes, anyway, so of course he'd sell three for that kind of discipline. But that kind of discipline and loyalty can't be bought. It has to be earned and deserved.
My immediate thought was the scene from the movie Coming to America, where the Prince cannot believe that someone has been brought up to have no individual thoughts, to just be totally subservient : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RXfLEoCMO3c
Unfortunately politics in Australia is much the same as elsewhere, the Right is running right and the Left is following. Bill Shorten is an ex-union man, thoroughly schooled in the art of following the line, and a good example of a 'loyal party man'. Not all of his compatriots rate as highly as this, not long ago they were testing the waters to have Gillard dumped from the top job and replace her with Kevin Rudd, the guy she shafted for the job first time round.
Try to think of it this way, the Australian Labour Party (ALP) is sort of like the Democrats, the Liberal Party (LP) is sort of Republican, except the party picks its leaders etc., not the public. Ms Gillard, the Prime Minister, belongs to one faction within the ALP and has stacked the posts with her factional buddies, like Mr Shorten.