The-Latest forces sacking of Mayor's 'race gaffe' aide

<h3 class="post-title"> Lynton Crosby: globetrotting, spreading dirty dog whistles </h3> <img src="http://www.safecom.org.au/images/wma-razorgirl.jpg" border="0" width="195" height="299" align="right" /><em>Narrogin WA, April 18 2005</em> - If you read what everyone should have read around the 2001 Tampa election, you would know Lynton Crosby reasonably well. After all, thanks to Crosby John Howard successfully scooped up his unlikely win at that election through applying a considerable degree of wedge politics, designed by his former advisor Lynton Crosby in his role as the Liberal Party&#39;s election campaign director.<br /><br />Crosby employs a particular nasty brand of politics, and it seems his consultant strategy works: since January this year he&#39;s been pottering around in the UK, helping the Tories under Michael Howard (no relation to little Johnny down here in Australia) to improve his chances to steal government from Tony Blair&#39;s Labour, and soon he&#39;s off to New Zealand. <br /><br />This morning we heard that after the UK election, to be held on May 5th, Crosby&#39;s off to New Zealand - that is, if we can&#39;t stop him. We wrote a letter to Helen Clarke, the Prime Minister of Kiwiland.<br /><br /><span class="fullpost">On this page, a line-up of the British and Australian press about Lynton Crosby&#39;s travels and meddling in UK politics. The media is not sparing him, but he does his grubby work in a climate that seems to be befitting his approach. In March this year I wrote in the script of the forum <a href="http://www.safecom.org.au/psf2005.htm">Don&#39;t Mention the Refugees</a>: <br /><div style="font-style: italic; margin-left: 25px">&quot;Meanwhile, Howard&#39;s senior advisor Lynton Crosby is in the UK selling Australian-made refugee wedge-politics as an election platform to the threatened Tories, the Dutch announce a deportation of up to 26,000 refugees who have lived in the community for up to a decade with undecided outcomes, and in Italy&#39;s government the echo of &#39;shooting them out of the water&#39; still reverberates through parliament while the European Union hopes to circumvent international law and tries to replicate Philip Ruddock&#39;s &#39;refugee warehousing&#39; policy. Fortress Europe&#39;s success is built on the model introduced to the world community by Australia.&quot;</div><br />Globalisation? Well, sort-of - that is, globalisation of the politics of storing, locking up, warehousing, and banning of refugees and asylum seekers, and excluding them from the massive wealth of western countries.<br /><br />Below our press release is the report we received this week from New Zealand. It&#39;s followed by media reports from January through to April. And there&#39;s more to come.<h3>Block Lynton Crosby&#39;s visa for New Zealand, says refugee group</h3><strong>Project SafeCom Inc.<br />Media Release<br />Monday April 19 2005 9:00am WST<br />For immediate Release<br />No Embargoes</strong><br /><br />&quot;John Howard&#39;s former advisor Lynton Crosby, who currently acts as the campaign director for the British Tories, and who was the campaign director during the 2001 Tampa election and beyond, should be barred from entering New Zealand on character grounds,&quot; WA Refugee group Project SafeCom stated today.<br /><br />News is breaking in New Zealand (item below) that Mr Crosby will be employed by the NZ conservative party &#39;National&#39; as a campaign consultant in that country&#39;s election after he finishes his role for Michael Howard&#39;s party after the May 5 UK election.<br /><br />Lynton Crosby has refined &#39;refugee wedge politics&#39; and &#39;dog whistle politics&#39; to such an extent that he hires himself out as a campaign director to conservative parties &#39;around the world&#39; in order to improve their chances to win elections. Crosby is currently the campaign director for the British Tories under Michael Howard, while New Zealanders are said to have their next election around September this year.<br /><br />&quot;Mr Crosby election tactics are deliberately designed to create a considerable degree of xenophobia and fear for &#39;refugee invasions&#39;, and his strategy consists of creating the most shameful and grubby tactics - spreading mis-information and uninformed but sensational opinion and debate - we have seen and experienced in Australia since the Tampa election in 2001, and we&#39;re now seeing the same phenomena developing from the conservatives in the UK,&quot; Project SafeCom spokesman Mr Smit said.<br /><br />&quot;It is vitally important that the New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark and her Immigration Minister Paul Swain discern his approach as an attempt to embed low gutter politics in New Zealand society. We would not wish the amount of division and animosity - divisions which are still tearing Australia apart in many ways - upon anyone, especially not on New Zealand, a country that may these days well carry, rather than Australia, the label of &#39;The Lucky Country&#39; for asylum seekers.&quot;<br /><br />&quot;New Zealand has an admirable record in terms of their refugee treatment, so much so, that they&#39;ve been willing to take up the &#39;slack&#39; for Australia, for example in accepting many Tampa refugees, while not exposing John Howard&#39;s scandalous post-Tampa politics in a generous employ of diplomacy.&quot;<br /><br />&quot;Mr Crosby is not an honourable man, and his entry into New Zealand should be stopped on character grounds. Project SafeCom is currently developing communications with Prime Minister Helen Clark, Immigration Minister Paul Swain and his Associate Immigration Minister Damien O&#39;Connor.&quot;</span>

McGrath does <strong>not </strong>in any way suggest that anybody should &#39;go home&#39; or &#39;go back&#39;. He is directly asked how he feels about Afro-Caribbean people leaving - so bear in mind, he was aleady presented with a specific ethnic minority, he did not choose that group of his own violition, and he was already told they would leave, so he did not suggest that course of action. He then said what amounts to &#39;let them do what they want if they are unhappy&#39;. <p>How is this racist? And more importantly, how could it be presented, morally or legally, as, (and I quote) &quot;Blacks should &#39;go back home if they don&#39;t like Mayor&quot;? He in no way suggested this - it is a clear misrepresentation of what James said, changing his words and falsely attributing a racially imflammatory phrase - &#39;go home&#39; - to him.</p><p><strong><br /></strong></p>

Mr Wadsworth,McGrath&#39;s instant verbal response to a reasonable although provocative question might indicate an underlying racial prejudice.You have been reported as writing of Mcgrath&#39;s comment as&nbsp; &quot;robust and as distant from being politically correct as his country.&quot;Your words, as reported, were written and therefore presumably considered.It is your right to be ignorant. I am bemused that someone who champions the campaign against racism can say something so prejudiced.You may loath me when you know me if you want, however, please don&#39;t blithely label me or my country. That is the essence of prejudice.David