Which billionaire is missing from Paul Howes' class war attack ad?

Paul Howes, the AWU boss, has let his old Trotskyist Resistance past get the better of him by running class-war ads attacking rich mining bosses for “taking” minerals “out of Australia”, like they were, you know, stealing them: The ads, which began airing on Foxtel yesterday, target the sizeable profits made by the heads of the three behemoths of the Australian mining industry: Clive Palmer, BHP’s Marius Kloppers and Rio Tinto’s Tom Albanese. “For decades the mining industry has been taking things out of Australia,” the ad begins, before running shots of the men. “Along the way it’s made some mining bosses very, very rich.” The commercial concludes with the exhortation: “Let the mining bosses know: It’s time to put something back”. (What’s Howes saying: that the crime is to export the minerals? And the solution is to put them back?) But the oddest thing about his choice of villainous fat cats - the South African Kloppers, the American Albanese and the fat guy Palmer. Someone’s missing - the billionaire who’s been about the most vocal in fighting the super-profits tax. The miner who’s long seemed a friend of Labor, and campaigner for Aboriginal employment. Why isn’t Twiggy Forrest in your ad, Paul? Or would attacking a dinki-di miner like him make you[r] ad seem even more stupid? The rest here.

Posted via email from Garth's posterous