CAMERON MILNER: Dorinda Cox’s defection to Labor reeks of self-interest and double standards

There’s a great Labor tradition that if you leave and join another party you are a Labor rat.

Billie Hughes was a Labor rat, as was Senator Mal Colston. Fatima Payman most recently.

But so too is Labor’s newly minted former WA Greens senator, Dorinda Cox.

Cox is just another member of the Rat Pack of MPs who thought they were more important than the parties who supported them as candidates, or the voters duped into believing they would represent their views in parliament.

It’s a curiosity of our Constitution and Electoral Act that voters overwhelmingly in the Senate vote for Party tickets, yet the senate seats are then held by individuals.

Well at least individuals who don’t have the common decency to resign their commission if they’ve had such a massive change of political heart.

See rats don’t seem to have a lot of moral fibre as a rule, their ego’s and self justification for ratting are on a whole new level of socially unaware.

Anthony Albanese flew his whole Cabinet to Perth last week to recruit Dorinda like a rat leaving the sinking ship of the Greens only to have to remind her that as a Labor backbencher she needed to “toe the line” when it came to supporting Minister Watt’s decision to back in a 40-year extension to Woodside’s North West shelf oil and gas operations.

Many had feared that extension could cause irreparable damage to the priceless Burrup peninsula indigenous rock art. It was a point made very strongly by none other than WA Greens senator, Dorinda Cox as recently as the May federal election.

So, other than providing safe harbour for a garden variety political rat, what on earth was Albo thinking when he agreed to her party membership and adding one extra number to Labor’s senate ranks.

It surely wasn’t about making passing legislation any easier. Labor still needs either the Greens or the Liberals to pass legislation. So Dorinda’s defection hasn’t changed that at all.

Perhaps it was Dorinda being accused by multiple staff of bullying that so qualified her to be a member of the Labor senate team. The PM assured us that taxpayers through the Parliamentary Services branch had resolved the bullying matters, so “nothing to see here”.

But this PM has form when it comes to leaving un-investigated claims of workplace bullying like those of the late Senator Kimberley Kitching by his senate leadership of Penny Wong, Katy Gallagher and Kristina Kenneally — the “mean girls” — as first reported on by award winning journalist, Sharri Markson.

Perhaps Labor’s mean girls were just looking for a replacement for Kenneally to put the senate gang back together. By the sounds Dorinda will fit right in.

And Dorinda’s desire to be a Labor backbencher comes after we find out she left the Labor Party to join the Greens as recently as 2020. She helpfully wrote that Labor’s position on First Nations issues were so bad that she had to leave and join the far more progressive Greens.

At least she had the human decency to resign from the Labor Party instead of just ratting like she did last week.

So what is it about Labor that now so impresses her on First Nation’s matters?

Albanese presided over the worst setback in a generation for the movement when he took the Uluru Statement from the Heart and decided to offer voters the Albanese Voice to Parliament.

It was thrashed at the referendum. Albanese has abandoned Truth and Treaty at a national level despite South Australia and Victoria both having Voices and engaged in Makarrata Commissions of truth telling.

Albanese cut the legs out from a generation of First Nations leaders like Marcia Langton, Noel Pearson and Megan Davis when he walked away from his solemn election night promise to implement the Uluru Statement from the Heart in full.

When Albo had the chance to nominate a Megan Davis or a Noel Pearson for Governor General he chose a white doyen of the corporate boardroom.

Albo has done more to damage the progress of First Nations interests than any Labor leader since Arthur Calwell who’s view of human rights was summed up when he said “Two Wongs do not make a White”.

We aren’t closing the gap and Albo has put First Nations on the political never never, despite having 94 seats in parliament. Albo seems fixated with wanting to tick off time serving records rather than be remembered for being a great Labor leader.

So Senator Cox having left Labor to join the Greens because of a perceived lack of progress by Labor in 2020 now wants to join Albanese’s Labor after he’s trashed the hopes and dreams of a generation of talented leaders who had worked tirelessly to craft the Uluru Statement.

Doesn’t sound right, unless for Dorinda it’s always been about Dorinda. It’s a trait so many political rats seem to share.

Cox has fought with her indigenous sisters in the Blak Greens movement and managed to plough through more than 20 staff in three years, just got snubbed for deputy leader of the Greens and decided to spit the political dummy. See political rats are so often in their own minds completely convinced of their own victimhood.

She will now serve the remainder of her term and be seeking Labor preselection to stay no doubt in about two years from now. Who knows what secret deal has been done to have the ALP National Executive guarantee her place?

One thing is for sure, a talented ALP woman is paying the price for Albo recruiting Cox rather than promoting a loyal member from his own party to represent Labor at the next election.

Cox doesn’t change the senate numbers. She brings with her massive baggage and has hardly been noted for her policy contributions. Still. this is what Labor leadership under Albanese looks like with 94 seats — finding new homes for political rats.