Labor

NOWHERE MAN: Bill Oliver announces his departure from the SL once more with feeling

The CFMEU Construction division in Victoria has largely conceded failure in its mission to divide and conquer their Socialist Left faction by declaring – to their house journal The Age – that they had parted company.

Its current leader, although rumoured to be on the verge of departure, Bill Oliver (pictured below with colourful construction industry identity Mick Gatto who referred to his mate Bill in recent best-selling memoirs) is said to be bitterly disappointed with his comrade from the AMWU – the manufacturing workers union – who have decided to stay within the SL after flirting with Oliver for a while last year.

He told the Age’s gullible Sarah-Jane Collins “We don’t think they’re treating our issues seriously.” She didn’t insist on him explaining what that meant. What it meant was that Oliver had a candidate, Lisa Zanatta in mind. She told Bill she didn’t want it, Left sources say. Then, looking around the office, Bill came up with Emma Waters, who once worked at the Australian Workers Union before her walk of shame over to the CFMEU dark side.

She didn’t fly either with senior government strategists horrified about the idea of putting up a CFMEU candidate in a by-election.

Left observers say Oliver’s decision to quit reflects his loss of patience with the AMWU who were not willing to follow Oliver’s mad megalomaniacal scheming.

As a result, the CFMEU have left the Left and will most probably end up cuddling up to the National Union of Workers and the Shop Assistants Union who will enjoy Oliver’s warm embrace as long as they don’t mind the pong.

That said, sources close to Senator David Feeney have long insisted that they have no time for “extremists” and for that reason had avoided alliances with Dean Mighell at the ETU and Bill Oliver at the CFMEU and so on, even when they’ve been on offer.

Some say that the CFMEU has benefited from having sympathetic state ministers from the Labor Right encouraging them on in their anti Kim Carr ways but that is hotly contested by those involved.

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