The electorate of Kalgoorlie in Western Australia is one of the largest in the world _ if not the largest. As well as the mining centre of Kalgoorlie it contains huge almost empty areas of desert and salt-lake country that go for kilometre after kilometre. A man could go mad in such country.
The electorate is held for Labor by the outspoken Graeme Campbell. Mr Campbell has made many statements in the past contrary to the prevailing views of the party. He has variously attacked immigration, multi-culturalism, aspects of Aboriginal land rights, the High Court, the move to a republic and proposals for an anti-racial-vilification law. He also offends party orthodoxy in refusing to ask Dorothy Dixers in parliamentary Question Time, preferring to asking testing questions of government ministers.
In short he is a pest to party disciplinarians. But he holds the seat of Kalgoorlie by a reasonably healthy margin. Worse, from the perspective of party disciplinarians, he holds the seat precisely because of his outspoken views, not despite them. His opponents within the party acknowledge that he attracts a red-neck or working-class-Tory vote that would otherwise go to the National Party. It means that to expel him from the party or to give pre-selection to someone else would result in the likely loss of the seat in an election where every Labor seat is likely to be very precious to the party.
Mr Campbell has come very close to breaching party rules that call for automatic expulsion, but has never unequivocally crossed the line. He has never campaign against a Labor candidate, though he campaigned for the Australians Against Further Immigration Party in a by-election in which Labor was not standing. He has never crossed the floor in a party vote in the Parliament, though he has spoken strongly against legislation in the lead up to the parliamentary vote.
His latest transgression was to speak to a meeting of the League of Rights, a notoriously far-right group that has been accused of racism. His speech was anti-immigration. His mere presence was condemned as giving succour to hateful racism.
It was disclosed this week that Mr Campbell told the meeting that the only contribution Paul Keating could make to the next election was “a state funeral”. Further he brandished an ammunition magazine saying that if immigration were not controlled it could come to this. He went over the top.
It may be healthy for the odd pesky back-bencher to question party orthodoxy in public and to say things contrary to the orthodoxy of power elites in the media, professions, business, major parties, unions and lobby groups, especially when those views represent the opinion of a sizeable number of opinion _ in Mr Campbell’s words the “extreme centre”.
But it is not healthy or acceptable (even in jest) for an MP to make jibes suggesting the Prime Minister should be dead or to make crude references to violence in the context of the immigration debate. He should withdraw and apologise or be expelled from the party and see how far his “extreme centrism” gets him as an independent. Australians should defend freedom of speech for individuals to be tasteless, foolish, menacing and mean-spirited as an essential part of democracy, but that does not mean a mainstream political party has to tolerate such speech among its chosen representatives.