What is Feeney’s legacy? As an individual, very little. His electorate office has for years served as a spawning ground for morally deformed right wing Labor students, who mimic his right wing attitudes and sudden changes of belief. They are the only ones who mourn his departure.
Feeneyism will live on, though. He fought for the election of unprincipled Laborites – himself above all – who did nothing to advance social progress, and usually held it back. To win the approbation of the powerful, they back social conservatism and discrimination, cuts to vital services and crooked arrangements between bosses and senior union officials to hold down workers’ wages.
Under pressure from public opinion, and in competition with the Greens, they occasionally posture as advocates of the downtrodden, as long as they can “forget” their multi-million dollar property investments during an election campaign.
But once they’re back in parliament, it’s back to business as usual.
