Greens and Labor need to explain Castro tributes

Both Bill Shorten and Richard Di Natale need to explain whether senior Senior Labor Frontbencher Kim Carr and Greens Senator Lee Rhiannon are speaking for and on behalf of their respective parties in relation to their warm tributes for the evil regime of Fidel Castro.

Fidel Castro’s Communist dictatorship was responsible for the murder of thousands of Cubans, by firing squad, for various crimes including speaking out against his regime, for seeking to flea Cuba and even for being homosexual.

Fidel Castro was a communist tyrant, responsible for the execution of thousands of political dissidents as well as people who didn’t happen to share his world view.

It is beyond belief that Mr Shorten tolerates Kim Carr’s ongoing sycophancy to brutal communist regimes. Similarly, one wonders how the Australian Greens have decided to also praise a man who oversaw a dictatorial regime that rejected free speech, destroyed an economy which sentenced thousands to extreme poverty and killed people for their sexuality.

The sheer hypocrisy required to praise this regime then turn around and claim that Australia - the freest and most democratic nation in the world - has human rights violations is insurmountable.

All Australian political parties should be united in calling out Fidel Castro’s ruinous regime for what it was, not praising someone who was responsible for thousands of deaths.

Bill Shorten and Richard Di Natale need to advise whether their senior spokespeople were speaking on their behalf. Australians would be horrified to think that they were.