Talk:Paul Howes

Removed without explanation ~25 August, 2010
Please provide reasons for (1) why either of the following statements were removed, and (2) should not be reinstated: wcrosbie, Melbourne, Australia 06:53, 25 August 2010 (UTC) wcrosbie, Melbourne, Australia 23:44, 31 August 2010 (UTC)
 * 1) In 1995 Howes spent nine months living in Cuba as a supporter of the Castro regime.
 * 2) Howes was the subject of an episode of  ABC program Australian Story, broadcast in August 2010, which highlighted his influence within Labor, especially leading up to the Australian federal election, 2010, and the influence  of 'powerbrokers' (or 'faceless men'): Mark Arbib, Don Farrell, David Feeney and former AWU secretary Bill Shorten, on the ALP leadership.
 * Edits by Special:Contributions/150.101.202.157 are limited to a narrow set of Labor and union related entries: Australian_Workers'_Union, Gary_Punch, Laurie_Short, Bill_Shorten. I've reinstated the content, thus
 * Others reported to have been influential, in addition to Howes in 2010, inclue Labor 'powerbrokers' (or 'faceless men'): Mark Arbib, Don Farrell, David Feeney and former AWU secretary Bill Shorten.
 * Could this be better expressed?
 * Again, today content with references were deleted without explanation. I've reversed the edit. Please raise issues below.
 * I've removed it again, but foolishly didn't check here for any prior discussion. My apologies on that score. However, when I read the source, it said:
 * Four factional powerbrokers from Labor’s Right played a key role brought to a dramatic head yesterday evening: Bill Shorten, Mark Arbib, David Feeney, and Don Farrell.
 * and a couple of paragraphs later:
 * AWU Leader Paul Howes made it known that his union had withdrawn his support for the PM ...
 * The three powerbrokers and Paul Howes are all mentioned in the same article, but the source never draws a connection between them. Given that there isn't a direct connection, the mentioning of all five names makes a lot of sense on Australian Labor Party leadership spill, 2010, which is about the event, but adding them here appears to either draw a connection which isn't in the source being used, or it feels like a tangent not directly related to Paul Howes. - Bilby (talk) 06:27, 11 February 2013 (UTC)
 * I see it has been added back. However, I'm still nto sure why it is there - the source doesn't directly connect Shorten, Arbib, Feeney and Farrell with Howes, and while I'm sure they are all influential in the Labor party, isn't that an issue for the Labor party article? At this stage, without seeing a reason for adding them here, it seems to look a bit like synthesis. - Bilby (talk) 08:19, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

Socialism and visit to Cuba
One of the lines removed for no apparent reason mentioned Howes visit to Cuba, during Casto's reign. I've added a quote from Howes which I believe contributes to a revealing and balanced view:
 * I wanted to be more active in fighting for socialism ultimately as the solution to all the world's problems. It was suggested that I go to Cuba to further my kind of political education on the revolution. It all sounded good in principle. After a few weeks, you saw the heavy hand of the state in pretty appalling ways. You know, you saw people being arbitrarily arrested. I didn’t have an instant conversion, but it made me start to question the ideology and when I came back I started feeling like, 'what am I doing with my life? What am I doing with these people? How have I gone from being concerned about French nuclear testing in Muroroa to a committed Marxist Leninist?'

It the quote too long? Do you think it's to contentious? wcrosbie, Melbourne, Australia 10:52, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

This ^^ all sounds like far right bullshit to me since Howes is a member of the right faction anyways. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 14.2.52.7 (talk) 02:44, 8 July 2012 (UTC)

"Far right bullshit"? it's a quote from Howes himself. That at the age of 16, in 1995 he went to Cuba as a Castro supporter is something he freely admits too - he spoke about it openly on the ABC story on his life and is a fact he uses regularly and unabashedly when explaining why he changed his mind from being a supporter of communism to a supporter of capitalism.

For example, from the left wing The Age:


 * "At 16, he found himself at the World Festival for Youth and Students in Cuba, where he fell out of love with the communist ideal."
 * “I decided that if I wanted to change the world, I didn’t want it to be like Cuba,” he says. He suddenly discovered he wasn’t a socialist after all, but a believer in a capitalist democratic system with a bent towards social justice."
 * “I decided that if I wanted to change the world, I didn’t want it to be like Cuba,” he says. He suddenly discovered he wasn’t a socialist after all, but a believer in a capitalist democratic system with a bent towards social justice."

It's an important part of his life story whether he or his union mates like it or not and that it has been repeatedly scrubbed from his bio is a disgrace.

But sure, don't let reality get in the way of your fantasy of some "far right" conspiracy. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 121.44.100.55 (talk) 00:06, 21 August 2012 (UTC)


 * A report on the Cuban festival co-authored by Howes can be found in Green Left Weekly, the newspaper of the Democratic Socialist Party/Resistance, dated 20 August 1997. This is available online.  Howes' visit to Cuba was in 1997, not 1995 (when he would have been too young).  There is no evidence of disenchantment in this article.  I myself attended the Green Left conference in Sydney that year where Howes gave a glowing report about Cuba.  Perhaps there were doubts in his mind, but I suspect he is making his story more dramatic as he did with his stepfather.  That being said, on the evidence of the back issues of GLW, he doesn't seem to have had much further association with the DSP.  It appears his involvement lasted 18 months, beginning in early 1996 when he was at Blaxland High (mentioned in GLW, 20 March 1996).--Jack Upland (talk) 04:23, 3 November 2013 (UTC)

Dispute with stepfather
The situation between Howes and his stepfather Gary Howes is interesting. According to The Age "Paul Howes claims that his stepfather once pointed a gun at him and handcuffed him on the ground, as well as calling him a sook and a big girl's blouse throughout his childhood, according to recently released documents in a defamation case. "Gary Howes is suing ACP Magazines, magazine editor Helen McCabe and his stepson Paul for defamation over an article published in The Australian Women's Weekly in July 2012." Gary Howes goes stated in his statement to the court that Paul was "recklessly indifferent to the truth, and that the profile was published to sensationalise and in a grandstanding way to further Paul Howes' political career." I am wondering how much of this should be discussed in the article and how it should be dealt with?   Djapa Owen (talk) 14:33, 12 April 2013 (UTC)

Appointment conspiracy theories
Howes missed out on that Senate appointment for a bunch of reasons, the most obvious and widely-reported of those being that he's one of the most controversial and most unpopular figures in the whole trade union movement. With the additional sources (Haaretz etc), there are enough sources to warrant mentioning the Grand Mufti's comments and Danby's allegations in response, but that basically no one actually takes this seriously is given one line in a section that generally takes something that actually happened (Howe missing out on a Senate appointment because he's controversial) and then completely runs off with the fairies as to the reasons. The Drover&#39;s Wife (talk) 07:01, 16 August 2014 (UTC)


 * You clearly have missed the point - whether or not the Mufti's warning was a tangible factor in Howes' decision to withdraw from the Senate candidacy is irrelevant. The fact is that the Mufti's warning did generate considerable controversy (that is what these sources (i.e. Australian Financial Review, Herald Sun, Business Insider Australia, Haaretz and the Australian Jewish News) clearly indicate). If you want to argue that all of the above news outlets are blowing this out of proportion or "run[ing] off with the fairies", you will have to provide a source to support this.(Hyperionsteel (talk) 07:20, 16 August 2014 (UTC))


 * This is a BLP article, and that is an extremely and intentionally selective pick of the articles about Howes' abortive Senate appointment. Business Insider Australia is not a reliable source, nor is Andrew Bolt, and one AFR article that was picked up by Haaretz does not make more than a fringe reading of events. The text itself very strongly implies that Howes lost the Senate appointment because of the "controversy" despite the fact it cites a better source in a buried one-line sentence that contradicts this theory. The Drover&#39;s Wife (talk) 07:42, 16 August 2014 (UTC)


 * To further clarify, nowhere in the article does it suggest that any kind of conspiracy was afoot. However, the fact that the Mufti essentially threatened to withdraw support for Labor from the Muslim community if Howes was appointed was taken very seriously, as the aforementioned sources clearly indicate.(Hyperionsteel (talk) 07:36, 16 August 2014 (UTC))


 * How do they indicate that it was taken seriously? They take 1 (the Mufti threatened to withdraw support for Labor) and 1 (Howes was not appointed) and come up with 289. The Drover&#39;s Wife (talk) 07:44, 16 August 2014 (UTC)
 * Actually, they don't make that connection, and neither does the article. You are the on the only one who is making that connection, or rather, is alleging that this connection is being made (i.e. this alleged conspiracy you keep insisting that this article is trying to promote). What these sources do indicate is that the Mufti's warning generated considerable controversy and was criticized by a number of sources in the media, the government, and the Jewish community.
 * Alternatively, you may have misunderstood my point - these sources are not being cited to show that the Mufti's warning was a tangible factor in Howes' decision to withdraw from the Senate candidacy. Rather, it was the fact that such a warning was issued by the Mufti at all which was taken seriously - i.e. whether or the Mufti's warning was ultimately a factor in Howes' Senate candidacy is unimportant - the fact that the Mufti issued the warning is what's important. As too your next question as too why it is important, the numerous sources I've cited that covered this topic are your answer(Hyperionsteel (talk) 08:19, 16 August 2014 (UTC))
 * The current text of this section implies so strongly that it was a significant factor in Howes' non-appointment that it barely counts as just an implication. If this is purely about the Mufti's warning, and not any connection to Howes' appointment itself, a) how can the weight in this article be justified, and b) why is it going here instead of in the Mufti's article? At best this is a controversy that only peripherally involves Howes, and if you're not intending to draw conclusions that run off with the fairies about Howes' appointment your text does a great job of suggesting people infer otherwise. The Drover&#39;s Wife (talk) 14:49, 16 August 2014 (UTC)
 * Where in the text does it strongly imply that the Mufti's warning was a significant factor? Nowhere. What the text states is that there was considerable controversy over the Mufti's warning. Since Howes was the target of this warning, he is certainly not on the periphery. Given the media coverage of this controversy, its weight in the article is certainly justified. Again, there is no conspiracy being implied here - the Mufti's warning may not have been a significant factor (as the AFR noted), and nowhere in the text does it suggest or imply otherwise. However, the controversy surrounding the warning is what is important. You seem to believe that this controversy is not a big deal; however, the numerous sources that I've cited suggest otherwise.(Hyperionsteel (talk) 17:31, 16 August 2014 (UTC))
 * I doubt there is a neutral reader who could read that article and not take away that the article was strongly implying it was a significant factor. The media coverage of Howes' appointment was much, much broader than what is being cited here, and this is taking what amounts to two, maybe three reliable sources (all based on the first article) and running off in a completely different direction from all other mainstream coverage of the event; this is pretty much the definition of WP:UNDUE. It needs to accurately represent the mainstream coverage of Howes' appointment, and then mention, in about one sentence, the Mufti's threat and the resulting backlash from Michael Danby. The Drover&#39;s Wife (talk) 00:51, 17 August 2014 (UTC)
 * Nowhere does it imply that the Mufti's warning was a significant factor (in fact, it says the exact opposite). However, I agree that a broader explanation as to why Howes' candidacy for the Senate didn't pan out is needed. Even so, the controversy generated by the Mufti's threat and the criticism that followed, was significant enough to warrant it's inclusion in the article. As for your new implication (that the entire backlash against the Mufti was limited to one person Michael Danby), the sources cited make it clear that Danby was one of many people/groups who found the Mufti's threat disturbing, even if it wasn't a significant factor in Howes' withdrawal.(Hyperionsteel (talk) 08:31, 17 August 2014 (UTC))
 * Anyway, I've inserted a new paragraph that provides a background for Howes' Senate candidacy and the reasons for his withdrawal. There's nothing about the Mufti, or the controversy that his threat provoked, at the moment. We can expand it further from here.(Hyperionsteel (talk) 08:50, 17 August 2014 (UTC))
 * I think that's a start, but this source (which quotes Howes extensively) much more accurately summarises the mainstream view of how it went down than this, which merely briefly notes that his support for gay marriage was "one of" the reasons he stepped back. Again, that brief remark gets undue weight in the rewrite, but it's obvious that you're clearly trying to work this out so I give you credit for that. Other sources:, , , . The Drover&#39;s Wife (talk) 09:13, 17 August 2014 (UTC)

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Why is Howes role as protected source of the US embassy and his role in the the coup against Rudd not mentioned?
Wikileaks published documents showing Paul Howes was protected source for the US embassy in Canberra. He also played an important public role in the the coup against Rudd. I will add this but I'm noting here that it is bizarre it has either never been added or suspicious that it has been deleted. JohnWilsonWSWS (talk) 21:13, 29 June 2022 (UTC)