Newly appointed Human Rights Commissioner Tim Wilson has created a storm on social media by advocating that McDonald’s have the human right to property in Tecoma. Confirmed by Fairfax today, Commissioner Wilson came to Tecoma last Saturday to see “what the fuss was about” What most are now regarding as poor judgement and a juvenile attempt to demonises the biggest grassroots democracy campaign in Australia, Wilson made no attempt to contact anyone associated with the campaign to get a balanced understanding.
Fortunately campaign spokesperson Garry Muratore managed to make direct contact and explained how McDonald’s had used bullying and intimidation to obtain their “right” and either ignored or lied about the groundswell of opposition they had in establishing the store in Tecoma.
When we spoke to Garry this afternoon he said “Tim and I had a decent conversation but he made it obvious to me he was advocating corporate rights over an entire community. When asked directly about the bullying and intimidation we had received, like McDonald’s he simply ignored those facts”
Wilson’s twitter account has been slammed by a storm of criticism as did comments on reddit
http://www.reddit.com/r/australia/comments/248uwk/commissioner_champions_tecoma_mcdonalds_human/
Despite an opportunity to simply say “I’ve now heard both sides to the story” it appears Wilson preferred to dig a deeper hole for himself by “expressing surprise that Fairfax Media considered it a story.”
Oh Tim, don’t give up your day job. Oh wait, that is your day job.
