although it may have seemed like a joke or a funny little aside for so many Australians to say after the result of the 2013 federal election, I am not playing around when I say I’m considering moving to your fair shores to escape the misery, strife and economic rationalism of a Tony Abbott-led government.
I have always had unwavering respect for your nation, believing it to be a smaller yet cleaner and far more progressive version of Australia. As Mark Latham said in one of his moments of lucidity, “New Zealand is the Switzerland of the Pacific”, obviously without the discrimination of migrants in parks and public pools and without Oprah Winfrey getting in a flap over being refused the purchase of a gaudy piece of fabric as a handbag that costs five-figures or some such.
I’ve been to New Zealand only once before, for a week’s holiday when I was 13, but I was very impressed with how bright, friendly and switched-on both your people and country is. I do not wish to piss in your pocket, but how are you not a bigger presence on the world stage? Oh but of course, you’re humble and happy to stay as one of the few happy and content wallflowers on the international stage.
As an Australian, I’ve always been conscious of not automatically claiming the people and products of your good country as “our” own, to me, Split Enz is New Zealand. Sam Neill is New Zealand. Russell Crowe. John Clarke. Pavlova. New Zealand.
I’ve enjoyed the films of Peter Jackson, specifically the pre-Hollywood titles: the ribald Bad Taste. The divine Heavenly Creatures and The Frighteners for having that foxy Trini Alvarado in a lead role.
Yes, I am willing to leave Australia because of a hard-line conservative government elected to rule, and yes, I am aware that currently New Zealand is governed by a conservative party, but hey, any conservative party that legalises marriage equality can’t be that bad, can it? I’m only a 23 and already a staunch Labor voter, but how impressive are the people of your own Labour Party? Helen Clark, Mike Rann and especially Georgina Beyer, the world’s first elected transgender MP! I am also impressed by how more equitable your society is in relation to your indigenous people, unlike Australia’s own.
New Zealand, if you’re happy to have me, I pledge full allegiance to Aotearoa, because after all, if a country that can give the world such happy and peaceful people (no, I’m not one of the Australian fools that idolises and glorifies the socioeconomic thuggery as a way of life of Once Were Warriors, seriously, how many skinny white teenage Aussies have to be a starfucker for that guy?) like Edmund Hillary, The Topp Twins, Ernest Rutherford and Janet Frame … well, I’m gushing so I’ll conclude.
Already quite a few left-leaning Australians are rhapsodizing migrating to New Zealand, and indeed this has already been decried as “comfortable, well-off white people”, but fuck that, I’m getting in first.If anyone wishes to fund my passage across the Tasman, please contact me to exchange bank details 😉
This is, for now, as close as I’ll probably ever come to writing from my heart, or at least the spot where I have a lumpen-shaped chunk of stone where one’s “heart” usually is.
Tomorrow, we will all be voting in the 2013 federal election, or at least those who turn up will, even if they just cock and ball the ballot paper. Thinking of that makes me want to spill the beans on the only excuse I know of that works if you’re pulled up for not voting, but tomorrow’s election is so important that everyone needs to vote, so ask me later.
It is important to vote tomorrow not just because we live in a democracy and can vote for whomever we wish without fear of rigging – or much fear, it shames me to admit that my beloved Labor did once rig the result in a by-election for the Victorian state seat of Nunawading in the 80s but ho hum, it kept Jeff Kennett away from the top job for a few more years.
It is important to vote tomorrow not just because it’s something to get done and then the rest of your Saturday is free to use watching the football.
It is important to vote tomorrow and equally if not more so who you vote for.
I know that on this blog and on Twitter, and especially in my Facebook page if you know me from there, that I regularly, if not prolifically, go the thump on the Liberal Party and conservatives of all political parties in a way that really only makes me look like a 13 year-old in the body of a 23 year-old (I know, I’m like mental jailbait) but this time I’m imploring you to vote Labor and not Liberal for what is to many people I know arguably the most important topic of this election campaign, and you’re excused (this time) for not picking up on it, thanks to the mainstream media’s pathetic admiration and enabling exploitation of Tony Abbott”s daughters, who have been seen every day on the campaign trail being used by their father to get attention, patriarchal pimp that he is.
It is important to not vote Liberal or to preference them last on your ballot paper not just because of their policy of “rewarding” mothers who already earn over $100,000 a year up to $75,000 in paid-parental leave (just what we need, more North Shore brats with a sense of entitlement). Not just because of their policy to stop people-smuggling from Indonesia by buying, yes, spending our taxpaying dollars on buying the rickety and unsafe boats of the smugglers – and then what? Forget Great Western Auto City, Barloworld and Cool Banana Motorama, give Honest Tony’s Used Boats a try. Not just because of their policy on repealing anti-discrimination laws.
What we should all be worried about more than Mr Abbott’s repeated insensitive, discriminatory and offensive “gaffes” and “daggy dad moments” is what he and his party will do to workers, specifically people who rely on their penalty rates in order to live.
It could be argued that would delivered victory to Labor and allowed them to form a government after 11 years of Liberal rule was the Libs’ policy known as “Work Choices”, which was vehemently protested against by all due to it’s unfairness and bullying of workers that would be legalised and we’d have nothing to do about it. Work Choices was basically a way to undo collective and enterprise bargaining in the workplace and to get workers on individual contracts whereby the public was told that their employment contracts would be “tailor-made” to suit them – yes, if that suit was being worn on the proverbial clerk in the old saying, “Done up like a pox doctor’s clerk”.
In 2011, Mr Abbott was interviewed by Neil Mitchell on Melbourne’s 3AW (bring back Hinch!) and declared that if elected to government, Work Choices would be “dead and buried” and “cremated” under his leadership, nor would the policy be returning under any other name.
However, just last week, the Liberal candidate for the seat of Gilmore, Ann Sudmalis, was quoted as saying in a candidate’s forum that “Any workplace relations legislation is on the table after the election, not before.” Yes, AFTER and NOT BEFORE.
If you think I’m exaggerating here, cast your mind back to the “Watefront dispute” in 1998 when Patrick Stevedores, assisted by then Minister for Industrial Relations, Peter Reith to lock all of it’s workers out of their jobs at ports nationwide via bullying, assault and intimidation – security guards who were nothing more than glorified thugs patrolling the wharves wearing balaclavas and with the hounds ready to be released at a moment’s notice. For more on that dark episode in our nation’s employment history, see the docu-drama Bastard Boys.
And now Mr Abbott has refused to say outright whether or not he is supportive of some big businesses idea of ridding us of penalty rates. Instead, Mr Abbott shiftily refers to a Productivity Commission into Industrial Relations that he is promising will (doubtful I’m guessing) either cut penalty rates and thus jobs in the strange belief that the more penalty rates are gone, the more jobs can be created from this.
As ACTU President Ged Kearney has said:
“We need Tony Abbott to commit to making no changes to penalty rates if he is elected, rather than hiding behind his mysterious Productivity Commission inquiry into IR.”
“Penalty rates have been part of the Australian workplace for decades and provide much-needed income for low-paid workers who are required to work week-ends and public holidays.”
“Cutting penalty rates will hurt workers without creating jobs.”
“Money paid as penalty rates does not disappear it is returned to the economy when workers use it to buy goods and services from businesses. Reducing penalty rates will hurt these businesses.”
If you or anyone you know has a job whereby they are paid an award rate, or receive penalty pay or even providing frontline services in the community especially, then do not let them vote Liberal.
A vote for the Liberal party tomorrow will fuck this country up, and that’s putting it politely.
I’m writing this because with all the possible outcomes of a possible Abbott government, and that’s including the rich getting richer, the poor getting poorer, people being paid by the government to push out sprogs they can already afford to keep themselves, bullying and bigotry instead of debate on policy, not to mention all the other disasters that will happen from those in his “cabinet” (for all their intelligence it’s more like a broom-cupboard), what he will do to workers is the worst.
As somebody who has worked in a job that requires penalty rates to make the wage worthwhile, and most people I know also requiring their penalties to survive, a vote for anyone but Labor will make us all worse off and, without exaggerating, have to go begging for alms.Please don’t vote for Tony Abbott. Not today. Not tomorrow. Not ever.yo
Recently Opposition Leader (and aspirant to the top job – knock him down, people!) Tony Abbott has had letters sent to voters all over the country, tailored and suited to their constituency, pleading for them to vote Liberal and by describing how we can “choose a stronger Australia and a better government” and his “Plan” to do so, which is in itself vague, non-descriptive and mistier than the vision of somebody with cataracts being stuck in a Gaussian blur.
Inspired by the few “responses” to these letters I’ve seen, mostly to be found on anti-Abbott Facebook pages (may Abbott’s own mad Mick God bless these people’s efforts instead of his), including this excellent and inspiring one from a constituent of the Division of Wills (thankfully held by Labor’s Kelvin Thomson – GO KEL!):
Whoever did this reply I will happily buy them a pint and bake them a cake.
I decided to knock out a reply to this one sent to Mumsie, (yes, my shame is that I’m enrolled to vote in the Division of Fisher, where I’m hoping that the result will not leader to Angus Deayton’s only quip of “No change there then”):
Unfortunately, the ink was dying on my pen and I was without a scanner for the full high-resolution of my facetious responses.
If you’re reading this in Australia and have received one of these untruthful, PR-driven and ultimately failed missives, do as I’ve done and send it back to whichever candidate Mr Abbott has sent it from on their behalf. Also, if you’re on the other side of the world, I’d love to see what you can do with your political pamphlets too.
Well, it’s been a month since I last posted anything here because I’ve been a) too busy moving back to the “big smoke” of Brisbane, which last time I left because it was like a large country town but now it’s like a proper city – the pubs are open late on weeknights now! b) trying to find gainful employment here (and I shall “reveal” that I’m actually an aged care nurse – bet you’d never guess that’s my day job) and c) there’s been so much to write that I can’t decide what to punch out first: I’ve been meaning to write for nearly two months now a letter of commiseration to Julia Gillard (and on the whole Rudd vs. Gillard frippery, I’m still proudly pro-Gillard – much like with British Labour having had Blairites and Brownites, I’m proud to call myself a Gillardite); the election campaign currently underway between Kevin Rudd, who’s campaign slogan is “A New Way” (again, does this not sound like Tony Blair’s “Third Way”? If Kev wins – which I hope beyond all power of wishful thinking that he will to spare us the arch-conservative rule of Tony Abbott, more anon – I really hope he doesn’t start calling his style of governance “New Labor”); the laughable fringe parties (Katter’s Australia Party and Palmer’s United Party – yes, PUP, the most unfortunate acronym for something since the National bank changed to NAB) who think they’re actually going to win seats; and the (newly discovered on my part) awesomeness of Elizabeth Taylor. Quite the mix, huh?
Anyway, let’s start with the election so far. We’ve less than a month until polling day and so far the whole thing’s been totally uninspiring – the only enjoyment I get from it is whenever Opposition Leader Tony Abbott (a hair-sniffing, paedophile-defending, woman-hating, Anglo-loving, North Shore-living, blue-blooded tongue lizard. And a fundamentalist Mick too, who only quit the seminary because he couldn’t keep his dick in his pants – imagine that! A priest who took a pro-active stance with his (ugh!) libido) or one his co-conspirators from the Liberal Party make a gaffe, faux-pas or grand-mal fuck-up.
The first fuck-up came courtesy of the Liberal candidate for the seat of Greenway (currently held by Labor and the most marginal in the country), Jaymes Diaz – and yes, that hurts to type and spell James that way; it’ll never have the same impact as Liza with a Z – who when quizzed on the Libs’ “Six Point Plan” for asylum seekers could not name a single point. True to form, like all Libs when they can’t answer a question, Mr Diaz blinked, stuttered, shrugged his shoulders and mentioned something about families before being led away by a minder (so clearly on day release, Mr Diaz). Since then it’s gone global and most notably featured on Jon Stewart’s The Daily Show in the US of A, complete with all the other aspiring politicians in this country who’ve ballsed up their one shot in the past week (see, Peter Dowling, a Lib who sexted his mistress a pic of his dick in a glass of red – I hope it stung; and Stephanie Bannister, standing for the right-wing and non-admitting xenophobic One Nation party, confusing Islam as a country and the word “haram” for Quran, as well as saying she has no problem with Jews because “they follow Jesus Christ”). Apparently, it’s since been alleged that Jaymes “Liza with a Z” Diaz has slagged off his neighbouring constituency of Chifley (held by the country’s first Muslim MP, Ed Husic, for Labor) as being “full of Muslims” and tweeting his detractors juvenile missives to “fuck off”.
Next came a meet-and-greet with Abbott and one of his many lacklustre candidates, complete with the obligatory non-consensual baby-kissing, and what appeared to be a photo of Mr Abbott sniffing the hair of the baby’s mother. Now, we could say this was just an unfortunate camera-angle that snapped an unfortunate moment. But no. If fellow Liberal Troy Buswell can be caught out seat-sniffing, then does it not surprise us that all Libs have sniffing tendencies?
Yesterday, Mr Abbott described his party’s candidate for Lindsay as having “sex appeal” and today writing it off as a “daggy dad moment” – look Tony, my own father has plenty of daggy moments (and sometimes I seriously believe he must be on the autism spectrum) complete with sexist and hateful views, but he at least knows not to say them in public!
And today, when again quizzed on whether the members of his party will be allowed a conscience vote on any motions to legalise same-sex marriage, Mr Abbott again dismissed this with an even more offensive quote than he has uttered on the subject before, describing marriage equality as, “the fashion of the moment”. And yet people are seriously considering voting for this hateful, backwards and arch-conservative bully. This is not my Australia. How could we go from the glory days and revolutionary and awe-inspiring governments of Gough Whitlam, Bob Hawke, Paul Keating and even Julia Gillard until the media (read: Rupert Murdoch) and the sub-conscious bigotry and vileness of otherwise “normal” folk came to the fore and villified and hindered any hope of a fair-go of governance for Ms Gillard? And from within her own party, too – yes, you Kevin. I’m only 22 (23 next Thursday, join me for booze, spills and thrills if you like) and proudly identify as a “staunch” and “rusted-on” Labor voter, despite my dislike of Mr Rudd – yet if he’s our only chance to ensure that this country is not sent back to the 1950s in policy, society and our standard of living, then fight the good fight Kev – don’t give that Blue(blood)-Tongue Lizard the satisfaction.
And so, as luck would have it, this morning I found out that Mr Abbott was doing a presser down the street at the Hilton, so I raced round there and sat on the other side of the street to the front (and only) exit of the joint in the hope of seeing Phoney “Kony” Tony. And after an hour’s wait and watching his minders and staffers mill about in the obligatory white Holden Statesmans’ (oh ok, Statesmen) with Commonwealth plates, he emerged. And you know what, he’s actually pretty short! Macho man of politics my arse! Seriously, it’s no surprise he is the way he is, he’s got near dwarfy-Tom Cruise levels of Small Man Syndrome. Anyway, as he happened to turn his head in my direction, I took a chance and shouted the most polite word I could use to describe him.
“KNAVE!”
So there we go, I called Tony Abbott a knave, and whether he heard it or not I don’t know (I’m guessing he manages to block out anything that isn’t spoken by a blue-tie wearing fool), at least I did it, in my own special little small-a anarchist way. By the way, his security detail is pretty poor, just a bunch of old farts who look more like White-Shoe Brigaders up from the Gold Coast to follow their “leader” around. So if you should see Mr Abbott around, kneecap for me! I’ll lend you the crowbar.
—
I’ve just discovered the writings of journalist Liz Jones, former fashion-editor and now columnist for the Daily fail,hell, Mail, who writes of her life in a column called “Liz Jones’ Diary”. I believe the selling-point is that Ms Jones is unafraid and unashamed to write of her miserable upbringing, depression and successive failures to make friends and get blokes and keep them. So far, I’ve been reading the book based on her writings and providing the backstory to her forlorn failures and eating disorders, neuroses and media-placed malaise and am finding it interesting, hillarious, heartbreaking and (yes, I’m admitting this) just occasionally familiar to moi. No, I haven’t tried to steal somebody’s sperm or had plastic surgery, but there’s a few stray similarities between myself and Ms Jones that I keep picking up on in her writing (ok now I’ve gotta sing this, “Have you met Miss Jones?”) which makes me want to either keep on reading in the hope it gets better and all is well (although by the tone of this op-ed from the Independent I doubt it) and I want to give her a hug a la Milhouse, “So this is what it feels like … when doves cry.” And how could you not either laugh hysterically or cry soul-crushingly over titles such as: “In which I face a lonely birthday” (veteran of that), “In which the years aren’t kind to me” and “In which more friends desert me”. Best I’ve read so far is “In which I’m rejected yet again”:
To promote my autobiography, I came up with the brilliant idea of asking all the men who wouldn’t go out with me, all my ex-boyfriends (all – that’s a joke!) and ex-husband, and all the friends who have dropped me to write about why I am such a pariah.
What did I do that rendered me so unfanciable? Why am I not worth a reply to a text?
and after a list of absent, wayward and disappeared friends and lovers …
They were all contacted and asked, ‘Why did you reject Lizzie?’
Each and every one refused to answer …
Well, welcome to my world, Lizzie! Where on this earth have my muckers L, A, J, G, R, K and E buggered off to? Though this being the “modern world”, any semblance of normal etiquette doesn’t apply, as I’ve found out with Facebook. It’s seems to be perfectly acceptable to just “unfriend” and block someone on the site with nary a word why. And as for all the etiquette I bang on about, you’ll be happy to know that I’ve never read Debretts – instead I’ve picked it all up by watching Ladette to Lady and Bad Lad’s Army.
If I could make a quid from it, then I’d happily publish all the anxious and near self-fulfilling prophecy (oh shut up, Josh) thoughts that keep me awake at night, but they’re not even embarrassing. They don’t get sympathy, even from me. Really, the only word I can use to describe my tendencies to be an over-emotional fool is “pathetic”. Who gives a shit if I have a semi-recurring dream that when I wake up from it has knocked seven shades of shit out of me? Or that I can’t accept most compliments because I’m deserving and that it’s presumptuous of me to expect people to give a damn anyway. But the money from such a venture … Yes, Liz Jones and her writing is the proverbial car-crash that you can’t look away from, a truck laden with combustible chemicals about to destroy a school bus, a parish of nuns and the cure for cancer. Oh well, it’s better than Fifty Shades of Grey!
Finally, one evening recently I decided to have a few drinks and traipsed round on my lonesome, having a little solo pub-crawl to see what was new since I’d last lived in Brisbane. After discovering the Embassy (where all the booze is either crafted, artisan or made by hand without being the slightest bit annoying pretentious), and being introduced to White Rabbit Dark Ale (do try it, it’s like White Ox tobacco in liquid form, but smoother than blue-eyed soul, so unlike the tobacco favoured as prison currency, it doesn’t one-inch-punch you in the soul as you imbibe it) I had a few pints of the yeasty restorative. At the next and final bar I went to I tried the White Rabbit Pale Ale and it’s a lovely drop too, and, I’m still embarrassed by this so here goes, I FELL ASLEEP! I know, right? I was only a bit tired but didn’t even notice myself nodding off with a pint in my hand whilst perched precariously on a wobbly barstool, and was woken up by the nice Irish barman, leaving to quickly slam down the rest of it and scurry away with my metaphorical tale between my legs. See, hardly up to Ms Jones’ level of unfortunate events is it?
So there we go, a post of rambling, self-agrandizing waffle but hey, at least I’m back! So look forward to some more regular updates around here and hopefully you can give me some of that sweet feedback too, even if it is hate mail. In fact, I do prefer hate mail, because nothing thrills me more than replying carefully-worded missives to my detractors (just like when I got bete-noires from my onetime fundamentalist Christian neighbours – what else could I do but reply with serial-killer handwriting and signing it “THE DEVIL”?), although I guess encouragement is just as good.
The Josh Holley 