Refugees 86. Accepts fewer refugees than the UN has asked (and they ask very little) 87. The extremely expensive and innefective Pacific“Solution†88. Worms were recently found in the food served at Baxter detention centre. 89. Locking up children in hell houses. Many refugee kids have suffered major psychological problems as a result. Australians are well off. We are the first world. When people come to us for help, we treat them no better than the regimes they narrowly escape....
What about that loony Deputy PM, John Anderson. He and George Brandis (Liberal Senator) are off the planet. According to Ando, the secularisation of society (meaning accepting all beliefs, not just the Christians) will lead, of necessity to fascism. Meanwhile, also according to Ando, the Greens are a bunch of communists. It’s terribly confusing for my atheist Green friend. He can’t work out if he’s Left or Right. And to make matters worse for him, George Brandis says the Greens movement g...
A close friend of mine who worked the halls of Canberra’s Press Gallery has often told me of the ways in which Howard has prevented the Australian people from knowing about the mistakes he has made, far more so than any of his predecessors. Much of this has gone unreported (perhaps because a fair portion of today’s gallery are Liberal voters). I asked Kezzia to write an article for this blog about her insight into John Howard. BY KEZZIA Let me begin with a disclaimer: I’m not and...
We're halfway through my list of reasons to vote Howard out now. Economy 42. Foreign debt has doubled under Costello. 43. Costello’s great policy solution to the Superannuation Crisis? Australians should all go forth and multiply. What a visionary! 44. Provided tax cuts for everyone....EXCEPT POOR PEOPLE!!! Tax cuts at the last Budget were provided except to those people who actually need it: those unlucky enough to have to survive on less than 52 grand a year. 45. spent millio...
At last, the crisis in Aboriginal health, where many die from preventable diseases every day, has been brought back on the agenda by the AMA. Although the Labor Party have traditionally been more interested in helping Australia’s original custodians, in this campaign, both major parties have ignored this issue to their shame. Before they both splash out on more non-core promises to those of us lucky enough to have been born into white middle class prosperity and health, I suggest they direct ...
Today comes Part 2 of my list to vote Howard out. Today, the portfolios of Aborigines and Foreign Affairs. So today we’re dealing with Amanda Vanstone and Alexander Downer as well as little Johnny. Aborigines 18a. Abolished ATSIC 18b. Replaced ATSIC with an unelected, unrepresentative board of “dignified” (read “wear suits and act like whitefellers”) yes men who will act in a purely advisory role (read “the Aboriginal people will be ignored”). The real Australians’ only representatio...
After having watched Andrew Bartlett, leader of the Democrats speak at the Press Club, I am left worried. I used to support the Dems, until my faith in them was shattered by their rubberstamping of the GST. Since then I must say that they seem to have been weak. Bartlett is a charisma blackhole it must be said. But is this important? Can I really let my vote be affected by personality when I actually agree with several of his political positions and I believe in the role of the Dems. A fe...
Q: What’s this about the new Medicare safety net? A: It’s one of the ways we’re weakening Medicare. While Medicare has always covered you in public hospitals, the new Safety Net won’t deliver anything to 95% of Australians and the majority of the funds for it will be spent on bureaucratic red tape. This means the price of health care will go up. Q: Like what I pay to my GP? A: Yes, the costs for a whole range of treatments – like specialists, x-rays, tests, scans... Q: But ...
My good friend Rachel Williams wrote this to editors of broadsheet papers the other day and as she doesn't have a blog, I thought I'd post it here. John Howard is certainly spending up big for the election. And I know these promises are genuine. I know this from past experience. John Howard said he would protect Australia's borders and not let in any of those queue-jumping refugees. You know, the ones that were shipped at a cost of millions of dollars to Nauru and the like. Now I hear most...
Liberal Party Communication Minister Richard Alston recently lodged a complaint against the Australian Broadcasting Corporation for left wing bias. If you want to read his letter, you can find it at www.abc.net.au/mediawatch. Dicky Alston, the same clown who supported David Flint as the head of the ABA until Flint recently retired in shame. That was after having written love letters to Alan Jones fawning over his broadcasting abilities, whilst he was supposed to be sitting in judgment on ...
I've decided to try my hand at political cartooning. I've been inspired by Bruce Petty, who pointed out that he can't draw, and I thought, well then I can be a political cartoonist. Unfortunately I can't find a way of uploading the images onto this blog, so I've created a LiveJournal, on which I'll place the images. If anyone knows how to get my images up onto JU, I'd really appreciate a step by step guide (I don't really know much about computers). Link
There are a lot of harsh things said on JU about people with little money or no job. People often say it’s because they’re lazy or stupid or other such ideas. The poor are poor because they’re stupid and lazy, is the conservatives’ cry. There are probably some cases where this is the case, but as far as I can see it’s far more complicated than this. There are plenty of fat, rich bastards and lazy members of the middle class. And that is why I believe that Bourdieu’s theory about ‘cultural cap...
I’ve always been obsessed by politics. My blog has long been testament to that. But upon returning from my holiday in Kanaky, I changed the title of my blog and started being all “nice” as FishHead said. I learned something about life when I was in New Caledonia. Before I went I had never been able to understand people who don’t inform themselves about politics. Politics can change your way of life and I think that is so important. I still believe that. But I was shown something more impor...
When Johnny Howard abolished ATSIC and replaced it with a board of coconuts, I expressed scepticism. The Labor Party still maintains the Aboriginal board should be democratically elected. I argued at the time that ATSIC should have been reformed rather than abolished. Let’s have a look at how “practical reconciliation” is going, as it is the issue most dear to my heart. The new board got off to a bad start with the petrol bowser initiative Link . It was quite clearly a case of the coconut...
I don't really have time for a full article at the moment, but something astonishing has happened that I have to comment on: In the past 2 weeks I have agreed with 3 of the most Right wing people in the country on politics. Yes this includes my sworn enemies, John Howard, Andrew Bolt (columnist) and Channel Nine's Sunday programme. So inspired was I by their comments I have written to each of them to tell them what a spelndid job they did. Andrew Bolt's criticisms of Australia's xenophobia...