I just attended a forum on student unionism. I asked the people there to respond to some criticism I had of compulsory student unionism and I felt they responded rather well. Here, I have tried to summarise some of their points. Why should I pay fees for political protests I don’t agree with? 3% of student union fees are put towards political campaigns. For instance, one recent demonstration outside a minister’s office cost the guild a grand total of $5. It is important that stude...
The other night I spent several hours chatting with 4 refugees. 3 are Afghanistani, 1 is from Eritrea. I would like to tell you about some of the interesting things I remember that these 4 very nice, gentle men told me about their life experiences. US and France’s part in poverty and war Ghoebre came from Eritrea which is in Africa. An Australian Christian Brother sponsored him to come out here. For this he was very fortunate and the visa protection is much better than for his Afghan...
The other night I spent several hours chatting with 4 refugees. 3 are Afghanistani, 1 is from Eritrea (sort of part of Sudan but not). I would like to tell you about some of the interesting things I remember that these 4 very nice, gentle men told me about their life experiences. Chaman had spent 3 years in a refugee detention centre, enduring 45 degree Celsius days, awaiting the approval of his refugee status. He fled Afghanistan because of the Taliban, who were enforcing a very strict f...
“ It's all sweetness and lightness that you bring and a room full of people fall to your infinite charm but when darkness should quickly descend you go quietly, my miserable friend to the depths of despair you will crawl black and white boy ” The drummer out of my favourite band, Crowded House has committed suicide. The Crowdies were responsible for that hit “Don’t Dream It’s Over” and countless other gems. Deborah Conway described him as “an acute observer of life”, and she sugge...
A little over a week ago, 60 Minutes featured a story about recent riots in some of the working class suburbs of Sydney. Ever-insightful reporter, Mike Munro stayed 3 nights in the area to do the report and his crew was attacked during that time. He showed some aspects of life in these suburbs and talked to some of the kids who have been involved in violence there. When he interviewed NSW Labor premier Bob Carr, Carr said he had no sympathy for the rioters because he knew too many people from...
I was just sent a link to an online petition which will be sent to President Bush, urging him to "demand the [UN] Security Council support a larger African Union troop deployment, a general arms embargo and targeted sanctions against those most responsible for the atrocities." Well doesn't that sound familiar, hit too close to home, make you shiver when you think of the way things could go in Sudan. For those of you who are unaware, the Sudanese Government is sanctioning mass killings of i...
Possibly my favourite part of French culture is the way they greet each other. In Australia, when I arrive at a group of friends, I say hello, a few people pause to say hi and that’s that. In France however, I have to go around to each person and either shake their hand or kiss them on both cheeks. I really love the personal nature of this. You are actually taking the time to personally acknowledge each person and to make some sort of physical contact with them. I find that you feel closer to...
I just had the most amazing holiday and here’s part of the reason why. At the end of my first week in New Caledonia, I sprained my ankle quite badly. I then had to walk on it, through pouring rain, mud and bushland for 2 hours to get to the car. The shock meant that it didn’t hurt til later but three weeks later, I am still limping, having only just got off crutches. In fact, during my 3 week holiday I managed to injure myself 5 or so times. On the first day, I cut my knee open with a sharp k...
I saw the movie Hotel Rwanda yesterday. It is an incredibly moving film and I reccommend everyone see it. It is about the massacres in Rwanda that happened 10 years ago when the Hutus and the Tootsies hacked each other to death in reaction to the gaps between rich and poor brought about by colonisation. At the end though, as I wiped my tears, I thought that they really should have played 400 Miles From Darwin by the Whitlams over the credits: We pay to shed a sombre tear in the darkness ...
Australia is a lonely place to come back to. I just spent 3 and a half weeks in New Caledonia and I had the time of my life, possibly the best month of my life. I went because I was feeling stressed here and I felt I needed to get out of the country, take a rest and refuel for the new year at Uni. While I was there I felt like that was what I was doing. I did a lot of very restful things and I felt my entire body relax. The tension went out of my back. The headaches went. My breathing eas...
Much has been written about the media glamourising drugs. For some bizarre reason, this has been portrayed as being a bad thing. As though they shouldn’t be allowed to portray the truth that drugs make people cooler. To prove this point I’m going to tell you about my favourite Stars on Drugs. It’s when we see drugs in Showbiz that we really see how beautiful drugs are. Ozzie Osbourne Who can forget that moment in TV history when Ozzie sat on his couch, trying to make the remote wor...
Much has been written about the media glamourising drugs. For some bizarre reason, this has been portrayed as being a bad thing. As though they shouldn’t be allowed to portray the truth that drugs make people cooler. To prove this point I’m going to tell you about my favourite Stars on Drugs. It’s when we see drugs in Showbiz that we really see how beautiful drugs are. Ozzie Osbourne Who can forget that moment in TV history when Ozzie sat on his couch, trying to make the remote wor...
It’s when summer comes around that the state I call home, Queensland, starts to feel like some backwater from a movie about toothless murderers. Or sometimes it feels like I’m in some weird timewarp, where the rest of the world is going through the sexual revolution and anti-Vietnam war protests and we’re the conservative town that disapproves and stays the same. We’re Pleasantville. I refer to two little things about Queensland’s summer. The first is Daylight Savings. The rest of the...
Communism is often cited as the Leftist utopia. I don’t know a great deal about communism, having never read Communist Manifesto or anything. But what I do know about it does not seem to me like utopia at all. According to my encyclopaedia, in communism, “all the property of a community is owned by all members and distributed according to the needs of each member”. I disagree with that principle. I think everyone should get the basics of what they need. That is, I believe that everyo...
I’ve been thinking about the distinctions between Left and Right a bit lately. One of the great things about the Not Happy John movement (and the MoveOn movement in the USA) is the way that they are drawing people together from across the spectrum. Members of the movements have thus discovered that they share more in common with their perceived enemies than they might otherwise have realised. Although, there are of course differences. So what are the goals I want Australia and the wor...