Tag Archives: Australian politics

When is enough enough?

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Today, the veteran Liberal Party strategist Grahame Morris called ABC journalist, and ’7:30 Report’ presenter Leigh Sales, a “cow”. On national radio.

In addition to this, in May Grahame Morris suggested on Sky News that Australians “ought to be kicking [Julia Gillard] to death”.

Last week, a 52-year-old man threatened to kill Attorney-General Nicola Roxon and state Labor MP Hill Hennessy at a public function.

Last year, the prominent talkback radio host Alan Jones suggested on no less than 5 occasions that Julia Gillard should be “put in a chaff bag” and dumped at sea.

These are just the latest in a string of misogynistic comments directed towards prominent Australian women. And my question is, as the title of this blog suggests, when is enough enough? When do we, as a nation, stop and acknowledge that things have gone too far, and that the vitriolic comments directed towards these women (amongst others) is threatening, dangerous, and incredibly inappropriate?

It is, quite frankly, unacceptable. Whatever your personal opinion of a certain journalist, or a certain politician is, you do not – repeat, you do NOT – call for them to be thrown in ocean, or threaten to kill them.

I have been guilty, in my time, of calling quite a few people and advertising agencies ‘idiots’ and ‘dick heads’. Mostly on this blog. But the current discourse surrounding national politics is disturbing. The hateful, idiotic comments being made both by journalists and politicians leaves very little room for intelligent, meaningful dialogue. I am sick of the mindless tit-for-tat, ‘he said, she said’ reactionary articles being published in every single mainstream media outlet I read.

So therefore, I promise to do my part. I shall stop calling Tony Abbott and his cronies ‘idiots’. Now if only someone could stop calling every single powerful woman in this country ‘cows’, we’d be quits. Then we can sit down over a cup of tea and get to the bottom of what this carbon tax actually means for everyday citizens.

How to meet your local MP and discuss gay marriage

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They should hand out some sort of boy-scout style Activist badges for this stuff. Badges for attending protests, badges for petitions, and one big arse badge for meeting your local MP. It’s quite intimidating, really. Of course everyone tries to make you as comfortable as possible, but, still….it’s a POLITICIAN.

So, dear readers, meet my politician:

My Voice in Canberra. The Vessel for My Thoughts. My Personal Representative in the Nation’s Capital (alright, maybe not personal). Josh Frydenberg, meet my readers. They’re rather rowdy. Gird your loins.

Now, I trotted off to Josh’s office earlier today to have a good ol’ chat about gay marriage. It’s at this point that I should mention Josh is from the Liberal party, is in a blue-ribbon Liberal seat that has never been held by the Labor party, and is Jewish. A chat about gay marriage was going to be….interesting.

But chat we did. It was all very polite, and very “I don’t want to offend you, but….”- but still, I’m glad I went. I can’t say anyone got into a screaming match (sorry to disappoint), but I’m glad that at least I tried. It’s kind of useless talking to someone about this when they say “My personal view is that marriage is between a man and woman”- because you don’t quite know if you’ll change their mind. I certainly don’t think I did that- religion and politics has a tendency to wipe the ability to change your mind from people’s heads. But I made the point that by the time my generation is a bit older, Australia’s stance on gay marriage will have changed. How can it not? Everyone is either gay, has a gay friend or relative, or gay parents. This isn’t going to change. What is going to change is the law that forbids two people who love each other to get married, simply because they’re the same gender.

That’s all I said to Josh, for those of you dying to know. I just said that to me, it makes sense. It’s equality in the absolute sense. Why shouldn’t gay people be allowed to marry. They’re allowed everything else in this country- they should be allowed this simple thing too. There are a million and one other reasons why gay people should be allowed to marry- but the simplest argument is equality. If you say that you believe in equality, and that your party has done X, Y and Z to make sure that gay people are not discriminated against, you CAN’T draw the line at marriage. You can’t say “Oh, no, sorry, that’s one step too far. You can have everything else, but you can’t have marriage.”

Equality. Try it on for size. Josh Frydenberg told me he only got married a few months ago. How would he feel if he COULDN’T get married to the person he loved, because the person he loved was a man? It’s that simple to reach a fair decision on it.

I should clarify; it’s complicated to CHANGE the law, but it’s SIMPLE to reach the conclusion that the law needs to be changed.

Finally, just to prove that I did talk with my local MP- here’s a picture of his office. Not too exciting, really. I was expecting more minions!

 

I hate people- especially during election time

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This, to me, pretty much summarises what is wrong with people my age:

This was a real screen shot, taken from my real Facebook, no less than 5 minutes ago. On the day of the Victorian election.

I need to go and lie down. But first, I’m going to get a little shouty. Gird your loins and hold onto your keyboards, people.

YOU DON’T GIVE A SHIT ABOUT PARLIAMENT?????? WHY???? If you don’t like them, VOTE AGAINST THEM, you fucking nincompoop!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

And as for you backwards friend calling the Government a waste of time? TRY NOT HAVING A GOVERNMENT, BUDDY!!!!!!! Go and talk to the people in China about the THRILLS of internet censorship, or  talk to the people Afghanistan about what is was, and is like, living during and after the Taliban’s regime!!!!!!! THIS is what is liked to have either a corrupt government, or NO GOVERNMENT AT ALL, you backwards hillbilly.

The government in Australia CAN’T JUST DO WHAT THEY WANT because they ARE a Government. I’m not sure if you have ever heard of DEMOCRACY, but you are LIVING in a democratic society. Yes you, you dumb arse. And this means that we ALL GET A SAY, and we can overthrow the government for another one- LIKE WE DID IN 2007.

Trust me, if I had my way, people like you would not be living here. I would ship you off to somewhere that the government CAN just do what they want. I’d give you TWO DAYS before you’d be crying for good ol’ J to the Giz-wizzle to come and RESCUE you, because you can’t handle the concept of those nasty government employees taking your X Box and your. Let alone what they’d do to your wife, your girlfriend, you mother, you sister, your children, or your friends. You fucking nit wit.

Of course it matters how you vote, you thick headed bumpkins. If if didn’t, NO ONE WOULD BOTHER HAVING AN ELECTION. And as for leaving the voting paper blank, because you “just don’t give a shit”? Trust me, you’d give a shit if everyone did this, and you had to go back for Election # 2.

Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

If you genuinely don’t care, FINE. But you get what you deserve, in my opinion. Controversial, somewhat, but true.

The attitude of these people makes me wonder if certain people shouldn’t vote. That way, these dumbasses’ votes won’t cancel out my well-thought out, carefully planned one.

*Gulp*

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Please no. Our country cannot be ruled by a combination of this:

….and this:

I need me some stress relief. I mean, I’m not a big drinker. In fact, I’m not even a drinker. But Saturday night?  I may as well have bathed myself in vodka and juice. I can’t handle the suspense any more. SOMEONE PUT ME OUT OF MY MISERY, GODDAMIT.

Bob!!@!@!#1123!!@#@!$@!~!!!!!!!!!

Thank GOD you’re here. No, really- we’ve got ourselves a hung Parliament. And when I say ‘hung’, I don’t mean hung like this man:

I mean HUNG. Quite literally, if this continues. Bob, canyoujustsaveusalready???? I’ll take care of the right-wing conservatives, you handle the environment, and together, we’ll be like THESE PEOPLE:

Shotgun being Linka, the sexy USSR blonde with a thang’ for the red head.

But in all seriousness, comrades- gosh. I think I need to go and contemplate another bath.