A light shower or a hurricane?

When did "sex scandal" become the term for "rape"? 

Not since Skase and Bond has white collar crime hit the papers and caused so much public kerfuffle. One paper told me today this was "league's darkest hour". I'm sorry, some crap accounting was done, a good auditor found it, some bosses made some crap decisions. Who was gang raped? Who was made example of for being a woman? Who was demeaned, belittled and ignored by the media and "the game"? ummm... no-one. 

And look, I know there are fans of the Storm who will be rightly pissed off. But c'mon, lead news story for 2 days, the ABC devoting over 5 minutes of national news coverage to the issue, people acting like some huge injustice has been done to the nation (or Victoria, NSW and QLD at least) as a whole. Why do the people of this country not feel as passionately annoyed when we lock children in detention centres, or when a young girl in QLD has no choice but to grow up in a house with a blocked sewage and only occasional running water (just because she is black). 

Government says no to our human rights

Today our Attorney General, Robert McClelland announced that Australia would not have a Human Rights Act. 

so... why am I UNHAPPY ROB... 

Well -  remember that thing called the 2020 summit -  the invited participants called for a Human Rights Act. Then in 2009 the Federal Government - well you and I and all our fellow Australians -  paid for a national consultation on what we thought about human rights in Australia. The outcome -  a 4 member independent panel held 65 community roundtables in 52 locations, conducted expert hearings and presented a report to the Government stating that Australia should have a Human Rights Act. 

And, if its not enough to ask Australians and get an answer from them.. there's the international and domestic learnings on human rights legislation. Australia is the only liberal democracy in the world without national human rights protection. Victoria has a human rights Charter, so does the A.C.T. The UK, NZ, Canada and so many other nations we conveniently align ourselves with on other issues all have federal human rights legislation. 

So, short article but let's recap -  Australia said give us a Human Rights Act, the independent panel said Let's have a Human Rights Act, the rest of the world we look to has a Human Rights Act -  and today the Government says we don't need one. 

Robert McClelland presented a  "human rights framework", have you seen Hollow Men - its a great Australian show that takes the piss out of Canberra, it takes the piss out of non-government organisations, it takes the piss out of the process or lack of it, it takes the piss out of crafted media statements and today McClelland gave us all the lines, the pamphlet with lame graph, lame image only it was depressing not funny and he wasn't taking the piss. 

In reality what McClelland announced today was more review, more discussion, more Committees, more brochures and no legislation, no change to the lives of Australians, and no Human Rights Act. 

It's beyond disappointing, it's flabbergasting -  how can the Government ignore so many reasons to go forward? And what is the reason? This issue is not a vote winner, its not an election loser, it was a chance to stand up for human rights, a chance to show that this government will stand by the vulnerable people of this country. Instead this Government chose to turn its back. 

What would a Human Rights Act mean.. I will have to go into that in another blog, I am too sad, too mad, too disappointed and I am not taking the piss. 

It's your income, just don't choose how it goes out

Today I came across a campaign to ensure that Aboriginal people remained in control of their own income. A campaign that pointed out it was unjust for someone to have to ask for permission to spend their own money because they were indigenous. I was shocked to discover that the campaign ran in Australia in 1961.

Reg Jonhston of Broad Arrow, W.A  wrote a letter to the Council for Aborignal Rights stating that his mother was able to manage her own pension and asking why she needed to go and see a 'warrantee' who held her money and tell him what she wished to spend her money on. Shirley Andrews talks of Aboriginal girl she knew at the time:

I was very affronted to hear the story about this lass. She was a teenager, she had gone and asked the policeman to buy, she wanted to buy another petticoat, and he said she had one; that was enough. And you know, I was really shocked at that and it was her own money, and what did he think she was going to do when it was in the wash?

Shirley may not have used human rights terminology, she didn't talk about the teenager's dignity or her right to privacy. But Shirley knew it was wrong. And today in Australia our Government calls it 'income management'. Aren't we meant to learn from history, not let it repeat and all that??? Tell that to the Aboriginal person who in 2010 has a BasicsCard that they did not request, who lives 280km from the office that tells them how much money they have and who can "choose" from 2 local stores that accept the BasicsCard.  

There's a daily spending limit of $800, but you think about it - 

How often do you want to make the 280km bus ride (where the driver has to check you don't have alcohol on board), there's 3 of the kids' birthdays coming up, it's time for a big grocery shop, there are a few things you need from the pharmacy - looks like you're going to exceed the limit, but it's "your choice". 

I hope that we can start to become as outraged as Shirley was. I hope that we stop making the same mistakes. hope...

Its a floodgate... of votes

So, we voted Howard out. The Herd warned we could be wearing rose coloured glasses -  it seems the tint has worn off and someone has handed out those aeroplane eye masks that don't quite fit and have a slightly odd smell.

Immigration Minister Chris Evans has announced that Sri Lanka and Afghanistan are safe countries to live and that Australia will no longer be processing asylum seekers from these countries. Umm... is that the same Afghanistan where  DFAT says don't go  and where Australian troops are presently 'keeping the peace'? And is that the same Sri Lanka where DFAT says to reconsider travel due to political tension?

And what the hell happened to assessing asylum seekers as individuals? That is Australian law, that is international law? Have all the Government's legal advisers taken leave at once or has this Government re-employed Howard's team.

Almost 100% of recent asylum seekers to Australia from Afghanistan and Sri Lanka have been found by our already rigorous system to be genuine refugees -  but to Evans this does not matter.

What benefit is there is grouping asylum seekers together in regional bundles. Just ask talk-back radio and tabloid press: fear. It's "them", "they" are illegal. Call them all one big unlawful group and you remove the mother, the teenager, the father trying to protect his family in the only way left  - it's simple, remove the human and its much easier to have inhumane policy.

I am appalled to be living in a country that has reverted to racism, that lacks compassion, that has complete disregard for international law and where the Government can get away with using people's trauma and despair to gain votes from a public who don't bother to think about the reality.
Getting on a boat and trying to seek aslyum in a country so foreign to your own is not a choice -  its a matter of survival.

Composting the norm

Matt Preston

Costa Georgiadis

to me these are the most unlikely pillars of popular culture and I LOVE THEM. It gives me some hope in 'the public' that a man who can sit in lotus whilst wearing blundstones can be 'cool'. The other coolness is an educated man who doesn't seek to break people down in the interests of reality tv, who wears a cravat and has more tertiary degrees than hats most of us have dined under.

well done to some tv producers and network heads. 

now let the culling begin

Aussies fall louder than the rest

We want our figs from Turkey

Our salmon from Alaska

We read blogs from Brooklyn

Wear fashion from Milan made in Pakistan. We even eat Israeli couscous without a thought of where our political views lie -  it is really fluffy and more versatile than that 'ordinary' couscous. 

Our news -  only local will do.

 

When a plane crashes in the fog of Papua New Guinea we give faces and names to those Aussies who died. When a wave crashes over our Pacific neighbours the Aussies missing are given voices, faces, beamed into our lives. The locals who hosted these Aussies are left without names, they are presented as statistics and so the news reel moves on, as easy as a shake a sauce bottle. 

In this increasingly interconnected world why do we disconnect from humans born in other lands. Why is an Aussie life more deserving of dignity than any other. Where is our own dignity in that? 

An Aussie solider dies after choosing to 'serve', his mates carry him, the Government sends a plane and a flag to bring him home, the PM puts aside shit-storms and the opposition "leader" rises from his burning bed to solemnly comment on the loss.

The Afghan mother buries another child, sometimes in the very spot where the child fell. Her pain is given no face but that seen by her palms as she cradles her head. Her dignity is not shown to the world another 'casualty' in a war she did not choose to live amongst, cannot escape from and goes on living within. 

2nd Nov 09 - the Viking doesn't sail

Today 78 Sri Lankan asylum seekers are stranded / imprisoned / given no choice -  on board an Australian Customs ship at an Indonesian port. Australia doesn't want to 'deal with' these people, little matter they are scared, desperate and being in Indonesia could mean years in squalor with no certainty of where they would end up. 

Today the PM's $100 000 literary award was presented to Nam Le. His story - 'The Boat' - his journey to Australia fleeing the shores of his native Vietnam.. by what means of transport? 

The PM's non-fiction award today went to an historical book comparing White Australia Policy to present day attitudes and policies towards those arriving by boat. 

A handshake from Arts Minister (longer title not listed here) Garrett, large cheques, photo opportunities. So, those who takes journeys out of desperation, those in search of hope create art that the PM's office sees worthy of prizes. Why do these human actions not result in the creation of policy we could stand and call 'humane'?