By James Moylan

Dear Comrades,

The Politically Correct Peoples Association has had a terrific twelve months. I write to thank our all of our thoroughly indoctrinated members for their efforts and also to remind you that we are once again entering the secular holiday season. So it is time to redouble our efforts. Yes we are on the verge of victory; but we are still yet to win in our war against ‘Christmas’. However the fight is ongoing.

First of all I would like to point out that it is obvious that our enemies are on-the-ropes. By any objective measurement it is apparent that we are winning in our battle against the ‘red menace’ (colloquially called ‘Santa’). All you need to do is to walk down the main shopping street in any town across our country to see that nobody dares play ‘Christmas’ propaganda tunes in public anymore. Also most shopkeepers have simply given up trying to promote this insidious ‘festival’ at all. There is barely a piece of tinsel or sprig of holly to be seen!

But nonetheless we must all remain on guard. If we lift our feet from the necks of these ‘Christians’ then they will soon creep back into positions of power and influence. We will once again see members of this cult openly attesting to their beliefs in our parliaments and on our media outlets. We will once again see citizens bandying about gross insults like ‘Ha%$# Chr#$&@^$’ and feeling content to rip our arboreal friends from the sanctity of their quiet forest glades to be stuck into pots and tortured by hanging heavy objects from their quivering limbs. Thank secularism that nobody wastes their time with office parties anymore. At least our commercial sector seems to have totally abandoned the practice of celebrating these sick bronze-age mythologies.

However despite our overwhelming success in suppressing any mention of ‘Christmas’ in our media or in our shops; there are still actions that you can still take on a daily basis to ensure that our society does not slip backwards. Remember that you must be quick to suppress any mention of this evil cultish celebration wherever and whenever it is encountered. If we are not vigilant then these ‘Christians’ will once again feel free to gather together in their temples and worship their sky-fairy whenever they want. We will once again see millions of garish cult symbols festooning all of our houses and city streets. Our Godless Marxist inspired battle must continue or we will soon be knee-deep in wrapping paper and glazed-eyed children. Unscrupulous traders will be selling truckloads of cheap trinkets designed to spontaneously fall apart after three minutes of handling. Again we will be subject to endless reams of commercial propaganda featuring animated animals shopping at large department stores.

However it is obvious that our final victory is only a few oppressive, intolerant, fanatical, steps away! All due to your hard work. So I would like to thank all of the members of our vast and powerful multinational socialist conspiracy for helping us bring these cultish propagandists to their knees and for helping to banish these magical superstitions and practices from our society. Our success to date is apparent. Our ultimate victory is assured.

So have a happy summer break everyone. I wish you all a quiet and uneventful series of entirely secular public holidays. And also a happy progression into the new calendar year.

Your fanatical Marxist overlord,
James Moylan

In yet another display of pandering to sensationalism, Pauline Hanson wants a debate on Aboriginal identity, lamenting to an enthusiastically agreeable Andrew Bolt that there exists no “set definition to determine whether a person is Aboriginal”.

In essence Hanson wants a debate because she doesn’t know what set of biological or cultural characteristics define a person’s Aboriginality. And I would assume that she wouldn’t be happy with the outcome of the debate unless it packaged and labelled Aborigines into something that fits perfectly into her world view. That would explain why a debate is required over, say, a simple internet search for the answer.

Since 1788 there have been literally hundreds of politicians, anthropologists or other social scientists who have endeavored to piece together the very same question posed by Hanson (without, of course, the need for a political debate manufactured to endorse a shallow world view). Through the work of those ‘others’ – and with of course the benefit of consultation and engagement with Aborigines – we have a very clear picture of what determines whether a person is Aboriginal.

It is far more complex than Pauline Hanson would ever envisage. I am assuming that she seeks a simple answer (and of course, some googling would provide one with some simple answers) but the complexity of the issue is like one large cultural jigsaw puzzle.

I mentioned the year 1788. Let’s start with that piece of the puzzle.

If we cast ourselves back to 1788 we would embrace an environment where Aboriginality did not exist, but was to soon be invented by the colonising power. The European invaders constructed Aborigines as an ethnic category based on their own notions of culture and saddled Aboriginality on the Indigenous Australians, and European ideology continued to shape European ethnic perceptions. Prominent among the perceptions it was believed that culture was carried in the blood.

Over the next hundred years European ideology continued to shape the whites’ perception of Aborigines. Among these perceptions it was believed that culture was more than simply carried in the blood, but that culture was the external indicator of biological ancestry and culture, and that cultural characteristics, either heredity or unchanging, separated human groups from one another.

Ethnographic evidence indicates that before the arrival of Europeans, numerous distinct groups had occupied the Australian continent. Although these groups shared physical and cultural features and had ties of affinity, trade, and religious cooperation, these societies were distinguished by geography, language, and culture. With the benefit of hindsight, the ethnographic evidence failed to recognise that in determining identity, Aborigines traditionally attributed greater importance to culture and genealogical ties to heredity. Groups were differentiated on the basis of presence or absence of certain beliefs and behaviours, and of spiritual ties between people and land.

Basing their construction of Aboriginality on inadequate theories of culture, early anthropologists defined Aboriginality as constituting a pristine and timeless and cultural condition. Some still saw them as savages, remaining noble, despite constraining nature and unbending adherence to rules; the Aborigines typified a fossilised and primitive stage of social evolution. Ethnocentrism further led to the attribution or projection of negative characteristics. Even to this day many people have a stereotype of Aboriginal people as being very black, standing on one leg with a spear and living in the desert.

Up until recently, the social and cultural practices in Australia rendered Aboriginal people invisible. As a consequence, while Anglo-Australians have continued to ‘know’ about Aborigines they have known them only by report. Even in the rural Australia, local Aboriginal people have been ignored in favour of ‘real Aborigines’, supposedly living in a tribal life in the bush. The public has been largely dependent on representations of Aborigines to be found in the statements of various ‘authorities’, the work of painters and photographers, the printed and recently the electronic media, or even artifacts aimed at the popular and tourist markets.

“Such representations of Aboriginality called into doubt the special status of those who called themselves Aboriginal, but lived in urban settings, practised no traditional arts or ceremonies, and generally failed to ‘look the part’. Such people had constructed their Aboriginality in other modes, primarily by reference to proximate ancestors and living kin. Some have identified it as a major component of what is called ‘the Aboriginal commonality’, implying as it does a continuous network embracing all Aboriginal people throughout the continent” (Jeremy Beckett).

Regardless, under the doctrine of Social Darwinism it was always expected that the Aborigines would not survive alongside the presumed European superiority. However, only Europeans had selected Aborigines for extinction. Nature had not. While Australia was told that Aborigines were not going to die out, it was also given to understand that Aboriginality was doomed. Timeless and unchanging, Aboriginal culture was incapable of coexistence with the modern world: the old Aboriginal cultures were collapsing everywhere under the impact of while settlement, mining exploration, pastoral expansion and the effects of State assimilation policies.

“Managing Aboriginal people under one guise or another, the State has been in a position to influence their public constructions. Not only has it determined who should have access to them, but it has played a major role in the assembling of information about them, has commissioned much of the research conducted by experts on them, and has acted as patron for artistic representations of them” (Myrna Tonkinson).

Consider, for example, the Western Australian interpretation of what constituted an Aboriginal person. Every person who is:

• an Aboriginal inhabitant of Australia, or
• a half-caste who lives with an Aboriginal as husband or wife, or
• a half-caste who, otherwise than as wife or husband habitually lives or associates with Aborigines, or
• a half-caste child whose age does not apparently exceed sixteen years, shall be deemed an Aboriginal within the meaning of this Act … ” (Western Australia Aborigines Act of 1905, Section 3).

Aborigines though are no longer silent objects of study, but increasingly challenge the very terms in which they are written about. However, it is not easy to re-examine the intellectual heritage; a heritage that is a body of knowledge understood by those sharing the same discourse and built into our contemporary consciousness in many intricate and hidden ways. Aborigines are exploring their own Aboriginality and are finding that the white Australia cannot accept their own view of themselves. You can’t define Aboriginality in terms of the colour of their skin or in terms of what genes and chromosomes were inherited. Aboriginal people have a very strong spiritual heritage: above anything else it is the essence of being an Aboriginal.

Consider how different an Aboriginal interpretation of Aboriginality compares with the political or social construction. The emphasis on spiritual and cultural unity is absolute. They identify the following characteristics as common to all Australian Aborigines:

• descent from the original inhabitants of Australia; a shared historical and cultural experience, particularly that arising from relations with non-Aborigines;
• the Dreaming, or Aboriginal worldview; intimate familial relationship with the land and the natural world, and knowing the pervading moulding character of these in all matters Aboriginal’;
• social interaction based predominantly on the mutual obligations of kinship; observance and social importance of mortuary rituals; and
• bi or multilingualism.

Whilst these elements constitute Aboriginality, Aboriginal values such as reciprocity and individuality could also be included, although these are not unique to Aborigines. However the list provided could be considered typical of cultural inventories: they constitute a coherent set of characteristics that are present and enduring in all Aboriginal people. However, significantly, the operative definition of Aboriginality has shifted from biological to the cultural. The Aboriginal emphasis on kinship and behaviour in determining identity is apparent. Another notable characteristic of Aboriginal social life is the self-conscious identification with notions of sociability and behaviour ascribed to Aboriginality, a world view with definable social values, attitudes and cognitive orientations.

In denying people the right to relate to themselves through their bodies and where notions of kinship are organised around cultural notions of the body is denying Aboriginal a major aspect of their Aboriginality. The dominant theoretical prescription of ideal Aboriginality would act to prevent Aborigines from creating their identities out of the body and out of biology, and would also in effect prevent them talking descent and moreover reinventing their notions of descent.

‘The assertion of Aboriginality is part of a political process’, wrote Tonkinson, further noting that:

Although the legal and social status of Aborigines has changed significantly, they are by no means equal participants in Australian society. They still suffer severe social disadvantage and defacto discrimination; in the eyes of many whites, being Aboriginal is still a social stigma. Against this background, many Aborigines are consciously and actively working to establish positive images of themselves and their cultures. This involves the rejection or reversal of dominant European definitions; the promotion of colour as a desirable feature rather than a taint; and the revival, invention, or adoption of distinctively Aboriginal cultural behaviours and symbols … the construction of a new identity in which all Aboriginal people can share.

So no, Pauline, we don’t need another debate on Aboriginal identity. We simply need to respect that they exist. Debate over.

About the author: Michael Taylor recently retired from the Australian Public Service, which included a decade in Aboriginal affairs, three years of which were spent visiting remote Aboriginal communities in the Flinders Ranges and the Anangu Pitjantjatjara Lands. He holds an Arts degree in Aboriginal Affairs Administration and an Honours degree in Aboriginal Studies.

There is overflowing evidence that Malcolm Turnbull is an out and out hypocrite. Since smooching his way to the prime ministership we have watched him backflip on every issue he once stood for and we can only take wild guesses at what he might stand for tomorrow. One has the uneasy feeling that he stands for, unremarkably, whatever the extreme right-wing of his party fancy.

Over the next couple of weeks I expect he will take hypocrisy to a profoundly higher level.

Appalled at Labor’s indication they would block his plebiscite, earlier this week he accused them of ‘not wanting to consult Australians on same-sex marriage’:

“So if Labor is seriously saying that, they are saying, ‘Don’t consult the Australian people because they won’t give you the answer you want.’”

The PM said he was confident same-sex marriage would be introduced, reiterating that he and his wife Lucy would vote in favour of the legislation.

“The fastest way, the way to guarantee that there is a vote in the Parliament on gay marriage in this Parliament, is to support the plebiscite,” he said.

(I didn’t know his wife could vote in favour of the legislation, but that’s another story).

Given that 57% of Australians support same-sex marriage it appears, on the surface, that Malcolm Turnbull is siding here with the electorate and signals his intention that he will stand and deliver.

There was Malcolm, a self-declared champion for the people.

And now that “the Federal Opposition has announced it is preparing to move a motion to bring on a bill to legalise same-sex marriage in two weeks” he has his chance to prove it.

And given that it was also announced that . . .

Adam Bandt, Andrew Wilkie and Cathy McGowan . . . too are introducing a “marriage equality bill”.

Mr Bandt says they will introduce a crossparty bill on the issue and are seeking support from Labor.

Ms McGowan says “it’s a wonderful thing” that Labor plans to table a bill, but they need the support of the Coalition.

. . . he really has no better opportunity. The people come first. He has been busy condemning Labor for not honouring that.

But if Malcolm Turnbull has truly listened to the electorate he too will support the bill. If he is ‘owned’ by the extreme right of the party, he will not. In which case he has lied.

Yes, it’s all hypothetical at this point, but my guess is he’ll take hypocrisy to an even higher level. The wishes of the party will remain supreme.

I’ll be watching.

With the news during the week that a boat with 21 Vietnamese asylum seekers had been shoved back to sea came the solemn warning from Immigration Minister Peter Dutton that:

“People smugglers in Indonesia are watching very closely and they believe if there’s a change of government on July 2, the people smugglers will be back in business and people will be back on boats coming to our country”.

How convenient. In the shadow of an election . . . along comes a boat. All very juicy stuff for Peter Dutton who seized the moment to remind us of the fearful prospect: a Labor Government will not stop the boats.

If Minister Dutton is so eager to inform the electorate of what they will ‘get’ under a Labor Government perhaps he should have mentioned that a Labor Government would also:

• Provide $570 million in additional support for students with disability and additional learning needs.
• Increase the Child Care Benefit by 15% for low and middle income families. Every one of the 813,000 families that rely on the Child Care Benefit will be better off – an increase up to $31 per child per week, or up to $1,627 per year.
• See that an additional $96 million go towards improving outcomes for Indigenous students around Australia over school years 2018 and 2019. In addition, Labor will provide $4.8 million over the forward estimates to fund 100 scholarships per year for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students, and increase the number of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander teachers.
• Invest $6 million over three years from 2017-18 to continue the Safe Schools program and support the Foundation for Young Australians to keep working with school communities to reduce bullying and discrimination.
• Restore indexation of the Medicare Benefits Schedule from 1 January 2017.
• Scrap the Liberals’ cuts to the PBS, ensuring there will be no increase to the co-payments or safety net thresholds on top of regular indexation.
• Reverse Malcolm Turnbull’s cuts to bulk billing incentives for pathology and diagnostic imaging.
• Deliver the National Disability Insurance Scheme.
• Scale up the rollout of fibre-to-the-premises and phase out the rollout of fibre-to-the-node.
• [To] achieve a target of net zero pollution by 2050, set a target at 2030 for a 45% reduction in carbon pollution on 2005 levels.
• Will ensure that 50% of the nation’s electricity is sourced from renewable energy by 2030
• Introduce a domestic emissions trading scheme that will have two distinct phases. The first phase is designed to get Australia’s pollution levels back under control and to establish the architecture for an enduring ETS. The second phase will then drive the long-term transition in our economy.
• Protect Weekend Penalty Rates.
• Will shut down loopholes which allow big multinational companies to send profits overseas, ensuring they pay their fair share of tax just like everyone else has to. Labor’s plan has been fully costed by the Parliamentary Budget Office, and will bring at least $7.2 billion back to Australia in tax from big multinationals over the next decade.
• Reform negative gearing effective from 1 July 2017.
• Restore CSIRO’s capacity to drive the national science, research and innovation agenda that will grow new industries and build a smarter Australia.
• Deliver more than $70 million over three years in targeted funding to ensure those suffering from family violence can access critical services when they need them.
• Commit almost $50 million to frontline legal services, including Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Legal Services, to ensure women suffering from family violence get legal support. The aim of this is to ensure, at least, that women facing court have access to appropriate legal services.
• Make an initial investment of $15 million in Safe at Home grants to help people affected by family violence stay safe in their own home.
• Will legislate for marriage equality within the first 100 days of the next parliament.
• Will hold a Royal Commission into misconduct in the banking and financial services industry.
• Appoint a full-time LGBTI Discrimination Commissioner to the Australian Human Rights Commission (AHRC), to ensure the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex Australians are protected, and they are free to live their lives without discrimination.
• Will renew investment in Australian multiculturalism, with $28.3 million of new funding to support social cohesion and economic inclusion.

Well, no wonder Peter Dutton just wants to talk about boats.

If is this is what we’ll get (plus more) with a Labor Government . . . I’ll have the boats please.

Australians saw no better example of democracy at work than when Cathy McGowan took the seat of Indi from sitting member Sophie Mirabella in the 2013 federal election.

The electorate took it upon itself to oust Mirabella on the basis that she didn’t appear to be representing anyone but the Liberal Party, and most certainly not her electorate.

How did Cathy McGowan perform what many consider to be a minor miracle, ousting a sitting Liberal Party member at an election where there was a 3.6% swing towards the Abbott led Liberals? Cathy not only achieved this, but with a massive of 9.2% swing against incumbent Sophie Mirabella. Only in Indi did a sitting Liberal member lose their seat.

During 2012, a small group of young people gathered together on the basis of their feelings that they weren’t being represented properly or effectively, and from those few people grew a movement of over 3000 volunteers who basically door knocked the entire electorate.

The result of this grass roots movement, or “Kitchen Table Conversations” emerged a document: ‘Voice for Indi’ with Cathy McGowan, businessperson, farmer and academic agreeing to become that voice.

Perhaps it is the feeling of disenchantment with the major political players, a wish for more personal involvement in the decision making process which is seeing the rise and rise of Independents such as Cathy McGowan. And so it is that Cathy faces another election and once more her main opponent is the controversial and high profile Sophia Mirabella for the Liberal Party.

It was tempting to want to discuss with Cathy the nation’s gaze on Indi: Cathy McGowan versus Sophie Mirabella, but Cathy ensured in her calm but forceful way that any discussion would focus on her beloved electorate, not on herself.

“That’s all everyone wants to talk about but it’s not what I want to talk about. Cathy McGowan versus Sophie Mirabella isn’t the important issue in this campaign. The needs of the people of Indi is the most important issue, and that is my focus”.

To walk into the McGowan campaign ‘headquarters’ is to take a step back in time, to when consultation plus representation were of prime importance. A time when it wasn’t about winning at all costs, where instead of ‘focus groups’ and highly paid consultants you will find a dedicated team of volunteers engaged in everything from assisting pensioners try to understand the new Senate voting system, to being busily engaged in painting chairs (for the weary to rest at polling stations) and making bunting and posters.

If McGowan is passionate about one particular thing then this is her insistence that her job is to represent. Her own goals? “I want my community to feel stronger, more confident and to know what it wants for itself. My job is to facilitate this”.

Contrast this with the response from any party beholden politician: “I can’t help you with that, it’s not Party policy”. To Cathy McGowan, the people of Indi are her policy with a passionate belief that the people of Indi ” … want a representative who will represent the people and not the Party. And that is my job”. This has brought with it some criticisms, namely that Cathy is too Indi focused to be a federal politician.

But perhaps too this is Cathy’s strength. In days were people fear that they do not have a voice, where their representative does not represent the views of their electorate but is bound by often city-centred focused only major party politicking. This is perhaps greater felt outside the major capital cities where the needs in rural and regional Australia have changed and where issues affect people far more directly: jobs, communication including mobile phone service and the NBN, and health including the notorious Wangaratta hospital (which may or may not have had funding according to Sophie Mirabella) have a direct impact on quality of life.

For Cathy McGown, it is through the Kitchen Table Conversations that the people of Indi continue to have a voice to be heard, where their interests, concerns and ideas can be taken up and pursued via her advocacy in Canberra. “It’s all about consultation and paying attention to what the community wants. My job is to represent them, and as I am not beholden to any party policy their voice is going straight to Canberra. This is doing democracy as it should be done”.

However, one cannot omit from any discussion about the fight for Indi, the onslaught coming from seemingly ‘anonymous’, the most recent being a glossy ‘Fact Sheet’ stating in bold Red and Green that: A vote for Cathy is a vote for the Greens and Labor. Reverse side we read supposed ‘Facts’. This ‘anonymous’ piece of political propaganda contains the name of no politician, the name of no political party, however the address printed ‘small’ at the bottom reveals that it is the address of the Liberal Party of Australia (Victoria Division).

Cathy’s response, quite typical is not to attack the person, but to calmly lay out the facts for consideration:

I am generally happy to support the Government in getting on to the day to day business of governing. But when they make decisions that are bad for the people of Indi, I will always stand up for our electorate. That is why I voted against the Coalition’s devastating cuts to Youth Allowance and Higher Education. I also opposed the GP co-payment.

This is Cathy McGowan representing Indi. This was what the community was saying they wanted. “I want the people of Indi to see themselves when I represent them in Canberra”.

This is Cathy McGowan on being independent.

We’re going to the polls on July 2 in what the pundits are predicting will be a close call. Let’s hope that the disappointments of 2013 are not repeated.

After the 2013 election I read somewhere that an extra 30,000 votes for Labor – if those votes were distributed in the right place – would have seen them retain government. I don’t know if that is true or not, but what is true is that an estimated 1.22 million Australians who were eligible to vote, simply didn’t see the need to. Of these, 400,000 were young Australians who hadn’t bothered to enrol.

I find this disappointing, as we rest our hopes on the youth of Australia.

It is the youth of Australia who will face the horrid effects of climate change and a ravaged environment. It is the youth of Australia – more than any other cohort – who are demanding a world class internet. It is the youth of Australia who face an uncertain future because of rising unemployment and ever-increasing house prices. And it is the youth of Australia who may have better luck than we did in closing the offshore detention centres.

If we can encourage the youth to vote, it is fair to say that the people who didn’t vote in the 2013 election might very well determine the result in this year’s election.

This email from Labor (below) was sent to me yesterday. They urge young Australians to enrol and to have their say when it matters most: election day. It is worth sharing and worth spreading.

Once upon a time, long before Malcolm was Prime Minister, he could do or say anything he liked and nobody gave a damn. There was a time when, unlike now, he wasn’t dazzled by the spotlight of scrutiny.

But now he is Prime Minister and all his little pearls of wisdom from yesteryear are coming back to haunt him.

And so they should. With an election around the corner the electorate needs to know what their current prime minister stands for.

Once considered a moderate who many thought would tug his party back from the extreme right, Malcolm’s ascension was greeted with optimism and hope from an electorate relieved that the mayhem of the Abbott reign was over.

They were soon disappointed as it became patently clear that all the progressive values they thought Malcolm stood for – that he once said he stood for – have taken the back seat to the ultra-conservative madness and ultra-conservative values that were the trademarks of the Abbott years.

In a nutshell, Malcolm’s also in it for the top end of town.

But don’t be surprised. Malcolm always has been. We cast our spotlight to the days when nobody cared what he did or said, when as Environment Minister in the Howard government he approved a $10,000,000 grant to investigate untried Russian technology for ‘rainmaking’ to the Australian Rain Corporation. The Australian Rain Corporation was co-founded by Mr Matt Hanbury. Hanbury, incidentally, is the nephew of the News Corporation chief, Rupert Murdoch, and contributed to Mr Turnbull’s electorate fund-raising machine. (What an amazing set coincidences).

It was also revealed that Turnbull approved the grant even though the grant amount was five times bigger than his departmental experts recommended.

So even then he was in it for the big end of town. We were warned.