As an agnostic, raised in a (UK) Christian household, in a nominally Christian country, I believe that life is more satisfying all round when we make a reasonable effort to help those who most need help.
After living in Australia for 50 years, I wonder how its government has managed to become what it now is – a cruel, racist, sexist, selfish rabble.
Not every individual conforms to that description, but Julia Banks’ recent book makes it clear that the desire for the elected individuals to retain power and place is greater than their desire to change their leaders.
The thought that Peter Dutton might still become our Prime Minister sends cold shudders down my spine.
The failure of the government to seriously punish the blatant corruption associated with the sports and car park rorts (which are just the tip of the iceberg of malfeasance!) is disgusting.
The fact that 3 Parliamentarians who do not meet the pub test – at least one of whom, Christian Porter, is still a Minister – have not been asked to resign (or better still been thrown out) is more than alarming.
To prosecute Witness K and Bernard Collaery for trying to protect us from government mischief is appalling.
And our refusal to help Julian Assange is unforgivable.
The whole developed world – except Australia – is convinced that climate change is real and action must be taken.
What are we doing?
Promoting gas – a seriously harmful fossil fuel! Plus throwing money at Carbon Capture and Storage – which has been proved, over and over, to be both expensive and ineffective.
Labor instigated the NDIS and Medicare – both of which are under serious attack from Coalition policy changes.
We still call genuine refugees ‘illegal arrivals’ – despite being signatories to the refugee UN Convention.
We have no Human Rights legislation yet are still discussing protection for the religious – ignoring the fact that all necessary protection is provided quite adequately in the Constitution. And we ignore the fact that many of the so-called religious organisations – like Hillsong – are actually really sects which worship at the altar of wealth and power!
Having had a mild stroke in January, I have written little since for the AIMN as my drive seems to have been muted.
But we are due for an election in the next 12 months or so and I am desperate to do what I can to ensure that the Coalition is not re-elected.
Sadly, Labor does not present a good alternative and their inability to develop a reasonable liaison with the Greens is both selfish and childish.
Well – the Coalition has the Nationals under its wing, despite the willingness of Barnaby Joyce to undermine their policies!
We need all the people who care about the needs of the poor, sick, helpless and hopeless to unite to force policy change.
If you, like me, have enough for yourself and your family, please stop and think about those who have little or nothing.
We can donate to charity, but we need a government who is in there, working to help them – not telling them that they are useless!
Remember Robodebt?
Who gets more pressure from government to contribute to the country’s finances – the out of work poor or the tax-avoiding wealthy?
Please take a real interest in the effects of the politicians on those who cannot help themselves.
We need another, more disciplined, Whitlam because it really is time to stand up to fight corruption, self-interest and cruelty!
COVID-19 will be with us for a long time and our plans for dealing with it have, so far, been puerile!
Do you care about all this?
Please help change it!
This is nothing, wait until the Vaccine rort comes out of hiding beneath its national security blanket.
I should not give them ideas but
This mob will declare Marshall Law to avoid the clinck and keep the junket going.
Great blog post, Rosemary. My thoughts exactly.
I grew up in a parsonage where even if times were hard wewould give a passerby in difficulty a meal or even a bed . We were taught that sharing and caring were our duty , even if you had little. The church l now belong to still follows this ideal. What l see in this government is the very opposite of what l learned in these churches was appropriate Christian behaviour. It is despicable, mean grasping and and unbelievably callous.
I always read your offerings and hope that you are recovered to go on to live a good while yet. I am of similar age to you, care passionately about our environment and life on this earth. Indeed until l retired l was teaching ecology and climate change for many years in my science classes
In 1968 our Geography teacher – a Mr Mableson – told the class that the climate was warming. It would be almost 40 years before we had an Australian government who took it seriously.
That Morrison and his crew are now ensconsed securely inside the Liberal and by association, National Party and showing the Nation just how corrupt and truly nasty that whole organisation is, maybe in some twisted way, we should be grateful. I have several times remarked that they are emboldened by that Pentecostal influences brazenness to such a degree that they have dropped the L&NP coalition’s natural reluctance to broadcast it’s policies before an election, as they are doing before this next one. No-one should be in any doubt of what truly inhuman and inhumane policies that connection and influence is going to bring upon this nation’s people. And what we are seeing is only a part of the devastating changes they intend.
But, if there are still any genuine Christian believers and followers of the one called Jesus Christ left in this country, they should be absolutely dismayed and horrified at this cult’s representation of that figure and message. We can only hope that this is true, because by voting for them because of some party allegiance, would be a vote for the evil they will inflict. Dare I say, these are the people we must appeal to?
Michael Taylor, your post implies that the Rudd government took global warming seriously. It did not. It produced a con-job ineffectual emissions trading policy so it could pretend it was doing something. The proposal didn’t stand up to scientific scrutiny and the very best anybody could say in its defence was that it was at least a start and could be improved later. No effort at all was taken to make the scheme workable, and when the moronic Tony Abbott took over an imploded Liberal Party, instead of demolishing what was left of the opposition with implacable logic and reason Rudd claimed it was all too hard and declared he was abandoning his commitment to address climate change. That’s how seriously he took Global Warming.
And then after Gillard was compromised by the Greens into doing something she was undoubtedly opposed to, Rudd shamefully deposed her with the intention of abolishing the Carbon Tax in concession to Abbott and his climate change deniers.
Turnbull did nothing, Morrison is desperately trying to do nothing and Albanese incredibly shows no enthusiasm to do anything either.
For your post to be accurate you should have written, “50 years later and still no Australian government has taken climate change seriously.”
Well said, as usual, Rosemary! Sadly for ALL Australians this incompetent mob of liars, cheats, fabricators of the truth, flat earth, happy clapping fucking dickheads would NEVER be “allowed” to try & run our country under “normal” circumstances! However, these are not normal circumstances, especially where this mob is concerned! Every one of these COALItion bastards should NOT be in Parliament, nor should they even be trying to run Australia, they could never run anything properly, let alone try to govern us! We NEED a decent, strong Opposition who are always taking down this mob of liars at every opportunity, not some weak as a cream puff, so-called “leader” like Albonese! He seems a nice bloke but what we are crying out for is someone with ticker who can challenge every thing this mob tries to do & offer their own versions of any legislation rule changes etc that the fucking COALition tries to do!
Bronte ALLEN. You are right!!
testing the comments issue on the website