Every now and then I can’t help but wonder about the attention span of politicians. It’s like they forget what they were saying just a year ago. Or even a week ago sometimes. You know the sort of thing. When the Liberals attacked Sam Dastyari for having his travel paid, did none of them think that someone would bring up the whole Rolex watch fiasco? (Yes, I know, one was a “payment” whereas the other was a “gift” which is apparently a very, very important distinction for some reason.)
Similarly, when Pauline Hanson made a few rather strange observations in her second maiden speech…
Second maiden speech, what next? A born again virgin?
Anyway, after Pauline’s maiden speech and her comments on Sky News that she placed all Muslims in the “one basket” because it was impossible to tell who was radicalised, we had various people telling us that we shouldn’t just dismiss her or ignore her, because, well, she’d got enough votes to be elected and therefore she had a right to express her opinions and that we had an obligation to listen, unlike those Greens who walked out on her speech.
Tempting as it is to point out that she got her votes in Queensland and I’m going to place all Queenslanders in the one basket because it’s impossible to work out who voted for Clive Palmer, such a thing would be unfair and I’d be guilty of what I find strange about Pauline Hanson… Although I did run into a Queenslander on the streets of Melbourne the other day and it did make me concerned that we Victorians may find ourselves swamped by them any day now.
No, what I find strange is that many of the people telling us all about Pauline’s right to be heard are the same people that have complained about governments paying too much attention to minorities. And let’s be very clear here, One Nation is certainly a minority – even in Queensland. (Is this the point where I should condemn other Queenslanders for failing to speak out and distance themselves from the actions of Pauline?)
And speaking of Queensland, did you notice that the Queeensland government is lowering the age of consent for anal intercourse from 18 to 16. The logic being that the age of consent for vaginal intercourse is 16, so it’s discriminatory against gay people. The minister announcing the change is Cameron Dick. Strangely, in spite of the print media’s obssession with using puns in their headlines, I haven’t been been able to find a single one about the minister’s name.
However, I did find a rather strange reaction from George Christensen:
“But we do know for a fact that there are old men out there who prey on younger men, groom them on the internet and seek to establish sexual relations with them, particularly when they are appear (sic) to be questioning their sexuality.”
Old George seems very concerned with this idea of older people taking advantage of younger people. If you remember he suggested that the Safe Schools program was like “child grooming”. So you’d think that he’d have a problem with the age of consent being as low as 16 and that rather than lower it for anal intercourse, a better solution would be to raise it to… let’s say, thirty for everyone, but no. It seems that it’s not a problem for straight people. As George tells us:
“For fear of being accused of being sexist – let me just say, it would be a great rarity to find a 16-year-old girl who would be willing to sleep with a 50-year-old man. Basically, anyone can have sexual relations with a 16-year-old – and I am just speaking in general here and stereotyping I suppose, or generalising … I would think that most 16-year-old girls would find it pretty gross to be thinking about having sexual relations with a 40 or 50-year-old man.”
How old is George again? Is he giving us the benefit of his experience here or is he just presuming this is the case?
Anyway, there you have it. Girls would find it pretty gross to think about having relations with an older man. But young gay men are apparently less discriminating and they would have no problem with much older men, so they’re more likely to be the victim of some predator.
And, if they are the victim, far better that it’s against the law, because then, not only can that old predator be charged, but that young man will be guilty of an offence too.
I wonder if he’ll move on from here – as part of the “civilised” debate on Same Sex marriage – and suggest that gay people shouldn’t be allow to marry because of all the marriages between young people and “predators” they met online.
