Nothing annoys me more than people who have enjoyed the benefits of this great country seeking to deny them to others.
Take Eric Abetz – please.
Eric migrated from Germany with his parents and five siblings in the early 1960s. Despite his great uncle Otto having been a Nazi who was sentenced to 20 years for war crimes for sending French Jews to the death camps, the Abetzes were welcomed to this country at a time when many Australians were still mourning the loss of so many loved ones in the wars Germany started.
They weren’t victimised because of what some of their countrymen (and relatives) had done. Quite the opposite.
His father, ironically enough, worked on one of Australia’s early attempts at renewable energy – Tasmania’s Hydro Electric Commission. Eric enjoyed a free education at a state school before completing a degree in arts/law which cost him nothing. Thirteen years later, at age 36, he was gifted a Senate seat for Tasmania, filling a casual vacancy left by the resignation of Brian Archer in 1994.
Eric’s brother Peter also jumped on the political gravy train, serving as the Liberal member for Southern River in the Legislative Assembly of Western Australia for 9 years.
So when I heard Eric’s extraordinary attack on Yasmin Abdel-Magied a few days ago, it made my blood boil.
Yasmin was part of a panel at a leadership forum conducted by ANU in Canberra last week. When asked by an audience member if there were alternative forms of government that might work “as western democracies falter”, she applauded the question and said it was assumed the “neoliberalism capitalist project” had worked for everyone.
Abetz took offence and immediately went on Facebook to say Ms Abdel-Magied was “effectively backing Arab dictatorships where forced marriages, genital mutilation and sexuality-based executions are legal and reprehensible”.
“If Ms Abdel-Magied thinks our system of government is so bad perhaps she should stop being a drain on the taxpayer and move to one of these Arab dictatorships that are so welcoming of women.”
Talk about a dog-whistling non sequiter!
This from the man who hails himself as a champion of free speech, speaking endlessly about the need to get rid of section 18c of the Racial Discrimination Act. During the Senate debate on the matter he said:
“Part and parcel of the freedoms and the society we enjoy today is the underpinning of the virtue of freedom of speech. And, along with that, comes the opportunity for some people to behave in an untidy way from time to time. But that does not mean that the state should step in and stop it.”
But don’t call him a “white conservative” or suggest he is from the “religious right” – he gets most offended.
“If you promote conservative policies, you are immediately demonised and conservative policies are demonised,” he said. “Parliamentarians are intimidated from stating their point of view because they know, no matter how sensibly they present it, it will somehow be misrepresented or a negative picture, negative commentary will be presented. I think the groupthink of the media gallery has got worse as the years have gone by and the concept of a diverse range of opinions or interpretations is now lacking.”
Eric claims to want diversity but, if you are going to speak publicly, you better be a white heterosexual Christian male who thinks all unionists are thugs, environmentalists are “anti-Australian” traitors, and gays are out to destroy families. Oh, and abortion causes breast cancer.
How long must we endure this pompous, self-righteous, entitled dinosaur?
