All right. The government has decided that if you try to claim asylum via a boat journey, you're not getting in. You'll end up living in Papua New Guinea, at best. The government has decided that this will stop the boats, and the government is telling us that this is necessary to save lives, because the most pressing need is to stop people drowning at sea. The government is clear that this has nothing to do with pandering to xenophobia, nothing to do with a lowest common denominator grab for votes, nothing to do with embracing the politics of fear. It is about saving lives. The government has a responsibility to stop people taking risky sea voyages, and so they've put in place a plan to stop them.
Very well. They can own that then.
Personally I never thought drownings at sea were the fault of the government. I never thought that any government in Australia had ever "lured" people onto leaky boats. I thought it was ridiculous to suppose that simply by maintaining the possibility that people with a legitimate claim to asylum could find assistance and refuge and a better life in Australia, our leaders were somehow tricking those silly foreigners into believing their journey across the sea would be safe. I thought that I was in no position to judge whether refugees from war-torn lands were right to risk their lives to improve their circumstances. I thought that asylum seekers were neither halfwitted morons unable to figure out the dangers of a sea journey in a rickety boat, nor mindless puppets reacting only to the string-pulling of Australia's government - pull this string, they come, pull that string, they stay. I thought that in a world of refugees, we cannot prevent people taking terrible risks to escape terrible situations: all we can do is our little bit to assist those who come to us seeking assistance. I thought it is not our place to lecture those who've seen terrors we can't fathom on whether the chance of death at sea is worth taking if it means getting away from those terrors, or if it means avoiding decades eking out a fearful, hopeless existence in a refugee camp, or if it means giving their children the chance of a future containing possibilities. I thought the government does not bear responsibilities for the tragedies caused by the sick and sorry state of the world - only the tragedies resulting from the treatment it metes out to those who beg it for help. I thought that accepting desperate people into our country and allowing them to become Australians was the noblest thing that our government does, and that the ones who came by boat were no more or less deserving than those arriving by other means.
I thought all these things.
The government thinks differently.
Well, fine.
But they should know, they can own that now.
I never believed the government bore responsibility for deaths at sea, but that's a responsibility they've taken on. Both major parties have stood up to willingly declare that the blood of asylum seekers who drown is on the hands of the Australian government.
Let them own it.
The PNG plan is said to be the way to prevent these drownings. The Opposition has their own tow-back, TPV plan, that they say will prevent these drownings. If this is the way they wish it to be, if this is the priority they wish to adopt, if this is the function they see as proper for the Australian government, then this is the standard by which they will be judged.
Because if Labor puts the PNG plan in place, or if the Coalition implements their own Howard redux policy, they'll have achieved their goal. They'll have done what they claim is necessary to stop deaths at sea.
And that means every death at sea from that point on is on them.
And we've got to hold them to this. If asylum seekers drown on their way to Australia, after the government declares that drownings are its responsibility and its policy the proper reaction to them, then with each death our politicians will stand judged as murderers - not by our judgment, but by their own. And it'll be up to us to remind them of that.
It's on you now, noble leaders. You want responsibility for their deaths, you got it. We'll hold you responsible, and see if you are so eager to hang yourselves when you've got no excuses.
Showing posts with label Labor. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Labor. Show all posts
Sunday, July 21, 2013
Wednesday, June 12, 2013
Seize The Defeat
So, an offensive menu was printed up for a Mal Brough fundraiser. And we are, naturally, in quite a flap about it.
And yes, fair enough. It was gross. It was sexist. It was nasty. It was a shitty joke, and it wasn't even original.
And look, I have no problem with anyone asserting that Mal Brough is a sleazebag. There's the whole James Ashby affair, and oh yeah, that little thing called the NT Intervention. Believe me, I need no convincing that Mal Brough is a first-class dickferret of the very highest purity.
But here's the thing about menugate, or quailgate, or big red boxgate or whatever bullshit it's being called:
Tony Abbott will still win.
It has been blindingly obvious for some time now that the Labor Party is going to go down in flames in September. And yet somehow, the True Believers keep seizing on moments like Brough's menu, claiming that this time,. THIS time, the Coalition's goose is truly cooked. The voters simply won't stand for such appalling misogyny, the True Believers squawk. Women won't be treated like this anymore, they scream. Now that the Liberals have shown their TRUE colours, Julia Gillard's dignity and toughness and determination will win the day and all will be well.
I am sorry, True Believers: all will not be well. And every time you say that THIS will be the straw that breaks the camel's back, a new batch of polls come out and show that the camel is doing a buck-and-wing all over Labor's expiring corpse.
The reason we keep going through this is that the True Believers, justifiably appalled as they are by Tony Abbott's appalling character, cannot conceive of any other explanation for Labor's subterranean popularity than that the electorate simply doesn't UNDERSTAND how bad the Opposition is. Once they do, the story goes, everything will turn around.
Once again, I am sorry to be the one to break it to you: they know. Everyone knows. They've all seen him, they've all heard him, they've all read about him. And they either don't care, or see what you think are character flaws as virtues.
When someone you hate does something you disapprove of, it's seductively easy to assume that this will cause everyone else to hate them too, because you've been hating them all along. It's seductively easy to assume that everyone else thinks the way you do, and the only reason they disagree with you is they don't have all the facts.
Sadly, sometimes people have all the facts and still think you're wrong.
Sadly, sometimes people are bastards, and they like it when other bastards are in charge.
Sadly, Tony Abbott is going to be prime minister, and whatever miracle it might take to prevent that is going to have to be a hell of a lot more volcanic than a shitty sexist joke on a menu of murky antecedents.
And given that fact, why should we keep on making excuses for Julia Gillard's hapless Washington Generals of a government?
The fact is, Gillard ain't all that. Her asylum seeker policy is brutality embraced in the name of expediency. She made a mess of the mining tax in her haste to cave to big business and get the issue off her desk. She is continuing our pal Brough's racist intervention. She gave a nice big smack to single parents the same day she electrified the world by bawling out Abbott in parliament. Her stance on marriage equality enrages pretty much all her staunchest supporters. And her government has done many good and admirable things, she is singularly bad at turning them to her advantage, which, whether it be the media's fault, or Kevin Rudd's, or Abbott's, is nonetheless a fact.
So why should we on the nominally "left" side of politics be as eager as we have been to gloss over all that?
Well obviously it's because, for all her faults, Gillard is better than Abbott. No doubt about that. Though Labor has done some stuff badly, the Coalition will be ten times worse, and we have to fall in behind Gillard to stop Abbott getting in at any cost. Wise words.
But the fact is, Abbott IS going to get in. So what's the point of being "better than Abbott" when you're not going to win anyway?
While Labor had a chance, it made sense to bend our energies to supporting them, to keep the Liberals at bay. But that's failed. The Liberals have stormed the parapet. The shields are down. Labor is dead in the water.
So trying to keep Abbott out is now a lost cause. And any attempt to downplay the failings of Labor in the interests of realpolitik is no longer a brave stab at bringing about the lesser of two evils, but rather an exercise in futility that simply continues the relentless lowering of standards in political discourse.
Consider: if you are backing "crappy" because it's better than "crappier", when "crappy" has no chance of winning, you're not staving off "crappier", you're just ensuring that "crappy" becomes the best we can ever hope for.
So why not stop standing up for "crappy"? Why not starting calling out bad behaviour, bad policy, bad government, no matter which party is engaging in it? The partisan battle is over, let's redirect our energies into demanding better from ALL sides of politics. Let's make it clear that we want to raise standards.
Most of all, let's rediscover our integrity and commit to standing up, in all circumstances, for what we really believe, for what we think is RIGHT, rather than desperately trying to rationalise support for better-than-Abbott.
And hey, we've got preferential voting. We'll be putting better-than-Abbott ahead of Abbott anyway. Don't worry, as long as better-than-Abbott has a lower number next to it on your ballot paper, you've discharged your responsibilities to the temple of low expectations.
But when we're out in the world, fighting and arguing and debating and lobbying and tweeting and blogging and emailing ministers, let's stop shouting our disapproval of "them" while we whisper our disapproval of "us". Let's make clear that right is right, and wrong is wrong, and while political realities obviously have always to be recognised, we're not going to support any politician who flat-out reverses the two.
Right now, my fellow travellers on the Lost Bus Of The Left, we are down. We're outnumbered and outgunned. But even at this moment we can be heard, and we can make clear what we want. Even with our worst enemy in the Lodge, we can articulate how we want this country to be better.
And when the worm turns and we find ourselves up and about again, we can make sure that those who would represent us know that we want them to fight for what's right, not just for what's slightly less wrong.
We're about to get beaten. But if we can stand up, we don't have to be broken as well.
And yes, fair enough. It was gross. It was sexist. It was nasty. It was a shitty joke, and it wasn't even original.
And look, I have no problem with anyone asserting that Mal Brough is a sleazebag. There's the whole James Ashby affair, and oh yeah, that little thing called the NT Intervention. Believe me, I need no convincing that Mal Brough is a first-class dickferret of the very highest purity.
But here's the thing about menugate, or quailgate, or big red boxgate or whatever bullshit it's being called:
Tony Abbott will still win.
It has been blindingly obvious for some time now that the Labor Party is going to go down in flames in September. And yet somehow, the True Believers keep seizing on moments like Brough's menu, claiming that this time,. THIS time, the Coalition's goose is truly cooked. The voters simply won't stand for such appalling misogyny, the True Believers squawk. Women won't be treated like this anymore, they scream. Now that the Liberals have shown their TRUE colours, Julia Gillard's dignity and toughness and determination will win the day and all will be well.
I am sorry, True Believers: all will not be well. And every time you say that THIS will be the straw that breaks the camel's back, a new batch of polls come out and show that the camel is doing a buck-and-wing all over Labor's expiring corpse.
The reason we keep going through this is that the True Believers, justifiably appalled as they are by Tony Abbott's appalling character, cannot conceive of any other explanation for Labor's subterranean popularity than that the electorate simply doesn't UNDERSTAND how bad the Opposition is. Once they do, the story goes, everything will turn around.
Once again, I am sorry to be the one to break it to you: they know. Everyone knows. They've all seen him, they've all heard him, they've all read about him. And they either don't care, or see what you think are character flaws as virtues.
When someone you hate does something you disapprove of, it's seductively easy to assume that this will cause everyone else to hate them too, because you've been hating them all along. It's seductively easy to assume that everyone else thinks the way you do, and the only reason they disagree with you is they don't have all the facts.
Sadly, sometimes people have all the facts and still think you're wrong.
Sadly, sometimes people are bastards, and they like it when other bastards are in charge.
Sadly, Tony Abbott is going to be prime minister, and whatever miracle it might take to prevent that is going to have to be a hell of a lot more volcanic than a shitty sexist joke on a menu of murky antecedents.
And given that fact, why should we keep on making excuses for Julia Gillard's hapless Washington Generals of a government?
The fact is, Gillard ain't all that. Her asylum seeker policy is brutality embraced in the name of expediency. She made a mess of the mining tax in her haste to cave to big business and get the issue off her desk. She is continuing our pal Brough's racist intervention. She gave a nice big smack to single parents the same day she electrified the world by bawling out Abbott in parliament. Her stance on marriage equality enrages pretty much all her staunchest supporters. And her government has done many good and admirable things, she is singularly bad at turning them to her advantage, which, whether it be the media's fault, or Kevin Rudd's, or Abbott's, is nonetheless a fact.
So why should we on the nominally "left" side of politics be as eager as we have been to gloss over all that?
Well obviously it's because, for all her faults, Gillard is better than Abbott. No doubt about that. Though Labor has done some stuff badly, the Coalition will be ten times worse, and we have to fall in behind Gillard to stop Abbott getting in at any cost. Wise words.
But the fact is, Abbott IS going to get in. So what's the point of being "better than Abbott" when you're not going to win anyway?
While Labor had a chance, it made sense to bend our energies to supporting them, to keep the Liberals at bay. But that's failed. The Liberals have stormed the parapet. The shields are down. Labor is dead in the water.
So trying to keep Abbott out is now a lost cause. And any attempt to downplay the failings of Labor in the interests of realpolitik is no longer a brave stab at bringing about the lesser of two evils, but rather an exercise in futility that simply continues the relentless lowering of standards in political discourse.
Consider: if you are backing "crappy" because it's better than "crappier", when "crappy" has no chance of winning, you're not staving off "crappier", you're just ensuring that "crappy" becomes the best we can ever hope for.
So why not stop standing up for "crappy"? Why not starting calling out bad behaviour, bad policy, bad government, no matter which party is engaging in it? The partisan battle is over, let's redirect our energies into demanding better from ALL sides of politics. Let's make it clear that we want to raise standards.
Most of all, let's rediscover our integrity and commit to standing up, in all circumstances, for what we really believe, for what we think is RIGHT, rather than desperately trying to rationalise support for better-than-Abbott.
And hey, we've got preferential voting. We'll be putting better-than-Abbott ahead of Abbott anyway. Don't worry, as long as better-than-Abbott has a lower number next to it on your ballot paper, you've discharged your responsibilities to the temple of low expectations.
But when we're out in the world, fighting and arguing and debating and lobbying and tweeting and blogging and emailing ministers, let's stop shouting our disapproval of "them" while we whisper our disapproval of "us". Let's make clear that right is right, and wrong is wrong, and while political realities obviously have always to be recognised, we're not going to support any politician who flat-out reverses the two.
Right now, my fellow travellers on the Lost Bus Of The Left, we are down. We're outnumbered and outgunned. But even at this moment we can be heard, and we can make clear what we want. Even with our worst enemy in the Lodge, we can articulate how we want this country to be better.
And when the worm turns and we find ourselves up and about again, we can make sure that those who would represent us know that we want them to fight for what's right, not just for what's slightly less wrong.
We're about to get beaten. But if we can stand up, we don't have to be broken as well.
Saturday, June 8, 2013
The last seven days
This is just a quick update for you all on what I've been doing in the last week, so you can really sink your teeth into a whole bunch of me at once.
For example, if you want to read me in The Age on the subject of television, you can.
And if you want to read me in The Guardian on the subject of the Labor Party, you can.
Or perhaps you'd like to check out my exclusive interview with Australia's Federal Racism Commissioner in the King's Tribune? (and while you're there, subscribe FFS)
But maybe you'd rather read me on rugby union?
Or rugby league?
Probably you'll get the most satisfaction out of my piece on asbestos and how the government is using it to kill us, on New Matilda. (subscribe there too. Jesus)
Or you could just kick back and relax with my recap of the first episode of the new series of Masterchef.
Not that you need to, because my friend Dan Hall and I have covered all bases re: Masterchef's return in episode one of a brand new web series by GAMers Cam Smith and myself, MASTERCHAT. Check it out below, and stay tuned for next week's ep.
OK that's all for this week. There'll be some more stuff next week. Don't say that I never do anything for you people.
For example, if you want to read me in The Age on the subject of television, you can.
And if you want to read me in The Guardian on the subject of the Labor Party, you can.
Or perhaps you'd like to check out my exclusive interview with Australia's Federal Racism Commissioner in the King's Tribune? (and while you're there, subscribe FFS)
But maybe you'd rather read me on rugby union?
Or rugby league?
Probably you'll get the most satisfaction out of my piece on asbestos and how the government is using it to kill us, on New Matilda. (subscribe there too. Jesus)
Or you could just kick back and relax with my recap of the first episode of the new series of Masterchef.
Not that you need to, because my friend Dan Hall and I have covered all bases re: Masterchef's return in episode one of a brand new web series by GAMers Cam Smith and myself, MASTERCHAT. Check it out below, and stay tuned for next week's ep.
OK that's all for this week. There'll be some more stuff next week. Don't say that I never do anything for you people.
Monday, October 8, 2012
Ugh
Feminism, right? Sometimes, I think, we can get sick of talking about feminism, and hearing about feminism. Sometimes it's just exhausting, isn't it? Boring. We wish sexism and misogyny and patriarchy didn't keep getting raised. We'd like a break.
I feel this, I really do. I bet a lot of the people who spend a lot of time talking about feminism get sick of it sometimes too. Unfortunately, as much as we'd all like a break, it is difficult for feminists to take a break when every day some idiot goes and illustrates perfectly why they have to keep hammering away, because there is just so many more concrete-thick skulls to penetrate.
I was watching Q&A last night, and this really hit me with monstrous force, as I watched Kate Ellis MP attempt to answer questions and address issues in the face of some truly mind-boggling rudeness and disrespect from a sniggering bipartisan triumvirate of Lindsay Tanner, Christopher Pyne and Piers Akerman.
Now, in my opinion, in the area of feminism and gender relations, there are very many areas on which room for disagreement exists. I think reasonable people can differ on many issues without anyone being assumed to be stupid or bigoted. And you can disagree on all sorts of things. You can disagree with me, or anyone else, on women's portrayal in the media, or on women's dress, on affirmative action, on pornography or sexual freedom or sexism in the workplace. I would not necessarily think you a fool for taking a different position to mine on any of these issues.
But if you try to tell me that feminism's job is done here, that we are not still living in a society that is positively drenched in sexism, then I will laugh you right out of that cosy little cocoon you're snuggling up inside. Because if you're living in this world, and you think everything is cool, men-and-women-wise, you're pushing a line so obviously and directly at odds with the evidence in front of your face that you might as well be telling me that you just rode into town on a flying sheep.
Q&A seems such a minor, petty thing to focus on - and it is. It's a tiny drop in the sexism ocean, and there are sure bigger problems out there. But last night's episode crystallised so exquisitely for anyone watching the heart of the matter - the disrespect, the sneering condescension, and the hostility towards women from which so much inequality and injustice springs.
This wasn't a rowdy debate where everyone was talking over one another. This wasn't someone feeling so passionately about a subject he just had to break in to be heard. And this was not a case of one or two interruptions. This was interrupting, cutting off, and shouting down Kate Ellis pretty much every time she dared open her mouth, in a manner that couldn't have been more efficient and systematic if Tanner, Pyne and Akerman had got together beforehand and plotted the course of the evening out on a spreadsheet. This was Akerman preventing Ellis getting her point out simply by repeating the word "shadecloths" four or five times, as if that was a counter-argument that would shoot her down; or later on, breaking in to an answer she was giving on education in order to kindly tell her to go and talk to Margie Abbott. This was Ellis attempting to answer an audience member's question but being drowned out by Pyne and Tanner starting up a conversation about Downton Abbey as if she wasn't even there. And this was Pyne in particular (and this is pretty much his lifelong form line) talking over the top of the minister every single time she looked like getting near speaking her piece. It was a horrible display by three men who, according to all reports, claim to be grown adults of fully-functioning intellectual faculties. But in the presence of a federal minister whose views on a range of issues are actually quite important to the country, but who happened to be a woman, they could not find it within themselves to grow the hell up and act like decent human beings. And, what's more, host Tony Jones seemed quite happy to let them stomp all over the discussion like a pack of St Bernards tracking mud over a carpet.
Of course the other guest, US playwright Nilaja Sun, barely got to talk at all, although some of that could be put down to most of the discussion being very Aus-centric: but when you have five guests, two of whom are women, of which one is barely allowed to talk, and the other has every statement swamped by the bellows of the swaggering Ox Chorus surrounding her, it paints a stark picture of how women are treated 'round these parts.
Bear in mind, again, this is a minister. Not just a woman who wandered in off the streets, but an accomplished, elected representative, in a position of considerable responsibility with significant influence on our government. Patronised and shut down like a schoolgirl answering back to the principal. It was, to put quite mildly, revolting.
And why did they do this? Because they knew they could. They knew that if you shout down a woman, you get away with it. Let's not pretend they would have acted that way if Bill Shorten had been in that seat - nobody's default setting is "disrupt" when a man is talking. What's more, they knew that Shorten would have fired back, and they knew that Kate Ellis couldn't without being painted as shrill and hysterical. Ellis knew that too - she knew the minute she rose to the bait, told someone to shut up, demanded to be given due respect, she'd be tagged a harridan, which is why she put in a performance of superhuman restraint and class, and emerged looking a more worthy person than those three men put together.
And this is not a Labor vs Liberal thing - Akerman and Pyne were repellent, but Tanner joined in the shut-up-girlie game with gusto. The Liberal Party seems to be captive at the moment to a particularly nauseating cabal of misogynists, but this cuts across the left-right divide. It's not even man vs woman - rest assured there are women who would have watched that show urging the men on to shut the mouthy bitch up.
I've said it before: the battle is between pricks and non-pricks. You're sick of hearing about feminism? Fine: let's not mention feminism. Let's drop the battle of the sexes schtick. How about we just talk about human decency? How about we talk about the ability to treat another person like a person, that ability that is sorely lacking in men like Akerman, Tanner, Pyne, Alan Jones, Tony Abbott...and on, and on, and on. How about we talk about looking at someone and not deciding, based on what they've got in their pants, that you're perfectly justified in treating them like a cross between an irritating insect and a disobedient toddler? How about we talk about, if this isn't too much of a stretch, a public discussion where how seriously you get taken doesn't depend on whether you're packing a penis?
Last night, we saw that the men who believe they have a right to power over all of us have zero tolerance for any woman trying to muscle in on their turf. We saw the clear, shining face of sexism. And those of us with a scrap of decency should be under no illusions: we're in a war here.
I feel this, I really do. I bet a lot of the people who spend a lot of time talking about feminism get sick of it sometimes too. Unfortunately, as much as we'd all like a break, it is difficult for feminists to take a break when every day some idiot goes and illustrates perfectly why they have to keep hammering away, because there is just so many more concrete-thick skulls to penetrate.
I was watching Q&A last night, and this really hit me with monstrous force, as I watched Kate Ellis MP attempt to answer questions and address issues in the face of some truly mind-boggling rudeness and disrespect from a sniggering bipartisan triumvirate of Lindsay Tanner, Christopher Pyne and Piers Akerman.
Now, in my opinion, in the area of feminism and gender relations, there are very many areas on which room for disagreement exists. I think reasonable people can differ on many issues without anyone being assumed to be stupid or bigoted. And you can disagree on all sorts of things. You can disagree with me, or anyone else, on women's portrayal in the media, or on women's dress, on affirmative action, on pornography or sexual freedom or sexism in the workplace. I would not necessarily think you a fool for taking a different position to mine on any of these issues.
But if you try to tell me that feminism's job is done here, that we are not still living in a society that is positively drenched in sexism, then I will laugh you right out of that cosy little cocoon you're snuggling up inside. Because if you're living in this world, and you think everything is cool, men-and-women-wise, you're pushing a line so obviously and directly at odds with the evidence in front of your face that you might as well be telling me that you just rode into town on a flying sheep.
Q&A seems such a minor, petty thing to focus on - and it is. It's a tiny drop in the sexism ocean, and there are sure bigger problems out there. But last night's episode crystallised so exquisitely for anyone watching the heart of the matter - the disrespect, the sneering condescension, and the hostility towards women from which so much inequality and injustice springs.
This wasn't a rowdy debate where everyone was talking over one another. This wasn't someone feeling so passionately about a subject he just had to break in to be heard. And this was not a case of one or two interruptions. This was interrupting, cutting off, and shouting down Kate Ellis pretty much every time she dared open her mouth, in a manner that couldn't have been more efficient and systematic if Tanner, Pyne and Akerman had got together beforehand and plotted the course of the evening out on a spreadsheet. This was Akerman preventing Ellis getting her point out simply by repeating the word "shadecloths" four or five times, as if that was a counter-argument that would shoot her down; or later on, breaking in to an answer she was giving on education in order to kindly tell her to go and talk to Margie Abbott. This was Ellis attempting to answer an audience member's question but being drowned out by Pyne and Tanner starting up a conversation about Downton Abbey as if she wasn't even there. And this was Pyne in particular (and this is pretty much his lifelong form line) talking over the top of the minister every single time she looked like getting near speaking her piece. It was a horrible display by three men who, according to all reports, claim to be grown adults of fully-functioning intellectual faculties. But in the presence of a federal minister whose views on a range of issues are actually quite important to the country, but who happened to be a woman, they could not find it within themselves to grow the hell up and act like decent human beings. And, what's more, host Tony Jones seemed quite happy to let them stomp all over the discussion like a pack of St Bernards tracking mud over a carpet.
Of course the other guest, US playwright Nilaja Sun, barely got to talk at all, although some of that could be put down to most of the discussion being very Aus-centric: but when you have five guests, two of whom are women, of which one is barely allowed to talk, and the other has every statement swamped by the bellows of the swaggering Ox Chorus surrounding her, it paints a stark picture of how women are treated 'round these parts.
Bear in mind, again, this is a minister. Not just a woman who wandered in off the streets, but an accomplished, elected representative, in a position of considerable responsibility with significant influence on our government. Patronised and shut down like a schoolgirl answering back to the principal. It was, to put quite mildly, revolting.
And why did they do this? Because they knew they could. They knew that if you shout down a woman, you get away with it. Let's not pretend they would have acted that way if Bill Shorten had been in that seat - nobody's default setting is "disrupt" when a man is talking. What's more, they knew that Shorten would have fired back, and they knew that Kate Ellis couldn't without being painted as shrill and hysterical. Ellis knew that too - she knew the minute she rose to the bait, told someone to shut up, demanded to be given due respect, she'd be tagged a harridan, which is why she put in a performance of superhuman restraint and class, and emerged looking a more worthy person than those three men put together.
And this is not a Labor vs Liberal thing - Akerman and Pyne were repellent, but Tanner joined in the shut-up-girlie game with gusto. The Liberal Party seems to be captive at the moment to a particularly nauseating cabal of misogynists, but this cuts across the left-right divide. It's not even man vs woman - rest assured there are women who would have watched that show urging the men on to shut the mouthy bitch up.
I've said it before: the battle is between pricks and non-pricks. You're sick of hearing about feminism? Fine: let's not mention feminism. Let's drop the battle of the sexes schtick. How about we just talk about human decency? How about we talk about the ability to treat another person like a person, that ability that is sorely lacking in men like Akerman, Tanner, Pyne, Alan Jones, Tony Abbott...and on, and on, and on. How about we talk about looking at someone and not deciding, based on what they've got in their pants, that you're perfectly justified in treating them like a cross between an irritating insect and a disobedient toddler? How about we talk about, if this isn't too much of a stretch, a public discussion where how seriously you get taken doesn't depend on whether you're packing a penis?
Last night, we saw that the men who believe they have a right to power over all of us have zero tolerance for any woman trying to muscle in on their turf. We saw the clear, shining face of sexism. And those of us with a scrap of decency should be under no illusions: we're in a war here.
Sunday, August 14, 2011
My Night With The Faceless Men - A Special BPWWOO Investigation
It’s a cold night on Sussex Street. I pull my collar close up around my neck in a futile attempt to shield myself from the freezing, driving rain, one of those peculiarly Sydney downpours, the kind of rain that says, “Yes we have abundant natural beauty, but many people find us more frenetic and materialistic than is strictly necessary”. It’s strange how water falling out of the sky can be so articulate, but then, a lot is strange on this dark winter’s evening, as I head towards a mysterious assignation, with no guarantee I will return.
My shoes squelch in the puddles as I approach the enormous, forbidding oak doors, a squelch that seems to speak of superficiality and petty power struggles, but also of cultural and societal bankruptcy. I stand before those doors, where so many great men – Whitlam, Keating, Fitzgibbon – have stood before, and I hesitate. Do I dare to enter the belly of the beast? Do I dare even refer to it as “the beast” in these troubled times when there is a shell-like ear hiding in every waistcoat? When even our Twitter accounts are not immune to hacking and trickery?
Yes, I must. For journalism. I was employed to shine a light on the practices of the ruling class, and light-shine I will. Summoning up every scrap of courage, I reach for the enormous demons’ head doorknocker and knock, as instructed, three times. The knocks boom and echo through the dark night, attracting odd looks from passing prostitutes and pie-carts. I wait a moment, hardly daring to breathe.
As I wait, I reflect on the path that has brought me to this point. The idea of writing a feature examining the internal workings of the Labor Party. The email to the party executive. The raven arriving on my windowsill in the dead of night, with a cryptic message tied to its leg: “Be at Minto KFC at 11”. The mobile phone slipped surreptitiously into my pocket. The brief conversation with the man who would identify himself only as “Mr Labor”. The instructions to come to Sussex Street, tonight, carrying only a pen, a notepad, and some jam sandwiches. The interminable train ride into the heart of the city, due to trackwork at Westmead. The homeless woman vomiting on my shoes – what connection did she have to all this anyway? It was a tangled web indeed.
As the echoes of the knocker died away, I heard heavy, slow footsteps from within, coming closer, like the beating of some infernal centre-left drum. I waited, distracting myself by reading the engraving on the door. In huge Gothic lettering, it read “PER PATIENTIA, CONSENTIO”. “Through suffering, consensus”. Ah, yes. I felt a shiver run down my spine, as if a salamander were in my shirt. I was just about ready to turn tail and run, when the door suddenly swung open and a tall, pale, emaciated man in a dusty tuxedo was peering at me.
“Yes?” his voice creaked like a mausoleum door.
“Hello,” I stammered. “I…I…” I was at a loss. I had forgotten who I was, why I was there, how I got so wet. Desperate, I thrust my press identification card at him. He studied it intently.
“Ah yes,” he creaked. “They are expecting you. Walk this way.” I followed the pallid retainer, and suddenly found myself walking down a long, narrow corridor, luxuriantly appointed with thick crimson carpet and adorned down its length, on both sides, with foreboding portraits of great Labor luminaries. As I glanced from side to side, I felt almost oppressed by the stern gazes of these giants of the past. Hawke seemed to scold me as his famous eyebrows arched formidably from the canvas. Jack Lang’s bald head took on a disturbingly reproachful air. By the time I came to the final portrait, depicting Bob Ellis energetically coupling with Lenin, I was already wrung out. My emotional turmoil did not take a turn for the better when a bag was suddenly thrust over my head and I felt myself being spun around in circles for what seemed like hours. Finally the rotation stopped, and I was shoved violently from behind, apparently through a door into a new room, where the smell of incense and Belgian chocolate hung thick in the air. I could feel eyes on me, and felt I should say something, but didn’t know what. I shuffled my feet awkwardly. This was a social situation which, as a hard-hitting investigative journalist, I was rarely thrust into. It reminded me a lot of the time I broke one of Gaddafi’s teacups and hid the pieces in my pocket.
Finally the silence was broken. “Take off the bag,” a deep voice intoned. Suddenly I could see, though as I turned my head I couldn’t see hide nor hair of whoever had removed my mask.
I was in a small, smoky chamber, surrounded by antique furniture, enormous clocks, and the stuffed heads of African game. Before me, in an enormous leather armchair, sat a man in a dark suit, head wreathed in shadow and cigar smoke. That deep, gravelly voice rumbled at me once more.
“Sit down.”
I looked around. I couldn’t see another chair. Should I sit on the sideboard? The rhino’s head? I looked back at the shadowy figure and shrugged helplessly. “There’s no chair.”
There was a pause, followed by a throaty chuckle. “Well done. You passed the test.” Suddenly the man rose, and swept past me. “Follow,” he barked, and I turned and hurried out the door with him, into another corridor, panting as I trotted after the back of his rapidly-receding, smoke-encircled head.
This hallway was different. Less extravagant, it was floored with large stone slabs, and instead of portraits of Labor figures covering the walls, we were instead watched over by the bulging eyes of a cornucopia of historical figures. Here was Cleopatra, signing the Accord. Here was Alexander the Great, nationalising the banks. And perhaps most poignantly, here was William the Conqueror, implementing GroceryChoice.
As I hurried to keep up, I flipped open my pad, hoping to get some insights into the inner workings of the machine I had entered. “Where exactly are we?” was my first question – always a good place to start for a journalist in any situation.
“You’re in the headquarters of the most efficient, effective, and ruthless political organisation the world has ever known,” he replied, without turning. “You are heading towards the nerve centre of the engine room of the inner sanctum of the brains trust of the entire country, and by extension, the world.”
“So this is where the decisions get made?” I gasped, cigar smoke streaming into my nostrils.
“This is where everything gets made,” he growled. “Decisions, policy, lamingtons – EVERYthing comes out of here. Without authorisation from us, no Labor Party branch dares breathe.”
“And with authorisation?”
“Well they do dare breath, obviously”. We walked on for a while in a slightly awkward silence. As turned a corner and the smell of ammonia filled the air, I managed another question.
“Why is the ALP so secretive?”
“Wouldn’t you be secretive, if you knew how determined your enemies were to destroy you?” came the barked response. “Wouldn’t you hide yourself away in a secure fortress, if you knew that the minute you stick your head outside it’d be sliced off, by the Liberals, by the Nationals, by the Greens, by the unions?”
“But the unions are on your side,” I protested, for which I received a short, sharp laugh and what sounded like a spitting noise. I tried again: “So you stay bunkered in here out of fear?”
“Yes! Fear that we shall be forestalled, that the great Labor project will be stymied by the forces arrayed against us.”
“And what is the great Labor project?” I asked, wading through the stagnant water we had somehow found ourselves up to our knees in.
“It’s the Light on the Hill!” he cried. “Justice! Equality! Social cohesion! A fairer future for our children!”
“So you – ” I began, but he was in full flight, puffing from his cigar even as he bellowed and expectorated and leapt lightly from crocodile to crocodile.
“Equitable workplace relations arrangements!” he roared. “Quality education and healthcare for all! Sustainable economic growth! Free trade! Small business! Open markets! Secure borders!”
“I’m not sure – ”
“Family values! Equitable religion for all! Sustainable censorship! Deregulation! Red tape! Green energy! Yellow perils! Fear! Misery! Desolation! ALL SHALL DIE!” He came to a solid steel door, and knocked eight times in a sort of calypso rhythm. “That, Mr Pobjie, is the Labor project. No less than the very re-structuring of society itself into something resembling extremely closely what we already have, but with more solar water heaters. Oh yes, you may call it Utopian, but we believe it is attainable, with a bit of elbow grease.”
There was another awkward pause, and then the steel door swung open, and we stepped into…
A pleasant pastel-hued lounge room, filled with the scent of pine needles and the sound of soft jazz piano coming from a small iPod dock in one corner. On the couch sat three men in long brown robes, hoods hiding their faces. One of them beckoned to me to take a seat on a nearby ottoman. I did so, relieved to be able to rest my feet and to no longer have to shake turtles off my trouser legs.
One of the hooded figures spoke. “We understand you have some questions,” he hissed, in a voice that sounded like a man hissing. I felt a strange emotion I was unfamiliar with, a sort of terror mixed with arousal mixed with overwhelming sadness mixed with a deep respect for party conferences.
“Yes, sir,” I said, opening my pad again. “I want to know why the Labor Party lost its way. When did it stop speaking for the people, and start speaking for a dark cabal of secretive overlords making decisions on behalf of membership without consultation or accountability? When did being a member of the ALP become a pointless exercise? When did the party become less about sharing wealth and opportunity more widely, and more about concentrating as much power as possible in the hands of the unelected and unqualified backroom powerbrokers? When did policy become secondary to the relentless obeisance to focus groups? How is it that a party founded on principles of fairness and social justice has been degraded to an ineffectual rump of political timeservers and careerist machine men, interested only in numbers, internecine squabbling, and consolidating narrow power bases within an insular, delusional party administration without the slightest inkling of, or interest in, the goings-on in the real world beyond their adaptability for purposes of political power-retention, the detachment from reality having exceeded reasonable bounds to such an extent that even possessing control of government now seemingly comes second to possessing control of the tiny minority of citizens still blind or cynical enough to call themselves ‘Labor Party members’” I took a breath. “How, sir, did this happen?”
There was silence for a moment. The jazz seemed even louder, even more relaxing. A small butler offered me a spinach puff. The hooded men seemed to be stroking their chins. Then the middle one stood, and placed a hand on my shoulder.
“These are all good questions,” he said quietly, “but they come from a place of ignorance. If you knew anything of the reality of politics, you wouldn’t need to ask these questions. You would know how things work. You would know the way of the world.”
I gazed up at the hood, and suddenly felt an overwhelming urge, such as I had not felt for many years: an urge to actually learn about politics. “Tell me more, sir,” I said, munching on my puff.
“I will,” he said, “but be warned, your life will never be the same again.”
“So what’s the catch?” I asked, chuckling heartily. The butler joined in, but nobody else did.
“What you have to understand,” began one of the seated hoods, “is that this country is not run by the government, nor by the corporations, nor even – despite appearances – by the Greens. This country is run here, by us, in this room. Here, let us show you.” And with that he reached over the arm of the couch and took hold of the lamp sitting on the small occasional table. He gave the lamp an almighty yank, and suddenly the enormous photo of Stalin that covered one wall swung back, revealing a huge and complex control panel, covered with flashing lights, levers and dials. “Here is where the country is run!”
I stood and walked closer, peering at the controls on the wall. Each button and lever was labelled, with things like “monetary policy settings”, “border security”, “fluoride release”, “law-abiding citizen disarmament” and so on.
“You see,” said the third hood, “we need to keep the Labor Party in a constant state of turmoil, engaging in endless civil war, tearing itself apart with impotent disputation, stumbling from PR catastrophe to policy brain-spasm like a wounded elephant, constantly promising renewal and reform and constantly disappointing, perennially commissioning reviews, and most of all, obsessing interminably about the merits of the factional system; in order that nobody learns that the entire nation is controlled on one vaguely retro-styled wall in a stylish modern lounge room by three men in hoods.”
I was, to be honest, surprised. Although I had long suspected that “something was going on” in this country, I had always assumed it had something to do with Ray Martin. This development was, in about 55% of its details, unexpected. “But…but why?” I sputtered. “Would it really be so disastrous if the electorate knew that democracy was a complete sham and their lives were at the mercy of creepy sort-of-monk guys? I think they mostly suspect that anyway.”
“NO!” shouted the standing man. “They can never know. The result would be anarchy, disorder and tragedy, if the people were to ever discover…who is really in power.”
“Who is really in power,” his colleagues repeated, rising from the couch and taking their places either side of their comrade. They lifted their hands to their hoods. “Prepare yourself,” they droned, in unison, and threw back their cowls.
I stared for a second, and then screamed, the scream of the truly damned. For before stood three ordinary, nondescript men, wearing robes…with no faces. Beneath their conservatively styled hair, the fronts of their heads were utterly smooth and bereft of features.
Still screaming at the horror of it all, suddenly I felt a rough hand on my shoulder, and turned to see my guide from earlier, his face no longer wreathed in smoke. And I screamed again, as I beheld his visage, for his entire head was an enormous nose.
“The interview is over,” snarled one massive nostril, and everything went black.
When I awoke, I was stripped to the waist, bathed in sweat, and lying by the pool on the deck of the cruise ship Dawn Princess. Beside me was a poorly-typed copy of the story you have just read, and yet of which I had no recollection beyond some deep bite marks on both ankles and certain vague ideas about Cheryl Kernot.
Was it a dream? I’ll never be certain one way or another. But still, the story had to be told, and I will leave the Australian people to make up their own minds, about the Faceless Men of Sussex Street.
My shoes squelch in the puddles as I approach the enormous, forbidding oak doors, a squelch that seems to speak of superficiality and petty power struggles, but also of cultural and societal bankruptcy. I stand before those doors, where so many great men – Whitlam, Keating, Fitzgibbon – have stood before, and I hesitate. Do I dare to enter the belly of the beast? Do I dare even refer to it as “the beast” in these troubled times when there is a shell-like ear hiding in every waistcoat? When even our Twitter accounts are not immune to hacking and trickery?
Yes, I must. For journalism. I was employed to shine a light on the practices of the ruling class, and light-shine I will. Summoning up every scrap of courage, I reach for the enormous demons’ head doorknocker and knock, as instructed, three times. The knocks boom and echo through the dark night, attracting odd looks from passing prostitutes and pie-carts. I wait a moment, hardly daring to breathe.
As I wait, I reflect on the path that has brought me to this point. The idea of writing a feature examining the internal workings of the Labor Party. The email to the party executive. The raven arriving on my windowsill in the dead of night, with a cryptic message tied to its leg: “Be at Minto KFC at 11”. The mobile phone slipped surreptitiously into my pocket. The brief conversation with the man who would identify himself only as “Mr Labor”. The instructions to come to Sussex Street, tonight, carrying only a pen, a notepad, and some jam sandwiches. The interminable train ride into the heart of the city, due to trackwork at Westmead. The homeless woman vomiting on my shoes – what connection did she have to all this anyway? It was a tangled web indeed.
As the echoes of the knocker died away, I heard heavy, slow footsteps from within, coming closer, like the beating of some infernal centre-left drum. I waited, distracting myself by reading the engraving on the door. In huge Gothic lettering, it read “PER PATIENTIA, CONSENTIO”. “Through suffering, consensus”. Ah, yes. I felt a shiver run down my spine, as if a salamander were in my shirt. I was just about ready to turn tail and run, when the door suddenly swung open and a tall, pale, emaciated man in a dusty tuxedo was peering at me.
“Yes?” his voice creaked like a mausoleum door.
“Hello,” I stammered. “I…I…” I was at a loss. I had forgotten who I was, why I was there, how I got so wet. Desperate, I thrust my press identification card at him. He studied it intently.
“Ah yes,” he creaked. “They are expecting you. Walk this way.” I followed the pallid retainer, and suddenly found myself walking down a long, narrow corridor, luxuriantly appointed with thick crimson carpet and adorned down its length, on both sides, with foreboding portraits of great Labor luminaries. As I glanced from side to side, I felt almost oppressed by the stern gazes of these giants of the past. Hawke seemed to scold me as his famous eyebrows arched formidably from the canvas. Jack Lang’s bald head took on a disturbingly reproachful air. By the time I came to the final portrait, depicting Bob Ellis energetically coupling with Lenin, I was already wrung out. My emotional turmoil did not take a turn for the better when a bag was suddenly thrust over my head and I felt myself being spun around in circles for what seemed like hours. Finally the rotation stopped, and I was shoved violently from behind, apparently through a door into a new room, where the smell of incense and Belgian chocolate hung thick in the air. I could feel eyes on me, and felt I should say something, but didn’t know what. I shuffled my feet awkwardly. This was a social situation which, as a hard-hitting investigative journalist, I was rarely thrust into. It reminded me a lot of the time I broke one of Gaddafi’s teacups and hid the pieces in my pocket.
Finally the silence was broken. “Take off the bag,” a deep voice intoned. Suddenly I could see, though as I turned my head I couldn’t see hide nor hair of whoever had removed my mask.
I was in a small, smoky chamber, surrounded by antique furniture, enormous clocks, and the stuffed heads of African game. Before me, in an enormous leather armchair, sat a man in a dark suit, head wreathed in shadow and cigar smoke. That deep, gravelly voice rumbled at me once more.
“Sit down.”
I looked around. I couldn’t see another chair. Should I sit on the sideboard? The rhino’s head? I looked back at the shadowy figure and shrugged helplessly. “There’s no chair.”
There was a pause, followed by a throaty chuckle. “Well done. You passed the test.” Suddenly the man rose, and swept past me. “Follow,” he barked, and I turned and hurried out the door with him, into another corridor, panting as I trotted after the back of his rapidly-receding, smoke-encircled head.
This hallway was different. Less extravagant, it was floored with large stone slabs, and instead of portraits of Labor figures covering the walls, we were instead watched over by the bulging eyes of a cornucopia of historical figures. Here was Cleopatra, signing the Accord. Here was Alexander the Great, nationalising the banks. And perhaps most poignantly, here was William the Conqueror, implementing GroceryChoice.
As I hurried to keep up, I flipped open my pad, hoping to get some insights into the inner workings of the machine I had entered. “Where exactly are we?” was my first question – always a good place to start for a journalist in any situation.
“You’re in the headquarters of the most efficient, effective, and ruthless political organisation the world has ever known,” he replied, without turning. “You are heading towards the nerve centre of the engine room of the inner sanctum of the brains trust of the entire country, and by extension, the world.”
“So this is where the decisions get made?” I gasped, cigar smoke streaming into my nostrils.
“This is where everything gets made,” he growled. “Decisions, policy, lamingtons – EVERYthing comes out of here. Without authorisation from us, no Labor Party branch dares breathe.”
“And with authorisation?”
“Well they do dare breath, obviously”. We walked on for a while in a slightly awkward silence. As turned a corner and the smell of ammonia filled the air, I managed another question.
“Why is the ALP so secretive?”
“Wouldn’t you be secretive, if you knew how determined your enemies were to destroy you?” came the barked response. “Wouldn’t you hide yourself away in a secure fortress, if you knew that the minute you stick your head outside it’d be sliced off, by the Liberals, by the Nationals, by the Greens, by the unions?”
“But the unions are on your side,” I protested, for which I received a short, sharp laugh and what sounded like a spitting noise. I tried again: “So you stay bunkered in here out of fear?”
“Yes! Fear that we shall be forestalled, that the great Labor project will be stymied by the forces arrayed against us.”
“And what is the great Labor project?” I asked, wading through the stagnant water we had somehow found ourselves up to our knees in.
“It’s the Light on the Hill!” he cried. “Justice! Equality! Social cohesion! A fairer future for our children!”
“So you – ” I began, but he was in full flight, puffing from his cigar even as he bellowed and expectorated and leapt lightly from crocodile to crocodile.
“Equitable workplace relations arrangements!” he roared. “Quality education and healthcare for all! Sustainable economic growth! Free trade! Small business! Open markets! Secure borders!”
“I’m not sure – ”
“Family values! Equitable religion for all! Sustainable censorship! Deregulation! Red tape! Green energy! Yellow perils! Fear! Misery! Desolation! ALL SHALL DIE!” He came to a solid steel door, and knocked eight times in a sort of calypso rhythm. “That, Mr Pobjie, is the Labor project. No less than the very re-structuring of society itself into something resembling extremely closely what we already have, but with more solar water heaters. Oh yes, you may call it Utopian, but we believe it is attainable, with a bit of elbow grease.”
There was another awkward pause, and then the steel door swung open, and we stepped into…
A pleasant pastel-hued lounge room, filled with the scent of pine needles and the sound of soft jazz piano coming from a small iPod dock in one corner. On the couch sat three men in long brown robes, hoods hiding their faces. One of them beckoned to me to take a seat on a nearby ottoman. I did so, relieved to be able to rest my feet and to no longer have to shake turtles off my trouser legs.
One of the hooded figures spoke. “We understand you have some questions,” he hissed, in a voice that sounded like a man hissing. I felt a strange emotion I was unfamiliar with, a sort of terror mixed with arousal mixed with overwhelming sadness mixed with a deep respect for party conferences.
“Yes, sir,” I said, opening my pad again. “I want to know why the Labor Party lost its way. When did it stop speaking for the people, and start speaking for a dark cabal of secretive overlords making decisions on behalf of membership without consultation or accountability? When did being a member of the ALP become a pointless exercise? When did the party become less about sharing wealth and opportunity more widely, and more about concentrating as much power as possible in the hands of the unelected and unqualified backroom powerbrokers? When did policy become secondary to the relentless obeisance to focus groups? How is it that a party founded on principles of fairness and social justice has been degraded to an ineffectual rump of political timeservers and careerist machine men, interested only in numbers, internecine squabbling, and consolidating narrow power bases within an insular, delusional party administration without the slightest inkling of, or interest in, the goings-on in the real world beyond their adaptability for purposes of political power-retention, the detachment from reality having exceeded reasonable bounds to such an extent that even possessing control of government now seemingly comes second to possessing control of the tiny minority of citizens still blind or cynical enough to call themselves ‘Labor Party members’” I took a breath. “How, sir, did this happen?”
There was silence for a moment. The jazz seemed even louder, even more relaxing. A small butler offered me a spinach puff. The hooded men seemed to be stroking their chins. Then the middle one stood, and placed a hand on my shoulder.
“These are all good questions,” he said quietly, “but they come from a place of ignorance. If you knew anything of the reality of politics, you wouldn’t need to ask these questions. You would know how things work. You would know the way of the world.”
I gazed up at the hood, and suddenly felt an overwhelming urge, such as I had not felt for many years: an urge to actually learn about politics. “Tell me more, sir,” I said, munching on my puff.
“I will,” he said, “but be warned, your life will never be the same again.”
“So what’s the catch?” I asked, chuckling heartily. The butler joined in, but nobody else did.
“What you have to understand,” began one of the seated hoods, “is that this country is not run by the government, nor by the corporations, nor even – despite appearances – by the Greens. This country is run here, by us, in this room. Here, let us show you.” And with that he reached over the arm of the couch and took hold of the lamp sitting on the small occasional table. He gave the lamp an almighty yank, and suddenly the enormous photo of Stalin that covered one wall swung back, revealing a huge and complex control panel, covered with flashing lights, levers and dials. “Here is where the country is run!”
I stood and walked closer, peering at the controls on the wall. Each button and lever was labelled, with things like “monetary policy settings”, “border security”, “fluoride release”, “law-abiding citizen disarmament” and so on.
“You see,” said the third hood, “we need to keep the Labor Party in a constant state of turmoil, engaging in endless civil war, tearing itself apart with impotent disputation, stumbling from PR catastrophe to policy brain-spasm like a wounded elephant, constantly promising renewal and reform and constantly disappointing, perennially commissioning reviews, and most of all, obsessing interminably about the merits of the factional system; in order that nobody learns that the entire nation is controlled on one vaguely retro-styled wall in a stylish modern lounge room by three men in hoods.”
I was, to be honest, surprised. Although I had long suspected that “something was going on” in this country, I had always assumed it had something to do with Ray Martin. This development was, in about 55% of its details, unexpected. “But…but why?” I sputtered. “Would it really be so disastrous if the electorate knew that democracy was a complete sham and their lives were at the mercy of creepy sort-of-monk guys? I think they mostly suspect that anyway.”
“NO!” shouted the standing man. “They can never know. The result would be anarchy, disorder and tragedy, if the people were to ever discover…who is really in power.”
“Who is really in power,” his colleagues repeated, rising from the couch and taking their places either side of their comrade. They lifted their hands to their hoods. “Prepare yourself,” they droned, in unison, and threw back their cowls.
I stared for a second, and then screamed, the scream of the truly damned. For before stood three ordinary, nondescript men, wearing robes…with no faces. Beneath their conservatively styled hair, the fronts of their heads were utterly smooth and bereft of features.
Still screaming at the horror of it all, suddenly I felt a rough hand on my shoulder, and turned to see my guide from earlier, his face no longer wreathed in smoke. And I screamed again, as I beheld his visage, for his entire head was an enormous nose.
“The interview is over,” snarled one massive nostril, and everything went black.
When I awoke, I was stripped to the waist, bathed in sweat, and lying by the pool on the deck of the cruise ship Dawn Princess. Beside me was a poorly-typed copy of the story you have just read, and yet of which I had no recollection beyond some deep bite marks on both ankles and certain vague ideas about Cheryl Kernot.
Was it a dream? I’ll never be certain one way or another. But still, the story had to be told, and I will leave the Australian people to make up their own minds, about the Faceless Men of Sussex Street.
Wednesday, January 26, 2011
From the Border Mail, 27/1/11
Have you been wondering why this country is in such trouble?
No need to wonder: Greg Wild is here to explain it to you!
So I'm glad we cleared that up.
No need to wonder: Greg Wild is here to explain it to you!
Government is unconstitutional
IT is most important that Australians be brought up to date with the current status of the Australian Parliament and the republican movement.
The method of constitutional change being pursued at this time without the realisation of all Australians and without referendums is the alteration of the 1901 language of the constitution.
The land masses Victoria and NSW were changed in 1980 by an unlawful judgment of the High Court (Ward vs the Queen).
In this case those responsible for proper evidence left out the position of the original surveyed line and included a section 5 of an invalid part of an Act for Better Government 1855 which was not Crown approved and too late to effect the Separation Act of 1850.
The word "discrimination" is practised in Australia by the Australian government.
Indigenous people were Australian people or residents of a state in the constitution in 1901 and therefore equally treated.
The world "reasonable" appears in section 100 of the constitution but today applies to illegal agreements.
Today's prime minister isn't qualified to hold the office in the 1901 meaning because she refuses to take the proper oath inter alia.
She was sworn in by the solicitor general, not the governor general; did not win the last election and does not recognise the right of the people's parliament to defeat legislation.
There is no authority or responsibility to legislate something called climate change without a referendum to include it in the constitution.
Tony Abbott might have been prime minister but the majority of his party are republicans and therefore do not recognise referendums.
The Liberals are no longer a Westminster party.
GREG WILD, Corryong
So I'm glad we cleared that up.
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