Id like to address the other rhetorical bugbear Im seeing a lot of at the moment, the attitude that we have no right to complain about the budget because at least its not [some crisis somewhere else], but first I need to discuss a matter of scope. Facebook, as a device for social interaction, has a very limited scope. It allows us access to each other and to engage in discussion about things that affect us, but very little else. Contrary to what the plethora of photo campaigns, petitions, and shared statuses claim, Facebook does not amplify our individual political (and especially not geopolitical) voices. I dont talk about solutions for the problems in Syria, the missing girls in Nigeria, the Israel-Palestine conflicts, or any number of other major global issues because I have no say in it. I might have the answer and I certainly have opinions, but I have no voice to interfere with those issues, so I dont often discuss them on Facebook. What I do have a voice in, as do all of you, is Australias politics. I voted, I even did it below the line, and although Im not happy with how it went, I accept that this is the party whose campaign and priorities were chosen by the majority of Australians to lead us in to the future. So, yes, it angers me when they abandon those promises and priorities, so that our leadership is now pursuing an agenda nobody voted for or approved. So, yes, it scares me that the Australia I thought I knew is about to be subsumed by a way of life dedicated to, and even designed for, entrenching socio-economic borders. So, yes, I am affronted by the idea that the people supposedly acting on my behalf would not only support an oppressive regime in its human rights abuses, but be perpetrating some of its own in the name of protecting us from some invented cultural threat that feels more like racism than nationalism. And I have every right to feel that way. And I am extremely thankful to live in a country where those are my problems and I am allowed an opportunity to express my distaste publicly. The reason I rail about the Budget and not Syria, the reason I criticise the F-35 and not Vladimir Putin, the reason I call for the release of Asylum Seekers and not the schoolgirls of Nigeria is because I have a voice in those issues and so do you. And I want you to be involved. I want you to care. I want you to want Australia to be better than this, to be the welcoming, egalitarian, and above all else compassionate country we all claim it is, but know in our hearts it isnt. I want every child in this country to have access to the education they need to become whatever they want to be and I want our country to provide as much opportunity for an artist as for an electrician. I want everyone on our soil to have access to free and readily available healthcare. I want the young to be able to work and for the venerable to be able to retire. Most of all, I want you to be informed and engaged. I want you to get angry or ecstatic about the policies you care about, because thats how we build a better system. We talk about it.
Posted on: Wed, 14 May 2014 22:35:39 +0000