satire
19 Jun 2008
Is this the Face of Australia?
Or are we a nation of whiners, cowards and Beazleys?
If there's one thing that defines Australian political culture, it is deranged, uncontrollable violence. Whether it's Mark Latham savaging cabbies or Tony Abbott feasting on human flesh at the full moon, there is nothing we love more than our elected representatives laying the smack down.Which is why it was so refreshing to see NSW Education Minister John Della Bosca (Italian for "of the Bosca") and his wife, Federal Labor MP Belinda Neal, kick up their heels and indulge in a spot of good old-fashioned peasant abuse recently at Gosford's Iguanas Waterfront Bar.
When asked by staff to move tables, Della Bosca and Neal reportedly reacted with abusive language, threats, and according to some accounts, the brandishing of broken whisky bottles. Neal apparently threatened the workers' jobs, and the club's liquor licence, screaming "Don't you know who I am?" at the cowering Iguana serfs, which was hardly fair to them, given that she is a backbench MP and nobody on earth was likely to know who she was. I for one am still not sure, and apparently Della Bosca himself has denied all knowledge of her existence.
Naturally, Neal and Della Bosca completely reject the allegations, and have offered as proof statutory declarations from their close personal friends and an apology from the manager of the club, Steve "by name and nature" Twitchin, which Della Bosca wrote himself just to make sure it was completely sincere. On the other hand, as proof of their allegations, the bar staff offer their own sworn statements - along with the fact that Belinda Neal is a psychopath. This may seem a harsh, or even pointlessly vicious and immoral thing for me to write, but that's journalism for you.
And unfortunately, Ms Neal has form on this issue. Two weeks before the Iguanas incident, she was sent off in a soccer match for repeatedly kicking a rival player, who subsequently said she feared Neal would be "waiting for me in the car park", echoing the deepest fears of myriad parliamentarians who even now scurry furtively to their cars at the end of the day, forever glancing over shoulders lest Neal come looming up behind them with a crowbar.
The reaction of the couple's political masters has been interesting. Della Bosca's boss, NSW Premier Morris Iemma - known to his most loyal supporters as "Australia's most useless man" - moved with typical speed and forthrightness to do nothing, before eventually standing his Education Minister down, as his opposite number, Opposition Leader Barry O'Farrell, declared the issue was a "cover-up of Watergate proportions". This measured and thoughtful and in no way moronic assessment seemingly prompted the media to coin the phrase "Iguanagate", in yet another demonstration of journalists' willingness to go the extra mile in their pursuit of insight and originality.
Meanwhile Prime Minister Kevin Rudd ordered Neal to undergo anger management counselling. Neal agreed to this, accepting that the continued string of incidents which she says didn't happen demonstrated a disturbing pattern of blameless behaviour which should be addressed by professional help in working through all the lies people tell about her. It is a similar case to Sam Newman, who is currently undergoing a similar course of counselling to overcome his issues with uptight bitches who can't take a joke.
Speaking of Sophie Mirabella, the Liberal MP has come out with a scathing attack on Neal's ferocious ways, stung by Neal's parliamentary claim that Mirabella's impending baby would be "born a demon". This despite the fact that Neal very graciously withdrew the offensive comments she says she never made, indicating that perhaps Neal is exhibiting a pattern not of violent and abusive behaviour, but of making amends for fictional events.
Which brings me to the problematic part of this whole affair. Rudd's disciplinary action is, clearly, based on the premise that things like threatening restaurant staff and kicking young women are, to some extent, "wrong". Is this so? What sort of parliamentarians do we want representing us? Do we want weak, insipid, "polite" politicians? Do we want the kind of people who calmly acquiesce to reasonable requests from hard-working hospitality staff? The kind of people who see a woman on the ground and simply give her a hand up?
I say no! I say we want strong leaders, people who are confident enough in themselves to say, yes, I am better than other people, and I am willing to be as violent and maniacal as it takes to prove it. Can a leader who won't bully low-paid workers be relied upon to bully terrorists? Can a person unwilling to lay the boot into a defenceless young woman be relied upon to lay the boot into Japanese whalers? Maybe instead of sending Belinda Neal to anger management counselling, Kevin Rudd should send himself to Don't Be Such A Pussy counselling.
What it comes down to is this: the Prime Minister can't handle honesty. He can't handle the fact that Neal and Della Bosca treated the Iguana staff as what they are: social inferiors. We've all been to restaurants, we all know what sort of people work there. Classless, illiterate, greasy people with unpleasant nasal voices who are always judging you when you ask for no onions. Threaten their jobs? They should be grateful the power couple didn't stab them with forks. Rudd can't handle the fact that soccer is a tough game, a game where you either kick or get kicked, a game where failure to commit battery constitutes nothing less than moral cowardice.
This hatred of honesty is endemic in public life. The Mirabella affair shows it up clearly - we're expected to cluck our tongues and make disapproving noises about her unborn child being called a demon, without even considering whether or not Neal was right. Maybe Mirabella's baby will be a demon. She's a Liberal, after all - does nobody comprehend simple genetics?
It's no wonder our country is descending into a hellhole of uncontrollable inflation and child pornography when we have a Prime Minister so beholden to political correctness that he will punish his MPs for standing up for demonstrating strength and decisiveness. If Australia is going to bestride the world stage as it should, it needs more anger, more violence, more arrogant presumption of unearned privilege.
Let's be frank: Belinda Neal is Australia, and if we don't want to become a nation of whiners, cowards and Beazleys, we'd better realise it quick smart.
Delicious
Digg
StumbleUpon
Reddit
Newsvine
Facebook
Kwoff
Discuss this article
To participate in the discussion Sign in or Register
We can’t afford the bread anymore so we are just left with the circuses.
Ben, Ben, Ben…. Thank you as always!
Being born in Gosford hospital and growing up in Central Coast NSW, I am wondering what really in the hell has happened to the NSW Labour party? whilst not watching has a bunch of thugs taken over???
I think this is the most ridiculous incident for one main reason, apart from the fact that she was a backbencher which is as you say part of the reason they "did not know who she is" second being - Iguana’s used to be called the Yacht club and this is traditionally a strong Liberal hang out, they could not have cared who she was… Maybe she should get to know her own electorate instead of it getting to know her!
I am waiting for your democrats demise story next week Ben??? you surely must have a little-wittle bit to say about that!
The Democrats? I’m, er, not familiar with this group…are they like a band or something?
Oh no, not another terrifying creature to watch out for in Australia!
FYI BPobjie,
The Democrats had a few hits late last century and looked to be going places but then their lead singer left the band to do back up for Beasley and the Shadow Cabinet. Apparently she was screwing the bass player. Beasley was an OK song writer but couldn’t get a hit and I think they have a new singer/songwriter now.
The Democrats were still gigging around at RSL clubs and school fetes but the lineup had changed and their fan base just dried up. Shame really because their seminal album ‘Keep the Bastards Honest’ had a real ring to it.
Col
Give us a break…of what consequence for the nation, or even a single electorate represented by Ms Neal, does this have? I thought New Matilda would spare us the media beat-ups so common in the ordinary media.After 11 and 1/2 years of Teflon, with the media coating it up for Howard, suddenly the blow torch is out for Labor.
And what of the fact that Brendan Nelson’s chief of staff assisted Peter Reith (whose son stole form taxpayers by using a phone card of his father’s) in the Children Overboard lies, or that Downer didn’t read briefs about $300 million going to Saddam, or Howard ignoring advice and Blix and the UN on invading Iraq? Get real.
You east coasters really do love to clutch your little parochial scruffs to your beating hearts, don’t you?
The rest of the country couldn’t give a tinker’s cuss about Neal, the Iguana or the horror of abusing someone in a restaurant. And as for dear "heavily pregnant" flower of the east, Sophie, I’ve got grave doubts about how any kid she could have will turn out after her aggressive behaviour, which told us never to trust politicians,(aspart of a campaign to get Howard preselection) in the anti-republic campaign.And who bloinked when she abused the Deputy PM in a vile way?
Get real guys. Cut the crap, don’t spead it!
hilarious. still laughing. thanks ben
Now that Belinda Neal’s parliamentary transgressions are dealt with, let’s turn to the deeply offended Sophie Mirabella, trading for all she’s worth on the implicit virtue that goes with pending motherhood.
What was that you called across the sacred space of the House to the childless Julia Gillard, Sophie, only a day or two before Neal hurt your feelings so? Something about Julia not needing her government’s nanny tax or something?
They do say that Meg Lee’s phone number is still written on all of the toilet walls of parliament - apparently she does it all!
Just the perk up I needed on a slow Thursday afternoon, cheers Ben.
Seriously GarryB, the heading at the top says "Satire." Calling NewMatilda biased to the Liberals, is like calling John Brogden an effective leader of the NSW Liberal party. Amusing for a moment, but after thinking about it, it just doesn’t make sense.
And Garry, if you think the Blow Torch shouldn’t be out for Labor, I respectfully disagree. It should be out for anyone.. Liberal, Labor, Democrat, Family First, Green and Batman. An unwatched government is dangerous.
If there’s a pattern of physically aggressive behaviour in politicians it’s not an "Australian" phenomenon, it’s a Sydney thing. It’s no coincidence that all the MPs on the list are from NSW. The Rum Corp is alive and well, and, as ever, dragging the rest of us down.
Very entertaining article, Ben.
Here we have another "great issue" dominating Parliament, and the media - "who said what to whom" at the Iguana.
As Ben says, "hatred of honesty is endemic in public life" in Australia.
Below is a small sample of EXTREMELY IMPORTANT MATTERS that the lying, politically correct racist (PC racist), White Australian Mainstream media IGNORE in Murdochracy Australia, the Land of Flies, Lies
and Slies (spin-based untruths) .
I was invited recently, together with many writers from around the world, to comment briefly on the occasion of the 5th Anniversary of the invasion of Iraq. As a scientist in the area of thanatology (the study of the causes of death) I gave the following well-documented summation that is IGNORED by the Mainstream media of the Western Murdochracies: “we can estimate that post-invasion violent plus non-violent excess deaths in Occupied Iraq will total 1.7 - 2.2 million as of March 2008. In addition one can estimate 1.7 million Sanctions excess deaths (1990-2003), 1.2 million under-5 infant deaths under Sanctions, 0.2 million Iraqi Gulf War deaths, 0.6 million post-invasion infant deaths (UNICEF) and 4.5 million Iraqi refugees (UNHCR). This is an Iraqi Holocaust and an Iraqi Genocide as defined by the UN Genocide Convention” (see: http://www.brusselstribunal.org/Messages190308.htm#polya ).
Nobel Laureate Harold Pinter was more succinct in his contribution that immediately preceded mine (see: http://www.brusselstribunal.org/Messages190308.htm#pinter ): “The invasion of Iraq was a criminal act. The occupation of Iraq remains a criminal act. The British government under Blair and the United States administration are war criminals. It’s as simple as that.”
Of course the horrendous statistics (from top US medical epidemiologists, UN agencies and others) and the important opinion of an outstanding British Nobel Laureate are IGNORED by the Aussie Mainstream from the extreme right wing Coalition right up to Religious Right Rudd (R3) who all think that "who said what to whom" at the Iguana is of infinitely greater importance than what outstanding conservative but humanitarian American economist Dr Paul Craig Roberts ("Father of Reaganomics") and other outstanding writers call the "Iraqi Genocide" (see: http://www.counterpunch.org/roberts10162007.html ), an Iraqi Holocaust in which the Australian Lib-Labs remain deeply complicit.
Peace is the only way but Silence kills and Silence is complicity.
Yeah Garry B, right on. If we over here on the East Coast had a bona fide chairsniffer as the leader of the opposition the whole Iguana guano would have seemed lame.
What a shame we can’t also get a fat Boss Hog panama-wearing fruitcake ex-premier to raise the level and complexity of our corruption. Closing down a bar is nothing to a state where people can get good money to close and open mines.
And please don’t have a go at Sophie, she is positively glowing with motherhood, especially her red, red demonic eyes.
Very funny article mate.
You managed to take the piss out of evryone in this sory saga of the night of the Iguana.
I liked the "stop being a pussy " classes for Kevin the most. Nearly choked on my skim milk latte.
Along the lines of "The Aunty Jack Show", Belinda could start her own show:
Call it "Night on the Town" and feature such lines as "Give me an alcopop or I’ll give you a taste of my bloody soccer boots"
"Do you know who I am, I’ve forgotten?"
"Take your demon out of the house if you want to breastfeed it"
A sequel is pregnant with anticipation.
"The barren and the beautiful" could be hit.
Ha ha ha
"theHays" missed my point. The media propped Howard up for years coating him with teflon and invincibility and failing even to get access to detention centres, to nail Reith, to explain the deaths of SIEV X, to ask why Ruddock detained over 200 Australian residents, why a minister for Foreign Affairs shouldn’t get sacked when he publicly admits to not reading his ministerial briefs, and these issues have never been on the radar for weeks on end. Enter Ms Neal! Suddenly brawling with a restauranteur matters! The media were utterly complicit. And all the while they berated and mocked the absense of an Opposition. Nelson is no better than Beazley and the Coalition is utterly divided, but he gets the mainstream media’s undivided support. Miraculously, now the media are obliged to apply the blow torch! No one in their right mind thinks there should be no blow torch, with the uttermost respect, theHays. Many of us are just tired of the Australian-Murdoch system of God chooses the Liberals to rule with media sycophants in full support, but when Labor rules, get out the blow torch! It’s the absolute inconsistency. And a media that has slept through eleven and a half years has suddenly discovered high immigration rates, overpriced housing, rising interest rates, a lack of political accountability, a Murray River disaster, rising oil prices, global warming etc and all of them have just arisen in the LAST SIX MONTHS? Sure, bring on the blow torch! On the media as well! To find out where it’s been hiding for the past decade plus! And why!
I deny any affiliation with the media. I have never met the media, and have no knowledge of their activities.
the REAL farce was when they called a senate enquiry (?) into whether she called someone’s baby evil !!!
WTF ??? are there any pressing issues besides that ??
Meanwhile fascism has triumphed in Zimbabwe. Do you think the world gives a rat’s arse about some bad-tempered hick politicians trying to throw their weight around …… or maybe that’s how it starts, the slippery road of abuse of office ?
Throw the bums out ! Before it is too late.
Joe
Fascism triumphs in Zimbabwe because it triumphs in the US, UK, Canada and Australia.
Monkeys see, monkeys do
Putting aside for a moment the racist implications of what you assert, Expat, (monkeys !?) and this smug whitefella belief in the power of their own shining example and the corresponding passivity of everyone else, in what way are the US, UK, Canada and Australia fascist ? Do you mean in their own countries or abroad, like in Iraq ?
So what do we recommend about Zimbabwe ? Even if the US, etc. ARE fascist ? What do we do ?
Joe
if you think calling someone monkey racist, you are as duped as the rest.
zimbabwe, burma, afghanistan, iraq, south america. dictators everywhere
Expat,
Yes I do, I do think it is racist. More importantly, despite your attempt at a cop-out, what does the world do about dictatorships including the one in Zimbabwe ?
South America is not just one country, by the way, and where in South America are there dictatorships now ? As far as I can tell, there is a democratically elected government in almost every South American country.
Well, I guess this is is more important issue than anything to do with Patricia Neal (wasn’t she married once to Roald Dahl?) even if she has battled a stroke to get back into the NSW parliament.
Joe
firstly, you dont even know my ethnicity so i would try your white guilt minimisation session online.
second, McCain advisor resigned for having lobbied for burma, same for Hillary’s advisor for some south american country.
Saying democracy is like Orwell saying "Everyone was created equal but there are people more equal than others"
in other words, total rubbish
Expat,
I’m certainly not trying to minimise your guilt, if you feel any after making those racist remarks. If it fits with your ethnicity or gender, go for it.
Democracy in South American countries (plural): to the extent that they have held valid elections, and governments have been formed in accordance with the wishes of those electorates. What is your problem with that ? How is Geoerge Orwell relevant ?
There are more important issues than Brenda McNeil’s hissy.
Joe
you dont read too well and my bad for missing a *NOT in the first line
and congrats on knowing there there more than one country in south america.
here is your wonderous democracy in action *sacarcasm
http://kangaroocourtaustralia.com/
obviously there are more important issues
Putting aside ethicity for the moment, Now i can say that as an atheist i can call anyone a monkey and it would be true?
Would it NOT?
But if u know me you would say that i am catholic
I’m pretty sure it would only be true if the person you called a monkey was actually a monkey, expat. And to be honest, in such a situation the monkey would be unlikely to pay much attention to your designation.
It would, however, be incandescent with simian rage at your failure to capitalise the word "I".
So anyway, Belinda Neal: man or monkey?
Duh. Atheist. Probably believes in evolution. All humans and monkeys are descended from the same primate ancestors. Oh, I get it ! So you can slag Africans. No, expat, you still come across as an insensitive person, perhaps a racist, but certainly an illiterate fool. You’ve proven Orwell’s declaration, that some people are more equal than others.
Joe
Good Lord!
We really have come a long way from what was a pretty funny piece of satire haven’t we.
Expat, we are not monkeys, nor are our African brothers and sisters. We are all great apes, although as Joe has pointed out some apes are greater than others.
Joe, I understand that Zimbabwe is your number one issue but you could have at least made some attempt at a segue rather than just launching straight into it. You must be a wheeze at parties.
Party Guest 1: G’day mate, fancy a bit of this delightful cheese?
Joe: I can’t beleive you can stand there eating cheese while fascism has triumphed in Zimbabwe!
Party Guest 1: I am going to go and talk to someone else.
BPobjie, anyone can see that Belinda is a chimpanzee. I await the release of footage of her rampaging through the Parliamentary courtyard ripping down bamboo and shrubs and beating her chest. If you ever get to interview her don’t go without a tranquilizer gun.
We ought to consider replacing all our MPs and their staff with simians. If we gave them all typewritiers we would have a better chance of coming up with some decent legislation, or at least an Australian version of War and Peace. Plus question time would be much more civil and we could legitimately pay them peanuts.
Modelling for the position of Associate Editor is…….
I deeply apologise, Doctor, for mentioning the inconvenient issue of Zimbabwe some entries back. So what’s your favourite cheese ?
Joe
well the expression is "monkey see monkey do"; it doesnt say "ape see ape do".
How s that for YOUR illiteracy?
Hi Joe,
I don’t mean to denigrate your concern about Zimbabwe. I am sickened by what looks like another in a long line of disasters for the African people. I saw Foreign Correspondant last night and have very little stomach for even gentle remonstrations this morning. Good luck with your campaign.
Blue brie, on crusty bread rather than crackers, for the record.
Expat, I’ve just looked up in my little golden book of monkey sayings and and it appears you are right. You are both literate and, it seems, literal. I won’t be engaging you in a battle of wits anytime soon.
I remember my first lesson in Logic 101 at Monash:
P1: The expression is "monkey see monkey do".
P2: I am an atheist.
C: Therefore, it is accurate for me to call black people monkeys.
This is what Aristotle called a "classic" neologism.
Logic doesnt seem to be the case for racism.
Just because a few white people jumping up and down over trivial matters like semantics, just to ease their white guilt doesnt mean that are actually helping any cause. As a matter of fact the trivialness of the "monkey" denigrates what true racism really is.
Political correctness was designed to hide real racism and discrimination. All it does is hide under white hood and burning cross, just to exaggerate
this piece of satire would be funny if it were NOT true.
the Big Ugly Australian rearing its head once again: Intervention in Africa is why Africa in is the shithouse.
Now if only Australia would clean up its own backyard: how about the racist NT intervention?
the link above shows the rule of law is non-existent
http://kangaroocourtaustralia.com
Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commision and John von Doussa NOT ONLY violates international and national laws, but complicit in their violations
Attiki Fetta on Sao - simple but delicious, while we are on the subject of cheese.
How is it racist to protect Aboriginal children from sexual abuse and Aboriginal women from getting their heads bashed in ?
How is it racist to come down on the few Aboriginal men who are violent or sexually abusive ? How is it racist to move towards, ever so slowly, requiring people to work if there is work available, or to work on enterprises if they could be initiated in their own towns ?
How is it racist to require people to look after their kids ?
How is it racist to require parents to ensure that their kids go to school ?
How is it racist to protect grandmothers from being robbed under the pretext of ‘demand sharing’ ?
How is it racist to provide proper health services ? How is it racist to provide the conditions to allow women and children to have a decent night’s sleep ?
Thank God for the Intervention: of course, it will have problems, and the people involved will make mistakes, and services will be patchy - across half a million square miles, bigger than SA or NSW, on lousy roads, but I hope like hell that it continues and brings about real change, positive change, in the lives of fellow Australians. Down with Apartheid, from Right OR Left. Equal rights for ALL Australians.
Joe
yeap ONLY aborigines have those problems.
Need a bone or should i throw you a banana? with cheese
NOW i call you RACIST…..time for you to go ask von Doussa the definition of racism. Looks like the HIGH COURT IS BEING ASKED THAT AT THE MOMENT.
And i hear the Australia Medical Association pulled out because they could NOT get a bigger piece of the pie??
Ugly Ugly Ugly
Expat,
I was dedicated to self-determination for thirty five years: we packed up our kids and went to live in an Aboriginal settlement for four years, and have since hoped and prayed that settlements (communities) would lift their game and take advantage of the resources, the ample resources, that they had. No, they didn’t. I have had to admit to myself, in just the past couple of years, that ‘Self-determination’ was a cover for lifelong welfare - no hunting and gathering - and the degradation of human existence, all with the various government bodies turning a blind eye. Thank god, no more: at last, there is a slim chance that the women and kids will be protected, that they will be able to live safer lives, and that some of them will be able to escape from the ghastly Apartheid which my mob, on the Left, have condemned them to for thirty five years.
Joe
Have you seen any sexual abuse, evidence of such, or degradation, or welfare cheats more than the urban monkeys?
Intervention means nuclear dump to me
Then you are not familiar with the complexities of the Intervention, expat. One group on Muckaty Station near Tennant Creek has asked for a nuclear dump to be set up on their land, but that has nothing to do with the Intervention. Unless, of course, you have documentation otherwise :) I don’t think that it is a sensible idea, but it is up to the Aboriginal people who own the land themselves - that’s called self-determination.
Why do you keep using the offensive term ‘monkey’ ? And what has urban got to do with it ? And yes, I have seen the results of sexual abuse and some of the suicides that result, and yes, I do know of women who have been beaten to death. Young fellas too, actually. And yes, I’ve seen some horrifying examples of degradation, over forty five years, more so in more recent years.
Joe
i think the howard government got their info from you ?
And you are a fascist South African, expat, which is why you support Apartheid for Aboriginal people ? See, we can throw insults at each other equally, and it gets nobody anywhere. Ad rem, amice, non ad hominem.
We spent those years in an Aboriginal settlement from 1973 to 1978: I was a laborer there, and one of my jobs was emergency (i.e. night) driver: one of my jobs was, two weeks running, or maybe three I forget, to run a young girl into hospital at 2.30 am the nights after pay-day with blood streaming down her head after her beloved bashed her head in, one week with a tree branch, the next with a tyre lever. He’s sitting in the back seat, smirking while she’s sobbing ‘you c——, X, you c—-.’ That would have been about 1975, I think. She was later (about 1985) beaten to death by another boyfriend somewhere around Swan Reach or Mannum.
So I guess whatever Brenda O’Neill did to anybody at the Iguana Cafe is a bit trivial compared to that. Still, nobody has the right to throw their weight around and abuse their power.
So anything which stops the beating and murder of Aborigina lwomen gets my vote. Do the crime, you do the time, that’s my viewpoint, especially gutless pricks who attack women or kids, Black or White, just because the ythink the ycan get away wit hit. And as long as you are around, expat, they’ll be OK.
Joe
so you want the last word, Joe cool? I will let you after this post
You silly little monkey; do you think people would get all soppy and think what a great little monkey angel that you are? and that your little story is about some violent monkey like many other violent monkeys everywhere, or about racist lack to provision of healthcare, policing, education to Aborigines.
People get bashed in domestic violence everyday, even the Gosford Council member’s wife. Send in the Army.
I hope this has been a carthasis for your white guilt. And yet i have seen no jailed terms OR importantly trials of anyone. Come on, cook a few crooked trials to save face. NO translators? just make up the evidence; you seem to be a credible witness !! NOT
"One of the first steps we are going to become involved in as an Organization of Afro-American Unity will be to work with every leader and other organization in this country interested in a program designed to bring your and my problem before the United Nations … We must take it out of the hands of the United States government.”
– Malcolm X, Speech at Founding Rally of the OAAU, 28 June 1964
http://kangaroocourtaustralia.com/
Expat,
Domestic violence and murder of women: the chances of being murdered in Australia, male or female, are about 1.5 in every 100,000 annually. The chances of being murdered if you are an Aboriginal woman in SA’s north-west is about one in six hundred.
In the NT, Aboriginal people make up 28 % of the population. Over the past three years, almost every woman murdered there has been Aboriginal, almost invariably by her Aboriginal partner.
Actually I feel absolutely no white guilt: I paid my dues many years ago, in my opinion. What I might contribute from now on is a bonus - or a curse, depending how it turns out.
Cases of child abuse commonly take years to reach court, and you surely know that. And there won’t be any need to cook them, there’ll be plenty, just look over the border at WA or the Cape.
Joe
Hey guys…haven’t we strayed a little from the topic?
Thanks GarryB,
I’ve tried to lighten the mood, really I have. I would hate to see what happens when newmatilda does a story on Zimbabwe or the NT intervention. Probably expat will then go into a confusing diatribe about the NSW state government.
I am abandoning this strand forthwith.
Yeah, i gues there are two sorts of people:
(a) those who want only trivia, and run a mile from serious issues, back to the eastern suburbs;
(b) those who can’t stand trivia, and gravitate to serious issues, even when it seems impossible to segue from other people’s trivia of choice to their serious issue of choice. Bastards.
Joe
i guess i lied :D
c) those who put band-aid solutions: nice sorry speech Kevin07
d) and those who know the root cause.
them bastards
btw, if newmaltilda did an NT intervention piece, we will know it turn into a fluffy piece of white guilt from this thread, so keep this thread up and mark my words…..
Then there are
(e) those who cop out from it all - see (a).
Joe
them monkeys you got monitoring this thread are working hard, very hard. LOL
you must have been patting yourselves on the back since the aborigines got their vote
Wow, at least I got you guys agreeing on something, which is to say how shallow I am.
I might suggest (what are we up to?)
F: People who think deeply about many issues but don’t use that as a stick to beat their peers. Who work at a youth service with disadvantaged young people every day, most of them aboriginal, but avoid using that as a bartering chip in largely academic arguments between curmudgeons.
Those who can see that complexity is endemic to any of the problems that befoul our world and any solutions we put up to meet those problems. Folk who understand that single-minded thought or rhetoric is no substitute for engagement with local communities that can actually be effected by our actions.
These people might even see the difference between taking an issue seriously and taking themselves way too seriously. I might even suggest that these people have become observers of the cosmic joke that is human existance and taken the only path that enables them to survive it. Life is pain, you jerks. I choose to try and smile through it.
Expat, I don’t monitor shit for anyone. I monitor this strand because I enjoy the image of you hopping around your computer with glee or rage depending on the response to your hackneyed and blinkered posts. I would set your thoughts as required reading for anyone needing a lesson in how not to think; or how to not think. GFY - see if you can work out what that acronym stands for.
Joe, the Eastern Suburbs… I’m hurt. Born Merrylands, raised Orange and Bathurst. Inner West for the last twenty years. I get a headache if I go east of Surrey Hills. Please don’t mistake my interest in joy for lack of substance or pursuit of glamour.
I’m back for the duration. Lets see where it goes, but don’t forget the higher the horse the greater the fall. Expat, I know this is combination of two phrases, please accept I did it on purpose and try not to point out the obvious.
Sorry, Dr Dog, I forgot this was all about important people.
F = B with a smile on your lips and a song in your heart.
I certainly didn’t mean to insult you, as a Bankstown kid myself. My granny died in Surrey Hills and my granddad in Redfern.
But doesn’t the thought of more than twenty thousand Indigenous university graduates, a hundred thousand years of effort paying off, doesn’t that fill you with joy ? I just think it is fantastic ! And an average of three and four every day graduating, five by 2010 ! Can you imagine the poe-faces of all those pseudo-Leftie racists who furrow their brows and prattle about assimilation ? Doesn’t that make you smile ?
Tertiary education = genuine self-determination, don’t you think ?
Cheers, Doc,
Joe
%100 Joe!
In fact my main advice to all the kids is to get the language and qualifications so they can give it the man. Much more effective than running from the cops, although that is a race I can guarantee they can win. But yes, education is not assimilation. Assimilation is eating shit food, getting diabetes, drinking and drugging to disguise your grief, living in a white man’s jail and dying too young to see yoyur grandchildren graduate, hopefully in law.
Until we have fully trained and qualified indigenous workers serving the needs of their people (and that would be my best case scenario) I agree that us Gubbas will have to do the best we can. As long as respect is the policy and self determination is the goal we have a lot to contribute.
Intervention seems to have a dirty ring to it, and I would like to see some changes to the NT program, but isn’t an intervention what what we do with those we love if we know they are in a mess. I have no dramas with that.
Have a great weekend, Col.
Down this way, we’re called Krinks, Doc, or Goonyas. Yes, you’re right, self-determination is the goal, the long-term goal. Many years ago, a guy named Jeff Collman wrote a piece about the paradox of government funding for self-determination - as long as funding came from outside the Aboriginal domain, then self-control would always be compromised and coopted. Vice versa, I would say, government funding agencies could also be compromised, coopted and otherwise taken over. When we lived in a ‘community’ in the seventies, I took it for granted that self-determination meant independence - that’s why we went there - and that meant economic self-sufficiency, which the community almost had when we went there - and lost almost completely within ten years.
Yes, it would be great if Indigenous graduates were to be invited back to ‘communities’. But, like any other Australians, they have no particular obligation to go to communities, since the vast, vast majority have not come from communities, but from cities, where they will most likely seek lifelong employment, as is their right.
Mind you, if all Indigenous people were gainfully employed and taking responsibility for their own affairs, there would be far less need for Indigenous social workers, welfare workers, correctional service officers, coffin-makers, etc. Communities may even make the call for enterprise managers, agronomists, planners, accountants, human resource managers, agriculturalists, horticulturalists, and even some workers. I live for the day.
Cheers,
Joe
well well the monkeys and dogs do have a sensitive bone !!
GFY to you too!!!
i see the white paternalistic instincts coming out en masse. Obama maybe able to tell black men to get their family affairs in order, not sure some white dudes who saw aborigines voting being won on Teevee when they were in diapers, can actually pat themselves on the back for the effort.
Try not to get this thread locked up for trying to pull it out to see who has the bigger one (think about it but not to much).
Until an aborigine can stand like Obama and tell you to bow, dont tell me about the thousands of graduates cleaning toilets
No, they are not cleaning toilets, although, expat, (I don’t know why but I assume you’re South African) I suppose we have an inkling of how you would have put them to work in the good old days ?
No, the vast majority of those 22,000 Indigenous university graduates are working in the fields in which they graduated: five thousand teachers, three thousand nurses, five hundred lawyers, a hundred or more doctors, a dozen vets, and more than te nthousand others in a vast range of fields. On their behalf, I apologise to all those Left-apartheid supporters who are offended by the notion of Indigenous graduates working wherever the hell they like, after graduating in whatever the hell field they like.
To get back to Bertha McNeill, who has been elected to be the servant of the people of her electorate, how easy the sense of entitlement breeds in people’s hearts. And while we are talking about cheese, you can’t go past a heaped dessertspoon of room-temperature Camembert, King Island, washed down by a schooner of Rose. That’s living.
Joe
Wow this white dude is talking for Aborigines, thats considerate of him. Maybe he thinks they cant talk for themselves all those thousands of graduates in whatever fields that he doesnt know they graduated from.
But why not he s talking for south africans as well.
here’s some cheese for ya: the surname is Neal, not Bortha.
the NT intervention is APARTHEID !!!
And btw, if i were south africans, i would be pissed off at the affirmative action in education that give advantages of one group over another as our good folks in the US are at the moments
hey joe, you are everywhere on here
http://www.newmatilda.com/2008/05/28/somebody-think-children
ever go outside and smell the real world?
Sorry GarryB, what was the topic again?
i believe it was ugly australians LOL
Expat I thought the goal was for every man to be able to stand free and refuse to bow to any other. You seem to only see in black and white, excuse the pun.
Do you really think the NT intervention is like apartheid? Or just politically? Do you really think the goals of the Australian Government is the same as that of the South Africans of that era? Are you even dimly aware of the abuses that the South African population were put to in that regime?
Do you really claim that even after the years of negative ‘special treatment’ rained down on the heads of black people in this country that any sort of tailored solutions are equally racist?
Wipe the froth from your mouth and give us some idea of your solutions expat. I can’t spek for Joe but if you represent the real world I don’t need to go outside, I can smell you from here.
Hi Doc,
Actually, I do think that the policies over the past thirty five years, particularly those pushed by Dr Coombs and the group around him, have, unintentionally reinforced a pre-existing Apartheid - with a smile and good intentions and plenty of welfare, just so long as they stay out there - but the effects were still to fix Apartheid in place more rigidly than ever.
So people in remote communities are now almost totally disarmed, powerless, uneducated, skill-less, not in a traditional economy or culture, so in lifelong unemployment, with plenty of money (for all the bullshit about poverty) for grog and drugs and pay-TV. And not in the modern economy either, although they live off it.
Can that arrangement continue ? No, of course not. How to re-integrate people back into Australian society, especially if it is clear that they have no intention or possibility of rebuilding a traditional society (of which, in any society, according to Marx, the economy is the foundation) - this will be the task of the 21st century, and there is no guarantee that we will succeed.
Meanwhile, the Government has to contemplate bringing in labour from the Pacific Islands to pick our fruit.
Joe
Love the hyperboles from monkeys. So now they are graduates from fruit picking.
i dont have answers, but i dont sit at my computer all day watching porn and spanking me monkey, thinking i have all the world’s solutions.
if it makes you feel good, who am i to stop ya
Nine thousand indigenous people are currently enrolled in university courses, and most of those will graduate in the next two or three years. That will make up around twenty eight thousand graduates - and none of them will be picking fruit.
On the other hand, all those completely unskilled young people in Indigenous settlements, currently bumming around unemployed - what do you reckon they might be doing in two or three years ?
Leave your monkey alone, Expat.
Joe
You reply a lot for someone without answers Expat.
Again the point is not whether Aboriginal people get to be graduates or fruit pickers. It is fine to be either. It is that they get to be something other than dependant on welfare and are afforded the opportunities that we have specifically denied them in the past.
You accuse others of hyperbole but you are the one taking everything to the extreme. Now you respond to genuine questions about your ideas with poorly worded abuse. You’re losing it man. You wanted me back in the discussion so that you can discuss my mastubatory habits?
Get better or get lost.