Yes, I do believe him………..but have doubts about her!

 

I believed him, thought what he said was true.
His story’s unchanged. He’s said nothing new.
But the lady protests so oft, methinks,
Increasingly the air around her stinks.

Her stories change and are embellished
In many interviews, each one relished
By her audience, the peoples’ jury!
So why is he the focus of her fury?

What did he do to deserve this hell,
The unhappy member for Dobell,
When her entitlements have swollen
To far outweigh the sum she claims he’s stolen?

Isn’t it time we really got to know her,
This ‘heroine’, this ‘whistleblower’?
Who are her friends, lovers, connections?
Why for her so much media protection?

Why do editors find it so very hard
To spot an extra ‘p’ on a phony credit card?
If investigative journos checked out his alibis
Couldn’t they prove which of them is telling lies?

 

NOTES:   The response of mainstream media to Craig Thomson’s statement to the House of Representatives on Monday has been one of derision and almost universal denial of his charge that most of them were responsible for his plight.  Not surprisingly the Opposition have used the explanation for which they have  been calling for so long as an opportunity to expand their already extended trial and condemnation of him for a so far nameless crime for which there has been no charge.

I regret that the title of my pome suggests that I think I have the right to judge Craig Thomson’s guilt or innocence and would much prefer to support the Prime Minister’s efforts to leave this matter to the  courts, if indeed a charge is ever brought against him.   Now, however,  the public debate is about his  personal credibility when weighed against the huge disbelief expressed by the Opposition in Parliament,  most media commentators and apparently public  opinion if on-line polls are anything to go by.

Not surprisingly, at my favorite blog sites, here at Cafe Whispers, The Political Sword and the Poll Bludger there is a substantial amount of support for the Member for Dobell, informed by and linked as they all are to the research done by Peter Wicks or Wixxy and published by Independent Australia.    I think that comments by people like Psyclaw are typical of those sites.  i.e. that in his opinion Craig Thomson was telling the truth.

Having ‘nailed our colors to the mast’  as he put it, in terms of our belief in Thomson’s personal credibility, there are many other questions that need answering.  For myself the most important is about the media’s failure to follow up with normal investigative journalism a story which they believe to hold such wide interest .    Given that somehow access has been given to credit card vouchers with addresses of brothels and hotels Craig Thomson is supposed to have visited why have none been contacted or efforts made to track down at least one woman who might be willing to sell her story?   As well, there is plenty of material in the printed media and on recorded broadcast interviews which show how determined Kathy Jackson is to blame Craig Thomson alone for corrupt practices at the Health Services Union which seem to predate his tenure there from 2002 to 2007, and have certainly continued since he left.

Today Fair Work Australia have set in train proceedingsagainst three HSU officers, not including Craig Thomson, but naming Jeff Jackson, ex-husband of Kathy Jackson, who figured in a scandal around ‘adult services’ almost identical to that allegedly involving the member for Dobell.  

Will They Eat Crow?

No, I don’t believe him!” said Reverend Tim,
As if  full weight of judgement lay with him.
Thousands more watching shared his thought,
Nationwide jury in a kangaroo court.

Outrage required a penalty paid,
To be decided once a charge was laid.
Meanwhile the rack would do or pillory
In full sight of his friends and family.

His accuser, once colleague, is feted,
Whistleblower, congratulated,
With much to gain and nothing to lose
She stars in many media interviews.

She had long sought that in years before.
Has no need now to seek it, for sure.
So why have journalists no suspicions
As she’s taken up by politicians?

Where was research, the facts on this lady?
Her partner’s role, for a judge, seems shady.
The public should know if they’ve broken the law.
Isn’t that what our free press is for?

With that Fair Work Report now proven wrong,
Will the media sing a different song?
Are all his critics going to eat crow?
If they follow their leader, the answer is “NO!”

Like Wixxy here at Cafe Whispers  and probably like many of you out there I too have long smelled a rat in this HSU affair.   I have been appalled and angry watching the story of Craig Thomson distract the government from the business of running this country.   Particularly angry as the media have ratcheted up the story of his denial of wrong doing,  turning it into a ‘scandal’ as if the whole government was somehow involved in covering up his crime.   As indeed Tony Abbott declaims it is day in day out. The government has in fact appropriately referred the matter to police and he has been accused of no crime.  Craig Thomson persistently maintains his innocence.

There have been many press and television interviews given by his accuser, Kathy Jackson, and much media hype has followed. Readers know the implications of this story for the numbers in a hung Parliament as the Prime Minister has responded as calmly as she could to Abbott’s demands that she suspend the Member for Dobell. The political, legal and constitutional ramifications of this story are many.  The failure of the media to tackle those issues in any serious way while continually referring to it as ‘the sleaze factor’  of Julia Gillard’s government  is disturbing.  Even more disturbing is the crescendo of condemnation which Tony Abbott has encouraged throughout the country.

Since the story is largely exploited for its ‘sleaze’ appeal it seemed surprising that few journalists asked the obvious questions about whistleblower, Kathy Jackson.  She is a very colorful and combative individual, in comparison with the rather dour, even dull,  Craig Thomson. A quick google search showed me that one or two journalists had indeed done that.   News Ltd had even published in the Australian Weekend Magazine a long, well researched story by Cameron Stewart  which has some very interesting and colorful information about Kathy Jackson’s character, her personal ambition and her long, driven and quarrelsome career in the Health Services Union before and after Craig Thomson’s few years there.  All of which could make Thomson’s claims of innocence rather more credible. I am not suggesting they are proof of his innocence but the Australian public needs that information for balance. I doubt that there would be the hysteria of condemnation we see around us if they had it.

Astonishing to me is the information in that article about her former husband Jeff Jackson and current partner, Michael Lawler.    Jeff Jackson had also been accused of offences similar  to those which his ex-wife accuses Craig Thomson.  Michael Lawler is Vice President, Fair Work Australia, since his appointment to it in 2002 by Tony Abbott then Minister for Employment, when FWA was the Industral Relations Commission.   No one has asked if he has had any input at all into the recent and damning  FWA  report about Thomson which only yesterday was largely disproven by the Australian Electoral Commission.  No matter,  it has meantime given Tony Abbott more ammunition in his publicity onslaught on Julia Gillard’s government.  Michael Lawler is a long term friend of Abbott’s through Opus Dei they seem to meet often.   You can see from Wixxy’s article here at Café Whispers how partisan Lawler’s activities have been in his inappropriate interventions within the Health Services Union.   No one seems to have noticed or mentioned again that Kathy Jackson and Michael Lawler decided together over ‘several bottles of wine’ to eventually refer Craig Thomson with formal complaints to the police.

My little pome is in a sense about all of that information I know is out there and should be written about,  and it should be written about with integrity.  Even more importantly it is about the challenge we are facing in our country to our governance and justice system. We have judges, juries and courts to try people for crimes.  People are assumed to be innocent until tried and found guilty within that system.  We have policemen to decide if people should be charged and sent to court for trial if they seem to have broken laws. We have Parliament where politicians make the laws which rule our country.  All of that is subsumed under the term the separation of powers.     On top of all that we have a free press which reports on all those levels of government and much else besides.  Our multi-media press is supposedly our freedom’s watchdog and there to safeguard our democracy with its unique separation of powers  amongst the  the judiciary, our judges,  the law makers, our Parliament  and the law keepers, the police force.

I was truly alarmed to witness the Reverend Tim Costello with other members of a panel of reputable citizens pass judgement on a man, not yet charged with any crime on a current affairs program produced by senior journalists of our National broadcasting service.  All but one of these responsible citizens were encouraging their audience in the studio and out on the air waves to agree with them.  Judgement was passed on a man not accused of any crime.

Now we have some real facts published in a story at Independent Australia which confirms my gut feelings that we really must listen to Craig Thomson’s story and not allow him to be  pilloried and falsely accused.  The Australian Electoral Commission clearing him of accusations of electoral fraud which Kathy Jackson accused him of and which the Fair Work Australia report had confirmed as true should give our media and public opinion pause for thought.  Will they now at least listen to him when he addresses Parliament next week with an open mind?   Reading today’s media response to the AEC report suggests that nothing will have them admit they are wrong.  Will they eat crow?

Tony Abbott has them all too well rehearsed.  “No!”

The Antipodean Budget Reply Process

Our Antipodean Budget Process
Has rules as in the game of chess.
Tradition says he must make The Reply.
Can Tony do it and not tell a lie?

Could he perhaps have more success
By starting his speech with,  “I confess
That unlike Swannie I’m no Grand Master.”
That might help him avoid disaster.

A compliment or two would show finesse,
Would help his image in the press.
But,  no Chancellor of the Exchequer,
He decides instead to be a wrecker.

Aussies just don’t care for politesse.
He knows that!  The best way to impress?
To shout and carry on about that tax!
It hurts us all!  Who cares about the facts?

This was also a chance for him to obsess
About scandals and slime and Labor’s excess.
Slipper and Thomson!  They’ve helped by stealth,
To destroy Australia and steal our wealth!

His reply speech worked,  but nevertheless
Tony did regret the need for full day dress.
News offered help with their number jugglers.
If he could only’ve worn his budget speech smugglers!

* Acknowledgement to Alan Moir for permission to use his hilarious,  but oh so apt,  interpretation of Tony Abbott’s Delivery of his Speech in Reply.  http://www.smh.com.au/photogallery/opinion/cartoons/alan-moir-20090907-fdxk.html?selectedImage=0

 

NOTES:   Last night’s Budget Reply Speech from Tony Abbott left me dumbfounded.  I went to various other sites and found a silence which I think spoke of the same wordless horror that I felt.   An act of contempt had been performed on our public stage.   Other people clearly felt something similar.   No one had much to say.   I usually deal with my rage at Abbott’s excesses with a bit of light verse and part of me regretted that I had already used the metaphor of Budget Smugglers and published it here,  since I just did not want to write anything new about Tony Abbott at all.     

 

Then this morning I woke up to find that Alan Moir, as so often,  had said it all for me.  This time the metaphor was chess, and when it comes to running our country’s economy, then Wayne Swann is a Grand Master.   Tony Abbott doesn’t stand a chance against the World’s Best Treasurer.  And he knows it.   And doesn’t it make him mad!

That Damned Abusive Liberal!

Tony Abbott’s failure to front the media even once this weekend to answer questions about the Slipper/Ashby scandal which was beginning to embroil senior Liberal Party figures like Christopher Pyne and Mal Brough was rousing comment, particularly after the latter gave a major interview to the Weekend Australian. Four days from Friday to Monday without an interview or statement for mainstream media was a record for him. When he did front this morning on stage with the Prime Minister at a Red Cross function he was clearly out of sorts and distracted.  By the end of the day even Barnaby Joyce had something to say about Brough’s intervention and the credibility of James Ashby. Other Coalition senior figures like Julie Bishop had also put out statements.

Meanwhile in the fifth estate, the blogosphere, there had been many questions about this unusually long silence from the media mad monk and questions too about why journalists weren’t smelling blood.   But perhaps they were, I thought, giving the Canberra Press Gallery the benefit of the doubt.  They could well have been out looking for him, trying to phone him to ask searching questions.  Couldn’t they?  What a lovely idea!

A jingle then came to mind from sixty years ago and my teenage reading of Baroness Orczy novels about the Scarlet Pimpernel. “They seek him here, they seek him there. Those Frenchies seek him everywhere. Is he in heaven? Is he in hell? That demned elusive Pimpernel!”    This old brain turned that into these lines below.   Am I hoping for too much?   Probably.  When he finally appeared on our TV screens tonight it was to assume the offensive against the Prime Minister about Craig Thomson and the Health Services Union report from Fair Work Australia which has now been released.

They seek him here. They seek him there. The media seek him everywhere.  He can’t be in heaven.  We hope he’s in hell!   That damned abusive Liberal!

We seek you here, we seek you there.
We journos seek you everywhere.
Crook!  You can’t be!  You’re never unwell!
Come off it, Tony!  Come out and tell!
You said there’d be a dissolution,
Now you could pass that resolution,
Right at the start of Budget week,
Before Slipper got a chance to speak.

We seek you here, we seek you there!
We journos hunt you everywhere!
The word is out. We’ll soon get a bell,
We’ll track you down. We know your smell.
Tony, call us! We need your story!
Come on! Tell it! Make sure it’s gory!
Answer our questions. Don’t cut us short.
Don’t get sulky and act spoil sport.

They seek you here, they seek you there
Those lefties seek you everywhere!
For years now you have given them hell,
Backed up by Rupert and Cardinal Pell,                                                                                                                                                                     Too busy now with their own position
To save you from the charge – Sedition!
Yes!  We all heard your call to revolution.
Gillard can rightly seek your execution!

Okay, play dumb.  Go home to bed.
Tomorrow’s front page?   OFF  WITH  HIS  HEAD!

What Is This Line Which Has Been Crossed?

The PM said that a line had been crossed.
Respect for Parliament was in decline.
A dark cloud over it meant much was lost.
“I’ve made a judgement. And that judgement’s mine.”

Journalists thought that without a doubt
The Prime Minister had drawn the line!
But where and what that line was all about
None of them seem able to define.

It’s all a bit of a mystery.
There are several threads or story lines,
Like Peter Slipper’s, back in history,
To Queensland Nationals and Russ Hinze.*

With Craig Thomson there’s a union,
But no mention of a picket line.
Though he could have pinched gold bullion
With all the other crimes he’s been assigned.

But members Oakeshott and Windsor know
That Tony Abbott’s bottom line
Began the smell. There they could not go.
His offer, they felt, they must decline.

Since then the Parliament’s been hung
And used like a dirty washing line.
Not one word of praise for her’s been sung
As the media chorus, “Gillard, resign!”

But suddenly amid all the scandal
There’s something in the Coalition’s line,
Which like a faintly flickering candle
Has the PM’s chances begin to shine.

The Slipper story’s just a fairy tale
They shrug,  spun over a bottle of wine
After a few beers and perhaps an ale.
The stench is the usual POO from Chrissie Pyne.

*Hinze pronounced here as in washing lines and not as in rubbish bins!

NOTES:    I’ve been reading some very good posts about the Prime Minister’s stand last weekend after the escalated furore over the long running saga of Craig Thomson’s alleged crimes and the more recent and over-heated scandal of Speaker Slipper’s similarly alleged crimes of fraud and sexual harassment in his treatment of a not so young staffer, James Ashby. 

Wixxy’s post,  Tainted Love,  covers the whole hypocritical nonsense of the sexual harassment claim and Tony Abbott’s ruthless betrayal of a long term political supporter and once personal friend.   There are many links there to  reports and articles on the the case.  As I followed them I noticed how few journalists seemed clear about the line the Prime Minister thought had been crossed.   For myself I had been struck by how almost enigmatic the PM was in talking about that line.  I don’t think anyone in the press gallery really understood her.  She was not talking about the bad behaviour of Slipper and Thomson, but referring to the appalling tactics of the Coalition with these charges against Peter Slipper which were as much an assault on the office of Speaker, even Parliament itself,  as upon the man.

Reading Bushfire Bill’s latest post at the Political Sword with its metaphor of the sinking Titanic, describing the imminent fall of the house of Murdoch, I understood why our main stream media’s reporting and commentary in recent weeks had been so much more biassed and negative than usual about our good government and great Prime Minister.  Yes, I agreed with him, lately they had been far worse than their usual appalling selves.  There was an almost palpable sense of urgency, even desperation, in their determination to bring Julia Gillard down.   I despaired for a few hours there.  

Then came the news late in the evening of  May lst, (May Day!)  that Rupert Murdoch had been found not fit to run a company by the committee of the British House of Commons enquiring into phone hacking.   With hindsight,  I can imagine that News Ltd management had been alerted to the fears of Murdoch and heir about that looming verdict from the Brits.  The word had gone out on the need to preserve this Antipodean corner of their empire.  No wonder News Ltd pulled out all the might of its 70% ownership of our print media and leaned upon its broadcasting allies to support their campaign.   “Gillard must go!”  was the cry.        

Tony Abbott would have been delighted to help out too.  His own war of words on Julia Gillard became even more ruthless and blatantly untrue.  He was brazenly confident he would have few critics in the media.   With obvious justification,  as even the explosive suggestion of entrapment made by Peter Slipper’s Anglican Archbishop was brushed aside.   And so he crossed the line.   Prime Minister Gillard did what she could  to protect her government and the two direct targets of Abbott’s villification.   At the same time, I am sure, behind her enigmatic reference to that line which had been crossed there was an astute awareness that her adversary had gone too far.    Time will tell.

The End Of The Age Of Enlightenment

My thanks to Alan Moir for permission to use his eloquent cartoon, which appeared so promptly in the Sydney Morning Herald after Joe Hockey’s ‘entitlement’ speech. Thanks too to Miglo and Min for their encouragement in offering this a wider reading after its first posting at http://polliepomes.wordpress.com/

Joe Hockey travelled to London,
To make his declaration
That it was time to turn the page,
And bring to an end the age
Of what he called Entitlement.

You may well ask why didn’t he
Announce it in North Sydney
That we’re citizens of Asia,
Neighbours of Malaysia
And the Indian subcontinent.

There, he said, they are satisfied
With what their families provide
To support them when they’re old.
Now Oz could save amounts untold,
With something the equivalent.

When asked to whom the scheme applied
He hesitated and then replied,
“Oh, we’d have to have a means test
Which would eliminate the rest……..
…….Of us who prove ourselves non-indigent.”

NOTES: Joe Hockey, the Shadow Treasurer, made a speech in London on the other side of the world from here a few days ago  which included an unambiguous statement about the age of unlimited and unfunded entitlement to government services and income support being over in the Western world.   He then made the mistake of appearing on Lateline that same evening and answering very pointed questions from Tony Jones about exactly what that might mean under a Coalition government.

He repeated again his statement that “with an ageing population and an entitlement system that has seen extraordinary largesse built up over the last 50 years, Western communities, Western societies are going to have to make some very hard and unpopular decisions to wind back the involvement of the state in people’s lives.”   At the same time he talked about Australians riding on the back of significant growth in Asia and the Government,  if serious about their much vaunted “Asian Century,  should start comparing us with our Asian neighbours when it comes to understandable levels of economic growth,  inflation, employment and so on, rather than comparing us to countries in Europe and North America.”   He then agreed with Tony Jones this included “entitlements……….a significant issue.”

Having got this beautiful “Gotcha!” out of him, Jones did his best to tie Hockey down as to exactly which benefits he had in mind but got a lot of squirming and waffling in reply about it all depending and case by case issues!  It’s worth watching!  I won’t link you to the stories about it which appeared in the MSM next day but if you google ‘the age of entitlement’ you’ll be reading for hours.   He wouldn’t be pinned down as to exactly which Asian countries he’d compare us with on social benefit entitlements, but he mentioned statistics for Hong Kong, Korea and Japan.  You’ll have to forgive my poetic license in using India and Malaysia for rhyming reasons. After all,  they are our neighbours in Asia and millions of people in all of those countries and elsewhere in Asia are currently living in abject poverty.

I was appalled to hear Joe Hockey talk about how we should look to our region for a model on welfare spending!  Not so!  We need to maintain and improve our mutual support standards here so that we can be a beacon to other countries around us!  We are an example of what they can strive for!  I can’t imagine living in a modern state which hasn’t found a way to look after its weaker and poorer members.  Medical, educational and other social benefits should be fairly available to all regardless of economic status, and yes all need to make a fair contribution to their cost where they can.

Listening to the man who could be our next Treasurer I feared for our future more than ever before.   He was talking as if he had no real understanding or appreciation of the enlightened society most of us are beginning to enjoy only now after centuries of struggle from the earliest days of organised labor in Western Europe.  Almost a thousand years ago journeymen and their craftsmen employers were striving for improvement in their lives through the Guilds.    In the 18th century ‘Scottish Enlightenment’ economist, Adam Smith noted the imbalance in the rights of workers in regards to owners or ‘masters’ in The Wealth of Nations.

Today more than ever in Australia working people at all wage and salary levels need to join together in their unions and professional organisations to work with and within all political parties.  They must make sure that the well-being of our society,  its economy and its environment,  is such that the fair entitlements of all its citizens are protected.  This Coalition team led by the likes of Tony Abbott,  Joe Hockey and Andrew Robb must not come to power.

Tony Abbott Defends His Magic Pudding Budget Plan

Tony Abbott has been brooding!
His budget plan’s been dissed! He can’t see why!
He’d billed it as a Magic Pudding!
Claims it’s better than Labor’s flat square pie!

“I’ll safely manage Oz finances.
My team Catholic,  church-going,  good!
With atheist Gillard you’re taking chances.
Where’s her faith in a magic pud?

Childless herself, she’ll never learn,
Like we dads have, as parents would,
When bedtime story pages turn,
To love our Aussie magic pud.

How could a single woman know,
As married fathers surely would,
What pregnant professionals undergo
Without a wage from the magic pud?

That’s why too I’ll pay for nannies
To nurse at home through babyhood
Infants whose ever-loving grannies
Will get to share in this magic pud.

The Liberal Party faces facts.
Business and miners never should
Have to pay Resource or Carbon Tax!
It’s they who make our magic pud!

Gillard’s been captive to the Greens
Who see only trees, not the wood!
Now Bob Brown’s gone, they’re just has-beens.
And now they’ll want a magic pud.

Don’t believe Julia’s last big lie,
Listing all the good things she’s putting
In each slice of her ‘fair share’ pie.
Trust me!  Have faith in my Magic Pudding!”

NOTES:  First I must acknowledge the artwork of my grandson Daniel who,  luckily for me,  was on school holidays and had time to Photoshop Norman Lindsay’s famous illustration to his timeless Australian children’s story, The Magic Pudding.  I think he,  with input from brother Jacob,  did a great job.  

They have exactly caught my sense of how Tony Abbott, in his penguin fitting red budgie smugglers,  seems to think there are endless dollars to spend on his brain waves.    I don’t think Shadow Finance Minister,  Andrew Robb  (Barnacle Bill),  is keen on the Liberal Party being tied to a  Magic Pudding budget plan.  Nor is tubby  Shadow Treasurer,  Joe Hockey (Koala),  though he doesn’t see eye to eye with Robb either on how to proceed with Coalition  budget proposals.   I’m not sure how relevant their all being Catholic really is,  even to their Assistant Shadow Treasurer, Matthias Corman, but they surely need to have faith and believe in the power of prayer if they hope to balance a Budget while cutting taxes and retaining all current services and introducing expensive new ones. 

More than one commentator has referred to Abbott’s apparent belief in a magic pudding which amused me and set me rhyming.   There’s plenty of other MSM speculation on both Government and Opposition budget proposals and I won’t add to it here except to marvel at the near miracle of Tony Abbott’s sudden concern for the wealthier working woman to the point of levying a tax on business for his highly expensive paid parental leave scheme which is likely to be an impost on many more companies than the Carbon Tax which he claims will ruin the country’s economy.   Samantha Maiden says

Abbott’s tax levy would hit an estimated 3300 businesses with a 1.5 per cent levy.    Isn’t that a great, big, new tax coincidence, to deploy Abbott’s favourite mantra ?   

Easy  to understand the disquiet of Coalition senior figures,  particularly Shadow Treasurer Hockey and Finance Minister Robb.    Though with or without Abbott’s grand policy proposals designed to win over women voters even Hockey sometimes seems to believe in a magic pudding sort of budget plan and says a Coalition government will deliver surpluses while reducing the tax burden on Australians and businesses. Mr Hockey said a future Coalition government would balance the books when it next ran Treasury. “We will run a surplus in our first term and every term after that, based on the information available at the moment,” he told ABC back then.   However, his very latest Lateline comments  about cutting welfare benefits to offset income tax cuts are more stringent,  particularly the one about the end of the the age of entitlement in our western world.  No magic pudding faith there.  

Andrew Robb is less sanguine and probably more practical than either Hockey or Abbott about a Coalition government being able to deliver a surplus budget,  or at least he was just over a month ago and  says we should,  “Bear in mind that if we have an election in October 2013 we’re still two budgets away, and who knows what the state of the books will be at that stage.”

Although often confused and confusing, Robb was right about predictions.   No one can predict with any certainty about how the economy will be travelling in future,  though I should think Treasury and the Reserve are being assisted by the best advice and up to date information available.   I prefer therefore to rely on their recommendations to the Prime Minister and our current Treasurer,  Wayne Swann, who is after all the world’s best!     I also trust Julia Gillard and her government, judging by the reformist legislation they have passed to date, the policies they have published and the programs they have planned,  to produce a budget which endeavours to share our national wealth with some fairness and an eye to the national well-being.

Abbott won’t accept that of course, and will do his best to attack Julia Gillard’s credibility and that of Wayne Swann, as he did today, decrying Australia’s economic record in the face of praise from the International Monetary Fund. 

A Re-think From Me About Gay Marriage

I guess we’re never too old to learn!   Today  I was taken to the cinema by my kids to see The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel which was delightful, funny and insightful.   I say insightful because I learned a very much needed lesson today from watching Tom Wilkinson’s portrayal of an elderly homosexual judge returning  to India to seek out his first love.  

I really did think I had sorted out my feelings and thoughts about homosexual people and their rights to full equality before the law.  Of course they deserve that,  but somehow I couldn’t see the gay marriage issue as an integral part of it.   Though I couldn’t be described as opposed to it,  it has never seemed a priority to me given there are so many other urgent reforms for Labor to deal with.  Besides, it’s difficult with many different opinions on this in the ALP both in caucus and the country at large.  In fact, I get impatient when I’m told it is a first order question for Labor to sort out.    

I thought that was because for me marriage as either a rite or an institution now seems an irrelevance,  an anachronism,  having become so devalued even when children are involved.   Surely,  I told myself,  full equality for same sex couples before the law was enough?    Their de-facto relationships had the same status as those of heterosexual couples.    They were even able to parent children  and they seemed to make as good a job of parenting as anyone else.   Why add the constraints of conventional marriage which often seemed to be so harmful to the people bound by it,   particularly  the children born within it,   with all the attendant potential problems of legal separations and divorce.

I’ve been re-thinking that attitude this afternoon.  Not about marriage but about homosexual rights to it,   and my failure to fully appreciate the urgency and passion of the need for this last barrier to full equality to be removed.   This love story about two young men who loved each other many decades ago,  were discovered together and shamed into lifelong separation,  moved me deeply and took me back to my own adolescence when I had my first exposure to the idea of gay love.  Well it wasn’t called ‘gay’ then.   Nor was ‘love’ mentioned in connection with it.   Homosexuals were criminals,  I learned,  but I couldn’t understand exactly what law they were breaking.  Newspaper reports were written in terms of ‘gross indecency’ and ‘offences’ which it seemed were so appalling they could not be explained,  even spoken of in polite society.

I went home after the film and immediately set about reading up on homosexual law reform or decriminalisation over the more than fifty  years since my teens.   Of course I had been aware of it all unfolding,  but looking back I can see that for me it was as if it were in another world.    I”ve just been reading an article in the Guardian which exactly describes my own teenage experience and probably of most of my peers.   Not really an experience mind you,   just an awareness as I started to read newspapers in the England of the fifties.   This para, written just a few years ago,  pretty well sums that up.

It’s hard  to imagine now how repressive was the atmosphere surrounding homosexuality in the 1950s.  ‘It was so little spoken about, you could be well into late adolescence before you even realised it was a crime,’  says Allan Horsfall,   a campaigner for legal change in the north west,  where he lived with his partner,  a headmaster.   ‘Some newspapers reported court cases but they talked of “gross indecency” because they couldn’t bring themselves to mention it,  so young people were lucky if they could work out what was going on.’         www.guardian.co.uk/…/communities.gayrights.    

In the fifty years since I grew up in that environment I have become a well informed,  rational and I like to think a fair minded adult who believes in equal rights and opportunities for all regardless of gender, race, or sexual preferences.    Watching the portrayal of that elderly judge,  a stereotypical mature,  ageing pillar of society,  talking of his lifelong love for another man,  I realized how little I knew about him and other people like him of my own generation.  I had certainly not till then empathised with his situation.   In the darkness of that  cinema I was taken back to my own adolescence when I learned not to think about those uncomfortable things.  

I had forgotten how uncomfortable they were, and as well how even more uncomfortable I had been made to feel about my own sexuality.   I was in my early thirties before I  thought I’d finally got that sorted out.   Then it became easy to accept women friends who were living in lesbian relationships.    I even began,  I thought,  to understand the theatre friends of my playwright,  now ex-husband,  who were openly gay.   Yes,  that word was being used by the early seventies even here in Australia where we had settled with our two children and where our marriage finally broke up.    But I can’t say I was willing to spend a lot of time thinking about gays.   There was too much else to worry about or later to enjoy,  to read about and focus on.

Well today I do have the time.  And that portrayal of an elderly judge in that delightful film has moved me to spend some of it reading about the appalling things we have done and are still doing to people growing up alongside us in our so called democratic egalitarian society.    Already I’ve covered quite a lot of material, and I shall be reading a lot more.   That article I’ve quoted above is particularly detailed,  informative and lucid.    It’s helped me see that just because I don’t value marriage,  or want it for myself any more,  it isn’t fair that I should deny it to other people for whom it is a much yearned for and too long denied right.

Tony Abbott! What An Arse!

“Julia Gillard’s got a big arse!”
Said Germaine,  with a lack of class.
The media couldn’t let that pass!
Had women’s lib become a farce?

Some of them went off quite rabid
For comment,  and as per habit
They got the nod from Tony Abbott.
He’d seen a headline. Had to grab it.

He’d forgot the enormous frame
Of Gina Rinehart whose other name,
The Big Australian,  only came
To mind too late to him.  Oh, the shame!

 

Her fortune being so gigantic
He’d become quite sycophantic;
Talked to her in terms romantic,
Which,  now recalled,  sent him quite frantic.

He took little time to agonise
But hurried out to apologise
And tell a load of PR lies,
Cos something else had made him wise.

He’s heard,  big arse and all,  no breeder,
Labor love Gillard and heed her.
But Robb et al are grumbling,  “Do they need a
Great big arse like him for leader?”

NOTES:   Sorry,  no poetic, or even funny,  images with this one!   But I think these serve to illustrate how ridiculous is Germaine Greer’s,  Tony Abbott’s or anyone’s comment on the the appearance of our Prime Minister.   She is hardly large,  much less huge,  or uncomely,  even alongside the slim and elegant Governor General and among the many suited men of her cabinet.    Talking of suits,  her jackets,  which Germaine Greer criticised along with her body shape,  work well with her constantly filmed image. and they fit her persona.   For a politician,  or any public figure for that matter,  our Prime Minister is remarkably well presented.   She’s very photogenic too as our TV screens and print media tell us every day and as the stills recorded here also confirm.

Tony Abbott’s echoing of Germaine Greer’s criticism of Prime Minister Julia Gillard’s appearance has told against him amongst women voters as I’m sure internal party polling has informed him.   But I like to think there was another reason why he came scurrying out to apologise for his ill advised comments.   After all one of the major donors to Liberal Party funds is the Big Australian,  Gina Rinehart!     Interestingly too,  when appearing before TV crews and journalists to apologise Abbott, though still on his annual Pollie Pedal,  was careful to change out of his lycra cycling gear into a suit and tie. 

And talking of apologies this is the second one he has had to make in the past fortnight.   His ill advised remark in Parliament about a target on the forehead of the Prime Minister was followed by a very prompt withdrawal and apology.  Ironically the comment was made while interrupting the normal business of Parliament for the 50th time since the election to move a motion aimed at forcing Ms Gillard to apologise for saying there would not be a carbon tax.

Fifty failed motions for the suspension of standing orders!   We’ve had no apologies for the time and money wasted in  Parliamentary sessions on these pointless SSOs.   As well,  there  probably should have  bee more than fifty apologies from Abbott for his numerous foot-in-mouth comments as a public figure.   I can think of half a dozen he has made off the top of my head in recent years,  and others when he should have, but hasn’t.   Can anyone add to this list of  gaffes and ill advised comments from this man who thinks he should be our Prime Minister?

I’ve listed two above.    These others below are not in date order, but I’ll number them anyway:

3.   His apology to the widow of Jared McKinney for his ‘shit happens’ comment in Afghanistan

4.   He made a handsome apology to the stolen generations for his ill advised comments on the forced adoptions of Aboriginal children.

5.   Did Bob Brown have any success when he asked for an apology from Abbott for giving credence to offensive slogans on placards at the anti-Carbon tax rally at Parliament House?

6.   How about his inappropriate political comment about Goff Whitlam’s government when offering condolences on the death of Margaret Whitlam?   And similarly in speeches of welcome to international figures like the  US President and Prime Ministers of the UK and New Zealand? 

7.   Very early on in this hung Parliament Abbott had to apologise for decrying the government’s ‘waffle’ over things like access for the disabled to cinemas and admit that he had a lot to learn about keeping his tongue under control in interviews saying that that sometimes in the heat of the moment he went further than he should and that was something  “that has got to be kept under the best possible control … that’s something that, obviously, I’m very, very determined to do.”

8.   But he said something like that years before during the election campaign of 2007, didn ‘t he,  when he had to apologise to dying Bernie Banton for saying that his petition for asbestos sufferers was a stunt! 

9.   Maybe less serious but still thoughtless were his comments about women and ironing and he thought women should cool it in their response 

I am sure there are more and particularly of the sexist kind which Kate Ellis complained of when she wrote 

During last year’s campaign Mr Abbott used a universally-recognised anti-rape slogan to dismiss a request for a debate on the economy with Julia Gillard. His comment that “from Julia, ‘no’ doesn’t mean ‘no’” suggested indifference or ignorance on Mr Abbott’s to this well-known term describing sexual consent. 

Tony Abbott has called on the Prime Minister to ‘make an honest woman’ of herself. He has stood, either with his knowledge or the knowledge of his staff, in front of placards describing the Prime Minister as a “bitch”. He has suggested women should worry about the impact of pricing carbon because it would make doing the ironing more expensive.

 

 
 

Something To Celebrate!

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-03-08/gillard27s-performance-as-female-pm/3875502

On International Women’s Day
Finally we’ve had someone say
Our Prime Minister is Okay!
She’s been assessed as triple A!

They’ve always known that Overseas,
Admired how she could shoot the breeze
With little folk and the big cheese.
At last she is the Oz  bees’  knees!

Our experts,  who ought to know,
Have told us that she’s all the go
With public servants.  They’re aglow,
Enjoying their new status quo.

Members of the Coalition,
Sharing Abbott’s premonition
That she’s done for his ambition
Are jostling for his position.

There’s high praise too from Independents,
Not just her ALP attendants.
History will record for our descendants
How began the great Gillard ascendance!