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Australia Politics - Vyoos

No gay marriage. Forget the honeymoon

June 30th 2010 04:46

VYOOS EDITORIAL
Julia Gillard’s honeymoon period is over. For me at least.

Australia’s first female-atheist-single-redhead Prime Minister was asked during a radio talkback session this morning whether she would move to legalise same-sex marriage.

If she had answered, “No, not right now, because I have promised a federal election within a few months and I want to be allowed to focus on big-ticket issues such as health and education,” she would have had a point. Opposition leader Mad Monk Abbott, a former Catholic seminarian who has warned of the moral perils of sex before marriage, would love that issue to help him grab attention and headlines in the run-up to the election.

It would also have been an honest answer, and another first for Australian politics.

Unfortunately, honest responses have a habit of waking the masses dulled by ponderous proclamations, and Gillard, instead of treating the electorate as adults, offered just another dump-truckload of turgid political spin for the public to gag on.

“We've got very clear Labor Party policy on this and it won't be changing,'' Gillard said. “We believe the marriage act is appropriate in its current form, that it is recognising that marriage is between a man and a woman.'' Gillard said the Government had taken steps to equalise treatment for gay couples. The stance also reflected her personal view, she said.

Spin it as you like, Prime Minister, this is not equality. You either believe gays should be treated equally, or you do not. Make up your mind. Make up your party policy’s mind.

To help you do so, please consider that a policy based on the precept that “marriage is for a man and a woman” is outdated.

It suggests a moral obligation for anyone getting married to have children. There is no such moral obligation.

It suggests a social obligation to have children. There is no such social obligation, as you would know, Prime Minister.

Probably much to Mother Nature’s sadness, there is no longer even a natural imperative to have children. The world is overcrowded as it is, full of poverty and misery in slums created by the rapacity and corruption of politicians.

Marriage is for many things. Procreation, at the heart of the “man and a woman” school of thought, is just one of them.

Most of all, however, marriage is about a statement of commitment.

Does all this reflect majority community thinking? In terms of pure numbers – something which a politician understands – probably not. But that doesn’t make it wrong.

As long as the government of the day continues to carry a policy which preaches that “marriage is between a man and a woman”, they will continue to foster community acceptance of inequality, and intolerance towards committed, loving gay couples.

Today the Prime Minister had the biggest chance yet to move towards the equality she spins, and she decided it would be politically inconvenient to take it.

This is “where we are at as a community now and I think that it is appropriate for these very sensitive issues that we are reflecting community views,'' she spun.

On that basis, that radical Abe Lincoln should have left the very sensitive issue of slavery well alone.

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Posted By: Chris Champion - Category: Australia/NZ/Pacific, Australia, Leadership, Politics, Vyoos Editorial

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Don't judge a Prime Minister by its gender

June 29th 2010 06:40

The news blasting around the world from Australia is that we have a female Prime Minister. At last. New Zealand got one 13 years ago, Britain 31 years ago, Sri Lanka 50 years ago and Egypt 3483 years ago. About the only places in the world yet to elect a female head of state are the United States and the Vatican.

Gillard replaced incumbent Kevin Rudd on Thursday morning in what the media described as a bloodless coup, Opposition leader Tony Abbott described as a midnight mugging and internal Labor Party polls described as an essential move if the Federal Government wanted to get any votes at all at the next election.

All this is missing the point. While everyone is falling about congratulating Australia for hauling itself into the present by appointing its first female Prime Minister, Julia Gillard pointed out that Australia had appointed its first redhead to lead the country.

That’s the real news – Australia has a Prime Minister with a sense of humour. It’s been a long time coming. The last time Kevin Rudd was funny was when he was seven years old and had a sneezing accident. The only time John Howard was funny was when fielding in MPs v. journalist cricket matches.

It is not, however, the only way our new leader is unique in terms of Australian prime ministerial qualities.

Gillard is the first not to be married. Not only that, but reporters interviewing the proud Gillard parents managed to ferret out the fact that the PM's only sibling isn't married either. Neither of them ever have been. This shocking example for prospective members of the Family First Party so dumbfounded its leader, Senator Steve Fielding, that he described the Prime Minister's out-of-wedlock relationship as "irrelevant". He could, in retrospect, have made more of his three seconds of television news air-time.

Gillard was the first to be sworn into office without mentioning god. She swore allegiance to Quentin Bryce and Australia and Footscray Football Club, but no mention of a deity. Steve Fielding's response to that was not reported. Perhaps he wasn't asked, but that's two big media opportunities he's missed around the Gillard ascension. Expect a midnight mugging over at Family First one day soon.

And, finally, Julia Gillard is the first Australian Prime Minister to live in what can only be described as a modest abode. The home of Malcolm Turnbull, who was the second-richest person in Australian corridors of power behind Therese Rein, probably appreciates more in value each week than the total value of Gillard's humble, double-fronted, brick shack. Okay, she may have a collection of Fabergé eggs and a complete collection of Rollings Stones vinyl albums signed by Keith Richards in there, but it doesn't look like it.

As soon as she was named Prime Minister, the police stationed a patrol car outside her house. It was one of those fancy, red and checkered Federal Police cars. It sits there, housing the prime ministerial security detail and looking like the most expensive item in the street, including the real estate.

So, we have our first female Prime Minister. Big deal. As Gillard herself told an Adelaide journalist, it will soon be unremarkable whether a politician is female or male and the only thing that matters is how well they can do the job. We agree. It won't be news in a week.

Unlike the red hair. That will always be news.
Image: Steve Coppel/Newspix

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Posted By: Chris Champion - Category: Australia/NZ/Pacific, Australia, Politics

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Pauline Hanson is back

March 2nd 2009 19:53

Pauline Hanson

When I heard, three minutes ago, that Pauline Hanson and Warwick Capper are likely to contest the seat of Beaudesert in the Queensland state election on March 21, I thought, "Best take two aspirin and go back to bed."

My second thought was, how best to describe this to a visitor to Australia, one of those underprivileged people who have grown up without the benefit of exposure to the glittering lives of these two extraordinary Australians?

Let's start with an introduction.

Pauline Lee Hanson (née Seccombe). Born May 27, 1954. Raised in the Brisbane suburb of Woolloongabba. Father owned a fish and chip shop. Left school at the age of 15. Worked in a variety of unskilled jobs. Accumulated several rental properties. Became independently wealthy.

Hanson then entered politics. She became an independent councillor with the City of Ipswich, and then won endorsement as the Liberal Party's candidate for the national seat of Oxley for the March 1996 Federal election. Oxley was the safest Labor seat in Queensland, but Hanson found a way to change everything. Just before the election, she told a newspaper that she believed special government assistance for indigenous Australians should be scrapped.

Just how calculated it was, we will never know, although no-one can deny that Hanson went on to make a luminous, if brief, political career out of bigotry. The initial comments to the newspaper led to her being dropped by the Liberal Party (but too late for this to be noted on the ballot papers), led to her winning the support of every redneck yokel who had ever nursed a grievance against Aboriginals, and led to her romping home in the election with 54 per cent of the vote.

So Pauline Hanson entered Federal Parliament, where she was not allowed to sit with the Liberals. And she delivered a maiden speech which dwarfed anything she had done before in terms of shock and outrage. In essence, Pauline Hanson wanted the government to stop allowing Asians to migrate to Australia.

It made international headlines, as did the tide of support which Hanson garnered for her views. While much of Australia watched in shock, Hanson became a powerful political figure, and in April 1997 founded the One Nation party.

On August 20, 2003, Hanson was convicted of electoral fraud and sentenced to three years' imprisonment. There were stories of political pressure from on high to ensure a conviction and to guarantee that Hanson never again entered politics. On November 6, 2003, the Queensland Court of Appeal overturned the guilty verdict and rebuked many politicians, including then Prime Minister John Howard, for "observations" which demonstrated "a fundamental misunderstanding of the Rule of Law...[and] an attempt to influence the judicial...process".

Hanson's message was essentially a white Australia policy, but it received such widespread support that debate continues to rage in Australia, in the halls of acadaemia, in legislatures, and around dinner tables. She polarised the country like few have ever done, but in doing so brought into the open a racist attitude which had clearly been underestimated. She was hailed or hated, with little in between. In 2006, she was named by the The Bulletin magazine as one of the 100 most influential Australians of all time

And now she's back.

Warwick Capper. Born June 12, 1963. An Australian rules football legend. Played briefly for the Brisbane Bears before moving to the bright lights of Sydney. Wearing skin-tight shorts, he kicked 388 goals in 123 games from 1983-1991, including 103 goals in 1987 season. Flamboyant on and off field personality. Remembered for world's most extravagant mullet hairstyle.

Since retiring from football, Capper has worked as a council road worker and Amway agent, and tried his hand at multi-level marketing and pornography.

Capper says he will swap his BMW for a Hummer if he wins the election. Says he knows a bit about the Beaudesert area because "I went there once - a fair few Aborigines and very multicultural out there." Suggests, "We could have a bit of a cook-off between me and Pauline. She's got the fish shop and I'm about to open a coffee shop called Warwick Cappuccino".

Capper has yet to nominate formally. Nominations close today, March 3. We don't seriously expect his hat to land in the ring, because one final piece of information we discovered is that Capper and Hanson have the same publicist, "celebrity agent" Max Markson.

Capper's flirtation with politics, therefore, appears to be a self-serving stunt.

Hanson's may also be described as self-serving, but unfortunately it's no stunt.
news.com.au, en.wikipedia.org, goldcoast.com.au, theage.com.au

Warwick Capper

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Posted By: Chris Champion - Category: Australia, Politics

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Rudd welcomes failure of his internet censorship scheme

February 26th 2009 21:39

The Australian Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, is closeted with spin doctors this morning planning responses to media questions he will inevitably face later today about his failure to implement an internet censorship scheme.

The scheme, which has been touted for several months as a way of saving Australians from gambling, pornography and other internet evils, has effectively been scuttled by parliamentary numbers following removal of support yesterday by independent Senator Nick Xenophon

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