Wednesday, September 8, 2010

Dear Julia: Fix This Shit. Now.

Dear Prime Minister.

Your government is balanced on the most precarious of knife edges. And well you might ask: how did your party go from the sweeping triumphalism of K-Rudd's landslide victory to this scary, skin-of-the-teeth sort of grip on governance? What did Labor do that almost made Australians willing to vote for a Tony freakin' Abbott government?

I'm sure there's a list. (And I'm pretty sure that dumbfuck Conroy and his buttwrenchingly stupid Internet Firewall are on it.) But most important of all, I suspect, was the overwhelming sense of betrayal and letdown.

K-Rudd promised us change. A lot of it. And after fifteen sphincter-puckering years under Howard and his team of Neo-Victorian cretins, we desperately wanted that change.

Now sure, I understand there was a global meltdown in the financial sector. But you know what? I don't fucking care. Because there are changes that could have been made, should have been made, would have been made in a fundamentally decent society, that would have cost pennies. In fact, they might even have been revenue-positive, once the costs were all totted up.

And they would have made K-Rudd's government look like it was actually trying to achieve something other than bullshit and arsecoverage.

So here's my suggestion for you. You want us to believe in your shiny new co-operative nice-guy government? Show us some fucking action.

Here's my suggestion, first up: get the refugee kids out of mandatory custody.

I'm not one of those who's taken potshots at you for not marrying and having kids. I figure it's your choice. But if you can read that article, and you've even the slightest touch of humanity about you, then either you will act to help these people -- or you really do hate kids and families, as your opponents have slyly suggested.

Ms Gillard, the Australian society is famously laid-back, relaxed, and egalitarian. We're not a bunch of pre-Nazis, just waiting for the right Hitler to come along with a racist agenda to turn us into a nation of slavering, xenophobic killers. This is the land of the 'fair go', the place where trust between friends and neighbours has built a society that, for all its flaws, remains one of the most open-hearted in the world.

We are not a country that needs to imprison children who have committed no crime against anyone. And indeed: in this country, children who have committed crimes worthy of detention get better treatment than these frightened, scarred, damaged, and utterly blameless children who have done nothing worse than flee some of the most horrifying and repressive places on earth.

A lot of us voted Green this election, Julia. Did you notice? A whole fucking lot more of us than ever before. You and your government have lately been led around the garden by a couple of ex-rightwingers who now claim to be independent -- but you are every bit as dependent on the support of the Green faction, and I really think you need to remember that.

Let the children go, Julia. It's the right thing to do. It's the Australian thing to do. It's what a true leader of a decent Australian society would do.

Let the children go.


5 comments:

  1. If I run into the Prime Minister I'll pass on the message.

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  2. Thank you, sir. Oh, and if you'd just mention the little problem with the so-called NBN out this way, I'd be very grateful.

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  3. Dirk the problem is that Keating brought in mandatory detention & that in the end despite all claims to the contrary the ALP is a very conservative party that doesn't like real change, unless its changing leaders of course!

    I think that once the Greens get their full senate seats we may get some pressure on Julia to get kids mand detention legally overturned. its well overdue.

    However on the downside with JG's very slim majority it is unlikely that she will try anything challenging for a while, no matter how essential the policy changes are.

    The irony it is something like this that could turn the Libs around, but becauses they are idiots of the first order they probbaly couldn't think enough out of the box to see the reasoning, well except for El Bulli of course.

    It is as you have said before a big stain on our claim to be a 'civilised' country.

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  4. I don't care who brought it in. I want it gone. We're better than this. We don't have to be a nation that imprisons innocent children. Gillard is in a position to show some character -- no, strike that. She's in a position where she NEEDS to show some character.

    If she tries to play this safe and conservative, she's going to clash with her new partners. And if she simply sits there like a lump, everyone will see the Greens and the Mighty Independents setting the agenda, and once again, she's fucked.

    The only way Gillard can even hope to salvage this situation is by being a really fucking good Prime Minister - good enough that we all notice.

    This is the easiest way I can think of to start.

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  5. Just trying to explain why the ALP are a bit slow in removing what is a pretty horrifc piece of policy (that the Rodent improved on and Brave Sir kevin never even touched in his 2 and a bit years in office).

    I agree there is a fair raft of 'easy' and 'cheap' policies that would improve Julia's PM rating a huge amount, and releasing the kids from Mandatory Detention is one of them

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