The next blog I was going to do was in relation to the slow death of Adoption as a tool for creating families. I had even written the introduction. But events within the Australian political and moral landscape of Australia over the last months has led me to make a full comment on the actions being carried in mine and millions of other Australian's good names. we as a nation are becoming sadly lacking in the spirit of mate ship, fair play and fair go for all. I have become sickened by the laissez faire attitude the government has towards the nation and the economy and the drift to create whipping boys for the rest of the population to blame. Sadly this attitude has been a long time coming and has also been created by both sides of the political fence.
Australia historically has always been a paranoid nation ever since federation whose main aim apart from free trade between the states (former colonies) was defence of the sparse land from believe it or not the Russians. The old fortresses near Melbourne, Sydney and Hobart are evidence of this irrational fear. Perhaps this paranoia was the result of having invaded and conquering this great southern land ourselves. The paranoia showed very early on in federation when the White Australia policy was implemented. We thought of ourselves as british hence blindly following the British war machine into disasters like Gallipoli and the western front where our losses as a percentage was greater than the british (i may be wrong on that one). Our soldiers fought gallantly for a cause that was not the defence of the new nation of Australia but for the crown in England.
After the war one of the first obvious shame that this country carried out was the deporting of 6150 german many with british citizenship. Such was the paranoia./ There was also a fear that Australia needed to be in line with the united kingdom and when the Statute of Westminster was passed in 1931, Australia did not ratify it until 1941. Australia had voluntarily allowed a foreign nation to dictate our defence and foreign policy even though that country had decided it did not want t dictate the polices of former colonies. Such was the paranoia in this country. Governments have a direct responsibility to ensure such fears and paranoid attitudes do not infect the Australia population. Sadly since 2001 governments have played upon peoples fears, the inherent fear of invasion which is in the countries DNA and the subtle politics of racism.
Many governments Australian and others have played upon peoples fears and insecurities. Generally this card has been played by conservative governments and is used to attempt to deflect the peoples minds away from draconian market place policies that generally benefit those with economic power at the expense of the populace. this is not socialistic rhetoric but a political fact. Controlled capitalism is a excellent ideology because it allows the individual to have protection from extreme predatory practices that corporations could engage in . The commonwealth bank and it's fraudulent financial advisors is a case in point. it also allows the individual a chance not to have to negotiate individually their employment conditions with conglomerates. The freely given individual work contract is akin to the freely given consent many others gave during the forced adoption era. It doesn't happen. Over the decades governments have given us the Domino theory, the yellow peril, Reds under the bed, the war on terrorism and have tried to limit our freedoms using those fears. They tried to ban the Communist party in the early 1950's only to have it rejected by the Australian people. They tried to say that if South Vietnam fell to the communists it would only be a matter of time before they reached Australia. And many of us believed this hype thinking that in the national security we needed to blindly follow the USA, a view that is still current policy today. we forget that the only war we have been involved in that was to defend the homeland was World War 2 after December 1941. Australians have fought and died in foreign wars. but we have always believed that the superpowers will protect us if we are good little "vegemites" Singapore in World war 2 should have shown that to be a fallacy when British interests surpassed ours. The fact that Winston Churchill took away the security ships protecting Australian soldiers returning from the Egypt to defend Australia because the Australian government refused to let them go to Burma and India is also evidence that super powers only have their self interest at heart.
Now to today. We now find governments who since the infamous speech by prime minister Howard " we will determine who comes to our country and the manner in which they come" have made a art form out of portraying and enhancing the nations collective fears of a takeover of this country by the followers of Islam. Whilst claiming to respect Islam they then attempt to portray asylum seekers as bludging liars who may be terrorists and not worthy of Australian help and support.They shove them off to island internment/concentration camps and then throw their hands up in the air saying we told you so when these poor folk actually have the audacity to show their feelings. And if reports are correct they are returning asylum seekers without due process to the lands from which they fled before they even hit Australian land. we are the only country in the world that claims that Sri Lanka is a peaceful place where all citizens are protected.Even the united nations humans rights committee has shown that it is not a safe place for Tamil's. but what is disturbing is that just like through the forced adoption era, the citizens of this country just don't care anymore. They get fed false information by elements of the media who are anti Islam, the shock jocks exacerbate the already heightened tensions with their portrayal of Mullahs as warmongers wand then say they rest should be calling them out. They never have said that about the IRA during the troubles or any other extreme christian organisation. In Bendigo we have a anti Islam/mosque movement being funded by the far right Restore Australia willing to help fund the fight against a mosque up to the Supreme Court. We have a former liberal and Palmer united party being one of the biggest opponents. She was also part of the group that did the " Ditch the Witch " campaign against the previous Prime minister. Hypocrisy runs amok. Another former PUP candidate is also funding the the group to oppose the mosque. People like Larry Pickering, a bankrupt , has been spreading inflammatory posts on his facebook page and makes wild unsubstantiated claims about anyone. The crazies have taken over the country. But this government of today is no longer content in just demonising the helpless Asylum seekers, they are now starting in on it's own citizens who are unable and i many cases not able to articulate their plight.
The first port of call is the move by the government to crate a climate of division between those who rely to government support due to age or matters often beyond there control and those who are currently in the workforce. This division was highlighted recently in a TV current affairs show , ACA, which attempted to link low income wage earners as paying for those like single mothers who receive support. The mother they used was a single mother with four children who receives government assistance of 49,000 per year against a single income family of less than 50,000. What they show failed to declare was the level of Family tax benefits this low income family received from the government. Selective fact gathering from a obviously biased show which is trying to demonise welfare recipients. There have been attacks on aged pensioners saying we cant afford to pay them yet previously that is exactly what was promised. in fact pre 1950 a part of the income tax paid was put aside for just that reason and the liberal government under Menzies placed it back into general revenue. The embellishment of welfare recipients being a cost we cant afford is a slow attempt to re define the social mores of the country. There already was a group willing to think this anyway so to use this Calvinist religious ideology of these people only have them selves to blame. we adoptees know full well how social mores in the past centuries had been manipulated to demonise us. Yet there is never any cutbacks to defence based upon their inability to manage contracts with suppliers which traditionally have massive overruns that could clean out the deficit if correctly managed. There has never been any efficiency reviews of the value to the economy of subsidising the diesel fuel used by mining and agriculture. Both industries have been shedding staff at a rate of knots and passing their bad management techniques back to the government in the form of dole queues . only now are they deciding to look at the process of moving profits offshore to tax havens. This government has supported the rorting of the fringe benefit tax by creating two classes of people to buy cars. those whose job are secure enough to have them get company leases for their cars and those of us who have to pay from our after tax earnings. It could be assumed that many taxpayers who benefit from such loopholes would have been paying a marginal rate of 43 percent until they could off set their earnings. The same with negative gearing which for many allows them to offset their losses against other earnings not just the investment property. the rorts go on and they are legal. But hey the poor in our society are demonised whilst the true shirkers are out there reducing their income that is taxed by any means possible.
The country has now been divided into the haves and have nots; with experts who have never lived on the breadline telling us to the battlers to budget and save. The government is exploiting this with a great effect and the traditional of a egalitarian society once dreamt of and yes once was is now a distant memory. The sad thing is we have done this to ourselves because we have let a government of ideology rule not a government that was elected for all Australian, the poor and the well off and the so many in between who may be only one month from financial disaster through no fault of their own.
To all out there please remember one thing. it may be you that is next in the Centrelink line swallowing your pride and seeking some basic support and having to love from one pension day to another. It happened to me
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