Class Warfare? They Just Are!

There are days when I am amazed at my own capacity for disappointment, and at the ability of others to rise above it all. Most of the time, I’m just amazed by Tony Abbott’s incapacity to connect with reality.

That’s not to say that he doesn’t connect with voters. He connects with so many of them, he almost won the 2010 election.

I trust he enjoyed his half an hour of free national television time last night. What was supposed to be a response to the Federal Budget was a repeat of the 2010 election stump speech: no costings, no policies, no specifics beyond “We’re better than them, and they didn’t get elected anyway”.

Fast forward one year to 2012, and very little has changed. The Government is less popular than the Carbon Tax that killed it, and Tony Abbott is reading that as a sign that his parliamentary demolition squad is working. It is. The Labor Party is as fragile as any political party I can recall seeing, and yet, more than one in four voters are still prepared to vote ALP when the next election is called.

He’s still as incoherent as ever, although he’s replaced the stunning silence of his stoush with Mark Riley, with an equally stupefying response to a question about a criticism he made of the budget. His response: “They just are”. Oh, how the internet loved that one!

But back to that last frontier, “reality” – an unknown quantity in the world of Tony Abbott. As reported in The Australian Mr Abbott failed to detail any savings measures in the speech, but said he was confident he could make $50 billion in budget cuts to fund his election promises. “Yesterday was a budget reply, it's not an alternative budget,” he told the Nine Network.

Fifty billion in budget cuts, eh? And he’s going to repeal the Carbon Tax, but maintain the changes to taxation that were introduced to offset the impact of the Carbon Tax.

“If you don't have the carbon tax, you don't need compensation and this is effectively carbon tax compensation,” Mr Abbott told Sky News. “I don't begrudge the Australian public this money at this time given they are about to get clobbered and power bills, gas bills and just about everything else is going to go up and up.

Yet again, Mr Abbott provided a whole load of nothing, aside from a vague comment that our children should be bilingual. Someone should remind him that many more of our children would be bilingual, if the Coalition had supported a programme that was already in place. I guess that’s not part of Tony Abbott’s reality.

Still, the lack of anything resembling the kind of Budget Replies we’re used to has given the Coalition time to formulate a new plan of attack, and this time the battleground is class warfare. Apparently.

Just a few weeks ago, Shadow Treasurer Joe Hockey was referring to his ‘meagre’ package of $231,000 plus allowances. Tony Abbott, who also represents an electorate on Sydney’s North Shore, said that people on $83.000 salaries are not rich.

In comparison to Joe Hockey’s meagre earnings, an $83,000 package isn’t rich…but try telling that to sales clerk on $35,000, or a project administrator on $65,000.

As far as political challenges go, ‘Get off the North Shore’ is pretty average, but at least there is some reality there. Tony Abbott is the Member for Warringah, which sits adjacent to Joe Hockey’s seat of North Sydney.  According to Joe Hockey’s website,

Tony, tell me again why your receptionist, your driver, the waiter who brings your lunch should be paying tax to subsidise your children’s education. For that matter, tell me why I should be paying my tax to subsidise my boss’s boss’s kid’s education.

Relative to other parts of NSW, the electorate is also distinguished by having among the highest proportion of residents holding university qualifications and women in the workforce (almost 50% of women). Unemployment levels in North Sydney are among the lowest in Australia.

That’s not class warfare, that’s reality. That’s what you’re up against. In our reality, the majority of Mr Abbott’s Budget Reply speech wasn’t about the Government’s Budget, or about any budget that the Coalition would offer. It was a vague promise that the Coalition would do better because the ALP are a mess.

Based on Abbott’s response to the Government’s imperfect budget, the best thing the Coalition has going for them is that they’re not Labor.

Why? They just are!

Pants On Fire

Fox News, that fortress of objectivity, that embodiment of fairness and balance, must have been close to spontaneously combusting when President Barack Obama admitted to supporting same sex marriage. This is a big deal for Fox's conservative right wing audience, and the Fox on-air teams sang in unison of their disapproval. (Well, all except for Shep Smith, who seemed to support Obama.) 

It's a big deal for the Presidential election, too. The feeling is that by openly supporting same sex marriage, President Obama has reclaimed some of the more progressive ground from presumptive Republican nominee Mitt Romney.  Romney's electability comes from his moderate position on a range of issues; it is expected that his moderate positions would appeal to Undecideds and conservative Democrats who've become cynical after four years of GFC.

Support of same sex marriage tends to be binary. It's yes or it's no. By grabbing that socially progressive middle ground, Obama has just forced Romney to move to the right and claim the voters opposed to same sex marriage. Across four major polls conducted this year, support for gay marriage has consistently scored higher numbers than the opposing view. It's a real point of differentiation, and it plays to the Democrats' strengths.

So was this simply fortuitous timing on Obama's part? I doubt it.

I suspect Vice President Joe Biden announced his support of same sex marriage a few days ago as part of a coordinated campaign. Biden dipped his toe in the water, found the temperature acceptable, so President Obama waded in, with only the words for me, personally to keep him safe should things turn to custard. 

Fox News presenters were strongly voicing their fair (conservative) and balanced (conservative) suspicions that the evolution of Obama's support of gay marriage lacks credibility. Over the past decade, he's been guilty of some high-speed u-turns on the issue. According to Fox, at least some of those conflicting statements must be untruthful. Politically useful lies.

Where have I heard accusations like that before? 

Could it have been right here, in Australia, where the Prime Minister has evolved from Julia to JuLIAR in the wake of some spectacularly nasty reaction to the Carbon Tax? 

Prime Minister Gillard's well publicised pre-election pledge that there would be no Carbon Tax under her government has been credited with getting the ALP just enough votes to form a minority government. Then, when a Carbon Tax was announced, the accusations were immediate and unrelenting. Political anger turned to personal abuse fuelled by Sydney shock-jock Alan Jones, and at its heart is the assumption that the Prime Minister lied to get elected.

Did Prime Minister Gillard break a pre-election promise? Absolutely.

Did Prime Minister Gillard lie to get elected? I honestly don't know.

I've never been able to swallow the JuLIAR Kool-Aid. For me, it's always seemed more plausible that Ms Gillard changed her mind. New information, a changing economic environment as the world fell over the edge into the GFC, the need to respond to the Greens' agenda, the reality of a minority government with an obstructionist opposition and a thousand other factors may have tipped the balance. 

It's entirely likely that when Ms Gillard stated that there would be no Carbon Tax introduced by her government, she believed every word of it, and believed it was the right decision. Not far down the track, she saw that a different decision was needed.  Was there a political factor to her decision? Probably. <I>She changed her mind. <i/> That's different to lying.

And what of Prime Minister Gillard’s position on same-sex marriage? She has been been over-ruled and undermined by her party. Should she ‘change her mind’? No. I disagree with her on this, but she is entitled to her opinion. If, however, her opinion genuinely changes, that’s good too.

Is Obama's evolved support for same sex marriage really what he believes, or is it cynical political manoeuvring? And if this is the way Obama's stance has evolved, will it stick, or is it subject to change? Was he lying...or has he changed his mind?

None of the answers matter. President Obama and Vice President Biden have stated their support for gay marriage. If gay marriage is a vote-changer for American voters, they now have a clear choice.

In Australia, the Carbon Tax is coming in July. Opposition Leader Tony Abbott has made a ‘pledge in blood’ to repeal it, although business analysts from DeutscheBank have reported that it would take at least 2 years to effect that backpedal, and would cost billions of dollars, including compensation to companies that have invested in new technologies to avoid paying Carbon tax.

After coming to power - and it looks inevitable that he will - I wonder if Tony Abbott will decide his blood pledge to repeal the Carbon Tax is too expensive, financially or economically…and if he does, will he be accused of lying, or will be allowed to change his mind.

What Does It Mean To Be Australian

In the midst of all the Budget palaver, the rumours of Peter Costello wanting to return to politics, the Craig Thomson/HSU fiasco, and Barack Obama’s public support for same-sex marriage, it would be easy to lose track of a story in this week’s news media.

Here’s one that almost got away:

Bob Katter says in ten years, Aussies will be a vanishing race as baby boomers die off. To ensure this doesn’t happen, he wants the Government to pay $7000 for every child for every year they’re legally children. Apparently it’s important to ensure that Australian babies are really Australians, and not migrants.

If you’re talking purity of race, you probably mean the Aboriginals – but only the pure ones, with none of that dirty whitefella influence.

No, then perhaps you’re of the view that the ‘real’ Australians – all 859 of them -  that arrived on the First Fleet, and those that came later, from England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales; convicts and free settlers who left the Mother Country to make a new life on the other side of the world. Some of my ancestors would be amongst the free settlers who arrived in the middle of the 19^th century.

That’s the ‘real’ Australian, the way it was taught in schools in for most of the twentieth century. Australians were of Anglo-Saxon descent, Christian, with a government based on the Westminster System. We adopted and continued their language, their values, their sports.

The fact that a population of First Nations with a rich cultural heritage blanketed the continent for 40 thousand years before the ‘real’ Australians arrived was barely mentioned.

That doesn’t seem likely though, as Katter himself is of mixed Irish and Lebanese descent. Either he is denying his own Lebanese heritage, or he includes some migrants in his definition of “Australian.”

On the other hand, if he is including Lebanese in his version of what makes an authentic Australian, it would be logical to include the rest of the nationalities that come from the Middle East as well.

So far, we have Anglo Saxon, and Middle Eastern in the mix. Left out: the rest of Europe, most of Africa, all of the Americas, both North and South, South East Asians, North Asians, Indians, Pacific Islanders Inuit, Scandinavian.

Perhaps Mr Katter thinks we should just exclude everyone who was born overseas. The most recent Census statistics available, from 2006, indicate that 24% of the population was born outside Australia. What does Mr Katter suggest we do with them to protect the ”Australian race”? Deport them? Lock them up in mandatory detention centres in the middle of the Great Sandy Desert? Sterilise them?

This isn’t funny. This is about as unfunny as you can be, in the midst of such multiculturalism. From my perspective*, it’s divisive and ignorant, and I invite Mr Katter to sit down with me and have a coffee and talk about what makes an Australian.

He may not like our multicultural Australia, but it’s here, and we couldn’t stop it now, even if the majority wanted to. Even a return to our murky past via the White Australia Policy is impossible, and thank for your deity of choice for that!

Luckily for us, Mr Katter has a solution.  Throw money at it: $7000 per child per year to encourage parents (racially acceptable parents, that is) to have more kids, and lower the rates of suicide and homelessness.

In today’s money, that’s $98,000 in handouts to raise a child from newborn to fourteen years old. Obviously the payments would be indexed. On the basis of the 2006 Census figures, we can project a population of about 4.42milliom in that age bracket (0-14) in 2012. If we were to roll out this proposal right now, for the approximately 4.5 million kids between newborn and fourteen, we’d need about $31 billion dollars for one year. Our budget surplus of $1.5b would over about 5% of this payment. Mr Katter has suggested $2.1b, which would barely cover the newborns for a calendar year. Financially, we could not consider such a payment, even if it was sane.

Finally, let’s just take a look at the Australian population as it stands. It is multicultural, with almost one in four Aussies being born overseas. While we tend of think in terms of stereotypical ethnic ghettos, that model isn’t absolute. Even if there was an Australian racial identity 200 years ago, and a completely different one prior to that, there isn’t now. The racial makeup of Australian society is so magnificently inclusive, there is simply no single racial signature that captures what we are.

Multiculturalism, by it’s very nature, places Katter’s call for a financial solution to what he sees as a ‘racial’ problem in the basket marked Crazy-Talk. I’m sure I’m not the only Australian who is both affronted by this overt xenophobia, and amused by the impractical solution he’s proposed.

*My perspective: My maternal family roots are deep in English and Scottish soil, and my paternal family is Pakistani (see photo above). I was born in Australia, but is that enough for Bob Katter? My partner is of Scottish descent, but his first wife is 5^th generation Australian of Thai descent. His children are beautiful Eurasian girls who were born here. Are they Australian?

Mr Katter, in terms of race, how do you define “Australian”?

What is $1.5b Actually Worth?

As promised, the ALP Government has delivered a juicy morsel of Surplus, with grand proclamations about the dark years of Deficit being over. Huzzah! We're in the Money, sharing the benefits of the (Big) Boom, while barely blinking at the armada of cutbacks that go to enable this surplus of goodness.

A quick count shows about 40 headline programmes scrapped entirely, cut, or delayed. 

This is a confusing budget, in that the ALP has delivered, against all odds, the thing the voters and the Opposition most wanted, while at the same time, cutting the heart and soul from everything not nailed down. 

 From $5.4b in cuts to defence spending, to a paltry million saved by not building a new weather station at Jervis Bay, the ALP Government has been ruthless in their determination to produce the surplus they believe we all want. In this instance, we have to trust that the Government made the right choices, and only cut the least essential programmes when decided what would be cut and what would survive.

Before celebrating our glorious return to Surplusity, remember that with programmes scrapped comes jobs lost, projects spanning years of peoples' lives shelved, and the hopes of programme directors obliterated. There is an inevitable cost. It’s probably nowhere near twelve thousand jobs to go, as was reported in the Canberra Times last night, yet there will be pain. Bank on it.

But we have our blessed surplus. As Michael Pascoe wrote in today’s Farifax press, “Welcome tp the Temple of Surplus Adoration”. Of course, while the ratings agencies are delighted with the budget, and  low and middle income families are pretty happy, business is less than thrilled, well-off families are wondering where their entitlements are, and those of us without children pretend the whole thing isn’t happening, just as we do after every Budget. Mr Swan should know by now that you can’t please all of the people, and in the case of the ALP in 2012, it’s hard to please anyone.

But we have our surplus, that majestic $1.5 billion dollars. A mere trifle, you may think, but no. It’s $65.50 for every Australian man, woman and child. There’s no end to the things each of us could have done with that $65.50:

·         Download about 30 songs from iTunes

·         4 x 250g packets of my favourite chocolates

·         Movie tickets for a family of 4 (but bring your own popcorn)

·         A 50 minute massage

·         One decent (but not flash) shoe

·         A tank of petrol for a small car

·         About 10 boring minutes on a standard poker machine

·         Dinner for 2 at Sizzler

Okay, you’re right. $65.50 isn’t as exciting as I’d hoped.

It’s probably best that the government did hold onto everyone’s $65.50. They could do some real good with $1,500,000,000. Here’s what  $1.5b could’ve bought:

·         Thirty new high schools

·         6000 average family homes  

·         A medium sized hospital

·         8000+ kilometres of world class multi-lane highways

·         11.5 Joint Strike Fighter military aircraft

·         A year of employment for over  15,000 teachers, doctors, nurses, scientists, agronomists…

·         Nine or Ten Federal Elections

·         Half a Clem7 Tunnel

Given our need for schools, homes, hospitals, scientists, roads and infrastructure, why not make the cuts anyway, and spend the surplus money on doing what governments are supposed to do: provide services for the people.

The answer is less about economics, and more about politics. The electorate demanded a return to surplus, and the government provided it. If all goes according to plan, we will have $1.5b in the bank, for a rainy day. That’s good too.

Reelin' In The Years

School Reunions. Love them...or loathe them?

I can't think of a single emotion that isn't somehow connected with my teenaged self, my current self, and the potential of the two of them to be in conflict. It's not easy for everyone to say "Yeah, can't wait for my school reunion". Inevitably, those who do are encouraged to stop living in the past. School Reunion survivors know that it's not like that.

Well, it wasn't for me.

Last year, I organised my 30 Year School Reunion. It took months, and through that, there were only a few stressful days. I enjoyed it - the organising, and the Reunion. I've never organised a wedding, but I imagine it's similar - venues, guests, budgets, decorations, allergies, rivalries, frocks...

Funny that I was the one doing the organising - I'd refused to attend our 10 Year and 20 Year celebrations. I wasn't ready. Some of my schoolmates aren't ready even now.

But when I was ready, I wanted quite badly to go home again. The sheer horror of high school was behind me at last, and I was ready to celebrate. 

I'm still amazed by how little we'd changed. There has been some widening of bodies, some broadening of perspectives, a definite absence of competition, and 30 years of living. It's that living that fascinates me.

Another surprise was that we didn't fall back into the same cliques; I wasn't a misfit any more. Apparently I never was. My teenaged self has a different view of that, but at least there's no bitterness now. Well, almost no bitterness.

There was one guest who was less delighted with arrangements. There's always one, isn't there? She hated the venue (too up-themselves), hated the food (canapés are stupid), the drinks were too expensive (so she smuggled in a six-pack or two of Bundy & Coke). She thought the event should've been held at the pub half a block away. Guess who never got out of our little town? Guess who has spent every Saturday night for the past thirty years at the same pub? 

Don't forget Mark. Intellectually and socially challenged, Mark hasn't changed. He's still as sweet and earnest and awkward as ever. The one difference seems to be that he's developed a penchant for licking girls' ears. Not endearing, no. Cath and I both experienced moments of that specific irkiness. Take that as a warning.

The rest of us had a great weekend, back in our little home town: a few quiet drinks for a small group on the Friday night, coffee and decorating session the Saturday, followed by a classy do that night. Sunday featured a walking tour through our old school, lead by one of our teachers; the school has doubled in size, but feels so much smaller. We followed that with a family barbecue, complete with kids, dogs and parents. 

That was our Year 10 30th Anniversary Reunion. 

Next Year is our 30th Anniversary Year 12 Reunion. Here we go again. The time-consuming search to locate one hundred people you haven't heard from for thirty years has already been done. Back then, not everyone went to Year 12, so it's a smaller group; less than thirty.

Now we just need a date, a venue, a budget, and someone to co-ordinate it all. Oh...that'll be me. 

Some of the ladies are talking about a Reunion Cruise , but I've never liked the idea of being stuck on a boat with thousands of p*ssed idiots. I prefer the promise of a few days at a resort. Same sort of thing, but with more escape routes, more room, more escape routes, more options...more escape routes. 

I'm a believer now, a true fan of school reunions, but with one condition: if you aren't sincerely ready to face your high school memories and then leave them behind, don't go. No-one needs to relive high school, but there's a real joy in visiting old friends.


Steely Dan - Reelin' In The Years by manon42

High Priced Ladies

In 1984, a young Peter Garrett spoke to a group of even younger graduates at my university. That was when I learned about the luxury tax of tampons. Visions of diamond encrusted whoosiwhatsits danced alongside nightmares of what the non-luxurious sanitary solution might be like. It was a rude awakening for young women still getting to grips with having to use the damned things for the next 30 years of our lives.

Then in 2000, the price of sanitary items was reduced, just a little, when the luxury tax was replaced by the GST. Forgive the Sisterhood for failing to cheer when the Howard Government compared sanitary products to shaving cream. Apparently men can choose not to shave; very few women can choose to never menstruate.

Tampons, pads and the paraphernalia that goes with this non-elective bodily function can’t be classified as a drug, or as a product designed to prevent disease. They fall into the same GST classification as toilet paper, so the GST is applied.

I hate to wave the ‘sexist’ card, but this is a tax which is applicable only to women. Therefore, it is sexist. Just think of those ads – the ones with the girls in the white clothes, frolicking in the waves with their white horses. Do you see any men subjected to the same insanity? There is simply nothing that compares.

It’s not alone though: women pay more for a range of products and services, and we just seem to accept it. Hair Services, Skin Care, Underwear, Razors, Fragrances. That’s not about a tax being applied where none should exist; it’s about gender discrimination, plain and simple.

It’s not just that some items cost more. There’s a whole range of products and services which most men (Metrosexuals excluded) would never have to deal with, including the full range of feminine hygiene products.

On this Budget Day, spare a thought for women, and particularly single women without children. In this Age of Middle Class Entitlement, the single, childless woman is the one who is overlooked. Her rent costs the same, her car payments, all the big ticket items cost the same as a couple would pay, but there’s just the one income and a weight of expectation.

I’m not suggesting we legislate to reduce the price of lip gloss and nail polish, but can we at least agree that tampons are not a luxury, and imposing a GST on feminine hygiene products is a gender-based tax that discriminates against women?

Perhaps if we start our campaign now, we can get convince the Treasurer to zero-rate these products before the next Budget comes around.

Serene and Unruffled

"A female politician is expected to look serene and unruffled," says Professor Germaine Greer.


It should come as no surprise to anyone that Germaine Greer, Godmother of Australian Feminism, has opinions on fashion. She is an inspiration, a walking, talking collection of opinions about women and literature and society and culture. 


Professor Greer is a bona fide Living National Treasure and occasional national embarrassment. No one ever questions Dr Greer's intellect, yet her sanity, even her judgment, are questioned with increasing regularity. Who could have predicted that this extraordinary woman whose theories were shocking us four decades ago is still capable of making headlines by saying "vagina" out loud on tellie? Who would dared to have thought otherwise?

So what has captured her imagination this time? The inadequate number of vaginas in parliament? The revenge that nature exacted on Steve Irwin? The subordination of the feminist id as displayed by the voluntary cramming of boobs into bras?


Not this time. This time around, it's the Australian Prime Minister's preference for those boxy white jackets that make Julia's arse (Germaine's word, not mine) look big. In fact, the issue was first aired by Professor Greer on ABC1's talk-n-tweet fest, QandA, back in mid-March. 


Reaction ranged from a storm of  'don't be mean' tweets fighting the inevitable "so is her nose/earlobes/salary" responses, to questions about why appearance is important, to Tony Abbott agreeing with Greer's assessment of Ms Gillard's style choice and bum size: 'I know, I know, I know, . . . Germaine Greer was right on that subject,'he said.  


Just hours later, Tony Abbott was shifting his charity cycle into reverse: ''It was an off-the-cuff response to an observation from a member of the public. I shouldn't have said it and I regret it,'' Mr Abbott said. At least he admitted his mistake, although it won't help his image problem with women. 


And now, just to be absolutely sure that we're aware of her opinion on the Prime Minister's jackets, Professor Greer wrote an opinion piece in the Fashion section of the Fairfax press. Note the absence of arse-size references. This is serious business. 

Julia Gillard isn't a clothes horse. She's a hard-working professional politician, but she isn't allowed to look like one. Hence the dreaded jackets. Underneath are her workclothes, the same black pants and black top she once would have worn under her gown for court appearances. The jackets are intended to brighten up her image, each one fresh out of the box. Instead she looks as if she's wearing clothes that don't belong to her, like an organ-grinder's monkey.

What Professor Greer hasn't included in her article is why she objects to Julia Gillard's jackets, or what she thinks our hardworking Prime Minister should be wearing in place of the jackets.


 Let's just get one thing out of the way before we move on: Julia Gillard's jackets don't fit, and do emphasise the size of her bum. For the record, her bum is sizeable, but not as abundant as mine. 


The black pants and top seem to have found approval as a base uniform - it also seems to be Professor Greer's current uniform - but then what? For more formal occasions, meetings with dignitaries, official receptions, black pants and top are not formal enough...so we're back to looking at jackets. Or for a more feminine image, a nice frilly blouse and a jacket. Add some bling for a cocktail party? Hell, let's do a Cosmo fashion spread on the versatility and virtues of black pants, tops and jackets?

I think Australians are big enough to cope with the sight of their female Prime Minister in shirt-sleeves.

Of course Australians are okay with our PM appearing in shirt-sleeves, when it's appropriate. Former Queensland Premier was praised from On High for donning jeans and boots to tour natural disaster areas. (It's always a better look than Tony Abbott's assorted Lycra garments.) Yes, I accept that forcing businesswomen into suits is forcing women to mimic accepted male business attire...but what's the real issue here: the gender mimicry, the fact that the jackets don't fit, or the fact that jackets are expected as part of the Prime Ministerial wardrobe?


Answer D: None of the Above. Ask Australians why they are deserting the Labor Party and Julia Gillard, and fashion won't be in the top twenty answers. No-one cares or remembers what Julia Gillard was wearing when she replaced Kevin Rudd as PM, when she announced the carbon tax, when she held the press conference just last week to distance herself from Peter Slipper and Craig Thomson. 


Take a look at Australia in 2012. A makeover is not going to be enough to make a dent in the woes of the ALP, and nor should it. Throwing a Greer-fuelled spotlight on the PM's wardrobe choices is a distraction that is markedly at odds with the feminist sensibilities of the twenty-first century. What happened to substance trumping style?


Professor Greer has never wanted to be an equalist. She is a feminist who wants us to embrace our femininity, rather than constantly striving to be equal to men. Regrettably, history may have passed her by.  Rightly or wrongly, our first female Prime Minister has embraced her personal style, ill-fitting, unflattering jackets included, and that's that. 


Yet Professor Greer thinks Julia Gillard isn't allowed to look like a hardworking politician? Bollocks. Prime Minister Gillard is a hardworking politician who looks like Prime Minister Gillard, hardworking politician, and if that doesn't coincide with Professor Greer's idea of what a hardworking politician should look like, I respectfully suggest that the Professor adjusts her perception to meet reality.

Dress and conduct in the Chamber


While the standard of dress in the Chamber is a matter for the individual judgment of each Member, 1 the ultimate discretion rests with the Speaker. In 1983 Speaker Jenkins stated that his rule in the application of this discretion was ‘neatness, cleanliness and decency’. 2 In a statement to the House in 1999, Speaker Andrew noted that Members had traditionally chosen to dress in a formal manner similar to that generally accepted in business and professional circles, and that this was entirely appropriate. It was widely accepted throughout the community that the standards should involve good trousers, a jacket, collar and tie for men and a similar standard of formality for women. These standards applied equally to staff occupying the advisers boxes, members of the press gallery and guests in the distinguished visitors gallery. The Speaker said he did not propose to apply this standard rigidly. For example, it would be acceptable for Members to remove jackets if the air-conditioning failed, and it was accepted practice that Members hurrying to attend a division or quorum might arrive without a jacket. However, they should leave the Chamber at the conclusion of the count. 3 In earlier years it was held that a Member was not permitted to remove his jacket in the Chamber. 4 In 1977 the Speaker indicated that it was acceptable for Members to wear tailored ‘safari’ suits without a tie. 5 Members have been permitted to wear hats in the Chamber but not while entering or leaving 6 or while speaking. 7 Clothes with printed slogans are not generally acceptable in the Chamber, and Members so attired have been warned by the Chair to dress more appropriately.

Budget BonBons

2UE Radio announcer and host of Sky News' PM Live is Paul Murray tweeted a great question today, asking when 'welfare' became 'entitlements'. There are probably as many answers as there are Aussies receiving 'entitlements'.


Paul Murray's question suggests that welfare and entitlements are the same thing. They are payments that come from the same source, yet when I say those words, I see very different images.


Welfare is basic financial assistance for those going through a rough patch. Welfare is minimal. Welfare is housing commission, paycheque to paycheque desperation. It's bread and butter and a kilo of cheap mince meat.


Entitlements are a right, a bonus that someone else is obligated to pay you because you are legally entitled to it. The picture, at least in my head, is of McMansions in outer suburban estates, two car families, professionals. It's the second bottle of wine, or the hand-made pistachio macarons from That Little Shop (you know the one, darling).


Welfare is necessary; entitlements - or the ironically titled Middle Class Welfare - are not.


My response, via Twitter, to Paul Murray's question was that the change occurred during the Howard years, when each budget included some kind of allowance or bonus or tax cut to help Howard's 'Aussie Battlers' - families in the mortgage belt...except that we got greedy. 


It was a time when couples weren't satisfied with a three bedroom, one bathroom triple fronted brick veneer in the suburbs where they grew up. They needed a four bedroom plus study, two bathroom plus powder-room, Tuscan style plus alfresco entertaining, in ground pool plus spa. Plus...plus...plus...


And of course, we enabled and encouraged this; it supported the construction industry, even while it strained the budgets of ambitious families who wanted more...more...more.

Year upon year, sweetener upon sweetener, governments have built an expectation in the middle classes that come budget time, early May, we find out what new goodies are coming our way. Aimed squarely at the aspirational middle class, these budget bonbons became entitlements. 


Surely, those entitlements to assist you to keep up with the Jonses are not welfare; they were never welfare. These were the prosperous years before the GFC, and the Government coffers were bulging. As these handouts were announced, there was no fine print that said 'Payments Available Only While The Good Times Roll," and thus they became entitlements; Payments made by the Government to the middle classes who should not need them. 


God help you if you tried to take these entitlements away! The morning after Wayne Swan delivered his first budget in 2008, my boss was in tears. The Child Care Benefit was being changed: instead of being means-tested and reducing to a minimum rate, as it had under Howard, the sliding scale would now continue all the way to zero. The tears were because on a combined salary exceeding $150,000, she and her husband wouldn't qualify for any Child Care Benefit, and therefore would never be able to afford to have children.


I fought the urge to slap her. They'd been able to afford their $50,000 wedding and honeymoon, and before that, a boob job and an enormous diamond.


Seriously, if a couple on $150,000 can't afford to have a child without government assistance, they need to look at their lifestyle and make some changes. These people were not poor, not struggling, not battling, yet felt entitled enough to cry on my shoulder. The new ALP Government was taking away their only chance to have a baby! Bastards!


I was single then, earning about a third of their combined income, but they expected that my taxes should subsidise their breeding programme. That is the picture of entitlement.


Contrast that with people on genuine welfare: Newstart allowance, aged and disability pensions, Carer's Allowance, DVA Allowances...Are you seeing a different picture?


Today's pre-Budget sweeteners are a little chewier than most, but I wonder why Wayne Swan needs to offer them at all. Isn't the fact that he needs to roll out the dessert cart yet again just a function of our overdeveloped sense of entitlement?


In his drive to produce the Holy Grail of Budgets, a Chocolate Coated Surplus, couldn't he have been honest with us and broken the cycle? 


'No sweeteners this year; you get a surplus instead'?

Wanda's World

There's no requirement that I know of for politicians to be intelligent. In most democracies the majority of adult citizens are eligible to run for public office. There's no minimum IQ, no minimum education requirement, no psychometric testing to ensure that candidates are suitably focused on public service, no general knowledge exam to ensure that you can identify the bigger countries on the map, and know which one we live in. 


In fact, there's not much required beyond raising your hand and paying a bond of some kind to the state. 


That's exactly as it should be, yet somewhere along the line, there needs to be some kind of filtering mechanism; a way of stopping the terrifyingly unhinged from doing too much damage. We call that voting - eliminating those who shouldn't be making the big decisions. Here in Australia, it's compulsory; we all have a responsibility too keep the riffraff out of parliament. Sometimes the decision is easy; sometimes, it's less clear cut.


Clive Palmer has raised his hand and signalled his intention to stand for Liberal pre-selection for the Federal seat of Lilley. There's no doubt that he's a very clever man, but is a self-made mega-rich ideas-man the right man to represent others in Parliament? If he's lucky enough to gain pre-selection, the voters will need to decide if Clive can be a team player, if he can cope with not being The Boss. It's telling that Liberal Leader Tony Abbott wasn't aware of Clive's intentions. Clive is used to making decisions without reference to others. That doesn't work in Parliament. Is Clive a solution, or an even bigger problem?


Then there's Peter Slipper, a career politician who just can't seem to control his use of commonwealth travel perks, or his enjoyment of ... Well, you know the rest. How did this man keep getting elected? Abbott knew what was going on there, potentially for several years, and he was only too happy to pass responsibility for 'the problem' to the PM when Slipper jumped ship. Even former Liberal Party minister Mal Brough is a critic of Mr Slipper's conduct. There's no doubt that Peter Slipper is a clever operator, but recent history suggests that he's not clever enough. As an Independent, there's no preselection, but can he win, with his baggage strewn to the four winds and no party support? It's doubtful.

A new depth of political dumbness was reached when George W Bush stepped onto the world stage in 2000. We learned to never misunderestimate the world's most powerful man. 


Eight years later, as Dubya was preparing to leave the White House, commentators, cartoonists and talk show hosts rejoiced in the arrival of half-term Alaska Governor Sarah Palin. Although she and Presidential candidate John McCain failed in their bid for the Presidency, it worked out well for the rest of us. Ms Palin has had far more chance to embarrass herself as a loose cannon than she could ever have had as Veep.


But now, make way for Wanda.


Wanda Brown is an American politician whose appearance this week on The Daily Show was the stuff of nightmares. Ms Brown is a Republican, and a member of the Missouri legislature, as well as being associated with the following organisations:

NRA Life Member
Lincoln, Warsaw and Cole Camp Chambers of Commerce
Benton County Republican Committee
Benton County Pachyderms
Benton County Republican Women
Missouri Cattleman's Association
Missouri Farm Bureau
Whiteman Air Force Base Community Council

Wanda Brown's latest campaign is to protect gun owners from workplace discrimination. According to Ms Brown, gun-owners in Missouri are more at risk of workplace discrimination that gays are. 


Fortunately for everyone in Missouri, Ms Brown was unable to provide a single example of discrimination against gun-owners, so either her campaign has been 100% successful, or there's something amiss. I think her performance on The Daily Show will explain: the segment is "Free At Last, Free to Blast".


Ms Brown's efforts to have this non-existent discrimination against gun-owners banned has actually succeeded.Face it: Brown has picked up where George W left off four years ago. She's an ultra-conservative Republican who sounds committed and believable. The truth is, she is unbelievable & probably should be committed.


She is spending her time and effort getting a law passed to make illegal something which as far as we know, has never happened.  (She also has hair that reminds me of Julie Bishop's eyes. If Julie Bishop ever gets Wanda Brown's hairstyle, we're all doomed.)


But I'm considering myself pretty lucky about now. Of all three levels of politics, none of my local representatives  is stupid. They all seem to be sensible, determined men who believe in what they're doing. I don't necessarily agree with their policies or priorities, but I can't imagine any of them trying to pass a law to ban cats on the Internet, on announcing that their political opponents are funded by an overseas intelligence agency.


But I like knowing that there are Wandas in the world, too. They bring some much-needed perspective to political cynics like me. 

One In Fifty

I've been trying for months to not write this rant. Today, on this blog, I concede defeat. 


I am a straight woman in a committed monogamous relationship with my straight male partner, Rob, who is divorced. We wear matching wedding bands on our wedding fingers. We refer to each other as husband and wife. We are as close to being married (or civilly partnershipped) as you can get, without being married. We have all of the legal protection that defacto couples have, but we are not married. We're not even engaged.


One day we'll do the deed. It won't involve a white frock that looks like a cross between a toilet roll cover and a pavlova. It won't be in a church, or involve religion. There will be spectacular finger food, an incredible cake (or two: we can't decide between lemon-coconut and Black Forest...and Mum will want a traditional fruit cake, so we should plan for three cakes) and tears of joy. It will be a very special day. 


It will be a privilege to marry Rob. I know he feels the same way about me. 


But we've agreed that until every single adult in Australia has the right to enjoy that same privilege, we won't either. Estimates suggest that at least 2% of the world's population is gay. That's one in fifty people. 


In this country, not all single adults can marry the person they love. If Irene and Anne want to marry, they can't. If Adrian and Enrique want to marry, they can't. Penny and Sophie can be parents, but they can't be married. And Rob and I can. 


So I ask myself, what is so special about Rob and I that we have this privileged existence where we can partake of an ancient ritual of legal and spiritual coupledom, when the same ritual is denied our friends. What have we done to make us more deserving?


Lyle Shelton,  Chief of Staff of the Australian Christian Lobby, husband of Wendy "Won't Somebody Think Of The Children" Francis and lapsed journalist, has been stirring the pot on Twitter today. He's tweeting the Senate hearings on marriage equality.  According to Mr Shelton, aside from the obvious reason that homosexuality is against his God's law, his argument against redefining marriage to include same sex marriage is that it places one of society's feet on a banana peel. 


The ACL believes that from gay marriage, it'd be just another short lurch to the left and we'd be legalising polygamy. What does he think will happen next? Rev-heads marrying their cars? Geeks marrying their iPads? Foot Fetishists marrying their Jimmy Choos? 

Twitter identity Can_Do_Campbell was quick to point out that where polygamy exists, it tends to be within a religious structure like the FLDS.  Mr Shelton responded that it wasn't part of Christianity; it's only mentioned in the Old Testament. Does that mean we can toss out Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel, Noah's Ark, the talking snake, the burning bush? 


Okay - just checking.


Despite some determined questioning - and just a little provocation, and isolated abuse - Mr Shelton failed to respond to questions about why legalising same sex marriage would have any impact on his life. In other words, what does it have to do with him? 


This basic disconnect accounts for much of the tension between religion and secularism. The religious lobby - any religious lobby - sees it as their responsibility, their divine purpose, to spread the word of their Gospel and thereby save the world. In order for religious zealots to fulfil their purpose, they must ensure that everyone follows the rules set down by their God.


Those who believe in a different God, or in no God at all, are therefore required to reject their own beliefs and follow the teachings of a God they don't believe in. How is that fair? In the case against marriage equality, it's literally using one inequality (their perception of their superior beliefs, and their right to impose those beliefs on others) to enforce another inequality.


It's not for me. Lyle Shelton and his colleagues will never convince me that I am more entitled, more deserving, more special than my friend Irene, a gay teacher, counsellor, mentor and generous friend for over thirty years. Or my cousin Adrian, one of the sweetest, most sensitive and smartest people I know. Or Senator Penny Wong, a brilliant young Australian and role model for all of us.


When Rob and I marry, I hope Irene and Anne and Adrian and Enrique will be there to celebrate with us...and I hope we'll be on their guest lists too. Until then, we have one more battle to win, and many more cake-related decisions to make.


Twitter: @Can_Do_Campbell @LyleShelton

Best Dressed Olympics

The Australian team uniform for the London Olympics was unveiled this morning, Dark green over crisp white, the Sportscraft-designed uniform looks clean, classy and even preppy. I can see a young Robert Redford and Mia Farrow off for a game of tennis – or cricket, or perhaps lawn bowls - in these uniforms, or something quite similar.

I can’t recall an Olympic year when there hasn’t been controversy about the uniforms for the Opening Ceremony – too colourful, not colourful enough, looks like a flight attendant’s uniform. It’s too relaxed or too corporate, or not Australian enough or too Australian. The uniforms revealed today aren’t the Opening Ceremony uniforms, though – they are secret squirrel business until we see the Aussies walking out into the arena during the ceremony.

The one objection I hear most often repeated it “what’s with the colours?”

Indeed. I’d hate to be choosing the colours and designing an Aussie Olympic uniform; it’s a no-win proposition. The Aussie flag is red, white and blue. The Aboriginal flag is red, yellow and black. Our sports colours are the colours of the wattle: silver-green leaves and canary yellow blossoms. The outback is ochre, the ocean is various moody blues, Oxford Street has a veritable rainbow of pinky shades at Mardi Gras time, sunset is apricot and mauve, and at night, in the bush, the sky is inkiest black.

In short, take your pick. In this wide brown land (did I forget brown?) you can choose any colour combination you can think of, and justify its inclusion in a national uniform.

In Beijing, the official uniforms were darkish grey and blue suits, probably more suited to a corporate office than a sporting team. That’s nothing new, though; traditionally, official Olympic uniforms have involved a coat and tie. It’s only been more recently that the fashion designers charged with designing the uniforms have broken away from the conservative traditions. The photo here of the 1980 Olympic Rowing Team could just about be a convention of Barber Shop Quartets from a century ago.

The pinnacle of non-traditional was the colourful cartoonish linings in the Reg Mombasa designed uniforms for the Sydney Olympics. They were magnificent – most things about the Sydney Olympics were.

Our uniforms in Beijing were about as far away from traditional as you can get, but failed spectacularly with the public: faux dip-dyed shiny blue tracksuits really don’t have much to do with anything Australian or Olympic, other than a desire to blend in with the Beijing Aquatic Centre.

This year, the return to traditional green-and-gold shouldn’t cause too many ructions, and with the athletes being involved in the design process, they should be happy too. Gone are the dress shoes and medium heels; in their place, white Volleys. Personally, I hate sports shoes with anything other than a sports uniform or a pair of jeans, but if I could get away with never wearing heels again, I would.

We're not the only country in the world with a sporting identity at odds with our official national flag, but you'd never see Canada out of the Red and White, or the USA or France out of their Red, White and Blue. China will always be red and yellow, but New Zealand is always identifiable by the black and white. Recently, Australia has been green and gold and blue and white and beige and ochre and brown.


On Friday 27^th July, we’ll get to see what the Aussies will be wearing into the Opening Ceremony. I have a feeling that Green and Gold is back. Or possibly purple and orange. How about black with multi-coloured starbursts…? Just hope that it's better than this pyjamas-in-da-hood design (above) from Canada.

By the way, I missed purple, but I believe our Ladies Gymnastics teams wore shiny purple leotards once...