I am not in the least articulate this evening because I officially sat passively or not so passively for 7 hours and listened to political theory/social theory/election theory/Greens theory and a touch of gender and race in detective fiction. My mind is sore. But.


A few notes on the impending election:

-It is really quite patronising and fucking annoying when the Young Liberals on my campus come to see Bob Brown from the Greens speak, only to distribute Voting Green really means…brochures which describe how ‘radically left-wing’ and potentially dangerous the Greens are. They go on to completely misrepresent and summarise Green platforms such as the decriminalising of drugs as the legalisation and distribution of illegal drugs, etc. The brochures were even green. I gave it back to the fool.
-Young Liberals proceed to sit amongst the 400+ people who have come to see and support the Greens to shout Here Here whenever Brown mentioned the potentiality of the Coalition’s re-election.
-Our government still has children and babies behind wire because they tried to seek refuge in our country. What the fuck?
-Democrats are preferencing Family First. What the fuck?
-Latham announces the Forestry Policy for Tasmania which means old-growth forests are locked up at least for the next year while ecologists examine it. Pledges $800,000,000 to compensation costs, etc, for workers. John Howard, who was responsible for Industrial Relations laws which squash union power and invest all the power in employers, pledges not to protect Tasmania’s forests and to give $52,000,000. The Tasmanian Forestry Unions shake hands with John Howard and pledge their support for the Coalition. I see something devastating and utterly laughable in UNIONS shaking hands and applauding a leader who would happily see workers sacked if they went on strike.
-John Howard, over nine years, can strip public schools of funds and pronounce they 'do not have values' [because they are public] and give schools such as Geelong Grammer $8 million in funding. The school board of Grammer proceed to send out letters to parents reminding them just 'How good the Coalition has been' to them. But when Latham under Labor announces his schools policy of re-directing these massive funds to more needy public schools everyone screams class warfare.
-Family First volunteer, when asked by a Green candidate ‘Should lesbians burn in hell?” responds “Yes, lesbians should burn in hell.” Prime Minister John Howard tells the media Family First are “reasonable people” and he would much prefer to preference them over the Greens. Family First also label places of ‘Satan’ as bottle shops, gambling venues, brothels, and mosques.

I know that I want homophobic, Christian fundamentalist Islam-phobes holding the balance of power in the Senate. Along with the Liberals of course.






36 hours until polling starts. This feels like a referendum on the sanity of the Australian people.



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