Dear reader,
another missive from our faithful correspondent from the North-West frontier. In this-un Frank urges us to think clearly about who we might vote for in the upcoming federal election. We of course know that voting entails a philosophical commitment to the democratic process, rather like the belief in “Clean Coal”, and the ‘Ladder of opportunity’!
Why is this so you may ask? Could it have something to do with the sneaking suspicion that big money, the lobbyists and the numbers-men have the game sewn up? Or is the electoral system really working for the average punter?
On that count we don’t know. Cept to say there’s a lot of independents in the air this time round.
And, politically speaking’ there are known knowns and unknown unknowns. That’s the best we can do with what we have. And a bit like the Ben Roberts-Smith case it’s hard to get to the bottom of things when there’s a whiff of corruption in the air? Apparently most Australians now believe the political system is corrupt. We reckon they’re just narked cos they didn’t get a parachute onto the board of the AAT or the FWC. Whichever way you look at it most of us don’t now how lucky we are to be living in ‘Strayla’, and Boris has paid us the eternal compliment of borrowing our offshore detention scheme. Onya Boris!
So ultimately what’s the problem?
The Lucky Country? You betchya!
But Frank aint so sure. He writes;
Hola,
“Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery that mediocrity can pay to greatness”- Oscar Wilde.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zX-YTIsj4Iw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wMbQsKJ64S0
Australia is about to have another Tweedle-dee Twiddle Dum election.
Two days before going into pre-election caretaker mode, the Federal conservative Government signed a deal with the Northern Territory’s Labor (before you pedantics have a go, that is how they spell it) Government signed a $A872 million deal to “accelerate gas production in the Betaloo Basin”.
The NT Labor government has not followed up on their promise to close the Don Dale youth detention facility nor has it done anything about increasing the age of criminal responsibility from ten years. As far as I can ascertain spit hoods remain legal in the NT and the so-called paperless arrest laws remain in place. There appears to be no political appetite on both sides of politics to amend laws that give police virtual impunity, nor to disarm community police of their unnecessary and insulting lethal power.
There is nothing that our ruling classes do to indicate that Australia signed up to the U.N. Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment nor that it had endorsed the U.N. Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.
But don’t despair. There is something we Australians can be proud of! Australia’s Border Protection and its efforts at disrupting the people smugglers’ business plan!
Never mind the business plans of the fossil fuel industry, the welfare industry, the Aboriginal industry, the pork barrelling industry, the child welfare industry, the prison and justice industry, the offshore detention processing industry.
Some in clear breach of U.N. conventions Australia has endorsed.
In a clear case of mediocrity paying the sincerest form of flattery to greatness Boris Johnson has announced that Britain will imitate Australia in disrupting the people smugglers’ business plan. So called Illegal arrivals by boat will now be processed offshore in Rwanda.
Never mind the business plan of the human traffickers who have swooped on hapless Ukrainian refugees.
As for the election: What shall we do?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=11po9xKBsbw
Myself, I will once again be using my vote to help vote someone out, rather than to help voting someone in.
Chau,
Frank
A bonus bit of music from Nicaragua: