Time For A Change Or Two

This is a little chart I prepared this evening upon receiving our gas bill. The gaps are the bills that are in the tax archives (need to retrieve and add to the total picture) but you get the general idea...

Partially this upward movement has been the result of price hikes, particularly the electricity component which has been affected by our soon to be late-lamented carbon tax. The gas bill on the other hand relates to two significant 'improvements' in lifestyle.

At the end of winter 2011 we installed a gas heater. Bliss! Joy!! No longer was one knee roasting and the other ice cold as we huddled against an electric bar heater.

Now let us examine the gargantuan LEAP in gas usage as we hit 2013:
Exhibit A.

When the spa was installed, the technician assured us that it cost around 16c per hour to heat.
I am now of the belief that he is probably delusional.

So that is change number one for Himself. No more gratuitous heating of the spa, for his own hedonistic wallowing, every third night, without the benefit of some form of insulation.
If he does wish to continue this extravagant practice, he can consider doing it on a single income.
I'm actually not kidding here.

The second big change for all of us is the result of last Saturday's General Distraction, I mean Election.  We have a new Prime Minister and a new Government. Most interestingly we have a bunch of total nutcase losers holding the balance of power in the Senate! Three cheers for democracy and the stupidity of the general population.

This could be the reason.....

That's our Senate ballot paper. Trees died for this farcical attempt at proportional representation. In the polling booth it extended up one wall, across the desk area and up the next wall. No, really, it did. There were 73 candidates who hailed from parties as revered as: The Australian Motor Enthusiasts Party, The Shooters and Fishers Party, The Help End Marijuana Prohibition Party (HEMP),  The Climate Sceptics Party, The Smokers Rights Party and the Australian Sex Party. Not only did a kangaroo poo flinging representative from the Australian Motor Enthusiasts Party get himself elected with no less than 11390 votes (0.5% of the primary), but this gentleman was elected because his Party (The Liberal Democrats) was the first Liberal type party on the paper and were thus, seemingly, mistaken for the major mainstream Liberal Party by large numbers of punters in a hurry to get out of the polling booth and into the beautiful spring sunshine.

As one clever pundit quipped, "He was elected on a platform of 'people not looking very closely at their voting papers'!"

The gentleman in question, who is also a card carrying member of the Outdoor Recreation Party (??? having visions of nudists frolicking around a BBQ here!!), managed a massive 283,000 votes which is probably 280,000 more than he deserved - but there you go, he will be one of possibly 8 cross bench representatives controlling the balance of power in the Senate. Not surprisingly, there has been a general frothing at the mouth and gnashing of teeth - along with cries of 'electoral reform!' ringing around the halls of power (ie the bars where all the media types enjoy their communal talkfests). But really, you've got to wonder....I mean....The Brick With Eyes for goodness sakes????

On a cheerful note, those of us who felt that neither of the major parties had anything resembling a compassionate, humanitarian approach to the problem of refugees being exploited by people smugglers, mounted a minor protest by 'folding our votes like a boat'. No mean feat considering the size of that Senate Ballot paper!

We Stand On The Brink....

5th November 2008: Adelaide, South Australia

And so it came to pass.

As I watched the excitement, the elation, the relief, the emotion,
I was overtaken by something completely different.

*************************

'I have a dream.'

I was 7 years old when I lived in New Haven Connecticut in 1968. I was an Australian kid on sabbatical with her family in the midst of one of the most turbulent times in American history. We arrived in the country in the week that Martin Luther King was assassinated. He was 39 years old.

From my childish perspective I remember only a few vivid things. We were staying in a hotel until we could find a house and because of this, when my father was scheduled to attend a conference in Washington we all went, as a family, on a Greyhound bus. We arrived late afternoon and were taken directly to another hotel at around 5pm. My mother recalls that there was a 4pm curfew (I thought it was 6pm but I was only seven at the time so we'll trust her recollections) and there was no food in the hotel so my father had to negotiate with a shop or something a few doors up the street and wrangle some bread rolls for us, as the military police were patrolling the streets.

I vividly remember the army jeeps and the soldiers with machine guns on their hips. I think it was vaguely exciting and certainly there was a sense of being in the middle of something 'big'. My mother's recollections include the fear inherent in walking the streets as a white woman with two little girls. Everything was within walking distance from the hotel and so we walked to the Smithsonian Institute and other typical tourist spots during the day when my father was at the conference. Mum remembers the black Americans sitting in doorways and on steps, glaring at her as she walked past. Washington was in the grip of the race riots.

I remember the funeral of Martin Luther King on television; I remember his perfect dark face framed by the soft gathered silk of the coffin lining; I remember my mother explaining why he was important and why he was dead; I remember her pointing out a young, sharp faced man in the front rows of the pews and exclaiming 'That's President Kennedy's brother.'

Speaking about it now, she doesn't have a clear memory of the time that she told me these things, things which would shape my thinking for years to come. She explained how painful the funeral must have been for Senator Kennedy as his brother had also been shot dead some five years before. How did my seven year old mind take in so much violence? At seven does the US become 'that place where great men are shot dead'?

Certainly this idea was to be reinforced months later as an assassin's bullet also found Bobby Kennedy. I remember watching it on TV; I remember walking to school and seeing a large chalk heart drawn on the pavement with the words 'Pray for Bobby' scrawled within. Another 'people's champion' fell. What kind of country does that? I don't think anyone told me about Abraham Lincoln at that stage. I think that came later.

So when I see Barack Obama and his family emerge triumphantly onto the walkway as President and First Family-elect, my heart is filled with foreboding. I can't help it; I am a child of the sixties.

God Bless you America for actually doing it. God Bless all of you who got up off your backsides and made a difference. It is time for a change. Is it a coincidence that this year is the 40th anniversary of the death of Martin Luther King? Could he ever have imagined that 40 years hence there would be an African American waiting in the White House wings?

All I can pray is that the Security service is on its toes.

Sorry

Today we were proud to be Australian. Ashamed and proud. Moved and proud. Today many of us understood, and were sorry.

I sat in a seminar room with about 50 kids and a number of staff as we watched the Prime Ministers speech live on a big screen. We heard a formal acknowledgment of the dreadful wrong which had been committed 'for the best'. Regardless of the pupils around me, tears rolled down my cheeks.

There was such a sense of occasion, of witnessing history. No more excuses. As much as at any time in history today, Australia entered another age. As the Wars taught us that we were a Nation unto ourselves, that we had quality and identity apart from our 'Mother Country', to day taught us that we were big enough to admit our wrongs; to identify with our beginnings, no matter how unpalatable and acknowledge their part in who we are today.

For those of you who do not know of our history, I give you this link to the report entitled 'Bringing Them Home: A Report into the Separation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander
Children from their Families.'

This Policy is not ancient history. When I was at school there were aboriginal children in our class who were fostered by white families or living in sheltered accommodation with other 'orphaned' kids. We assumed they had been orphaned. It never occurred to us that there could be any other explanation. Apparently all aboriginal children had no parents.

With the long overdue ceremony today, the Govt has taken the first steps towards National healing. It is our job as Australians to embrace the errors of our past and learn from them. How this will look in terms of practical application has yet to be determined but let us pray that bridges are being built.

Whatever the criticisms of the ceremony, of the Leader of the Opposition's speech, of the opportunities for litigation and the resultant financial and legal deluge, today Australia did a good thing.

Face of the Future

Well, here is our new Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd aka K-Rudd aka Kevin 07..................

Not quite sure how I feel about it. He has three years to convince me.

Elections: Ouch, those pickets can be uncomfortable to sit on.....

Back from the Polling Booth at our local school. Quite a carnival atmosphere down there at the moment. Its a comfortable, sunny Spring day and optimism is high. For what? I for one have NO clue!!!

Yesterday 'the Polls' were not only split they were almost diametrically opposed. Labour, having run a strong campaign have been ahead all the way, at times by up to 10 points! Yesterday one set of Polls predicted a Labour landslide whilst the other ones showed the gap had narrowed to a margin of 2%, a position from which the Labour Govt failed to win in 2001. So the old Baldmeister, megalomaniac Howard could still come back from the brink.......

How do I feel about that? Errrrrrrrr...........................

Well, like many of my countrymen I think Howard is an arrogant autocrat who is verging on senility or at least psychosis. Delusions of deity.

On the other hand, the country is in the best economic position it's been in for years. We're in the black! Unemployment is at a 33 year low. The hated 'Work Choices' IR policy whilst offending our very nature, suits us as small business owners. The Liberal Government have a proven track record for management.

On the other hand nobody is doing anything about the water crisis or climate change. Our treatment of refugees is draconian and nobody wants to listen for one minute longer to John Howard rant on about our need to be in Iraq and Afghanistan.

But have Labour got what it takes? Will Kevin Rudd, a self confessed economic conservative have the goolies to stand up to the 70% of Labour would be front benchers who are ex Union bosses? What if we're trying to fix something that ain't broke?

And even if I DID want to vote Labour, which I'm not sure I do, how can I vote for the empty headed Nicole Cornes whose sole claim to fame is being the wife of an ex footballer and who, for the first half of her campaign, was unable to explain any of Labour's policies!!!!!??????

On the other hand, our sitting member is an arrogant asshole (like so many of the Liberal candidates)........

oh what to do................what to do??????????

I could vote Independent, but his preferences go to Labour anyway, so why not just vote Labour....cos I'm not sure about them......so just vote Liberal.......but another 3 years of John Howard???? Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

I was so undecided that I actually tore up my ballot paper at one point and got another one. Yes, even IN the polling booth I was unsure as to the best compromise. :-(

At the end of the day, I doubt my pathetic little vote will make all the difference in the world. But tonight will be the telling time. How will I feel one way or another? I guess if I feel secretly relieved I shall know whether I voted with my gut or not. At the moment I am still wriggling to try and get that picket out of my a***. Not that it matters now.