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The Death of Superman

10/24/2014

Gough Whitlam. My Super Hero.

I was not yet eight years old when Gough Whitlam became Prime Minister. I could not have predicted that the positive changes he brought to my life would have carried on for over forty years. And not just in mine, but in my mother’s and grandmother’s , sister’s and brother’s.

Growing up on an invalid pension in Blacktown, his long arm reached out to pull us, all of us, up out of despair. He was our Superman.

These things were personal gifts to me. And I want to say thanks for them now, though I have been conscious of how precious they have been throughout my life.

Thank you for Medicare. Without it my mother would have died. It’s that simple.

Thank you for my education, for the chance to go to university, free of debt. For the money you poured into schools, for the building programs which brought opportunity to the disadvantaged.

Thank you for working for equality and equal pay for women.

Thank you for ‘no fault divorce’. It too saved lives.

Thank you for recognising and working toward recognition of indigenous rights to this land, for your respect and humility in seeking their voice.

Thank you for ending conscription and bringing the boys home from Vietnam. You began the very night of the election. You saved lives.

Thank you for caring for the national parks and preservation of wilderness.

Thank you for the money you poured into the Arts and Literature and Cultural Heritage. For the renaissance of film and theatre in the 1970’s.

Thank you for creating a positive multicultural society which was an example to the rest of the world. Thank you for SBS.

Thank you for bringing the sewerage system to western Sydney, for recognising that we had waited too long for a service others took for granted. For respecting our dignity….

Because of you there was food on our table, and we had hope. My eight year old self could dream of a future with fewer limitations and greater equity. My mother could afford her medication and my grandmother could afford to care for us.

I am old now, Gough. And I used the gifts you gave me to get an education and go to university. And I still believe in what mattered then. I’ve been moulded in your image.

Education. Equity. Compassion. Care. Generosity. These are the gifts brought to me in 1972. And they are with me still.

Thank you.

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The greatest threat to Australia today is the current government.

9/24/2014

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The greatest threat to Australia’s security is the current government.

Rule by dividing and terrorising the Australian population with misinformation and racially charged political stunts.

Add to our desperation by making us poorer, less able to afford education and health-care.

Continue to blame the previous government for budget shortfalls without tackling the wealthy who exploit the nation.

Perpetuate the torture of children in government care - their physical and sexual abuse.

Alienate and disenfranchise young people, especially young men.

Fail to represent over fifty percent of the population – women.

Belittle and mock human rights.

Expunge ourselves of our international obligations – shipping our poor and desperate to compete with the poor and desperate in Cambodia.

Do we feel proud?

Do we feel safe?

We have never been more afraid in our lives.

How many of us are wise enough to know the real extremists are the men in suits who are throwing away our security for political point-scoring? They know exactly what they’re doing: Play the ‘Security Card’ as their predecessor played the ‘Weapons of Mass Destruction Card’. All lies. All spin. All designed to make this nation fearful and force our children to grow up afraid and without hope. Such is the banner of Team Australia.

Let us hope those of us on Team Humanity can hold on long enough to bring about positive change.

Hold this government to account.

A true leader will unite people, not single out and persecute minorities. Destroying in a few short months a nation which was one of the most integrated and peaceful in the world.

Ask yourself why the government talks about human rights as though they only belong to white, male, Australians.

Ask yourself how a Christian country can bomb a country in abject poverty and disarray? Do we not hold Christians to account as we hold our Muslim brothers and sisters? Did Jesus tell Christians to slaughter the non-believers? It would seem, by our actions, that he did. And yet, I find it impossible to locate the scripture which insights me to hate my neighbour as Team Australia would have me do.

Lets look forward to the truth emerging from the spin and am comforted that Abbot and Murdock cannot control the internet, or what young people will discover in the months ahead.

They will vote for a government which will give them:

A safe and stable place to live

Clean air and water

Renewable energy

Hope of finding a stable job and not just a short term contract.

Affordable education

Affordable health

A fairer tax system where the wealthy pay their share and big business pays fairly for resources.

Gender equality.

A sense that Australia respects its international obligations and can be relied on to work toward a better world.

None of this is possible with the current government.

And a people without hope is a terrorised nation.

And so it is that the greatest terror threat we have on these shores today sits in Parliament House with a PM on his door and an armed guard designed to keep us, and the truth, out.

(I know that government should have a capital G, but I cannot bring myself to give it one. It would imply a respect I cannot feel. So for the grammar purists, I apologise)

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Emma Watson: Being a Feminist

9/22/2014

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Emma Watson: Gender equality is your issue too

Date: 20 Sep 2014

Speech by UN Women Goodwill Ambassador Emma Watson at a special event for the HeForShe campaign, United Nations Headquarters, New York, 20 September 2014

Today we are launching a campaign called “HeForShe.”

I am reaching out to you because I need your help. We want to end gender inequality—and to do that we need everyone to be involved.

This is the first campaign of its kind at the UN: we want to try and galvanize as many men and boys as possible to be advocates for gender equality. And we don’t just want to talk about it, but make sure it is tangible.

I was appointed six months ago and the more I have spoken about feminism the more I have realized that fighting for women’s rights has too often become synonymous with man-hating. If there is one thing I know for certain, it is that this has to stop.

For the record, feminism by definition is: “The belief that men and women should have equal rights and opportunities. It is the theory of the political, economic and social equality of the sexes.”

I started questioning gender-based assumptions when at eight I was confused at being called “bossy,” because I wanted to direct the plays we would put on for our parents—but the boys were not.

When at 14 I started being sexualized by certain elements of the press.

When at 15 my girlfriends started dropping out of their sports teams because they didn’t want to appear “muscly.”

When at 18 my male friends were unable to express their feelings.

I decided I was a feminist and this seemed uncomplicated to me. But my recent research has shown me that feminism has become an unpopular word.

Apparently I am among the ranks of women whose expressions are seen as too strong, too aggressive, isolating, anti-men and, unattractive.

Why is the word such an uncomfortable one?

I am from Britain and think it is right that as a woman I am paid the same as my male counterparts. I think it is right that I should be able to make decisions about my own body. I think it is right that women be involved on my behalf in the policies and decision-making of my country. I think it is right that socially I am afforded the same respect as men. But sadly I can say that there is no one country in the world where all women can expect to receive these rights.

No country in the world can yet say they have achieved gender equality.

These rights I consider to be human rights but I am one of the lucky ones. My life is a sheer privilege because my parents didn’t love me less because I was born a daughter. My school did not limit me because I was a girl. My mentors didn’t assume I would go less far because I might give birth to a child one day. These influencers were the gender equality ambassadors that made who I am today. They may not know it, but they are the inadvertent feminists who are. And we need more of those. And if you still hate the word—it is not the word that is important but the idea and the ambition behind it. Because not all women have been afforded the same rights that I have. In fact, statistically, very few have been.

In 1997, Hilary Clinton made a famous speech in Beijing about women’s rights. Sadly many of the things she wanted to change are still a reality today.

But what stood out for me the most was that only 30 per cent of her audience were male. How can we affect change in the world when only half of it is invited or feel welcome to participate in the conversation?

Men—I would like to take this opportunity to extend your formal invitation. Gender equality is your issue too.

Because to date, I’ve seen my father’s role as a parent being valued less by society despite my needing his presence as a child as much as my mother’s.

I’ve seen young men suffering from mental illness unable to ask for help for fear it would make them look less “macho”—in fact in the UK suicide is the biggest killer of men between 20-49; eclipsing road accidents, cancer and coronary heart disease. I’ve seen men made fragile and insecure by a distorted sense of what constitutes male success. Men don’t have the benefits of equality either.

We don’t often talk about men being imprisoned by gender stereotypes but I can see that that they are and that when they are free, things will change for women as a natural consequence.

If men don’t have to be aggressive in order to be accepted women won’t feel compelled to be submissive. If men don’t have to control, women won’t have to be controlled.

Both men and women should feel free to be sensitive. Both men and women should feel free to be strong… It is time that we all perceive gender on a spectrum not as two opposing sets of ideals.

If we stop defining each other by what we are not and start defining ourselves by what we are—we can all be freer and this is what HeForShe is about. It’s about freedom.

I want men to take up this mantle. So their daughters, sisters and mothers can be free from prejudice but also so that their sons have permission to be vulnerable and human too—reclaim those parts of themselves they abandoned and in doing so be a more true and complete version of themselves.

You might be thinking who is this Harry Potter girl? And what is she doing up on stage at the UN. It’s a good question and trust me I have been asking myself the same thing. I don’t know if I am qualified to be here. All I know is that I care about this problem. And I want to make it better.

And having seen what I’ve seen—and given the chance—I feel it is my duty to say something. English statesman Edmund Burke said: “All that is needed for the forces of evil to triumph is for enough good men and women to do nothing.”

In my nervousness for this speech and in my moments of doubt I’ve told myself firmly—if not me, who, if not now, when. If you have similar doubts when opportunities are presented to you I hope those words might be helpful.

Because the reality is that if we do nothing it will take 75 years, or for me to be nearly a hundred before women can expect to be paid the same as men for the same work. 15.5 million girls will be married in the next 16 years as children. And at current rates it won’t be until 2086 before all rural African girls will be able to receive a secondary education.

If you believe in equality, you might be one of those inadvertent feminists I spoke of earlier.

And for this I applaud you.

We are struggling for a uniting word but the good news is we have a uniting movement. It is called HeForShe. I am inviting you to step forward, to be seen to speak up, To be the he for she. And to ask yourself if not me, who, if not now when.

Thank you.

- See more at: http://www.unwomen.org/en/news/stories/2014/9/emma-watson-gender-equality-is-your-issue-too#sthash.BbjY8M7g.dpuf

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What Constitutes a Child in Abbott's Australia?

8/19/2014

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Mr Abbott,

Free ALL Children from Detention. Now. Without delay.

An educated man would see little purpose in punishing a baby.

A decent man would protect frightened women and children.

A civilized man would not pull a child out of school and incarcerate her.

These children and their parents have obeyed the law. They have fulfilled their international obligations and kept the conventions set down by the United Nations.

Have you Mr Abbott?

It seems to me that you see fit to free only children incarcerated by your predecessor. And only those on the mainland. And only those who are under the age of ten. You draw lines of distinction outside the Australian definition of ‘child’, outside the international protocols on the treatment of children, outside the recognised concept of ‘last resort’.

You do your country no favours in breaching what is decent.

You are responsible for the torture of children on Nauru.

You are responsible for the sexual and physical abuse of children on Christmas Island and Manus Island.

You do not represent the people of this nation.

How can the torture of children represent us as a nation?

These are your policies, enacted by your government, adhered to despite public protest and international condemnation.

You are breaking laws Mr Abbott. Laws agreed upon by civilized nations designed to make this world a safer place. A place where women and children have no need to run from fear.

But there are, as I write this, two children running. Two lost and frightened children who were loved by their communities and accepted by their fellow Australians. You took them to an adult prison without bothering to verify their ages. You and your government.

So don’t congratulate yourself, Mr Abbott. Not now. Not yet.

Not before you find in yourself some humanity. Some humility. Some empathy.

And let them ALL. Every child, woman and man, locked inside the gulags of your making. Let them ALL free.

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Keeping The Story Alive

7/29/2014

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Evil happens when good people do nothing.
Colleen Keating's poem is a reminder of this, a reminder to keep the stories alive , keep the candle burning always believing in the critical mass to change things.

keeping a story alive

write it
feeling by feeling

asylum seekers captive
captive at sea
detained in a prison hulk

use the pen to write it
one hundred and fifty three
or more
there could be a birth by now
maybe one hundred and fifty four

yes its hard to get a human stance
without names without stories

use the keys to type it
speak of seclusion
imprisoned on an ocean vessel
by our country
with our money in our name
in silence and secrecy

use the net to spread the word
name it as piracy
don’t let the story drown
under todays news

ask how can this be
question its morality aloud

keep the story alive
let our record be their witness

colleen keating

Since writing this poem the immigration minister
has been forced to capitulate and agree to bring to Australia
now note 157 asylum seekers..
They are being taken to the remote Curtin Detention Centre
while the Government tries to circumvent our High Court
in their absolute ruthless behaviour to asylum seekers.

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We sold the Sun for a Peppercorn

7/6/2014

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We sold the sun for a peppercorn

To industry who promptly closed it down.

Filling the skies with coal- dust and Co2.

They charged us our children’s future

And blindly we paid.

Promises broken

In the land of broken hopes.

We gave away our water

To business.

Who taught us lessons in greed

And the price of apathy.

They own what once belonged to all.

Like the sun and wind.

And the broken clay beds of once mighty rivers

Echo those broken promises

Of a government, Orwellian in its thinking

And brutal in its structure.

These shady men in power

Do they really believe we don’t know?

They line their pockets with our future

Steal from us with no qualms

Claim we’ve given them permission.

They have pimped us out

To greasy bosses and slimy bankers

Not bothering with honest prices

For services we gave them no leave to take.

They have made a brothel of this nation

Sold us down the sludgy river

Thrown our dignity out with our future

While they shake hands in smoke-filled back room deals

Arrogant and dangerous

The bully in the playground

Has grown and wears a suit.

He stares with lizard eyes

Holds reign in a parliament of snakes

Where blood runs cold

And empathy is extinguished.

Is there no legal precedent to force honesty and transparency from elected government?

This Liberal government, arrogant, ignorant, and misogynistic seems to do what it likes despite sound advice and legal argument?

When a government becomes a dictatorship, when it breaches international laws and human rights surely there must be a way to remove it?

Or do we, as a nation, not care enough?

Will we offer the same excuses as the Germans did after the war? That they didn’t know?

Maybe in a world without twitter it might be possible to claim ignorance. But we can’t claim ignorance any more.

Just apathy.

Evil happens when good men do nothing.

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No Jobs on a Dead Planet

6/22/2014

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Should our current government succeed in overturning the registration of Tasmanian forests as part of the UN World Heritage listings it will be remembered as one of the greatest environmental vandals in history.

Greed must be fought with common sense. This is something the state premier of Tasmania and our current prime minister seem unable to understand. To log the forests will provide a brief window of employment followed by an endless winter of extensive and on-going job losses. Because clearly, Tasmania’s future is in the preservation of what the rest of the country has destroyed. These forests don’t belong to us. They belong to the planet and as such we have a global responsibility to preserve them for future generations. For in them will lie the jobs of the future.

Tourism is Tasmania’s strongest industry. It is clear that Australians and people from all over the world value the island for its natural heritage.

We know only a fraction of their worth in terms of medicines and health benefits.

But we certainly know their worth in terms of ecological diversity. And it’s that diversity which will be the key to our survival in a world rapidly spiralling into desert.

Do we really want the world to assume all Australians believe our environmental heritage doesn’t matter? Do we want the world to see us as so full of greed and ignorance that we will destroy what world keep us living?

We cannot get back what we throw away. Ancient trees cannot be regrown on a whim. It will be 500 years before we see such trees again. And if we destroy them now, will there be any Australia left to mourn them 500 years from now? And if there is, would anyone want to live there?

Wisdom teaches us : There will be no jobs on a dead planet.

Just last year 120,000 hectares of forest were added to a UN World Heritage Area.
But according to the federal government, 74,000 hectares of that don't need protection - a claim that has environmentalists up in arms.
"We have trees here that are 100m tall", Environment Tasmania CEO Charlie Sherwin says.
"They are the tallest hardwood trees on earth. Some of them fell from seed when Leonardo was painting the Mona Lisa."

The forest in question covers areas of the Upper Derwent, the Florentine and Huon Valleys, and the Hartz Mountains.

From an article by Gary Cox SBS World News

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In Tehran Happiness is a Crime

5/20/2014

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In Tehran Happiness is a Crime

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RYnLRf-SNxY

This link will take you to a clip so full of joy that you want to dance. That is until you realise that every single person involved in making the film and sharing it with the world has been arrested for ‘offending public decency’.

"After a vulgar clip which hurt public chastity was released in cyberspace, police decided to identify those involved in making that clip… Following a series of intelligence and police operations and after coordinating with the judiciary, all the suspects were identified and arrested.” Tehran police chief Hossein Sajedinia

And clearly decency is lacking. Not in these beautiful and spirited and joyous young people, but in an authoritarian regime which sees fit to persecute women and any man who wishes to treat a woman as equal. Which pools its resources to hunt down citizens such as these instead of taking care of the poor and needy so desperate for government support. It uses a twisted form of Islam to benefit self-serving religious leaders and politicians. None of whom have any respect for the people in their care.

Once you know each one of these beautiful young people are now in prison for simply showing happiness, this film clip becomes heartbreaking to witness.

What has happened to them since?

What can happen to a people when joy is forbidden?

And yet this film clip shows there is hope. Because no matter how punitive and evil a regime becomes there will always be those who defy it.

And they are the world’s salvation.

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A Child Born Today Will Never Afford a Doctor

5/13/2014

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A child born today will never afford a doctor

No University for them

Their schooling will be basic

Poorer schools, fewer teachers, bigger classes

More slipping between the ever widening gaps

They will see their parents destitute

They will look for work but find none

Belittled and blamed

A future begging for charity

No handouts. No jobs. No super. No retirement.

They will see the coral die for coal

Their cities and rivers choke

Their wilderness carved up like a freshly slaughtered pig

Sold to greedy developers

And miners sharing sly pillows with politicians.

And around them will stand the ghosts of Christmases Past

Decency, Kindness, Generosity, Empathy.

While the spectres of the Future

Greed, Hatred, Selfishness, Prejudice

Howl loathing around their heads.

What Happens to ordinary people when Government loses its Integrity?

It is May 2014 Australia and the current government has just brought down a budget so severe on the poor, the unemployed, the elderly, the sick, the young and the helpless- there is no precedent.

It has broken faith in the people who voted for it.

It has destroyed hope for the future in those who did not.

There is clear evidence that its motivation is not born out of our current deficit, but out of an intention to restructure Australian society so that all safety nets for the disadvantaged are deleted with the intent to remove them entirely.

Health, education, the unemployed and the elderly are the sacrificial lambs for corporate and political greed.

Few believe there is anything but self interest in these decisions.

We were once a nation of egalitarian principals. We led the world in championing human rights and providing assistance for those who were not as lucky as the majority. We had universal health care, outstanding educational facilities and opportunities which were accessible to all. We protected and preserved environments for future generations.

Is this the government we get when women are ostracised from power? When their voices are so few in Parliament that the bully boys refuse to hear their objections. Or are they so intimidated that they don’t object? Instead, they let bad social policy become the edict of the future.

Women are the carers who will carry the greatest burdens of this budget.

They look after the elderly until they are old themselves. They will provide shelter for their children who are jobless and destitute. They will have less to live on because of their time out of the workforce. They will visit the doctor more. Have greater health costs. Greater responsibilities for the sick and those with disabilities.

The current prime minister claims himself the Minister of Women. Did he consult any of the women in the community to see the effects this budget will have on their daily lives?

A man who has made no statement of concern or support for women when over 200 school girls are kidnapped cannot think much of the importance of women in the world.

A man who cannot find more than a handful of capable women to participate in his cabinet clearly isn’t looking.

How can a government which has sidelined from political decision-making those with a true understanding of society make any responsible decision?

This government DOES NOT represent the people of this nation. It can’t if it fails to represent more than half the population.

Rich white men will only ever represent other rich white men.

All others, particularly women, are fuel for exploitation.

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There are no excuses

3/7/2014

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International Women’s Day March 8th 2014 - and we mark another year in the struggle for equality. Make no mistake: some men fear women so much they would do everything in their power to keep women silent, illiterate, emaciated, enslaved.

The fact that 90% of the world’s poor are women and children is proof that the world in which we live is grossly distorted in favour of men. Men control the wealth. Men consume the resources. Men dominate through violence and intimidation. And I know many men who feel caught by this reality. Good men are tainted by what bad men do.

Surely the time has come for all of us to look at the treatment of women and commit to change. Things cannot go on like this. Not if we want to call ourselves civilised.

It must come from those of us born female. And it will take bravery and tenacity and strength.

It must come from men.

Men must stand against the men who perpetrate the injustice. They must tell them that to give anything less than equal rights and opportunity to women is to show cowardice and greed.

The world is full of cowards.

It’s full of men who take from women.

Things need to change. For all our sakes.

Ask yourself what future you want for your daughters?

What world do you want then to grow up in?

What would you be prepared to do to ensure they have equality?

And your sons? Do you want them to carry the collective guilt of being born male in a world where men do terrible things to women? To children, sisters, mothers, wives, grandmothers?

Every time we treat a woman differently we perpetuate the injustice.

Every time we excuse or ignore misogyny we make the world poorer.

It’s time to make a stand.

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<<Previous

Forward>>

The Death of Superman

The greatest threat to Australia today is the current government.

Emma Watson: Being a Feminist

What Constitutes a Child in Abbott's Australia?

Keeping The Story Alive

We sold the Sun for a Peppercorn

No Jobs on a Dead Planet

In Tehran Happiness is a Crime

A Child Born Today Will Never Afford a Doctor

There are no excuses

siobhan colman

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