Clare Peterson
Punchy Productions
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We sipped on frothy and chilled Espresso Martini's while we played Galaga on the big old brown box game machine (official name unknown...however I am sure my disappointed boyfriend will comment with it). We played, yelled, consoled while we fondly remembered our childhoods. The only regrettable incident from the evening was that when I finally managed to win a game, post serious RSI to my right thumb and possible, no definite disturbance to the other more relaxed patrons, I entered my name on the list of winners as 'AAA'...not sure if that means I had started my own association of AA or perhaps needed to, but none the less it was a sign it was time to cease drinking cocktails and journey home. It is a quirky, neo-Tokyo bar found at the end of another of the funky lanes found in Melbourne. If anime was/is your thing, you can gaze at your childhood heros pinned up on the walls or you can place your $1 in the game machine for the reward of 3 lives - if only life was this simple. So when you feel the need to step away from your busy world consumed with worries of jobs, relationships, politics, money and tomorrows pop down to Robot Bar and remember the joy of being a child and only worrying about who wins the next game...
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#MSO #lovemelbourne Last night I had the pleasure of hearing the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra at Town Hall...and it was free! It was the launch of the 2011 season, which looks like a fantastic line up with lots of free community events too. Beautiful way to end a busy and looong day in the edit suite.
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Well Keating may be losing it over who wrote his famous speech from 1992, but at least he had the courage, dignity and compassion to say it, all those years ago. And yet, now in 2010 the country is struggling to find an eligible Prime Minister that can stand up in front of the country and speak with honesty and intelligence. To think that a Prime Minister stood up proudly in front of the country 18 years ago and uttered the below words without questioning his popularity or how he would be perceived by the racists in the country, sadly shocks me now; in contrast to the backwards steps Australia took during the following 12 years of little Johnny and recently with both 'major'/minor parties campaigning with slogans of "we'll stop the boats" and no mentioning of ending the NT Intervention...
The correlation between what Paul Keating said way back then and what should still be an issue for potential political leaders to be discussing cannot be avoided.
It begins, I think, with the act of recognition. Recognition that it was we who did the dispossessing. We took the traditional lands and smashed the traditional way of life. We brought the disasters. The alcohol. We committed the murders. We took the children from their mothers. We practised discrimination and exclusion.
It was our ignorance and our prejudice. And our failure to imagine these things being done to us. With some noble exceptions, we failed to make the most basic human response and enter into their hearts and minds. We failed to ask - how would I feel if this were done to me?
As a consequence, we failed to see that what we were doing degraded all of us.
If we needed a reminder of this, we received it this year. The Report of the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody showed with devastating clarity that the past lives on in inequality, racism and injustice in the prejudice and ignorance of non-Aboriginal Australians, and in the demoralisation and desperation, the fractured identity, of so many Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders. http://australianpolitics.com/executive/keating/92-12-10redfern-speech.shtml
And in relation to the racist political campaigns broadcast by both Gillard and Abbott in connection to their slogans "we'll stop the boats", one can also refer back to Paul Keatings words and his acknowledgment of Australia's multicultural past and the history of playing our part in helping a small number of the world's refugees.
We non-Aboriginal Australians should perhaps remind ourselves that Australia once reached out for us. Didn't Australia provide opportunity and care for the dispossessed Irish? The poor of Britain? The refugees from war and famine and persecution in the countries of Europe and Asia? Isn't it reasonable to say that if we can build a prosperous and remarkably harmonious multicultural society in Australia, surely we can find just solutions to the problems which beset the first Australians - the people to whom the most injustice has been done. http://australianpolitics.com/executive/keating/92-12-10redfern-speech.shtml
When reviewing this speech (and ignoring Paul Keating's current rants on ownership of the writing) it really is incredibly shocking to see how our once progressive, compassionate and intelligent leader uttered these words and how much since it, Australia has regressed to its racist, fearful and parnoid past. The only politician that speaks with such pride, intelligence and compassion now is the new Greens MP Adam Bandt and all I can hope is that his presence in the HoR now can mean a shift back to Australia's promising future.
As Paul Keating said,
I think what we need to do is open our hearts a bit.
All of us. http://australianpolitics.com/executive/keating/92-12-10redfern-speech.shtml
Now that's not too hard is it Australia? You made your stance in the recent election and increased your votes for the Greens, which means they can now play a larger role in implementing progressive policy into the Australian Parliament, which clearly resulted from them being the only party that actually presented policy and contributed to intelligent debate prior to the election. The added advantage of this movement and the lack of any difference between the two minor leaders creating a hung parliament, also means for the first time that the fakeness, deceit and manipulation that occured in the campaign will be closely scrutinised by the independents before Australia is given the result...so isn't it time to help promote the start of another new era in politics and society? To start a call to action, that demands a strong leader, one who can stand up in front of the nation and say what they think, without questioning if it is popular, without editing themselves to see if it will get votes, but a leader that simply sees the racisim, the deceit, the regression of Australia and decides to make it stop! As Paul Keating said, "the past lives on in inequality, racism and injustice in the prejudice and ignorance of non-Aboriginal Australians" so let's start a future for Australia that does not include any of those traits.
Paul Keating's famous speech from 1992 can be read here and listened to here. Let's hope there are more speeches like this to come in the future of Australia...
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I went out into the Corangamite electorate to examine what was happening in this marginal seat on Election Day 2010. In sum, there was much confusion, little motivation or enthusiasm and some people did not know who to vote for before and after they had visited the polling booths! The election night was as dull as the one and only debate and any resulting hung parliament is clearly a consequence of having such an insincere, rushed and pseudo election campaign by both major parties. So watch for yourselves the thoughts of one marginal seat here in Corangamite. What's to come? A serious suck job by both party leaders and hopefully some sincere self reflection into what went wrong and why Australians did not buy their fakeness and fear campaigns. At the end of the day, it is a time to celebrate with the first Greens seat in the lower house and the beginning of a parliament that is truly reflective of what the people want from their leaders and their government - diversity, compassion and intelligent debate!
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Jay Rosen's latest blog covers the idea of having a 'Citizens Agenda in Campaign Coverage' and something that could take the frustration of never having questions answered substantially on our only hope #qanda (Q&A, ABC). Have a read and see what you think yourselves, I feel it is something we should work towards for the next election (with whatever happens on Saturday, it will certainly be time for a change by then and having an intelligent and meaningful campaign could lead to having intelligent, compassionate and informed political contenders?) Let's hope.
As Jay suggests, community consultation to decide on what the campaign's focus is a very good start and a voting system of whether the questions posed to the potential leaders were actually answered would be fantastic. This would also avoid the current situation where racist and defamatory political slogans such as "we'll stop the boats" become a focus for voters and politicians alike. And not many people seem to notice that this contradicts our international and humanitarian obligations to the UN Treaty we signed in 1973, yet it is broadcast across TV ads, no journalists have raised its seriousness (in relation to racism and our UN agreements) and yet the politicians themselves choose these random non-issues to create fear in our society and distract from the fact they have no real policies in the nation’s interests or credibility to even be running. Perhaps we can get it started for 3 years time and plan for a better future in politics, media and society in 2013!
Also this essay by Jay which discusses 'Journalism as Civic Leadership' should be considered an essential part of journalism and could be the way of the future in resolving Australia's current media meltdown.
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