Unifying Language

But this one article well and truly caught my eye. An opinion piece from former leader of the then Opposition, Liberal Party pretty boy, famed cross dresser and comedian of “the Things that Matter”, Downer is a work of art whose ability to put his stilettoed foot in things made John Howard look progressive.

I digress. Going back to Gaffmeister at his literary best, at this point with a coffee in hand, I literally choked on my drink when I read the second paragraph:

There you have it — the Gaffmeister on all things funny.

Phew. Thanks for the sisterhood, sister.

I digress again. Back to the Gaffmeister. Apparently, according to the big guy, we don’t have divisive politics in Australia and we don’t have extremism. This is, of course, just aside from:

(e) the fact that our governments, listed companies, political administration, human rights institutions, NGOs and policy think tanks remain embarassingly and overwhelmingly WHITE. (Dont believe me? Check out their websites. It’s — er- rather black and white.)

Gaffmeister goes on to tell us that Australia has deflected the dangers of populism through immigration control. That is, we manage and control our migrant population by imposing expectations that migrants accept ‘our’ core values and speak ‘our’ unifying language. We also expect them to contribute to ‘our’ society. No freeloaders allowed. You know, on reflection, I am not so sure we have done this. I think the Gaffmeister is exaggerating and speaking far too positively about the administration’s achievements in relation to migrants, but hey, I could be wrong. Let’s put these convictions to the challenge.

Challenge: Do migrants adopt and uphold these values today?

Unfortunately, no sign of migrants putting the most vulnerable people in our society in chains or being responsible for genocide or institutionalised child abuse — as yet. EPIC FAIL!

Here are some finest examples of the pale, male and stale of Australian politics setting the standards for the rest of us on how to use unifying language that I could find on the public record.

Immigration Minister Phillip Dutton sent an ‘accidental’ tweet to a journalist calling her a mad fucking witch. This is the guy responsible for incarcerating refugee kids, by the way.

Senator David Leyonhjelm said the Prime Minister “should be shot” for imposing gun control after the Port Arthur massacre. To be fair, this guy is a knock out loop.

Former Prime Minister Tony Abbott describing his junior female MPs: “They’re young, feisty, I think I can probably say have a bit of sex appeal and they’re just very connected with the local area”. No sexually suppressed issues with young women there. None at all.

Treasurer Joe Hockey who lives in one of the most affluent suburbs in Sydney, said the poor shouldn’t complain about a fuel tax because “ The poorest people either don’t have cars or actually don’t drive very far in many cases.”

Here is one better. At a bicentennial Australia Day immigration ceremony, Treasurer Hockey was tasked with giving the welcoming speech. He stood up and while standing next to the Aboriginal elder whose land we had taken and community we had decimated to help build the Treasurer’s multi-story, waterfront mansion, pointed to Sydney Harbour and said:

“Two hundred years ago today, our boats came down this path to arrive on these shores. We had nothing and then…”, the Treasurer pats his ample tummy with pride and beams down at the crowd, oblivious to the fact that many of us were staring in horror at the tears in the downcast eyes of the Aboriginal elder sitting right next to him, and says, “Look at us now — hey? Just, look at us now”. I couldn’t see much, unfortunately. I was so embarrassed by this insensitive fat lout that I sank in my seat.

Minister Bob Katter MP promised to “walk to Bourke backwards if the poof population of North Queensland is any more than 0.001 per cent.” Katter is still going strong — his electorate loves him.

As opposition leader, the Gaffmeister shocked the party faithful when he joked that the party’s slogan, ‘The Things That Matter’, should be changed to “the things that batter”, to reflect the party’s domestic violence policy. That said, the conservatives have barely raised a pulse about addressing domestic violence. Each to their own, ole chap.

Tony Abbott, as opposition leader, standing in front of placards which say the following about Australia’s first female Prime Minister Julia Gillard — “Ditch the Witch” and “JuLIAR…Bob Brown’s Bitch”. He went on to make Prime Minister from this groundbreaking platform. That’s right people, we’ve had our very own Trump and he is still hanging around, despite the rather bad whiff that seems to follow.

Mark Latham, former leader of the Labour Party, wrote an article about a female lifestyle journalist who claimed that she gets through med school with two young kids by ingesting coffee and anti-depressants entitled “Why Left Feminists Don’t Like Kids” and went on to write in the rag for the white rich: “Why do people like this have children in the first place? How will the children feel when they grow up and learn that they pushed their mother on to anti-depressants?” Methinks tough guy Mark is still that hurt little kid on the inside and someone needs to give him a vewy vewy big hug.

Challenge: Can Australia’s migrant population match the unifying language used by the very best of our pale, male and stale?

Verdict: This is a tough one. I don’t know if any migrant in this country can match this performance. Is it even possible? Don’t you need to be a self-entitled and utterly self indulged white fatcat before you can say such things without even flinching? I doubt that any one of these people would allow another migrant to develop an equivalent level of success or confidence. After all, the money and privilege is a zero sum game — the more they take, the less there is. I’ve looked and I’ll keep looking — so send me your gigs. Otherwise, dare I say it, people, it’s an EPIC FAIL!

In every office building I have walked into in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane over the last 5 years, you will see coloured men and women working as janitors, building management or baseline security. I challenge anyone to show me otherwise.

Online casual childcare, nannying or eldercare services portals are dominated by advertisements from women of colour offering to clean up after us. The coloured women always ask for less than the white girls. If I had a dollar for the number of sheltered, white 21 year old girls who talk up their non-existent childcaring abilities, demanding top dollar while flicking their blonde locks and giggling, I’d have enough money to hire an agency to find someone who was actually capable of doing the job on a permanent basis.

First of all, let me say this. Coloured women do not clean shitty public toilets because we want to, or because we have career aspirations about working up the janitor career ladder (wait, is that even a thing?). Urinals are disgusting. Low water usage toilets (a favourite installation for those who don’t clean them) are nothing short of revolting. We don’t wash dishes for a living or look after other people’s kids while our own children sit in childcare because we think it’s fun or engaging or a meaningful career path. We do it to earn a living in circumstances where no one will give us a meaningful job. We do it because we would rather work than freeload off any clown, let alone a pale, male and stale clown. We do it because we usually have kids and lazy, self entitled partners who think that having dicks disqualifies them for parental responsibilities. We do it because we have no family to fall back on so, no work means no income, no housing and no food.

Whoa! I hear you say. Hold off on the broad generalisations, girlfriend! Sure, you can say that. Bear in mind, it’s no broader than our former Prime Minister assuming that Muslim refugee women would kill their kids just to get safe access to a racist country, my friend. Who won a landslide victory with his lies. No broader.

BUT, I digress again. Back to the challenge.

Even better, our 2016 Census reported that, when broken down by country of birth, the highest proportion of people employed are as follows:

Challenge: Has Australia managed its migrant population so that we cannot freeload of white people once we get here?

Verdict: Drum roll puhlease! I think the Gaffmeister has nailed it. Is Australian immigration policy targeted at countries where young people desperate to get work and an education come here and either clean toilets and wipe the butts of elderly rich white people or both, for a living? Does the spousal student visa ensure that we have a steady stream of lonely, financially destitute women of colour who have no choice but to do this shitty work while hubby or partner goes to school? If they don’t continue to please their husbands, however abusive, could they be sent home alone? Are they are deprived of social, financial and economic support so they really don’t know that they are simply a means to an end, at the end of which, no amount of white arse wiping is going to give them the option to stay? YES, YES and YES. Success all around.

What does all this mean? The Gaffmeister has politely described a policy of exploiting the most vulnerable people in Australia as a means for managing populism in this country.

Nothing groundbreaking — just an Orwellian breakdown on how to use government powers to financially control and manipulate the socially vulnerable segments of Australian society, while simultaneously exploiting their bigotry and ignorance to create divisions so they don’t recognise the real demon amongst them. The issue is not how mediocre Alexander Downer is, it is actually how stupid we are for continuing to believe this tripe. As long as we remain ignorant and uninformed, as long as we are passively fed the bigotry and stupidity of religious institutions who freely abuse our kids, commercial television channels and opinion pieces from the pale, male and stale, we live in this illusion of equality called Australia. We happily blame the isolated, under-educated, economically and socially exploited groups for their misfortunes and, for some really odd reason, it seems to make us all feel better. And so, life goes on —

What a lucky country.

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