Angry. Very Angry.

 

 On Friday night I was sinking back into the lounge after (yet another) exhausting day with Ted.  Not fun, quirky, cute exhausting but who-is-this-person-I-want-to-throttle exhausting.

Anyway, James mentioned something about Kevin Rudd and PNG.  I looked at him uncomprehendingly and he told me in broad strokes what had happened that day in the world of politics.  Of how KRudd had announced that no-one arriving by boat would be permitted to settle in Australia and instead be sent to PNG.

I sat there in tears.  What sort of a country do we live in?  And to sit there and listen to the crocodile tears and twisting of rhetoric by politicians to make this lurch to the right appear to be borne out of concern for these boat people is, quite frankly, disgusting. If only I believed in a system of afterlife judgment I'd probably be able to sleep at night but, as it was, on Friday night I had the fretful, fitful sleep of the ideologically distressed.  

And boy am I angry.

 

 

There was the announcement of a snap rally on Saturday morning.  Ted had his first tap dancing lesson, and James and Harriet were going in to the city for some work issues, but we all met up at Town Hall at 12pm to listen to the speeches and then march around the city streets.

 

 Harriet was very much taken with the topic once it was described to her.  She adopted a very quiet, thoughtful demeanor as we walked, stopping regularly to write slogans of her own devising on the ground. 

Oh god how I am proud of her.

 As if PNG is a country capable of providing refuge to *anyone*?  It's a scary place for its own people, ffs.  And I don't understand how people who are as redneck as can be will go on about the costs for social support in Australia yet seemingly have no issue whatsoever supporting mandatory offshore detention which costs an HORRIFIC amount of money compared to a program of onshore integration and welfare support.  There isn't even any internal logic to sustain an argument there. 

Another area of particular concern is the extremely high levels of rape in PNG...and the availability of safe water...and safety for those of homosexual/transgender persecution...oh god, it's just tragic in every sense.















The issues of the past few months in politics have reignited the flame of political passion within me.  It looks like the lead-up to this election will be busy.  Because I'll be damned if I'll let this kind of ill-thought out right-wing, lowest common denominator, ignorant, uneducated, cruel and downright evil action to occur.

 

I do believe Harriet feels similarly, since she insisted on holding up her sign all the way back to Newtown.  Into Town Hall station...on the train...down King Street...

...and even into the bookshop where we were arriving for a friend's book launch.  


As I said - busy times ahead.