Julia Gillard

I see that Julia Gillard is being labeled a 'fanatic' in the latest scare campaign. I don't have anything to say to that, except that it's not all that surprising that the Conservatives (or the Tories, as Keating used to call them) are doing so badly in the polls. They really think people are that stupid; no wonder people take offence.

I'm not really a feminist these days. I still call myself one, because I couldn't bear to be the kind of person who is ashamed of the word, or who thinks that feminists are women who are too bossy or are scared that men will never go out with anyone who calls themselves that. (Rik Mayall used to say 'all men are feminists; its the only way to pull birds'; O! for the good old days...) I'm not really a feminist because I lead a life that is so privileged that I can surround myself with people with whom it is not an issue. And I am not really a feminist because I think that most social constructions of gender are pretty unhelpful, whatever gender you are. Men have had more obvious advantages in the construction of gender, but I think it comes at a price too.

So the point is, that in my privileged little life, I forget just how hard some of the battles have been and I forget the number of battles that haven't been won. I saw on the news that Brad Pitt was paid twice as much as Angelina Jolie for Mr and Mrs Smith. BlueJ made the argument that if twice as many people see the film for Pitt then that's valid marketing (but only if there is twice as many). On the other hand, in most Third World countries, there is less of a pay gap than that.

And this morning, reading up on Gillard to see what, if anything, might inspire someone to describe her as a fanatic, I was reminded of how recent and how skin-deep some of our equality really is. In 1983, Gillard became the second woman to lead the Australian Students' Union; in 1990 she became one of the first female partners in one of Australia's most prestigious Law firms, Slater and Gordon. As Chief-of-Staff to John Brumby, she drafted the Affirmative Action guidelines which set as a goal that Labor have women in 35% of winnable seats.

In May this year, Bill Heffernen called her 'deliberately barren' and said that because she'd had no children she was not qualified for public office, which, as she pointed out, was ironic, because if she'd had children, she probably wouldn't have the possibility of serving in public office with such distinction that she is the most prominent female politician in Australia today.

Well May We Say 'God Save the Queen'...

The Australian Federal Election 2007 is my St. Crispin's day. Keating said that his victory in 1993 was 'the sweetest victory of all, a victory for the True Believers'. That victory gave a mandate to, in my view, the best government Australia has ever had, but if Howard gets voted out next weekend, I will count the end of him being able to do harm as a greater victory than Keating being able to do good.

All the same, Australia does seem to have become a much stranger place in my absence (though I'm not sure that thats the differentiating factor.)

Yesterday I voted and I have to say, I have never seen a more insane line-up of political parties. Obviously, you have the guns and God crew; not a lot of loving their enemies going on there. At the hysterical end of this group is the Citizens Electoral Council which, I gather, is more or less a cult. The conspiracy theorist Lyndon LaRouche is their leader or their God, or possibly, in a bid to cut out the middle man, both.

There is the What Women Want Party which is going to set the cause back about fifty years. Why would you make it an organization which doesn't allow male membership? Women have been trying to get men to come to the Party for years now. There is the Non-Custodial Parents Party which is essentially the Angry Dads who oppose 'state interference in people's lives'. As BlueJ said, who would they like interfering in their lives? If they could have sorted it out themselves, it would never have got to Court anyway.

In addition to these two gendered parties, there is the Family First Party. Everyone's part of a family one way or another, so I assumed this would be the most inclusive party in Australian politics.
That wasn't born out on closer inspection.
In fact, it turned out that my assumption that any party in favour of families would be in favour of really a lot of sex also proved false. Most confusingly, however, they are opposed to people* having families. So I've renamed them the Misnomer Party.

The environmental parties are always attacked for being single-issue parties and it is in this context that its worth mentioning the Carers' Alliance Party. Carers are profoundly under-recognized and that ought to change; I just don't want them running Australia's foreign policy (not, I suppose, that our policy could be much more insane than it is at the moment.) There is also the Hear Our Voice party. A party needs 500 members to be registered; this one has 509. So this was not quite the listen-to-the-people kind of party that I had hoped. Moreover, I've never been able to work out what they are in favour of, except good listeners. The crowning jewel though, is the fact that Australia is sporting two pro-fishing parties. One is the Australian Fishing and Lifestyle Party. I'm not sure if that means that they are only in favour of Australians having lifestyles and fishing. The other party is more Catholic in its outlook and is called The Fishing Party. I would love to see them debate some of the tough issues.

In fact, we seem to be doing a Noah-like line in parties coming in twos. There are two socialist Parties. There are two Climate Change parties; one for conservatives, and one for Business. Climate change is progressing very steadily, so I'm not sure what their concern is. Moreover, inexplicably, Aryan Women's Hall of Famer and ex-prison inmate, Pauline Hanson, a woman who shouldn't be allowed to start a sentence (except her prison sentence), has been allowed to start two political parties, both of which are in favour of uniting all Australians through the banning of non-racists.

But the one that really caught my eye was the On-Line Senator Party. This is a group with no policies. They are in favour of putting every issue to an online poll and abiding by the results. I see the merits of direct democracy, but this isn't their policy. They also don't specify how they would make sure that everyone had internet access, but more interestingly, the polls would only be open to people who are not members of political parties. That is, they wish to exclude those sections of the population who are committed to thinking about politics and society and who are knowledgable from voting. It is almost a distilation of the worst of direct democracy.
The real kicker here is that it wouldn't exclude memebers of parties which are so insane the AEC wouldn't register them. I have included a list of those parties, just to give you a taste of what it might be like:

Advance Australia Party
Australia First Party
Australians Against Further Immigration (AAFI)
Communist Party of Australia
Country Alliance
Ex-Service, Service and Veterans Party
Four Wheel Drive Party
Great Australians Party
Grey Power
HEMP (Help End Marijuana Prohibition)
Hope Party
Human Rights Party
Liberals for Forests
Libertarian Party
Lower Excise Fuel and Beer Party
New Country Party
No GST Party
One Nation NSW (Oldfield group)
Outdoor Recreation Party
People Power Party
Progressive Labour Party
Save Our Suburbs
Secular Party of Australia
Tasmania First Party
Unity Party (Australia)
Workers Liberty Australia
Workers Power

*Or at least, they are opposed to people who aren't People Like Them having families.

Please look after this bear

Just a quick entry for Cuthbie's Girl, who I thought would like this pic!