We
are all inexplicably proud of the place where we were born, even
those of us who were not born and raised in Linton. We support the
local football, netball, cricket and eight ball competitions, we
gather together on Linton Day for Australia Day and celebrate what
has been. I have a problem at the moment trying to create a list of
the things that we can be proud of today and into our future.
We
had an international reputation for integrity and fairness,
politeness and mate ship, and a proud tradition of protecting our
country by shooting people we were told we didn’t like. We have
apologised to aboriginals for invading Botany Bay and making them
virtual slaves, from deliberately attempting semi-genocide, although
we just called it ‘breeding them out’. We have had to apologise
to children stolen from their Mothers because Mummy shouldn’t have
become a Mummy in the first place. We had to apologise to this stolen
generation of black and white children for the emotional, physical
and sexual abuse carried out by our Carers, Warders, Superintendents
and Matrons, not just the Reverend this and Father that.
Can
we be proud of a Prime Minister who spends more time on the phone to
the American Ambassador than to the Farmers Federation. We have to
thank America too for allowing us to be invaded by boat people from
countries they have invaded or destabilised for the benefit of their
arms manufacturing industry. It’s obvious that Detroit was not a
center for bullet making. We must thank our Prime Minister for
emptying our pockets to provide gas to Asia whilst crying out about
moratoriums on CSG because our domestic gas reserves beginning to run
on empty. Cooks in Tokyo pay less for our gas than we do. We can be
proud that we ship 5 billion cubic meters of LPG a year to China but
can’t provide for our own domestic or industrial needs along with
our cars for less than four times the international selling price.
Then
of course our armed services. Fifty years ago we had a strong force
located all around the country that enabled young men to be recruited
from every state. Now we are struggling to maintain and Army that
needs only two or three Generals, a Navy that can only man three out
of four of our ships, and an Air Force that has ordered more aircraft
than we have pilots to fly them. Mathematically we have spent more on
toys for the boys than the boys that have to play with them. Who
makes them to sell to us?
Our
servicemen are going down like flies to PTSD due to multiple
deployments to countries where we don’t even know who the enemy is.
Where as many of our soldiers are killed by the people they are
defending as those we are fighting against.
And
what about our industry, our ability to be self-sufficient, to feed
ourselves, to clothe ourselves and employ ourselves. What we have we
export, what we need we import, it’s called ‘trade’. We grow a
tomato and send it to India and then we can buy a tomato that we
imported from Thailand, we grow a Banana to sell to Japan and then
import a Banana from Barbados to feed ourselves. It’s called
‘stupidity’? We pull out fruit trees in the Goulburn Valley so as
not to create a bio-hazard situation that might occur if we stopped
importing food irrigated with sewerage from China.
We
should apologise as well to our Farmers who these days may be better
off if they were to go to Afghanistan where our government is
subsidising the Heroin trade as a viable alternative to growing food.
We
have cried out for investment in our growth industries from foreign
sources while our superannuation funds are invested in the New York
Stock Exchange and sucked out of us by the GFC. But maybe its our
fault for being too greedy and wanting too much in too short a time
that we might be better off blowing it all at Crown Casino, at least
it would stay in an Australians pocket and not a quasi-American
called Rupert.
Where
is our pride in industry? Where are the factories that used to melt
things, make things, bend things, stamp things and put things
together. Where are the skilled tradesmen that could paint things and
mend things, drive things and demolish things. Our new throw-away
world doesn’t need them. Where are the Metters and BHP Steel, the
car industry and the shipping industry, where has Crown-Corning gone,
Grace Brothers and Scarf’s, Nutt and Muddle, Resche’s or even our
film industry.
Of
course trade is important to us, we still grow more than we can eat,
still dig up more minerals than we can smelt, still sell natural gas
that we apparently don’t want, and still dispose of more coal than
we can burn for electricity. That is all good? We need to trade,
to get rid of what we have too much of and to buy in what we don’t
have enough of, but trade for trades sake, profit for profits sake is
not the way to a secure independent future for our country. Our
government doesn’t even want the tax that trade should be paying,
its apparently easier to rip off citizens they don’t know than
companies that contribute to their election funds.
But
we are a proud nation. Proud to prevent too many religious symbols
appearing on TV outside religious programs, proud to have 13 percent
of our prison population holding foreign passports, proud to allow
foreigners to own great swathes of our media, our farms, our wheat
export facilities, our water supplies, our gas reserves, our mines,
our shops, the few makers of things and worst of all foreign
ownership of what we eat. We are not the food bowl of Asia, we are
Asia’s cash cow, America’s supplicant and Britain’s estranged
relative.
What
we can be proud of dear readers is being Australian in the first
place. When you look at all the turmoil in the world, the bickering,
the backstabbing, political corruption, religious tensions, and
racial intolerance we can be proud that we at least don’t have the
turmoil. We are too complacent to do ‘turmoil’’. Bickering,
backstabbing and intolerance, well, that’s normal isn’t it.
This
Australia Day lets just ensure we all turn up for the CFA’s
Breakfast confident in the fact that we have yet again elected a
government that couldn’t give a toss about us but still will not
leave us alone. Lets be proud to be Australian, to be tolerant of
Golden pains Council, to look up to the Premier of Victoria and happy
that we voted in a Prime Minister just as bad as the last few. The
more things change in Australia the more things stay the same in
Australia and I for one salute our stability through complacency.
HAPPY AUSTRALIA DAY
