Loading ...- Category:
- Soap Box
- Author:
- Phil Scott
- Posted:
- Tuesday, 28 April 2009
Last week was the 12-month anniversary of Kevin Rudd’s 2020 Summit, and people are asking if anything has come out of all that back-patting and grandstanding.
Apparently, nine hundred ideas were submitted at the summit. Some of them were clearly not worth the butcher’s paper they were scribbled on (UFO Detection Substation at Woomera) and some (seven lattes, one decaf flat white, two short black) were not strictly long-term visions, but conservatively you would assume 50 percent made some kind of sense.
We were told last week that nine ideas are being acted upon. Nine!? That’s not even one idea for every 10 brainiacs present. It’s pretty feeble.
What were the other 991 delegates doing? Gazing out the window and daydreaming? You up the back: pay attention!
Mr Rudd labelled the summit a success and hinted there might be another one held in the future. I guess if he invites a million people next time, they might think of something major.
The nine ideas all seem worthy, like the initiative to make more use of our older citizens (as cannon fodder and landfill), and setting up a dedicated children’s TV channel. The experts are yet to work out how we’ll tell which channel it is, since most free-to-air television is aimed at viewers with a mental age of six.
Why am I so cynical, you ask? Same old reason. Same old obsession.
What’s wrong with the idea of total equality for GLBT Australians? Instead of sticking anti-discrimination patches around the fuzzy edge of the social fabric, why not make a once-and-for-all, crash-and-burn attempt to turn us into first-class citizens? That includes same-sex marriage as an option. As the big gesture from the big summit, it could have worked.
Full equality’s not a new idea, you may argue. It isn’t the kind of thing that makes you scream Eureka! in the bathtub.
It’s merely overdue. And aren’t a majority of Australians supposed to be in favour of it?
You have to wonder about that. Recently I was at a dinner party with some straight, middle-class friends. (Yes, I do have some.) After hearing all about their kids’ illnesses, local real estate values and the economic downturn, I brought up the subject of gay marriage. Ooh, are you an -˜activist’ now? they laughed, as they topped up my sauvignon blanc.
They honestly didn’t think the issue was worth taking seriously. They probably believe gays should be able to marry -” they’re not God-botherers -” but the matter is a trillion miles from what’s important to them.
Basically everybody is self-centred, isolationist and apathetic. It makes us Australian. It’s better than being violent and bloodthirsty but it’s not perfect. That’s why things like the 2020 summit are important: to cause people to consider ideas that are normally way off their radar.
What a lost opportunity. Oh well. Turn up the telly, Grandma, it’s time for Square Bob Spongepants.
Tags: 2020 Summit, kevin rudd, UFO Detection Substation
May 4th, 2009 @ 1:00 pm
Brilliant. This piece should be in mainstream press to give our fellow man another perspective. Maslows heirarchy fits so well with our straight counterparts, yet so lost on ‘us’. Self actualisation?? How dare we! Thanks Phil.