Two Australias
This is a stupid election.
Stupid because it turns out there was no need to ditch Rudd, only to straighten him out. Stupid to dash to the polls before he had time to get over it and before Gillard got the measure of the job.
Stupid because no one is talking sense. Our economy is in better shape than almost any other. According to Moody’s, it’s one of the strongest of the 17 economies with a AAA debt rating. Our deficit is tiny. Yet everyone is shrieking about waste and debt.
Stupid because everyone is panicking over a few sad, scared, people fleeing violence and persecution, taking a desperate chance at freedom. Compared to other countries, many way poorer than us, our refugee intake is minute.
Stupid, because we are rich thanks to our minerals, but no one is talking about building a future Australia, one that can survive once demand drops or the minerals run out. About building sustainable businesses, roads, ports, rail lines, houses, comprehensive city public transport systems. Instead we’re bribing people in an overpopulated world to have more babies!
That’s the Australia depicted in the mainstream media, and what a lie it makes of our national anthem! Far from being ‘young and free’, this Australia is old, selfish and cheap, refusing to share, huddling together in fear of gays and foreigners, clutching at clapped-out gods, even as their representatives abuse our children.
These Australians apparently don’t give a toss what the world thinks, they have a god-given right to live in shoddily-built oversize air-conditioned slums-in-the-making, with four kids, three cars and six point five plasma TVs. And bugger global warming, it’s not real anyway.
Are these tabloid Aussies, these made-in-China $2-shop copies of redneck Americans, really what we have become?
The other Australia, on Facebook and Twitter, is asking the main parties, “How stupid do you think we are?” Here, refugees are mostly met with compassion. Global warming is understood, and the price of tackling it accepted. Two men or two women marrying gets a shrug — so what?
Maybe that’s because the parties haven’t yet got the hang of social media, and so have not yet managed to poison the debate too much. Bob Brown shows a glimmer of understanding. Julia Gillard never tweets in person. Tony Abbott stopped tweeting the day the election was called. And their Facebook pages don’t even pretend to be personal.
Of course, Social Media Oz is younger than Mainstream Oz. Curious, then, that the youngsters show more signs of maturity and wisdom than their elders, and their would-be leaders. But which Oz is more real? Which will prevail on election day?
