Marriage Equality---opportunity to act SUPPORT NOW

I have taken up the invitation to write to Parliamentarians in anticipation of next-week's resumption of sittings in Canberra about Marriage Equality.
In particular you could do likewise by following Australian Marriage Equality's link.

I chose to write to C Pyne, as a prominent SA Liberal politician ( or another similar) along the following lines

Dear Mr Pyne

You are more than well-aware  that the nation is paying close attention to the discussion in your Party room next week about Marriage Equality.

I happen to be a priest of the Anglican Church, and along with a number of my colleagues am steadfastly in favour of Marriage Equality. Many Christians are in favour of this move

I also recognise, sadly, that it is unlikely that internal processes within a number of Christian Church's themselves will allow this to happen within Church ranks.

Yet this does not mean, I suggest, that our Nation as a whole should not go forward .

It seems unlikely to me that, as a priest, the Anglican Church will allow me to pray for God's blessing on the marriage of same-sex partners who clearly wish to make a lifelong marriage commitment to each other and their children. This is to the Church's shame.

I am sorry that, as a Commonwealth,  we have got stuck, largely because the plebiscite as a process  is clearly not going to work!  

This is so atrociously political on all sides as to be offensive.

I think it is incumbent upon the party of Government to move to break this impasse and exercise leadership.

The community is more than tired of the petty-politicking and I urge you and your colleagues to move definitely to resolve this.

[I think the 'Dutton Postal Vote' option is just a bizarre distraction, and cynical in the extreme.  Non-compulsory, non-binding. In other word 'non helpful' & 'non useful']

All the best and 

Respectfully,

Stephan Clark

Parish Priest: St Mary Magdalene's  

Anglican Church, Adelaide.

You might like to write to Pyne (above), or Birmingham or similar .
Birmingham seems to have become such a 'creature of the machine' which is deeply sad as he is creative thinker and should do better

The politics of personality

The ongoing decline in the Rudd Government's popularity and approval rating is part of the inevitable reflection communities make on incumbent governments. How did it happen? How can a government that was so phenomenally far in front now be behind in the run-up to the election?

There is no doubt that the answer to that is: Tony Abbott. His political savvy and relentless discipline in the last little while has been remarkable. Not unlike that of his former leader and mentor, John Howard.

But it needs to be said that, by and large, the battle ground has not been policy (what are the Liberal policies any way?) but personality. The Liberals have ruthlessly and relentlessly painted Rudd as boring, wordy and remote. One would have to say that they have been successful.

They have also been able to hammer the enormous spending spree that the fiscal rescue seemed to demand. (What would they have done?) and despite the annoying nature of its repetition...the idea of the Great Big New Tax has been fed into the nation's psyche and people don't like such an idea.

Equally well, political liabilities have been kept out of the public eye. Where, for example, has the agressive Ms Bishop been? or the twee Mr Pyne?

I suspect that the Libs have had (good) advice that they are both political liabilities and so have been kept very much in the background.

Will the Labor party then be sucked into this game and start playing personality politics. It will be fun to watch! It will be dirty! But is it good?

I don't think it is yet all over for the Labor Party, but they need to get their act together if they are to be credible.

The language of 1984

One of the key features of George Orwell's book "1984" is the way language is distorted by power to mean something that it obviously doesn't mean.

For the last two weeks (and longer) I have listened to the Liberal party build up its language of criticism of the Government. Now this is OK on one level, as long as we the public are critical of language and don't just accept it on face value.

It is, for example, OK for them to simplify the Emissions Trading Scheme as a Big Fat Tax.

As a strategy it seems to be working well, but the more knowing public should at least try to take this simplistic analysis for what it is....simplistic. But I have heard all sorts of Liberals use it in the last few days, Abbott, Bishop, Joyce...and no doubt others.

What is not OK is the use of the term Stalinist to describe the Labor Party's decision making processes. This term is of course most derogatory. I have no doubt that some of that mud will stick. I have heard both Abbott and Pyne, and others, use that term in the last week.

History suggests that there is not much to pick between Hitler and Stalin, and no one could imagine that a slur that Labor Party processes were run like the Nazis would have just been allowed to go unchecked.

There is not much to pick between the Labor and the Liberal Party in terms of questions like, loyalty and consistency. And you wouldn't stand in front of many of them with an exposed back on a dark night, but let's not even begin to suggest that the term Stalinist should be applied to any Australian major party. It is at the very least belittling to any and/or all of those who were subject to the violence of Stalinism.

Judgement of poor Mike's poor judgement!

It will be a free-for-all in State politics this week as SA Premier Mike Rann finds his private life exposed. We will be reminded of why the 'private life' of a politician in this country has traditionally been regarded as off limits. Will the Labor Party take the opportunity to mudsling in the other direction?

I noticed a brief clip of Liberal Chris Pyne saying yesterday that private lives of politicians have by and large been left alone. In these latter more desperate days this tradition seems to be evaporating before our eyes.

One can see little good come of this. Despite the fact that Rann has been highly successful (well at least he has managed to stay in office for a long time) we, the public, will see his legacy reduced to some grubby little stories about an alleged affair.

Is this appropriate? does it matter?

To my mind it does matter whether a person lies or not. It does matter if they treat other people (however consensually) poorly!

This was the problem with the Lewinski affair. Clinton lied. He treated Lewinski poorly,and his wife even worse.

There seem to be some elements in this present business that may have the same sort of thing.

All in all, were I Mike Rann I would be inclined to think that enough is enough, and it's time to go. But I won't hold my breath!

Schadenfreude

Here in our family we love 'Schadenfreude'. The peculiarly human trait of (secretly) delighting in the misfortune of others. It was interesting to see Mr A Downer expressing his Schadenfreude towards the Australian Government in today's paper.

Mr Downer's obvious delight in the inherited suffering of this present Government with regard to the difficult refugee plight (what he tells us is Schadenfreude) is a bit sad. He misunderstands that Schadenfreude is essentially kept to oneself and is not smug.

Perhaps it was the Smuggenfreude of the Downers, Abbots and Pynes that the electorate finally decided it had had enough of.

As for Downer extolling the virtues of using Nauru, it just serves to remind us that he still doesn't get it!! At least he admits that Nauru was particularly his unfortunate suggestion.

See the "Schadenfreude" song from AvenQ here ...in the version When Harry met Schade!!(language warning!!!)

These are a few of the most tedious things

In my semi-obsessive way I have a sort of weekly routine. I try to fit in bits of talk-radio into my daily tasks. Judging by conversations I have with people many others do the same, because they hear the things that I do.

But some of it is so irritating.

Like,I tire of hearing the Federal Opposition Manager of Business, Chris Pyne on Mondays saying things like...of I am a Federal Member I can't possibly comment on State politics.... Seems to me he is happy to promote things he agrees with but then when he is obviously in disagreement (as he was today with the Regional Royalties issue...saying it would be foolish for a Labor government despite the local Libs promoting it as a vote buyer ooops winner) When challenged about this inconsistency he trots out his mantra....I can't possibly comment on State politics.

And then of course there is the Honourable Alexander...his Monday ADVERTISER column (here) is developing an air of predictability...along the lines of how provocative can I be...last week it was Obama should give back the Nobel prize.

Today it is: how awful that Australian soldiers should die in the theatres of war to which his government was only too pleased to send them. He admits in the course of his article that many will disagree. I think he is correct. Particularly objectionable is the simplistic critique that perhaps some of the young Afghanis should stay in Afghanistan and fight the Taliban instead of fleeing.

This may be populist, but it is hardly credible analysis. But it will get him attention I suppose.

Equally tedious is the PM's seeming retreat to the Howardist position on refugees...I make no apologies for being firm. Today's cartoon in the same paper has him driving the Refugee yacht with a secret super-keel and the observation...when they will admit that this was really invented by Howard!

Polls, polls and damned statistics. Or The demise of Malcolm Turnbull

I still remain committed to the idea that Malcolm Turnbull will tire of the political game playing. In reality it takes too much energy to master the polls and the statistics and this constantly detracts from the important stuff. Yesterday's polls in The Australian (see full article here) show only slight improvement in his standing as preferred Prime Minister. Coming off a very low base it would be hard to get any worse.
What is perhaps more disconcerting is that Peter Costello is still seen by more Liberals as a preferable leader despite the fact that he has disqualified himself and is on the way out. Similarly laughing Joe Hockey, who also says he is not in the running. The desperate cries (or perhaps "sighs") of the Abbots and the Pynes become less and less convincing; they two are very ambitious people and I swear I will scream if I hear Pyne say yet one more time "All I want to do is to serve the electorate of Sturt"
I guess Malcolm is a big boy and will know when enough is enough. Till then it is all a bit sad.

Q & A

Couldn't help but think that Thursday night's Q & A was pretty good sort of stuff. So I was surprised when the delighted Tony Jones announced this was the last for the year. I suppose it is October.

Peter Costello,. Nicola Roxon, the bombastic Mr Marr and Ms Kernot and the curious Tom Zwister sparked pretty well together.

If you can, and haven't, then you can watch the video here

I am really glad this program has worked, it brings a new dimension to political chit chat which is less serious and yet more animated (reminds us of the good ole days of Latham and Pyne on Lateline or Pyne and Schacht on Matt and Dave... before Pyne started taking himself too seriously and became a little tedious)

V is for

VICKIE who is one of the curiosities of SA politics, a member of a political dynasty. Her father Ted was Liberal wheeler and dealer, and she seems to me to typify what is really bad about the State Liberal party, a lack of clear vision and a tendency to only whine about their opponents.
Following the defeat of the Liberals on the floor following the 2002 election, Chapman attained the portfolios of Education and children's services. After the Liberals were soundly defeated in the 2006 election, Chapman was elected to the deputy leadership in an unexpected joint ticket with factional rival Iain Evans. Strong backing was received from moderate faction bosses: former Premier Dean Brown and federal Member for Sturt Christopher Pyne.
I would not wish to stand in front of her on a dark night.