Bill GreenBeazley and Australian Values
September 26th 2006 07:08
Recently on the fifth anniversary of September 11, Federal Opposition Leader Kim Beazley proposed that people coming to Australia should sign a ‘values’ statement. What brought this about? It seems that Beazley had learnt that the Howard Government was about to release a new citizenship statement that included ‘new citizens must pass an English test and learn about Australian values’. So not to be outdone Beazley thought he would push the ‘them and us line’ about what it is to be a fair dink-um Aussie.
Many of his party were horrified, as they knew this type of rhetoric actually alienates rather than unites and says, ‘our values are better than yours’. They also knew that Beazley was on shaky ground as for years no one has been able to come up with Australian values that mean all to everybody. That is why respect for the rule of law and democracy is often all we can require of people.
Ask any Indigenous person if they think their people have had a fair go. Beazley says, they will ask visa entrants to respect women. We have double standards. Look at our magazines covers. What do they tell us about our respect and protection of our youth? Australian girls are losing their childhood and are pressured into looking skinny and sexy.
Many say that Beazley is trying to beat John Howard at his own game – that being conservative politics. Everyone knows he can’t as Howard is the master, and this is his domain and these are his personal convictions which has proved successful. However, does Beazley genuinely hold right wing conservative views and is this where his convictions lay? If so, maybe he should join the Liberal Party and leave the Labor party to develop as a once again progressive Party that inspires for all.
Many of his party were horrified, as they knew this type of rhetoric actually alienates rather than unites and says, ‘our values are better than yours’. They also knew that Beazley was on shaky ground as for years no one has been able to come up with Australian values that mean all to everybody. That is why respect for the rule of law and democracy is often all we can require of people.
Ask any Indigenous person if they think their people have had a fair go. Beazley says, they will ask visa entrants to respect women. We have double standards. Look at our magazines covers. What do they tell us about our respect and protection of our youth? Australian girls are losing their childhood and are pressured into looking skinny and sexy.
Many say that Beazley is trying to beat John Howard at his own game – that being conservative politics. Everyone knows he can’t as Howard is the master, and this is his domain and these are his personal convictions which has proved successful. However, does Beazley genuinely hold right wing conservative views and is this where his convictions lay? If so, maybe he should join the Liberal Party and leave the Labor party to develop as a once again progressive Party that inspires for all.
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Comment by dingo1901
I live in a nation of ghosts and spirits, of Anzac martyrs and rural massacres. The damp soil of Gippsland, the haze of her mountain ash - I was born here; but if you think that being Australian is a birthright, you do not understand my country. My country is wattle and blood.
Melbourne is all around me, the ferns protecting William Ricketts, the river whose Yarra water draws up the clay, the bindi-i in the summer grass, and the two-dollar buskers and cafes edging the wide streets.
The magic of my land whispers deeper than prawns on barbies and bikinis in utes. I have lost patience with displays of bloody-minded jingoism. Posts are for football, not for displaying the flags of patriotic insecurity.
Leaving Bendigo in 1916, my great grandfather's mining lungs could not contend with the poison air of the Somme fields. He died on a hospital ship, never to return. He had marched under the flag and sung the anthem; they were rags and noise compared to the children he left orphaned at home. The entrepreneurs of war lied to him, but his intention was true.
I am a part of the Australian community. Do not glibly say "one nation": our country longs to be as one.
We slag on the vacuous slogans of politians and the questionnaires of immigration bureaucrats. Our parliament mound infested with termites. They rejected our values when they took office shaking the hands of the perentie clans, their business mates. Leadership must be earned. Our Kelly sons went way too far in their war on the authorities, but we felt the injustice that took them to the edge.
Nor do we fear religion. We have been inside temples and churches, listened to humanists and prayed in mosques. Our feeble attempts to understand the transcendent only gives us affection for our fellow peoples, and a desire to depose the little kings of racism and fear that threaten their peace.
We celebrate our failures. Peter Lalor's wounding at Eureka stockade, the betrayal of Nancy Wake in resistance France, Albert Namatjira despondent in prison; these people are our characters. To be 'true blue' is not the ashes of success; it is to have integrity.
We demand a fair go for all humans, for family and friends and especially strangers. We barrack for the underdog (even at times for Collingwood!). We want to hear the stories of the refugee children, to decide for ourselves. And we know that it is never too late to engrave a treaty, to admit our past failures.
For I am an Australian, my culture the bastard child of indigenous and intruder civilisations. Not until I acknowledge our rainbow heritage can I know who I am. Only when I understand that this ground cannot be bought and sold am I truly at home. The home that I love.
Coburg, June 2007