JULIA’S MISOGYNY SPEECH, 10 YEARS ON.

It is the finest speech I have ever heard in an Australian Parliament.

Julia Gillard is not a naturally gifted public speaker, mainly because she is formal and responsible in her manner of making a speech. But on this day of 9 October, 2012 she was on fire as she let loose on Opposition Leader, Tony Abbott, who had constantly demeaned and offended her with sexist language which was appalling crude.

He, and many other males in Parliament, Media and society could not cope with the reality of a woman holding more power than them.

Julia had reached the point where she had a gutful of it and rightly decided it was time for her to put a stop to it. So she lashed out and the Parliament was spellbound.

Here are a few of her more compelling lines.

‘I say to the Leader of the Opposition: I will not be lectured about sexism and misogyny by this man. I will not. Not now, not ever.’

‘I hope the Leader of the Opposition has a piece of paper and is writing out his resignation., because if he wants to know what misogyny looks like in modern Australia, he does not need a motion in the House of Representatives, he needs a mirror.’

‘The Leader of the Opposition should be ashamed of his performance in this Parliament and the sexism he brings with it.’

‘The Leader of the Opposition should think seriously about the role of women in public life and in Australian society, because we are entitled to a better standard than this.’

Earlier in her speech, she quoted words from an Abbott speech in which he said,

‘What the housewives of Australia must understand as they do the ironing is…’

Some will instinctively attempt to write off Gillard as a ‘leftie feminist’ who cant cope with men but this would be yet another insult that is utterly wrong. I met her several times for important meetings about issues relating to seniors. I found her to be a superb negotiator who always gave an answer to my requests. A couple of times I didn’t like her answers, but I was grateful that I had not been left in any doubt. I also found her to be an attractive person. She never ever looked like a wild radical.

Nevertheless, she now acknowledges that she did make a number of significant political errors that eventually cost her the loss of her job as Prime Minister. But note that she was not beaten by Abbott. It was Rudd who removed her.

It should be noted that the feminist movement was not founded by people like Julia Gillard and Germaine Greer. Its first high profile advocate in Australia was Dame Enid Lyons, wife of former Prime Minister, Sir Joseph Lyons.

After her husband died, she entered Parliament in her own right as a Liberal 80 years ago. It was 99% male. She wrote a book about it called AMONG THE CARRION CROWS. A Carrion Crow acts as though it is superior to other birds and practices manipulation and mischief.

I met her several times in her senior years in the 1970’s and found her to be a very gracious and intelligent person who was solidly conservative and regularly determined. She told me that she was offended by the way the males in parliament had always ben overly respectful and courteous to her, but usually dispensed her comments as ‘girl talk’. She found it to be insulting to her as a person with rights but she kept quiet about it until she wrote her book. I read it and highly regard it. She taught me a lot of wise commonsense.

Julia Gillard’s book is well worth reading as she has involved 10 other extraordinarily talented women who write essays that she has included. Women like distinguished journalist, Katharine Murphy, whose work I read regularly and essentially. The book covers the history of misogyny, its status today and what will happen tomorrow,

Misogyny is an issue that will not go away. People like Grace Tame and Brittany Higgins get many headlines but they are not the core of the revolution. In every profession, institution, walk of life and social circle there are highly talented women who are not extremists but break the glass ceiling and create the equality that is their right. They are irrevocably changing the world and I am cheering.

Let me close by saying that I am hugely moved by the bravery of the many thousands of women in Iran who every day put their lives at risk by publicly demanding that male rules which dictate what they will wear must change significantly. One person of their gender was murdered by religious zealots who said she wore her clothes ‘loosely’.

(This gives me a chance to invite you to read my novel “A BEAUTIFUL SUNSET’. A leading character is a female Muslim doctor who takes on the zealots in the Christian and Islamic faiths).

May it be that we soon say farewell to MISOGYNY throughout the world.

It is disgusting.

Your local male feminist.

Everald

A NEW PARLIAMENT FOR AUSTRALIA

This weekend, 227 Members and Senators will travel to Canberra from all corners of our continent to be sworn in on Tuesday to serve in the 47th Parliament of Australia since Federation in 1901.

It will be led by the nation’s 31st Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese, who as the Leader of the Labor Party, follows three conservative Prime Ministers, Tony Abbott, Malcolm Turnbull and Scott Morrison, whose tenure will not be treated by historians as kindly as they may have hoped.

Many significant changes have been promised and are expected to be implemented.

If they are not achieved satisfactorily, and begin to produce promised results, voters will react harshly in Election2025 as the people of Australia now have a low tolerance level for crude party politics and inept governments.

So, what are the priorities and which of them are the most urgent?

While I dont expect Albo to take notice of my thoughts, these are my top ten priorities and I have listed them in what I believe is their order of importance.

*HEALTH – We have massively underinvested in all aspects of health, while private health insurance has been plundered by the medical profession and allowed to descend into an unaffordable disaster.

*INFLATION – This is seriously expanding the daily struggle for existence of a growing number of Australians in more ways than any other factor. It has been mainly caused by the greed and corruption of capitalism at its very worst, with costs being faked as a excuse to generate excessive profits. This must be eliminated quickly .

*ENERGY – a costly disgrace, caused by a decade of irresponsible neglect in failing to replace ageing power sources, that is particularly severe on pensioners and low income earners.

*AGED CARE – pitiful and disgraceful. Words cant adequately describe the humiliation and misery that people are suffering in their final years for no valid reason.

*CLIMATE and ENVIRONMENT – long overdue for serious investment, plus personal changes to our own lifestyles. Climate deniers are the world’s most irresponsible people and must be sidelined.

*AFFORDABLE HOUSING – will be solved only when governments make their surplus land and airspace available long term via low cost leases.

*ULURU STATEMENT – Its time to rectify the omission of Indigenous heritage from our original Constitution in 1901. It can be delayed no longer.

*INFRASTRUCTURE – it is either ancient or inadequate or inferior or inefficient. Huge defect in our quality of national life and our level of productivity

*WATER – we are the driest continent on the planet, yet we have never ever harnessed and sustained our water resources in an intelligent manner.

*CONSTITUTIONAL CHANGE – long overdue, especially reform of the size and powers of the Senate and the powers of the Crown being passed to the People of Australia,

I an attending the entire opening week of Parliament in Canberra.

Have arranged 24 appointments with Ministers, Shadow Ministers, cross benchers and back benchers from all parties and Independents. I carry out my negotiations as a swinging voter who never has and never will join a political party as I regard them as gatherings where closed minds can flourish.

My personal mission on this visit to Parliament is to take part in discussions on the Inland Railway, Gladstone Railway, Aged Care, Affordable Housing, Uluru Statement and Voluntary Assisted Dying legislation for ACT & Northern Territory. My intention is to follow up these issues relentlessly until results are achieved.

Am hopeful of positive results as the Prime Minister appears to be seriously implementing a significant agenda for change, quite different to the negativity of recent governments that sought to revive ‘good old days’ that have never existed.

Over and above all of this, I hope that dignity and decency will return to the Parliament after a long absence.

Especially, I hope that Question Time will become a place of respectful debate. At present, it projects to the nation a very divisive and angry image which fosters discourtesy in our society.

It particularly encourages school children to speak in the same way to their teachers. They are just following the poor example of our national leaders.

I yearn for the dignified tradition of Menzies and Chifley who regularly debated one another in Parliament with huge courtesy and respect, as well as making excellent use of the English language as their sauce of power.

Yours in genuine hope for a Parliament of quality and achievement.

Everald.

And don’t forget to buy signed copies of my three books from my website

EVERALD@LARGE

or online from Booktopia or Amazon or Dymocks or Fishpond etc.

Even though I say so myself, they are an entertaining read.

VALE LIBERALS FOREVER

For 75 years, the Liberal Party of Australia has been a respected and enduring institution of our nation which will be remembered kindly for many notable achievements.

However, it is breathing its last and rigor mortis will set in very quickly and permanently.

Its record over the past few years has been so lamentable that few will weep.

The death spiral began when Fraser illegally removed Whitlam in 1975, then governed with such a guilty conscience that he will be remembered as a very dismal Prime Minister.

Temporarily, Howard steadied the ship, but the rot set in when Turnbull ruthlessly destroyed Nelson and Abbott replaced Turnbull in as stupid a ballot as has ever been held.

Abbott’s reign in Opposition and Government was as close to insanity as can be imagined and Turnbull let down Australia in everything that he did and did not do, a huge disappointment to me personally and many like me.

Now Morrison is an illegitimate Prime Minister, not accepted in this high office, as he was put there by 45 people, most of whom the nation disrespects.

It is all over. Nothing can save the Liberals, absolutely nothing. Continue reading “VALE LIBERALS FOREVER”

EGO defeats NOUS

When John Howard departed the political scene in 2007, there began an era of instability that has all but destroyed legitimate democracy in Australia.

I am in my 87th year on this planet and I have never witnessed a more shameful Parliament than this one. Sadly, only a few of our Parliamentarians are aware of it. They live in a world of utter unreality, totally divorced from voters who now feel a huge sense of insecurity.

What can we do about it?

Nothing at the moment.

We have to wait for an election and hope that the deadwood in all Parties will be wiped out and replaced by Independents of quality who will force quality debates that will result in fine policy decisions.

Barton and Deakin achieved this with minority governments in the first decade of Federation 120 years ago and passed historic legislation that serves us to this day. They had brains and vision and they were leaders who had people skills. Our current Parliament hasn’t got these attributes and never will.

How did we get into this mess? Continue reading “EGO defeats NOUS”

THE AUSTRALIAN WAY

Pauline Hanson, Tony Abbott and Cory Bernardi all say that they are totally committed to the defence of the Australian Way of life. But, they differ broadly when they endeavour to explain to us what it is they are defending.

Malcolm Turnbull and Bill Shorten have differing versions of the Australian Way, but both also disagree with some of what Hanson, Abbott and Bernardi have to say.

So, how does the average Aussie punter work out what it is we are all supposed to be promoting and defending?

Embarrassingly for more moderate citizens, there seem to be some broad areas of common bias.

The primary one is a strong belief that Australia must be defended from hordes of immigrants, refugees and asylum seekers, as well as foreign workers and investors who bring with them sharia law and burkas and terrorists. Added to this is a primitive view that gays, lesbians and aborigines represent a threat to ‘decent’ society.

So, how do we find common ground on what it is in Australian life we should be standing up for as we try to curb the influence of those supposed ‘infidels’ and, much more formidably, how can we achieve it? Sadly, too many seem to believe that the creation of an atmosphere of fear is a good way to begin. Continue reading “THE AUSTRALIAN WAY”

DEATH OF A PARLIAMENT

In my schooldays in the bush, the farmers around my little timber town often had the unpleasant task of putting down an animal that was in such bad shape that the most humane step was to end its existence.

Last week, I spent three days at Parliament in Canberra meeting MP’s and Senators – 33 of them in all – some for 15 minutes. others for half an hour. As usual, all were courteous and did their best to be helpful as I talked about plans to establish an Age Pension Tribunal, create Affordable Housing Communities, foster Intergenerational Partnerships and talk about finally achieving the vision that I have had for twenty years of building an Inland Railway.

My 33 meetings covered Liberals, Nationals, ALP, Greens and Independents as there are good people in all of them, but I could sense a background of unease everywhere.

There was a silent acknowledgement that the Parliament was not going well, actually heading towards a state of dysfunction.

The Coalition is divided into three camps – Turnbull, Abbott and those aligned to neither. The ALP is worried that the Polls constantly show that Bill Shorten is not popular personally and the other Parties are unsure as to whether there supporters might have become fickle.

The presence of death pervades the Parliament. It is ready to be put down. Continue reading “DEATH OF A PARLIAMENT”

CARDINAL and PRIME MINISTER

Neither George Pell nor Malcolm Turnbull are experiencing happy days at the moment.

The Cardinal faces trial in a Victorian Court over significant matters relating to child abuse that are alleged to have occurred over several decades.

The Prime Minister leads a political party that is about to implode as conservatives and moderates fight an irreparable ideological battle in which he is accused of ratting on both sides.

They are the architects of their own demise.

Irrespective of their guilt or innocence, both are at the end of their days of power. Continue reading “CARDINAL and PRIME MINISTER”

Goodbye Menzies

The great political party, The Liberals, formed by Robert Menzies seven decades ago, is in its death throes. It has been assassinated by right wing zealots, none of whom would have ever been welcomed into its ranks by Australia’s longest serving Prime Minister.

I was at High School when Menzies commenced his political comeback by uniting a collection of conservative parties to form The Liberals. In doing so, he declared that he was commanding the centre ground of politics in Australia, planning to push Labor to the Left and the Country Party (now The Nationals) over on to the Right. It made common sense as most Australians wanted a government without ideology that made pragmatic decisions to secure Australia’s post war prosperity.

Menzies achieved his aim for 16 years, retiring at his own timing and on his own terms. Then, the rot set in as the Liberals moved steadily to the right, finally going heavily in that direction when Tony Abbott arrived and inflicted 19th century economics and morals on the nation, sending it into decline on many fronts. Continue reading “Goodbye Menzies”

DEATH OF THE ESTABLISHMENT

In recent weeks, I have watched with acute embarrassment the appalling spectacle of Bill Shorten scaring the hell out of us about a possible increase in the GST and Malcolm Turnbull doing likewise with Negative Gearing. They treated us all as idiots.

They could have shown some common sense by acknowledging that both issues have virtues, but that thought eluded them. After all, the GST does ensure that tax evaders do pay some tax and, if the elimination of negative gearing drives house prices down, this will help young Australians buy a house and Seniors buy a small affordable home.

Their dreadful performances finally made me realise that, in actual fact, the political establishment is now dead and the public have buried it under a huge pile of disrespect. Politicians will continue to play their games, but no one will seriously listen. They are now an irrelevance. Continue reading “DEATH OF THE ESTABLISHMENT”

The Remains of a Year of Tumult

I have been around for 84 years, none of them ever boring, but 2015 has been a corker.

Happily, the two most incompetent political leaders of my era were removed from power – Tony Abbott in Canberra and Campbell Newman in Brisbane. Continue reading “The Remains of a Year of Tumult”

AUSTRALIA URGENTLY NEEDS A MINISTER FOR AGEING

When Tony Abbott became Prime Minister he made an extraordinary decision not to appoint a Minister for Ageing even though the entire planet faces a huge crisis in which the population is ageing faster than at any time in the history of humanity. Continue reading “AUSTRALIA URGENTLY NEEDS A MINISTER FOR AGEING”

For whom the bell tolls – The last days of Rudd or Abbott or both.

Saturday will be a time of great personal relief for the vast majority of Australian voters. After the most painful and boring election of a lifetime, we will have made the decision that most of us would prefer not to make.

Is Abbott about to achieve his dream of becoming Australia’s Prime Minister, or will Rudd pull-off what will be recorded as a political miracle? The making of this sad choice will enable us to experience the profound relief we cherish when we get-up after sitting for a long time on a really nasty bit of prickly pear. You feel a hell of a lot better, but you know also that you will have a sore backside for a long time thereafter.

It is not an exaggeration to say that I have never before seen Australians so disgusted with politics, or so disillusioned with the choice that political parties have forced upon us by presenting us with leaders who inspire such little confidence. But, there is not much we can do about it right now, and it is our democratic responsibility to ensure that whoever wins is given a fair go at trying to give positive and sustainable leadership to Australia.

So, let us look for a few moments at the key figures in this eminently forgettable election:

Continue reading “For whom the bell tolls – The last days of Rudd or Abbott or both.”

The Election of a Lifetime

Who will win power in September?

A year ago Tony Abbott was an unbackable favourite to become Prime Minister of Australia at the 2013 Federal Election. Only Black Caviar had shorter odds. Most punters reckoned that Julia Gillard would lead her party to absolute oblivion, irreparably damaging the ALP brand in the process.

Now, although the Coalition is still clearly in front, it is a genuinely contestable election that may yet provide the biggest political upset in our nation’s history. Continue reading “The Election of a Lifetime”

The Political Turbulence of Climate Change

The abnormal weather patterns that have caused havoc on every continent over the past year have revived concerns about global warming and climate change. Having listened for years to passionate speeches about these subjects from scientists and politicians on both sides of the bitter debate, I don’t believe any of them.

However, I am aware that in the millions of years that this planet has existed, there has never before been 7.5 billion people living on it, and we know that every person pollutes the world in some small way every day. We should be concerned about this, particularly as in the decade in which I was born, there were only two billion inhabitants who could impact on the environment.

Therefore, it is prudent that we should take some positive action to progressively clean up the planet.

What the best plan could be is beyond my skills, but as Don Bradman said: “When in doubt, always play forward”. Scrapping the carbon tax would cause us to play backwards.

If Tony Abbott runs on that platform, he will lose the election. Most voters will regard it as an act of irresponsibility. But, as he has already changed his mind twice on this subject, who knows what might happen.