All posts by Polly Bush

Same sex super: how we value love

 

Twilight hour. Image by Webdiary artist Martin Davies. www.daviesart.com

It must be an extraordinarily proud moment to walk your only daughter down the aisle. It must be rewarding to witness the exchange of vows in a house of worship, the bride glowing in a traditional white gown, the groom beaming with anticipation.

It must be an honour to give the young couple your blessing, and ultimately, it must be particularly satisfying to hand down the baton to ensure the sacred survival of the species.

Better yet, marriage doesn’t just mean a blank cheque encouraging a few young tackers on the way, but it also means you can get the best deals on offer in federal legislation.

Not that you need God’s nod of approval for that. Heck no, just a bloke and a sheila residing together in a relationship will crack that.

But dare you find yourself in the “disappointing” dilemma of not being attracted to the opposite sex, and dare you “choose” to adopt an “alternative lifestyle” (whatever that means), well then you can just kiss these same rights normal good bonking hetero folk are entitled to goodbye.

A couple of weeks ago, the Senate threw back the Federal Government’s superannuation package to the House of Representatives with an amendment that would give gay couples the same super rights as heterosexual couples.

The Labor Party finally joined the Democrats and the Greens in a move to allow the partners of gays and lesbians the automatic inheritance of their partner’s superannuation in the event of death.

Crazy stuff indeed. Superannuation rights for gay and lesbian couples have long been a sticking point for both major parties. In opposition, they both talk the talk, but when in government, the issue of equal rights suddenly gets tossed out the window.

It’s also a particular sticking point for the current Government, as the Democrats have continually blocked any reforms to superannuation by adding amendments to acknowledge same sex relationships. This is the twelfth attempt made to end discrimination against same sex couples.

While some states have legislated to recognise same sex relationships, federal amendments are needed because “the majority of lesbians and gay men will continue to be treated unequally as most super schemes come under federal law” (Gay and Lesbian Rights Lobby, 2002).

The Lobby group also calls for changes to taxation law, so that “when same sex partners do receive benefits they are not taxed at a much higher rate than heterosexuals”.

According to the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commissions report into ‘Superannuation Entitlements of Same-Sex Couples’ (April, 1999), the issue at hand is:

The definition of ‘spouse’ in these enactments has been held to be gender-specific, recognising only heterosexual relationships where a man and woman are legally married or in a de facto relationship. The use of the term ‘spouse’ in these enactments has the effect of excluding a surviving member of a same-sex couple from receiving the benefits provided.

The Gay and Lesbian Rights Lobby argues that “all that is needed is a simple definitional change to bring super law into line with many state laws”.

Indeed, definitions are at the crux of the matter. As Treasurer Peter Costello recently noted in response to Howard’s survival of the species comments:

Obviously, people have relationships and they might be long-term relationships between people of the same sex but to have a marriage, it has to be people of the opposite sex. I think that’s the right legal definition.

But ‘marriage’ is not necessarily defined as frocking up in a white puffy gown and waltzing down the aisle.

In 1992, amendments were made to the Superannuation Act to “remove exemptions for funds which operated to discriminate on the grounds of sex and marital status” (HREOC ‘Superannuation Entitlements of Same-Sex Couples’ 1999).

‘Marital Relationship’ was defined as when “the person ordinarily lived with that other person as that other person’s husband or wife on a permanent and bona fide domestic basis” (1992 Amendments, Section 8A). A ‘Marital Relationship’ was also defined as not having to be legally binding.

In 1993, the definitions of ‘husband’ and ‘wife’ were tested after the death of Robert Corva, a clerk in the Defence Department. His partner of ten years, Greg Brown took the case to the Administrative Appeals Tribunal arguing they had lived together in a marriage like relationship.

The AAT ruled:

There is no doubt that the applicant and Mr Corva had a close marriage like relationship and that they conformed to the requirements of [the Act] in all respects except for their gender. Yet the 1992 amendments, which were designed to remove discrimination on the ground of marital status, provide no redress in relation to the form of discrimination which is illustrated by this case.

If Brown had been a woman, he would be entitled to a yearly pension. Following a rejected appeal, the judges who upheld the ruling conceded that “it gives us no joy to do so”.

Like the sentiments expressed by the judges, the law gives the superannuation industry and many other groups no joy either.

In 2000, the peak industry body, the Association of Superannuation Funds of Australia, argued in a Senate submission that “recognition of a same sex relationships within superannuation legislation would address an area where currently a clear and difficult anomaly exists”.

So what’s holding the Government back?

When Tony Abbott was asked by Barrie Cassidy on the Insiders (ABC Television, September 21, 2003), whether he was opposed to long term gay couples having the same entitlements as heterosexual couples, he said:

I’m in favour of human rights but I’m not in favour of putting gay relationships on the same pedestal that you put traditional Christian marriage.

Mental note: be wary of any sentence that begins, “I’m in favour of human rights BUT-” And note to Tony Abbott: Should heterosexual de facto couples be put on the “same pedestal that you put traditional Christian marriage”?

When quizzed further, particularly about previously supporting equal rights for same sex couples, Abbott threw off a line about how it had been a long time since he’d thought about the issue, and “it’s not my portfolio – I’ll just leave what’s said as said”.

So much for the longevity of human rights. And just who is the Minister for Same Sex relationships – Bill Heffernan?

The portfolio Abbott was most likely referring to is Revenue, held by Senator Helen Coonan. Like Abbott, it appears Coonan has also had a change of heart when it comes to superannuation rights.

The Age political correspondent Annabel Crabb reported on September 19 this year:

Twenty-seven years ago, Helen Coonan was a fiery young solicitor, shoulder to shoulder with the gay rights movement demanding equal superannuation treatment for same-sex couples.

Coonan had worked alongside activist Peter de Waal on the ‘Tribunal on Homosexuals and Discrimination’ in 1976. De Waal told The Age:

We were very glad to have the assistance of Helen Coonan at the time, and we thought she was extremely progressive but more recently, we have revised our opinions of her.

A spokesperson for Senator Coonan said that “she was acting as a family lawyer – this is vastly different from amendments to this piece of legislation.” (Margo: After becoming a Senator Coonan, an activist moderate Liberal of many years standing, ditched her values and her “faction” for the right-wing and John Howard’s support in a Senate pre-selection battle. She was such a good girl Howard gave her a ministry, and she’s mouthed his lines ever since.)

In response, Democrats Senator Brian Greig labelled the Minister, “Coonan the Contrarian”. But alas, Coonan’s not the lone ranger when it comes to being oh au contraire.

In 1995, in Opposition, Conservative Tasmanian Liberal Senator John Watson led the Coalition’s push to give same-sex couples the same rights as heterosexual couples.

In the late 1990s with the Liberals back in power, Labor member for Grayndler Anthony Albanese introduced a private members bill pushing to give same sex couples the same rights (Albanese reintroduced the bill for a third time in 1999 after it had lapsed twice without Government debate).

In 2000, responding to Albanese’s bill, Senator Watson wrote the Government’s report rejecting the bill.

The bill was knocked back, according to Watson, because of the oh-so-crazy argument that it would put “same-sex relationships on the same basis as heterosexual relationships”.

Worse still, the report argued the Bill would lead to the “gradual devaluation of the traditional family structure in the eyes of the law and society in general”.

Although he denied it, as Toni O’Loughlin reported in the Sydney Morning Herald on April 7, 2000, the timing of Watson’s turnaround coincided with “a preselection contest in which the stridently anti-gay Tasmanian Senator Eric Abetz is understood to have substantial influence”.

The “devaluation of the traditional family structure” as an excuse ties in nicely with Abbott’s remarks on “traditional Christian marriage”, as it does with Howard’s comments on marriage as being “about children, having children, raising them, providing for the survival of the species.”

God strike you down if you are a Jewish, Hindu, Buddhist or Moslem couple who can’t have children, or God forbid, choose not to.

The party that has never shied away from Christian family values is the National Party.

Responding to Anthony Albanese’s bill, Senator Ron Boswell sent a warning to all the young regional and rural kiddies grappling with their sexuality, when he said:

If we pass this motion today, it will send a message to all Australians young and old that mainstream society sees no essential difference between a homosexual and a heterosexual lifestyle, that society not only condones it but is indifferent to the bonds which make the typical family the fundamental unit of our society. While we in the National Party do not persecute those who freely enter into a minority lifestyle, we do not want to promote it to our children as an equally valid or acceptable way of life.

Like the ol’ traditional family excuse, God also gets a mention in this debate.

In 1999, One Nation Senator Len Harris wheeled out the Bible banter:

“Gods words clearly say to us that the acts of lesbianism and homosexuality are an abomination.” (reported by Margo Kingston, The Sydney Morning Herald, December 10, 1999).

When people (and indeed members of various churches) use the Bible to justify their homophobia, big bastard cathedral alarm bells should go off.

The main book that addresses homosexuality in the Bible is Leviticus, which says:

No man is to have sexual relations with another man; God hates that. (18: 22).

Further, it says:

If a man has sex with another man, both shall be put to death (20:13).

This old testament statement can hardly be held up as gospel for today’s world when a fair chunk of the other content in Leviticus is largely ignored and at best ridiculous. Leviticus also says it is a sin to eat pig and shellfish, to have mildew in your house, to wear two different types of cloth (hmmm, does Senator Harris wear cotton blend?), plant two different types of seed in one field, cut the hair off the sides of your head, and have tattoos.

And if you’re a woman you may as well banish yourself from society because of your period and the time it takes to be “clean” again. But hey, it’s not all bad. According to Leviticus you can buy slaves as long as they are from “the nations around you” or “the children of the foreigners who are living around you”.

Another champion of the church in the Upper House is Senator Brian Harradine.

In Mungo MacCallum’s memoirs Mungo: the Man who Laughs, he refers to Harradine as the “so-called” independent Senator, “because it has long been apparent that Harradine sees his primary role in politics as representing the views of the more conservative wing of the Catholic church”.

Harradine has been arguing that if the current amendments are passed, this would discriminate against people in dependent relationships who are not having sex:

Take two women for example. You’ve got two women living in one household, one of whom is a dependent and in another household you’ve got two lesbians. What is being proposed by those that are putting this forward is to discriminate against the two women who aren’t lesbians. Now how do you get over that? What you’re proposing for us to do is to discriminate against those two women because they’re not having sex. I think that that’s disgraceful if we’re going to be asked to do that.

While the Senator remains staunchly opposed to giving same sex couples the same rights as heterosexual couples, the argument does present another can of worms.

Many single people in “interdependent” relationships would argue these relationships are just as important and just as relevant as people in sexual relationships.

The Australian Democrats, who, like the Greens, have openly gay members of parliament (yes, as opposed to closeted), have long supported reforms to give same sex couples the same rights as heterosexual couples. The Democrats are also proposing an “interdependency” category in superannuation.

Senator John Cherry recently said that “the Democrat amendments will also remove the cruel taxation on superannuation benefits paid following the death of a spouse, de-facto, same-sex partner or anyone else who is emotionally and financially connected”.

Democrats Senator Brian Greig who has himself been in a long-term same sex relationship has been barracking for equal rights on superannuation for some time. Prior to the recent amendment, and only a few months ago, Greig blasted the Australian Labor Party for their lack of support on the issue:

You are no different to the Coalition. I expect anti-gay, homophobic vitriol from the Coalition – that’s where they sit. But I expect more from the Opposition.

Greig has also been campaigning on the wider issue of discrimination against gays. In 2002, he asked Senator Robert Hill:

Given that the Howard Government discriminates against gay and lesbian people and their relationships in and with superannuation, taxation, family law, the Commonwealth Public Service, the Australian Federal Police, the defence forces, immigration, veterans affairs, industrial relations, social security and parliamentary entitlements, and given that the Government and the Opposition have blocked or stymied every attempt by the Australian Democrats to remedy this situation with legislative reform, how does the minister explain the Prime Minister’s recent assertion that the Government is not homophobic?

Senator Hill’s reply was that he had “missed the last few words” of the question, but that laws were made by parliament and not government, and that Greig was part of the process.

The timing of the question coincided with Bill Heffernan’s attack on Justice Michael Kirby.

Despite Howard’s denials, the Kirby farce contributes to a healthy history of homophobia in the Howard Government years.

In the ‘Word is Out’ paper, The Howard Government: gays lesbians and homophobia (June 2002), University of Adelaide Associate Professor Carol Johnson said the main difference between the two major parties is that “while they were electorally cautious, the Labor governments were not openly hostile to gay and lesbian arguments”.

Elected on Mardi Gras night in 1996, John Howard has continually refused to endorse the festival or at least give a message of support to the gay and lesbian community.

Early in his first term, Howard said he’d be “disappointed, even upset” if one of his sons were gay. Reiterating these sentiments, he was quizzed further on his stance on homosexuality by a student on ABC youth radio station Triple J:

STUDENT: So if we had a scale with total acceptance of homosexuality on one end and total rejection and abuse of homosexuality on the other, where would you place yourself?

PRIME MINISTER: Oh I’d place myself somewhere in the middle. I certainly don’t think you should give the same status to homosexual liaisons as you give to marriage, I don’t.

“Total rejection and abuse of homosexuality” easily equates to homophobia. So while Howard denies he or his government is homophobic, these comments suggest he is partially homophobic by being “somewhere in the middle”. Is this what “conservatively tolerant” means?

And notice too how if you are in a gay relationship or partnership, it gets called a “liaison”? As Catharine Lumby so brilliantly put it in the Bulletin last year, “Most of us have a life. But if you’re a gay man, you get a lifestyle.”

Also added to Howard’s list is his intervention following a Federal Court ruling finding the Victorian Government’s restrictions to fertility treatments discriminatory against single women and lesbians.

And more recently, there are Howard’s comments rejecting gay marriages. To allow gay people to marry, you would also be allowing them to have, shock horror, the same superannuation rights.

Like any phobia, homophobia is driven by fear.

In her article “Why gay marriage is a bad idea”, Janet Albrechtsen wrote in The Australian of the evils of divorce, arguing children do better when biological mum and biological dad stay together. “This is why marriage must remain special and why discrimination is not always a dirty word,” Albrechtsen wrote.

Despite Albrechtsen’s amusing musings, there is no evidence that children are worse off when brought up by people in same sex relationships.

The same day, in the Herald Sun, also owned by Murdoch, radio presenter Neil Mitchell went hard on the issue in “OK to be straight, too”, (a headline that surely must be made into a t-shirt).

Mitchell argued that “there are enough examples to make any heterosexual feel persecuted, the Prime Minister included,” citing lesbian mothers groups, the debate within the church over gay clergy and television personalities as examples.

For a gay person reading the article, it was offensive to say the least and actually made Albrechtsen’s piece look like a relatively tame walk down Oxford Street. After his spray, Mitchell ended it with “Persecution of homosexuality has finished. Now let’s understand that straight is acceptable, too.”

Uh-huh. Obviously Mitchell wasn’t aware of discrimination against homosexuals in terms of superannuation, age of consent laws, compensation entitlements, leave and other workplace entitlements, legal recognition of relationships (including marriage), and that lil ol’ issue of vilification and violence because of your sexuality.

He might have also missed the United Nation’s recent ruling that Australia had breached its international obligations after federal law had discriminated against the long time partner of a deceased WW2 veteran by denying him a pension.

The push for equal rights, whether it be regarding defence entitlements or superannuation rights, is not asking for much – just equality, simple as that.

The fear that gay marriage or gay parenting or superannuation rights for gay couples is suddenly going to rip apart John Howard’s “bedrock” that is the family is a load of rubbish. Some heterosexual couples make a mess of marriage all on their own.

What this issue comes down to is how you value people. It’s about how you value people’s relationships, and ultimately it’s about how you value love.

Sincere best wishes to Melanie Howard and Rowan McDonald in their partnership.

A Gender Agenda

John and Janette, Joint Residency Arrangement, Chapter Two

 

(Background: Are your shoes mucky?)

John finds himself facing the most difficult dilemma of his life – an awful choice between what’s good for the country, and what’s good for his children. It was the invite that threw him – a date to dress up in Hawaiian shirts and flex some pearly whites at the annual APEC meet. His best mate Dubbs would be going, along with Asia-Pacific leaders more vertically challenged than our Prime Miniature, but doh, the meeting date landed on a week he had the kids.

Worse still, Janette was becoming more and more hard to deal with. She had serious difficulty getting back into her teaching career following the years she’d taken off, plus Brendan Nelson’s new policy of subsidising schools that took on male teachers was proving to be a real hurdle. There were also her constant nag-nag-nags of why there weren’t as many GPs who offered bulk billing in the neighbourhood.

She’d even been so desperate she’d tried to get assistance from a lefty welfare organisation. Didn’t matter though, as the charity’s doors were closed because its lifeblood had been cut with the loss of its tax deductibility status. That’ll teach ’em for trying to clothe and feed those grubby would-be-terrorists on temporary protection visas.

The renovations to Kirribilli were also becoming a nuisance. The kids had complained that shifting between Mum and Dad each week was a real drag. Melanie was concerned her marks were suffering from the constant change in environment, and as such she feared she mightn’t get into law school. Janette was already worrying about the kids’ pending HECS debts with the increased costs of higher education. Janette also needed a lawyer.

To ease the logistical difficulties, John decided to build a wing for Janette that had access to each of the kids’ rooms so they wouldn’t have to shift each week anymore (reno costs split 50/50 of course). But the builders were now proving problematic, with Tony ‘paid maternity leave over my dead body’ Abbott’s threats to conduct site visits on the premises. Tensions all round were rising. ABC journalists seemed to be asking more questions than normal.

Then came that APEC invite. It didn’t help that Peter Costello kept muttering on about this word ‘tolerance’, so much so that he’d offered John the option of job sharing because of his unique situation. But it wasn’t all that unique. Thanks to his Government’s introduction of joint residency as the presumption in family law, he was just like most other separated parents with children (except with more money). Finally, he felt like a man of the people. But for how long? While polling showed divorce rates were on the decline, it seemed the mothers of Australia, minus Pauline, were becoming increasingly unhappy.

***

Shared parenting scenarios aside, the emails Margo forwarded in response to ‘Are your shoes mucky?’ are divided on whether there is a gender agenda at play with the proposal to introduce rebuttable joint residency as the presumption in Family Law.

Chantal Bock wrote, “Being a good parent has nothing to do with gender so please stop making it a gender issue.”

Trevor said, “The only reason gender comes into the debate is because of the biased way the system rewards the custodial parent (female most of the time as the Family Court still talks about mothers as the primary carers even though women want equality in the workplace it seems they want to stay at home and play mummies too!)”, while Kathleen Swinbourne argued, “anybody who thinks this is not a gender issue is seriously deluded.”

Whether you believe there is or isn’t a gender agenda to this proposal, the responses arguing for or against the introduction of rebuttable joint residency are divided almost entirely between the sexes. In the lead into ‘Are your shoes mucky?’ Margo described the issue as a “fraught” one. The emails in response certainly back this up.

The common threads in the responses from supporters of this proposal (predominantly men) is that the Family Court currently unfairly favours mothers, that some mothers see children as “prizes” following separation, and that rebuttable joint residency would provide separating parents with an “equal” starting point. Phil Sutcliffe echoed the sentiments of several emails in support of the proposal, by arguing the current system is a “one-size-fits-women-only policy”.

The responses from Dads reveal feelings of frustration and powerlessness when it comes to family law, with the argument that joint residency will solve this. While shared parenting arrangements are to be commended (and could perhaps work in some of these situations), the introduction of joint residency as the presumption in family law for all separating couples with children still raises serious concerns.

The responses against the proposal are almost entirely from women. Some of their concerns/fears include the background of the chief lobbyists of this proposal, the connection of male role models with fathers, the proposal’s potential to trap women, and the threat of an increase in family violence if rebuttable joint residency makes it to the legislative table.

When The 7:30 Report covered the story last week, Children and Youth Affairs Minister Larry Anthony responded to concerns about an increase in family violence. He said, “We’re not talking about the case where there’s clear evidence of abuse or there’s been neglect, or where there’s a very good reason why there shouldn’t be that contact or there shouldn’t be that shared care. So I think you’ve got to separate that and I think that’s an easy point of criticism.”

It is an easy point of criticism Larry, but the problem with family violence is the hidden nature of it. It is already grossly under-reported. Too often, there is not “clear evidence” as the Minister suggests. While the crux of the debate on joint residency should lie with shared parenting, and whether this would currently work for the majority of children of separated couples, the fear of an increase in family violence is very real for some people and has a relevant place in this debate. The reality of family violence is that women and children are the overwhelming victims. Without “clear evidence” of family violence, how would survivors/victims rebut the presumption of joint residency?

Again, it comes back to the main beef with this proposal: the presumption, and the presumption this proposal will be in the best interests of the majority of children. Presumptions in law are best put in practice when it suits the vast majority of cases. Despite some very emotional emails from fathers on this issue, the argument that rebuttable joint residency will suit the majority of children of all separating parents is not convincing. Far from it.

Responses to the issue have been divided into each side – those for the introduction of rebuttable joint residency and those against. This was the easiest way of divvying up the arguments and in a way it demonstrates the great divide between responses. It also ties nicely into the issue of 50/50 time share.

First, a response from Lindsay who is in a shared parenting arrangement with his former partner and daughter. Then, a response from Michael Keayes who had an issue with my scenario of John and Janette Howard in a joint residency arrangement, followed by emails supporting the proposal from Peter Parkinson, Trevor, Julian Fitzgerald, Erich and Chantal Bock (the only woman to email in favour).

Responses against the proposal are from Jennifer, Marilyn Shepherd, Helen Smart, Debbie Kirkwood and Kathleen Swinbourne.

***

Lindsay

I know the whole issue of shared (joint) parenting and residency (aka custody) is a fraught issue.

My daughter has been 50:50 share parenting and residence (week about) now for 6 1/2 years (from age 7-13). So far so good, but there have been hiccups along the way, but for her it has worked well. It may change as she gets older and studies and friends become more central, and that’s to be expected.

We essentially came up with our own shared parenting plan (with a little help from a friendly FCA counsellor, who helped iron out a few things initially, while feelings were raw) and had it registered with the FCA. Since then it hasn’t been referred to much, but has guided things and is being varied much more now as we’ve got the hang of it.

***

Michael Keayes

Polly, the scenario you put up is stupid. If John Howard wanted equal shared care of his kids if he ever got divorced, he would as a matter of necessity quit his job and take another job. That is what a good father would do. If he didn’t quit he would not get shared care. That is the whole idea of rebuttable!! Most dads are not the Prime Minister. Most dads can arrange their lives around their kids. If they can’t then they will not ask for shared care, or will agree on something else with the other parent.

***

Peter Parkinson

I believe that joint custody should be the starting point in all divorce proceedings. I have 13 years bad experience with the FCA and CSA to prove it!

Sure, there are situations where joint custody is inappropriate, like pedophilia, violence against the children or geographically impossible sharing. But, if shared custody was the starting point in all cases, it would remove the legal conspiracy from the equation and not have legal conspiracy scum put ideas into mothers heads that they can get a cushy lifestyle and never have to work again, where the father pays everything through the CSA “for ever”, if they seek custody.

It would also eliminate 39% of CSA case fathers from the dole! = around 400,000 fathers!

Of course this will be challenged by the legal conspiracy scum, as they will become redundant in most cases – pity, all those years at university and no Mercedes or BMW at the end of it – our hearts bleed!

It will also stop the hated FCA’s Alistair Nicholson from quoting false data into the media such as only 6% of cases are contested, when he knows only too well that most cases settle by consent because of his legal conspiracy friends needs for costs and where fathers are told it will cost $50,000 to contest custody and in the end the Family Court will give custody to the woman.

So there you have it – a sensible idea that will work. Fathers will get access to children, mothers will be asked to stop leaning on the Australian Taxpayer for family benefits (and be asked to get a job after divorce), the Child Support Agency will be able to function as only a collection agency when mothers really do have custody, the Family Court won’t be tied up with Legal Conspiracy scum out to get all the money for their Mercedes in one weeks work, and all legal conspiracy scum will be sidelined to earn a living in the real world.

Only positives and everyone wins – whets wrong with that?

***

Trevor

It seems that Polly Bush rationalises and analyses at a superficial level. She only looks at parts of the BIG picture. 50-50 Shared Parenting is far broader than she concedes or possibly comprehends.

Firstly, by removing the children as the prize, divorce will not be so attractive as the majority of divorces in this country are initiated by the mother. This could affect terms of the property settlement. Thus the ‘prizes of divorce’ will be diminished. Result = Less divorce. This is better for families AND kids.

Her statement “Anthony has been quick to argue the Inquiry is “not about gender politics”. But isn’t it? One of John Howard’s public reasons for holding the Inquiry is out of concern for boys and the lack of so-called male role models. This nicely ties in with Federal Education Minister Brendan Nelson’s recent agonising over the lack of male teachers in schools.” shows her dated feminist concepts and gender bias. The only reason gender comes into the debate is because of the biased way the system rewards the custodial parent (female most of the time as the FC still talks about mothers as the primary carers even though women want equality in the workplace it seems they want to stay at home and play mummies too!). This author needs to read some modern feminist

literature. (Polly: I’m curious to hear your suggestions.)

She goes on to quote Justice Nicholson as saying: “The fact is that we do live in a society where the mother is the primary care giver in most intact marriages. It is therefore not surprising that parents are most likely to decide that mothers should retain that primary responsibility it is also not surprising that judges will choose an environment that provides the greatest continuity and least disruption for children.” Nich lives back in the 1950’s it seems.

He has made more appropriate statements like “Chief Justice Nicholson gave at the 25th conference of the family court in Sydney in July 2001. On page 287 the CJ concurs with the following: “The original architects of the [Family Law] act recognised that the adversarial system was an inappropriate vehicle for the resolution of family disputes in the vast majority of cases, particularly where the continued parenting of children was an issue.”

The Chief Justice also states in the Advertiser on 2nd July 2003 “I have long advocated a less adversarial system, as practised in a number of European countries, and the Family Court is investigating ways in which this approach may be introduced in order to reduce the conflict and tension of court appearances”. Why not use a Family Matters Tribunal? FC only for Appeals? Much cheaper, efficient and faster. Less work for the legal parasites.

My daughter travels from Brisbane to Sydney regularly to spend time with me. She loves it. It is an exciting time to look forward to. She actually prefers to be in my company. How is this bad for kids? Surely better than not spending time with Dad. These type of arguments are grasping at straws and most superficial. Arguing the logistics is stupid. Parents will work them out in the best interests of their kids. Mediation can help this if required.

(Polly: I never argued against Dad time – am generally a fan of it. I also think the logistical requirements involved in shared residency are very important to the debate.)

She goes on: “A study released by a University of NSW researcher last week calculated the amount of time working mothers and fathers of young children had each day for their own leisure time. Of the 4000 families researched in the study, working fathers are said to have one hour and 12 minutes a day free time. For working mothers, it’s estimated at less than a second per day.” So if this is so does not this indicate that Dads have more time available to spend with the kids? More Shared parenting time? Dads should be the primary carers if this is true! It indicates that working mothers don’t have time for their prizes, sorry, kids. Is she suggesting that ALL mothers should not work but be mummies full time?

(Polly: In response to your questions above- yes; if only; and no)

She writes: “If legislation orders joint residency as the presumption, the number of couples appearing in the Family Court to alter this arrangement could actually increase. This would add significant costs to the separating couples involved, which in turn could cause debt to spiral and the rest. The Law Council of Australia’s Michael Foster estimates that with rebuttable joint residency in place, “there would be many more [court] proceedings … and far fewer settlements”.

I believe the opposite will be true. There will be less divorce. The prizes will be reduced. Responsibilities placed upon parents re the children will increase. Fewer will go to the FC in the hope of snaring a big win. The odds will not appear so good any more. Perhaps mediation will be mandated re contact arrangements.

She then quotes Patrick Parkinson: “There’s no way you could say it is in the best interest of the majority of children. If there’s a presumption, a lot of women will be pressured into it because they can’t afford $20,000 to litigate.” Who is in this exact situation now re residency? FATHERS are. Who are pressured into signing Consent Orders for contact now? Fathers are. Who are restricted to 109 nights of contact per year because of the reduced prize for the mother? Fathers are.

She simply is re-stating all the old stuff and failing to see the BIG PICTURE. This concept has had a huge effect where it has been introduced. Removing the prizes from the board lowers the divorce rate and allows the kids to have two parents again even if they are divorced.

***

Julian Fitzgerald

I have read your piece in the Sydney Morning Herald and I think you have simply misunderstood what rebuttable presumptive equal custody does.

You seem to think that it is about splitting time equally and changing fathers’ and mothers’ roles in the family. You also seem to think it is a one-size-fits-all solution.

So the main body of your article is designed to lampoon such ideas, and you strive to do this by comparing before and after, by comparing what fathers normally do in a marriage or partnership, with what they would do if there was this ludicrous obsession with equal time between parents.

So, let me tell you what the equal parenting concept actually means. It means giving children absolute security on the key issue of having both their natural parents, whether the parents live together or apart. This relational confidence, by the way, is about the most critical factor in a child’s stability, it comes first, not last.

It means giving separated parents the same EQUAL say in how their children are brought up as the parity of esteem parents are given, under the law, when they live together.

It means giving parents who disagree, but don’t live together, the same rights to disagree and sort out their disagreements as they would have if they lived together – without their children being threatened with the loss of one of their parents.

It means giving ALL parents, without discriminating on grounds of sex, the ability to have a say in how they organise their lives, on an equitable footing, without having the courts designating who does how much.

It means allowing all natural families, not just those who are designated as family units by officials, the same rights under the law, with the same penalties if they transgress the law as any other citizen.

It’s actually about fairness, security for children and adults, and allowing people to run their own families.

I can tell you something very simple as a hands-on, caring parent, who has been excluded from my daughter’s life, illegally, in breach of mine and my daughter’s family rights, by the courts, for seven years now.

You can’t look after children if you’re not there to care. You can’t be a good parent if the whole system is conspiring against your being a parent at all. You can’t be the father in your daughter’s life if she knows this is conditional on your ex-wife and the courts’ permission, on the school’s correct behaviour in maintaining contact with you, on the 101 areas in which you ARE being discriminated against as a parent, with the full backing of the state.

I happen to think that having a loving father is at least as important for a little girl as it is for a little boy. I don’t agree with John Howard there. I know, both from my own experience as a child of divorce and from my experience as an involuntary ex-father, that the system is so inherently biased against good parents when they are fathers that the way to start any change is to give a child an equal right to both parents, and proceed from there.

That’s what rebuttable presumptive equal parenting MEANS. It allows both parents to choose how they parent and when they parent, just as it does in a marriage, or a partnership. That is after all the commitment both parents have entered into when bringing their children into the world.

You need to re-write your article. It’s based on a false premise. The only way in which the present proposals to change the law are one-size-fits-all is that they are non-sexist, and they give children an equal right to both parents, whether together or apart, a right that presently doesn’t exist, in practice. It’s not the children who need to get this message, it’s the parents and the professionals who have supported female gatekeeping and the exclusion of fathers from children’s lives. It’s not the business of the state to put itself between children and their parents – either of them.

***

Erich

You say that “residency issues should still be judged on an individual basis, therefore I’m against a one size fits all policy”.

I couldn’t agree with you more, but the reality is that there is in place a policy of just that. Unless you have a very large bucket full of money, and you happen to get a reasonable judge, as a father you have almost no chance of obtaining residency. There is an industry set up which has robbed my children of their future (over $250K in costs) just so that I can fulfill my kids strongest wishes to see their dad.

There are some very simple solutions for most of the arguments against shared parenting, even with difficult breakups. The only thing really missing is the political willpower to realise two things:

1) The role of fatherhood has changed dramatically for the better in the last 30 years, and is not being recognised.

2) Women are no better or worse than men when it comes to abuse. It takes different forms, but an abusive woman will cause just as much damage as an abusive man, although it is normally more sophisticated and difficult to trace.

I only get to see my kids every two weeks, yet when my wife and I were together, I spent more time with the kids than she did.

What most people don’t realise is that in most cases the parents will work it out for themselves. It is precisely in the cases that go to court that the presumption of equal contact should exist. This is necessary to prevent a spiteful parent from preventing meaningful contact with the other parent. I find it impossible to repair the neglect that my son receives in two days a fortnight. He is not receiving the therapy he needs for his disability.

There is no doubt that a stable home with both parents is optimal, but if that can’t be the case, my kids should not be suffering the loss they are currently feeling because my ex is hell bent on revenge.

***

Chantal Bock

Wake up Polly, not sure where you have been but the current system is one size fits all.

The mother gets the kids the father becomes the visitor. She gets the prize, oops, I mean children and therefore up to 80% of the assets and he gets to visitation rights to his children but all the financially burden towards maintaining his kids and ex spouse.

Being a good parent has nothing to do with gender so please stop making it a gender issue.

Your reporting is selective only taking bits that suit your argument a good example poor journalism. Perhaps you should talk about the mothers who constantly deny contact, who raise false allegations of sexual abuse and false AVO’s all for the sake of a few dollars. Are these examples of good parenting?

It is your brand of feminism that keeps women from achieving true equality. Why should men not be able to look after the children 50% of the time? So what if men might only work part time to have the children 50% of the time. Are women afraid that it would mean that they might have less money?

It seems like the real argument that women like you have against joint custody is that women might have to finally pull our weight when it comes to providing for our children. It is time women stop treating men as walking wallets to be rip off when it suits us.

***

RESPONSES AGAINST THE INTRODUCTION OF REBUTTABLE JOINT RESIDENCY

Jennifer

I am one mother who if the legislation for rebuttable presumption of shared custody had already been in place, would not have seen her children again.

I fled with the children from an isolated rural property at a time when they were being hurt. As Polly’s article says, the best interests of the children are being lost in this new notion about family break up.

All the odds under the new proposals would have been in the abusive father’s favour. As it is now, I am scared for my daughter’s future if this legislation is enacted.

***

Marilyn Shepherd

Unlike John Howard I have been involved in a child custody case, would that it was as simple as this man seems to think. In my case I had a step-father trying to take my daughter from me by declaring that I was mad – not really technically, certifiably mad – just mad for leaving wonderful him. He was her step-father by the way, not mine, but he lost the case anyway and she’s now married with kids of her own.

Other women cannot afford even basic legal aid so they get screwed over time and again. I remember one woman I counselled for three years.

Her husband beat the crap out of her and molested their little girl. She finally left him, took the kids and hid in a women’s shelter for the next year. Then he found her, followed her, spied on her, beat the kids on his access visits and kept getting away with it.

When shared custody was worked out he rarely took the children when he should have, and bashed the son every time he did. He also refused to stop sleeping with the little girl for the next year – she was the ripe old age of 6 by then, and the mother was rendered totally powerless. Each and every time she reported him he said she was lying and hired more lawyers and spies to trail her.

If she refused to take the children she was threatened with losing them, if she had a boyfriend her husband threatened him, he even had her followed to my home on a number of occasions and had me followed.

Spooky stuff, and all because she had to leave to save her life.

She got almost full custody of the kids after two years, she got the house back with a huge mortgage and he kept right on threatening and following her.

I really wish Howard would tell me how that one could have worked and what sort of life the little girl could have had.

Helen Smart

(Background: I blogged about this at castironbalcony)

As someone who isn’t directly involved in the issue, my concern is that the PM has used a very suss lobby group which may include John Abbott, the “Blackshirts” leader. I’m sure you have heard of him. My concern is not just for the fact that this impracticable policy might be brought in, but the poor quality of the lobby groups and think tanks which are given such enormous power. In other words, if the best advice John Howard can get access to is via groups like rhfinc then we are all in trouble.

Another slant you might find interesting is Trish Wilson’s blog.

In the US, where rebuttable joint custody is already law, “moveaways” have become an issue. In other words, once rebuttable joint custody has become the norm, there will be increased pressure on women not to move interstate, overseas or more than some statutory distance away from the father. The upshot is, the mobility of separated mothers will be extremely limited.

(Polly: When Murray Mottram reported on the lobbying efforts in The Age, he wrote, “John Abbott’s main claim to fame is that he is the cousin of the “Postcard Bandit”, bank robber Brenden Abbott, whose infamous deeds were depicted in a telemovie. But if John Howard goes ahead with changes to Family Court custody battles, John Abbott and two other Adelaide advocates of father’s rights will take credit for laying the groundwork”. What Mottram’s report did not mention was whether this was the same John Abbott whose claim to fame is leading the Blackshirts, a vigilante father’s group.)

***

Debbie Kirkwood

I really like the story about John and Janette because I’m not sure we should be taking this whole issue too seriously. I just can’t believe that it could ever work. People have these fantasies that we live in a world where mum and dad are both ace parents and have wonderful relationships with their children and with each other. If it was so great, people would not be separating in droves and we would not have such a high prevalence of family violence, sexual abuse and child abuse. This is the reality we have to deal with.

People say that rebuttable joint custody is good because it reduces the divorce rate. This is ludicrous. What it means is that women are forced to stay in relationships which at the very least make the whole family unhappy and which may place women and children at risk of violence and other forms of abuse. It is difficult enough for women to leave violent relationships due to social and economic reasons and fear of violent retaliation. We should not forget that 50% of women killed by their violent partners are killed trying to leave the relationship.

This proposed policy will only make it more difficult for women to leave because they will fear losing access to their children and fear the resulting situation in which men will have access without the woman being present. Given what we know about the sexual abuse of children I feel very concerned about this.

But really, I just can’t see men taking responsibility for children in the way this proposal would require. They generally don’t do it now so what is going to make this change?

The other scary aspect of this issue is the angry men’s lobby who have succeeded in bullying this on to the agenda. They epitomise the whole reason why this policy is dangerous for women and children. They don’t even have an awareness of the inappropriateness of their actions such as has been displayed by the ‘Blackshirts’ in Victoria for some time now.

This idea is part of a backlash against feminism and an attempt to constuct men as victims. It is ludicrous.

***

Kathleen Swinbourne, President, Sole Parents Union

It was with a sense of relief that I read Polly’s piece on joint custody. Finally – somebody in the media seems to have got it! The argument is not about whether joint custody can be good for kids – but in what circumstances. Yes, some couples do make it work, but as she pointed out, they have chosen to do that and put intense effort into succeeding.

This is something that won’t work for everybody – and certainly not for those couples, or their children, who appear before the Family Court. These tend to be the most intractable, hostile cases, often including issues of domestic violence and/or child abuse. Even where violence or abuse is not present, these couples are hardly likely to be able to put aside

their differences and hostilities to concentrate on what’s best for their kids.

Anybody who thinks this is not a gender issue is seriously deluded. Of course it is. It is about the concept of mothering generally, and whether ‘mothers’ are good for boys, whether they are ‘tough’ enough to impose discipline or whether they’re turning their sons into effeminate males rather than real men. Nowhere have I seen the question asked just what does constitute a good male role model.

The suggestion that just because boys are raised in female headed sole parent households they lack male role models is ludicrous in the extreme. While I agree the numbers are small, men do work in primary schools. Or are those men not considered sufficiently ‘male’? Men also work as cub and scout leaders, soccer coaches, police, shopkeepers, bus drivers, cleaners, television presenters, and the myriad other places, including their friends’ fathers, where boys come into contact with people on a daily basis. And men make up the majority of their sporting heroes.

Perhaps the most insulting assumption in all of this is that just because boys live with their mothers they never see their fathers. In the vast majority of cases this is just wrong. Most non-resident fathers are good fathers. They see and care for their kids to the best of their ability. And for those cases where fathers don’t take an interest in their kids,

Are they good role models anyway?

I was in Canberra a few months ago to lobby against the Harris bill. Many overseas jurisdictions where a presumption of joint custody has been imposed have found that it doesn’t work for court ordered cases. In fact many have found worse outcomes for children. Hardly surprising really.

***

Submissions for the Howard Government’s Inquiry close on August 8. For more info, go to childcustody

Links

The 7:30 Report, Inquiry to look at child custody arrangements, Reporter: Rebecca Baillie.

Family Planning, Howard-style by Michelle Grattan, The Age

One size does not fit all, especially kids by Adele Horin, The Sydney Morning Herald

Degrees of Separation by Gary Tippet, Ian Munro, Phillip Hudson, The Age

Fathers in Law by Catharine Lumby, The Bulletin

Activism

Positive Shared Parenting in Children’s Best Interest

Polly: This site has been created by an alliance of groups opposed to the introduction of rebuttable joint residency. As the name ‘positive shared parenting’ suggests, they are by no means against shared parenting – just the presumption in law. Their main concerns with rebuttable joint residency include:

– it privileges the rights of adults over those of children;

– it denies children the right to unique consideration of their needs and wishes, which change over time;

– it is not evidence-based, but is driven by narrow ideological and political interests;

– it will expose abused mothers and children to more danger;

– it will disadvantage parents who have sacrificed careers and education to be a stay-at-home or primary carer;

– it will provide some parents with opportunities to reduce their child support obligation, while not leading to more equitable sharing of core parenting work;

– it ignores evidence that shared residence works for only some families and can be disruptive and distressing for young children in particular; and

– it will increase litigation and prolong instability and uncertainty for parents and children.”

Thanks to Gerry for forwarding on this address to me.

There’s daggers in men’s smiles

Everybody would like to win the lottery. Everybody would like their own plasma TV. Everybody would like to pay less taxes, banking fees and bills. Everybody would like to hang-up on direct marketers calling late in the evening.

Everybody would like bulk billing at their doctors. Everybody would like to see a little less of Steve Liebmann, Eddy Maguire, Shane Warne and Kylie’s bum. Everybody would like the drought to end.

Everybody would like cheaper fuel. Everybody would like to shed that extra tyre around the belly. Everybody would like less dog doo in their parks. Everybody would like peace in the world. Or would they?

Would everybody welcome the probably public injection of death juice into the world’s most wanted man (no, the other one), Osama bin Laden?

“I think everybody would,” a gratingly grinning Prime Minister John Howard told the American Fox Network’s Neil Cavuto last Friday week. Howard insists his call was not one for the reinstatement of capital punishment in Australia, but one of respecting United States law and the ‘war on terror’. Perhaps that’s why David Hicks is left to chill out and rot in Guantanamo Bay.

But did Howard have to appear so cheery when answering the question on welcoming bin Laden’s execution? Why couldn’t he just wear his normal uncomfortable constipated expression?

Amrozi, one of the Bali bombing suspects who may face the death penalty, also had a smile on his dial when interviewed by Indonesian police last year. During the interview, he reportedly pointed at Western journalists, remarking, “Those are the sorts of people that I wanted to kill,” cracking up a roomful of Indonesian police. Funny har-har.

Talk of death accompanied with smiling and laughter has never been a good look. As Shakespeare wrote in Macbeth, “There’s daggers in men’s smiles; the near in blood, the nearer bloody.”

So when Amrozi appeared gleeful in the face of the Bali attacks, many Australians didn’t warm to the body language, with talkback and letters to the editors clogged up with outrage over flashing ones pearly whites. Some even argued the images of Amrozi smiling shouldn’t have been published out of respect to victim’s families.

But when Iron John grins about executing someone – however evil – is it more acceptable if he’s supposedly on the good side of the good versus evil new world?

When comforting a Bali victim, the Deputy Sheriff was reported to have said, “We’ll get the bastards who did this.”

Not surprisingly, Mini-Me’s tough talking response to Bali was similar to that of the World’s Policeman George W. Bush, post September 11.

Shortly after the attacks, in a conversation with Vice-President Dick Cheney (recorded by Ari Fleischer), Bush said, “We’re at war, Dick, we’re going to find out who did this and kick their ass.”

Likewise, US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld was also for kicking their ass, but not necessarily finding out “who did this”.

According to CBS, hours after one of the planes hit the Pentagon, Rumsfeld made notes stating, “Judge whether good enough to hit S.H.”, and “Go massive. Sweep it all up. Things related and not.”

And here we are now. Not related to either September 11 or Bali, Iraq is still good enough to hit, with a good enough bastard to get and a good enough ass to kick. Meanwhile Osama’s still recording messages rallying a world jihad.

By mass destructing Iraq, Howard’s argument is we will perhaps prevent weapons of mass destruction reaching terrorists.

Howard recently linked Bali with Iraq, when he said, “I will, amongst other things, be asking the Australian people to bear those circumstances in mind if we become involved in military contact with Iraq”.

Howard’s connection with Bali and attacking Iraq is yet another case of his talented use of the dog whistle. Sure it doesn’t matter they weren’t connected, but one day, according to Howard, another attack could be. Putting the two incidents together in a sentence is enough to prick up perhaps a couple of ears. Job done.

But many relatives of Bali victims didn’t appreciate the comments. As Maria Elfes said, “I don’t think you can use the memory of 89 people as an excuse for war”.

But would an Iraqi invasion prevent another Bali? It’s all very maybe. Are we really going to involve our troops in a war just because of a maybe?

Our head of state and man of cloth Governor-General Peter Hollingworth had a reason when waving off the departing Australian Servicemen and women. He was filmed saying, “Look, this is something that has to be done.” What? Like rape?

It’s a bit like one of the mob’s protest signs in the Melbourne march that read “Bombing for peace is like f…ing for virginity”.

If Howard’s national address on Thursday was supposed to provide some magical answers to Australian involvement in Iraq and its connection to bin Laden and Bali, surprise surprise, it didn’t.

The timing of the address, moments before giving the inevitable go ahead, is a gutless effort. Whether Tony Blair’s position is agreeable or not, at least the British PM has endeavoured to try to explain it.

In Howard’s speech, he said: “Australia is a Western nation, nothing can, will or should alter that fact, as such in this new world we are a terrorist target.”

But will our involvement in Iraq accentuate this situation? Will attacking Iraq rub the smile off Amrozi and the likes? Or will it merely put more daggers in men’s smiles, encouraging the wider use of a “fatal cocktail” of weapons, the very thing Howard says were supposedly fighting?

As the recently resigned Office of National Assessments analyst Andrew Wilkie said, “A war is what is most likely to force him (Hussein) to act recklessly, to possibly use weapons of mass destruction himself and to possibly play a terrorism card”.

Dear fellow Australian …

Letterbox rummaging – junk mail, bill, junk mail, bill, junk mail – hang on, what’s this? A package from the Prime Minister. First thought – looks dodgy, should I call the terror hotline? Should I clear the area?

Letter addressed to “Dear fellow Australian”, blah, blah, blah – signed “John Howard” … signature stamp looks semi-real. Could John really have signed this? No, of course not. Rummage straight to booklet …

FRONT COVER: Let’s Look Out For Australia (that big island, south of the equator)

“Protecting our way of life (whatever that means) from a possible terrorist attack” (if alive, locate loved ones, internet, radio, television, substance of choice).

Accompanying front cover photos:

1. Crowded beach scene: Get your gear off, forget the coconut oil, it’s time to slip, slop, slap.

2. Barbequing: remember to use extra long tongs. Lick finger and hold it in the air to determine smoke flow direction. Stand in the opposite direction and prepare for wind change.

3. Approach a police officer at the local shops if any can be located. Ask them if their hat had a previous life in ‘The Nun’s Story’, and if they’re off duty on Tuesday nights, whether they think Chandler was a pig with his reaction to knocking up DC McAllister.

4. If posing for a class photo, beware the ol’ bunny ears trick. Gets ’em every time.

“Commonwealth Government”, written just above a thin line of colours inspiring rainbow flag thoughts which in turn causes eye rubbing to clarify vision. Turn page.

ABOUT THIS BOOKLET

“This booklet is part of a campaign to inform the public about what is being done to look out for Australia and protect our way of life from a possible terrorist attack.” If alive, locate loved ones, internet, radio, television, substance of choice.

“It is part of the Commonwealth Government’s commitment to keeping every Australian informed about:

” – new counter-terrorist measures that have been put in place” (read ‘self promotion’)

” – how we can all play our part by being alert, but not alarmed” (unless you read this booklet in full)

” – who to contact to report suspicious activity” (mental note, man climbing in neighbour’s window, call hotline)

” – what to do in the event of an emergency” (if alive, locate loved ones, internet, radio, television, substance of choice).

“Please take the time to read this booklet, and fill in and keep the emergency contacts fridge magnet.” In case there is a biological, chemical or radiological attack, there is a slight chance your fridge will be OK.

Accompanying photos:

1. If out of sunscreen, find extra large Australian flag to hold up on shoreline, and see if sunset can fade out Union Jack.

2. Cricket: Laugh as you hit Dad in the unspeakables for six.

3. Steve Liebmann: National treasure.

Don’t nod off, remember, Be Alert …

CONTENTS page. More rainbow colours. Cut out for potential Mardi Gras arm band.

PROTECTING AUSTRALIA

“Terrorism has changed the world, and Australia is not immune” OH NO, NOT AGAIN, ENTER STEVE LIEBMANN’S VOICE IN HEAD …

Accompanying text refers to September 11, Bali, and just in case you forgot, the Federal Government’s possible terrorist attack warning last November. To cover all bases, it still stands.

“New measures include strengthening intelligence, Defence Force and Federal Police capabilities, and tightening air security (an airline collapse or two) and border controls” (rationing sanitary provisions and sharpening razor wire for premises which hold people fleeing terror).

“Further restrictions on items allowed in cabin baggage.” Ah, yes, those reassuring signs at check-in points at airports which instruct potential terrorists to please remove knives and nail files of mass destruction from hand bags.

“Stockpiles of antibiotics, vaccines, anti-viral drugs and chemical antidotes are in place.” Or at least enough for some members of the Defence Force and politicians.

“The public will be kept informed with reliable, up-to-date information on the situation at all times.” Does this apply to Iraq? Is Steve Liebmann involved?

“A terrorist attack on Australia’s critical infrastructure could significantly threaten national security, our economy and lives.” Good to see the Government’s order of priorities.

Accompanying pics:

1. Emergency workers wearing gas masks and ‘Outbreak’ style cat suits, standing over stretcher and patient. Suck in happy gas, suck in happy gas, make it go away, make it go away. Where are the men in white coats?

2. Oil refinery with background purple storm clouds. Beware background purple storm clouds, you might turn into clear skies if Baghdad is bombed.

WE CAN ALL PLAY A PART

A part? or apart?

“Be alert, but not alarmed.” Err why do they keep repeating this?

“There are things we can all do to help protect our way of life.” Just like Americans, every Australian has their part to play and isn’t it terrific? As US Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage told us in December last year, “It’s hard to imagine two allies like us wouldn’t be involved in the great issues of the day together”. It’s great Dick, just great.

“Keep yourself informed It is important that you try to keep up to date with the news.” Seven Sunrise is keeping up a happy face, with their self-declared “CAMPAIGN FOR OPTIMISM”, which on Monday morning seemed comical with the running bottom screen news update of “John Howard to stay on as Prime Minister past his 64th birthday”. For those who are after a more realist approach to their news, try The Oz’s inside banner headline of “Countdown to War”. And of course, there’s always Steve.

“You can cut out the card on the right and carry it in your purse or wallet.” Card reads: “IF IT DOESN’T ADD UP, RING UP”, followed by the national security hotline number. Reckon they’d be able to explain the Australian Government’s Iraqi policy? Or the Federal Opposition’s? Or the Americans?

Back of card reads yet again, “Be alert, but not alarmed”. Heck no, you’re just carrying a frigging terror hotline card in your wallet. Nothing to be alarmed about at all.

“Possible signs of terrorism” …

 “Unusual videotaping”. Beware blooper, not so funny home video or Jackass attempts.

– “Suspicious vehicles … explosives can be heavy, so cars and vans may sit abnormally low on their suspension. They may be out of registration, or have false or missing number plates.” Beware all Kombi drivers, particularly those carrying ‘MAGIC HAPPENS’ and ‘NO WAR’ stickers.

– “Unusual purchases of large quantities of fertilizer”. Beware better homes and gay boys crews stocking up for a backyard blitz.

– “A lifestyle that doesn’t add up”. Beware anyone reading this.

“Our Community”

“Terrorism affects us all and no community or religion should be made a scapegoat for the actions of extremists. If you see harassment or discrimination, do not turn your back.” Try to avoid talkback radio, particularly on the topics of detention centre fires, gang rapes, chadors, or banning Santa.

WHAT TO DO IN AN EMERGENCY

“If a bomb explodes Get away to an open space or protected area as quickly and calmly as possible.” Confused? Open space or protected area? Perhaps run between the two options, as calmly as possible of course. But whatever you do, “Do not form or join a crowd – there may be other bombs”. Find an open-spaced, protected area minus crowds and recite ‘Be alert but not alarmed’ slogan in head. Whilst chanting slogan, also try to “Stay away from tall buildings, glass windows and parked vehicles”. Remind self it’s great working in the heart of the city.

“General Advice”

“If it is dark, check for damage using a torch. Do not light a match – there could be gas in the air.” How reassuring. Keep a torch handy? How’s the sinuses? Alarmed yet?

“Use a landline to call essential contacts if mobile networks are down.” Hello? Hello? Ah yes, of course, the section is titled “general” advice … if the grog runs dry, find the nearest bottle shop.

“Other steps you can take to prepare for an emergency … Develop an emergency plan … who will check on elderly neighbours or pick up children from school?” Damn. I knew there was something I forgot the children!

“Choose an out-of-town friend or relative who is prepared to be a point of contact if the members of your household are separated.” Any takers? Margo?

“Agree on a meeting place Decide where your group will meet in the event of an incident that makes it impossible for you to go home.” Pub sounds good.

“Assemble an emergency kit … include a torch, a battery operated radio, a first aid kit including latex gloves” And a pair of fishnet stockings. Kinky. If alive, locate loved ones, internet, radio, television, fridge magnet, terror hotline card, latex gloves, torch and substance of choice.

ESSENTIAL FIRST AID

“Cool the burn with plenty of clean, cold water (except for burns that are charred, whitish or deep).” Where’s that ‘but not alarmed’ slogan when you need it?

“Exposure to chemical, biological or radiological agents … exposure to any of these agents could lead to an unexplained outbreak of illness.” Why do I suddenly feel itchy?

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

“How long will Australia be on heightened alert? It is likely that we will be living with increased security for the foreseeable future.” Again, covering all bases.

“Terrorism has changed the world and security may never return to the relaxed levels most of us grew up with.” Not like growing up in Sir Joh’s Queensland.

But remember, “It is essential that we do not allow the threat of terrorism to change the way of life we value so highly.” Yes, you can still go and play the pokies.

“What if my children become concerned or anxious about terrorism?”

“Talk with your children about what is happening and what is being done to protect them (Remember to pick them up from school). Encourage them to say how they feel.” But for chrissake, don’t let them ask any questions, particularly along the lines of ‘Whatever happened to Osama bin Laden?’ If they do, put fingers in ears and sing lalalalalala.

“Be honest about things being discussed in the media and in your community.” Really? Should this involve Steve Liebmann and the graffiti that reads “BE ALARMED”?

TRAVELLING OR LIVING OVERSEAS

“Australians have always been great travellers, and are welcome visitors in most countries around the world. Nobody wants to change that.” And as long as John Howard doesn’t start engaging in hypotheticals about first striking terrorist cells in neighbouring countries again, it should stay that way.

MULTILINGUAL INFORMATION

Makes a hellovalotta more sense written in a foreign language.

WHO TO CONTACT AND WHEN

Rewrap up info, and return to sender.

We are Australian, and we don’t quite understand what’s going on here

January 26 … the waft of burning onions on barbeques, the slaps of thongs and cricket bats in backyards, the hoisting of beer cans, flags and sails and the murmurs of citizenship ceremonies across the country, celebrating Australia Day, the blessed anniversary of the settlement of a British penal colony.

As Rick Farley pointed out in his 2003 Australia Day Address, the date creates a bitter sweet divide: “For Aboriginal Australians and many others, the 26th of January is not a day for celebration. To them the date signifies invasion and dispossession.”

Unless there’s tantalising footage for the cameras, the annual protests and those who dare to call this “invasion day” will be forgotten on the night’s television news, but they’ll get their turn. The talkback brigade will no doubt brand them “unAustralian” in the coming days. For many, the date debate will also seem irrelevant in the face of the latest decision to pack the troops off in preparation for an attack on Iraq.

But debates and dialogue, particularly those concerning national identity, are always important, and Farley also addressed this in his speech:

“I believe there is responsibility for community leaders and the media to ensure an informed and inclusive debate occurs about the big issues that shape our nation. I don’t think that responsibility is being fully discharged now. I also place enormous value on the freedoms and tolerance of our civil and democratic society. However, I fear they will be tested as Australia prepares for a new war and as national security fears grow. To be true to ourselves as a civil society, we must guard against racial stereotypes, racism and xenophobia. Our Muslim citizens must be afforded the same respect as all other Australians, irrespective of what events are occurring elsewhere in the world.”

Perhaps Gary Hardgrave will stumble across Farley’s wise words. On January 9 Hardgrave, the Federal Minister for Multicultural Affairs, cautioned some in the media about the importance of influence, warning:“Freedom of speech is a powerful right and an integral part of Australian democracy. However, there is a corresponding responsibility, especially for the media, not to abuse this power by inciting hatred or violence.”

Were Howard Sattler, Jeremy Cordeaux, Alan Jones, Stan Zemanek or the amazingly syndicated John Laws warned of the danger of such unfettered power? Nope … Hardgrave, whose website biog says he was the first MP to walk out on Pauline Hanson’s maiden speech, only sent such cautionary letters to ethnic community broadcasters, because “this responsibility is perhaps even greater for ethnic and community media organisations”.

When Melbourne 3AK’s John Jost asked Hardgrave whether he believed in multiculturalism, the Member for Moreton said, “Well, I do because essentially your culture is what’s in your heart … your culture evolves over time and in Australia we don’t have one culture that’s operating, although we have a dominant culture. But we have a range of cultures and each are worthy of respect.” (www.radioinfo.com.au)

What is this dominant culture? Perhaps national treasure Steve Liebmann knows. The breakfast host, who has spookily transcended television networks’ inspiring remote control checks, tells us in the Federal Government’s incredibly informative anti-terrorism commercials, “Australians are friendly, decent, democratic people”.

Perhaps the matching shots help provide more insight into this dominant culture, with viewers provided with images of a supposed family cricket game, a kickarse surfer on the goldie, some people with backpacks loitering outside a building marked ‘Education’, your average supposed multi-age multicultural family barbeque complete with non-descript meat, a deli owner slapping a slab of cheese with yet more meat adorning the screen, some wigs and the High Court building (no clear sign of Justice Michael Kirby), some older men carrying around large works of art, and your average multicultural class of school kiddies laughing so hard you’d be mistaken for thinking Liebmann accidentally let one rip.

Liebmann’s timing of the next line, “And we’re going to stay that way”, coincides with images of smiling women wearing veils (no, not the Tash), Aboriginal kiddies laughing (no, not with Philip Noyce), people cycling, some sort of outdoor concert (no sign of Rhonda Burchmore), and stockyards containing a coupla blokes in akubras that any city politician should try to emulate when touring the bush.

After talk about our security being beefed up, Liebmann advises “All of us can play our part, by keeping an eye out for anything suspicious”, with corresponding shots of a cute dog sniffing bags and a crowded street scene.

Here’s hoping for more information in the accompanying booklet. I’m guessing the hotline operators probably don’t need to be alerted to those cute “suspicious” dogs seen in airports and those crowds forever milling around shopping malls across the country.

John Howard has defended the decision to not specify what constitutes suspicious activity, and in many ways he’s got a point. It’s a hard task. But surely we can do better than Customs dogs and crowds. At a press conference launching the ads at the end of last month, Howard was asked to explain whether they depicted what people should be looking out for. Providing an insightful example of what is deemed suspicious, but not quite terrorism related, Howard said:

“It is very much a question of the application of one’s commonsense. I mean, self-evidently, if you see somebody climbing into a window at the house next door and you don’t recognise him, well, I mean, we all know that is suspicious. Now, I’m not saying that that’s in anyway a stereotype for a terrorist act but I use it as a metaphor, as an illustration of the point I’m making, it depends upon the circumstances.”

Mental note, man climbing in a neighbour’s house window, call hotline.

Still, nothing like a $15 million ad campaign to beat the drum of nationalistic bullshit. But fear not the cost, we’ve been told by Joe Hockey. Defending the ads, the Minister for Big Macs assured us the campaign’s expenditure is well short of the $60 million a year in advertising McDonald’s spends on hamburgers. McPhew.

Come to think of it, there’s been a nationalistic bent emerging through a couple of ads of late, playing up the Australian identity. When Pauline Hanson wanted the “I am Australian” song tagged to the Party, the Seeker and 1967 Australian of the Year recipient who penned the tune quickly issued a “please explain” and it was dropped.

The song, which was sung to the troops heading off to the middle east yesterday, has also recently been seen on our telly sets advertising our partially owned telecommunications company. The ditty, being used in this way for more nationalistic bullshit, should actually be sung, “We are one. We all pay high bills. I am, you are, we are Telstraaaaaaaa”. In conjunction with the ads, Telstra has released a CD of the song, with all sale proceeds of course going to Farmhand. With this help, who knows how long it will be able to hold the “I am Australian” tune.

Still, the nationalistic bent to the ads doesn’t seem nearly as finger down the throat material as an initiative Victoria’s Australia Day Committee recently launched. This Australia Day, us Suthna’s are being asked to recite an oath because “people wished to express their national pride and needed a way of expressing it”, according to Committee chairman Tony Beddison. For those finding it difficult to articulate their chest beating feelings, it reads:

We are Australian

We stand here proudly

Brave, strong, open and tolerant

We stand here equal, fair, true and free

Together we will build the future

But we will not forget the past

We will stand together

We are Australian

Again, the oath inspires flashbacks to something wacky the ONP would adopt, and is equally deserving of a Pauline Pantsdown “I don’t like it” response.

Leunig to the rescue (The Age, Jan 17):

The FULL unedited AUSTRALIA day OATH

WE ARE AUSTRALIAN

WE don’t quite underSTAND what’s going on HERE

consequently some blokes have resorted to doing browneyes in public, quite

PROUDLY. now that’s pretty BRAVE. STRONG

language is used. A situation of OPEN slather prevails AND

being alcohol TOLERANT helps enormously. So WE

STAND HERE, and all things being EQUAL, where

else can we stand? That’s FAIR enough, surely. Standing here is a tried and

TRUE activity; AND its FREE. Stringing words TOGETHER is

more difficult so WE WILL probably have to BUILD some more schools

at some stage in THE FUTURE, but chances are WE WILL NOT.

So forget the future, FORGET THE PAST, WE WILL just STAND

TOGETHER. WE ARE AUSTRALIAN.”

The good news is soon we all might be able to find words to express our national pride, with Vic’s Oz Day Committee hoping to extend their f’oath nationally. If anyone’s keen to adopt the motto (the khaki pompom version, or the Leunig version) when charcoaling the meat on Sundy, could it also be requested they be alarmed, not alert, and stand shoulder to shoulder?

Pollie Waffle awards, 2002

Pollie Waffle awards, 2002

by Polly Bush

Jack Robertson rightly gave the ‘Most Memorable Person of the Year’ award to the ‘Ordinary Australian’ (webdiaryDec13). Lurking behind this “Most Memorable, Forgettable, Miserable Un-person of the Shithouse Year” is one of our esteemed representatives, someone out there, no doubt also like “The Man Who Wasn’t There”, who might just also deserve a gong.

The Pollie Waffle Awards celebrate the drone and the dribble, the babble and the drivel, and the pure porkies our nation’s finest have serenaded us ordinary, extraordinary and not-so-ordinary folk with during 2002.

[drum roll]

The Most Visually Inspiring Award for 2002 goes to … Employment Minister Tony Abbott, for describing the pickle of being mates with both Bill “Woohoo” Heffernan and Justice Michael Kirby. Abbott left some of us praying for heavy rains and a mass mudslide, when he said:

“As a friend of both those gentlemen, I have to say that I find myself in the indelicate position of having a foot planted firmly on either side of a barbed wire fence.”

Tony Abbott also picked up the Workplace Exploitation and Wife-Basher Award for this one:

“If we’re honest, most of us would accept that a bad boss is a little bit like a bad father or a bad husband. Not withstanding all his or her faults, you find that he tends to do more good than harm. He might be a bad boss but at least he’s employing someone while he is in fact a boss.”

For these prizes, Tony Abbott wins copies of Natalie Imbruglia’s ‘Torn’ and Britney Spears ‘Hit me baby one more time’. Not exactly new releases, but at least moving beyond the 1950s.

Abbott’s not the only multi-award-winning Pollie Waffle recipient of 2002. His arch-nemesis Mark Latham is also the winner of two awards this year, although it could have easily been several more. For his comments on former Liberal Party president Tony Staley, who, after a car accident is subject to using crutches, Mark Latham wins the Disability Discrimination Award:

“That deformed character Tony Staley … He’s deformed in his views and actions because he’s in the garbage bin of Australian politics.”

Apart from Latham looking like a goose on national television by Chris Pyne of all people (who, during this debate on the ABC’s Lateline, said, “I don’t know how you can sit there and not laugh at yourself”), he wins a mystery tour cab ride around the streets of Sydney. If he fails to claim his mystery tour, Latham wins the prize of being publicly flogged.

Latham also wins the Bring Back the Battlers through Filthy Language Award for his comments describing John Howard after his visit to the United States. No doubt Latham charmed The Bulletin’s Maxine McKew over lunch when he said:

“Howard is an arse-licker. He went over there, kissed some bums, and got patted on the head.”

For this prize Latham wins some barbed wire, courtesy of Tony Abbott.

The 2002 Whoops! Wrong Party Award goes to … former Tasmanian Liberal leader Bob-turn-the-other-Cheek, who forgot which party he was leading during the 2002 Tasmanian Election campaign, when he declared at a business lunch at Wrest Point Casino: “On July 20, we aim to be the first state back in Labor hands.”

Cheek, who failed to win his seat in the election, wins a constipated look from John Howard, who managed to squeeze out such a painful expression from the audience when he made the comment.

Finance Minister Nick Minchin wins a gong for Gross Hypocrisy and Best Spin on Not Coughing Up the Dough for saying paid maternity “reeks” of “middle class welfare” and “means non-working mothers are being discriminated against”.

For this prize Minchin wins a lunch with Pru Goward, not to be confused with last year’s Wooldridge/Phelps lunch prize.

The prize for Mental Health Insensitivity goes to … Senator Helen Coonan, who, on encouraging the states to apply limits on psychiatric harm claims, said: “People who might be just malingering, if you like, or just have an anxiety condition or depression, that they really do need to get over it and get back to work.”

Coonan’s prize, which she can use at any residence of her choosing, is a week’s worth of Jerry Springer tapes, job application rejections, and a stint engaging in some mindless work for the dole style activity. As she’s the best drag queen lookalike in parliament since Pauline Hanson, she may also receive a float in next year’s Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras.

The prize for the Most Entertaining Moment During the Victorian Election Campaign (which in itself wins a gong for putting the whole of Victoria asleep) goes to … Labor candidate Janice Munt, who took on the Liberals’ Geoff Leigh. Munt came up with a very clever campaign badge which read: “I donated to Janice Munt because the other guy is a —-.”

Equally clever was Munt’s defence of the tactic, when she said, “Yes, I think Geoff Leigh is a runt”. Munt receives the prize of the seat of Mordialloc, effective immediately.

The Hearing Impaired Award for 2002 goes to … Victorian Opposition leader Robert Doyle, who clearly needs someone to pump up the volume. On knifing Denis Napthine to become leader in August (the Doyley replacing the Nappy), Doyle said, “From today, hold on to your hats” (but for chrissake, don’t pull them over your ears).

During the televised election debate in early November, the man who Jeff Kennett said “is not leadership material now and … certainly not leadership material in the future”, spoke of the pain and suffering of life since the messiah went to heaven:

“Opposition is a hard lesson. We’ve had to go out and listen to people and to learn from what they have said to us and we have done that, we have done the hard yards.”

Oh the agony. On election night, following a disastrous result for the Liberals, Doyle forgot the years of hard listening and three months of holding onto hats when he said: “My pledge is that we will start working from now, because that’s what we need to do … the job starts from tonight. I give you 100 per cent of me to start that work from now”.

Perhaps the hearing aid was just kicking into gear, when two days later, he told the ABC’s AM program: “It wasn’t long after the polls closed that we got a very, very clear message from the electorate and we will be listening to that message and we’ll be acting on it.”

Indeed. On announcing his depleted new look opposition team last week, and in the wake of an eight per cent swing to the Greens Party, Doyle’s decided to give Environment and Water the flick, removing the portfolios from shadow cabinet. Who needs ’em anyway. Naturally Robert Doyle’s prize is a new hearing aid.

The Speaking for Myself Again Award for 2002, goes to … former Victorian Shadow Treasurer Robert Dean. The bloke who was supposed to be saving us from economic chaos had varying reasons for why he failed to fill out a change of address card and enrol on the electoral roll … including unsuccessful IVF attempts and a bitter pre-selection battle. Crying foul, he had this parting shot at the media:

“I think the press have to look pretty closely at themselves – the way they have been knocking on my door, ringing – 6 o’clock in the morning, pounding on my front door. They’ve been leaving cigarette butts all around the front of my place (… Margo?). They’ve stolen one of my statues.”

For this prize, Robert Dean wins a garden gnome, who, by no coincidence slightly resembles Gareth Evans.

Still on the Victorian election, the prize for 2002 Fashion Victim goes to … Member for Melbourne (just!) Bronwyn Pike, who said of the Greens who almost picked up her seat:

“The Greens are a brand name and we live in a culture of branding. Kids, when they’re 12, like Nike, when it’s a bit older, it’s Mambo. Somehow to be young and with it is to be Green. “People have to remember that the Greens are a political party.” Crikey.

For the Fashion Victim Prize, the Member for Melbourne gets the easy-peasy portfolio of health, just in case she forgot there was a death wish out there for her.

Keeping with the theme of patronizing political comments, The Most Patronising Parental Comment Award this year goes to … Immigration Minister Philip Ruddock (resounding applause), remarking on his daughter Kirsty’s opposing stance on mandatory detention. Ruddock said: “I’m proud of the fact that she does care.”

For this, Philip wins an overnight stay on the tropical shithole Nauru. And he can take Julia Gillard along for the ride too.

Moving along, The Just Plain Funny Award for 2002 goes to … former Democrats leader Natasha Stott Despoja, who told The 7:30 Report, just a fortnight before resigning: “I think we’ve demonstrated, particularly in the last week, that we can be a functioning, workable unit. In fact, we can be a united group.”

The former Democrats leader wins a special prize from the Sydney Morning Herald’s Alan Ramsey, who blessed her with, “Kournikova and Stott Despoja are who they are … Each is a beguiling clothes horse with minimum talent in what they do for a living”.

Now to a serious matter – the war on terror. Australians have been warned to remain alert in these uncertain times, and thank christ for the members of the Howard Government, because without them, who knows how we would keep up our vigilant terrorist neighbourhood watches. The How to Detect a Bomb Award goes to … Justice Minister Chris Ellison, who provided these wise words of wisdom should anyone spot someone acting suspiciously:

“Well you can always make inquiries and say, ‘excuse me, are you doing something untoward there?’ or ‘you’ve left your bag, can you take that with you?’ I mean that’s the sort of thing that you can have with community awareness.”

For this, Chris wins a good slapping from his predecessor, Senator Amanda Vanstone.

Also on this serious note, is the potentially pending action of Australian troops in Iraq. The You’re Joking! Award for 2002 goes to … the one and only, Prime Minister John Howard, when he told ABC Melbourne’s Jon Faine:

“The other point I make is that in the end I have to take a decision that I think is in the best interests of Australia, and that is not a decision that can vary from day to day according to the volume of talkback callers.”

The Prize for this award is a second chance draw to keep the dream alive, during a good chat with another John.

Which leads to the Dog Whistle Award. And the winner is … John Howard (again!) for his initial reaction to Fred Nile’s call to ban the chador: “I don’t have a clear response to what Fred has put. I mean, I like Fred and I don’t always agree with him, but you know Fred speaks for the views of a lot of people.”

For this prize, all is forgiven.

And finally, the Most Honest Political Comment of 2002 Prize … [drums] … and the winner is:

Carmen Lawrence, who said, “John Howard, as I say, is the most deeply ordinary person that I’ve ever confronted in Australian politics”.

For this, Lawrence cements a cult following, a seat on the back bench, isolation from almost everybody in the Labor Party, and encouragement towards retirement.

The most deeply ordinary person Carmen Lawrence ever confronted in Australian politics also wins a special prize … representing Jack Robertson’s ‘Ordinary Australian’ as “The Most Memorable, Forgettable, Miserable Un-person of the Shithouse Year of 2002”.

This article was first published in ‘Webdiarist awards, 2002’, webdiary19Dec2002.