Having had a few months to reflect on this, I'm still very disappointed with the election result, but I'm more sad than angry. I understand that it is a place of privilege to be able to put more importance on the environment, that my personal benefit. I don't have to worry if I'll still be able to feed my kids, as so many others do. I'm trying to be more understanding, to consider others position. It doesn't mean I think the environment is any less in trouble, but I'm trying to focus my anger in a more useful direction. Having learnt a bit more about our Pentecostal PM and how his beliefs affect his politics, I'm feeling even more wary of religion mixing with politics (Tasmania almost got a Pentecostal premier last week, which had me worried). Particularly since I find the more religious a person is, the further away from the actual core values of the religion they seem to be. I hope we will get through this, that we won't actually set the world on fire, but we still have a lot to do, don't we?
I realise that ‘para’parenting’ doesn’t exactly scream politics, but politics is about the rules and systems that govern our societies, and as a parent, our current political climate in Australia really worries me.
I am feeling angry, that people not only voted to keep the
Morrison government, but that they actually gave them more seats. That Labour
fucked up so badly. They had ‘an unlosable election’, and yet, here we are. And
what happened to ‘this is the climate change election?’
I’m glad that Shorten has stepped down. For the love of God,
can we please give Penny Wong a go?? Ok, I realise she’s a senator, not an MP,
but that just a technicality. How amazing would it be to have a gay woman in
the top spot? Or just anyone who had some direction and leadership ability,
really.
Off the top of my head, there are a few things I think Labour
did that were really, really dumb. Like a 40% tax on inherences. I have to
think they meant it to stop the rich just passing stuff onto their richer kids,
because otherwise they’re not just stupid but incompetent if they didn’t
realise the effect it would have on the lower end of the food chain. They’d lost
that battle when it was broken down by the coalition as ‘Grandma will give you
a $40,000 car and the ATO will give you a $16,000 bill’. I wonder why younger people
receiving inherences weren’t keen on that idea? Or older people keen to know
that their kids would be billed for the gifts they gave them?
Their plan for 50% electric cars, in a country the size of
Australia was never going to fly. There are smarter ways to get our emissions down.
Yes, most of our population is in urban areas, but how about the invested in cheap,
reliable public transport in those areas, then people wouldn’t need to use
cars.
Their tax on family trusts, again, stupid. So many small
businesses, including our own, are set up using a family trust. This is because
it protects the family assets (like the house you live in), in case of someone
suing the business for something the business is responsible for (like because
someone gets hurt working for you, or on your property). For many small family
businesses, this is the money they live off, their only income. Especially, say,
a mum working full time raising the children that will later inherit the
property and go on to work on it (oh, look, they got hit twice). Labour are just so out of touch! Aren’t these the people
they say they are trying to protect? Ordinary working people? What happened to
taxing the rich end of town? Or you know, just making those big companies/mines
pay any tax would be a good start!
And yet, even with these three policies that I did not agree
with, I still wanted them to win. Because at the end of the day, if we don’t do something to stop the earth burning
to a crisp, it won’t matter what tax anyone does or doesn’t pay!!
I saw a video by Charlie Pickering this week, talking about
Australia’s ‘share’ of global emissions. He talks about how we do only produce 1.3%
of global emissions. However, our 1.3%, combined with England at around 2% and
many other countries with small emissions, total 41% of fossil fuel emissions. The
UK have declared a climate emergency. Our Politian’s, instead of trying to
clean up our share, just say we are too small to matter. We only around 2% of
allied forces in WW2, but we didn’t let that stop us doing our bit. Why should
this be any different? As Pickering said, we have always punched above our
weight.
There is very little, if anything, we can do about the 27%
of emissions produced by China. We might be able to put political pressure on
them, or stop selling them cheap coal, but really, that would need to be a global
approach. We can however take care of our corner of the world. How about not
letting a coal mine be built basically on top of the Great Barrier Reef? Our
greatest living wonder is already being cooked, now they’re going to throw a
mines worth of pollution at it too?
We are experiencing massive, catastrophic weather events,
with increased regularity. Once in a century is rapidly approaching once a
decade. What will it be like by the time our babies are having babies of their
own? I come from a farming background and I see the pain our farmers are in; if
they’re not fighting drought, it’s flood or fire. This past summer Tasmania had
horrific fires that burnt areas that won’t ever recover, destroyed trees
hundreds of years older than the Australian government that doesn’t seem to
think their loss matters, that because there was no loss of human life that it
wasn’t really that bad.
I was not at all enthusiastic about a Labour win, but I am
feeling gutted that they lost. I went into the polling booth with a heavy
heart, knowing there was no one running I felt I could enthusiastically get behind.
I felt Labour had stupid policies and were not really very different from the
Liberal party in anything I considered important. The Greens have strong environmental
policies, but I find some of their policies really detrimental to the farming
community. I also haven’t forgotten they were behind campaigns to get rodeos and
horse racing banned, both sports I have long been involved in (some bad people,
mostly good people who love their animals). Liberals I find utterly inhumane
and their policies cruel. Their views on immigration and refugees are awful. I also believe that a woman should have the right to choose if and when she has a baby, so find the lack of reproductive health services woefully inadequate. Men should not be legislating women's bodies. My local Liberal candidate was dis-endorsed over a Facebook
post she apparently wrote saying feminists should have their clitorises removed
and be sold to the Arabs for fucks sake. As an out and proud feminist, I find
that terrifying, horrific, abhorrent, disgusting and all those other
adjectives!! (Don’t even get me started on the fact that feminism is the reason
she’s even allowed to stand for parliament).
And all the other minor parties seem to be one or more of the ‘ists’ or ‘phobes,’
racists, bigots, homophobes, islamophobe’s, sexists, ableist… the list goes on!
Clive Palmer just bought himself a government that will let his mining businesses
continue to operate, without forcing him to actually pay his staff. I guess he
feels his $70m was well spent! Urgh!
I don’t feel confused or surprised, just utterly disappointed
and frustrated. I feel sad. I know that I did the right thing, but I can’t help
but feel I’ve not done enough, I’m not doing enough. I know I need to do more,
but I don’t know how or what. I only have a finite amount of time and energy to
spare, so I want to use it well. But I know not doing anything, is no longer an
option. I’ve been thinking about running for office for a while now. I don’t
think I’m ready yet. I don’t feel I have enough knowledge or life experience. Then
again Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is my age and look what she’s doing with her
life! I don’t want to run for a federal seat, because I don’t want to be away
from my home and family that much, but I feel like that’s where the real changes
are made. I guess I have a few years to decide about that now anyway.
So, people, what are you doing? How are you feeling after
this election? Maybe you don’t see this as a bad thing? Have you found this uplifting,
or do you want to move to New Zealand? What are you doing to help make
Australia a better place for everyone? What can I do?
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