The other day....

 A few days ago I received an email from my friend Tom Cowan, he was clearly in a state of frustration, possibly more like fury!

 As you can see from the photo, Tom is a mild mannered reflective sort of chap and it was a surprise to see him so stirred up. An item on the "news" had stirred him up and I responded to him about it.

Then he sent me a clipping of an article written by wonderful Barry Jones, famous quiz king and great parliamentarian from the Whitlam- Hawke-Keating era when we had some wonderful people in Canberra.

Barry's piece was about our relationship to the Monarchy and "King Charles" being lauded by our Governor General. It gave a lot of information about the historical steps which lead to today and the ongoing relevance of the Monarchy to us in Australia:

https://www.thesaturdaypaper.com.au/opinion/topic/2022/12/10/the-monarchy-and-the-constitution#hrd

I've also added the JPG copy Tom sent me as a footnote at the bottom of this blog page. It's a very good read and extremely informative especially for any who have not gone deeply into the history of our connection with English royalty as "head of state", please forgive me for not using caps!

SO...

I invited Tom to write a few thoughts to get us started on a new blog which might encourage other friends to put in their two bobs' worth.

Then Tom sent me this short par:

Beyond infuriating. Here are some far flung thoughts. A girl in NSW is flung into jail for protesting. Putin bombs Ukraine. Scomo tries to accumulate power. A mob tries to overturn democracy in America. To me these all come within the human tendency to control and suppress free speech. A battle within ourselves too, to want to be controlled and protected. Australia is still seeking a father, to control and protect. That was Britain and is now USA. And now we have a father we didn't know we had: Charlie! 

We are infantile. I wonder if we will be forced to grow up and choose democracy (meaning taking individual responsibility to speak truth to power) by China just as Ukraine has been forced to become a full-fledged democracy by being attacked by a despotic father figure.

Tom has since asked me to add the following:

I was outraged to learn about our fucked constitution from Barry Jones' article. For example: in the constitution, we are not a democracy, permission from the brits has to be had for any laws we might make and the king is the commander of our defence force. 

Please read Barry's article entitled THE CONSTITUTION OF A MOUSE.

This is how I responded to Tom's first email:

Tom, I would like to make this an open invitation for any of our friends/readers to feed into.

I really don't like making public political statements through the blog, I view it mainly as a vehicle for cultural exchange.

However there's also the culture of politics such as we saw in the activity of the Sydney filmmakers co-op through the last part of its history.

I think Barry's article is a fine starting point for a much more general discussion.

When it comes to a discussion of "true democracy" I am deeply fearful that such a state can exist... where in our world is there a properly functioning "true democracy"?

I think we have it far better here than 90% of the other nations.

But the form of democracy we do have is full of holes like a Swiss cheese. 

Look at the trouble we're having to get the states agreeing on energy pricing issues.

I agree that it's a far better form of government than what you find in China, Russia, Sri Lanka or Myanmar to name but a few.

I'm deeply concerned about the widespread ignorance which prevails in so many societies: profound ignorance fed by misinformation and lies.

We have that in full measure too, as we saw expressed in every part of our country during the Covid crisis.

I can't stand the monarchy, never could, even since my teenage years. Who wants this medieval circus to represent us with a "Head of State"?

Who could possibly want the antics of that pathetic family as a constitutional centrepiece for people to embrace, with their wealth and privilege? The continuing circus of their ridiculous escapades. The poms seem to love it, many of them, but we are not the same as them, we are far more anti-establishment.

The horrible charade was displayed in full during the extended period of mourning for the Queen, that medieval pageant which swamped us, headlining the daily "news" for more than two weeks!

But for me the discussion of whether we should have Charlie as head of state is far less important than how we make our three tiers of government work more efficiently to enact and enable crucial programmes without obfuscation. e.g., if we want to see a serious investment in pumped hydro going ahead more quickly, how do we do that without state or council laws getting in the road.

Then there's the matter of nuclear subs... you know my view on that, we are going to have them even though we don't know what they will cost or when they might ever arrive, and we really don't need them but we are gonna have them. But to many of us they are a complete waste of money. I don't say that about our frigates or our fighter aircraft, the "strike force" which are very expensive too, but they will not become white elephants, one day they may even be useful.

And that's not even raising the issue of the health crisis facing every state at the moment, at every level, from hospitals, getting doctors and keeping nurses, ambulance ramping, and clinics facing closure... a huge crisis. So for me Charlie as king of OZ is really a bit of a distraction.

Oh, and I forgot about the stockpiling of waste which can't be "treated" in Victoria, and possibly all around the country as well.

I better stop now.

PT

So dear friends, if you would like to have your say on any of these things, why not chuck in some thoughts to this blog? We can leave this page open for comment and it can be like a zoom room in print form!

Don't be shy!

I'm sure there are many other items which could be raised and debated here.

pt

*  Barry's article in full: