On The Revival Of Principle

For as long as there have been politicians, the greatest problem society has struggled with has been the question of how to attract outstanding candidates to a life in politics. Given the moral and ethical compromises necessary to build a successful political career, and the fundamentally corrupting nature of power, how can we encourage talented, upright people of integrity to engage with politics and thus change the system for the better?

So it’s a slice of luck that the current golden age of political commitment has come along to inspire a new generation of would-be statesmen and women. Where once young people would look at their elected leaders and bemoan the way their principles melted like ice in the sun once subjected to the realities of democracy, now they can see the modern political breed and say to themselves, if I enter politics, I’ll never have to give up my firm commitment to torturing children.

That was always a bit of a sticking point for talented youngsters seeking their way in life. So many of them wanted to devote themselves to public service, but were afraid that realpolitik would hold them back from expressing their deep moral belief in the virtues of child torture. “If I stand for election,” they would ponder, chewing their lips in trepidation, “electoral imperatives and party-room manoeuvring may force me to water down, or even abandon, my ambitions to torture large numbers of children, preferably foreign ones, in island prisons.”

No need to worry any more, MPs of the future! As the success of a generation of red-hot parliamentary operators proves, principle and pragmatism CAN co-exist. The days of an honest devotion to the practice of systemic child abuse being incompatible with ultimate electoral triumph are over.

For this we can probably thank the previous Labor government, and their willingness to stand up for values. We all remember when Julia Gillard and Chris Bowen came before the Australian people and said, “Enough is enough. No longer will this government be guided by shabby expediency when it comes to deciding whether to imprison innocent children in offshore camps with no regard to their safety. No, from now on it is the dictates of our conscience that will guide us in regard to the facilitation of physical, mental and sexual abuse against people of all ages from other countries who wish to improve their lives.”

And since then, well, almost every pollie from either major party has picked up that ball and run with it. Of course there are some standouts when it comes to leading by example, like Scott Morrison and Tony Abbott, but even those you might have imagined would never sacrifice short-term political gain for freedom of conscience, like Malcolm Turnbull or Wayne Swan, have embraced the new paradigm of idealism.

So to the younger generation, I say: don’t be afraid! If you want to help shape the world from the corridors of power, don’t hold back for fear of having your deeply-held beliefs compromised. Don’t think that just because you’re dependent on broad public appeal for your position, you’ll be asked to give up fighting for the right of your country to brutally destroy the lives of children. The truth is, despite what the cynics tell you, you can make a difference, as long as you are steadfast in your principles and never forget the reason you entered politics in the first place – a sincere and honest desire to condemn children to live blighted lives bereft of hope in far-flung hells on earth while suffering daily degradation, agony and psychological trauma.

So get out there, kids, and make your dreams come true! And, obviously, stop other kids from doing the same. 

WHO SAID IT?

Our prime minister, Tony Abbott, sure is a piece of work. Sometimes the things he says are so outrageous it's hard to tell whether they're really quotes from the elected leader of our nation, or from a far-fetched fictional movie character.

That's how we came up with the idea for this quiz. How many of these quotes you can correctly attribute to their source: Prime Minister Tony Abbott, or feisty proto-feminist icon and heroine of Canadian literature Anne "Of Green Gables" Shirley? The results may surprise you!

WHO SAID IT: TONY ABBOTT OR ANNE SHIRLEY?

 

1. "Most of the people who are coming to Australia by boat have pass through several countries on the way, and if they simply wanted asylum they could have claimed that in any of the countries through which they'd passed."

2. "We just can't stop people being homeless if that's their choice."

3. "Would you please call me Cordelia?"

4. "Climate change is crap."

5. "You know something, Diana? We are rich. We have sixteen years to our credit, and we both have wonderful imaginations. We should be happy as queens."

6. "I think your Gilbert is awfully bold to wink at a strange girl."

7. "I would not want to see any relaxation of the law prohibiting human cloning."

8. "Once people come to Australia, they join the team."

9. "The smart way to improve broadband is not to junk the existing network but to make the most of it. It's to let a competitive market deliver the speeds that people need at an affordable price with government improving infrastructure in the areas where market competition won't deliver it."

10. "He called me Carrots!"

11. Faith is important to me. It's important to millions of Australians. It helps to shape who I am."

12. "Go away Marilla. I'm in the depths of despair."

13. "I think that marriage is, dare I say it, between a man and a woman, hopefully for life and there are all sorts of other relationships which should be acknowledged and recognised, but I don't know that they can be recognised as marriage."

14. "Mrs Hammond told me that God made my hair red on purpose and I've never cared for Him since."

15. "Whyalla will be wiped off the map by Julia Gillard's carbon tax."

16. "I don't see any need in being civil to someone who chooses to associate with the likes of Josie Pye."

17. "I also think that if you want to put a price on carbon, why not just do it with a simple tax?"

18. "Why isn't the fact that 100,000 women choose to end their pregnancies regarded as a national tragedy approaching the scale, say, of Aboriginal life expectancy being 20 years less than that of the general community?"

19. Well, again Kerry, I know politicians are gonna be judged on everything they say, but sometimes, in the heat of discussion, you go a little bit further than you would if it was an absolutely calm, considered, prepared, scripted remark, which is one of the reasons why the statements that need to be taken absolutely as gospel truth is those carefully prepared scripted remarks."

20. "Please, Matthew. You need help. We've got to get a doctor."

Haha! Almost unbelievable how similar they are, isn't it? How did YOU do sorting fact from fiction?

Hyper-Auto-Repellence: A Personal Plea

What should we make of Christopher Pyne?

Some kind of glovepuppet?

This week Australin politics farewelled a titan in Gough Whitlam. Many people voiced opinions on this, ranging from Prime Minister Abbott's opinion that Whitlam wasn't the best PM ever, to Julia Gillard's opinion that he was actually so great he was a lot like Julia Gillard, to every News Ltd columnist's opinion that he ruined everything for everyone and it's a good thing that finally his ring has been cast into the fires of Mount Doom.

But, Abbott's somewhat faint praise notwithstanding, most of the tributes from actual parliamentarians were quite complimentary and very respectful. Even Philip Ruddock said some pretty nice things about him, and Philip Ruddock dug his own soul out of himself with a rusty lino knife when he was eight. 

But Pyne...well, Pyne made a jolly little speech in which he noted that when Whitlam was dismissed, his mother cried, and "I have to let you in on a secret, she was crying out of joy"

It was a delightful moment

Now, of course, that is an insight into the life of the young Pyne that opens up all sorts of questions. For example, does Christopher still watch Adventure Island, or now that he is in his forties does he prefer Mr Squiggle?

But it's not so much the substance that I want to dwell on: the fact that Christopher Pyne has been forced to spend his life coming up with a dazzling array of excuses to explain away the fact his mother was constantly crying whenever he was around is neither here nor there. What I want to examine is the psychology that caused our Honourable Education Minister to think to himself, "Hmm, Gough Whitlam is dead...this might be a good time to tell the country how much my family hated him".

What process produces these thoughts? Is there a process even taking place?

Evidence is so far inconclusive

The real problem is that Christopher Pyne, despite a respectable upbringing. an expensive education, and Amanda Vanstone cooking all his meals, seems to have developed a pathological need to be the most hated man in every room he is in. It's actually quite a rare psychological phenomenon: hyper-auto-repellence. In other words, he can only be satisfied by making others loathe him. Obviously this has been an advantage to him in his rise through the ranks of the Liberal Party, but at this point in his life is it becoming a liability?

It's not that I hate Christopher Pyne. I mean, I do, but that's not the important thing here. The important thing is that every word out of his mouth, every action he takes, every step in his life up to now, has seemed perfectly calculated to force me to hate him. And frankly, though I hate the man, I also worry about him. When a fellow is so desperate to be disliked that he stands in parliament to merrily spit in the face of the old man who just died, there is something quite concerning going on behind his smooth, shiny facade.

Very very concerning

I don't know if Christopher reads this blog - no idea why he wouldn't - but if he does, I'm here to say: Christopher, I am no longer enabling you. I will write no more about how awful you are, now that I realise it's just feeding your addiction. Instead, I urge you: get help, Christopher. Don't be afraid to reach out.

You might think you can't be happy, Christopher, unless you're being hated. But believe me: you CAN. With a caring therapist and a good support system at home, you might even find a way to derive pleasure from being liked.

And I promise Christopher: when you do, we'll all be a lot more relaxed.

Girlie-Man or Corr-Man? You Decide

If there is one thing that makes me angry, it is a good man's words being twisted and used against him. Luckily, there is actually more than one thing that makes me angry, or my conversation would be extremely monotonous. Nevertheless, this issue is a burning one that sticks in my craw like a collar in an uncoordinated cat's mouth.

Let's look at Senator Matthias Cormann.

Now let's stop looking at him.

Instead, let's THINK about Senator Matthias Cormann, about what he represents, what place he occupies in the modern Australian dialectical discourse. Let's not get bogged down in semiotics, but rather let's examine Matthias Cormann from all sides and make up our own minds about what he symbolises for a culture in crisis.

To put it another way, he has a pretty funny accent.

But forget about the accent for a moment: making fun of people's accents is a big part of being a progressive, but it's not the only part. It's what they SAY with those accents that is the important part, and what Matthias Cormann has said with that hilarious accent is this:

"Bill Shorten is an economic girlie-man,"

This has caused a furore in some circles, as it as been seen as an attack on women, an attack on equality, an attack on our children's futures, and by some even as an attack on Bill Shorten.

But is it really such a terrible thing to call someone "an economic girlie-man"? Let's unpack this, shall we?

First of all, the derivation of girlie-man: etymologically, the term originates in the two separate words "girlie", meaning resembling or bearing characteristics of a girl; and "man", meaning a person who is a man. So we can assume that Cormann was saying that Shorten is a man who in some way resembles a girl.

Our starting point must be to determine the truth value of this assertion. So let's look at Bill Shorten:

How much does he resemble a girl? "Not very much," you might say. BUT what if you look at him from this perspective?

Well. Doesn't THAT put a different complexion on things? Can anyone who has seen the above photo truly say that there is nothing in Cormann's assertion?

But what of the broader implications? Is it true that, in using "girlie-man" as an insult, Cormann is demeaning women by suggesting they are weaker and less capable than men?

I say, not at all. Because let us be clear, Cormann did not actually call Shorten a "girl", That would, indeed, have been reprehensible - to suggest that being a girl precludes one from being an effective leader is disgusting. To suggest that any girl is as bad at her job as Bill Shorten even more so. I have personally known many girls, and watching them burgeon into womanhood is a very different experience than watching Bill Shorten burgeon into Shortenhood.

Also, Cormann did not call Shorten a "man", which would obviously have been slanderous.

What he called him was a "girlie-man", and that is a horse of a different flavour.

Think of it this way: a dog can be a very useful thing, and a tractor can be a very useful thing, but a dog shaped like a tractor? That is entirely different. 

What Cormann was saying was that Shorten is a kind of tractor-dog, a hybrid of two things that are excellent in isolation, but when combined lack a certain something. You might like girls, and you might like men, but is a girlie-man something you'd like? Probably - it sounds like a lot of fun - but is it someone you want in charge of the economy?

After all, remember the old song "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun". Maybe a girlie-man doesn't just wanna have fun - maybe they do have other interests - but there can be little doubt that they will probably be a little bit more frivolous than what you'd ideally like in a person whose duties will necessarily include stamping repeatedly on unemployed people's faces. 

Is Matthias Cormann sexist? Well, if it's sexist to suggest that an economic girlie-man is not the sort of tractor we want ploughing our kennels, then sure, he's sexist. But if it's sexist to not suggest that women can do anything they want without fearing that they won't be criticised for not being men if they're genuinely not as good at their jobs as another woman might be if she wasn't not a man, then I'd say that the answer is clear for all to see.

To sum up:

Girls are good. Men are good. But girlie-men are girlier than is ideal, and manlier than a girl should be. And saying so isn't as bad as you think even in a weird accent. Not that having a weird accent should ever be acceptable.

Thank you.

There is no U in Team

You know, a lot of people come up to me and ask, "Hey Ben, this Team Australia stuff - what's it all about?"

And to be honest, I find these people intrusive and presumptuous. But still, I attempt to answer their questions as best I can, because if there's one thing you know about Team Australia, it's that we try to help our teammates no matter how inadequate we find them as people.

Team Australia is, essentially, a state of mind, a philosophy that says, look, we're all on the same side here, let's work together to achieve our goals.

After all, we all love to feel like we're part of a team. Look at this happy fellas:

Yes, Team Australia is a lot like the 1982 Parramatta Eels. The government is Peter Sterling and Brett Kenny in the halves, controlling play, organising the team and orchestrating the big moves that produce results. The taxpayers of Australia are the forwards in the engine room, Ray Price and Geoff Bugden and of course good old Johnny Muggleton, doing the hard yards that are necessary if we're ever going to let our outside backs do their job: the outside backs in this case being mainly Cate Blanchett and Silverchair. 

The point is that just like a great football team, Team Australia has all its disparate parts performing their designated function in pursuit of the same aim - a strong, prosperous nation. And that's the genius of Team Australia - it uses the powerful imagery of sport, something all Australians understand, to illustrate a point. No wonder Tony Abbott was a Rhodes scholar - that man sure knows a thing or two about using sports words to say things about things that aren't sport!

It's an effective technique. That's why the accessibility of sport permeates our public affairs nowadays. For example, the government is now moving to implement a "red card" system for hate preachers. Why red card? Why not just a "stop hate preachers" policy? Because red cards are sporting, and Aussies love sports! Admittedly red cards are more of a soccer thing, but let's be honest: it's the ones who like soccer we need to be keeping an eye on.

And this is why I hope people don't feel scared or alienated by Team Australia. After all, would you feel scared or alienated by this?

Of course not! Those guys are having a great time! Because being in a team is just fantastic. And we're all in the best team of all - Team Australia. 

Naturally Team Australia requires vigilance. After all, if you're playing cricket you can't just sit idly by and let the batsman hit you for six. Team Australia is all about taking precautions. As a country of course we need to send fielders to the boundary to keep the run rate down. As a country we do have to, at times, bowl a dry line outside off stump. Sometimes we might even need to pitch it outside leg into the footmarks. That's just the nature of Team Australia - a responsible government must be prepared at times of crisis to come around the wicket. Ben Chifley knew this.

Because the fact is, being Team Australia is just as much about responsibilities as it is about rights. Sure, when you're on a great team like Team Australia you get to take the speccie in the goal square, but you also need to make the smother on centre wing, you need to punch from behind and get men around the stoppages. Some people think it's not important that, as citizens, we rush the odd behind, but those people probably don't understand the fundamentals of foreign policy.

You can't stop terrorism with this:

Sometimes you need this:

And that's what I tell those irritating people from the beginning of this article. I tell them, Team Australia is about security, about safety, about prosperity, about democracy, about freedom, about hard work, about togetherness, about patriotism and about justice.

But most of all, Team Australia is about creating a better future. I know that's hard to see sometimes, but maybe it'll be easier to understand if I put it like this:

When you're down six goals in the final quarter, sometimes it's necessary to roll the dice. You don't get over the advantage line by going sideways before you go forward, you need to make sure your scrum is solid before you start worrying about the corner posts. It's easy to get caught offside when you don't keep your eye on the ball, but the one thing we all know is true is, nobody ever scored a goal sitting on the bench. And it's by sitting on the bench that we miss our opportunity to jump the net. Hurdles are natural in life, but you can take the rebound more easily when you hit the training track hard and keep your shape. It's great to play your shots, but a sound forward defensive is the foundation of a flowing cover drive - getting the ball in the right areas is how you tempt the opposition into mistakes. And it's those mistakes that will keep this country out of the bunker, and in the onion bag, for many years to come.

That's what Team Australia means to me. So please: don't be terrorists OK? Because national security is a trophy we can all win.

Bernard's Long Night Of The Soul

The candles flickered in the library. The lone figure, bent wearily over his books, shook his head and sighed. He had been there from early morning, and now, in the small hours, he was thoroughly exhaused. Yet he would not rest, for he knew - somehow in his bones he knew - that what he was looking for was somewhere in here.

"Mr Gaynor?" enquired the librarian timidly, approaching the desk. "I really should be closing the library, sir. Perhaps you should go home."

Bernard did not lift his head, but let a light chuckle escape his lips.

The librarian was uncertain of her next move. "Mr Gaynor?"

"Dammit woman!" he exploded, turning his flashing, manly eyes upon her. "Do you think truth and justice run according to your schedules?"

The librarian had to admit, on brief reflection, that they did not. Gaynor waved in her face the hefty leatherbound tome over which he had most recently been poring. It was a dusty volume from the late 19th century, titled "HOW TO DO A SEX WITH LADIES". On the desk lay pages and pages of scribbled notes and a variety of other texts, some similarly aged, some modern, but all of them on related subjects: "HOW OUR BITS WORK" lay beside "RUDE PARTS AND WHAT THEY DO", which lay underneath "ANIMALS DOING IT IN PICTURES". Across the desk was "WHAT TO DO IF YOU ARE KISSING" and "WHO SHOULD BE ON TOP ANYWAY?", while tossed in frustration to the floor was a selection including "WHERE WHICH GOES IN WHAT FOR KIDS", "HAPPY TIMES WITH WIVES" and "HOW TO TELL IF YOU ARE A BOY".

Clearly the scholar had been studying intently in search of something, but what? The librarian shook her head and retreated. Locking the door behind her, she left him to his studies, all through the night.

Gaynor's eyes darted across the page in the dim light. He knew it was here: the key to all his theories, the one discovery that would electrify the world and prove once and for all that his warnings were timely and correct, and that indeed, the gays were seeking to steal his organs.

He flicked through pages and pages of diagrams and photographs and scholarly monographs and graphic depictions. He licked his lips, aroused and stimulated in a philosophical sense. He was so close, so close that he could taste it. Or at least he could taste something. It was salty.

And then...he saw it.

"YES!" he shrieked, his voice echoing around the musty halls of knowledge. All alone, he danced a dance of triumph. "I have it!" he yelled happily. "I have it!"

He leapt through the window, rolling joyously onto the grass amid a shower of broken glass, and rushed off in the direction of Officeworks to have as many laminated copies of his discovery made as possible, for dissemination amongst the media which would be in a few hours assembled on his doorstep.

For there, flapping wildly in his hand like the cape of a great hero of antiquity, was the book that contained the key, that would end the argument once and for all and allow Bernard to usher in a new age of genuine Christian love and well-oriented decency. It flapped and snapped in the breeze created by his great cross-lawn speed, his thumb placed still in the middle, keeping it open on the page which bore the great truth, the awesome discovery he had stumbled upon. For there, upon those yellowing, crackly pages, were the words with which he would change the world:

"PENIS GOES IN VAGINA"

He cackled gleefully. From now on, everything was going to be all right.

Ballad Of The Skeletons (Australia Day Remix)

Said the prime minister skeleton, watch me gloat
Said the immigration skeleton, stop that boat
Said the education skeleton, kids are dumb
Said the Treasurer skeleton, I want my mum
Said the broadband skeleton, these wires are fine
Said the iron ore skeleton, it's all fucking mine
Said the medical skeleton, pay these fees
Said the backbencher skeleton, take my wife - please!

Said the talkback skeleton, it's an outrage
Said the Centrelink skeleton, that's a living wage
Said the editorial skeleton, stop this stuff
Said the columnist skeleton, you're not angry enough
Said the detention centre skeleton, it's for your own good
Said the press release skeleton, if only you understood
Said the grown-up skeleton, kids have lost control
Said the children skeleton, I can't hear you, LOL




Appropriate thanks to Allen Ginsberg

It's On You Now

All right. The government has decided that if you try to claim asylum via a boat journey, you're not getting in. You'll end up living in Papua New Guinea, at best. The government has decided that this will stop the boats, and the government is telling us that this is necessary to save lives, because the most pressing need is to stop people drowning at sea. The government is clear that this has nothing to do with pandering to xenophobia, nothing to do with a lowest common denominator grab for votes, nothing to do with embracing the politics of fear. It is about saving lives. The government has a responsibility to stop people taking risky sea voyages, and so they've put in place a plan to stop them.

Very well. They can own that then.

Personally I never thought drownings at sea were the fault of the government. I never thought that any government in Australia had ever "lured" people onto leaky boats. I thought it was ridiculous to suppose that simply by maintaining the possibility that people with a legitimate claim to asylum could find assistance and refuge and a better life in Australia, our leaders were somehow tricking those silly foreigners into believing their journey across the sea would be safe. I thought that I was in no position to judge whether refugees from war-torn lands were right to risk their lives to improve their circumstances. I thought that asylum seekers were neither halfwitted morons unable to figure out the dangers of a sea journey in a rickety boat, nor mindless puppets reacting only to the string-pulling of Australia's government - pull this string, they come, pull that string, they stay. I thought that in a world of refugees, we cannot prevent people taking terrible risks to escape terrible situations: all we can do is our little bit to assist those who come to us seeking assistance. I thought it is not our place to lecture those who've seen terrors we can't fathom on whether the chance of death at sea is worth taking if it means getting away from those terrors, or if it means avoiding decades eking out a fearful, hopeless existence in a refugee camp, or if it means giving their children the chance of a future containing possibilities. I thought the government does not bear responsibilities for the tragedies caused by the sick and sorry state of the world - only the tragedies resulting from the treatment it metes out to those who beg it for help. I thought that accepting desperate people into our country and allowing them to become Australians was the noblest thing that our government does, and that the ones who came by boat were no more or less deserving than those arriving by other means.

I thought all these things.

The government thinks differently.

Well, fine.

But they should know, they can own that now.

I never believed the government bore responsibility for deaths at sea, but that's a responsibility they've taken on. Both major parties have stood up to willingly declare that the blood of asylum seekers who drown is on the hands of the Australian government.

Let them own it.

The PNG plan is said to be the way to prevent these drownings. The Opposition has their own tow-back, TPV plan, that they say will prevent these drownings. If this is the way they wish it to be, if this is the priority they wish to adopt, if this is the function they see as proper for the Australian government, then this is the standard by which they will be judged.

Because if Labor puts the PNG plan in place, or if the Coalition implements their own Howard redux policy, they'll have achieved their goal. They'll have done what they claim is necessary to stop deaths at sea.

And that means every death at sea from that point on is on them.

And we've got to hold them to this. If asylum seekers drown on their way to Australia, after the government declares that drownings are its responsibility and its policy the proper reaction to them, then with each death our politicians will stand judged as murderers - not by our judgment, but by their own. And it'll be up to us to remind them of that.

It's on you now, noble leaders. You want responsibility for their deaths, you got it. We'll hold you responsible, and see if you are so eager to hang yourselves when you've got no excuses.

Seize The Defeat

So, an offensive menu was printed up for a Mal Brough fundraiser. And we are, naturally, in quite a flap about it.

And yes, fair enough. It was gross. It was sexist. It was nasty. It was a shitty joke, and it wasn't even original.

And look, I have no problem with anyone asserting that Mal Brough is a sleazebag. There's the whole James Ashby affair, and oh yeah, that little thing called the NT Intervention. Believe me, I need no convincing that Mal Brough is a first-class dickferret of the very highest purity.

But here's the thing about menugate, or quailgate, or big red boxgate or whatever bullshit it's being called:

Tony Abbott will still win.

It has been blindingly obvious for some time now that the Labor Party is going to go down in flames in September. And yet somehow, the True Believers keep seizing on moments like Brough's menu, claiming that this time,. THIS time, the Coalition's goose is truly cooked. The voters simply won't stand for such appalling misogyny, the True Believers squawk. Women won't be treated like this anymore, they scream. Now that the Liberals have shown their TRUE colours, Julia Gillard's dignity and toughness and determination will win the day and all will be well.

I am sorry, True Believers: all will not be well. And every time you say that THIS will be the straw that breaks the camel's back, a new batch of polls come out and show that the camel is doing a buck-and-wing all over Labor's expiring corpse.

The reason we keep going through this is that the True Believers, justifiably appalled as they are by Tony Abbott's appalling character, cannot conceive of any other explanation for Labor's subterranean popularity than that the electorate simply doesn't UNDERSTAND how bad the Opposition is. Once they do, the story goes, everything will turn around.

Once again, I am sorry to be the one to break it to you: they know. Everyone knows. They've all seen him, they've all heard him, they've all read about him. And they either don't care, or see what you think are character flaws as virtues.

When someone you hate does something you disapprove of, it's seductively easy to assume that this will cause everyone else to hate them too, because you've been hating them all along. It's seductively easy to assume that everyone else thinks the way you do, and the only reason they disagree with you is they don't have all the facts.

Sadly, sometimes people have all the facts and still think you're wrong.

Sadly, sometimes people are bastards, and they like it when other bastards are in charge.

Sadly, Tony Abbott is going to be prime minister, and whatever miracle it might take to prevent that is going to have to be a hell of a lot more volcanic than a shitty sexist joke on a menu of murky antecedents.

And given that fact, why should we keep on making excuses for Julia Gillard's hapless Washington Generals of a government?

The fact is, Gillard ain't all that. Her asylum seeker policy is brutality embraced in the name of expediency. She made a mess of the mining tax in her haste to cave to big business and get the issue off her desk. She is continuing our pal Brough's racist intervention. She gave a nice big smack to single parents the same day she electrified the world by bawling out Abbott in parliament. Her stance on marriage equality enrages pretty much all her staunchest supporters. And her government has done many good and admirable things, she is singularly bad at turning them to her advantage, which, whether it be the media's fault, or Kevin Rudd's, or Abbott's, is nonetheless a fact.

So why should we on the nominally "left" side of politics be as eager as we have been to gloss over all that?

Well obviously it's because, for all her faults, Gillard is better than Abbott. No doubt about that. Though Labor has done some stuff badly, the Coalition will be ten times worse, and we have to fall in behind Gillard to stop Abbott getting in at any cost. Wise words.

But the fact is, Abbott IS going to get in. So what's the point of being "better than Abbott" when you're not going to win anyway?

While Labor had a chance, it made sense to bend our energies to supporting them, to keep the Liberals at bay. But that's failed. The Liberals have stormed the parapet. The shields are down. Labor is dead in the water.

So trying to keep Abbott out is now a lost cause. And any attempt to downplay the failings of Labor in the interests of realpolitik is no longer a brave stab at bringing about the lesser of two evils, but rather an exercise in futility that simply continues the relentless lowering of standards in political discourse.

Consider: if you are backing "crappy" because it's better than "crappier", when "crappy" has no chance of winning, you're not staving off "crappier", you're just ensuring that "crappy" becomes the best we can ever hope for.

So why not stop standing up for "crappy"? Why not starting calling out bad behaviour, bad policy, bad government, no matter which party is engaging in it? The partisan battle is over, let's redirect our energies into demanding better from ALL sides of politics. Let's make it clear that we want to raise standards.

Most of all, let's rediscover our integrity and commit to standing up, in all circumstances, for what we really believe, for what we think is RIGHT, rather than desperately trying to rationalise support for better-than-Abbott.

And hey, we've got preferential voting. We'll be putting better-than-Abbott ahead of Abbott anyway. Don't worry, as long as better-than-Abbott has a lower number next to it on your ballot paper, you've discharged your responsibilities to the temple of low expectations.

But when we're out in the world, fighting and arguing and debating and lobbying and tweeting and blogging and emailing ministers, let's stop shouting our disapproval of "them" while we whisper our disapproval of "us". Let's make clear that right is right, and wrong is wrong, and while political realities obviously have always to be recognised, we're not going to support any politician who flat-out reverses the two.

Right now, my fellow travellers on the Lost Bus Of The Left, we are down. We're outnumbered and outgunned. But even at this moment we can be heard, and we can make clear what we want. Even with our worst enemy in the Lodge, we can articulate how we want this country to be better.

And when the worm turns and we find ourselves up and about again, we can make sure that those who would represent us know that we want them to fight for what's right, not just for what's slightly less wrong.

We're about to get beaten. But if we can stand up, we don't have to be broken as well.

The last seven days

This is just a quick update for you all on what I've been doing in the last week, so you can really sink your teeth into a whole bunch of me at once.

For example, if you want to read me in The Age on the subject of television, you can.

And if you want to read me in The Guardian on the subject of the Labor Party, you can. 

Or perhaps you'd like to check out my exclusive interview with Australia's Federal Racism Commissioner in the King's Tribune?  (and while you're there, subscribe FFS)

But maybe you'd rather read me on rugby union?

Or rugby league?

Probably you'll get the most satisfaction out of my piece on asbestos and how the government is using it to kill us, on New Matilda. (subscribe there too. Jesus)

Or you could just kick back and relax with my recap of the first episode of the new series of Masterchef.

Not that you need to, because my friend Dan Hall and I have covered all bases re: Masterchef's return in episode one of a brand new web series by GAMers Cam Smith and myself, MASTERCHAT. Check it out below, and stay tuned for next week's ep.







OK that's all for this week. There'll be some more stuff next week. Don't say that I never do anything for you people.

Chuck!

Kids today, am I right? You know what I’m talking about. If they’re not getting obese because of advertising, they’re becoming murderers because of video games. Youth is everywhere in crisis, but perhaps nowhere is this truer than in the realm of political activism.

Was there a time – perhaps back in the 1970s when hope for humanity still existed and people were actually engaged with the political realities that ruled their lives – when children knew how to protest properly? When they actually got organised with their strategy, rather than simply “winging it” whenever the prime minister hove into view?

I guess what I’m saying is that when the primary form of political engagement evident in our children is throwing sandwiches at Julia Gillard, it is an indictment on us all and our failure to educate them properly. Not least about the pressing issue of food waste: I mean, who throws away a perfectly good salami sandwich? There are children in the third world who would be grateful for that salami sandwich. You won’t see kids in Somalia throwing sandwiches at their political leaders, for two very good reasons: a) they know the value of a good piece of salami; and b) they know the value of a good rock.

There’s the key, kids: rocks. What’s wrong with throwing a rock? That’s how we used to do it in the old days. When I was a lad my friends and I thought nothing of heading down to Macquarie Street to sling a few hefty pebbles at Nick Greiner, and it was the best fun you could imagine having. And Nick took it in a good spirit too: he understood we were passionate young citizens expressing our democratic right to hurl projectiles at others, and he respected that.

How will Julia Gillard ever respect a kid who throws a sandwich at her? Let’s face it, she now knows that salami kid is no threat. She probably went home and laughed her head off with Tim about it. “Fools!” she cried. “Is this all they send against me? Sandwiches? Our victory is assured!” To a very real extent, that salami-tosser has entrenched even further the oppression of the Gillard junta. Thanks a lot, kid.

I mean, look, I get it. I get why maybe rocks seem a bit “old school”, a bit “square”, a bit “up your nose with a rubber hose”. I understand how the youthful mind ticks. And I also understand that schoolchildren can’t always get access to the sort of weapons that adults might substitute for rocks.

But surely there are ways, within the field of food-throwing, to make a bit more of a statement than just flipping a sandwich. Aren’t we supposed to be living in a multicultural society? Aren’t kids these days supposed to love watching Masterchef and My Kitchen Rules and Man Vs Food and all those exciting culinary programs? Then why would a young lad with a thirst for throwing go with something as dull and mundane as a sandwich, even if it was one made with salami, the prince of meats?

Think how much more impressive the stunt would have been if he had thrown a vegetarian casserole at Gillard: not to mention the potential for burns. Or consider how a well-constructed croquembouche would not only have done serious damage to the prime minister’s self esteem, but would have made the point about the limits of parliamentary democracy in a much subtler and more ultimately effective way. Or imagine someone throwing a suckling pig at Gillard. Just imagine it. Wouldn’t it be hilarious?

Perhaps blame needs to be directed at the parents. What sort of mother or father, upon learning that their child will be in the presence of the prime minister, sends them off with a mere sandwich in the lunch box, instead of some kind of terrine or self-saucing pudding? Parental dereliction, is what it is. No wonder when the prime minister herself is…you know.

Maybe I’m being harsh here: after all the kids have been throwing stuff, and that’s a definite positive. Whether we think a sandwich is the ideal missile or not, we can at least all agree that a prime minister having things thrown at her is better than a prime minister smugly going about her business with no fear whatsoever of catching a splat in the chops. So yeah, let’s applaud these kids for having a go in the old Aussie way, and encourage them to pursue their dreams, while steering them in the right direction. Suggest they head to a Q&A taping and throw a shoe. Go to a football game and throw a frozen chicken. Go to the movies and pelt the screen with Fantales. Then as they grow older, our children will learn to branch out into more innovative and dangerous ways to assault public figures.

It’s so true, as the ancient Athenians knew only too well, that a functioning democracy requires a robust opposition, an independent public service, and a large number of children throwing stuff. If we lose that, we lose a most important check on the unfettered growth of executive power. So it’s time for all of us to do our bit to safeguard our institutions. Next time you see your son or daughter heading out the door with a sandwich, stop them, smile and say, “Wouldn’t you rather take this?”

Whether, in that moment, you choose to offer them a ripe tomato, or a live grenade, or an ill-tempered puppy, is up to you. The important thing is they’ll be on their way to the development of all-new ways to attack prime ministers, and when you do that, you’ll have helped maintain our democratic traditions as much as anyone.

Just remember, throwing a thing at Julia Gillard doesn’t start with the arm: it starts with the mind. Now get out there and chuck, kids!

The Business Of Cruelty

"Since off shore processing began in August last year, 15,543 people have arrived in 259 boats. Seven hundred are on Manus or Nauru and the cost is heading into the billions."

"I want to die. I don't want to live more, because we don't have anything to do here. Your questions doesn't have answer, your fate is not clear, what will happen to you?"

"You see many guys here do suicide or hurt themselves, just because they don't want to harm the others. They just harm themselves because of bad situation, or because they show - they want to show their feelings"

"By last November there'd been reports of mass hunger strikes and at least eight attempted suicides. And a 35 year old Iranian man, near death after a 50 day hunger strike, had to be evacuated to Australia"

"There are temperatures in the 40s and humidity around 100 per cent. Heavy rain, no air conditioning and ah, insufferably hot. Um muddy tracks, um and when it rained a faecal smell of inadequately you know drained sewage effluent."

"There are now thirty children in the Manus camp. Most have been there more than four months"

"Journalists, cameras, and even photos are banned from the Manus camp"

"the minister's refusal to front up for an interview for this story with no reason given, other than we could turn up for one of his doorstops if we liked"



None of this is news, not really. Four Corners this week was really letting us in on the secret we all knew - that Australia's government is now in the business of cruelty. And this isn't a partisan thing. It's not Labor versus Liberal. The business of cruelty is a thriving joint venture in which both major parties are enthusiastically involved.

This business is allowed because these brave servants of the public interest which we elect have successfully entrenched the Big Lie that the government's responsibility lies with preventing desperate people in other countries from deciding how best to improve their lives, rather than with taking care of the desperate people that find themselves in this country. The government has decided its jurisdiction extends all around the world when it comes to deterrence, but doesn't even include its own territory when it comes to caring.

We've accepted that and other Big Lies, such as the one that tells us that our leaders are striving to represent the acme of compassion, with these policies designed to ensure that when refugees die, they have the decency to do it far away from us, in foreign camps, or on boats heading anywhere but here. Designed to ensure that the world is in no doubt that if, when you've got nowhere else to turn, you turn to Australia, you will be imprisoned, and isolated, and brutalised, and driven right over the brink of madness by a government determined, at any cost, to make itself monstrous enough that people stuck in the worst places on earth would rather stay put than risk coming here.

The hellholes created by our fearless leaders are not unfortunate unintended consequences of sensible policy: they are the entire point of the policy. They are not locking up children by accident. They are not causing people to hurt themselves, starve themselves, and kill themselves in spite of their best intentions. This is exactly what the policy is supposed to achieve. The government is deliberately causing suffering, because they have decided that causing suffering is the best way to achieve their aims.

Because their aims are to avoid criticism, to avoid protest, to avoid electoral punishment, from that great mass of Australians who become outraged whenever they sense that the government is being too kind to people who didn't have the good sense to be born into first-world privilege. Their aims are to neutralise "excessive humanity" as an electoral negative.

So please, when we discuss politics; when we thrash out the respective merits of the different parties; when we laud the prime minister's unwillingness to be lectured on misogyny by that man; when we proclaim one side's virtue over the other's:

Never forget that no matter how much better one side is than the other, both sides are in the business of cruelty. The lesser of two evils remains evil, and its evil is deliberate, ongoing, and vicious.

This government, this prime minister, this Labor Party is engaged in wilful and knowing savagery against its fellow human beings. This Opposition protests this savagery only inasmuch as it is insufficiently savage.

In the unlikely event that any members of either government or opposition end up reading this, please know, you are reprehensible. If you sleep at night, it speaks only to the humanity that you jettisoned long ago. If you can look at your own deeds without being blinded by burning tears of shame, you are lost, and so are we who have somehow allowed you putrid beasts to rule over us.

May you all go to Hell.

What's YOUR Political Personality?

Take this easy quiz to find out!

1. I vote:

a) Labor
b) Liberal
c) Green
d) With difficulty

2. A strong economy is:

a) The most important part of the government's job
b) Much less important that saving trees and greenie bullshit like that
c) A myth perpetuated by Big Pharma
d) A kind of fish

3. The perfect Prime Minister:

a) Has a high sperm count
b) Was elected by the members of parliament belonging to the majority party in the House of Representatives according to Westminster procedure
c) Is a roguish outlaw with a heart of gold
d) Cannot be killed

4. Carbon tax is:

a) Terrible
b) Awful
c) Dreadful
d) Abhorrent

5. Billionaire mining magnates should:

a) Pay their fair share
b) Pay someone else's fair share
c) Build enormous statues of cats out of solid gold
d) Take off all their clothes and dance for our amusement

6. A two-party system:

a) Impoverishes democracy
b) Makes everything easier
c) Killed my father
d) Causes AIDS

7. Refugees:

a) Deserve our sympathy and assistance
b) Are terrorists
c) Are terrorists who deserve our sympathy and assistance
d) Smell funny

8. Julia Gillard:

a) Has ruined this country
b) Gives me a raging case of the perpendicular trouser-dachsund
c) Killed my father
d) Once ate an entire bus

9. Tony Abbott

a) Probably masturbates over seven times a day on average
b) Is just what this country needs for some reason or other
c) Sometimes talks to trees
d) Can remove his bra without taking off his shirt

10. Superannuation reform:

a) Bores the tits off me
b) Is very very dull
c) Isn't even a thing
d) Should not be held near a naked flame

11. Same-sex marriage:

a) Would bring a massive boost to the economy via the powerful "pink dollar"
b) Causes earthquakes
c) Is fine, if the gays really want to make themselves miserable, ha ha ha
d) Brings with a very real danger that people might wish to marry more than one koala at once

12. The Gonski education reforms:

a) Will never happen
b) Will always happen
c) Are part of a conspiracy to turn all our children into blacks
d) Are none of your fucking business

13. Religion and politics should:

a) Be kept strictly separate
b) Just marry each other if they think they're so great
c) Be banned
d) Be compulsory

14. The Canberra Press Gallery needs to:

a) Hold our elected representatives to account more effectively
b) Stop putting its rubbish in next-door's bins
c) Write more stories about whether frontbenchers are cat people or dog people
d) Take off all its clothes and dance for our amusement

15. Politics is:

a) The art of the possible
b) A sick experiment devised by a diseased mind
c) Where hope goes to die
d) A good front for a drug-manufacturing operation


YOUR SCORES

Mostly As: You are a dangerous sociopath who should not even be allowed to vote. Your professed concern for the direction of the nation is a sham and your friends and family will one day regret letting their guard down.

Mostly Bs: You are a gibbering lunatic malcontent who will soon carry out a catastrophic assassination attempt on a leading member of government. The politician in question will escape with minor injuries but you will murder several dozen innocent bystanders.

Mostly Cs: Your smug self-righteousness makes me sick. You will not feel so cocky after the photos of you and you-know-who putting the thing in the you-know-where are released to the media.

Mostly Ds: You are a member of Peter Garrett's immediate family, and suffer from shingles.

ABORTION! Now that I've got your attention: abortion

OK. Fine. Right. Abortion, yeah?

I don't really like writing or talking about abortion, because...well, who does? Anytime you express an opinion on abortion you're likely to get someone calling you a monster or a Nazi or demanding to know how YOU would feel if you'd been aborted, and then you have to give them a lesson about logic and it goes on and on forever.

But look I've been thinking about abortion, and much like a mushroom sprouting from soil, an opinion has burst out on top of my head, so feel free to pick it.

The reason I'm thinking about it is because it's in the news a bit lately. Tasmania has introduced a bill to finally decriminalise abortion, and there is a bit of speculation swirling regarding the fact that in Victoria, the Liberals rely on the vote of rabid pro-lifer and perks-enjoyer Geoff Shaw, and that if Tony Abbott becomes prime minister he may have to rely in the Senate on the DLP's pro-life, pro-insanity Senator John Madigan.

So it's a bit topical. And really, it's always topical, because there are always people who won't let go, and keep trying to wind the clock back.

But here is the thing: I feel like a lot of the arguments go in the wrong direction, and they tend to go in the wrong direction because the anti-abortion lobby knows just which buttons to push. I think there is a line of thought which is not used often enough, and this is important because to me the real battle to defend abortion rights isn't in trying to convince pro-lifers to change their stance, but in the big middle ground of "don't-knows", the people who maybe haven't put much thought into it, but are ripe for the convincing by a pious-looking politician with a sincere-sounding speech.

First, we have to recognise that "pro-lifers" fall into two broad categories: real pro-lifers and fake pro-lifers.

The real pro-lifers are a minority - most "pro-lifers" are faking it. Real pro-lifers are the people who genuinely believe conception is the beginning of, not just life, but personhood. They sincerely believe that a foetus is a person with all the concomitant human rights that you or I have, and that aborting a foetus is the same as killing an actual child. They really believe the rubbish they spout about "the rights of the unborn child", and they won't listen at all when you point out that this is an oxymoron and there is actually no such thing as an "unborn child", given a "child" is someone who has been born. They also won't listen if you tell them that abortion can't be "murder" because murder is by definition illegal. Basically they won't listen to anything, so it's pointless to even try with these people.

And that pointlessness is, in fact, the point. The REAL pro-lifers are batshit insane. These are the ones who end up bombing abortion clinics and shooting doctors, and why wouldn't they? If you heard that down the road there was a government-sanctioned facility where doctors were shooting five-year-olds in the head, wouldn't you say some pretty extreme measures were needed to stop this? Wouldn't you, even if you lacked the courage to directly attack the child-killers yourself, heartily applaud those who did? How could you look negatively upon someone who stepped in to prevent children being slaughtered?

Well, that's how real pro-lifers see it. They are insane, and therefore their insane actions seem perfectly reasonable. And so naturally, there's no point trying to reason with them. They're fringe lunatics: we don't need to argue with them, we need to ignore them.

But then there are the fake pro-lifers. These are the ones who claim to be concerned about "the rights of the unborn child", but when faced with what is purportedly a nightmarish holocaust of kid-slaughter, say things like "safe, legal and rare", or demand that Medicare funding be removed.

I mean, imagine! Imagine believing that children are being murdered, but wanting it to be "safe, legal and rare"! Imagine saying, "Child murder is OK, but don't use taxpayer's money on it"! Come on.

Look at the debate that flares sometimes over instances of rape or incest. If you genuinely believed that foetuses were people, how could you make exceptions for rape or incest victims? "I don't think we should kill children except when their father's a rapist - babies need to be punished for that!" Please.

But a rape-incest exception, in fact, betrays a fake pro-lifer for what they are: a woman-punisher. The reason many "pro-lifers" are willing to entertain exceptions is because those exceptions deal with women whose pregnancy is not their fault.

And there is the key. The vast majority of "pro-lifers" are frauds who are simply out to punish women for having sex. They don't care about the "unborn children", or else they'd be marching with burning torches in the streets, storming abortion clinics daily. They will say their concern is for the poor dead babies, but then they'll go ahead and push for measures that allow abortion, but make it more expensive and difficult for a woman to access. Or they'll push to make it illegal, but exempt those women who came by their condition through "no fault of their own".

It is quite clear what these people are about. They are about ensuring that women don't "get away with it". They are about ensuring that if a woman DOES have the irrepressible audacity to have sex, she damn well better suffer for it. Either through a pregnancy or making abortions so difficult, expensive or dangerous that it turns her life upside down. The important thing is that women are made aware that their sin will not go unpunished. The important thing is that women NEVER feel free to enjoy sex without the threat of dire consequences.

And so what I say is, let's call these fake pro-lifers out. Every time a politician or a commentator or an activist claims they want to stop the killing of unborn babies, let's point out just how hypocritical they're being. Let's point out that if all they're willing to do is talk about it, call for cuts to funding or reductions in the numbers, they surely cannot be serious about considering these to be actual children.

And let's make sure those in-betweeners who haven't made their minds up and are just now looking curiously at the issue realise that the "pro-lifers" they see in the papers and on TV are full of disingenuous and malicious cant, and that if you want to be a pro-lifer, you can either join the lunatics or the liars.

Call 'em out, guys. The only way to make sure women retain control over their own bodies, is to make sure the other side doesn't get away with pretending that's not the field we're fighting on.

LET'S GET THIS COUNTRY BACK ON TRACK

None Like It Hot

Climate change is a serious issue, and it needs serious people to solve it. Is Bob Rumsden interested in solving it? No, Bob Rumsden is interested in only two things: making you afraid of it, and hot-air ballooning. Well I say the Australian people deserve more in a prime minister than a fictional American in a balloon. Australian people deserve a PRO-ACTIVE prime minister who will FIX climate change through the magic of community togetherness.

In my latest video I demonstrate, thus:

Let's Have It All

Remember when Freddie Mercury sang "I want it all"? It wasn't very good, was it? Killer Queen was a much better song. Luckily, though, Freddie Mercury wasn't a woman, or else he might have been "tying himself in knots" over the question of having it all, apparently, according to the Daily Telegraph which opened its interview piece with Julie Bishop with the assertion that this is what women do when considering the matter of all, re: having it.

OK, so first of all I am going to question the truth of this knot-tying claim. I know quite a few woman - in fact some of my best sisters are women - and I've never seen them tie themselves in knots. In fact I've never seen them tie anything in knots: is that weird? I wonder if they know how to tie knots. But I digress.

First of all, I want to see some cold hard figures on how much time women spend worrying about whether they can "have it all". In my experience, if there's one area in which women are a lot like men, it's in the area of not spending vast swathes of their lives fretting over what percentage of all they can have, instead choosing to get the fuck on with life. And if there's another area in which women are a lot like men, it's in almost every other area there is, so maybe we, as a species, can ease back the throttle on this wacky battle-of-the-sexes bullshit we've been punching ourselves in the face with for the last ten thousand years.

Secondly, tell me what "it all" means. Some have told me it means having a great career and a nice family and a good place to live and a bunch of nice stuff; in other words, "it all" just means "being happy". In which case, yeah I guess women CAN have it all. I think there are happy women out there.

But no, I don't think that's what it DOES mean, when someone in the so-called media refers to "having it all". Let's not spend too much time interrogating ourselves over the exact meaning of our idiom when we all have a basic shared understanding of what we're talking about.

Essentially, when we talk about women having it all, we're asking whether the mum who's waiting after school every day with a tray of cookies can be Julia Gillard, and whether Julia Gillard can be the cookie-mum. We're asking whether Gail Kelly can run a multi-billion dollar financial behemoth and still never miss her kids' soccer games. We're asking whether Nicole Kidman can win Oscars and be back from the ceremony in time for school drop-off.

We are asking, in essence, can a woman scale professional peaks without giving up their natural, Jesus-assigned roles as primary caregiver and lactating nurture-queen?

Or to put it perhaps more cynically, can a woman avoid our disapproval for abandoning her traditional role, while simultaneously absolving us of any blame for stopping us from living the life she wants to?

Can, in the end, a woman, so to speak, have, when you get right down to it, it all?

No.

Look I don't want to make you pull out your hair and throw yourselves into bonfires, but Julie Bishop is right. Women can't have it all.

Know why?

Because nobody can.

You know men? You've probably met some. They're those women who sweat more than usual, and for some reason never ask whether they can have it all. People often think men don't ask that because they already know they CAN have it all.

No.

Men don't ask whether they can have it all, because they already know they can't. Or at least they should. They probably don't because they're morons, but if they thought for a second they'd know I'm right. So, guys - think, OK?

Nicola Roxon recently announced she was quitting politics, because she didn't want to sacrifice time with her children for the sake of her career. She found it impossible to "have it all", so she had to make a choice: miss out on some of the benefits of parenting, or miss out on some of the benefits of politicking.

She didn't have to make that choice because she's a woman, she had to make that choice because she's a human being. Every man in politics makes that choice too. Yes, indeed - when a man decides to head to Canberra, he's deciding to absent himself from his family for big chunks of time, just as a woman is.

When a man decides to put in 16-hour working days to make his business grow, he's slicing those hours off the time he has to be with his kids, or off the time he has to HAVE kids, or a decent relationship, or any other trappings of domesticity he might want.

When I decide to write article after article and book after book, and go out to tell jokes to strangers, I'm choosing to pursue my career instead of play with my kids. And when I decide to turn down those opportunities because I want to play with my kids, I'm handicapping my career for the sake of my family. And when I decide to work three or more jobs at once, I'm desperately trying to strike the right balance so I can have a little bit of both worlds, instead of throwing in the towel on one front and storming full-bore at the other.

What I'm NOT doing is committing myself 100% to my career AND committing myself 100% to my family, because that would involve a denial of basic mathematics, and I would consider that a gesture of unforgivable rudeness towards the numerical community.

I can't have it all. You can't have it all. None of us can have it all. Our lives are about chasing happiness, not some insane regretless Shangri-La of personal fulfilment.

And that's why "can women have it all?" is a dumb question, based on a moronic premise and infused with the half-witted artificial gender divisions that have been making us miserable throughout history. And I object strongly to the question's existence in our public discourse, let alone the myriad attempts, both by those propping up their own vested interest in keeping the question current, and by those gullible enough to be fooled into believing it's in their own interests to keep trying to answer it. And here's why.

Firstly, as I briefly alluded to above, it's a question with an ulterior motive. The question is asked in order to position "having it all" as a desirable goal for a woman, and it positions it thusly to achieve the twin goals of making women feel ashamed if they don't behave the way a nice girl should, and to make society feel better about standing in the way of women with ambition. We're talling you that you SHOULD be trying to have it all, and so if you're a less-than-perfect mother, you've let us all down, lady; and at the same time if you're finding you can't make your way up the greasy pole, it was nothing to with us - we WANTED you to have it all.

So Julia Gillard and Julie Bishop are unnatural for not having kids, and Nicola Roxon just couldn't hack the pressure.

But here's the other side of that: as I said, nobody is asking whether men can have it all. It's assumed that a failure to achieve total contentment in every facet of life is a uniquely female problem. But as I also said, that is patently not true. Yet every time the subject comes up, it's only women who are apparently struggling with this.

And why is that? It's because it's assumed that it's easy for men to have it all, because it's assumed that men don't care about the things they have to give up. It's assumed there's no tension between family and career for a man, because family is something men don't care about. You're working non-stop and your kids are in bed by the time you get home every night? You're always away from home on business and only see your family a few days every month? Your wife is practically a single parent because you just can't afford to stop? As a MAN, that must be exactly what you want!

And so, we are told, men breezily go about having it all to their heart's content, because whatever bit of "all" they don't have won't matter to them. They'll leave the domestic guff to the ladies, because that's what "having it all" is to a man. The ladies, of course, won't be able to have it all, and shame on them.

If this situation is reversed, of course, the woman jetsetting off to a high-flying career while the man keeps the home fires burning, nobody's having it all. The woman was supposed to be able to do both, because of her magic vagina, and the man might as well have a vagina of his own if he's going to go about acting like a woman.

And there you have it. Women can't have it all because they're not good enough: men can have it all because they don't give a shit about their families.

And so know this, social commentators and cultural pundits, armchair philosophers and tabloid sexperts: every time you push the question "Can women have it all" out into the public consciousness, you're being sexist in two directions at once and letting us all, men and women, know that our hunch was right: we should all be hating ourselves as hard as possible all the time.

So for fuck's sake, you guys, stop doing it.