(Note to reader – no pictures this time as I just had to write and post?! – Sorry about the typo’s and spelling errors!)
“If guns kill people, pencils misspell words, cars drink drive, cutlery makes us fat, lighters set bushfires.”
Yesterday. many people were murdered. Australians were murdered and our guests, in Sydney, in Bondi…”
These words, remind us of something important. It isn’t objects, or sensationalised video future of Australians doing what they do, that define tragedy or its cause.
It isn’t simplistic slogans and thoughts. It isn’t panic or division, it’s the human condition, greed, creed, ideology, doctrine, the raw unfortunateness of madness.
And with the promise of more laws slapping on bans, we’re again being told to be afraid and divided instead, from our mates.
Australians don’t scare easy. That’s not in our DNA. From the Dreamtime to the prison ships, from the diggers at Gallipoli to the stories our bush poets wrote that inspired generations, songwriters have sung, what makes us Australian isn’t fear, it’s resilience and looking after each other.
The Seekers got one thing right in We Are Australian.
“We are one, but we are many… We share a dream and sing with one voice: I am, you are, we are Australian.”
That dream isn’t a political slogan. It’s about community, shared struggle, shared strength.
That’s the same spirit John Williamson captured in True Blue, the idea of being fair dinkum, genuine, authentic, and loyal to your mates. True blue isn’t about exclusion or fear. It’s about being good people who look out for one another, stand up when times are tough, and don’t hide behind catchy headlines or fear mongering.
And, Redgum’s I Was Only Nineteen ,haunting ballad about the cost of war, about men in suits sending our young to die in countries they’ve never heard of, in wars they dont understand.
These songs, these Australian anthems, remind us that mate ship isn’t rhetorical, it’s lived in hardship, fire, drought, flood and blood and memory. That song isn’t an anthem about politics, it’s about people.
We are better than fear and division, and what God your pray to.
We don’t need more bans, more fear, more “solutions” that really just divide us and strip away liberty. We need mates ship, empathy and mostly we need to look after each other, especially when the world feels mad, and bad and poor and always on the brink of war.
Australian’s don’t bend easily, . We don’t roll over when someone tells us to be scared or to choose sides. That’s not who Australians are.
And speaking of being ripped off, let’s talk resources, how then ‘popular’ elite that govern us have decided what happens to what we all own.
We are a resource-rich nation, really rich. But, most of the massive profits from our minerals, gas and coal don’t actually make their way back into the community that owns those resources. According to my research, mining taxes and royalties combined make up only about five cents of every dollar of government revenue, despite mining being one of the most profitable sectors. Much of that revenue goes overseas, or into corporate structures designed to minimise tax, sometimes illegally, but most often legally because the system lets them. Many gas fields and resources are exported royalty-free or pay minimal tax, leaving the public, the owners of those resources, with far less than they should receive.
We need to ask, if these companies are digging up our land, exporting our resources and enriching shareholders overseas, why are we not seeing a fair share of that wealth reflected in better hospitals, better schools, better regional services, better support for veterans and struggling communities.
That’s not sovereign wealth. That’s selling the farm and being told we’re lucky they bought it.
Our leaders aren’t always the best qualified, so they hire consultants, for billions, YES billions of dollars, and tell politicians what they want to hear.
Let’s be real. Big politics is often about big egos and small accountability. Hire a consultant and get the answers you want, in black and white, from the experts.
We deserve better, NO we need to start demanding better.. We deserve leaders with backbone, vision, and real understanding of public good over private profit.
So what do we do?
We lean into what makes us Australian. Mateship, you help a mate when he’s in a fight. A fair go, we give it, and we expect it back. Resilience, we don’t cower, we stand up. Truth, we call out bullshit when we see it.
We remember the stories, the songs, the history, the shared struggles. That’s what being Australian really means, not fear, not division, not spin and sensational headlines.
We are better than our fear. We are better than the cheap narratives sold to us to distract us. We are still the people who sing I Am Australian and mean it, because we understand it’s about people, not slogans.
And, this is not a call to ‘action.’
This is a call ‘‘thought.’
It is a call to ‘truth.’
It is a call to “not only some mates looking after some of us, but, all of us looking out for all our mates.’
And, as our mates have lost their lives in the last day or so, we saw when the fighting gets tough and Australian is not who you want to have that fight with. We’d rather have a beer, a chat and sort it out that way. But, somehow we got into a struggle where a bloke born in this country, and his Dad, somehow!!!!, thought it was okay to kill his fellow Australians.
My heart breaks, for those murdered, those injured and those that this day will now define them. But, my heart rejoices in seeing the spirit of Australians in this tragedy, helping their mates, running towards danger for their mates, protecting there mates with their own bodies, getting together and saying we will not live in fear…. And making the ultimate sacrifice because:
No one has greater love than to lay down his life for his friends,”
I am in shock still, I wonder, why we have come to this. My Dad was a Truckee, my Mum a primary school teacher, and we didn’t have much. But, we were happy, and we had our community, a diverse group of countries we were born in and came here from, religions, skin colour, languages spoken at home, sexual orientation, men and women, gays and straights, but, we knew one thing, if they called we went, and if I called I knew they would come.
Because, that’s what Australian’s do.
The only ‘pub test’ was after, wether you were having a soft drink or ‘necking a beer’, because we did it together.
Thanks mate….
PS: When I was writing this I was flicking through all the news stories (with fucking tears in my eyes!) and then I came across the show ‘Love Island Australia’ being aired at the same time…. There is a fair chance we may already be fucked!!!!!!
