I have spoken before about how I am a swing-voter in Australian elections and how it has always come down to policy for me rather than following a particular party without discretion.
When Tony Abbott made a speech a few weeks ago, he hit with two main points
-Lose the carbon tax
-Stop the boats
"Whaddup racists and non-believers in global warming, I'm commin' for ya"
I laughed at how his speech catered to the ignorant voter and had faith that Labor would hit back at Liberal with some retorts, stick to their guns on these issues and not sell out for cheap easy votes from narrow-minded, ignorant racists.
Yet what’s that you say?
Labor is ditching the carbon tax?
Labor is going to worsen conditions for people seeking asylum?
It seems to me that the two parties are becoming increasingly similar in their policies and that it is now coming down to voting for a face rather than for policies as theirs don’t seem to differ all to much on a series of big issues.
"What is up aforementioned ignorant people? It appears I'm also coming for you"
Refugee Conditions
It upsets me when people badmouth refugees without knowing or caring about the facts
I worked as part of an initiative a few years ago to educate people about the standard of living for Asylum seekers
The slogan of the campaign was:
'HOW FAR WOULD YOU GO TO SAVE SOMEBODY YOU LOVE? TAKE A WALK IN SOMEBODY ELSE’S SHOES'
If an Australian child was treated the way that refugees are treated, it would be front page news, we would all be angry.
So why is the life of an asylum seeker, an innocent child worth less to that of our own?
As it was then, the situation was not great
The situation has never been ‘great’ for people who flee to Australia seeking refuge.
The mere fact that the name ‘boat people’ has been given to people who are fleeing dire circumstances in their own country is fucking offensive.
We are talking about people who have already had or are endanger of having their family tortured, raped or murdered.
How about not being an insensitive dickhead and defining them by their mode of transport rather than their circumstance?
If you talk about people not having the correct documentation when coming into our country, put YOURSELF in their shoes.
If you are fleeing to save your life, is paperwork really going to be the first thing on your mind as you run from motherfucking gunshots???
How is this little cuties life worth less than an Australian child?
“But we can‘t afford it”
The thing that upsets me is that peoples fear of refugees is very misguided
If you are discussing the strain on Australian resources, think first about the things that our Government spends millions on that could go to better use.
Cough cough New Years Eve fireworks (worth roughly six million dollars a year)
While events like these help to stimulate the economy and are nice to look at, I question how many people wouldn’t go and drink on the harbour if the scene on New Years was not quite so elaborate.
You know? Maybe cut it down to say even say ONE MILLION dollars?
....I mean A million dollars can buy you a gigantic house, I am sure you could could get some decent fireworks out of that much money
Most people are too drunk to watch that shit anyway
"Dude did you just see the sky? Its moving and on fire"
“We should help our own first”
If your argument is ‘We should help our own first’, I argue that we have the resources to help our own yet often choose to devote a lot of money to more superficial causes.
People who complain that we should first assist Australias homeless population are far too often the very same people who do nothing to help this cause.
They are often people who never volunteer their own time or money to help but will be the first to bring up how we need to ‘help our own’ before we can help anybody else
...yet most likely will still complain about their tax payer money supporting people on welfare.
If you want to complain about wasted money, check out the amount of centrelink fraud by AUSTRALIAN CITZENS
If you want to help your own, do it.
Write a letter to your M.P in support of assisting our countries homeless or volunteer, donate, do something but don’t use it as an excuse NOT to help somebody else.
The fact is that our country DOES help our own, we have welfare programs that are better than a lot of other countries and while our welfare system does call for more assistance, it is NOT being drained by Asylum seekers.
Statistics show that the majority of refugees that come to our country WANT to work.
The reason that they receive welfare [should they even qualify for it after a long process and time spent in detention] is the same reason that Australian citizens receive benefits like NewStart Allowance, to help people get back on their feet.
And do you know what else? They deserve the time to do it because THEIR FEET ARE FUCKING TIRED much more so than our privileged feet that were lucky enough to be born in a country where the majority of us can afford nice shoes
.
The majority of Australians will never face the same struggles that any Asylum Seeker has faced, purely based on the fact that we were born in this country.
So as a 'Lucky' country, do we not have a duty to help those less fortunate, who have not been afforded the same basic human rights that we take for granted, daily?
For some immigrants, they are in need of counselling as they are obviously suffering severe grief from their experiences
BUT they also have skills and qualifications that can be beneficial to the well being of this nation so it seems imprudent to view an entire group of people as being 'a drain on resources' when this is not the case at all.
Given the time, opportunity and resources, refugees are able to develop the skills and tools to contribute to society like anybody else [many already having previous qualifications and merely needing to become familiar with the language]
While in the short term, it will cost the country money, Australia will benefit in the long run.
I am shitty because this decision reflects an expectation of gaining votes, which in turn reflects the presumption that many Australian voters are against Asylum Seekers
I am severely disheartened by Labors decision to ‘Stop the boats’
It breaks my heart that our government seems to lack the empathy and understanding of basic human rights.
This was a really cheap way of getting votes from ignorant, racist Australians and I am sad to say how ashamed I feel to be Australian today.
I would choose Kevin Rudd to represent this country over the incoherent, ignorant, racist, women-hating man that is Tony Abott.
However, I have lost a lot of faith in the LNP
What I once believed to be a forward-thinking party who’s policies generally were more humane than the coalition is beginning to do the time-warp and has become a party that I am no longer proud to support.
Whatever happens this election, I do hope that Tony Abbott does not win as I’d rather not have our country represented by a guy that can’t string a sentence together and pretty much stands for everything I hate
but I have lost a lot of faith in K-Rudd.
I once looked up to him as Kevin-07, the guy that was going to make real change and I now look at Labor as just being a marginally better option than the coalition.
My hope is that people consider some of the other alternative, independent parties when voting for seats in the senate and look at their policies on the things that matter.
And hope that refugee rights do matter to people
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------This sites are amazing, check them out and share them round:
www.refugeecouncil.org.au
www.rethinkrefugees.com.au
They will destroy every myth you've ever heard about refugees and be way more informative than my angry rant
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