Wake up and smell the stinkweed

It’s always heartening to hear that your work inspires others to speak their mind about things. It is worth visiting Helen’s site to read her full article as well as her other interesting and thoughtful posts. So thank you for letting me know that you found something of value to you in my post as well as for the excellent article you wrote as a result of it.

helen meikle's scribblefest

However much designer rhetoric you may use to package it, elitism by any other name still smells like stinkweed to most Australians, and the smell after last week’s budget was overpowering.

Perhaps this attitude is a legacy of our early DNA: the indigenous people that nobody respected or understood; the lawless of Britain’s underclass that nobody wanted; the militia that nobody restrained; the remittance men that nobody acknowledged… the whole unsavoury mess of early European settlement that led to a robust irreverence towards petty authority, a ferocious determination to survive, a commitment to mateship and equality… and a total contempt for those we consider to be up themselves.

The Australian principle of ‘a fair go’ may seem like a piece of ocker bullshit to outsiders, but to those of us who live here, it’s the rock on which we’re built. Couch it in more elegant terms if you wish, but…

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