You know, unless asylum seekers somehow managed to sneak into this country and made it all the way to Geelong to pose as Alcoa executives to announce yet at the cost of nearly a thousand more jobs, then I really think this nation has some bigger goddamn problems than boats carrying refugees asking for help.
Put another way, we've got 99 problems and some boats ain鈥檛 one, which is a line I put in to show how up to date I am with pop culture by paraphrasing a song released a mere decade ago.
The Australian economy is starting to hit the rocks and the surest sign is the bad jobs news. Behind the statistics showing the jobless rate is at a is real pain and suffering 鈥 and none of it is caused by refugees, on who our government insists on imposing even worse misery, allegedly on Manus Island to terrorise them.
The percentage of our problems caused by asylum seekers coming in boats is exactly zero. The gains to our society by jailing innocent people in prison camps run by murderous psychopaths is even less.
It does, however, make for a convenient distraction while the government cries poor, preparing us for savage in the coming budget, yet finding to 鈥減rotect our borders鈥 and run horrific prison camps for people who have committed no crime.
It sometimes seems this government has a form of Tourettes making it unable to stop saying 鈥渂oats鈥. So, when prime minister Tony Abbott spoke at a February 12 event about 鈥渃losing the gap鈥 between Aboriginal people and the rest of society, he said his government was as serious about Indigenous politics as it was about 鈥渟topping the boats鈥.
There seems no topic Abbott can't bring back to stopping the boats. When Margaret Abbott asks him to take out the bins at the Lodge, Abbott must respond: 鈥淥f course darling, I am serious about removing the rubbish from this house as I am about stopping the boats鈥. And then when asked later about why he hasn't done it, pretends he has but refuses to answer questions on the matter citing 鈥渙perational matters鈥.
Because despite Abbott's undoubted proficiency at uttering the phrase, his government has manifestly from entering Australian waters.
So presumably Aboriginal people can look forward to an ever widening gap, which Abbott refuses to discuss before moving on to tell sacked car workers he is as serious about finding them jobs as he was about 鈥渃losing the gap鈥.
Revelations that Abbott's Indigenous staff are actually indicates that when Abbott says he is as serious about 鈥渃losing the gap鈥 as 鈥渟topping boats鈥 he actually means it. We can expect as much progress on both fronts.
But while the government is busily insisting it has resolved a non-existent problem, it announces more government spending and job cuts in a climate of climbing unemployment.
Which makes it somewhat ironic that, at university orientation weeks across the country, Young Liberals, with their usual mix of charm and tact, declaring: 鈥淧roud Liberal. Because we can't all be on welfare.鈥
Well no, but Liberal governments across the country appear to be giving it their best shot.
It can seem that the strategy of demonising asylum seekers is working, but there are signs that the government's line of 鈥渂elieve what we say because we say it鈥 is starting to fall apart.
Despite Abbott insisting the ABC was unAustralian for reporting allegations the Australian Navy tortured asylum seekers, a Fairfax poll found two-thirds of people wanted an independent investigation into the incident.
What is more, even most Coalition voters backed an independent investigation, and most starkly, with Abbott that the national broadcaster was 鈥渦nAustralian or anti-Australian鈥.
This is truly shocking. If these figures are correct, it would seem by Abbott's logic that the vast majority of Australia is now unAustralian! The country has somehow turned itself into its opposite in a bizarre act of negation that must have the 1% of true Aussies, who believe whatever the government says as a point of principle, scratching their heads in disbelief.
So, here is a suggestion: why don't the last 1% of true Australians leave the rest of us unAustralian masses behind and fuck off to an isolated Pacific island to set up Real Australia, free from journalists who have the sheer gall to ask the government questions.
Those of us stuck here in unAustralia will just have to muddle on without the Abbotts, Hockeys and Morrisons, somehow or other.
