Terror Australis
Just when all hope of divesting oneself of one’s Australian citizenship had been lost, along come Abbott, Bishop et al., terrorizing would-be terrorists and terrorist sympathizers with the threat of statelessness.
That such a policy would directly contravene any number of UN conventions which the Commonwealth of Australia has ratified and/or signed, is of course NO PROBLEMO for the leaders of this banana-cum-iron ore republic. (Just look at the state of “free” education, or the “rights” of refugees, or the “heritage” status of the Great Barrier Reef, for an indication of exactly how little the Commonwealth respects its obligations at international law.)
Not, of course, that Australia could be considered a “rogue” state, by any stretch of the legal imagination. Why, next you’d be asserting that the LNP Coalition—and not ISIL—are the real terrorists!
But there you might have a point. For isn’t de facto Housing Minister Joe Hockey far more terrifying—not to mention morally repugnant—to the Australian public, than, say, a Han Moron Monis ever could be?
For many (that is to say: the poor), the merger of state and corporate power—the grim totalization of economic rationalist thought—is the real scourge of contemporary Australia.
Meanwhile, the Prime Minister continues to bray like a donkey in the Federal Parliament, summoning “mum-and-dad investors” to his aid in defence of odious anti-policies like negative gearing. Yes, Father Antonio, investors do indeed procreate. Let’s agree to call them, however, simply “investors” (if not, rather, property “speculators”)—on account of the fact that the vast majority of Australian “mums and dads” (the poor) are not.
In any event, who are these shadowy mum-and-dad investors?
It became clear last week that our Parliamentarians and the Speaker of the House—the Prime Minister’s cronies—have investment property portfolios of their own to prudently manage, via the Parliament itself if need be, presumably in order to secure an additional private boon to their already fat superannuation and retirement benefits.
In abusing the Parliament in this way, our leaders have well and truly earned our disrespect, inspiring nothing but contempt for the institutions of this land, up to and including the Law itself.