My place. Monday, 11am
The view through my window is lovely. Sure, the grass is way too high, and the bush turkey has dug up the paw paw seedling, but everything is lush. The wallabies have so much green pick to nibble on they hardly move, just the occasional tummy scratch.
Lovely, sure, but I’m irritated. If there were any bees left, there would be one in my bonnet.
The government is coming down heavily on people who don’t vaccinate their children. There are now all sorts of penalities for the parents of unvaccinated children and the children themselves. Slinging cute slogans like ‘no jab, no pay’, the government is taking a righteous stand, highlighting its concern for the health of children.
There’s the prime minister talking to camera, his voice brimming with conviction, his brow furrowing with anxiety about Australian children. ‘This is not a theoretical exercise; this is life and death,’ he says. His government will do everything possible to give the little kiddies a healthy future. It’s the right thing to do.
What a steaming heap of pollie dung.
What absolute cynical crap.
What typical nonsense from people disconnected from reality, living in a privileged bubble only maintained by aiding the exploiters of deadly resources. They are behoven to these denizens of Dollarville who sustain their privilege and lethal delusion.
Don’t get me wrong: I don’t know whether vaccination for children is good or bad. But for me, here and now, that’s not the issue. The issue is a photo on my commputer screen. It shows the Queensland premier and eight Queensland mayors at an Adani port in India. It makes me sick.
Why do we have all this supposed concern for children when the suits who mumble this righteous piffle are, in fact, supporting child abuse on a much grander scale?
By promoting the construction of the Adani mine in Queensland, these government ministers, so worried about children’s health, are showing their true lack of sympathy with anyone not corporately connected. If the world burns more coal, we will create catastrophic planetary changes for the children. This is not a theoretical exercise; this is life and death.
Like dealers of heroin, Australian governments promote selling coal to whoever wants it, cultivating and maintaining a lethal global addiction. Government is hellbent on manifesting the Adani mine. They’re throwing a lot of money at Adani to come wreck the future. The Queensland premier and her mayors even went on a holy pilgrimmage recently to pay homage to their Indian god. They knelt at his feet…
The view from my window is lovely. But these days that view is tinged with a sadness that comes from knowing things will not remain the same. Climate change has started. Around the world traditional farming methods are disrupted by changing weather cycles. There are increasing weather extremes. Islands are disappearing, as are many species.
It’s awful, and depressing, but the effects can be mitigated if governments act with real concern for the kids.
Unfortunately, governments are prone to the disease of corporate collusion, which disables their ability to see clearly and to act appropriately.
We need a vaccine against corporate collusion. Every politician gets the needle. I reckon we introduce a ‘no jab, no pay’ policy for Australian pollies. Sure, they will cry and scream because it’s obvious they’re not brave, but it’s in their, and our, best interests to have these politicians immunised against a wacky capitalist disease which places economy above society, profit above people.
Suddenly politicians will be able to talk properly again. They will be able to make decisions that benefit the children and the planet. How novel.
And they will chuck the exploiters from the temple.
For four decades The Echo has printed the stories some people loved, some people hated, and some pretended not to read. If you want us to keep telling the truth, the real truth, not the sugar-coated version. We’ll need your support to keep the presses rolling. 
