The Flood Levy

Dear Mr Swan

I'm writing you as my Federal MP for Lilley to express my extreme displeasure at the proposed Flood Levy. While my income is below the $50,000 threshold for the levy, many other cash strapped, middle class households will be affected. Surely you're aware that practically every other cost of living is increasing. We pay more for fuel now that we have ever done, it's a financial strain to register and insure our vehicles, private health premiums rise steadily and the cost of the weekly grocery shop is on the increase. Not to mention the ridiculous rate hikes in electricity and water imposed on us. For some, and i fear it will be many households, this extra tax will be the final pressure that forces them below the poverty line, and possibly out of their homes.

Taxing the middle class and high income earners isn't fair, is that how the Government shows thanks to those citizens who have studied hard,worked hard to be decent, upstanding members of society? Why should they pay the tax, when there are those whose sole aim in life is to collect all the welfare benefits they can. They contribute nothing to society except more mouths to feed and educate with our tax dollars. How is it fair that they escape contributing to the rebuilding of the state they call home too.

I understand that the rebuilding effort will take staggering amounts of money to complete and supporting victims over the long term will also be expensive. But when the Government squanders a surplus, presides over the highest rises in living expenses in generations and wastes $600M on a never-to-be-built dam. Another tax will add insult to injury to an already disillusioned, cash strapped and debt laded middle class.

It has been suggested that welfare benefits for long-term dole recipients be cut, if not suspended entirely and i agree. Put them to work on the rebuilding effort! I'm also in favour of cuts to Australia's Foreign Aid Program. While i am proud of Australia's international generosity, we are in a time of great need ourselves and we should consider temporarily diverting funds from that to help our own country rebuild. Choosing which country will get less of our aid will require hard decisions, but as Ms Gillard and Mrs Bligh have so often informed us, Labor is capable and certainly not shy of making the hard decisions. Maybe it's time a hard decision was made that helps us instead of hurting us (i.e. the sale of Queensland's public assets, another tax)

I think the Government's focus on getting the budget back to surplus by 2013 is no longer realistic and in the face of these Natural Disasters and their effect on the economy, could even be argued as irresponsible. I fully support deficit spending to rebuild flood ravaged areas and to provide assistance to victims. What good is a budget in surplus if everyday people can't afford the necessary costs of living and if victims are still struggling to get back on their feet months, even years later?

The combination of the tragically mismanaged Home Insulation Program which cost four Australians their lives, the wasteful spending that is that is the hallmark of the Building Education Revolution (BER) and now this new Flood Levy. I no longer trust the future of my country in the hands of Labor leaders, their ideologies and (failing) policies and i certainly don't trust that this levy will be confined to the 2011-2012 financial year.

I support the Opposition's intent to block this levy in Parliament and will be supporting the Liberal party at the next election, both Federally and at a State Level.

To hell with Feminists...

Men are not to respect us as equals, but should respect us for what we truly are, mothers, lovers, guardians of generations to come, guardians of humanity itself and they, men, our noble protectors.

Equality is not to be found among the sexes, for The Lord Above did not make us equal, he never intended us to be equal. The Lord made Adam first, in his image, and when he saw that Adam was lonely, that Adam was somehow lacking, that Adam was indeed not whole, The Lord took one of his ribs and cast it down, making for him, his other half Eve.

The Lord did not make them the same, did not make them equal, for what would be the point of two beings of the exactly the same nature, exactly the same strengths, exactly the same weaknesses. The Lord God intended them to complement each other, to be each others strengths to their weaknesses, to be their coulds to their could nots. To carry one, when the other couldn't. Adam and Eve were never equal, but together they made a whole.

Now feminists have somehow turned it into a battle of the sexes, turned what was intended as a sacred relationship between the sexes into a battleground. Women against Men. Men against Women. Equality...Feminism. It's all corrupted bullshit. And we women have no one to blame but our feminist sisters, for all their bra burning indignation of the seventies, nothing has been achieved. As a woman, borne into this age of feminism, i don't even understand what it means, i never have, even when spelled out in black and white, in front of my very eyes, the goal, the sentiment, eludes me. I have only ever felt the deep longing to make a man happy, to bear children, (my feminist sisters would have me lessened in view of that, it's a disgrace to all they fight for, that i would still submit, that i would place a mans needs above my own. It's no wonder our birth rate falls) and If i do willingly submit and obey, what does that say for all the supposed liberation of the feminist movement.

There is no true liberation for women, under the banner of feminism. To be liberated we must accept our true nature, our true place in the world, to realize that such things are not shackles keeping us bound but the purest joy available. How can they not see that?

Amnesty International: A lost Crusader?

Amnesty international is becoming the lost crusader, lashing out at the west in it's ongoing decline into irrelevance.

A Woman's Place is in the Home!

As a woman myself, it is my firm belief that my place, and that of my self-obsessed 'I Want it All' counterparts, is in the home, looking after our men and our families. There can be no greater form of satisfaction (except that of a skilled man ;-) than raising a family, than raising the next generation.

And i say that any woman who doesn't feel this need, this inherent desire to care and nurture a family (be it big or small, and dogs don't count) is a pale, sad and empty imitation of what women are (except my sister who is a wonderful, vibrant person). We are first and foremost homemakers, lovers, wives and mothers, it is what God intended us to be, none of which we can fully be while our attention is devoted away from the home.

Now I myself work, i have to, my partner doesn't make enough money for me not too (and that's ok, I love him anyway) but with everyday that i have to leave my home for work, leave Mr McGee warm in bed, my heart longs to stay (for the obvious reasons and more ;-). Longs to be there when Mr McGee comes home from work, to be there with a rum in one hand and his dinner in the other (something with cheese and bacon, he loves cheese and bacon and definately no clothes during our pre-kids years). I long to be able to stay home and see Mr McGee off each morning with a cooked breakfast, naked cuddles and coffee and a freshly pressed shirt. But i can't, it's not financially viable (just a little bitter about that, can you tell :-).

Although that being said, i feel bound to add, that that won't always be the case.

I will do what it takes to make it possible to stay home, if not all the time, then most of the time with my kids, and so will Mr McGee (ask any man and i'm sure he'd prefer his woman at home, with all her extra time and attention to be had...that being said there are certain things we HouseLovers* expect, nay demand in return, but that's a list for another day :-). In Mr McGee i have my very own web genius, so there are endless avenues open for pursuit on the internet, and I've always got my photography and my art. If we want it bad enough, we'll make it happen, i have to, if I'm to give my kids the upbringing i want them to have. The one that i had. Ask your parents and they'll probably say that "they wanted to give you all the things they never had growing up", we'll i can for the first time i know of, that i want my children to have exactly the same childhood that i had (and i actively worry that I will not be able to live up to the high standards my wonderful parents set), to have all the things that i had. I can proudly say that i want to be the kind of parent my parents were and thankfully still are to me (I have never truly left 'Home' and would be lost without them).

Women out there today want to have it all, they want the support of married life, they want the independence that comes with a career, they want to raise 2.5 kids in a large, immaculate home in the suburbs...all while looking wonderful. Well i'm not here today to tell you women that you can't have it all, because you're women and you can have it all (smirk). You can achieve all of those things in life but at what cost, (it won't be financial, with two incomes in the house money shouldnt' be a problem, unless Labour get their hands on the economy...God help us all!). The cost comes in those feelings of inadequacy, those insidious, slowly degrading thoughts 'I should be spending more time with the kids', 'Why can't i keep up with the housework', 'shit, i should've done the washing yesterday'.

The cost comes in the form of those small resentments we have growing over time about how little our other halves contribute to the running of the house, to the daily upkeep of the children and family unit as a whole.

After a while, these issues cause many a woman, relationship and/or family to fall apart. Trying to be so many U's to so many people, will leave you feeling like you've never fully been the best you can be, given the most you can give, been as supportive as you could, been there all the times you should. Well the cold, hard-to-live-with truth is you could've given more, loved more, supported more, been there more for your family but other things seemed more important.

All this talk of Therese Rein, (KRudd's wifey - bitch won't even take his name) having to sell off her Australian arm of her business dealings has got me all riled up on the subject again. All these haridans coming out screaming bloody murder, foretelling of the death of women as role models and spouting shit about symbolic differences not being made, makes me want to punch someone in the face, namely a feminist (Or even better, the ever so enlightened Ms Sue Dunlevy - for she'd have to be one of these 'Ms' broads :-).

A Moral Victory!

Success!!

Praise be to Mr Howard for his decision to ban the Australian cricket team from touring Zimbabwe.

Four more years!! Four more years!!

Mobile Phone + Inconsiderate Idiot = Serious Assault Charges

To the very annoying looking woman on the 370 inbound bus yesterday morning...

Please be aware that you slowly and steadily drove me insane with your constant, droning, inane, mind numbing chatter. Your complete ignorance of respectable mobile phone etiquette, while using public transport is astounding, and what's more so, uncivilised.

Taking public transport does not imply that you get to make all the details of your very boring, inconsequential life, public for the rest of us. This may come as a surprise to you but i really don't give a toss about your friend and her kids, or the contents of the last text you sent, i really don't . If i wanted to be that bored i would simply tune in to free to air television...seriously!

You have no idea how close you came to having that damn phone shoved down your damn throat...know what i mean?

A word to the wise, and this goes for all mobile phone users, keep it short, sharp and most of all discreet. If that's done, then we'll all get along juuust fine!

Sprout and the Bean

Setting: 3 home distilled scotches (totally worth the investment, thanks dad - Johnny Walker keep walking!)
Listening to Joanna Newsome's 'Sprout and the Bean' - from the Melbourne tourism add (the most whimsical and magical add i've had the pleasure of watching in the longest time - bugger off anyone who thinks otherwise!!)
Watching Media Player 'the world' visualization

I highly recommend this combination when encountering the below...otherwise it'll most likely sound like gibberish, knowledge of the muse is key :-)

Two embryonic cells, dancing
Life, it's most purest,
unlimited possibilities,
Ever circling, what will be?
Lifetimes in snapshot, divine intent?

Pulsating life, endless beginnings,
Waiting, time will come,
The First Dawning, new life.

A chance for a brighter world?
new life brings, hope restored
Squandered? Maybe, maybe not,
We will decide.

Nothing to do with a sprout or a bean, i know, but it was the visualisation that birthed that aspect, one begat the other so to say, the music was just a peaceful canvas against which to work...

This is my first, shall we say, 'artistic post', so feel free to comment (pls do so, am feeling sorely unloved for my, and some may say, sorely limited efforts :-) and bag the shit out of it, i can take it, no biggie! Seriously...is anyone out there??