THE "RESIGN, JEFF!" REVIEW |
RJR 4 | 22 April 1994 | Melbourne, Victoria |
Fear and Loathing in the State of Anxiety The stunned compliance of Victorians in accepting the Kennett Regime's undisguised consolidation of power for its own ends is being stretched to the limit. Eventually people will be forced to examine where they stand with policies that extinguish rights in the name of political and financial expediency. The rapid polarisation wrought by this extremist government leaves little room for a middle ground. Discounting those for whom life in a democracy differs little from life under a dictator, the rest of us must either choose defiance or collaboration. In either case it will be out of fear for our well being. While Kennett sympathisers are increasingly being made to fish for excuses and rationalisations, the defiant among us are beginning to feel desperate, and the reason is simple: democracy is being stolen from us and we don't know how to stop the thief. Across the dinner table we interrupt each other with an almost hysterical need to define and redefine the meaning of this incessant onslaught against our way of life. We keep referring to third world dictatorships for precedents, and can't believe what we are saying. Suddenly we begin to understand how the Jews of pre-Kristall Nacht Germany must have felt. At best we are uneasy; at worst frightened. Outwardly life is moving along as it always does, but the underlying feeling is that things are beginning to disintegrate. State politics is no longer discussed at the family barbecue. Nor is it mentioned any more between parents and care workers at creche. The days of barbed repartee with local shop owners are over. Conversations at work fade to silence after a few comments: no one really knows what to say, and if they do, who might be listening. Civilised safeguards, from community services to the right to challenge authority, are being removed by vandals and philistines adept at doublethink and bent on serving an ideology that has seen the ruination of the social fabric of the United States and Great Britain. In Australia today, there is no excuse whatsoever for the suspension of democracy in order to implement reforms or any other agenda. In its totalitarian hubris, the Kennett Government has lost all credibility, and the sooner Victorians realise this, the better. PRO VICTORIA Adolph and the Two Vlads: Jeff Kennett's vast energy and fanatical commitment to his own apotheosis have rarely been seen since Adolph Hitler. It's almost impossible to keep up with him; barely a day goes by without a new decree or irresponsible observation. It's as if he had chorea of the intellect combined with a head injury removing frontal lobe inhibition. Whatever pops in to this man's mind, shoots out his mouth, regardless of consequences. For him, there are no consequences. With both houses of parliament in his pocket, Kennett's control is so complete that he can afford to lose control whenever he pleases. Indeed, Jeff Kennett, like Adolph Hitler, is enjoying a life without constraint. In this, he is way ahead of Russia's upcoming head-kicker, Vladimir Zhirinovsky: Jeff is in power; his alter ego is not. Furthermore, Russia's Vlad has no central icon other than hate to call upon. Our Vlad, on the other hand, has the God of Commerce to give him succour. Were the Russian Vlad to embrace market reforms, his madness might be held in check by the promise of future riches: let's face it, most entrepreneurs don't want to destroy the world, it's much too useful. Thus, Victoria's own Vlad is happy because he is in power--albeit as a small-time despot--content for the moment to suspend democracy and vilify those who question his absolute authority ... as opposed to the other, frustrated Vlad, who would just love to bomb the bastards, but can only hurl geraniums. Lest We Forget: LAUNCHING PLACE PRIMARY SCHOOL. The special-needs teacher, providing assistance to disadvantaged and disabled students, cut. $26,000 PASCOE VALE PRIMARY SCHOOL. ESL program to assist children from migrant families to improve their English, cut. $5,000 TAYLOR LAKES SECONDARY COLLEGE. Student welfare coordinator's student-contact time cut by two-thirds. $17,000 After a Hard Day of A larva himself, Geoff wants to insure that the children of today remain larvae too. That's why he's so eager to implement the massive destruction of Victoria's state education standards. To help him relax along the ever diminishing way, he likes to turn on commercial tellie at night and sit back with the Liberal Handbook on Hoodwinking the Gullible Gits in Voterland. Unable to pay much attention to either, Geoff dozes off dreaming of a time when he too might become a Boys Own Premier. Heil Jeff! • HOW MUCH FOR MELBOURNE'S SOUL, JEFF? As the Kennett Corporation attempts to sell off Victoria's contribution to the Australian Dream for as many facets of the American Nightmare as we taxpayers can afford, it's worth quoting Anna King Murdoch (The Age 29/3) on the upcoming rape of Albert Park. Melbourne, she says, is about to be seen " ... as a city of gamblers and racing-car drivers just like everywhere else, as a place that doesn't give a damn about thousands of people's lives, about what ugly, uncontrollable noise and the wrecking of a place they love can do to people's minds and moods. Do we want this? No, this is what we are being told to want by a Government right out of key with its people. And we--in a so-called democracy--are cowed and impotent before this aggression. Why?" • Don "Psycho Eyes" Hayward has been out of the news for awhile, but. lest we forget, his EconoRat policies are still degrading our school system. A letter to the Editor (The Age 2/94) from Joanne Pace and 24 staff from Altona Green Primary School describes the forced naming, by the principal, of a teacher in excess, when "[t]here is no teacher who is unneeded, unwanted or ineffective ... " These situations are typical of totalitarian regimes who require forced sacrifices, such as in Sophie's Choice, where the mother must choose which of her children is to live and which to die. An over-the-top comparison? It's just a matter of degree. • JEFF V. NCA: WILL HE REALLY BE SUBPOENAED? It's almost too much to hope for, but it appears that if The Mouth doesn't substantiate his recent allegations by accepting an invitation to appear before the parliamentary committee that oversees the NCA, he will be forced to. One of Jeff's comments is revealing: "I think the whole system of these independent bodies that are fundamentally answerable to no one but cost us all a fortune should be reviewed." Answerable to no one? They are answerable to justice, a concept, like democracy, that Jeff Kennett is totally ignorant of. Therefore, in his view, it would be better if he were controlling the funding and they were answerable to him. (Based on an article by Paul Daley, Age 3/4.) • KINDERGARTEN CUTS: DOES THE KENNETT GOVT HATE CHILDREN? You can bet the Liberal Party, State(s) and Federal, will come out sooner or later as the All Australian Family Party in order to get those votes back, but in the meantime the Victorian Liberals (who don't need the votes) are doing there best to make life hell for families. Fiona Speirs of Traralgon (The Age 4/4) has written a succinct letter to the editor on the Kennett Government's infamous attack on kindergartens and kindergarten teachers. She says: "No longer with any job security; in a profession with a limited career path ... where wages do not reflect the ... tertiary training and huge responsibility involved; many have been forced to take on extra work loads while in reality their salaries may depend on successful chocolate drives." Typically, Jeff is striking first at the bottom end of the economic pecking order. Anyone who values the education of their children knows that the profession which looks after them has always been underrated and underpaid. In a sane society, these people should be getting banker's wages and the banker's should be getting the paltry sum offered to creche carers, kindergarten teachers and primary teachers. While the latter group puts in time and effort beyond the call of duty, the former do their best to keep us in chains. "On a budget that doesn't even cover salaries of the cheapest staff, what committee can afford to pay for an experienced teacher?" Ms Speirs wonders "how ... kindergarten teachers [are going] to respond to Mr Kennett's latest call for optimism when they clearly see that the children, families and service to whom and which they had dedicated their careers have been placed in jeopardy under his leadership?" • TEHAN STAKES A BAD REPUTATION ON MORE LIES. In California in the 1960's, the then Governor of that state, Ronald Reagan, inaugurated an economically motivated program of deinstitutionalisation of mental hospitals, throwing thousands of mentally ill people on to the streets, thus sowing the seeds of the homeless epidemic. When he became president, he attacked community services across the board, turning the epidemic into a way of life. Now, some thirty years later, we have the Kennett Government Barbarians doing its best to catch up, albeit in reverse. Community services have already been devastated. Now, spokes-puppet, Marie Tehan announces the number of psychiatric hospital beds will be cut by 10 percent. She says the money saved will be put back into community care facilities, and she's willing to put her career on the line over it. Does anyone believe her? Does Brian Burdekin? This is not a government that cares about people, so anything it says on behalf of people is inevitably a lie. Where you can believe it is when it says its going to pull the rug out from under your feet. Michael Pirrie (HS 6/4) says, " ... there are fears that many more psychiatric patients will join the hundreds of anonymous souls already lost on Melbourne's streets before suitable alternative accommodation can be found. The last thing patients need when seeking help ... is the added burden of being told there is no place for them in existing treatment programs as happened before." If the Kennett Government doesn't use all the funds saved and pour millions more into community placement, it will be seen to be throwing these people to the wolves in order to save money. Who wants to bet? RESIGN, JEFF! |
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