Life of Riley
By Dave Riley
Copyright 2011 Dave Riley
Smashwords Edition
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Table of Contents
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Preface
This collection is a retrospective selection of satires I wrote in the 1990s with some dating from the following decade.
They are a topic mix mainly published in the ‘Life of Riley’ column in Green Left Weekly which I wrote on a weekly basis for a few years.
Some were recycled as dialogue for performance as I was also writing for street theatre troupes at the time. Some I recorded and published as part of a podcast I produced -- The Blather. Some were aired on radio both here in Australia and in the United States.
They even had a fan base.
I think that their satiric quotient still exists.
Just change or ignore the proper nouns and see what continuing relevance you can muster.
I decided to publish this selection because this is what I was writing BB – Before Blogging – and in trying to get back to a conscious satiric mode I wanted to relive my past.
So looking back is good for me. I enjoyed it.
You, on the other hand, will have to make your own way as I have chosen not to offer guidance as there is not a footnote or glossary to be had in any one of these pages.
Dave Riley
August,2011
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Me
You can take comfort in my presence
GOOD NEWS! I have entered another decade. The smiling dial that marks me out has not changed one smidgin in yonks. I'm ageless, that's what I am. I'm still the same bloke I was way back when that pic on the book cover was taken; still my dear old mother's son, the crème de la crème of the Highett Rileys in the prime of his wonderful life.
How can this be, you may ask. Surely one day he must be touched by cruel time?
My resilience from the toll life levies rests on a little-known feature of my existence: I'm the second son of God.
My brother you surely know. He dropped in for a while way back in BC something or other, and went on to make quite a name for himself among the locals.
Me? I'm the shy one in the family. You won't catch me getting up to the little tricks Jesus was forever performing whenever he thought he could pull a crowd. That's not for me. I'm the family intellectual. (Please note the glasses in that regard.) The thinker.
Dad's plan was to send down a sibling every thousand years or so. My sister, Eileen, who got the job for the millennium after Jesus got nailed, was burnt as a witch just as soon as she said boo.
You won't catch me as main course on a barbecue. I want to live on to a good old age (not that you will be able to tell it), thank you very much. So as far as my theological duties are concerned, I thought I'd keep them on a back burner and settle instead on well-chosen words of wisdom every now and then through my various publishing ventures.
You can't blame me. Members of my family tend to die young.
So it’s OK to take comfort in my presence. You won't catch me pissing off home as soon as the authorities get nasty. No, I'm in it for the long haul. And you can forget that malarky about a heavenly reward — why do you think I want to stay on down here? Dad is so strict and dogmatic that he makes the afterlife a merry hell.
My advice to you is to do the best with what you've got.
Just don't tell Dad I told you so.
The Riot Gene
Everyone knows -- or I hope they know -- that a penchant to riot is suggestive of an underlying pathology.
Rioting -- by which I mean full-on vigorous civil disorder by disorganized rabble lashing out in a sudden and intense rash of violence against authority, property and other persons -- is not an every day occurrence.
Leastways it isn't in my family.
I can safely say that within my pedigree we have gone several generations without some family black sheep (and I grant you that we have had our share of those) taking up rock throwing as a lifestyle.
We write letters. We vote in elections. We take home our pay and make the best of it.
We grin and bear what life throws at us.
We do not riot.
Maybe we get a little testy now and then -- and think we've been hard done by. Who doesn't? But in my family, one and all share an ingrained respect for authority and the goods and chattels of others.
The seeming ready ease with which those of darker skin complexion or shallower income become obstreperous, suggests to me that they must have something volatile within them, something that may cause hot blood and obstropolousness (as the Greeks say).
All I can say is that we do not carry that gene.
We're accepting of our lot…unfortunately.
Riley Inc
Are you concerned about social issues and corporate ethics? Are you looking for financially sound investments that are socially responsible? Then look no further. Now you can integrate your personal values with your investment objectives.
As of today, I have capitalised on my position as a private citizen and have henceforth incorporated myself. The Riley Inc float has shaken the markets.
As one broker told the Financial Review, "This should help the local bourse climb higher. Market confidence like this is sure to lead to some positive movements in the All Ordinaries, and that's going to be good for the industrials."
This is the sort of micro-economic reform this country is crying out for. Instead of whingeing about what's wrong with the economy, you should all be joining me in corporate Australia.
Rather than hunt jobs, offer shares instead. Forget about your curriculum vitae and character references; what you need is a good prospectus.
Upward mobility is now knocking on the door of the unemployed. If a ,firm won't employ you then go into business yourself. Stop being an anonymous statistic by turning your life into a ledger. Make the next job you create, your own. (How does "company director" sound?)
No longer need you be stereotyped as a bludger or a bum: Once incorporated, you join an entrepreneurial community determined to get Australia working — that is, in the off chance someone ever became unemployed again.
My action was greeted ecstatically by the ACTU. The ACTU national secretary phoned me personally to offer his congratulations: "It is responsible entrepreneurs like you we have been waiting for. The rest don't seem to have what it takes. Thanks to you, we can now see the light on the hill.
"Enterprise bargaining", he told me, "is fine as far as it goes, but what we really need is more enterprise. Unfortunately, the Australian working man and woman do not get the business community they deserve. Given all that we have done for them, the boardrooms of this country have let us down and should be ashamed of themselves."
He then proclaimed passionately: "Workers of Australia, take a stand and raise your own stocks. The share market is waiting on you to show the way. Ethical investment is the hope of the world."
With such an enthusiastic endorsement, Riley Inc is sure to live up to its promise. Australian corporate profitability has come roaring back, and Riley Inc wants a share of the action. If the profit surge continues at its current rate of a thumping 22%, corporate Australia should be ready and willing to invest.
But as finance journalist, Terry McCann, asks, "The $64 question — perhaps more exactly, the $44 billion question — is will it?" Rest assured that Riley Inc believes that if you wan something done, it is best to do it yourself. My company will be integrating my personal values with my investment objectives. Riley Inc takes its corporate responsibilities seriously and from here on in will be investing — in me.
Life of Riley: Tea for two
"Come in if you're good looking."
"I wish you wouldn't do that, mum", I said through the screen door. "I could be anyone. I don't know why I bother to knock."
But she wasn't listening. Stephanie had just learnt that Sebastian was dying.
"I should have guessed it", I said, stepping into the lounge. "You're watching your soap."
"Since you're up, make us a cuppa, will you? And I'll have a Tim Tam. They're in the cake tin on the second shelf."
There was nothing for it. I walked through to the kitchen and did her bidding.
"Let it draw a bit, love", she said from her armchair. "I like it to brew."
"You're a good boy", she said when I bought her the tray. With Home and Away over she could attend to other things. "What would I ever do without you? Oh dear, you know how I dislike drinking my tea from a mug. Never mind — at least it's hot and it's wet. How's Jill and the kids?"
"They're fine", I said. "Are you coming Sunday?"
"Of course, love. I wouldn't miss my grand-daughter's ... eh ... "
"Twelfth, mum."
"Is that it? Twelve years — it only seems like yesterday when she was born. You know, I left school when I was her age. I did. Your gran sent me out to work because we needed the money. It was common then. Not like today, eh? Pour me another cup will you?"
"No, mum", I said, refilling her mug, "not like today".
"But what have we gained? Tell me that. I worked right up to the time I married your father (God rest his soul). You've had the advantages denied us. You and your sister went on to university. And that took some doing on our part, I tell you. And you've done alright."
"Yes, mum. I've done alright."
"But what has a 12-year-old got to look forward to today? Tell me that. Schooling for what? All these educated young people and no one wants to employ them. It makes me wonder what we've gained over the years."
"I've done alright."
"Oh yes, you've done alright. But it's a bit unfair on today's kids. They can't cash in their chips as easily as you could."
"Don't you think it's a bit early to be worrying about her future when she's only just turning 12?"
"Someone's got to. We battled all our lives — your father and I — but at least we got somewhere. We educated you kids, paid off the house, got a nice car and secured a little comfort for our old age. But where's the guarantees for my grand-children? Tell me that.?"
"I'm certain they'll manage", I said.
"You know what your trouble is: you got it too easy. You were too accepting of the world. Maybe at university when you joined up with those radicals ... "
"SYA, mum — Socialist Youth Alliance."
"Yeah, them — you had some heart. But you soon put those days behind you."
"I grew as a person, mum, and changed for the better."
"What a pity", she said, "that the world didn't".
If greed is so good, why can't I afford some?
I was studying the Business Review Weekly this week to see if I got a mention: Ramray, Rathbone, Reid, Richter, Roberts, Roche, Roth, Rydge — but no Riley in the journal's list of Australia's 200 richest. None of my relatives nor kin by default — the Reillys, Rilleys or O'Rielleys — got in either. In fact, I don't think I am related to any of the 775,000 people in this country who earn more than $100,000 per year (and if I perchance were, I am sure to be the black sheep of their family). Mum never mentioned anything about an extraordinarily rich uncle.
I guess that we Rileys (Reillys, Rilleys or O'Rielleys) don't have a head for business. Take my mater for instance. She's 72, widowed and living alone — and I'm still sending her cash so that she can keep afloat financially. I keep telling her that you can do a lot with mince, but does she listen?
My guess is that it's in the genes. I never got ahead either. (With such a spendthrift for a mother, is it any wonder?) In fact, if I want to entertain the notion of joining the richest 200 list, I had better get cracking. The super rich are doing well — so well that to qualify for their club I'd have to earn more than $500,000 per year and do it for the next 100 years to get together the $50 million deposit I'd need to enter their ranks.
Do you have any suggestions as to how I could do it? I simply have no idea. My guess is that I'll have to resign myself to being a shitkicker for the rest of my life.
When you look at the figures, it is hard to believe that they'd miss a few hundred thousand if perchance such largesse were to suddenly come my way. Tallied up, the net private sector wealth in this country comes to $1753 billion. Of this Kerry Packer owns $3.3 billion and Richard Pratt (he of Westfield shopping towns) owns $1.5 billion — and so we go (way) down the list until we get to me and you.
How long this list is and how far it goes down was recently suggested by the National Centre for Social and Economic Modelling at the University of Canberra. By their figures, 1.7 million Australians scrape by in poverty. Another 700,000 live in only slightly better conditions so that the proportion of Australians living in or near poverty runs at approximately 17%.
While 4.4% of the population are pulling in more than $100,000 a year (thank you very much) a good proportion of the rest of us are surviving on less than a quarter of that.
And I, dear reader, have spent my life among them. I'm not proud. I admit my poverty. But I can't help feeling a touch resentful. Kerry Packer earns in one minute what I take a week to pull in. And as for my young friends working their butts off for $6 an hour: it all seems a bit unfair, don't you think?
In such circumstances, I begrudge Packer his billions. I do. How is it that he's in the money and I'm not? What did he do to earn it? And tell me: why doesn't he stop now that he's so far ahead? If greed is so good, why can't I afford to be greedy too? Unfortunately, I think I've missed my chance. Maybe it was the wrong sperm — my Dad was all right for a father, but he wasn't a Packer. Maybe I should have studied harder, saved more, worked more overtime, stayed off the grog and given up fags earlier. Maybe it just simply wasn't meant to be. Maybe for the likes of me, life wasn't meant to be greedy.
Tummy trouble
A lot of letters we receive are from people with tummy trouble. Nevertheless, they don't want to forgo the delights of consuming a range of different foodstuffs. Can we help them, they ask?
Of course. Let nobody go without because what they like may not like them. No one wants to finish a plate of oysters, or a medley of their favourite sliced smallgoods, only to have to go rushing to the bathroom for most of the next 24 hours.
When out and about, must you always keep a weather eye out for the public convenience? Why be a victim? Why be forced to shun what you enjoy? If this is the sort of person you have become, you must avail yourself of this new service. Otherwise, salmonella's going to get you.
I am referring of course to LORES — the Life of Riley Enjoyment Service.
Here's how it happened. The Commonwealth government has had on its hands for some time a horde of long-term unemployed youth keen to find any work. Many of these young people have now been carefully trained to operate this professional community service.
Previous work for the dole schemes simply did not work. There was nothing in them for the conscripted youth — no little bit extra to make their effort worthwhile.
LORES is different. We offer young people not brutish toil but a tasty square meal, compliments of the federal government's new self-help approach to the unemployed.
Each LORES corp is funded with a regular daily allowance to spend on eating out. Restaurants, delicatessens and takeaways are visited and their menus sampled. The unemployed are fed (often very well indeed). The food purveyor gains much needed custom (thereby keeping workers in jobs).
Thereafter the service comes into its own. If the bowels of any of our corp members protest we check the intestine to isolate the offending foodstuff.
With no regular job to go to, a day here or there spent throwing up or housebound by diarrhoea matters little to these youngsters. It merely breaks the monotony associated with long-term unemployment.
They also obtain recognition as worthwhile members of society because every tummy upset monitored by the Life of Riley Enjoyment Service is utilised for the common good. So when anyone rings us up on our special 0055 number we can tell them what's safe to eat that week and where they can get it.
There's no fuss and no panic (we are ever so discreet). Just tell us the menu you're planning on and we'll check it for bugs. Gone is the hysteria of the past. Unfortunate isolated cases of contamination will always occur. But why should a whole sector of the food industry suffer because some individual forgot to wash their hands or dropped the mettwurst in the dirt?
You never know where it's been, do you? It is better to be sure than sorry. So give LORES a call next time you plan to eat out ... and help a jobless kid at the same time.
Coming Out
I admit to it. It was some time ago when I first realised that despite the pressure of my friends and family it was time for me to come to some resolution, if only at first for my own peace of mind. Once I had got that right in my head, all the rest seemed to follow. I knew straightaway what I wanted to be by recognising what I had become -- perhaps slowly at first and then with greater clarity.
But that was the easy part because you can never be one just by yourself. Saying you are in itself won't change things at all. You have to do it. You have to act it out publicly; otherwise you let yourself down and the expectations you have of yourself. Simply changing your label isn't enough.
So it's more than coming out. You can't do it alone and certainly not in private.
And after all these years I am still a practising Socialist. Outwardly I look the same, but when I'm on a roll I'm at it hammer and sickle.
It's true that we tend to be shunned in polite society. I admit that. There are some that pretend we aren't there, that we somehow don't exist just so that their sleep won't be disturbed. Ours, unfortunately, is the politics that is not supposed to speak its name.
My parents initially thought it was just a phase I was going through. “Don't worry, Alice”, my father would tell my mother, “he'll grow out of it. He'll meet a nice girl and settle down.” But I never did grow out of it. Once I got used to it, it became addictive and seemed to fit me like a glove. I couldn't get enough of it. All my social frustrations and desires could be channeled into this ready-made outlet I grew to love.
Despite the phobia you may share about us, maybe sometimes you have wondered: what does Dave Riley do with the nice folk he marches with? I'm sure it has crossed your mind on occasion.
In reply, I can say that some of my best friends are Socialists, and I've always found them to be a great bunch of people. We have our moments of high passion each time a festival of the oppressed comes our way and we really get to come into our own. Other times it's simply a case of keeping your finger on the social pulse. We are, you see, as much social as socialist and will always respond if we think we can lend a hand. When passions are inflamed, we Socialists can be very empathetic.
To you this must seem like a very serious business. Partying the way we do it -- so energetically and with such relentlessness -- may seem no way to party at all. But that's the way we like it. When you come out like we do(and come on so strong too) you don't want grass to grow under your feet.
I am often asked if I was born this way. Much as you may think I am different, unusual or queer, I am basically just like anyone else. The world made me what I am today, and it is the world that stops me wanting to change. I'd rather change it than me. That's what I get off on, if you really want to know.
Despite your impressions, Socialiism lasts longer than sex.
Us
The new industrial trinity
Did you know that there are three major changes contained in these new industrial proposals? Did ya know that?
— I estimated that maybe a cardinal figure of such numerate proportions was involved.
There's three, see — one, two, three — 'tis an industrial trinity. Cause they gotta come together to work their magic.
— They surely do.
It's spiritual. Very spiritual.
— Wow. I mean, wow!
The first is one single unitary national industrial relations system!
— No more flow-ons?
That's so right. There'll be you, see — and there'll be them. In mutual agreement — battlers and bosses. It'll be consensual. All together under the southern cross. One big conjugation.
— All for one, one for all. One big union.
No. Not a union.
— Oh.
But there's more. I said there were three, didn't I? That's only number one. As well as offering one single unitary industrial relations system! you'll also receive ... as part of the same industrial package ... an on-the-job, do-it-yourself, user-friendly, flexible wages and conditions interface tailored to your individual needs.
— I don't quite follow you there...
Well, it will be so simple that even you can do it. It will be so simple you'll want to do it. It will be so simple that even a child could do it — assuming we were employing them (but hey, its still early days).
— Do what?
Negotiate your very own boutique award.
— My own what?
Award ... well, "contract", but we won't be calling it that.
Boutique award, has a nice ring to it, don't you think? Very evocative. But hey! What could be simpler! No smoke and mirrors. You yourself get to lay your cards on the table and talk turkey.
— What, with the boss?
With the very same — up close and personal.
— Wow.
You'll be somebody. You'll be your own man ... or lady ... whatever the case may be.
— My own man, you say?
The very same. Interfacing. "Doing lunch", eh? Chewing the fat ...
— Across the table.
Partners under the Southern Cross ...
— You did say it was spiritual.
Oh, my, yes. You have to believe. The true measure of the worth of any industrial relations system is its contribution to the economic strength of the nation and that is why we need to believe this new system will deliver more jobs and higher wages.
— It will, will it?
Of course it will! Why do you think we bother with this stuff?
— Oh.
You have to look at the big picture.
— But how do these changes deliver more jobs and higher wages?
They just do. You need to believe. Trust me.
— Right. Sorry. I forgot.
And the third and final change is to better balance the unfair dismissal laws.
— How's that done?
We make them fairer and less unjust.
— By making dismissal more just?
Exactly. Now you're getting the hang of it.
The new IR bill: it's about choices
You don't mean, do you Minister, that under these proposed IR changes that an unemployed person will need to accept any job regardless of the conditions offered?
— Well, yes. He has no choice. If he doesn't take the job no matter what the conditions he loses his benefit. We don't make any excuses for this.
No-one is asking you to make excuses.
— Well they won't get any —
But we would like some clarification.
— You got it.
Yes. I suppose we did. But ... correct me if I'm wrong ... but wouldn't that mean, in the long run, wages and conditions would tend to deteriorate?
— Ah. But you miss the key point: they'll be working. We believe that the best form of welfare that a person can have is to have a job and remembering this: when a person gets a job it is the best way of getting another job.
But what sort of job would that be?
— A paying job. What other kinds are there?
But how much pay and under what employment conditions?
— That's up for discussion between the parties concerned. You know, across the table.
But you just said, Minister, that if the unemployed person "doesn't take the job no matter what the conditions", he loses his benefit.
— So?
Well, how can that be a matter for discussion?
— It just is. I'm sure they'll discuss it. I'm not a fly on the wall, you know.
But surely the result is forgone, isn't it, as the person on the dole has to accept the job no matter what?
— No matter what what?
They'll lose their benefit won't they if they say no?
— I don't quite follow you. They can still choose not to take the job.
And lose their benefit —
— Or take the job. That's choice. That's free enterprise.
But what sort of choice is that?
— Remember, if they don't like that particular job, they can go looking for another. That's what we're doing — creating jobs. They'll be tons of jobs out there once this bill gets up.
Paying and offering less.
— I don't know that, do I? I'm not a fly on the wall.
But it stands to reason.
— What's that got to do with it? This is all about choices. The bloody thing's called "WorkChoices" for Chissake!
But the unemployed person won't have any.
— Then they shouldn't have been so unemployed in the first place.
[Inspiration: ABC TV — The Insiders interview with BarryCassidie. See here.]
Makes you think
Word has it that sole parents and the disabled could be required to make themselves more employable or forfeit their full payment under the federal government's next round of mutual obligation initiatives. We are supposed to be searching for a system of welfare that enables recipients.
Makes you think, doesn't it? Mutual obligation as a core principle of civil society is not something to be sneezed at. No siree. In this day and age we should not be asking what the country can do for us, but what we can do for the country.
Girted by globalised sea and all that, we are all mutually obligated in some way or another, hither and yon. It's not right to be married to the state. What sort of career choice is that?
There's thousands of single mums and once-upon-a-time blue-collar types with dependent kids or bad backs out there who should be enabled ASAP. That's the sort of empowerment that builds self-esteem and breaks the vicious circle of dependency.
Look at your everyday Aboriginal-type person — hacking out a career path from skin colour and a squashed nose! Really that's not on. It only breeds downward envy.
While the rest of us are putting in our requisite eight hours at the coalface, some lucky bastard finds a GP willing to say they've got a bad back — or they're black or pregnant. After you've been retrenched as a result of restructuring, it's easy to be channelled into disability welfare. When you have been working most of your life, you pick up some ailments which you can trade on.
Why pursue a relentless lifestyle of work and poverty when you can stay at home for the same return?
Makes you think, doesn't it? Indeed it does!
But there's a hitch. How do you convert your standard unwed mum or your average disabled toilet user into a card-carrying proletarian when the jobs aren't there?
a) Marry them off; let them be someone else's responsibility. b) Create more jobs. c) Take away their benefits.
Makes you think, doesn't it?
After the Port Arthur Massacre:Picnicking in peace
Situated, as I am, in a somewhat northerly aspect of this landscape, a few kilometres south of the Tropic of Capricorn and in cooee of a cane toad or two, I leave myself open to being addressed at all-too-frequent intervals by the Brisbane Courier Mail. Despite the huge continental bulk and stretch of cold southern chill that separates the Mail's readers from the Port Arthur peninsula, we too are guilty of causing the recent tragedy — or so says the Courier Mail.
Such collective responsibility which knows no state borders, jumps fences and swims ashore unaided, has proceeded north to meet the toads on their southern trek and now, as I write, disturbs my reverie. Indeed, so says the Courier Mail, the singular cause of violence in this society are our freedoms — there are too many of them. Not only do we have the freedom to own guns (thereby availing ourselves far too readily of the freedom to shoot people) but we also possess the right to free speech "even when it mutates into the abuse of teachers, police, and other one-time guardians of society".
Perhaps now you are feeling a little sheepish. And so you should! Who would have thought that behind your indulgence in seeing, doing and acting as you pleased you harboured the possibility, if the whim should suddenly possess you, to take out Sunday picnickers with a rapid burst of small arms fire.
Being sorry won't help. How do we know we can trust you? For all we know, maybe all you want out of life is some firing practice and an excuse to say "Hasta la vista, baby!".
In fact, our problem, or so the Courier Mail informs us, is one of cowardice "where in an ill-disciplined, in-your-face world there are too few in authority prepared to say no (and too many who would not heed them if they did)". As for the rest of us, we are just too damned selfish to break the code of "correctness" and hand over our cherished freedoms for the greater good. In this give-me world, says the Courier Mail "there are so many good people in it that it is just too accommodating".
Challenging us with these thoughts is the newspaper's managing editor Terry Quinn. One would assume that Quinn's piece in the May 3 Courier Mail visited the page uncensored. Herein we have it neat, and herein the Port Arthur massacre becomes an excuse — and Terry Quinn an unapologetic opportunist.
The fickle finger of blame has now been pointed at you and me. A simple alibi for the day in question won't do. We stand accused of a heinous crime — of crying out for "more money, more leisure time, more space, more respect, more independence, more privacy, more services, more support, more freedom. More equality. More freedom. Now", pronounces Quinn. "There's a killer and there's an irony."
I hope you are listening here. Don't go nodding off between paragraphs because you lot are perhaps the main culprits. Rabidly one-eyed, maybe you have failed to recognise irony when it sits up and barks at you. Rat-a-tat-tat, bang bang, you freedom junkies are blind to the consequences of your actions.
Since it is unlikely that you or I will choose to mend our ways the Courier Mail will, no doubt, be keen to fight on without us. My guess is that support will be forthcoming from all those one-time guardians of civil society who have, until this tragic event shook them from their timidity, been suffering from cowardice. Cowardly cops will be a thing of the past. Magistrates and legislators, instead of pandering to the freedom lobby, will once again boldly proclaim what's right and what's wrong. The press will cheer louder than at any time before. And if we keep our noses clean, the rest of us will live happily ever after, safe in the knowledge that in future we can picnic in peace.
It has come!
BLAAAAH!
This verbal explosion occurred just as I was about to take in my day's surfeit of news. I was the speaker of that BLAAAAH, and my utterance was noted by many of those around me. These same people quickly turned themselves to physically note my existence: "What's he on about?", they said in quiet formation.
But I, once I had shot the BLAAAAH blast forth, continued to stare at the morning daily before me. I did not open my mouth for any purpose of articulation but thought deep in my bosom that a double BLAAAAH now seemed appropriate.
Before me the news loomed large: class conflict was visiting our shores. I thought the business of class, or business class, was simply a question of the very best way to fly when someone else is paying. But this other matter, which was supposed to be passé, was back, and it was mean and nasty, naked and — God forbid! — struggling.
The class struggle is back! Shut your windows. Lock all the doors. It has come. It has come! Why, oh why, could they not leave well enough alone? Remember the good old days. Remember? A bloke could lose his job and still go quietly. No fuss. No mucking about. We were getting on with one another like a house on fire. Remember the easy dialogue. The problems shared. The ready input from the shop floor.
Remember? Partners with management, all in it together struggling to improve on the return for last year's quarter. That's how it was. Strength in unity. Big Aussie battlers and little Aussie battlers all doing their damnedest to make a go of it.
It breaks my heart just to think of it. Now we're at each other's throats like there was no yesterday. So I read about the wharfies, about the picket lines, and what Patrick and Howard have to say; and dream about the good old days when we all learnt to take it lying down. As the ship of consensus pulls away from the quay and passes the docks wherein this struggle is partaken, I and Kim Beazley raise our voices in sweet song: "Will ye not come back again?".
Christmas Classifieds
Apology: The illustration of the Panasonic Cordless Phone (Model KX-T4026AL) on page 16 of the Optus World Christmas catalogue currently being distributed shows the incorrect handset for the advertised model. The correct handset does not have an intercom button. Optus apologises for any inconvenience this may have caused.
Listings of public institutions for sale or tender which were advertised in previous ALP Christmas catalogues are no longer available. The items listed have all been sold. The Australian Labor Party apologises that it can no longer fulfil outstanding orders.
Dooley, Hubert — late of the Woorabinda Aboriginal community — passed away. Husband of Dulcie, esteemed elder. Relatives and friends are respectfully invited to attend his service on Tuesday, December 3, 1996. GONE BUT NOT FORGOTTEN.
Warrants Outstanding. Notice is hereby given that the Queensland police force intends to serve 388 outstanding warrants on members of the Woorabinda Aboriginal Community for offences recorded as drunk and disorderly, failure to pay traffic fines or to appear in court. SADLY MISSED BUT NOT AGAIN — Members of the Rockhampton Police Station are hereby requested to form cortege leaving station, 8am.
For Sale — Telstra. "I bring you tidings of great joy." Australia's largest listed company. Conservatively valued at $8 billion, this 33.3% holding is floating your way. O BRAVE NEW WORLD THAT HAS SUCH ENTERPRISE IN IT! Wealth and Happiness for the year ahead. Much love, John Howard and family.
Apology. On behalf of the Australian Democrats and Greens, we wish to apologise for our disappointing performance during 1996. We can only do our best and next year are sure to do better (just so long as we don't obstruct the business of good government). Cheryl Kernot and Bob Brown. (PS: Peace on earth and good will to all our constituents.)
Thanks. ASK ST CLARE for 3 favours: 1 for business and 2 for the impossible; say 9 Hail Marys for 9 days with a lighted candle, pray believing it is so. Publish on 8th day, your request will be granted. Thank you for prayers answered. — John Howard.
Harradine and Colston, Senators and Certified Practising Independents, do hereby make the following declaration: It seemed like a good idea at the time.
Give-away Christmas Promotion. The Australian Federal Parliament (Promoter) wishes to announce the winner for its 1996 "Who Dares Wins" competition. This year's winner — by a very large margin — is, once again, Australian capital. Congratulations. The cheque is in the mail.
Karl Marx. Would Mr Karl Marx, formerly of Britain, Germany and France and last seen in a casket in Highgate Hill, London, England, during the year of 1883 please contact Mr. D.J. Riley c/o the Sunshine Post Office (via Virginia) because his presence is urgently needed. Message reads: COME BACK KARL! WE STILL HAVE A WORLD TO WIN!
The swagman cometh
Maybe you are fed up with the city and its teeming peoples. Their ways and means, as getting and lending and spending, lay waste your inner world and are too much for you. The car is noisy and toxic, while the train is always crowded.
So what do you do? You go bush and waltz your matilda all over, no collar or stockings to cramp your style. As you tramp the land, the scent of eucalyptus and dung fill the air and the rhythm of an old work enters your soul. Camped by a billabong under the shade of a spreading coolabah tree, you sing as you wait for your billy to boil, "Who'll come a-waltzing Matilda with me?"
While your thoughts are focused on a mug of steaming chamomile tea, a jumbuck comes down to drink at the billabong. You ask yourself: do I fit the legend? Having eaten nothing but two Weet-Bix at breakfast, a lamb roast would go down just fine.
At this moment the ethics of the deed being previewed are worth meditating on. For a vegetarian, there would be no qualms of conscience. The jolly jumbuck has as much right to its sheepish joy as you have to yours. Anything else would be anathema. So if you were so inclined, that jumbuck would stay out of your tuckerbag (and you could quietly starve).
But low on cash and without a McDonald's in cooee, maybe you could go something a little more filling than a Mars bar and half a packet of crisps — your tuckerbag's current contents. With lamb selling at $1.99 a kilogram, who would miss one little baa baa? Sheep demography being what it is, there are sure to be millions more where this one came from.
Besides, for one hundred years it's been kosher for the homeless to live off mutton and tea. Ask any Anzac what they fought for. Many a digger went into battle with a rifle at the shoulder and Waltzing Matilda on their lips. The right of tramps to carry off jumbucks has been written in blood by the nation. In Australia there is such a thing as a free lunch.
But such joy is short lived. While the belly comes first (one) and morality trails close behind (two), private property and state troopers soon (three) follow: "Whose that jolly jumbuck you've got in your tuckerbag?"
"Whose!" they ask. Whose jolly jumbuck!
Now we are getting down to tin tacks. There's no joy in having morsels taken from your lips by a show of force, for behind each jolly jumbuck musters a body of armed men.
So what? You may ask. My point is this: never let the bastards bluff you. Don't just lie there and take it. Not for you this business of springing unaided into billabongs. Drowned swaggies "living" the legend can be a dime a dozen.
It's a wonderful life
Introducing, the one and only mother of us all — perpetually purveying provisions. The lady who gave us life itself — your mum and mine ... yes, it's Gaia!
Let's give the old girl a round of applause. Where would life on earth be without her? Three and one half billion years old and she doesn't look a day over forty. She still has all her own teeth too.
So how's the ankle biters, great earth mother of us all? Up to their tricks as usual I suppose? I heard you lost a few of them over the years — species come, species go. But you keep pumping them out, don't you?
I've been meaning to talk to you about that. A single mum like yourself trying to make it in the world. No hint of a man around and you veer from one virgin birth to another. I tell you it makes us wonder: are you cohabiting with god?
Not that there is anything wrong with it, mind you. What two consenting deities get up to in private is their own business. But hey! You should get out and about now and then. Slap on a number and do the town. Part of the planet went urban a few years back.
Go clubbing. We'll fix you up with something off the rack by Maggie T — an off-the-shoulder peasant dress with a full skirt down to the ankles. (And maybe a few flowers in your hair for effect.) It's you! With your full figure and those engorged paps you make us mammals proud. I told the rest of the vertebrates you were one of us. Hey, you lot! Come check it out and meet the matriarch. Mammalia rules, OK!
There's been big changes on terra firma since you took up earth mothering. While you've been on maternity leave we've invented pottery, weaving, writing, heaps of other stuff and the World Cup Final. You wouldn't know the old place.
Sibling rivalry is still a problem, however. Every few years they're at each other over some niche or another. But as they say: kids are the same the whole world over. What one's got, the other wants it too.
But what am I doing? You know all this. Here I am prattling on. You don't need a live-bearer like myself trying to teach you to suck eggs. You must think I'm awfully rude.
To tell you the truth, I'm always like this when I'm nervous. I don't want to be a panic merchant but word has it that life on earth is already half over. That's real...ly freaky! Where did it go?
I don't think you realise how angry that makes us feel. We've finally reached our stride after all these years, and secured a little comfort for ourselves, when we learn that fully 99.999% of all species that have ever existed are already extinct. What sort of mother does that make you? You give life then abandon it!
I always thought that "mortal" was just another figure of speech. I didn't realise it meant that we too were in line for the big jump one day. It comes as a bit of a shock.
But if you won't look after us, we'll have to club together and do it ourselves. Maybe we'll be able to postpone our own extinction by a few hundred thousand years. It's worth the effort. This one is the only one we've got, and despite some aspects, it's a wonderful life.
Follow the flame
I too have had an episode with the Olympic torch. Like so many of my land-based colleagues I have stood and watched the carbon based life form pass into view. That it very soon passed out of eyeshot is perhaps neither here nor there. At least I can say I've seen it.
All things being equal I should hereon be able to tell the tale of the day I stood outside the offices of D.W. Grout Plumber and Drainer and saw with my very own eyes the Olympic flame.
I need to tell you all that it looked like any other flame. While I only caught a glimpse, the luminescence reminded me of the left back gas jet on my own kitchen combustible. Mind you, if my own flame were to up and leave for an all expenses paid sojourn around Australia I would be most put out. I like to think that at my domicile the home fires keep burning ... at home.
I guess that if the Olympic flame were to drop in some time I'd be the first to snap up the opportunity to toast a couple of crumpets or boil the billy. In this day and age of economic rationalism, even a passing torch needs to pay its own way. Methane doesn't grow on trees you know! If I were to take the family sedan along the same route this little spark has travelled, at the current price per litre I'd very soon go bankrupt.
When money's tight you gotta ask these questions. At the end of the day someone has to pay the gas bill.
I also think that the route the flame followed, crisscrossing the nation, perhaps didn't reflect the ethos we try so hard to project. Opportunities went begging while the whole world was watching.
For instance, why didn't the torch go via the migrant detention centres such as Port Hedland or Woomera? That would have put the wind up 'em.
We missed a golden opportunity to make a point about how one should go about coming to Australia if one had a mind to relocate here. A few wogs ferrying the flame up and down the exercise yard at Woomera would have been just the thing to go out on CNN.
The trouble is that they're not using their loaf in Canberra. Where's the imagination? The panache? It's about time we put this burning thing to work.
Rather than being shepherded hither and yon we could have got it to defrost a chicken or burned off the undergrowth it preparation for the summer bushfire season. Like the unemployed, it needs to do something worthwhile — earn its keep. It even gets a prime seat at the Olympic Games but doesn't pay a thing!
That's not what Australia is about! Not nowadays.
I tell you, the torch isn't all it's cracked up to be. Trust me. I've seen it.
The Little Aussie Battler (reg'd trademark)
There is a funny idea abroad (by which I mean, of course, in this dry brown land in which we dwell) that there exists a minor figure of such truthful grit that every attribute of ordinariness is congealed within their being.
This entity, I am led to believe, is now thought to be putting aside a characteristic reticence and a mug of tea, throwing the Akubra into the ring and stepping flat-footed into the political arena. Their mission? To wake up Australia.
As soon as I heard that such a quintessential creature was out and about, I went to great pains to locate it.
My search was not an easy one. Bona fide "Australians" — folk claiming to be as ordinary as you and I — seem to inhabit this island continent in demographic proportions. And all of them seem to be under the distinct impression that they're no more or less ordinary than the next person.
I visited Summer Bay and Ramsay Street, and toured many a dormitory suburb in my quest — all to no avail. Until last week. Just before sunset, at a location I am not at liberty to divulge, I came across a little Aussie battler heading homewards.
You can imagine my excitement! To think I had discovered the real McCoy! (Although, as it turned out, the little Aussie battler's surname was Papadopoulos.) As a strict conservationist, I was obliged to ensure that the little Aussie battler remained in a pristine state, and that my presence did not disrupt its environmental integrity in any way.
Maybe passion got the better of me. Perhaps ambition thwarted my best intentions. But in that moment of first contact, I could think only that I wanted to share my discovery with the world. So I signed on as the little Aussie battler's press agent.
Harry M. Miller has his stable of celebrities, Channel 9 may have Ray Martin under contract, but I've got the little Aussie battler.
Now, if anyone wants to know how the little Aussie battler is hurting, if anyone wants to know what the little Aussie battler is thinking or fearing, or what the little Aussie battler's likes and dislikes are — they'll have to come to me first.
We need not go on assuming that we know what the little Aussie battler wants. Now, we can ask questions. Now, we can get straight answers. Now, thanks to me, no-one, be they politician or sociologist, need lose touch with the grassroots. Now, with my little Aussie battler as close as a phone call away, the vagaries of everyday existence can be easily monitored.
In the weeks ahead I hope to recount some of the sayings, comments, anecdotes and complaints that the little Aussie battler has kindly shared with me. Since our first meeting, a real bond has grown between us, and I'd hate to think that my little Aussie battler could be exploited in any way.
In order to protect this national treasure, the generic term — "little Aussie battler" — has been officially registered. Henceforth, no one can claim to speak for the little aussie battler without Little Aussie Battler™ authority.
As for political ambitions, the Little Aussie Battler™ informs me that, for the moment, all options are being considered.
How to be true blue
When last we met I was a little excited.
I'm sorry if I seemed a bit over the top, but you're sure to understand why I was gushing. It's not every day that someone gets his own Little Aussie Battler™; to have and to hold, as it were.
I just feel so much on top of, well, everything really. Suddenly, for the first time in my life, I feel as one with my surrounds. There's a centring within me. And it's all due to the Little Aussie Battler™.
I have sat "at the feet" — as it were — of the Little Aussie Battler™ at every opportunity in order to hang on his lips. (I mean that metaphorically, of course. The strong feelings I bear for the Little Aussie Battler™ are pure, almost sacred ones, devoid of carnality.)
What wisdom! What depth of insight! What luck!
After hearing much these last years about the Little Aussie Battler™ and then to be granted many intimacies by this personage has changed my life.
It was only the other day, during an audience with him, that I dared ask: "Master, how can I become like you?"
The Little Aussie Battler™ thought for a time and said: "Be little, my son".
"But master", I said, "aren't I meek enough now?"
"No, budgie-bum. You must shrink another four inches."
Then I asked him: "If I become small, can I then be like you?"
"No, my son. First you must do battle."
"But I do battle. Oh master, I struggle so hard every day of my life. Why can't I be like you?"
The Little Aussie Battler™ didn't answer me at first. He just stared out the window in the way he does when lost in thought. After a time he drained his beverage (I think it was Tooheys) and stared straight at me.
"To be a true blue Little Aussie Battler™, it isn't enough to struggle or to simply shrink in size. No. It takes much more. To be a Little Aussie Battler™, you gotta hate women and poofs. You gotta wanna send the wogs back where they came from. To be a true blue, dinky-di Little Aussie Battler™, you gotta be what they want you to be — conservative, small-minded, self-centred and jingo ... jingo ... eh ..."
"Jingoistic."
"Yeah. That. That's what makes a really great Little Aussie Battler™. And by god, you gotta love this country. All the sheep shit and blowies. You gotta love all the crap because, good or bad, you're proud because you think it's your own."
"But I'm none of those things."
Then the Little Aussie Battler™ smiled at me and said: "That's why I'm the Little Aussie Battler™ and you're not."
The chickens are coming home
Today I want to talk about the family. Your family, my family, little Johnny's family down the road — and, in a roundabout way, the family of man.
The family: what would we do without it? Who feeds or clothes us, teaches us right from wrong or kick-starts us in this hard world? Who wipes the tear from our sorrowful eye or makes sure we don't leave the house without clean underwear? Who makes us right? Who cheers us on? Who supplies the nappies? Why, it's the family. Day in, day out, it's always there to pick up the toys or the bill.
Without the family, what would granny do when she goes gaga? Without the family, there would be no-one to blame for our childhood. Without the family, everyone would have to buy their own television set and bottle of shampoo. Without the family, we'd be alone in the world.
For, you see, the family is all about sharing the load. The family distributes the burden of living and the largesse of life. You won't find a more benevolent institution.
Imagine! Without it, we'd all have to be cradle-to-grave communists just to get by.
I wanted to offer these observations about family life because the primary level of family life — Level I: mutual financial dependence, situational neurosis and cohabitation — is going to be extended by another three years.
Where once the family could divest itself of many of its responsibilities to its offspring at age 16, this has now been extended from the later marker of 18 to age 21. This basically means that without gainful employment or study, junior family members get to stay on within the conflict and custom they've been used to for another few years.
For this affirmation of the traditional family values of sacrifice and sufferance, we need to thank John Howard. Indeed, Mr Howard and his government seem to be demanding a lot of the family lately.
Given this, one wonders how benevolent one institution can afford to be. If I was an out of work 19-year-old (which I'm not, I am delighted to say) and I knocked on the door of the local business enterprise asking for a job in order to feed and clothe myself, they'd laugh at me. Similarly, if I then visited the local church — an institution which, like John Howard, is another stalwart of the family — and asked for room and board for the next few years, they'd tell me to say three Hail Maries and go home to mum and dad.
Because, when it comes down to the line, the family takes up the slack and simply has no choice in the matter.
If you were planning on letting junior's room or moving gran in there so she doesn't wander off again, you're in for a sudden surprise: like it or not, the chickens have come back home to roost, and it was your mistake starting a family in the first place.
PC or no PC, that is the question
It may be thought, and often said, that your run-of-the-mill leftie is very hard to amuse. They look for overtones, undertones, sub-tones, grunts and "philosophy"; they assume that in everything something severe must always be afoot.
This can be disquieting for a writer who is only, for the moment, clowning.
Truly the "left" is want to take itself seriously, indeed. When you wake each morning relentlessly caught between the twin poles of socialism or barbarism it's a touch difficult to crack a smile.
Take the Communist Manifesto, for instance — there's not a jolly word in it. I ask you: where's the fun in being sentenced to centuries of class struggle? It is such notions that are sure to put a damper on your day.
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