Saturday 10 December, 2005

God Save the Queen

It was reported in The Age today that the Australian Embassy in Jakarta has withdrawn funding from the Indonesian film festival on the grounds that some films are critical of the Indonesian and Australian governments. You know, films like The President versus David Hicks which is, if my memory serves me correctly, mainly critical of the American government. Perhaps they consider the American and Australian government the same thing? It is hard to think of any world in which a film that is a personal portrait of one many, Terry Hicks, searching for his son could be seen as an extreme political film. Oh, except our world that is. The world where it is okay to shoot people on a plane while their wife is yelling 'Don't shoot, he hasn't taken his meds' and a world in which students don't have to pay for services they don't want which means, bingo! no fucking services at all.

I suspect that the last time so much life altering legislation was rushed through parliament so quickly was in the Whitlam era. Oh, for a Governor General who will come along and save our arses (and human rights, and workers rights, and the rights of refugees) by sacking Howard. Now that would be enough reason to vote against a republic.

Permanent Link for this Article