Voting Day 2013

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Today Australia decides who gets the next turn at stuffing up, sorry I mean, running this great nation into which I was born.

Mixed emotions is one way of describing how I feel about it. Bloody scared and fed up with lies and not knowing what to believe another.

There was a time when I was all over politics. And by that I mean I studied it in my final year of highschool and then in my first few years of university. In fact, just between you and me there was even a time when I briefly desired to be a world leader.

Then I realised how few people liked world leaders and thought a stay at home mum was a much better option. Everyone loves them. Well at least their kids generally do.

Actually that is not quite what happened, I got sick of studying and decided to just go and get a job. Why did I get sick of studying you may ask? Well because not too long after I started my arts degree the political powers that be of the time, started to cut funding to almost every subject I was interested in.

Image found here

Anyways back to today's election because as much as I may wish it weren't going to occur, it is. There is no way round it. My heart goes into palpitations just thinking about it.

Dramatic and quick change are not exactly something I am comfortable with and according to the latest newspaper poll in the know, that is exactly where this election is heading.

Excuse my while my stomach does a few flips and I regain my composure.

The thought of Abbot leading our nation really does turn my stomach. Aside from him playing for the wrong team (as far as I am concerned anyway) I just don't like the picture of himself that he portrays.

(I did want to say I don't like him but I don't personally know him so I guess I am not really in a position to say I don't like him. And while I am splitting my own hairs perhaps I would be better saying the picture the media portrays of him is what I don't like but surely he has some input into his media image?)

As far as I am concerned Tony Abbot and the Liberal party will bring nothing but doom. He is a short sighted homophobic misogynist that has no consideration for anyone outside his social class. Since I am most certainly not in his social class and not likely to get much consideration it is not likely that I will do anything to aid him becoming the Prime Minister.

Which is a shame because his representative for where I live is a great candidate. A woman even. Though given the redneck goose she was up against in the 2010 election it is not exactly surprising. It was disappointing to see that Labor failed to provide a more challenging opponent this time round as well. Instead giving the constituents another blokey bloke who I doubt has the brain capacity to adequately represent the view points of anything other than what the party demands.

The infuriating rage that the local Labor candidate elicits from me is of a somewhat intense nature. The mere mention of his name has the ability to send me into a frenzy of fury. Likened only to way I feel about Tony Abbott (and the Liberal party as a whole for that matter) I struggle to understand how there has not been a mix up?

To make my voting woes even worse the Labor candidate for the Senate was deemed a "Captains Pick" as she was chosen to stand for the seat over a long term and dedicated incumbent who had not announced her desire to not stand.

It is so hard to align my vote with my heart. How about you?

Rewinding on the weekend with Maxabella

Klaus, this one's for you. Let's petition Jetstar

Sometime in early March I received an email from change.org regarding a petition against something to

do with credit card charges and Jetstar. I skimmed over it and pressed delete without giving it a second thought. After all I had a conference to get ready for and I while I was flying it was not with Jetstar.

Despite living in a capital city that is in the middle of no where, flying is not something we do very often. With five of us it is just to dang expensive. Last year when we were invited to Cairns for my sister's wedding it worked out more economical to road trip than fly. Which is just ridiculous. It was a round trip in the vicinity of 6000km.

So when I do fly I like to do so in style. And by style I mean an air carrier that provides me with food and drink without any exorbitant extra charges. Which kind of only leaves me with one option. Thankfully, for the most part if there is only one person flying and if you time it well and in advance, you can generally pick up a reasonably priced ticket. As such I rarely pay much attention to any of the airline kerfuffles that are often in the media. Hence the skim and delete with the whole Jetstar petition email.

Anyways fast forward a week or so to the end of conference dinner. I was fortunate enough to be on a table with many wonderful women. One of whom was Coralie. Next to her was her sponsor for the conference. The founder of 1st Available (which by the way is an awesome idea so make sure you head on over and check it out)

So there we were, all talking about this and that and whatever. Who has had what results in social media and what not (what else would a bunch of bloggers be discussing) when the 1st Available guy, who goes by the name of Klaus, pipes up with, "well my petition on change.org has nearly 35000" or something to that effect.

Naturally he had all our attention.

Turns out that Klaus was referring to the Jetstar petition that I had simply thrown to the trash without a second thought. Meeting the person behind something I so quickly discarded made me feel a tad bad. To make up for my indiscretion I promised to write a post sharing the wrongs of Jetstar's ways.

So what is the petition about?

Well every time you book online with Jetstar and pay by credit card (essentially the only means available) they hit you with a $8.50 surcharge per passenger per flight. So if I wanted to take my little family of five on a return trip, I would be charged $8.50 a total of TEN times. Which for those to lazy to do the maths is an extra $85.

And that my friends is beyond crazy. In fact that is half the price of what I paid for a one way ticket to Sydney.

To add further insult to injury the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) has recently put out a statement saying such charges are just not acceptable and should be dropped.

Let's help Klaus make a stand against Jetstar.

You can find the petition to sign right HERE 

Please sign and then share with your friends.

If you want further anti Jetstar information then check out dontflyjetstar.com

In an effort to get as wide a reach as possible I am joining in with FYBF

Bullies bully the bully?

While I was flogging my blogging With Some Grace the other day I found myself discussing the recent actions of Alan Jones. In many ways I felt that when our local radio station decided to not air their regular hourly segment featuring apparent best of Mr Jones each day that they may have been denying freedom of speech.

Source

As it turns out Australian doesn't have a constitutional right to freedom of speech. It is merely implied or expected. Thanks to my lovely readers Blundermum and Cassandra for sharing this with me. I did mean to look a bit further into it myself however Friday feels like it were only yesterday.

Time, as always, seems to be flying by.

Anyway back to Friday's post. There was so much there that I didn't say that I thought I would add some more. Well that and the fact that this morning Mr Jones went to air without a single ad being played for the duration of his show.

Before I get too far into it all though I just want to clear up a finer detail. On Friday I thought that the comment was made in the privacy of friends. In actual fact it was at dinner function organised by the Liberal Party.

Oh how this discovery made me shake me head.
In the privacy of his home then his behaviour is easier to excuse. The privacy of a Liberal Party dinner, where his fifty minute speech was recorded not so easy.

I know media and politics go hand in hand but seeing the relationship so blatantly intertwined sends shivers down my spine. Especially given the influence this man is seen to have. For as many people that want him taken off the air there are just as many who want him left there.

This morning Jones station, 2GB, put Alan on air without a single sponsor. The only breaks were ones that advertised other 2GB shows. It will be that way for the next two weeks. Not that I listened to any of the show but I have read that during the show and in recent interviews, Alan Jones has claimed that this whole ordeal has been taken over by bullies.

Bullies, particularly those of a social media nature have apparently turned Alan's sponsors against him. They have been left with no option but to pull their support else face public backlash. Which has apparently included some rather serious threats to sponsors.

Yes that's right one of the most influential and well paid radio personalities in the country, who has an opinion on everything and never holds back on sharing said opinion has fallen victim to cyber bullies. Or so he claims.

Given the tenacity, authority and aggression I have at times heard Alan Jones speak with I struggle to see how he can complain about the actions of bullies towards him. Especially when it comes to trying to convince people to change their thoughts and beliefs. Is that not the pot calling the kettle black?



Joining in with

at Diary of a SAHM

Fairy wishes & butterfly kisses

Can you draw a line on freedom of speech?

Generally I am not one to be getting all political. But every now and then something comes along and my mouth, or perhaps fingertips, can not be stopped. The whole incident between Alan Jones and our fearless red head leader of the country, Julia Gillard is one of those times.

In case you by chance are not an avid fan of this shock jock or Australian politics and have missed all the excitement let me bring you up to speed.

Within a social setting loud mouth Jones essentially said that the recently deceased father of our Prime Minister died with shame based on some of her actions at times.

Now before we go to much further there are a few things I need to say. Firstly I cannot stand to listen to Alan Jones. My preferred radio station plays his apparent best of for an hour every week day. I am glad that during that hour I have things other than listening to the radio to do.

On a good day I find Alan Jones to be one eyed, condescending and deeply in love with Tony Abbott. I am too polite to share how I feel about him on a not so good day. That being said I am not sure he deserves to be taken off the air though.

There is no denying that what he said was hurtful, uncalled for and totally out of line. But he did not say it to Gillard's face, in fact he did not even say it on air. He said it in the company of what he thought were friends, who he was probably trying to impress with his stupid dry sense of humour.

Forgive me if I am wrong, but we do live in a free and democratic country don't we? Freedom of speech and being able to say what we think and how we feel is one of the many reasons people go out of their way to come here.

By demanding a radio station cancel a show based on what the host said in private is surely crushing that whole freedom of speech concept isn't it?

The brand sponsorship being pulled however is another matter altogether. If sponsors would rather not be associated with such scandalous, hurtful remarks then more power to them. It is their money,their brand,their decision on who represents them. It is by no means the same as telling him he can no longer speak.

Just to add a further twist to my thoughts, had the radio station decided to sack him I would have fully supported the move. Again their money, their choice and all that. My issue is with the concept of not liking what someone says and therefore wishing to cease the opportunity for them to be heard.

Does freedom of speech have a line that can be crossed?
Are the times when people should be stopped from expressing their point of view?

Joining in with

Let's Get Political...

As a general rule I tend to stay away from political content. There are a few reasons for this. The first being is that politics takes a lot of brain power. Now I know that I am not exactly lacking in that particular department. Quite the contrary. In fact I am well aware of my brain's capacity I just choose not to utilise the majority of it.

Now I don't know why that is, but it is.

Anyway recent events in the political sphere has caused me to think outside my own little box.

Pacific Brands, the creator of iconic Australian labels such as Chesty Bonds, King Gee and Kasyer has decided to sack some 1800 Aussie battlers. These national top sellers are now to be manufactured overseas.

Naturally public outcry has ensued. After all the current economic downturn means need to support local industry is stronger than ever. With those in the know predicting an escalation of unemployment in coming years, possibly even months, one can't help but wonder why Pacific Bonds would want to lead the way.

To add flame to the raging fire that has union members up in arms here are a few interesting side notes that you may or may not already be aware of.

It has been revealed that in the past two years The Australian Federal Government has given Pacific Bonds $14.5 million. Now while on the surface that sounds very nice and is incredibly generous, it must be pointed out that this money was essentially that of the average Australian taxpayer. And nobody ever asked them if they were interested in investing in what has turned out to be not such an Australian Company.

Apparently Pacific Brands has been planning this move for 18 months. Which is only six months after the Government first started handing out fist fulls of cash.

Pacific Brands head honchos earn ridiculously high wages which were recently raised to even crazier levels. It escapes me how you could possibly run a company into the ground, force manufacturing operations overseas and screw over so many people while taking home such a huge slice of the pie.

A large proportion of Pacific Brands Australian workers are migrants and skilled only in the textile industry

I fail to see how brands that are supposed to be representative of the Australian way of life can possibly be made overseas. Chesty Bonds and King Gee are widely seen as representing the different forms the strong Aussie bloke may take. While Kayser has the sexy yet incredible practical and sensible Aussie sheila down to a tea. There is always something to suit everyone.

Now however these great labels will be forever referred to as sell outs. When the going looked like getting tough they got going before it happened. Far cry from being Aussie I say.

So for all those out to buy some knew socks jocks or undies with the soon to be paid second stimulus package... think again... maybe blowing it on the pokies isn't such a bad idea after all, just make sure to have a drink at the same time :)