{"id":8830,"date":"2013-08-23T11:29:07","date_gmt":"2013-08-23T01:29:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nofibs.com.au\/?p=8830"},"modified":"2022-05-02T00:42:09","modified_gmt":"2022-05-01T14:42:09","slug":"lets-excise-western-sydney-so-the-rest-of-us-have-a-say-sarah_capper-column","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.nofibs.com.au\/lets-excise-western-sydney-so-the-rest-of-us-have-a-say-sarah_capper-column\/","title":{"rendered":"Let’s excise western Sydney so the rest of us have a say: @sarah_capper column"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Invasion

Invasion of Western Sydney (Slightly amended from ‘Operation Sovereign Borders’)<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

By\u00a0Sarah Capper<\/a><\/p>\n

23 August 2013<\/p>\n

During a candidates\u2019 debate (a loose term) in the seat of Melbourne recently, an impassioned local resident rose during question time (again, loose term) and implored other local voters to send a message to Canberra \u2013 that voters in Australia\u2019s \u201cmost progressive seat\u201d should reject the major party policies \u201cthat have been tailored to suit the [presumably far less progressive] voters in western Sydney\u201d.<\/p>\n

We\u2019ll take that as a comment. But indeed, western Sydney has been the \u2018battleground\u2019 for many past federal elections. Former prime minister John Howard \u2018wooed<\/a>\u2019 the so-called “battlers” in western Sydney seats and prime ministers have continued to woo them back and forth ever since.<\/p>\n

In this latest campaign (looser term), that is also where Liberal candidate Jaymes Diaz\u00a0spectacularly spoke<\/a>\u00a0about the Coalition\u2019s \u201csix-point plan\u201d to \u201cstop the boats\u201d, which, when questioned for details, amounted to just \u201cstopping the boats\u201d (X6).<\/p>\n

And it was this issue of asylum seekers \u2013 and Kevin Rudd\u2019s\u00a0pre-election leap-frog<\/a>\u00a0(as opposed to\u00a0lurch<\/a>) to the right of Tony Abbott \u2013 which the Melbourne resident at the candidates\u2019 debate was referring to, in his plea for the seat to stick it up western Sydney.<\/p>\n

For the rest of the country, it begs the question \u2013 why should politics merely cater for some marginal seats which seem to contain a disproportionate amount of disgruntled swinging voters?<\/p>\n

And then a solution presented itself \u2013 a way that could radically restore \u2013 EGAD! \u2013 confidence in voters! A \u201csolution\u201d that is not preceded by the name of a random country in South-East Asia or the Pacific.<\/p>\n

A solution that could put a swift end to dishonourable Howard-esque dog-whistle politics of fear and loathing \u2013 like when Foreign Minister Bob Carr talks about asylum seekers as \u201ceconomic migrants<\/a>\u201d and it whistles to western Sydney as:<\/p>\n

\u201cthey want your jobs\/money\/livelihood<\/em>\u201d<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"Wester-Sydney\"<\/p>\n

This could all end. And it\u2019s relatively simple:<\/p>\n

Excise Western Sydney from the rest of the country.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Heck, we\u2019ve excised Australia itself from the\u00a0migration act<\/a>\u00a0(again, nod to western Sydney), so why not just excise western Sydney from the rest of Australia?<\/p>\n

And why stop there? Both major parties have announced their campaign launches will take place \u2013 not in Rooty Hill (shock horror, you should feel outraged, western Sydney) \u2013 but in that other sunny battleground of Brisbane, Queensland.<\/p>\n

As an ex-Queenslander who sought “refuge” in the southern states years ago, I say with the greatest respect that I am quite happy for Queensland to join western Sydney and be cast adrift as well.<\/p>\n

For Stephanie Bannister\u2019s sake, Queensland can become its own \u2018One Nation\u2019, and they can follow “haram” to their heart’s content.<\/p>\n

Kevin Rudd can become the first Prime Minister \u2013 hell, he can become the first PRESIDENT of Queensland. He and Peter Beattie can provide endless cheesy grins (and obsessive hair flicks), and they can do it together in a shark pool on the Gold Coast. Clive Palmer, Bob Katter and Pauline Hanson (who can be dragged up from her NSW Senate candidacy (Vote. Below. The. Line) can join them.<\/p>\n

Tony Abbott and his shadow of daughters can move from lovely leafy northern Sydney and take the \u201csuppository of wisdom\u201d to Penrith, where as a monarchist he can be “King” \u2013 and he can bang on all he likes about \u201cstopping the boats\u201d in land-locked Penrith. LAND-LOCKED.<\/p>\n

Fellow monarchist Sophie Mirabella can join them, and Murdoch tabloid the Daily Telegraph can banish its headquarters there as well (along with Sydney\u2019s second airport \u2013 they can have that \u201cdebate\u201d as well).<\/p>\n

The Liberals can put Malcolm Turnbull back into the leadership \u2013 he can wear his leather jacket on\u00a0QnA<\/a>\u00a0and not have to pretend he actually likes Tony Abbott any more \u2013 and Tanja Plibersek or Bill Shorten or Penny Wong can appear with him (and not have to squirm their way through justifying why Rudd\u2019s return to the top job was such a top idea) and we can actually benefit from \u2013 shock horror \u2013 a contest of policy ideas.<\/p>\n

I for one will take back Julia Gillard to lead the Labor Party \u2013 who, with western Sydney excised, will not be so beholden to the right-wing machinations of the party (they can all move to western Sydney too) \u2013 as well as welcoming back some of the talent from the third of cabinet that left with Gillard\u2019s departure.<\/p>\n

Instead of the last three years of policy reform being ditched or recast because of ego, we can keep the constructive nation-building policies like Gonski, the NBN and the NDIS, and change the not-so-great and quite-wrong policies, eg, Tony Abbott\u2019s sister can get married.<\/p>\n

We can actually have an election campaign with a mature debate \u2013 a proper one, not a glossy-but-dull, contrived and hokey populist version (eg, last night\u2019s \u201cdebate\u201d \u2013 at the Brisbane Broncos Rugby League Club \u2013 included this line from our possible next prime minister Tony Abbott:<\/p>\n

\n

\u201cLet\u2019s not please say that I\u2019m somehow Mr cut, cut, cut because I want to be Mr build, build, build so we have more jobs, jobs, jobs.<\/em>\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Seriously.<\/a>\u00a0This bloke is not auditioning for Play School but for the prime ministership. Yup. Gulp).<\/p>\n

With the “Western Sydney and Queensland Solution”, we could instead have real debate about the policies of health, education, the environment and yes, asylum seekers and immigration. We could actually GROW as a country \u2013 feel more connected with our communities and genuinely engaged with, and be proud of, our political representatives, processes and institutions.<\/p>\n

This could be the simple solution our politics has been crying out for. Instead of hearing a broken record about \u201cstopping the boats\u201d and \u201cstopping the waste\u201d, we could actually stop the slogans, stop feeding into the relentless, surface-scouring, poll-driven 24-hour news cycle, and stop the dumbing-down of real policy issues.<\/p>\n


\nSarah ( sarah@vwt.org.au<\/a>) is the editor of feminist monthly Sheilas<\/a> <\/strong><\/p>\n

Read more<\/span>:\u00a0A Bonza Margo Kingston<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  By\u00a0Sarah Capper 23 August 2013 During a candidates\u2019 debate (a loose term) in the seat of Melbourne recently, an impassioned local resident rose during question time (again, loose term) and implored other local voters to send a message to Canberra \u2013 that voters in Australia\u2019s \u201cmost progressive seat\u201d should reject the major party policies […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":21,"featured_media":8831,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[3434,3546,66,585,72,73,757,760,75,399,40,43],"tags":[2601,1254,1251,1256,1252,1255,283,1253,470,495],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/archive.nofibs.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/08\/INVASION.jpg?fit=600%2C335&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3t0mw-2iq","jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.nofibs.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8830"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.nofibs.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.nofibs.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.nofibs.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/21"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.nofibs.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8830"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/archive.nofibs.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8830\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":56961,"href":"https:\/\/archive.nofibs.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8830\/revisions\/56961"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.nofibs.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8831"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.nofibs.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8830"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.nofibs.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8830"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.nofibs.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8830"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}