April 2024 is not a happy time in the world
Gaza and its people are being bombed and starved out of existence1, the money pit of AUKUS is consuming our children’s wealth before they even earnt it2, the wealth gap between the wealthiest 1% and the rest of us has been turbo-charged 3 and here in Australia, we lead the world in the inhumane treatment of asylum seekersiv4. Oh, happy days!
For those of you who have searched out this website due to separation, the problems of the world seemed dwarfed by problems on the personal level, and understandably so. After all, as Bob Marley sang, “everyman knows his burden is the heaviest, he knows it because he feels it”.
So, why this page?
I have long intended to update this website to incorporate regular postings relating to mediation and the circumstances that lead people to search out mediation. What I have been lacking is inspiration.
As soon as I walked into the North Hobart Vinnie’s on Tasmanian election day, I got my inspiration. Sitting on a shelf, above the recycled fashion, was a children’s book, “Happy Days”. I instantly knew what I needed to do. The prospect of writing a regular separation/mediation blog was suddenly attractive if combined with a general, topical, and satirical blog commenting on the things I care about.
And what was so attractive about this children’s book, “Happy Days”? The book the young girl was holding in the photo just screamed out to be altered into an Aboriginal flag. And the boy’s cricket bat just had to become a Palestinian flag. And they had to be amateurishly altered in the style of the “crimes” for which my favourite playwright Joe Orton and his partner Kenneth Halliwell were prosecuted and imprisoned.v5 The cover and its title would then become a banner for me to comment, as cynically and sarcastically as I wish, on topics that interest me, the topics which add to the “foul stench” of our society.
The posts that will be made to this page will be diverse
That is the benefit of owning the page after all6. It will give me a creative outlet and the opportunity for self-expression. However, I intend that everything I post will be subversive, disruptive and informed (I have always loved a good footnote/endnote). Further, whilst the posts will be eclectic and unbridled, they will all touch upon “justice”.
I want to challenge you dear reader. You may not always agree with me (in which case I would be delighted to hear your views). But do not sit by idle while those we call our “leaders” do as they wish. Remember, they do it in your name.
Footnotes
- And our government seems disinterested, at best, in taking any real action. When protesters enter the parliamentary chamber (18 March) to seek to have their voices heard by their deaf leaders,business carries on as usual, AG Dreyfus steps up to the dispatch box and jokes “I hope you can hear me”, the obvious, smug, self-satisfied smirks of those around him. The voices, let alone the plight, of
the powerless and disenfranchised, an obvious source of humour. At least their voice was allowed, albeit for moments, whereas in NSW those suspected of potential protest could not even gain admission (21 March) and Jenny Leong MP, seeking to obtain their admission, was herself, expelled. All this and the accompanying hand-wringing, whilst the Future Fund ($492,000) and ADF (nearly
$1billion) invest in or contracted with Israeli weapons and surveillance system manufacturer Elbit Systems. We can spend over $400 million on a failed referendum to seek to address the legacy of a colonial-settler system, but, at the same time, support another settler state. The Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy were right when they sang “hypocrisy is the greatest luxury, raise the double standard”.
Perhaps, even more aptly, “there’s more to a seat in parliament than sitting on your arse…while we expect democracy, they’re laughing in our face” (Billy Bragg).n sitting on your arse…while we expect democracy, they’re laughing in our face” (Billy Bragg). ↩︎ - As Tupac Shakur sang (and, in a first, at 60, I am quoting Tu-pac) “They got money for war, but they can’t feed the poor”. On 13 March 2024 it was reported that “the program is forecast to cost $268bn to $368bn between now and the mid 2050s”. That was before the $4.6billion announced last weekend, that we will contribute to solving other people’s “supply chain” problems and sell us something we don’t need and can’t afford. At $370billion, that’s over $142,000 for every person, irrespective of age, in Australia. That sort of money would make a nice (aka barely adequate) deposit on a house. ↩︎
- In November 2023 it was reported by the Social Impact Summit and ABS that one in eight Australians (including an awful lot of children, one in six) live in poverty and that the top 20% of income earners see their wealth increase at four times the rate of the lowest 20%. Oxfam points out that “The world’s five richest men have more than doubled their fortunes from $405 billion to $869 billion since 2020 —at a rate of $14 million per hour— while nearly five billion people have been made poorer.” Government by the people, of the people, for the people, in action! ↩︎
- In reality, we always have. The Aboriginals Protection and restriction of the Sale of Opium Act 1897(Qld), is widely accepted for having provided the framework for South Africa’s Apartheid system of Bantustans, pass laws and disenfranchisement (now adopted with relish by Israel – after all, when South Africa accuses someone of Apartheid, they might know what they’re talking about) and PMs Keating and Gillard (both Labor PMs), through their mandatory detention and “Nauru solution” policies respectively, having given the blue print for, by way of example only, the English system of mandatory detention and the “p”. The privatised (and extremely expensive) incarceration of asylum seekers has been one of Australia’s “great” exports to the world, whereas disarmament and not aiding in the
creation of the circumstances (see Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, et al) that give rise to mass migration have not been on the Australian agenda. ↩︎ - Joe and Kenneth would borrow books from Islington Library and alter the covers and blurbs, usually to make them salacious, and then return them to the library with a view to subsequent borrowers being outraged. Ironically, the “vandalised” books are now an extremely valuable part of the library collection. On conviction, Joe and Kenneth were each sentenced to 6 months in prison, perhaps
demonstrating the stupidity and absurdity of our legal systems as systems of control and oppression, leading Orton to comment that prison “…affected my attitude towards society. Before I had been vaguely conscious of something rotten somewhere, prison crystallised this. The old whore society really lifted up her skirts and the stench was pretty foul”. In 1967 Halliwell was again convicted, this
time for the murder of Orton. ↩︎ - One doesn’t often get the chance to put themselves on the same level as the Murdochs of the world, controlling “the presses” and determining, nay dictating, your own editorial policy and agenda. But make no mistake, unlike The Sun, News of the World (Orwell would be so disappointed to hear of the direction it took before its eventual passing) and the Daily Mail, their will be no phone hacking, brown envelopes, telephoto lenses or meetings with the high and mighty by this author. But there will be an attempt to step outside of the silences that Chomsky spoke of in “Manufacturing Consent”, where the failure to mention events is deliberate whereby, as Miguel de Unamuno is reputed to have opined “sometimes to be silent is to lie”. ↩︎
The contents of this page and any comment or opinion expressed is authorised by Joe Harman on behalf of Joe Harman
After all, I wouldn’t want to breach s.328 of the Australian Electoral Act after my 2007 experience.
Christmas Card Riles Minister
By Kerry-Anne Walsh
March 25, 2007 — 10.00am
A SYDNEY lawyer is in legal strife with a federal minister and the Australian Electoral Commission over a Christmas card
The minister complained to the commission that Joe Harman’s card was a political advertisement because it featured exhortations such as “Tell him [John Howard] what you want for Christmas”.
The commission agreed that the card was political and did not carry any “electoral authorisation” and demanded Mr Harman cease and desist or risk legal action.
Taking a humourless view of Mr Harman’s political irreverence, the minister – whose identity remains secret – took offence at the yuletide card which read “What’s on your Christmas wish list? Peace? Tolerance? Understanding? Join us in sending the message to Canberra – tear off and send [the attached] postcard”.
The postcard was addressed to “Dear John” [Howard] and asked for his help in attaining a peaceful and tolerant world by ending Australian involvement in the Iraq war, “talking to your friend George” to bring David Hicks home, close detention centres and say sorry to the stolen generation.
It concluded: “I’m writing to you rather than Santa, because Santa doesn’t exist (a bit like the weapons of mass destruction).”
The card was addressed to Mr Howard at a PO Box address in Sydney.
Mr Harman’s festive cheer was interrupted on Christmas Eve by a letter from the commission advising his card breached Section 328 of the Australian Electoral Act.
The AEC considered the offence “less serious” than anonymous “electoral advertising”. Nevertheless, it advised him to “cease distributing the newsletter” until it complied with the act by carrying the name and address of the person authorising the political advertising.
“If the AEC’s request is ignored, the matter may be referred to the Commonwealth Director of Public
Prosecutions,” Deputy Electoral Commissioner Paul Dacey warned.
Mr Harman tried under Freedom of Information provisions to discover the identity of the complainant. The commission rejected his request, but a sympathetic bureaucrat told him he had “really pissed off” someone high up in the ministry, who had made the complaint.
“It’s a worry in a country like ours that we can’t even have a light-hearted go at someone,” Mr Harman
said.
Viewed 25 March 2024 at Christmas card riles minister