i’m still not sure whether the sentence should be finished with a ‘?’ or a ‘!’. when our prime minister uses the phrase, as he does whenever he doesn’t have anything really relevant or even mildly intelligent to say – i.e. quite frequently – it sounds like a ‘?’ but it definitely feels like a ‘!’.
this week he pointed to another great reason to feel good about being an australian: in parliament – of all places – he pointed out that in this country we don’t shoot women who protest peacefully against misogynist violence. did he mean to reassure the women who had gathered in front of parliament?
here i am, stupid old me, thinking that wasn’t even an option, until our pm most helpfully pointed it out: that shooting peaceful protesters was something anyone in this country would actually contemplate. or was it a general point to highlight how in our country killing women has been successfully privatised and government involvement is therefore now optional?
how our pm thinks pointing out the fact that in a developed nation with a democratically elected government the fact that these protesting women are not shot at is helpful in any way is completely beyond me. it would have been significantly smarter – and braver – to actually go and meet some of them instead of pointing to a busy calendar.
then again, when one woman has recently come forward and alleged that she had been raped in a workplace where you are the most senior manager, and a close mate and work colleague of yours has been accused of historic sexual violence against a woman who has since taken her own life and you hadn’t done much in the way of addressing either … maybe you wouldn’t want to answer any predictably uncomfortable questions either.
so with all of that in mind, maybe the question to our embarrassing excuse of a prime minister should be: how good do you think australia is, where it really counts, like when 50% of our fellow citizens have something really important to say and want the person who thinks he’s the leader of the country to at the very least listen? instead they are lectured that they should count themselves lucky they are that they’re not being shot. i don;t find that reassuring.
in other news nat’s bike got the latest version of the air spring & seal heads. she did almost all her own work, too. there is really nothing a girl can’t achieve.