Aunt Millie's Dot Points

Frankie and Johnny

There's a revealing article by Denis Fitzgerald in a recent edition of the NSW Teachers' Federation journal. Seems little Johnny Howard was entranced by his history teacher at Canterbury Boys' High back in the 1950s. This bloke, one Frank Driscoll, wrote a textbook called The Story of Australia in 1959. He said that 'Scientists have rated the aboriginal low on the intelligence scale...' and reminded the readers that 'Australia was a white man's land and they wished to remain white...a big family of white British people...' Frank also warned his charges of the 'danger' of 'Asiatics' who wanted to take the place over.

Ah, life was sweet before all those rotters like Henry Reynolds and Manning Clark came along and spoiled it with their talk of genocide and stolen generations and all that. Still, a bloke's doing his best to question that 'black armband view of history' stuff...

From cradle to grave

'There is no such thing community, there are only individuals', said Margaret Thatcher, the idol of the Liberal Party free marketeers. Thus they never rest in their quest to squeeze out every last drop of profit from what were once seen as non-profit making community services. The Howard Government has made a few cosmetic changes to its plans to squeeze old people to pay for the cost of renovating private nursing homes, but the basic thrust remains. Meanwhile, at the other end of life, the Kennett Government in Victoria is busily intent on stuffing up the lives of parents and young children. The child care 'industry' is to be further deregulated. The 12 hour ceiling on how long any child can be in a centre on any given day is to lifted and the ceiling of 60 children per centre is to be removed. The minimum age for carers of 15 is to be extended to occasional care centres. The result will be the creation of large child-minding 'factories' and a profit bonanza for the private operators who put Kennett up to it in the first place.

It's time to restate the old socialist and feminist demand of free, high quality, community-based child care centres for all in need of them. As for our old people, they need respect. They aren't milch cows for the Liberals' money-grubbing mates.

Flick's Visa

The latest display of disdain for the tax payers of Victoria was the issuing of a Victorian government credit card to Felicity Kennett. This is unprecedented - another first for her husband Jeffrey. He sure is a pace-setter when it comes to showing contempt for the people of Victoria. It becomes more and more bizarre that he came to office on a slogan of 'Who's the guilty party.'

Pathetic bunch of Old Boys

What is it about the middle aged men in the Victorian parliament that they insult each other by making childish, sexist and homophobic remarks about the private schools their opponents attended 30 or 40 years ago? Last year, for example, we had Victorian Premier Jeffrey 'Boofhead' Kennett (an Old Scotch Boy) calling deputy opposition leader John Thwaites a 'Grammar girl'. Just recently, stung by something Thwaites said, Liberal MP Peter McLellan responded by offering to 'test his manhood in the carpark' and by calling him a 'Melbourne Grammar petal'.

Now if you abused me as a 'Launceston High School petal' or something like that, I would be genuinely mystified and suggest a visit to the shrink, who would mutter something about 'fixation' and 'regression' and prescribe blue pills.

It all shows what a cosy little boys' club they have in parliament -- and what sheltered lives they have led. They inhabit a stable little universe far from the dole queues and the poverty and the stink and grime of the factories. It also shows their obsessive fixation with one's social origins in this class-ridden society.