‘Yesterday’s fish and chips wrapper’

Ah, the news on Aunty ABC. Our national broadcaster, a radio journalist reading the prepared clichés. I listened to the news, really, nothing happened here in Australia.

The audience, including this little old woman, heard about virus phobias, stats and pro-vaccination propaganda, and one small item of international bad news. As my grandma used to tell us, “Yesterday’s fish and chips wrapper.”

Is that all? Wait, extras are going to bat first for England, here in Oz this summer. Peace means calm. It is the food hazed, lazy holiday for most Australians. We love our leisure, enjoying Summer weather, vacation hobbies.

If you or I wanted to change our Australian way of life here, what would change? Our society does not revolve around any individual or personal striving. It is hard to change anything from within, without resorting to repression.

If I could change the media’s clichés, I would provide more venues and a voice for independent journalism. “Fat chance!’ covers a lot of things I am pondering. Most of us would really love to know what is happening internationally. But we are being fed rote disinformation, wondering why we are being kept ignorant.

If I could change some part of Australia today, including myself, I would promote less apathy to being bystanders to restrictive governments. Overseas, the authorities are shooting citizens, particularly youngsters, for wanting to vote, to have a democracy.

I honestly do not know what I can do about either of those factors in our current Australian society. Summer vacations are for browsing on a smartphone, pottering around at home, or having a holiday. Happy holidays include trying not to catch Covid-19, or drown in a river or sea, all while avoiding a catastrophic car accident. The objective of the holiday is to arrive home in one piece!

Summer sports on television are merely a pale substitute for the real world of any code of football. Any woman knows that. I have been associated with grown Australian males who spent literally hours, numbly peeping at Rolls Royce girlie, but rich, tennis players. I did not say anything. But boys of Oz, no woman is going to burst through the television land of tennis, to rescue you with her long muscly legs and boy entrancers, in her cute skimpy frock!

But, hey, it is summer. Soon it will be time for Easter, and an annual community fundraiser for our children’s hospital in the city. That is our feel-good. But here, I could echo my old grandpa. He would daily phone me to complain about politicians he was listening to, on his ABC. Like him, I believe Australian workers sort enough taxes to fund the public health system. It should have state-of-the-art technology, and innovative advancements, courtesy of the government.

Probably, “Fat chance!’ covers that dream too. It is our tradition, but sort of embarrassing, that public hospitals have to beg in the streets for donations. Would you change that? As part of ‘our’ boomer generation, I would also like to alter our nation’s dependency on raising revenue from selling uranium and iron ore overseas, to any customer.

Really, we have sold the rest of the world enough bomb-making material to destroy every citizen on Earth a zillion times. The best of that marketplace may be behind us soon, so then what? We shall have to make do with what economy we have. I am little old lady, I do not know what Australia could produce instead.

So far, so good, we could say, “Don’t panic.” You might say that happiness is power. Are you happy with Australia as we are?

If you could change, what would you change for the better? Peace means calm…