It’s relentless, from the first bar of the cliched piano intro. As the first episode opens, Tim is followed by a bunch of subteen boys who taunt him about his lack of manliness as he puts the bins out. That sets the monotonous pattern from then on as Tim fails again and again to live up to masculine standards. He even visits JG’s workplace with a sandwich. Emasculating! His day continues as a mounting litany of humiliations. Gillard calls him “my little T-pot”. And while the Tim Mathieson character bears most of the weight of the superannuated tropes, as he becomes ever more irritated and frustrated (and as oblique jokes about his manhood are made by the minute) we’re given to understand that JG’s relationship is doomed to failure. A woman simply shouldn’t be under work pressure. Everyone knows it’s the woman who makes the damned sandwich, amirite? Even in the first episode we feel the relationship is so strained it must eventually crack, and then she’ll be all alone with only Bill Shorten the terrier and Bob Katter for company, won’t she? And serve her right for being an emasculating prime minister and destroying her man.

Clearly – still – the idea that men taking the role of partner to a successful woman are pathetic, and they’re pathetic because they are then comparable to a woman, which is terrible, still has great traction. I’m just about to watch Rush: a woman running about in a flak suit with a gun might be frowned on by some conservatives, but no-one sees her as pathetic and laughable. Women taking on mens’ roles might meet with resistance, but it’s because they’re a subordinate moving up. A man taking on (what’s still defined as) a woman’s role is looked on as moving down.

I can’t help but wonder what this meanspirited and patriarchy-fellating little show will do to the real-life relationship. No matter how Mathieson presents himself in his everyday life, he now has the “man emasculated by successful woman” lesson rammed down his throat weekly, and it can’t help but affect how he’s treated by the public when he goes out. I imagine it can’t help but affect the dynamic between the two of them. And if anything happens to their relationship, then the world will be all, “See, there you go, ball buster.”

And I can’t help but wonder how many teenage girls are abandoning plans for a bigger role in the wide world, because you know, it just makes you unloveable and makes your partner miserable.

Thanks, ABC.
 
 
 
Crossposted at Larvatus Prodeo

For those who do not reside in Australia and therefore aren’t exposed to this excrescence day in and day out, Tony Abbott is a man who (1) can’t resist a photo opportunity and (2) has a pretty florid Action Man complex. Every day he’s in a hard hat, fluoro vest, or some other macho uniform pretending to take part in some salt-of-the-earth toil – I haven’t seen him in a flight suit yet, but give him time. So it was that when he was out on the range in Rockhampton with some horsey dudes, of course nothing would do but he must get on a horse too and have a Bonanza photo opportunity. Tones’ Action Man shots are always embarrassing, but this plumbed new depths of toe-curling awfulness. I’m not sure if this low-res Youtube vid does justice to just how bad it was.

You can get on a bike and kind of pootle off and give the impression you know what you’re doing. Sitting on a fast trotting horse – I’ll say it again (yes, I’m repeating myself, I said this about Ian Campbell’s equestrian heroics) is an action which thousands of ten year old girls perform faultlessly every Saturday at pony club, but you need to have put in the requisite hours to learn how to do it without looking like a panicking rag doll. Action Man, having failed to do this, looks a right doofus. You’ll know next time, Tones: horse: bicycle: Not the same thing!

A day or two later, you could hear exasperated noises coming from our kitchen as I was doing pre-work sandwich making and listening to Abbott deploy his unique, circular logic on AM. “Well, it’s very important that this matter be resolved and that this boil for the Government be lanced, [Erk! Do you mind? I'm buttering bread here!] because while the Government is completely distracted by the Craig Thomson matter it’s not able to properly attend to the pressing problems that our country faces…[False - The minority Gillard government is actually getting on with the job of passing legislation and, well, governing, despite the constant Dog and Pony show distractions thrown up by the Coalition.] …Now the reason why the Prime Minister has to deal with this matter and resolve it is because that there are more important things that the Government should be focused on. [Absolutely! So why aren't you talking about these very important things? ...Oh.] But the Prime Minister’s incapacity to deal with the matter of the Member for Dobell means that these other problems just get worse…Blah blah Integrity… Let the sun shine in blah.” He thinks we’re so stupid we won’t even notice that if people are distracted – not completely distracted as he puts it – he’s the one doing his best to do the distracting with his energiser-bunny childish ping-ponging all over the place, both physically and verbally. So disingenuous, and so lacking in the dignity and intelligence we’d want in a leading politician, but of course it’s Gillard who’s always copping the scrutiny and being found wanting.

It was nice to see, the next day, that someone else noticed. “Yesterday, opposition leader Tony Abbott veered close to over-reach…He told the ABC in the morning that ”while the government is completely distracted by the Craig Thomson matter it’s not properly able to attend to the pressing problems the country faces”. He made the same claim later in the day while arguing that normal parliamentary business cease in order for Gillard to make a statement about the matter. The ”distraction” has been generated all along by Abbott.”

Yeah.

I do a little fundraising for my kids’ public school, because I think public education is one of the most important things I could support just now. I go to the odd demo. I would like to be helping the fight for our irreplaceable old-growth forests, too. But caught up in work, family obligations, and yes, cowardice – I know what the roads up there are like, and if I needed the old Mitsu-bashi pulled out of the mud, sure enough (in my overactive imagination) I’d be sure to find the only RACV bloke in the district would be fanatically pro-logging!

Meanwhile, in Gunbarrel Coupe on Sylvia Creek in Toolangi, people much braver than my pathetic self are locking onto machinery and going to jail to save this forest. Not all the action is on the coupe, either – the citizens of Toolangi are being subjected to spying and harassment from unidentified “suits”.

21 August 2011:

While we were winding up from the activities and most participants had left, a group of 4WD vehicles stopped 100m up the road and stayed blocking the road with 3 vehicles abreast with engines running and lots of shouting. It wasn’t clear whether their presence was intentional or coincidental but we sent out an alert and several friendly vehicles soon arrived, for which much thanks!. As the first few cars drew up the 4WDs left and then things became really bizarre!

22 August 2011:

At least two separate suspiciously acting individuals wearing suits and driving new SUV’s have been observed on 19.08.2011 loitering near mail boxes of Toolangi residents and looking through some documents. DSE vehicles have been observed parked discretely within eye shot of the suited individuals.
This coincides with mail irregularities reported by some residents. My phone bill with the listing of all calls made has not arrived this month (first time ever). Another person’s financial statement has been opened, evidently resealed and returned to the letter box during the night.

There is something we deskbound townies can do, besides publicise the brave Sylvia Creek protesters (or bring them food, water and supplies, if you live nearby). Remember recent events in Tasmania? A very important reason for the fall of Gunns as the bullyboy of the Tasmanian wilderness was the refusal of Japanese buyers to buy products which were sourced from old-growth woodchips. Activists did the hard yards there too, but the Japanese consumer helped bring the forestry industry to the negotiating table.

As Pia Perversi-Burchall of the Wilderness Society explains, “Toolangi’s forests are part of Australian Paper’s (makers of Reflex paper) concession zone. This means logs taken from the area are being made into Reflex paper, which is then sold by Officeworks.”

Attribution unknown

I’d add that Reflex has now lost its Forest Stewardship Council certification because it continues to use woodchips from native forests.

So, there is something we can do, here in the big city.

You can go to this web page and click on “Sign the Pledge” (for organisations) to boycott Reflex paper, or “Sign the Petition” (for individuals) to petition Officeworks to cease stocking Reflex paper.



Having done that, you should also go here, to let Officeworks know you’ve signed the petition or pledge, and why. Don’t let your action go unnoticed.

You can do all this before your cup of coffee goes cold. Just a little thing, but a whole lot of little things are better than nothing in this crazy world.

When I was a teenager my father and I used to go walking at Murrundindi, Toolangi, Mount St Leonard and the surrounding Mountain Ash country and I fell in love with that environment with its prehistoric flora and distinctive earthy, cool scent. It was once home, and inspiration, to the poet C J Dennis.

Year by year, week by week, VicForests rips out more of this treasured, dwindling habitat. Toocas at the Toolangi Castella blog sets out beautifully why we should not be clearfelling this forest at all. Most of the points raised apply to all cool temperate or “wet” native forest in SE Australia. (Contextual links are mine):

Summary of perceived issues:

1 – The area to be logged covers 2 large coupes, in forest that is high conservation value, mixed age and botanically diverse.

2 – This is an unburned area where surviving native wildlife have a precious refuge, following the Black Saturday destruction.

3 – The BAER Report (Burned Area Emergency Response Report), which was commissioned by the previous Government immediately after the bushfires, recommended preserving such areas for biodiversity recovery. It also called for caution and restraint in any proposed salvage logging.

4 – The forest block concerned is adjacent to Sylvia Creek Rd, and is intended to be clearfelled, right up to the roadside, thus despoiling a beautiful section of the forest drive to the popular Murrindindi Falls camping and picnic area. The cost to future tourism values of the area seems to be of no concern.

5 – Within this forest block is a treasure trove of different forest types, including senescent Mountain Ash old growth, mature Ash forest, cool temperate rain forest (a rare and threatened habitat in this region) and maturing regrowth Mountain Ash forest of varying ages – from pre-1900 to post 1939. Mountain Ash Eucalyptus regnans, is well known to be the tallest flowering plant in the world, but there is a strong argument that they are the tallest of all trees when given the centuries (and conditions) they need to grow to maturity (we still have a few remnant trees that are up to 500 years old). The giant trees of the 1800s have all gone, but leaving their progeny to grow on to maturity (instead of logging them for woodchips) may provide future generations with an experience of truly majestic old growth forest.

6 – The ‘understorey’ contains several plant species that live to a great age (centuries) if undisturbed, but are currently in significant long term decline in abundance after clearfelling and increased fire frequency. The species include:- Tree Ferns – Cyathea australis and Dicksonia antarctica, Musk Daisy Bush Olearia argophylla and Forest Geebung Persoonia arborea, small trees found in wet forest and cool temperate rainforest environments. The Geebung is locally endemic, and is peculiar in taking decades to reach reproductive maturity. Thus it is susceptible to being wiped out by clearfelling and elevated fire frequencies, in combination.

7 – The region is habitat for a range of native wildlife species including – Leadbeater’s Possum (our highly threatened State Faunal Emblem), Spotted-tailed Quolls (our largest, and very rare carnivorous marsupial) possums and gliders (including the now threatened Greater Glider) and the great forest owls – Sooty Owl and Powerful Owl. All of these species were hard hit by the 2009 bushfires and are now only remnant populations in the Central Highlands. Logging is destroying their remaining habitat.

8 – Climate change is beyond debate, and because of rising temperatures and reduced rainfall in south-eastern Australia, threatens the future existence of Mountain Ash forests. These trees are dependant on a narrow band of temperature, altitude, rainfall and soil structure factors for their continued existence. Clearfelling is drying out the region and contributing to regional climate change – thus further threatening the survival of this forest ecosystem. In turn, this tall and complex forest is a powerful modulator of local and regional climate. Consequently, logging it is a double negative that not only destroys forests and defaces the environment, but also adversely affects the future climate, water supply and fire security of regional towns and the greater Melbourne community.
[Details of a trip to Sylvia Creek road edited]
Remember, this is Melbourne’s own environmental treasure, only a bit over 1 hour’s drive from the GPO. So why should we not value it as highly as Sydney-siders value their adjacent National Parks?

If you have time this weekend, Victorians, please contact your local MLA, local MLC, and/or the AGE or your preferred newspaper editorial, to voice opposition to this slash and burn policy towards our irreplaceable Mountain Ash habitats. We’re told they’re replaceable, but they’re not. Not in their present form, unless you’re prepared to wait a couple of hundred years, and probably – given our drying impact on the surrounding environment – not even then.

I’m calling bullshit on the popular story that criticising McMansions is equivalent to sneering at the working class, and denying them the good things in life. In this narrative, the people championing the McMansion are the true socialists and stand with the working man and woman in their quest for a truly equal society. This is in no way peculiar to Legal Eagle – I’ve seen it all over the media.

It’s one of the endless riffs on the “elites” narrative. According to this variation, the heroic workers are approaching, under neoliberal capitalism, the egalitarian nirvana which they always sought, and the only truly authentic expression of this is a mock-Tuscan mansion of 215 or so square metres, built to the boundary on a treeless (except for pencil pines) quarter-acre block on a nodule-shaped development far from public transport, shops and services, a hotbox in summer and freezing in winter, costing squillions to heat, cool and furnish. But wait! Who’s this, crouching behind one of the two Yucca plants out the front? Oh, no! It’s those horrible “elites” again, throwing cold water on this wonderful social apotheosis, claiming that McMansions are really a bit crap. It’s because they just don’t want the heroic working class to have nice things!

Here’s the article which provoked Eagle’s reaction. It’s written by someone who knows his stuff. But I see the counter-narrative everywhere. During the last election, I saw a letter by a concerned citizen in our local newspaper complaining that the Greens bad-mouthed mcMansions and by association, ordinary Australians. I recognised the name on the letter as a Labor apparatchik (not local), so I know it’s spin.

Unfortunately for this story, its main premise is a fiction – McMansion owners are more likely to be up and coming IT workers and professionals or semiprofessionals as classic battlers. But let’s put that aside for a minute and consider the idea on its internal consistency alone.

What it comes down to is: we’re criticising a mode of planning and building, and being told we’re not allowed to claim one way of building is objectively better than another, in case we offend the lower/middle class (that is, most of us). Imagine if progressives had been the source of this idea. Political correctness! the media would cry. Po-mo relativism! Emotional!! (In Australia, the most devastating criticism possible.) Yes, built environments have political and cultural significance, but I am willing to go out on a limb and say that people who are fighting for the godgiven right of the Aussie Battlers to buy McMansions are speaking more from financial or political self interest than any warm concern for the battlers themselves.

I’m womanning the barricades, Comrades, for the right to say that McMansions are badly built and badly sited on badly planned developments. I’m not ashamed to say that building houses which regularly feature his and hers walk-in robes, home theatres and “powder rooms” as standard, but describing wall and ceiling insulation and smoke detectors as “luxury inclusion(s)” is doing it wrong. Furthermore, I’ll say these houses are poorly sited with regard to sunlight, lack eaves for shade, have thin walls, have little or no garden space, are built quickly and cheaply, will deteriorate rapidly and need expensive repairs in a relatively short time. I won’t be bullied into praising these white elephants by creative use of the Roveian/Howardian discourse of “elites”.

Now I know you’re going to say: “Yes, Helen, you can state your preference for one kind of dwelling over another, but saying that people shouldn’t want McMansions is telling other people what they ought to want, so, still elitist.” Which would be absolutely true, but don’t forget that there is an entire industry – advertising and marketing – whose job it is to tell people what they ought to want. Buyers aren’t just Choosing their Choice in a vaccuum. The building and development corporations (and the big box retailers who serve them, and the credit companies behind it all) are going to a lot of effort to appeal to aspiration, to snob value, to illusions of community and stability. Buyers adjust their “dreams” to fit whatever display model takes their fancy, while in reality the cookie-cutter homogeneity and cheapness of construction suits the developers and builders first and foremost. In other words, I think people are being told what they ought to want by the developers and the rest of the building/retail food chain, and unlike the McMansion opponents, they aren’t being called on it.

It doesn’t end there. The Big Box retailers love the bigger houses because they need to be furnished, and the pressure is on to furnish them a certain way, not just bring all your stuff from the rental house. There are more rooms, and you can’t just put a squeaky little sound system in that home theatre. Then, of course, there are the credit providers raking in their interest after that 24-month-interest-free period.

I have no doubt that if they had the will, the corporations and their advertisers could use the same lush, descriptive advertising to convince the punters they’d be happier and more comfortable (and richer!) in a smaller but better constructed and environmentally intelligent house. Swap the home theatre and his’n'hers walk-in robes for thicker walls, insulation and better basic construction. Use the Australian vernacular instead of the European, with overhanging eaves and shady verandahs on the western side. Use the space gained on the block to orient the houses for the climate. Have solar hot water and other money-saving goodies as standard, instead of “European tiles”, marble benchtops and such. Those can always come later with the money saved on power and other bills.

You don’t think they could sell this alternative vision? Of course they could. They’re the ones setting the agenda.

I dislike these houses because they are an embodiment of how individual buyers, society as a whole, and the environment on which we depend, are poorly served. I don’t dislike them because I don’t want ordinary people to have nice things. It’s because I would like them to have something so much better!

Update: The Melbourne Urbanist, Don Arthur on Club Troppo.

Update 2: Looks like a lot of people are changing their minds about house size.

Barcaldine is significant because it was a meeting place for striking shearers in the strikes of 1991.

From Claremont to Barcaldine, the shearers’ camps were full
Ten thousand blades were ready to strip the greasy wool
When through the west like thunder, rang out the Union’s call
“The sheds’ll be shore Union or they won’t be shorn at all”

Oh, Billy Lane was with them, his words were like a flame
The flag of blue above them, they spoke Eureka’s name
“Tomorrow,” said the squatters, “they’ll find it does not pay
We’re bringing up free labourers to get the clip away”

Until recently, historically-minded tourists used to come to Barcaldine to see the Tree of Knowledge. According to local history, or labor myth according to who you ask, the strikers would meet under this ghost gum and this was the birth of the ALP. The Globe hotel was their watering hole and another important meeting place and icon of Australian labour history.

In 2006, the year the then Senator Robert Ray made a speech asking “whether the Labor Party is dying and, if so, what is killing it”, some unknown person killed the Tree of Knowledge by pouring Roundup all around its roots. The tree was sent away, subjected to a kind of embalming process and returned to its former position as a memorial. While many people from the rank and file of the ALP have also expressed concern and many others have left, this poor pickled thing exists as a memorial for the workers of today – many of them non-unionised, on contract and to whom a strike is tantamount to rampant communism – to come and gawk at.

The Globe will become a heritage-listed tourist centre. I hope they preserve the bar itself inside the structure and that, if nothing else, a thirsty traveller can come and drink a beer there.

One of the countless Aspirational Families in these tree-lined streets™, Tom and Sue O’Really work as a teacher and a construction estimator. They have two children, Lily and Bradley. Lily, 6, has started primary school and attends after-school care. Bradley, 3, is in daycare. Sue’s income is just over $150,000, making them rich in the eyes of Labor and Leftist types who choose to ignore the stark, brutal reality of their suburban struggle.

“Are you joking?” laughed Sue when we pointed the mike at her so she could tell us how the government, hellbent on redistributing wealth and closing the gap between the alleged haves and have-nots, has reduced their lifestyle to a nasty and brutish struggle for survival. Here is a transcript of the interview which followed:

Newsfax Ltd: Now that the rate at which the family tax benefit cuts out has been frozen at $150,000, will this spell the end of your middle class lifestyle?

Sue O’Really: Well, of course, a lump sum in your tax return is always nice. But really, isn’t government income distribution meant to be targeted at, you know, really struggling families, on $40,000 and less? I mean, of course your wants always expand when you get more money. (Laughs) but shouldn’t we be directing Family Tax Benefit to families who can’t afford to send their kids to the dentist? Or use the money to put dentistry on Medicare?

Newsfax Ltd: But food, clothing, gas electricity — it all adds up. Not to mention childcare and your private medical insurance, for which you now get only 20% rebate instead of 30%. With the cost of living increasing, shouldn’t eligibility for family benefits should have been lifted?

Sue O’Really: Look, of course the cost of living goes up. I’m not arguing with that, I just wonder whether “adrift in ocean of debt and despair” isn’t over-egging it a bit. Half of all workers earn less than $44,146 per year. Shouldn’t you be interviewing one of them? I mean, they’re taking money away from Leonie three doors down, for god’s sake, she’s on the single mother’s benefit and they’re going to put her on Newstart when her daughter turns 12! And… wasn’t it your paper and others like you who used to be against “middle-class welfare”, anyway?

Newsfax Ltd: Well, Wayne Swan said himself you weren’t that well-off!

Sue O’Really: Well, I can see how he would have been under pressure to say that. But it’s something thats easy enough to resolve through 10 minutes on the ABS website and some Year 8 maths. We’re not “battlers”. We’re not even “average”. According to the ABS, I’m in the top three percent of income earners individually and we’re in the top ten percent of households. So, yeah, sure, childcare is very expensive, and we did remodel our California Bungalow to twice its former size, and that means high repayments. And we try to eat healthily, and the cost of fruit is ridiculous. But to claim we’re doing it tough is just an insult to that half of the workforce that’s on less than $45,000 – not to mention disability pensioners, unemployed, single parents…I mean, they’re paying the same for fruit and vegetables as we are!…

[Newsfax Editor's note: You failed to get a proper response from this interviewee. Bin this story.]

Who is going to defend the public system? Not the Federal government.

Oh, we got $24m for maths and science specialists in Primary – that’s less than half the amount the Vic government spent this year running the frigging Grand Prix.

The rest of this post was cancelled due to excessive swearing.

More here and here.



To quote James Bradley of City of Tongues on Twitter, “The level of casual misogyny directed at the PM is truly appalling, and says a lot about those who endorse it.”

There is a well-defined legal process for such projects, developments or activities in a place of national significance, under section 68 of the Environment Protection, Biodiversity and Conservation (EPBC) Act. In early January, before they sent the cattle in, the DSE was supposed to notify the Federal environment minister, Tony Burke. After that, the Minister is required to publish the notice on the internet and invite public comment. After “consultations with the public and relevant ministers”, the Minister is required to decide whether the activity is a Controlled Action under the EPBC Act.

The impacts must then be assessed (and there are already reams of information on the damaging impact of hooved grazing animals on the Alpine environment, such as the 2005 Alpine Grazing Taskforce report and the 2006 CSIRO study into the Alpine ecology, grazing and fire.) Following assessment, the Minister then may determine whether or not to allow the Controlled Action under the EPBC Act.

It is an offence to carry out activities which may be Controlled Actions without the consent of the Federal Minister for the Environment.

According to news reports on January 12, the (Victorian) DSE claimed to have sent a letter to the Minister, but this letter appeared to have mysteriously disappeared en route.

The Victorian Department of Sustainability and Environment has written to Mr Burke’s office advising it of the trial and has offered a full briefing, but it has received no reply.
But the federal Department of Sustainability, Environment, Water, Population and Communities has not received the letter.
”Under national environment law, the onus to refer an activity falls on the person carrying out the activity,” a spokesman said.

The cattle are already in the park, so they were in breach of the law already by mid January. I haven’t seen any calls for public comment by Tony Burke for assessment of a Controlled Action under the EPBC act – anyone else seen it? At any rate, the legal process has hardly got to square one.

It’s wrong. And don’t fall for the argument that as a city dweller, you have no right to oppose it. For one thing, this is a Heritage area which belongs to all Australians, not just a handful of families. For another, it’s your taxes at work.

The $5.50 per head fee paid by the graziers when the practice was stopped in 2005 (calves born while up in the high country travelled free) represented a massive subsidy by the taxpayer to a privileged few families, since the tiny fee went nowhere near to covering the damage caused by the cattle. If the Baillieu government is hell bent on allowing these people to do their damage, will the new agistment fee be set at a more realistic level?

Also, when Alpine grazing was ended by the Bracks government, an ex gratia payment was made by the Victorian government to the tune of $100 per head of cattle for the three years after that, up to $100,000 per license holder. (H/T Wilful.) So we were still paying for them.

Now that Alpine grazing has been brought back, will they be required to pay back that money?

You or I would be sent to the wall if we attempted to do something like this, but for the macho men of the Liberal and Country parties, the law is for the little people. We saw the damage that favours for “Labor mates” did to Victorian governance under Bracks and Brumby. Stand by for government by Liberal / Country Party mates. Plus ca change.