Politics

New horizons in personal and national goals

New Horizons

Those past two weeks had seen me have 2 new artificial lenses put in my eyes: that is, cataract surgery on both eyes; seek digital assistance with making my website better; and assist Labor in Australia’s recent elections, even though I felt they would lose. I was right, but the election was a disaster for the Government, too. At least we didn’t get a clown like the one in the White House now.

Cataract Surgery

Intaocular lenses (IOLs) are small plastic devices with plastic side struts, called haptics, to hold the lens in place within the capsular bag inside the eye. (Wikipedia). IOLs were conventionally made of an inflexible acrylic glass material (PMMA), utilised during the Second World War, in submarines and fighter planes, with positive results in terms of human survival and injury. Naturally, this has largely been superseded by the use of more flexible materials.

intraocular-lens

More recently, these lenses have been further improved, especially the multifocal lenses, which were originally associated with “haloing” issues, and problems with night driving. So far, my experience with these new lenses has been excellent. I can read, shop and see far into the distance without wearing glasses. Hurrah for technology!

Blogging and Plugins

woman-frustrated-computer

Starting a new website with a new theme had been a real challenge, coinciding with my new eyesight! I’ve never been technologically savvy, and understanding and configuring things, both with my host and my WordPress site was hard. I’d never tried to use plugins before, so it was quite a challenge. With WordPress.com, plugins are done for you. With WordPress.org, I had to read up about this and try to get my head around terms; and at times it was too difficult without help from my host and/or WordPress. It was also very time-consuming, but I was determined to see it through.

Reality set in at last, and I realised that I needed a hands-on “helper”, a mentor, here in my own country. Enter a Digital expert, and the result is my new blog: anneskyvington.com.au

The Australian Election 2016

Parliament House, Canberra

It was only three days after my second cataract surgery, that the double dissolution election occurred. Our Prime Minister, Malcolm Turnbull, had called the election to try and gain more power in the Senate. He’d been touted to win in a landslide by all polls and pundits in the country. Even people, like me, who’d voted Labor all their lives, were influenced by the media reports, and were expecting another Liberal/National (Coalition) Party victory in both Houses. A double dissolution also involves half the Senate. The prime Minister himself believed in the hype, too. But it was a long pre-election campaign, and the leader of the opposition, Bill Shorten, campaigned hard by touring in his “Bill Bus”, and by making himself available to the public in his egalitarian way.

I’ve always seen myself on the side of the underdog, and it was “Health and Education” issues that turned the tide against the government’s “Jobs and Growth” mantra. At times it looked like the opposition might even win, or gain power with a slight margin. However, it looks more likely that it will be a hung parliament, and especially bad for the Government in the Upper House.

Surely this outcome could not have been foreseen? It goes against the truism that in politics nothing happens by accident, but is always planned by far-seeing agents. I didn’t see this coming: a 3.5 percent swing towards Labor; and the Prime Minister couldn’t have seen it coming, either, I’m sure.

The Marble Foyer inside Parliament House

So, I no longer have to wear glasses for reading, shopping or distance sight. And I’m still looking for a party that will take us back to those far-off days, when this country and its people cared more about equality; and when governments supported a truly Multicultural Approach to immigration, like that which existed under Whitlam, Hawke and Keating.

Note the growing problems with inequality and racism, since conservative governments took over in this country.

Canberra was chosen as the setting for the Australian Government, because both Sydney and Melbourne were contenders for hosting the Parliament, and this city is situated between both.

The Westminster System

November 7, 2016 0 comment

Politics Writing

A Crafty, Callous, Curmudgeonly Crew

The Invasion

We’ve always had boat-people coming to Australia. Our ancestors arrived here in ships from England. The First Fleet is the name given to the 11 ships which left Great Britain on 13 May 1787 to found a penal colony that became the first European settlement. It was a dangerous voyage with many deaths from sickness. But for the Aboriginal people it ended very badly with almost total genocide.

the-first-fleet-1788

The First Inhabitants

The Aboriginal people must have arrived here by boats from South East Asia, estimated to have been about 51,000 years ago.

The Vietnamese “Boat People”

The term ‘boat people’ entered the Australian vernacular in the 1970s with the arrival of the first wave of boats carrying people seeking asylum from the aftermath of the Vietnam War. Over half the Vietnamese population was displaced in these war-torn years, with most emigrating to other Asian countries, however, some embarked on the voyage by boat to Australia.(http://www.aph.gov.au). I taught English to some of these as an Adult Migrant English Teacher during this time. We welcomed these refugees with open arms, the government allotting funds for offering language classes, accommodation assistance and cross-cultural programs.

boat-people-vietnam

So what is happening now? Why the sudden change and the secrecy surrounding government operations?

Our government has taken on aspects of certain notorious boat people of the past: the Bounty’s Captain Bligh, for example. Instead of ‘Land Ahoy! Land Ahoy!’ all we hear now from our leader is ‘Stop the boats! Stop the boats!’ But real and truthful information to the Australian public about the processes and procedures to be used by the government is absent.

The number of people arriving by boat in Australia is very small, and it is minuscule by comparison with the intakes in other countries.

According to the Refugee Council of Australia, in 2010-11, Australia received 11,491 asylum applications. Less than half of these (5,175) were from asylum seekers who arrived by boat. Over the same period, 2,696 Protection Visas were granted to refugees who arrived by boat. This is just 1.3 per cent of the 213,409 people who migrated to Australia during the year.

The Conservative Government of 2014

Scott Morrison, federal Minister for Immigration and Border Protection, told the 44th Federal Parliament in its first sitting in 2014: ”We are going to hold the line, we are going to protect the borders … This battle is being fought using the full arsenal of measures.’ Later on, the Prime Minister defended the secrecy of the ”battle”, saying, ”if we were at war we wouldn’t be giving out information that is of use to the enemy just because we might have an idle curiosity about it ourselves”. (http://www.theage.com.au)

Once a government resorts to secrecy, a dangerous precedent is set up, and this was corroborated by our ex-Liberal Prime Minister, Malcolm Fraser’s summation of Tony Abbott as a ‘dangerous politician’ way back in 2011, reported in The Conversation.com.

Stop the mealy-mouthed language and show us some respect!

The Conservative Government of 2017 under Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, in spite of its inability to find a proper solution to the treatment of asylum seekers, is at least more respectful in its use of language towards refugees.

Let’s hope that a change in government will bring about a more compassionate stance on this issue.

10 Malicious Missteps Of The Tony Abbott Government (listverse.com)
Australia’s Policy on Migrants Questioned After Smuggler Says He Was Bribed to Turn Back (rss.nytimes.com)

June 20, 2015 7 comments

Emotions and Health Politics

The New Kadampa Tradition of Tibetan Buddhism

A young Englishwoman donned a backpack, set out for Australia and rented premises in Bondi; she’d brought the New Kadampa Tradition to Sydney from the United Kingdom. The beautiful Manjushri Temple is in the Conishead Priory near the Lakes District. This temple was constructed by the faithful from the ruins of an old building, inspired by Geshe Kelsang Gyatso, the well-loved leader of the group in the West.

English: Manjushri Kadampa. Buddhist Temple in the grounds of Conishead Priory (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The beliefs and teachings departed little from the Dali Lama’s philosophy, however one particular difference became grounds for political dispute at one stage, which is when I decided to leave the group. NKT followers are taught to worship a warrior deity from the ancient practices, Dorje Shugden, who is said to protect the purity of the Dharma—the practices that need to be performed and protected for a happy and peaceful life. In a photograph, Dorje Shugden is depicted on a ferocious lion’s back bearing a sword in his right hand. The Dali Lama distanced himself from the NKT practices by criticising the adherence to the warrior deity Dorje Shugden.

Unfortunately, politics intervened and soured things for many of us studying at that time. There were wrongs and rights on both side of the argument. Perhaps the Dalai Lama was right in wanting to standardise practices; but the Warrior Deity is, after all, one of the main pillars of the NKT.

Things became nasty when politics entered the fray. Demonstrations occurred when the Dali Lama visited Sydney, and a damning book condemning the Dali Lama— especially his wish to abolish the worship of Dorje Shugden—was published by followers of the NKT tradition. It seemed at odds with the whole Buddhist philosophy as taught to us.

Even though the NKT may be more in line with adherents in the West, I found some practices and beliefs increasingly out of kilter with my mindset. Intricate offerings linked to dogma were practised daily before the shrine. And some of the concepts related to spiritual realms, such as “hungry ghosts” and “emptiness”, were very difficult to comprehend.

Nevertheless, I will always value the meditation techniques that I learnt while studying with the Bondi group, and I value the memory of the lyrical hymns full of joy and universal love that were odes to onenness: “May everyone be happy, May everyone be free from misery”; “O Precious One, Je Tsongkapa…from the Land of the Snows”.