Sometimes people can be too literal, and other times people can be way too cynical, now and yes I know that, that sounds like stating the obvious but I have also just stated one of the constant human problems. To change what Prince Hamlet says in Shakespeare's play, to believe or not to believe, now that is the question. Most people, (the sad souls who do not understand the awesomeness of Australian Politics) regardless of what any Politician says, will disregard the comments even before trying to comprehend what they are saying, or will agree under the same circumstances, why? Either because they don't care, because they do not want to understand, or they have preconceived ideas. Well fair enough, if someone wants to be uneducated and base they sacred one vote come election day on hearsay or stories they have every right to, don't they. Just like someone can either pass or fail a driving test, win or lose a football game or, say yes or no to being an organ donor when they die. We make decisions, every single day that have consequences we must adhere to, depending on the choices we make, but is everything as clean cut as we would like? When we break up from our boyfriend or girlfriend, I'm sure we would all love to just completely forget about them and move on, likewise being able to forget about a really bad test, or sporting game would be wonderful, so why then, do we mere humans, complicate everything we do? I am sure I am not the first person to have laid in bed at night thinking about the 'what if this happened or what if that happens' questions I have, rolling around in my mind from that day gone by, and thinking about all the bad things that will be happening in the near future. Why? The idea that everything can have a yes or no, bad or good, happy or sad or pass or fail answer or connotation is stupid because in most cases there are shades of grey, and after all it is with the grey areas that things become interesting right?
As I am quickly approaching the end of my schooling years, with 6 weeks to go, my Economics teacher has decided that he will begin classes with a question, to get us rolling. Said question is either to do with a piece of economic theory, like the theory of comparative advantage or else looks to examine a statement like 'Does free trade work in practice', and I can guarantee that nearly everybody in my class has a different answer, ranging from yes it always works to no never, and then the smart individuals (not me) will put up their hand and say, 'but, but what if it happens sometimes, like in some cases but not others?' and then my teacher smiles. Why does he smile? Well obviously I really cant read his mind but I can imagine and if I had to take an educated guess it probably would be because said student understands the hazy world of real life. When we are little we believe completely that our parents beliefs are true and accurate, even at school we take in the words of our teachers like they are the words of a god. But is this actually the case? Maybe but possibly not to the full extent that we believed it to be in our youth right? At some point in our lives, perhaps during our teenage years, we must come to the realisation that the ideals and concepts that we took on face value and for granted must be questioned, and examined for validity. At some point we stop believing there are monsters under our beds and see that the real monsters lay in the detail. Ever herd of the saying 'that the devil lays in the detail'? For me that means that sometimes when we take an issue and look at it on a micro level we see the flaws and impurities in what we are dealing with, rather than thinking it is smooth and great, like we tend to do, from a distance. However I am getting off the point I was trying to make, and that is some things are more complicated, or less complicated depending on how they are viewed.
The (semi) current Asylum Seeker debate which has plagued the Federal Parliament of late, on the surface, and to an outsider I think would look like a total misrepresentation of what can go on when the brilliant minds (yes I do see that i just called politicians brilliant, but just look at Paul Keating and Native Title, or Julia Gillard and NDIS) in Canberra work together. Why could the politicians not just be locked in one of the over 4,000 rooms in Parliament House and be made to sort it out 8 weeks ago before the winter break? That seems like a simple action which would eventually have produced some result right? Deprive them until a solution was reached? And then even after Angus Houston has presented his 22 recommendation which was basically covering all the ideas and picking the most able with reference to the others for future plans, so much more needs to be done before Asylum Seekers are able to be taken to Nauru and Manus Island, why? Complicating issues is what humans do most brilliantly, but why do we make it so hard for ourselves? The Legal System shows us, that the most powerful disputes arise from words, when there is a lack of clarity between the literal meaning and the implied meaning of words, which then creates room for interpretation, but then sometimes the interpretation is even more complicated to understand.
So it is important that we take the time to understand that in everything we do there are many ways in which to change, adjust or alter what has happened and what can happen because there are areas of grey wherever we look. Just because it looks like our parliament can sometimes look like a playground for 'big kids' looks can be deceiving in SOME instances and sometimes we must look into the shades of grey to find the real answer to the hard questions.
Wednesday, August 22, 2012
Monday, August 20, 2012
And it begins again!
And so it began again, the hoopla of Federal politics. We are now about to start the second week of the new parliamentary sitting session after the winter break and for some people last week went too quickly and for others it was just another show of (sometimes) bad politics at work. Last Monday Angus Houston and his team of expert panel members released their 22 recommendations to help deal with the Asylum Seeker deadlock which was the main talking point 6 weeks ago, and from that we now have legislation which combines offshore processing in Nauru and Manus Island. After the release of the recommendations, which basically told the government that right now Malaysia is not an option, but it might become one in the future the only plus for the Government came when the Coalitions 'stop the boats; policy received the same fate. However the recommendations also called for an immediate stop of family visas for Asylum Seekers families and more reviews into what is being done already. Now having just completed a major assignment on the Asylum Seeker issue I just find it unbelievable that it has taken so long for the Government and the Parliament to come to some sort of agreement, however I also can imagine that many parties involved did not get the outcome they so desired, especially The Greens, who did and still believe that the path the Parliament should have taken involved onshore processing. With their only consolation being an increase in the Humanitarian Aid Program, to 20,000 places. However as a result of the lack of support towards The Greens policy, (especially from the Government) and the fact they did not ‘get what they wanted’ so to speak, may result in the Government finding it harder to pass legislation in the future due to their reliance on The Greens in the Senate, but guess what? That means we might have to watch Canberra even more closely. . One of my favourite past times!
Wednesday, August 1, 2012
From the Ashes . . .
After the turmoil of the last week, I remembered my favourite Easter song by Michael Mangan, which is sung during the lent to give hope and to remind us that things will be ok. It goes something like this:
Fire in the forest leaves us ashes
Ashes, lie smoking on the ground.
All the old and dead wood lie in ashes
But don't be sad don't let it bring you down.
Now we leave our failings far behind us
Leave them in the forest fire to burn.
From the Ashes new seeds are sown
From the Ashes new life will grow
Leave the past in Ashes
Let the old things give way.
Start a fresh new life
In the Ashes
From the Ashes
Out of Ashes.
Every time I think of this song it is because I am sad and need some perspective on what I am doing. Is it the end of the world? Can whatever I have done be fixed? And if not to remind me that I need to accept and move on. It seems to me that in the last week many people have had setbacks and upsetting moments, from Politicians, to Olympic favourites and of course me. The Prime Minister this week was able to overcome the unfortunate events of COAG when she could not get agreements with some states over the National Disability Insurance Scheme, when the next day the uncooperative states came to the senses. On a different note our Australian Olympic favourites, especially in the pool have had to deal with loss as well, but to me the loss of winning gold, but still receiving a silver or bronze medal is still incredibly amazing. And so what if we came 4th in a final, that just means that Australia is 4th IN THE WORLD!! I am sure everybody watching the Olympics at home would love to be 4th in the world and something. . anything, am I right? But this is not supposed to be a rant about the pressure we as a society have put on our athletes to succeed and anything less than perfect is a fail, because it is not.
Teachers and parents tell students that it is not so much the grade you get for a test or an assignment that they worry about, it is how we deal with the grade when you get it back. If the grade is not what you wanted it should spur you on to try and do better, and if it was, make sure you do not take your eye of the end goal, and this year for many of my peers that goal is to get into our University course. Now of course I, along with many others know that is takes time to digest the feeling of failure, or failure in the eyes of the beholder, but at the end of the day we need to move on. One of the down falls of the Olympics is that we get so swept away by the glitz and glamour of the medals that sometimes I think we forget that the athletes are human. Who has the right to say that Leisel Jones is fat? She is an Olympic champion who has qualified to attend the games, that should be enough.
Failure sucks. No one like to fail, or do worse than other people, especially their friends, but behind every winner, every successful endeavour are failures, are people not achieving their goals, dreams and fulfilling their hopes and desires. Sometimes failures can be turned into happy endings, like the NWS and Victoria agreeing to the needed NDIS funding but sometimes we need to accept and more on from that failed grade, that failed dream, because there will always be other goals, other things we want more than the one that failed. It sometimes would do us well to remember that, an try and put our lives into perspective, because when everything looks bleak there must be a silver lining because that is life, and to use the cliche' saying, when life gives you lemons, make lemonade. Even though it is hard and confidence breaking the best thing anyone can do is remember that what ever happens one failure, one setback is the groundwork for bigger and better things, and one day hopefully we can all look back and say, yeah I needed that hard time because my life needed a shake up and from it I found the strength to continue and be better than ever.
Fire in the forest leaves us ashes
Ashes, lie smoking on the ground.
All the old and dead wood lie in ashes
But don't be sad don't let it bring you down.
Now we leave our failings far behind us
Leave them in the forest fire to burn.
From the Ashes new seeds are sown
From the Ashes new life will grow
Leave the past in Ashes
Let the old things give way.
Start a fresh new life
In the Ashes
From the Ashes
Out of Ashes.
Every time I think of this song it is because I am sad and need some perspective on what I am doing. Is it the end of the world? Can whatever I have done be fixed? And if not to remind me that I need to accept and move on. It seems to me that in the last week many people have had setbacks and upsetting moments, from Politicians, to Olympic favourites and of course me. The Prime Minister this week was able to overcome the unfortunate events of COAG when she could not get agreements with some states over the National Disability Insurance Scheme, when the next day the uncooperative states came to the senses. On a different note our Australian Olympic favourites, especially in the pool have had to deal with loss as well, but to me the loss of winning gold, but still receiving a silver or bronze medal is still incredibly amazing. And so what if we came 4th in a final, that just means that Australia is 4th IN THE WORLD!! I am sure everybody watching the Olympics at home would love to be 4th in the world and something. . anything, am I right? But this is not supposed to be a rant about the pressure we as a society have put on our athletes to succeed and anything less than perfect is a fail, because it is not.
Teachers and parents tell students that it is not so much the grade you get for a test or an assignment that they worry about, it is how we deal with the grade when you get it back. If the grade is not what you wanted it should spur you on to try and do better, and if it was, make sure you do not take your eye of the end goal, and this year for many of my peers that goal is to get into our University course. Now of course I, along with many others know that is takes time to digest the feeling of failure, or failure in the eyes of the beholder, but at the end of the day we need to move on. One of the down falls of the Olympics is that we get so swept away by the glitz and glamour of the medals that sometimes I think we forget that the athletes are human. Who has the right to say that Leisel Jones is fat? She is an Olympic champion who has qualified to attend the games, that should be enough.
Failure sucks. No one like to fail, or do worse than other people, especially their friends, but behind every winner, every successful endeavour are failures, are people not achieving their goals, dreams and fulfilling their hopes and desires. Sometimes failures can be turned into happy endings, like the NWS and Victoria agreeing to the needed NDIS funding but sometimes we need to accept and more on from that failed grade, that failed dream, because there will always be other goals, other things we want more than the one that failed. It sometimes would do us well to remember that, an try and put our lives into perspective, because when everything looks bleak there must be a silver lining because that is life, and to use the cliche' saying, when life gives you lemons, make lemonade. Even though it is hard and confidence breaking the best thing anyone can do is remember that what ever happens one failure, one setback is the groundwork for bigger and better things, and one day hopefully we can all look back and say, yeah I needed that hard time because my life needed a shake up and from it I found the strength to continue and be better than ever.
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