SNIPPING THE UMBILICAL CHORD - AUSTRALIA DAY 2012

                                                              HMS ENDEAVOUR 1768

January 26, 2012  My Australia Day?


I am firmer in my conviction; the arrival of Captain Cook and his mapping of the East coast of New Holland in 1770,  the subsequent first landing 26/1/1778 of the First Fleet of convicts and soldiers, and the planting of the Union Jack by Captain Arthur Phillip to show occupation by the British Crown - has never felt right in my citizen bones.


"Australia Day" denies the tragedy and crimes against humanity for the first humans who inhabited this great southern land for over 40,000 years.

To celebrate a National Day which signifies the invasion and destructive force by the British on the indigenous generations is disrespectful and typical of the Conservatism encouraged by the likes of ex-Prime Minister John Howard, with it's Colonial sensibility and jingoism.

How would they like to party on a day when their Ancestors were raped, abducted, shot and thrown in the rivers with the garbage? 
How would they like to party when their grandparents haven't even been paid their life-time of wages yet? Stolen wages


A unifying national day for all citizens can only come on the day Australia becomes a Republic and we fly an Australian flag without the Union Jack dominating the visual symbol of an independent nation(The Republic of Ireland are proud they did it, why can't we?).

BEFORE I joined the Australian Labor Party I was a member of the Australian Republican Movement. 

BEFORE I signed up and paid my small token of support for an Australian Republic I became an AUSTRALIAN CITIZEN - with my husband because when we went to exotic, cheap Bali 1984 on our belated honeymoon(last chance before the baby arrived), the customs officer at Denpasar Airport noticed we didn't have a visa to return home....

We'll be right! we're Australians!  Having arrived in Melbourne, Roy in 1964 and myself in 1978 both 14 years and itching for a more hopeful future life away from our miserable industrial cities of Leeds and Birmingham in the U.K. 

Like so many British people fed up of the freezing weather and crap wages, we assumed we'd been accepted to emigrate after a  2 year process and payment of 13 pounds each -there was nothing else to do. We could vote. 

There must be some mistake we said to the Australian Embassy consul in our bathers and sea-salted spikey hair from a morning on Kuta Beach - No, we have to stamp you a visa in your British Passport or they won't let you back into the country. 

My insides did a somersault, but, but..it was unfathomable to think we could go back to pommie land! We gave her all the memorable arrival details she needed for a speedy temporary visa but suggested we become Australian citizens so we didn't have this trouble again!

You can imagine the pity and deep sense of injustice I feel hearing that people who came here as babies and toddlers are deported and dumped in their country of origin if they have a criminal record. It's almost like a retaliatory policy - Here youse - see how you like having undesirable characters clogging up your penal system! 

RECORDING THE ARRIVAL OF THE BOAT PEOPLE.

Walking with our first generation kiddies through bush on ancient pathways to
NOURLANGIE ROCK PAINTING, Northern Territory, Australian tour 1989. 

The McNeill's from Leeds 1964 - 10 pound poms

(and my future husband has to wait till I grown up being one year old at this time!)

Don't believe everything you read in the newspaper - 
 My mum  had been  in Australia before but not by choice.
This is my Inheritance of 
My Mum's Australian story

AUSTRALIA DAY WEEKEND 1984

My husband and I had decided to get married on the Australia Day weekend in 1984. It sounded symbolic to the fact that we two poms had found each other all the way over  in  Australia. I had always thought I'd marry an Aussie, but when Roy and I started talking we had so much in common - we spoke and got each others jokes and ironies - and we'd both thought at a stage in our lives we  would go back to England to fight in a revolution!


I'd kissed a Greek-Australian, an Indian-Australian, Italian-Australian, Hungarian-Australian, and a a few Anglo-Celtic Aussies before I met my match along the winding tracks and detours of young adulthood.

                                            CHEERS TO THE COMMON-WEALTH OF THE ALL THE  PEOPLE!

OATH OF CITIZENSHIP - CITY OF FITZROY,  VICTORIA 1985  


In Melbourne, we sat with the public servant as he ticked all the boxes and then said we had a choice when speaking the oath: renounce all other allegiances by Almighty God and the Queen, and her Heir and Successors etc etc 


I was stunned - I don't believe in God. 
That's alright - you can do the pledge of allegiance only to the Queen.
I'm not a Monarchist! I'm here to pledge loyalty to Australia!


Dear Reader, I had to be pragmatic -  be disappointed in saying an Oath I didn't fully believe in in order to secure our residence in Australia and being with our Aussie kids.


1993
It took the election of the Australian Labor Party with Paul Keating as Prime Minister to remove references to the Queen from the Oath of Citizenship.
Bloody Oath - It matters to me what I say is True, not make a liar of me.

1996                                             Brisbane Valley Times

BIG TICK on my step towards signing up: ALP
NATIONAL PLATFORM - CHAPTER 11 - 3. Since its earliest days, Labor has fought to strengthen our democracy. Our vision today includes our commitment to create a modern federation and to take to a national referendum a vote on Australia becoming a republic.

2011 = THE ROYAL VISIT - HELLO & GOODBYE

She's a Solar Queen - Xmas gift from quirky Lance,

now standing happily in front of the Pineapple plant, Queensland -

 collecting solar energy in her handbag to wave irreverently!

I'm so patriotic I want to contribute this Australia Day politically personal poem: 

CITIZEN NOT SUBJECT

 George wept losing America, but 
Cheered up, when another wealth to share

Was claimed with convict imprints.


 Ship-owners wooed Westminster with
Trade not war, me old China, and
More Slave trading, sugar and spice, 
Silks for Aristocrats on the way back from
New South Wales.


With plenty of money and supply of

Cheap labourers to work for the love of it

 On Churches and Stately Homes - 

 Twas  a wealth beyond comprehension,
Until it dawned on the commoners
 To riot about it!

Victorian second sons of Gentry
Brought Red Deer, hare and pheasant
Or used Natives for game on their
Thousands of acres, admirers of
Batman- they made a Name, some
   A fortune from dispossession 
To create a new line of inheritance in
Australian real estate.

Every Empire/Australia Day advertised
To the populace we're supposed to give thanks
 To the Commonwealth under the poxy

 Union Jack banner dominating the Southern sky, 
Reminding us of who sent the boats of 

Rejects - to conquer another sovereign asset,
Taking the credit for the proletariat paradise.

(c)copyright Jan 22 2012

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