WHITE AUSTRALIA and TOM ROBERTS 2015

One can choose to be superstitious. Today is Friday the 13th. but I am not going to believe it is unlucky.

How could I forget arriving in Melbourne at 

Tullamarine Airport, our family were the last of the ten pound poms(actually by then it was 300 pounds a family!), on Friday 13th, 1978. 

Unlucky for some, not for me: I have the priviledge of being White. Little did my 14year old self know I was perfect for  maintaining white Western Civilisation...

I had experienced a little of the fear generated by National Front thugs at a teenage disco in Birmingham, a good excuse for a young man to steer me away from their assault into the hall to cause strife to get closer to him in the long grass where nobody would see us....


I came away intact and the National Front which was forming in Australia was out of my outer-suburban radar. Link: 
National Front of the Commonwealth

Kyneton, Victoria - First home-owners thanks to Victorian State Government loan for low-income

citizens (like writers and puppeteers!)

I didn't know anything about the first indigenous people of Australia - they weren't mentioned in the film shown to us at Australia House in Manchester to prepare us for emigrating. 
Mum had told me about Yvonne Goolagong - a Wimbledon champion.

In later years Mum said when she was sent to a New South Wales orphanage at Thurgoona near Albury in 1950. 

It was a brutal experience, but at least they were white...the aboriginal kids got it worse...

What all the black and white "orphans" of Church and State were useful to White Australia for, was their hard labour around local hearths and farms.

(which they received no wage for).

CLEAN SKINS

Shearing the Rams by Tom Roberts - special exhibition at National Gallery Canberra

PODCAST ON STOLEN WAGES - WA 2015

ALL QUIET ON THE OPPOSITION BENCH - NO WORDS OF CONCERN FOR THE PREVENTABLE DEATH OF AN IRANIAN REFUGEE ON CHRISTMAS ISLAND THIS WEEK.

LEST WE FORGET WE ARE A SIGNATORY TO THE UNITED NATIONS HUMAN RIGHTS CONVENTIONS - Hang on isn't that where Fremantle MP used to work? LABOR'S LONE VOICE against cruel refugee treatment, Melissa Parke.

 Australia's treatment of asylum seekers has been heavily criticised by the United Nations' Human Rights Council in Geneva.

It coincides with a renewed push within the Federal Opposition to close the detention centres on Nauru and Manus Island.

Labor MP Melissa Parke will present a motion to today's caucus meeting in Canberra, demanding an end to offshore processing unless an appropriate standard of care can be provided.

Melissa Parke joins Fran Kelly on RN Breakfast.

One less Labor MP not a bastard.

15,000 years ago Aboriginal people started to paint and commemorate their lives, leaving a legacy of Rock Art at Laura (Quinkan), near Cooktown, Qld.

This Friday morning Fran from ABCRN Breakfast Radio reminded me it was the last day to submit (in 50 words or less) which Australian artist I would get to paint an Australian politician and I could get a trip to Canberra for the TOM ROBERTS exhibition at the National Gallery.

THE ABC is my artery delivering factual, intelligent discussions, and cross-fertilisation of the arts.

THIS IS WHAT I WROTE: My fantasy is Canberra, with Catherine Abel, Painter of sensually bold women to study the Senator for S.A. Penny Wong, a consummate politician and leader for gay marriage.

Tom Roberts would approve of contemporary representation of a State noted for its artistic and progressive values.

LINK TO
PENNY WONG MAIDEN SPEECH