VoteYES!

I got a No card out of my letterbox this morning. 
At first it just made me mad - I am voting YES. 
But I need to talk about what No has said on that card. 

They claim that "The Voice will divide Australians". It won't. They will divide Australians. The First Nation people belong in this country. It was their own country for tens of centuries. How do they think the Voice will divide this country? They claim that Aus isn't a racist country, but they keep making it that same way. Read the history!! The present Aus was "made" 250 years ago when the Brits arrived to make it into a jail for their own people. They killed too many Indigenous people, thinking they were making the country British. Why?? Why were Indigenous people not included in the constitution when it was set up?

They claim that it isn't fair to "change the national rulebook". What rulebook?? This country became a British area. What is now in the "rulebook"? British rules? Are Indigenous people included? They should be. They say that the Voice "will have special access to Ministers and the Public Service". Why shouldn't they? Why were Indigenous people excluded from voting until 1962? Why were they never accepted in the World War I and II wars, even though there were soldiers who were Indigenous? In May 1964 the Labor opposition leader, Arthur Calwell, set out a bill which would include the Indigenous people in the constitution, but the government didn't accept that. The Indigenous people were not even included in the federal full equality election lists until 1984!

They claim that compensation will cost Australia too much, yet they use capitalism to speak of that. They refer to "reparations and compensation for 'historical wrongs'". Why are they trying to deny that to Indigenous people? A&TSI people have been abused far, far too much. 

• Their culture has been ignored and still is. Writers Taylor and Habibis said "White ignorance has a critical impact on race relations and is implicated in the maintenance of Aboriginal disadvantage. Addressing this ignorance is a largely overlooked capacity‐building opportunity within Australia's non‐Aboriginal population. It warrants consideration as a key component of strategies targeting Aboriginal disadvantage." 
• There are too many Indigenous people who commit suicide when their culture is ignored. Creative Spirits wrote "Almost non-existent in the 1980s, the rate of suicide and self harm amongst Aboriginal people is at crisis levels and has reached "horrific proportions", particularly in remote communities and especially amongst youth." 
• Their children were taken from their own parents! This must be considered today. YES can definitely help that!  

Looking into the history of the British into Māori has met much, much more than the white Australians. In New Zealand (Aotearoa), the Brits signed a treaty with Māori, and the meaning of the Treaty is specified in the NZ law. If the A&TSI had a treaty with the Brits, perhaps they would live much better than they are now. Just saying that.

They say that the Australia Day will be abolished, but this has been fought on for decades. Why are they saying that now? ABC posted an article about this in 2021. According to them, the "Australia Talks National Survey 2021 has revealed a majority of people now believe Australia Day should not be celebrated on January 26, given the historical significance of the date for Indigenous nations." The No vote people should realise that the activists for the change of the Australian Day might think different than the upcoming voters for the YES referendum, but many of them do support the YES vote! Why include them in your arguments? 

I am still rather angry at finding this piece of crap in my mailbox, but I suspect I have read much more history which should be considered when you think of voting No. 

#VoteYES

What has changed, and why?

 

Mostly throughout our lives we all have dreams which don't seem to come real for us. I dreamed of careers, I dreamed of real men, I dreamed of a healthy lifetime. I lost each of those. Too many other people seem to have lost everything or, simply, changed their lives after Covid hit us in 2019. Losing a cheap rental which you lived in for years as the rental price increase far too much; losing your job at the beginning of Covid during the lockdown; never making your bucket list holidays overseas because during Covid all aircraft were stopped from flying or now the prices are far too high. 

My losses were different to those who gave in to Covid, but they seemed similar: I lost my job when I told my employer about my brain aneuryms; after the stroke I was moved closer to my daughter so the rental costs changed; my holidays overseas simply didn't happen because I had lost 2/3 of my annual salary and I was now on DSP. My bucket list seemed to lose much of what I had ever put on it.

I am living now in a senior residential village and I haven't built up my bucket list. My predominant events were graduating from Griffith University with a BA a couple of years ago, and from Macquarie University this year with a Masters of Creative Writing. Both of these degrees were intended to help me recover from the stroke and aphasia (dysphasia) which I haven't, really. I forget words, I forget to discuss when all I can do is write.

When I passed the Masters of Creative Writing I had just finished the three years of research and writing for my family history book, but I still haven't gotten it printed. I found out that I could choose to only have one printed and use that to advertise it. Perhaps that is what I will do but I really need to understand the cost on that, because I sure can't afford to pay for a whole heap of them printed. It should have helped me to feel "recovered", yet I know I'm not. Some people think I certainly am, but perhaps they don't really know me. 

Two things wound me up today. The first was finishing the Jodi Picoult novel Wish You Were Here, published 2021. I found this in the free library in my retirement village, and it was a very good book: perhaps I could have written a review, but my words probably wouldn't help it. I felt so similar to the woman she had written about during Covid. I remembered a dream I had when I was a child, flying away, and I have often remembered that. Why do I? I had no reason to fly away in my childhood, but maybe that was a sensor warning about my teenager future, away from my family. The character's career in Picoult's novel has changed: so has mine. I might read that novel again in the future. Maybe it might help me.

The second thing was an article on First Peoples nation which says that Jacinta Price's "denialism takes the Coalition to a new Indigenous Affairs policy: erasure of First Peoples". I wonder if she even realises what she is doing? That is so wrong. The First People were in this country long before the British turned up and took over. Maybe she thinks that what happened was okay? Has she ever read history??

I am asking everyone to #VoteYES !

Forgotten times

I only remembered today that I hadn't posted another blog since December last year. I can blame my aphasia... and also the recent person I discovered I did not like. He was just a tutor who didn't know any more than I do or may have known more than I did but never chose to discuss that with me. 'Nuff said. I've gotten over that! 

I finished the draft of my book, which I have been working on for 3 years, and I am feeling pretty stoked! Yesterday I found one beta reader; perhaps I should use more, but the first one is my first goal... get that goal and then I can go ahead with more beta readers. I spent too long looking at the different publishers, and I still haven't chosen one. This book is an historical non-fiction work... I just want it published! 

For the rest of this post I am talking about how people are treated over poverty and rent and where they want to live. That includes me - I'm a retired woman and I have been following the politics of rental since COVID. When I moved last year to be closer to my family, I chose a single bedroom unit for less than $300. Except I have been discovering what's not good of this unit for me. There is only one entry/exit which shares access with every other tenant on this level; there is no balcony on the other side of the unit; there are 15 steps up and down that I have to walk every day, and my legs are tired; the oven is rusty; the ceiling is peeling (even after being painted before I moved in); there is too much dust which just happens to come inside from the main road through this area; there are no sound limits through the neighbour's walls; there is no aircon; the mailboxes are very difficult to check - very low and in front of the garden that is too close. Months ago, I requested a permanent set of curtains in my bedroom to stop the afternoon summer sun actually getting into that side of the unit, and I am very grateful that the owner had them put in. That's pretty much the only excellent thing that has been done for me. 

When I reached retirement age, I had my name put on the Housing Dept list for a community unit. A couple of weeks later I got a notice from the property agent to ask if I was moving out. No, I was not! I only put my name on a list, and I might have to wait for a couple of years for a property to become available for me. At the beginning of this month, I received another email which informed me that my rent was going up when I reached the end of my two-year contract. It was going up by $60 a week!! Perhaps I should have ignored that notification, because my contract did not expire until 2024. But I have aphasia, and my brain works by itself and told me I should be upset/angry and start looking elsewhere now. 

I tried looking through property websites, most of which quoted rent for a one-bedroom unit or a studio unit as $350 a week, and some $450. Almost all of these were called a "granny flat", and I, seriously, am wondering how many landlords actually have their own "granny" who could never afford $350. Why, just why call a single bedroomed unit/flat a "granny flat"? 

I have my name on the lists with retirement villages, which have many people on their own list. To find something I can afford for the rest of my life would work for me, but the only one I attempted to get in to inspect, after telling me that I was definitely considered, was signed up by a person chosen by the private owner. I had already been into Housing Dept to arrange for the bond, and they had told me that, even though the rent for that unit included a meal a day, the cost was just over the limit the HD had placed on beneficiaries like me, but they were happy to support me. Which didn't happen. 

COVID has led to payments increased to workers, but very little to beneficiaries, which sees us move out if the rent goes higher than we can afford. That's what leads to homelessness. These days so many of the advertised units/flats are rented as furnished. I wonder why this is happening now, when it didn't happen a few years ago? I have my own furniture and belongings and I have the right to live with my own stuff. 

Very recently I completed a survey and a submission for the Queensland state government where they are looking into availability of housing. They have a website page which looks at Housing Support for Aged People (for people like me) and Housing Pathways for Young People (which probably includes everyone else). If you can provide your own submission then please do so, whether you need a home or already have your own. This suggestion is directed at people who aim to earn what they need to pay for rent, certainly not at the property owners (unless you will support us too!).

A year ago, when I moved closer to my family, I didn't really feel that I could be facing homelessness throughout my future life. I also never considered that the agent would tell me months in advance about the rent increase. But I already knew I could not afford $350. 

I think of anything I could do: speed up the publication of my book (but I can't guarantee an income from it); win the lotto sometime in the future (but I can't really afford that). I guess that, now, I can think about the useless stuff that people with too much money spend on.

I won't miss that stuff.