The Australian Government has been plagued by difficulties since the last election and needed to make deals with two Independents and one Green to form a government . How that mix effected Labor’s reform agenda will most likely be seen by history as constructive but in the meantime, has made the job of governing extremely difficult.
The opposition successfully destroyed the Government’s standing in the polls by simply pouring scorn on every proposal, need and science notwithstanding. Nevertheless, the Labor minority government has made inroads into some big problems, with a Carbon Price, National Disability Insurance Scheme, a Resource Rent Tax, a National Broadband Scheme and is hammering out a well overdue plan to keep our largest river system flowing.
All these reforms would be difficult enough with a majority government and it is a measure of
Julia Gillard’s guts and determination that she is well on the way to achieving all those goals and a measure of support she maintains within her own party that she is still there!
However, that is merely background info to set the stage. The subject I want to raise is gay sex.
Peter Slipper (picture) was the Speaker in the current parliament and has had to stand aside while a charge of sexual harassment is tested in court. It is claimed he made improper sexual suggestions to a staffer. It turns out the staffer is also gay and is being investigated for having sex with a minor or two, but that is a different matter. We do know, he and another staffer had been undermining the Speaker by feeding private information, including pages from his personal diary, to the Opposition, which offered the staffer ‘advice’ on how he should proceed in bringing charges.
I am now old enough that I am expected, by most of my offspring and their offspring, to have finished with sex. Most find it bizarre that older people might still find comfort and joy in sex with a person they love. But if I formed a relationship with a woman I found attractive and who reciprocated, it would be accepted even by them, my greatest supporters and critics.
But think how much more difficult it is if one is older and gay. Heterosexual relationships that start in the workplace are common and accepted, so long as there is no duress. The old Casting Couch has gone, but a gay man who approaches another gay man to suggest a more intimate relationship, particularly if he is older, is risking a lot. If his overture is accepted there is no problem, but if not and the other decides to spread the word, the older man is regarded as immoral and can also be charged, as has Peter Slipper, with sexual harassment.
I am confident the legal system will apply balance to the case, but enough of the public will make judgement guided by what the Opposition has said for it to matter politically. Some in the Opposition are urging people to make the Slipper case another test of the legitimacy of "this rotten" Gillard Government. Of course, it would be irrelevant if the Government enjoyed a comfortable majority but the loss of Slipper as Speaker means the Opposition is within one death or disability of forcing an election, which they would win comfortably and claim a mandate to do whatever their constituency wants.
It is argued that an election is what voters want now and fair enough, except that most big items of reform are in that state of limbo where a negative opposition can heap scorn and while the benefits are yet to be appreciated. Unfortunately the stakes are high.
It will take a miracle for Gillard to survive the next election and that could be a tragedy for this country. Abbott has promised he will repeal the Carbon Tax and the Resources Rent Tax and give us an el-cheapo Broadband Network, but being the populist he is, he will go on with the popular Disability Scheme in a watered down version.
Opposing policies, if we ever get to see more than a vow to “turn back the boats”, should be argued on their merits and it is almost unthinkable that such hard won progressive policies will most likely be dumped, not on their merits, but because enough key seats were lost, when voters were invited to be appalled that an older gay man should be seeking expression of his sexuality.
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