Is it standing by your mate, when he’s in a fight?

(written in August 2020 during the Covid crisis)

I don’t know about you guys but I finally feel like we are seeing some sunshine through the fog that we have been living under for the last few months. Not that it’s over but just some little moments of real life are shining through. The one thing I got out of the last few months, is how much we have and how little we actually need. I work inside the music industry so in 48 hours I saw a business I built for more than 15 years, disappear overnight. There wasn’t even anyone to blame, you can’t be mad at a virus. It was a totally unprecedented situation. In the beginning, I threw myself into what others called home schooling but what was really crisis education and like everyone else, I waited. You hope your family stays safe and that things go back to normal soon. As things moved on though you come to realise that maybe normal wasn’t that great, maybe normal was toxic.

We made do on the money that we had over the last few months, so what the hell was I wasting money on before. I spent more face to face time with the kid, I learnt more about how she learns, what she is good at and what she enjoys learning about. That has been a joy. For her sake and mine, we now know home schooling would never be a full-time option for us but I feel more involved and I’m grateful.

The kid is currently learning about ocean pollution in her class and the thing that struck me was all the photos of what happen to the world while we were locked inside. Mother earth reset herself. We weren’t around to make a mess of things it seemed to be a good thing for the place that is our home. I’m not sure I want to go back to normal.

The biggest story on the news pre Covid 19 was the murder of Hannah Clarke and her children. I worried while we remained on lockdown about the many people like Hannah who will never make the news. People who were locked inside with someone who was already abusive, now under the most stressful circumstances. They will never make the news because until they are killed, we won’t know their names. They live lives of quiet desperation. Shelters are under-funded; help is hard to find partly because is can be a complicated problem.

One of the most Iconic songs talking about the Australian experience, about who we are as a country and as a group of people in True Blue and the line that always sticks out to me is this one “is it standing by your mate when he’s in a fight”. The fact that it’s phrased as a question. Is that actually who we are? I know that’s who we want to be. I know when Aussie’s were in trouble during the bushfires, everyone was happy to put their hands in their pockets and help, only to get lost in what can only be describe as a bureaucratic nightmare.

I know Aussies want to be the people who stand up for the little guy and we have proved that over and over. When there is a big visible crisis and we are given a tangible way to help, we step up. We fight for the little guy. There are however lots of injustices happening all over this country as we speak. Aboriginal deaths in custardy, the short falls of aged care, the shortage of funding in areas like domestic violence, child safety, PTSD treatment for return soldiers and depression.

There is lots of our fellow Aussies who are in a fight for their lives and we have the chance to stand by them. We are playing the long game here and you need to be a part of the solution. There is a running joke that if you took away social media lots of people wouldn’t be activists anymore. Think about that when you post something. If that’s all you are doing, that’s a problem. If you are drinking coffee with your friends and talking about “young people have no respect theses day” sign up to be a primary ethic teacher. Be part of the long-term solution. You don’t have to be passionate about the same thing I am but be passionate enough about something to make a difference, otherwise what is the point.