(written on the eve of the 2020 US election)
I have been a political junkie for as long as I can remember. I was 8 when Bob Halke first got elected in Australia. I remember that election night being glued to the screen and really excited to find out that he had won. In the years he was in office, he was considered a centrist. He was a loyal Union man. He loved his cricket, golf, and a good cigar. He got us Medicare. In 1984, he also deregulated Australia’s currency so that global financial markets, not the Reserve Bank, would determine its value. He also helped privatise the state-owned banking sector and reduced tariffs.
On his passing, just before Australia’s federal election in 2019, he was being honoured not just by Labour movement figures but also by business leaders. A sign of the wide respect he had across the political spectrum. He was tough when he needed to be but you also didn’t need to dig that deep to see him connect to his humanity. After the Tiananmen Square massacre, he wept openly as he described the scene and offered 20,000 Chinese students studying in Australia, humanitarian visas, and later also welcomed their families. He was also just an everyday bloke, who you wanted to have a beer with, although you should never try and keep up, he could skull a schooner like a champion. The point was he was a guy you would want to be friends with.
When I hear people describe the current leader of the United States of America as a guy who “says the things we are all thinking”. It doesn’t make me think better of Trump, it makes me think worst of the person who is speaking. Do you want to be able to call women fat pigs and dogs and imply in a national press conference that she isn’t attractive enough to rape? Do you want to be able to tell citizens of your own country, who happen to not be white, to go back to where they came from, do you want to be able to belittle the sacrifice of men and women who have served their country by calling them losers and attacking their families? None of these things make you a good person. If you were at a BBQ at my house and said these things aloud, you wouldn’t have time to get the sauce on your sausage sandwich before I asked you to leave. I would never let things like that be said in front of the kid because I don’t want her to think that is acceptable. Why the hell would we put up with it from someone meant to be leading the free world.
Science is not political, it’s factual. Prejudice, misogyny, and racism are not political viewpoints, they are disgusting. Until we can come together on those fundamental points of human decency, I will continue to do everything to advance us to the point where we do. My mum always taught me to vote not for the position I’m in now but keeping in mind if the government I’m choosing to give my vote to would care for people on their worst day. If they are sick if they are homeless if they came to us looking for safety and a better life. Speak up for the politicians who do the right thing. On that note, if you haven’t seen Jacqui Lambie’s parliamentary speech on University fees, please go and watch it. It is the best of our humanity. You should also speak out against the ones who do things that would make you kick them out of a BBQ. It shouldn’t matter if they share your political ideology. Wrong is wrong.
We are at a precipice. Not just the people we laugh at in the states, but all over the world. Nationalistic governments who galvanize their supporters through fear and hate have sprung up everywhere, and it is up to us to speak out against them. Progress is winning the war, but it is up to us to fight each battle.
On tour with the kid 
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