| "Let’s hope that one of them was, “Australia should be a republic”" Not that far from where I live at the intersection of two busy roads there used to be a tall concrete Besser block wall with spray-painted graffiti scrawled on it in large black lettering which read: "The Australian people are bloody-minded sheep." The truly remarkable thing about the graffiti was that in over 20 years no one covered it up or spray-painted over it. (And it would have been easy as there was a bus stop right nearby with easy pedestrian access.) The wall has gone now as it has made way for apartments (I had always meant to photograph it but had never gotten around to doing so). :( Two observations: that no one had bothered to tamper with the message or paint over it (and, say, the Council could easily have, it being on a public thoroughfare and that removing graffiti was a policy) says something rather profound in that amongst the population there's a general acceptance of the fact. Second, the Australian electorate is remarkably politically conservative. With the exception of a few minor instances, it has never done anything radical and that's essentially been the case right back to federation in 1901 (that was when Australia became an independent state after Britain gave it its Independence). Thus, as a nation, Australia has always kowtowed to Britain and after WWII it has done so with the US. When a law is enacted in Australia one can bet top dollar that it's already been enacted in Britain or more latterly the US (but to a lesser extent). Originality doesn't exist in Australia's political DNA. That's why Australia is part of the Five Eyes agreement, without Britain and the US it'd behave like a lost child at a country fair. Trouble is everyone knows it, especially so the Chinese who've essentially enslaved the country economically. |
