Praise Be To The Pollies
A big hello to all the lip magazine blog readers – this is my first blog, and hopefully won’t be my last.
For the last six months or so, I’ve been keeping a sharp eye on the news for election and political news – meaning I haven’t really had a life for about that time. However, an election year is always the most interesting and thought-provoking time to consider Australia as a whole – who we are, where we stand in the world, and what our values are. This election is naturally going to be one of the best times ever to see – the newbie with fresh ideas, against the veteran that knows his stuff.
A few minutes ago, I stumbled across this article that just cropped up on ninemsn:
http://news.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=285478
http://news.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=285478
Basically, it says that the PM is donating an extra $15 million on top of the already guaranteed $20 million for the “Word Youth Day” – otherwise known as a Catholic event. World Youth Day means about 500,000 pilgrims will arrive in Sydney in 2008 for a celebration with a papal mass. Kevin Rudd, the Leader of the Opposition, has also pledged that he’d give a similar sum if he became PM later this year. Both politicians have campaigned on their Christian values.
Now, I’m an agnostic. I don’t know what I believe, but I know I don’t like religion, and this is one of the reasons I don’t like it. It’s just my opinion, but it’s an interesting move by both leaders. Considering how multicultural the country is nowadays, and how more and more people are becoming agnostic or atheist or what have you, why wouldn’t you campaign to other parts of the population?
Where does it leave the rest of us who aren’t Catholic or Protestant – their main targets – who are having our 35 million tax dollars being blown on a religion we don’t even believe in? Which party can we turn to? Which leader will represent our values? And what does it mean for the country when we’re combining the church with the running of government?
There absolutely should be a clear separation of Church and State and the government should not be funding a religious event such as this. The Catholic Church is wealthy enough to fund their own “love-ins” – they shouldn’t require financial assistance from the government.
What is the money going towards? Are these half-million young people converging on Sydney to undertake charitable activities? Isn’t the Christian (Catholic) faith based on love for others? … “give unto others” … not TAKE millions of taxpayer dollars to fund a religious ceremony, when there are so many Australians living below the poverty line, so many more important issues, more worthy of government spending.
It’s so depressing. Is it truly democracy when you are only choosing the lesser of two evils? Why can’t we have a strong, intellectual, atheist, racially tolerant, non-fundamentalist, female candidate who would be campaigning for something similar to Paul Keating’s ‘Creative Nation’? I’m sure we could still have a healthy economy AND value education, diversity and creativity. How LONG is it going to take??