Did Tony really put that onion in the right place?

Honestly, it just shits me more every time I think about it. Refusing to provide basic services to remote Aboriginal communities. Did Tony not notice in the midst of the gustatory sensation of the onion that it's a little contradictory to announce a $200, 000, 000 subsidy to enable Tasmanian producers to export competitively with mainland producers whilst complaining that remote communities were unsustainable? You see, this isn't competition. It is supporting producers that would be otherwise unsustainable in the free market. Now, I'm not exactly a neoliberal economist, but I do think that neoliberal economists should accept that what is good for the goose is good for the gander. So until they stop diesel fuel subsidies to mining magnates (incidently, Gina earns my annual income in 3.3 minutes, http://www.howrichareyou.com.au/) and other myriad subsidies and tax breaks to people and industries generally doing a heck of a lot better and costing a heck of a lot more than remote Aboriginal communities, well, I think Tony should shove that onion up the other end of his digestive tract.

Hello kidney!

I love kidneys. I really came to love my kidneys the first time I worked in a dialysis unit. To be blunt, dialysis sucks. 3 days a week for 5 hours, you are connected up to a machine that is no where near as mobile as you own kidneys, ie, you are stuck in a chair whilst it does what your kidneys have nicely done for you for all the preceding years.  To add insult to injury, you should see the size of the needles they have to use to connect you up to the machine. And the surgery to create a fistula of an artery and vein to put said enormous needle in. And the scar tissue that builds up until you have a massive lump growing out of your arm from it. When you want to go away, you have to find another dialysis centre to attend because you can't go more than a day or 2 without your 5 hours of compulsory leisure time bonding with the dialysis machine.

Chronic kidney failure requiring dialysis in our indigenous population is something horrendous like 4 times the rate of the rest of us. And then, they are more likely to live far from the necessary services and be more concerned about accessing services that have often not been culturally appropriate. Whenever I get the chance, I tell people to look after their kidneys, because they do us amazing favours every moment of every day. Modern lifestyle illnesses such as obesity, diabetes and hypertension trash your kidneys.

 Chronic kidney failure massively reduces your quality of life. Dialysis increases your risk for nasty blood infections. And kidney failure will eventually kill you. It's particularly tragic that Aboriginal Australians suffer so much from it. Indigenous Australians suffer from massive social-economic problems that impact on their health as well as frequently having limited access to health care and facing culturally insensitive services. Low birth weight, malnutrition, challenging living conditions, high rates of infections, tobacco and alcohol use and the rapid change in diet and lifestyle resulting from dispossession and resultant modern lifestyle illnesses all increase their risk for kidney failure and it's just crap that as a society we like to blame individuals rather than looking at the social context in which this happens. Yet new diagnoses of 10 times the rate of other Australians, even higher in remote communities, are not exactly an individual problem. New diagnoses is those aged 34-55 are especially high. I'm sure you don't need me to point it out, but that's young. Really bloody young. These people are sentenced to life-with-machine and all our government wants to do is complain about the meagre support they provide to remote communities. Maybe real support could actually help cut back these horrific figures.

If we called them towns, would they be treated differently?

The WA government has said it will "close" up to 150 remote Aboriginal communities. Really? Just close them down like they were a shop going out of business?  Now, I get that Colin is premier of a bloody large state with a very dispersed population. I should hope he knew that before he took on the job. I'm sure it is difficult and expensive to provide services to all those remote people, but that doesn't mean you can just close down a few inconveniently remote communities. Anyone in rural Australia could name a few remote towns of small populations that are difficult and expensive to maintain. Over the last 10 years, Victoria has had to run pipelines to most of the north west of the state and provide treated water to umpteen small towns. Did they propose that Noradjuha had to be closed down and the 10 or so households move into Horsham or Nati? Of course not. Noradajuha still has water, mail delivery, garbage collection, a school bus run.

Aboriginal communities typically have schools, general stores, health centres, not to mention homes. Maybe a police station, footy ground, community hall. That sounds an awful lot like a town to me. But by calling them Aboriginal communities (which in and of itself there is nothing wrong with, and maybe the residents even prefer it), it conjures up in the mind of your average ignorant Australian of people living in dirt and humpies. And maybe some do and they like it. Good on them. But I suspect it is a strategy on behalf of the government to separate these homes of indigenous people from what most Australians call towns and try and avoid the appropriate outrage. Because really, our governments support a lot of expensive to maintain stuff. Most of it is for much richer people, organisations, communities and companies than some  isolated communities that already do in tough in myriad ways. Indigenous people do want to live in remote communities for social, family, cultural and health reasons amongst others. Suddenly making them homeless and trying to herd them into slightly larger, still very remote communities may look like it saves a small amount in services, but is going to cost a huge amount in trauma to these people and in managing the high risk of arising social and health problems. And like the NT intervention, when would governments ever risk doing these things to nice white people?

Great, so now misogyny is all the fault of women too

In https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-mysteries-love/201502/12-ways-spot-misogynist, Berit Broogard tells us "Misogyny is typically an unconscious hatred that men form early in life, often as a result of a trauma involving a female figure they trusted. An abusive or negligent mother, sister, teacher or girlfriend can plant a seed deep down in their brain’s subcortical matter."  Fantastic. I never realised that patriarchy is actually the response of traumatised men to abuse by women. Throughout history, men have been forced to develop laws, religions, cultures and structures restricting and oppressing women, to infantalise, objectify and rape them,  all because their Mummy didn't love them enough. Hang on, who neglected or abused their Mummy so that she was unable to love them enough? 

I'm sorry, but this is hogswallop. Misogyny exists because we live in a society that allows and enables it. In fact, one that has required it. That rewarded it. Blaming women for men that abuse women sounds suspiciously like a bit more misogyny. Men who behave like this do so because they believe it is acceptable. Because they are rewarded for it with pats on the back from their peers and women who tolerate it. If women's abuse of men creates misogyny, well, the rate of misandry out there should be through the roof. Now, if only I stopped spanking my partner, maybe the patriarchy would all go away ...