There's a pearler of a petition going around about Pauline Hanson, says John Maycock and we True Blue Aussies should be jumping on board to sign it!
ONE GENRE of humour that Aussies especially pride themselves on is taking the mickey/piss out of people — though it seems that even this great Aussie institution is under threat. You see, one of the best examples of True Blue Aussie humour came out of the election — and it is being virtually ignored.
The joke stems from Labor senator Sam Dastyari’s gracious offer when extending the hand of friendship in welcoming the new senator Pauline Hanson to the fold.
Offering to show her around his electorate, probably discuss various local issues and show how as a Senator he deals with them — giving her a bit of a “heads up” in the job that lays ahead for her. All topped off with a lovely meal.
Now I am sure that most readers here would be aware of this — and also that Hanson spurned Dastyari’s advances.
However, in the wake of Hanson’s spurning of Dastyari, a pearler of a petition has appeared. A petition that, when it comes to True Blue humour, surpasses that other bonza petition calling to Swap Andrew Bolt for 50,000 refugees — and I rated that petition a ripper.
Humour aside, this latest petition is a fair dinkum attempt at building a bridge, tacitly putting Hanson into a position where she may broaden her horizons. And although it may be seen as taking the piss, it reveals that other side of Aussie culture, there are always good intentions behind those Aussie pranks. It’s how we express our mateship.
Simply put, the petition asks that Hanson come to Sydney and bog into a Halal Snack Pack with Sam Dastyari — giving both of them the opportunity to come away from the experience a little bit wiser.
But here’s the problem. The petition has been up for some days now and so far has only garnered 2,800 supporters.
Now I can understand those who support Hanson getting a bit narkie and not wanting to sign the petition — they won’t see the ridgy-didge intentions behind it. However using the Senate figures just over 431,000 people gave the nod to One Nation — just under 3.5 per cent of the 12.5 million voters. That’s over 12 million voters who did not vote for Hanson. Surely more than 2800 of those would be inclined to sign.
Ok, the petition does also ask for Hanson to put facts to her statistics but isn’t that what we would like from all our politicians — to be fair dinkum with us. Surely that wouldn’t deter dinky di Aussies from signing it. If anything, the opposite. Except for those Hansonites who appear to hate facts.
What’s going on? Are we becoming a nation of wowsers? Have we lost our sense of humour? Surely any True Blue Aussie would consider the petition a rippa — it should be spreading like a rumour in a brothel. Are the pundits right, has our culture been eroded by political correctness, are we no longer able to take the piss?
However consider this, the Hansonites are calling their “just scraping over the line” as representing a mythical majority – a mob whose voices are drowned out by a vocal minority – this petition presents an opportunity to expose that untruth.
Should the petition pass 150,000 that would be more than the national Lower House vote for One Nation. Pass 180,000 and it’s more than the infamous QLD vote. Pass 431,000 and it’s more than the national vote. A result of half a million or more “signatures” would be the bee’s knees to throw on the table when Hansonites are claiming to represent the voice of “most Australians”. Get enough signatures and it can be held up to show the Hansonites that they are, if anything, a “vocal minority”.
So come on Aussies come on, stop being a mob of sheilas, forget that PC crap and worrying about offending others, sign the petition and share it around — if others don’t like it they can fuck off.
Aussie Aussie Aussie, Oi Oi Oi.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Australia License
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