A New Australia?

 What has happened to us?
Remember this?
Kevin Rudd, speaking after Australia’s 2009 ‘Black Saturday’ fires:
“…In some countries, tragedy exposes the fault lines in a nation.
The strong abandoning the weak; one region indifferent to the sufferings of another, one culture uncaring as to the needs of another.
But ours is a different nation. Our nation has been as one.
Australia - a nation of compassion. Courage and compassion…”*

IS AUSTRALIA STILL A ‘DIFFERENT NATION’; DIFFERENT FROM OTHER, MORE DIVIDED PLACES?
ARE WE STILL A NATION OF COMPASSION AND COURAGE?
I’m not sure anymore.

This is what we have:
State against State.
Region against Region.
‘Haves’ against ‘have-nots’.
A worshipping of money by those in power.
Imprisonment of (genuine) refugees.
Persecution of folk on ‘Welfare’ – (that use to be called ‘Social Security’)
The use of the National flag as a sort of weird nationalistic authority, accompanying rampart racism.
 
I feel there is a nastiness that is unlike anything Australia has seen – or felt - before.
I don’t like this ‘new’ Australia.
​
Should we blame it all on the mental fatigue presented by the COVID19 virus?
I don’t think so.
 
 *Address on the National Day of Mourning for the victims of the Victoria Bushfires, Rod Laver Arena, Melbourne. 22/02/2009