The Australia Tree

Guest Author Uncategorized

Today’s Guest Author is Victoria Rollinson, with a thoughtful reflection probably best described as a parable. Thank you, Victoria, for your superb, and sorrowful, story.

A metaphor occurred to me today about the Abbott government and I felt it was good enough to share. There’s nothing like a good metaphor to clarify how you feel about something; in this case to remind us how destructive and dangerous the Abbott government is for our country.

Imagine that you live in a big old house with your family and in the backyard in the middle of a sprawling lawn is a huge plane tree. In this metaphor, that tree is the Australian government. Yes, this is going to take some imagination but bear with me. The tree has been there forever and has grown tall and wide, with branches reaching out to every corner of your garden. It offers shade in summer, a place of shelter in winter, a quiet spot for an outdoor meal, a branch hosting a tyre swing for the kids and the perfect climbing gym and fortress for outdoor games. You can’t imagine your garden, or your home, without this tree and you always assumed it would always be part of your future.

But then something changed.

A man from the council knocks on your door one day and tells you there’s a problem with your tree that has been raised by a neighbour. He won’t tell you which neighbour, only that the council was taking the complaint very seriously as they would with any risk to the community. The only neighbour you could imagine caring about the tree is the grumpy old man living in the property behind yours. He had never been a friendly person and grumbled constantly about everything; the weather, the council, the rates he had to pay, the noise your children made playing and a few times, the leaves that your tree shed in Autumn, some of which found themselves in his swimming pool that he never used because he whinged about the cost of energy to heat it. ‘Is this about the leaves in the pool?’ you ask, nodding your head towards the grumpy neighbour’s house and wondering what type of ‘community risk’ a few dead leaves could possibly cause. The man from the council avoided answering directly and said instead that the council were ordering you to lob off your trees largest branches before they fall off, endangering your home. And the lives of your family. You suddenly feel anxious. ‘What’s wrong with our tree?’ you ask nervously. ‘It’s got a tree disease which is making it slowly rot. Your neighbour recognised the symptoms. In effect it’s dying and the branches will fall one by one. The entire structure of the tree is unsustainable. You may in fact be better off cutting it down completely to avoid worrying about it in the future’. ‘Let me have a think about it’, you respond, wanting the man to leave. He tells you not to think about it for too long as the council wants something done about it immediately. He leaves and you pass on his terrible news to your husband who then feels as anxious as you do.

The next day you can’t stop looking at the tree and worrying about how quickly it is dying. It doesn’t look sick, but the man from the council is meant to be an expert on this type of thing so you’re sure he isn’t making it up. After a couple of weeks, you decide to get the largest of the branches cut off; just the ones that are risking hurting anyone if they fall off or coming down onto the house. This is the moment Australia elected Abbott. The tree of government was suddenly a risk to the community, rather than a protector.

The day the man arrives to cut off the large branches, you try to make yourself scarce. The sound of the chainsaws grate on your nerves. You return home hoping to feel less anxious now that the branches are gone. But you don’t feel less anxious at all and the tree looks hacked up and pathetic. No more social safety net. Medicare is under threat. Huge cuts to health and education spending. Gonski no longer a bipartisan policy. No more credible climate change policy. No more mining tax. A fraud of a national broadband network that will be no faster than what we have now. Huge increases in the cost of higher education. Cuts to the ABC and SBS. And the economy is flagging under the weight of austerity cuts and lack of confidence. You did what the man from the council expertly told you needed to be done and yet you can’t help feeling like you’ve lost something you’ll never be able to get back. The tree had been there much longer than you had and in one afternoon its dependable foliage is destroyed forever. You feel sad.

The man from the council returns a few weeks later to inspect the tree. He taps his pen on the thick trunk and nearly trips over the tyre that used to hang from the branches as a swing. ‘The disease is still risking the structure. I would recommend cutting the whole thing down. It could easily come down in a storm. You wouldn’t have the insurance to cover the damage’. You nod weakly and promise to do something about it right away. The tree makes you sad now so maybe once it’s gone you will get over it.

The arborist who cut off the large branches is booked out for the next month so you call someone new and he can cut the tree down next week. Again you leave him to it, as you can’t bring yourself to watch your tree become a useless stump. When you return home, the last bits of trunk are being fed into the noisy wood-chip creating machine. ‘Why did you cut it down?’ the arborist asks cheerfully. ‘It was dying, it was risking our home and was dangerous for our family’. The arborist raises an eyebrow. ‘Who told you that?’ he asks. ‘A man from the council. We didn’t really have a choice, it had to be done’. ‘That’s a shame, because there was nothing wrong with the tree. It would have happily outlived you if you’d just left it alone’. Your heart sinks and you feel like crying.

Soon after you’re driving past your neighbour’s house – the one who you suspect had it in for your tree because of the leaves in his pool, and you notice he’s on his porch, talking to someone who looks familiar. It’s the man from the council. They’re laughing about something, clearly sharing a joke. They’re friends. Or at least friendly. Suddenly you get it. There was nothing wrong with your tree. The man from the council lied. You’ve been tricked into doing something against your best interest. Scared into ruining your Australia tree. And your neighbour no longer has leaves in his pool. The rage you feel is impossible to describe.

237 thoughts on “The Australia Tree”

  2. Shorten will be cross-examined later, that was explained when he was allowed to bring forward the date for his appearance. And, as Commissioner Heydon said, other evidence might come to light as TURC drags on which will then have to be included in the cross examination.

  3. Damn, our link went down when they had that last 10 minute break at TURC, anyone know what the result was of releasing the names, and did anything else happen of note?

  4. 2gravel

    Returning after the adjournment, Shorten’s lawyers advised the commission they would no longer maintain the earlier request for confidentiality. Counsel Allan Myers said the person in the earlier document “has been contacted and she has said she no longer wants her name to be kept a secret”.

    The commissioner noted that Shorten “deserves congratulations for his good sense both yesterday and today on this matter” [the request for confidentiality].

    The commissioner rescinded the confidentiality orders made for those two names.

    Commisioner Heydon:
    “Mr Shorten, thank you for attending over these two days. I do appreciate what an extreme inconvenience it is to you … You may or may not have to come back and every effort will be made to accommodate the least inconvenient possible time for you in view of your responsibilities”

    http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/live/2015/jul/09/bill-shorten-faces-a-second-day-at-the-trade-union-royal-commission-politics-live

  8. Jeezus!…that airbrush of Bishop is a Michelangelo masterpiece!…in reality, you’d need a 20kg. bag of “Quickset” gyprock plaster to fill the wrinkles and cracks on her face…toss in a pair of concrete shoes and cart her out to sea and it’d be a good job done!

  9. You’re so vain, Julie …

    You wonder why a woman of her age would be happy to look like someone else many years younger. As a fake, in other words.

  11. Compare and contrast – Airbrush Julie versus Real Julie
    Almost the same angle as the second photo in Vogue. Note the difference in the necks.

    Now I suppose i’ll get flamed again for picking on a member of the sisterhood or something like that. I don’t care.

  12. 2gravel
    A pleasure. As luck would have it i’d just looked for the answer to the same question.

  16. If anyone is still arguing that we should give a fuck about what happens to the ABC then they only need have a look at the ABCs shockingly poor performance the last 2 days concerning the RC.
    Shut the whole useless thing down.

  17. Now the ABC speaks to Lyn Allison former democrats leader.
    Seriously, what would that useless idiot have to contribute to the national debate? Unless the subject is on how to lead a party into total irrelevance and ultimately oblivion.

  19. Billie11,
    I suspect that more than one jar of vasoline was smeared on the camera lens in that shoot.

  21. Sky News carried on with the Bob Hogg business this afternoon. PvO and Ross Cameron tried to beat it up but Kristina Keneally was having none of that and would not be shut up or talked over. The boys’ love affair with Hogg caused her to have the most fantastic rant about the way she was fed up with Liberals getting away with murder and with the media doing nothing to pursue any of it.

    I wish Kristina would get herself into federal politics, she would be brilliant. There are some problems with that. She’s too good, she would show up some of those ageing males for the inept dinosaurs they are. And she has the NSW election loss baggage hanging around. The boys didn’t want to be premier back then, they knew they would lose, so they gave the job to a woman. Better a woman loses than one of the boys.

  22. Gigilene,
    IMO O,Connor should be given a more prominent role on the labor frontbench.
    He was always strong in defence of Julia Gillard and his comments lately about the RC have been spot on the mark.

  23. SH

    I fully agree with you. Julia could always rely on him, and so can Shorten now. The man is honest and capable, imo.

  24. From a story on the SMH site today;

    The barrister, who also knows Commissioner Heydon, said both would be “disgusted” if they knew people had criticised them as political pawns in their respective roles at the royal commission.

    Boo fucking hoo. They are both disgusting and unprofessional and should man up and take the criticism that their woeful and biased performance deserves.
    They took on this role and prostituted their reputations so they should be prepared to cop any flack that rightfully comes from their corrupt performance.

  28. I think we’ve now seen why these allegations about unions have never gone to police. The evidence given is predominately hearsay evidence which would not be admissible in a court. Basically this is just a great big attempt to throw mud in the hope that some of it sticks. If it doesn’t then I’m going to bet that this thing is extended for another twelve months, conveniently into an election year.

  30. BK

    As Samuel Johnson summed up in the 18th century
    Patriotism: The Last Resort of the Scoundrel

  32. The Media have only looked for a gotcha statement or look or word in Shortens examination at the TURC and have ignored the calm and detailed answers Shorten gave. Also ignored “What Shorten Stands For” moments when he continually stood up for the workers in all his negotiations.

  33. The ALP should kick Rob Hogg out of the Party all together for undermining the Leader.

  35. The media are only interested in getting a gotcha story on Shorten with which to beat him over the head from now until the election. Hogg is as relevant as his missus in the undermining stakes – neither of them should worry Shorten or Labor.

  37. My control group seem to think that the last two days have been a disaster for Shorten, and they’re discussing when he’ll be stepping down. Pretty sure none of them have actually followed TURC, and from what I can tell they’ve got their opinions from headlines.

    They’re a case study in the kind of stupidity strict adherence to a political party creates. They all go on about how they don’t take political sides, but they do. It’s quite fascinating to watch.

    What I do know about its impact is that the hearings aren’t trending at all on social media. I’m reading a lot of tweets about it because of the kind of people I follow, but generally it’s getting no traction. There’s far more interest in Shenhua (incidentally, Greg Hunt’s gone on leave or, as I refer to it, has run away). The media reportage will feed into the whole slur and sledge campaign on Shorten that’s been running endlessly, but Abbott’s ratings are falling just as badly as Shorten’s and it’s having no impact on people’s feelings about the ALP in general.

  41. hahahahahaha
    Bushfire Bill giving it to that useless as tits on a bull journalistic whore Leigh Sales over on PB.
    He always manages to say what im thinking in a much more succinct and entertaining way.

  42. One thing that really pisses me off about this is that it normalises the practice of using a royal commission as a political tool to smear opponents. Not only does this undermine the credibility of royal commissions in general, there will also be a desire from some on the left for Shorten, should he and Labor win the election, to call a royal commission into the Abbott government, with mass whinging to eventuate if this does not happen.

  45. Barnaby Joyce’s Facebook Page Flooded With Criticism Over Shenhua Mine Approval – https://newmatilda.com/2015/07/09/barnaby-joyces-facebook-page-flooded-criticism-over-shenhua-mine-approval#sthash.o29gchTa.dpuf

    Abbott was in Grafton today, heaven knows why. Barnaby was supposed to be there with him, but he refused to go. His no-show surprised the locals, who were expecting him and were a bit miffed when only Abbott turned up. Was he too busy keeping up his faux outrage over the Shenhua approval, or was he just avoiding tricky questions from journalists, like ‘Why didn’t you say something before this mine was approved’?
    http://www.dailyexaminer.com.au/news/tony-abbott-in-grafton-today/2700622/

    Just to give you an idea of the size of this mine, which has been approved until 2046 –

    http://www.smh.com.au/environment/shenhua-watermark-coal-mines-footprint-larger-than-sydney-melbourne-cbds-20150709-gi8fl7.html

  46. PB – just as pointless and back-bitey and bickery as ever, I see. You can leave the place alone for six months, pick any thread and any page at random, and be assured of reading virtually the exact same opinions from the exact same people, having exactly the same arguments with each other. That place is the literary equivalent of an Escher print, endlessly moving forward to the same place day after day after dreary day. I used to be bothered by it, but these days I just admire their stamina.

  48. Aguirre
    Yep. all that, and then some. There’s the way some people always want to pick a fight over even the most innocuous posts. That’s why I left, I was just sick and tired of having the same people trying to start a fight every time I said something, Avoiding those pointless, tedious, drawn-out circular arguments became too wearisome.

  49. Ducky
    Ms Jackson’s activities, in their entirety, eluded the MSM for ages. They are just beginning to wake up.

  50. Leonetwo,
    Thanks for that link.
    The whole Kathy Jackson story has been nothing short of a disgrace.
    The only thing worse has been the almost non-existent coverage by the media up until now.
    Kate McClymont should hand back her ill deserved and totally unwarranted Walkley award.
    Although a journo probably need only write an article without too many spelling errors to receive a Walkley these days given the parlous state of journalism in this country.

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