Gallipoli: good, Aboriginies: bad

Posted by Scott on Wednesday 13 December 2006, 7:58 am
Categories: Politics  Tags: , , , , ,

The fug of confusion about the citizenship values test grows every day, driven largely by those who are responsible for it. How about this choice quote from the honourable parliamentary secretary for immigration, Andrew Robb:

Some history is important — the fact the country is 200 years old not 2000 years old is relevant in terms of the character of the nation…

200 years old, hey? That’ll be news to a certain percentage of the population.

Robb doesn’t believe in tests that simply encourage rote learning but he wants the test to ensure that people understand events that have shaped Australia’s “character”, such as Gallipoli.

Q) Do you understand how Gallipoli shaped Australia’s character?
A) Yes (you’re in)/ No (you’re out)

And the Man of Steel seems to have a strange definition of mateship:

A concept of treating people according to how you find them and not according to the colour of their skin.

Wrong, Johnny! Everyone knows mateship is all about Gallipoli, going to the pub with the blokes, and standing up for your mates no matter how wrong they are. What you’re talking about sounds much more like egalitarianism — but that’s a really big word, innit? Sounds too intellectual.

    Share This     

4 comments on “Gallipoli: good, Aboriginies: bad”

  1. Wednesday 13 December 2006, 12:38 pm #joe2

    Na mate, what Johnny was trying to say was that ‘mateship’ is a concept of treating people according to how you find them once they, and you , have had a skinfull.
    Mate! mattee! maattttteeee!

  2. Wednesday 13 December 2006, 11:14 pm #Tommy

    Mateship should be replaced by ‘Bradman-inity’

  3. Wednesday 13 December 2006, 11:14 pm #Tommy

    No.. Make that ‘Bradman-icity’

  4. Tuesday 19 December 2006, 8:20 am #billybob

    Didn’t you guys just get mauled at Gallipoli? How does that help define a 200 year history, not exactly regaining the ashes is it?

Write a comment

 Please read: comments policy
Want an icon next to your comment? Get a free Gravatar.
SpamGuard: Some comments containing hyperlinks will be moderated by The Editor before appearing

Live preview

Top Of Page

Categories

Archives

Worth reading