Another one from the vault – this blog was first published on Just Humour Us prior to the 2007 election, when it looked like John Howard would step down as candidate or retire mid-term. Plus ça change…

It would seem that the Federal Liberal Party are about to encounter the type of leadership musical chairs problem that until recently plagued the Labor Party. In an attempt to avoid wasting many more years through in-fighting in both government and opposition, we have come up with the following suggestions. They seem to work quite well with infants students who suffer with the same ‘but you went first yesterday’ mentality.

Leader for the Day

One person is selected at random to be the leader. They get to sit in the big chair.

M: Looking at our next likely candidates for Prime Minister, we may need to supply a booster seat.

They can choose their own assistant leader. This is usually their BFF (BestFriendForever) of the moment. These two get to do all the important jobs that day. No-one can be leader two days in a row.

Alphabetical Order

An old favourite. Everyone’s name is written down. Start with the ‘A’s’ and work your way through to the ‘Z’s’. Everyone gets a turn, no-one misses out. No favouritism.

Pick a name from a hat

Totally random. You never know when your turn will come up, so you always have to be prepared. Cabinet portfolios could also be assigned this way – along the same lines as the family Christmas draw.

S: And no redraws because you got Environment and Water Resources last year.

M: Those darn greenies are impossible to buy for!

Star of the Week

Everyone gets to be the centre of attention for one week. They can design their own marketing campaign, they get to talk about themselves all the time, everyone else has to defer to them for the week. Next week, they are back to being one of the crowd.

We figured if these techniques work with the average 6-8 year old, they should be perfect for dealing with our federal parliamentarians.

Have you ever considered how much of an impression it can make on someone when you welcome them in to your world and focus on what you have in common rather than keeping your distance and highlighting the differences?

Okay, I’m about to get just a little bit philosophical, but first I will offer a little background information to make it easier for you to see how I got to the statement above.

To help my daughter with an assignment on Aboriginal culture recently, I organised for her to visit the Arwrabukarl Cultural Resource Association in Newcastle. While her project didn’t call for specific information, I was keen for her to think about the culture of the Aboriginal people of our area, the Awabakals, rather than simply searching for generic information.

Daryn McKenny at the Arwarbukarl CRA was incredibly helpful and generous with his time, trading emails and taking an hour when we visited to explain local Awabakal customs and ceremonies and Aboriginal culture in general.

As part of discussing the ceremonies held in the local area, Daryn commented that the history of the Awabakal people is part of our heritage to, as people who live in Newcastle. His comment has had me thinking over the past few days about the “us and them” view I guess I have unconsciously taken in the past towards Indiginous Australians.

On reflection, it makes so much more sense to me to identify with the culture and history of my hometown rather than simply counting back the 4 – 5 generations since my family first moved to this area and then transferring my focus to people I never met in a country that I have no emotional connection with at all (my family tree originates in England, Ireland, Scotland and Germany).

I was born and raised in Newcastle and aside from 6 years spent in Orange in rural New South Wales, I have spent my entire life in this area – attended school here, worked here and now I am raising my own children here. When people mention “hometown” it is Newcastle that comes to mind.

As such, I am surprised that it has only just occurred to me, thanks to the warmly inclusive comments of Daryn McKenny, that the heritage of this area is part of my own story at least as much as the story of my European ancestors.

I guess that embracing the Awabakal culture as part of my own heritage will involve walking a rather tenuous line with the risk of appearing patronising and/or dismissive to the Awabakal people themselves. It is impossible to deny that the first European settlers did little to appreciate the rich culture of the people they so readily dismissed and displaced and there is always the risk that I would appear just as dismissive by claiming any right to share their story.

For now, I am simply going to spend some time simply allowing this new thought to sink in – that I can consider myself as somehow connected to the story of the Awabakal people rather than existing as an interested but detached observer.

For anyone interested in learning more about the Awabakal people and their language, I can highly recommend contacting the Arwarbukarl Cultural Resource Association, which is located in the Newcastle inner city (contact details available at the ACRA website).

I’d love to know what you consider to be your cultural heritage, especially if you live in an area different to where you, your parents or grandparents were born. Do you relate more closely to the culture of past generations of your family or to the culture of the place where you now live?

Note
The title of this post comes from I Am Australian, a song written by Bruce Woodley and Dobe Newton in 1987. The lyrics for the chorus are:

We are one, but we are many
And from all the lands on earth we come
We share a dream and sing with one voice
I am, you are, we are Australian.

Full lyrics, including additional verses written by Woodley after the devastating 2009 Victorian bushfires can be found here.

Related links
Reviews at Suite101 and Reading Upside Down of Lenny and the Big Red Kinan by Faith Baisden (an Awabakal language children’s picture book).

As November rolls on the weather is heating up here in Newcastle. We are entering that small window of time where pool-owners feel very smug. Please don’t hate us for our arrogance. We have battled to create these few weeks of summer bliss for ourselves. Each season we endure fifty-nine trips to the pool shop, thirty-two backbreaking retrievals of water samples to test, sixty-eight hose-outs of the clogged filter basket and seven hundred and ninety-six scoopings of leaves. This is just the day-to-day maintenance.

This year our old filter sprung a leak and of course we didn’t get around to replacing it until spring had arrived and the kids were moaning for a swim. The replacement filter was a new design – slightly higher than the old one. We had to adjust the existing pipes to fit – a job requiring manual dexterity, several trips to Bunnings, long forgotten sixth grade mathematics and a choice selection of words from the “F” section of the dictionary.

Of course once the new filter was up and running, the weather turned cold and miserable for several weeks. Once October took hold, we attempted to clean the pool that had not been cleaned since the old filter packed it in back in March. My husband (remember Scooby Doo?) was concerned about a subterranean gurgling that only he could hear. Luckily my man can dig a hole with a Dale Kerrigan-like zeal, and a leaky pipe was soon discovered and (after another trip to Bunnings) patched.  We cleaned and readied the pool for the onslaught of the heat.

So last week the kids swam. And swam.  And swam. Then we thought we should probably get the water properly tested by the professionals. Apparently we’re lucky that the kids still have their eyebrows and haven’t grown scales. Two hundred dollars later, we had a speed lab of chemicals in our shed and a list of processes that would make a Masterchef contestant cry. We were not fazed. We were ready to be smug. Step one – add chlorine. Within minutes the water took on a greenish tinge. The instructions say to wait an hour. We waited. The water that was swimmable two days ago was now the colour of Mountain Dew. A call to the Pool Guy only got us the words you never want to hear from a diagnostician: “Hmmm, that’s strange”. NOOOOOOOOO!

Fortunately, we decided to take two aspirins and call him in the morning, if our pain persisted. Sunday morning dawned bright and clear, and our pool was bluer than blue.  So now we can start updating our Facebook status with “enjoying a few cold ones in the pool”. At work my husband will be able to talk about how refreshing it is to have a quick dip before breakfast.  The kids’ popularity rating at school will soar. I am smug at last.