LGBTIQ Hate Crimes: Violence against lesbians in New South Wales Australia: A journey through the 1980s and 1990s.
There are important differences between anti-lesbian violence and violence against gay men. While both experiences were marked by prejudice and hate, the nature and circumstances of the violence often differed…
Introduction.
With the Special Commission of Inquiry into LGBTIQ+ Hate Crimes in New South Wales, Australia’s largest state, issuing its final report, I thought it would be timely to invite some of the people who gave evidence at the Inquiry to share their thoughts on its importance and its findings. This second blog is authored by Carole Ruthchild, who as co-convenor of the Gay and Lesbian Rights Lobby (GLRL), led the team that conducted the Off Our Backs survey in 1991. The need for the survey was the lack of data on violence against lesbians. In this blog she discusses the significant efforts made by organisations like the GLRL to address violence, improve police responses, and advocate for legal changes to protect the rights of the LGBTIQ+ communities. The blog underscores the importance of continued efforts to eliminate hate crimes and discrimination while acknowledging the important differences between anti-lesbian violence and violence against gay men.
Here is Carole’s blog.
In recent decades, the struggle for LGBTQ+ rights and acceptance has made significant progress. However, it's important to remember the challenges faced by the community in the 1980s and 90s, particularly in the context of hate crimes and violence. During this turbulent period, as more gay and lesbian individuals courageously came out, they often encountered discrimination and violence. This article delves into that era, highlighting the efforts to combat hate and promote equality. This article is based on the statement I provided to the Inquiry into anti-LGBTQ+ violence.
The inquiry and its findings.
The Special Inquiry was a welcome reexamination of the many unsolved deaths of gay men, many of which bore the clear indications of a hate crime, but which were not properly investigated by the police or were simply written off as "suicides", leaving those deaths unresolved for their families, friends and partners.
What it revealed was the shortcomings in many cases of the NSW Police response to hate crimes against LGBTIQ+ people.
It may not be possible, all these decades later, for all those responsible for those hate crimes to be brought to justice, but the Inquiry was at least able to finally restore some dignity to the victims and hopefully some comfort to their loved ones.
I gave evidence to the Special Commission of Inquiry on 25 November 2022.
Like Dr Gary Cox, I would also like to commend the Hon. Justice John Sackar and all those involved for their handling of the Inquiry.
The 1980s: A time of change and resistance.
The 1980s marked a turning point for the LGBTIQ+ communities in New South Wales, Australia. As more people openly embraced their sexual identity, society's reactions were mixed. While some responded with empathy and understanding, many LGBTIQ+ individuals faced ostracism, job loss, family rejection, and even legal battles over custody of their children.
The emergence of the AIDS epidemic in the later part of the decade brought about a backlash against the LGBTIQ+ communities. Some public figures even described AIDS as "God's punishment." In 1988, the UK introduced Section 28, which prohibited local councils from allegedly "promoting homosexuality." This discriminatory legislation remained in effect until 2000 in Scotland and 2003 in England and Wales.
The birth of the Gay and Lesbian Rights Lobby (GLRL).
Amid this challenging environment, the GLRL was established in 1988. The GLRL became a leading advocate for lesbian and gay rights in New South Wales, with a mission to achieve legal equality and social justice through lobbying, community empowerment, and collaboration with other LGBTIQ+ organisations.
Throughout its existence, the GLRL achieved several legislative milestones, including the introduction of anti-vilification laws (1993), legal recognition of same-sex de facto relationships (1999), equal age of consent provisions for gay men (2003), and the removal of provisions denying same-sex couples the right to adopt (2010).
The Streetwatch Report.
Streetwatch, initiated in late 1988, aimed to collect information on violent attacks against LGBTIQ+ individuals. However, the response rate from women was notably low, revealing the challenges faced by lesbians in reporting such incidents. Anecdotal evidence suggested that lesbians often encountered verbal abuse, harassment, and intimidation in public places.
Off Our Backs Report: Shedding light on violence against lesbians.
In response to the need for data on violence against lesbians, the GLRL conducted the Off Our Backs survey in 1991. This survey received 42 responses and culminated in the Off Our Backs Report, published in September 1992.
The report highlighted disturbing stories of violence, including physical assaults and verbal abuse directed at lesbians. It revealed that many attacks occurred on the streets, during Mardi Gras events, or in workplaces. The assailants were often men who targeted lesbians due to their sexual orientation.
Differences between anti-lesbian violence and violence against gay men.
There are important differences between anti-lesbian violence and violence against gay men. While both experiences were marked by prejudice and hate, the nature and circumstances of the violence often differed.
Anti-lesbian violence in the late 1980s and early 1990s commonly involved verbal abuse, harassment, and intimidation by men in public places such as bars or public transport. Women out alone or with other women were often "targeted" by men who exhibited predatory behaviour. Such male predatory behaviour had long been common towards women in general, and it continued during this period.
In contrast, violence against gay men, as revealed by the Streetwatch data, often took a more physically aggressive form and was sometimes perpetrated by gangs of young men who specifically targeted gay men for assault. While both forms of violence were deeply troubling, the differences in their nature and circumstances were notable.
The data: Off Our Backs Report (1992)
Nature of attacks:
33% of respondents reported the harassment and violence as ongoing.
29% of respondents who reported being physically or sexually assaulted sustained serious injuries requiring medical treatment.
33% sustained lacerations or severe bruising.
Time and location of incidents:
19% of incidents occurred at or after an organized Mardi Gras event.
45% of incidents occurred in the street.
39% of incidents occurred at work or in other public areas.
27% of incidents occurred between 6:00 am and 6:00 pm. and 59% occurred between 6:00 pm and 3:00 am.
Characteristics of survivors:
96% of respondents identified as white Australian.
38% of respondents were aged 30-39 years; 48% were aged 20-29 years.
88% of incidents involved men only; in 10% of cases, both men and women were present, with women either observing or contributing to the verbal abuse.
Characteristics of assailants:
38% of respondents knew their assailants.
31% of incidents involved 3-4 assailants; 19% involved 5 or more.
31% of assailants were aged 21-25 years; 23% were aged 16-20; and 29% were aged 30+.
Reason for assault:
100% of respondents felt they were attacked because they were or perceived to be lesbian.
In 74% of incidents, the assailant(s) spoke to the respondent, with 84% involving anti-lesbian abuse; no incidents involved robbery.
Witnesses:
65% of incidents were observed by witnesses; only 18% of these resulted in intervention.
Immediate post-assault action:
31% of respondents felt able to fight back; 29% took protective action.
42% of respondents told friends/partners about the incident; 4% spoke to a counsellor.
Reports to police:
10% of respondents reported the incident to police.
Of those who did not, 24% felt nothing could be done, 19% cited no women police officers as the reason, 10% involved alleged police abuse, and 35% felt the police would not take the report seriously.
Recommendations and progress.
The Off Our Backs Report made 34 recommendations to address the issue of anti-lesbian violence. These recommendations included amending the Anti-Discrimination Act to include a ground of homosexual vilification, introducing hate crimes legislation, and providing training and support for victims.
This research contributed to significant changes, including the appointment of Gay and Lesbian Liaison Officers (now known as LGBTIQ Liaison Officers) within the NSW Police force. These officers played a crucial role in improving the response to LGBTIQ+ victims of crime.
Looking back and moving forward.
While progress has been made, the fight against hate crimes and discrimination continues. Eliminating violence against lesbians, and all forms of hate crime, remains a challenging but noble endeavour. The experiences of the LGBTIQ+ communities in the 1980s and 90s serve as a reminder of the importance of ongoing advocacy and education to promote equality and acceptance for all.
In 2017, Australia took a significant step forward when nearly two-thirds of its citizens voted in favour of marriage equality for same-sex couples. This milestone demonstrates the power of collective action and the potential for positive change.
As we reflect on the past, let us continue to work towards a future where everyone, regardless of their sexual orientation, can live free from discrimination and violence.
Carole Ruthchild, 7 February 2024.
*Carole Ruthchild has a diverse background in law, policy, and activism. She holds a Bachelor of Philosophy (Hons.) from the University of Warwick and a Bachelor of Laws (Hons. 1st class) from the University of Technology, Sydney, along with a Graduate Certificate in Legal Practice. Carole had a significant career in the NSW Attorney General's Department, later the Department of Justice, where she served as a Senior Policy Officer, focusing on issues related to victims of crime, women in the criminal justice system, and the LGBTI+ communities. Her notable achievements include contributing to the establishment of the NSW Victims Support Scheme and legislative changes related to same-sex marriage in 2017. Carole has a rich history of activism, particularly in the women's and LGBTIQ+ movements, both in the UK and Australia, and she has received awards for her work in promoting gay and lesbian rights, including the Chris Carter Memorial Award and induction into the NSW Gay and Lesbian Rights Lobby Hall of Fame.
Ending hate.
Boomers, as we know, eliminating gender-based violence and hate related violence against LGBTIQ people, as well as racial, and other types of prejudice related violence, is possible. Violence is a human action, which means that an alternative human action to violence is possible, which in turn means that prevention is a smart investment.
And remember, you can access This Boomers Life., on Facebook.
LGBTI hate crimes: Taking a stand against abuse of power.
What happened over the years in the Police in New South Wales Australia as regards many of the cases the Special Commission investigated amounted to an abuse of power…
Introduction.
With the Special Commission of Inquiry into LGBTIQ Hate Crimes in New South Wales, Australia’s largest state, issuing its final report last month, I thought it would be timely to invite some of the people who gave evidence at the Inquiry to share their thoughts on its importance and its findings. This first blog is authored by Dr Gary Cox, who was part of the team that jump started the communities’ coordinated response to this violence more than 35 years ago.
It all began back in 1988 when the Gay and Lesbian Rights Lobby (GLRL) was founded in response to concerns that the progress made in the previous decade regarding LGBTIQ rights, especially with regards to the Anti-Discrimination Act 1977, might be rolled back. Gary was elected as the first President of GLRL.
GLRL Logo.
Amidst a backdrop of limited resources and a commitment to voluntary work, the GLRL became deeply concerned about violence against members of the LGBTIQ community. This concern led to the inception of the Streetwatch Project in 1988, an initiative aimed at gathering data on anti-LGBTIQ hate crimes in Sydney.
This project, carried out in collaboration with other respected community organisations, played a crucial role in shedding light on this issue. The Streetwatch Report, published in 1990, marked a significant step forward in addressing and eradicating hate crimes against the LGBTIQ community, with support from government officials and key allies.
Here is Gary’s blog.
On 23 November last year, I gave evidence to the Special Commission of Inquiry into LGBTIQ Hate Crimes. My story starts when I was elected the first president of Gay and Lesbian Rights Lobby or GLRL. But let me start with my thoughts on the inquiry and its findings.
The inquiry and its findings.
I did what I did in 1988 out of an instinctive sense of injustice and outrage. The Special Commission of Inquiry gives us all time to reflect. Firstly, I’d like to commend Justice John Sackar and his team for handling the Inquiry in an exemplary manner. Frankly, I’m used to inquiries in the UK that sometimes take decades. The Special Commission took just over a year and carried out its investigations in a thorough and diligent manner. You can access the reports and all the transcripts of evidence here: https://lgbtiq.specialcommission.nsw.gov.au/
I won’t go through the recommendations one by one. But I think one of the critical things the Inquiry did was to open up cold cases. These are cases that the NSW Police closed at the time as they believed there were no further leads or forensic evidence to lead to a prosecution.
The Inquiry looked at all the cold cases in some instances forensic evidence was reviewed with new techniques. In other cases, there was evidence in plain sight that wasn’t investigated properly at the time. I understand that two successful prosecutions have occurred as the result of the Special Commission’s work. There may be more to come. This is impressive.
What happened over the years in the NSW Police as regards many of the cases the Special Commission investigated amounted to an abuse of power. I felt this at the time all those years back with the NSW Police’s rather dismissive attitude to hate crime in the LGBTIQ community back then. Abuse of power comes as much from government or government agencies failing to act as much as from using powers excessively in an inappropriate manner. The failure around the way many suspected hate crime deaths of LGBTIQ people (or those presumed to be such) were handled and investigated, in many instances, amounted to an abuse of power through failure to act.
The following is my story – a longer version of which appears in my written and oral evidence to the Special Commission.
The start of the Gay and Lesbian Rights Lobby.
GLRL was formed following the change of NSW Government in March 1988, amidst concerns that some of the advances of the previous decade or so, particularly relating to the Anti-Discrimination Act 1977, might be reversed. This was a successor organisation to the Gay Rights Lobby which led the campaign to decriminalise male homosexual acts in NSW in the early 1980s. The GLRL had a broad remit to advance LGBTIQ rights in NSW with the understanding that HIV/AIDS issues would largely be taken up by organisations such as ACON.
I was elected as the GLRL’s first President at the initial public meeting in 1988, along with around 12 committee members. One priority for the GLRL was to increase the involvement of women in the organisation. Hence, a subsequent community meeting was held three months later (around the end of August 1988) at which I was elected male Co-Convenor and Jane Clements was elected female Co-Convenor. Membership of the GLRL committee was altered to provide for equal representation of men and women.
The GLRL was a community organisation and did not have any public funding at that time. It had very limited funds and relied on the support of other organisations and fundraising to conduct its activities. All members gave their time on a voluntary basis. Violence against members of the LGBTIQ community soon became the primary issue of concern to the GLRL.
1988 onwards: The Streetwatch Project.
In September 1988, following a meeting of the Police Gay/Lesbian Liaison Committee, I realised the urgent need for a project to gather data on violence against members of the LGBTIQ community.
By that time, there was a marked rise in violence in Sydney particularly against gay men. I was living in East Sydney at the time, close to the Oxford Street LGBTIQ ‘scene’ of commercial bars, pubs, clubs, cafes, and bookshops. I was aware that there was a definite upturn in street violence, and a number of friends of mine were directly affected.
At the Police Liaison Committee meeting in September 1988, this was discussed. I remember the meeting like it was yesterday. I found that the police members of the committee did not seem to believe the violence I was seeing was a real problem, as they were not receiving reports from survivors of these attacks. There was a palpable sense of complacency. Indeed, one police member of the committee said in my hearing that the main problem was ‘gays bashing themselves’. An odd comment.
I knew something need to happen and happen quickly. Immediately after the meeting, I drew up the outline of a project to enable members of the LGBTIQ community, directly affected by violence, to report to a trusted third party. The GLRL would gather the data as the evidence base that there was indeed a significant problem with anti-LGBTIQ hate crime in Sydney.
That same evening there was a meeting of the GLRL committee, at the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras Workshop in Boundary Street, Paddington. I presented the concept of the project to the committee and they accepted the challenge. I can say that they were all thirsty for change and accepted the challenge. Roles and tasks were allocated at that meeting. The project proceeded with a real sense of urgency. Two project convenors were selected: David Englebrecht and Karen Maxwell. David came up with the name ‘Streetwatch’.
The Streetwatch Project (Streetwatch) involved other community organisations as critical partners with GLRL. These organisations were the Gay and Lesbian Counselling Service and Lesbian Line. These were both well respected and long-established organisations in the LGBTIQ community in Sydney. They both ran telephone advice and counselling phone lines and had a pool of volunteers. We asked both organisations to administer a 15 to 20 minute questionnaire with survivors of violent attacks or abuse. The GLRL would then collate the data and present a report to the NSW Government, the NSW Police and the Anti-Discrimination Board.
The GLRL obtained a $500 grant from the Anti-Discrimination Board for the printing of posters, and these were displayed in pubs, clubs, cafes and shops in LGBTIQ neighbourhoods in inner city Sydney. We sought discount rates for full page advertising in the community newspapers, the Sydney Star Observer, Oxford Weekender News and Lesbians on the Loose.
On 11 November 1988 the Sydney Star Observer reported on the launch of Streetwatch with an article on page 1 entitled “Anti-Violence Campaign Launched: Stop the Bashers!”
SSO Cover: Stop the Violence Campaign Launch, 1988
As the project proceeded, the profile of Streetwatch was elevated by regular reports in the Sydney Morning Herald and live interviews on Triple J and Good Morning Australia. We also had the active support of the local State Member of Parliament, Clover Moore, who was close to the Minister for Police and Emergency Services, Ted Pickering. I recall that one Friday evening Clover took Ted around some of the ‘hot spots’ in the electorate. He was to become an important ally.
The first stage of Streetwatch covered the six month period from the start of November 1988 to the end of April 1989. The total number of respondents during this time was 67 (63 men and 4 women). Interviews were still taken after this time by the Gay and Lesbian Counselling Service and Lesbian Line. Interviews were only taken with the person directly the subject of the incident. No third-party interviews were accepted.
1990: The Streetwatch Report.
In April 1990 the findings of the first Streetwatch survey were published by GLRL, as The Streetwatch Report. The full title was The Streetwatch Report: A Study into Violence Against Lesbians and Gay Men.
The Streetwatch Report was officially launched in April 1990 by the then Minister for Police and Emergency Services, the Honourable Ted Pickering MLC. This was a significant event. The Minister’s public willingness to launch a report into LGBTIQ hate crime was an important milestone in indicating to the wider Australian community that such crimes were unacceptable and that they required action by government to eradicate them and the social attitudes that supported them.
Streetwater Report,1990
Responses.
I was unaware at the time of the significance of Streetwatch. This was the start of a long journey for the LGBTIQ community in NSW, in terms of responding to hate crime and ensuring that both legislation and government services supported its eradication.
I responded intuitively to the urgency of the times. I didn’t have a ‘theory of change’ but I now realise I adopted the approach I’d learnt over the years as a community development worker in the North of England and then in Inner City Sydney. My instinct was not to organise a rally or demonstration but to mobilise our own community organisations and to realise awareness in the wider community. I saw creating an evidence base and getting traction in the mainstream media as critical components to this.
I had a few unexpected responses to the project at the time. One was from my closest friend Brian McGahen who was for a time President of Mardi Gras and then a City Councillor. He mocked my data collection approach at the time – though a few years later he readily acknowledged the success of the strategy.
Dr Gary Cox, 9 January 2024.
Ending hate.
Boomers, as we know, eliminating gender-based violence and hate related violence against LGBTIQ people, as well as racial, and other types of prejudice related violence, is possible. Violence is a human action, which means that an alternative human action to violence is possible, which in turn means that prevention is a smart investment.
And remember, you can access This Boomers Life., on Facebook.
Systems failure: Brittany Higgins and LGBTIQ Hate Crimes in the 1980s and 1990s.
Boomers, as we know, it is all connected…
Boomers, as we know, it is all connected….
Systemic gender-based violence, like systematic racism, systemic homophobia and systematic transphobia, is about much, much more, than bad or flawed people doing terrible things. It is about how societies are structured to privilege some and disenfranchise others.
Brittany Higgins and systems failure.
In early 2021, Brittany Higgins, a Liberal Party media adviser and junior staff member, alleged that she was raped in a Minister’s office in Australia’s Parliament House. Higgins accused fellow Liberal Party staffer Bruce Lehrmann of raping her after a night out drinking with colleagues. The case went to court but the trial was aborted after misconduct by a juror. A retrial was planned for February next year. It was abandoned in early December amid fears the trial would have adversely affected Ms Higgins’s mental health. At the time, it was revealed Higgins was in hospital. The charge against Lehrmann has now been dropped and he maintains his innocence.
Meanwhile, the decision not to proceed with Lehrmann’s retrial has triggered a public fight between the public prosecutor and the police union, with both sides criticising the profession conduct of the other and calling for inquiries into how the case has been handled. Specifically, the chief prosecutor in the trial has complained that police officers engaged in: “… a very clear campaign to pressure him not to prosecute the alleged rape saying he felt investigators clearly aligned with the successful defence of this matter during the trial.”
As recently as Monday, political leaders were warning that unanswered questions about the allegations of interference in the case could have: “a devastating and irreversible erosion of public confidence in our legal system.” And today the story has shifted to how Higgins has reached a confidential settlement with the Commonwealth for sexual harassment, sex discrimination, disability discrimination, negligence, and victimisation.
Brittany Higgins became a lightning rod for those angry about the treatment of women in Australia, about the epidemic of sexual violence and about the failure of the justice system to do anything about it. The case is a painful reminder of how justice systems continue to fail women.
Governance of women by men.
In a liberal nation state such as Australia, women do not enjoy the same rights and the same levels of safety and security that men do for the simple reason that the state was never designed to empower women in the way it empowers men.
Liberal and social contract theories tell us that the liberal state was founded to enable men, and not just the rich, heterosexual and mostly white boffins of the day, to participate in public life. This included running for public office. The governance of women was left to men and not the state. In the 1980s Carole Pateman coined the term ‘government of women by men’.
Rather than being a source of protection and healing, the liberal state has been identified as a major contributor to violence against women and children, and by extension, to LGBTIQ people. The argument goes like this: The liberal state fails to protect women and children from violence, even though the protection of its male citizens is one of the ‘uncontested objectives of the political order of liberal regimes.’ Violence against women cannot end until the relations between men and women are transformed and when such a transformation in relations becomes a central objective of the liberal state. This means that the state must recognise the right to bodily integrity and security and treat all forms of violence against women including intimidation and coercion, as major crimes.
Special Commission of Inquiry into LGBTIQ Hate Crimes.
Violence against women, children and LGBTIQ people has occurred throughout human history. It is not an original event with a defined point of emergence but rather is part of the mainstream of human history, based on structural inequalities between genders and between sexualities.
During this time, justice systems have served to persecute and prosecute, not to protect. Also during this time, we have fought back. The most recent example of this is the Special Commission of Inquiry into LGBTIQ Hate Crimes, which is investigating unsolved suspected hate crime deaths of LGBTIQ people (or people who were presumed to be LGBTIQ) in New South Wales (NSW), Australia’s largest state, between 1970 and 2010. The genesis of the Special Commission is community activism for redress for the failure of the justice system to protect the lives and rights of queer people. Based on evidence presented to the Special Commission, key areas of concern include why the police were slow to investigate reports of suspected hate crimes, particularly in the 1970s and 1980s; if the police committed some of the suspected hate crimes; and if the police engaged in entrapment to lure gay men into committing crimes.
These murders did not happen in a vacuum and were not isolated events. They were committed against a backdrop of an epidemic of anti-LGBTIQ violence. The larger question is, how many of these lives could have been saved if the police had done their job properly and investigated each reported case of violence.
But the failure of the justice system to protect the rights of queer citizens in NSW runs much deeper than a failure of policing. Up until 1983 it was perfectly legal to discriminate against someone because of their sexuality and up until 1984, to send someone over the age of 18 to jail for practicing it (it was not until 2003, almost two decades later, that NSW equalised the age of consent to 16). Up until 1993 it was perfectly legal to vilify or incite violence against someone because of their sexuality. And up until 2014, it was perfectly reasonable for someone to offer in their defence for killing or assaulting someone, that they had ‘a reasonable fear of homosexuals’. The new law removed the legal foundation for the use of the Homosexual Advance Defence, which was a common-law creation of the partial defence of provocation, in cases involving a non-violent sexual advance.
Meanwhile, the work of the Special Commission is being side-tracked by the antics of the NSW Police. The Special Commission had expressed frustration with how the police are providing evidence. The police have claimed that the burden of responding to the Commission’s requests for information has put a strain on their workforce and financial resources. Such a shoddy approach forced the intervention of the Police Commissioner, Karen Webb, who this week said the police were willing to cooperate with the Special Commission.
Courtesy of the Sydney Star Observer, 17 November, 2022
Our epidemic of violence and hate is transmitted from one generation to the next.
For most women, and indeed for most queer people, violence begins in childhood and continues for much of their lives. In childhood, girls who see violence perpetrated against the women in their families and communities can come to believe this violence is normal. Boys who see violence perpetrated by the men in their families and communities against women and girls and against each other, can also come to believe this is what boys and men do.
Equally, prejudices are handed down from one generation to the next.
Breaking the intergenerational transmission of violence and hate starts by helping children to understand that violence is not a given and something to accept, or to aspire to, or to inflict upon others. The best way to do this is to have mechanisms in place so that each case of sexual assault, domestic violence or hate violence generates a response whereby justice agencies such as the police (competent, well trained and bias free!), and welfare/protection agencies, whether they be government or civil society, take appropriate action. When children see that violence, prejudice and hate are not the norm, but an unhealthy aberration, intergenerational change becomes possible.
As Jenna Price said in the Sydney Morning Herald: “No reasonable human being would want their daughters or their sons to go through what Brittany Higgins and Bruce Lehrmann have gone through. Not in a million years. Diabolical for both of them.”
Equally, anti-LGBTIQ violence is a stain on our society that no reasonable person can condone. Hopefully, the Special Commission will bring some justice to the victims and their families and some sense of closure.
Ending hate.
Eliminating gender-based violence and hate related violence against LGBTIQ people, as well as racial, and other types of prejudice related violence, is possible. Violence is a human action, which means that an alternative human action to violence is possible, which in turn means that prevention is a smart investment.
And remember, you can access This Boomers Life., on Facebook.
Persecute and prosecute - LGBTIQ Hate Crimes in the 1980s and 1990s.
Violence against LGBTIQ people has occurred throughout human history.
Special Commission of Inquiry into LGBTIQ Hate Crimes.
Violence against women and LGBTIQ people has occurred throughout human history. It is not an original event with a defined point of emergence but rather is part of the mainstream of human history, based on structural inequalities between genders and between sexualities.
During this time, the justice system has served to persecute and prosecute and not to protect. Also during this time, we have fought back. The most recent example of this is the Special Commission of Inquiry into LGBTIQ Hate Crimes, which is investigating unsolved suspected hate crime deaths of LGBTIQ people (or people who were presumed to be LGBTIQ) in New South Wales (NSW), Australia’s largest state, between 1970 and 2010. The genesis of the Special Commission is community activism for redress for the failure of the justice system to protect the lives and rights of queer people. Based on evidence presented to the Special Commission, key areas of concern include why the police were slow to investigate reports of suspected hate crimes, particularly in the 1970s and 1980s; if the police committed some of the suspected hate crimes; and if the police engaged in entrapment to lure gay men into committing crimes.
These murders did not happen in a vacuum and were not isolated events. They were committed against a backdrop of an epidemic of anti-LGBTIQ violence. The larger question is, how many of these lives could have been saved if the police had done their job properly and investigated each reported case of violence.
But the failure of the justice system to protect the rights of queer citizens in NSW runs much deeper than a failure of policing. Up until 1983 it was perfectly legal to discriminate against someone because of their sexuality and up until 1984, to send someone over the age of 18 to jail for practicing it (it was not until 2003, almost two decades later, that NSW equalised the age of consent to 16). Up until 1993 it was perfectly legal to vilify or incite violence against someone because of their sexuality. And up until 2014, it was perfectly reasonable for someone to offer in their defence for killing or assaulting someone that they had ‘a reasonable fear of homosexuals’. The new law removed the legal foundation for the use of the Homosexual Advance Defence, which was a common-law creation of the partial defence of provocation, in cases involving a non-violent sexual advance.
Meanwhile, the work of the Special Commission is being side-tracked by the antics of the NSW Police. The Special Commission had expressed frustration with how the police are providing evidence. The police have claimed that the burden of responding to the Commission’s requests for information has put a strain on their workforce and financial resources. Such a shoddy approach forced the intervention of the Police Commissioner, Karen Webb, who this week said the police were willing to cooperate with the Special Commission.
Courtesy of the Sydney Star Observer, 17 November, 2022
Ending hate.
Eliminating gender-based violence and hate related violence against LGBTIQ people, as well as racial, and other types of prejudice related violence, is possible. Violence is a human action, which means that an alternative human action to violence is possible, which in turn means that prevention is a smart investment.
And remember, you can access This Boomers Life., on Facebook.
Fight back - LGBTIQ Hate Crimes in the 1980s and 1990s.
For most LGBTIQ people, violence is no stranger.
Sydney Star Observer: Media coverage of the Stop the Bashings Rally, March 1990.
For most LGBTIQ people, violence is no stranger.
Violence has been part of our daily lives for millennia. Ecclesiastical laws (supposed offences against a god), State laws and social norms have all conspired to inflict violence on queer people. We have been burned alive, buried alive, raped, hunted and murdered.
This legacy of hate has seeped through to modern culture.
A welcome development is the Special Commission of Inquiry into LGBTIQ Hate Crimes which is investigating unsolved suspected hate crime deaths of LGBTIQ people (or people who were presumed to be LGBTIQ) in NSW between 1970 and 2010. In preparing Statements for the Inquiry, covering the initial community response to this violence, it became apparent that there was no ‘go to source’ for some of the documents needed. This short blog series seeks to fill this gap by providing a basic history of the initial community response to hate violence from the late 1980s to the late 1990s.
NSW Lesbian and Gay Anti-Violence Project: Campaign message, circa 1996.
A bleak period.
When the NSW Gay and Lesbian Rights Lobby (GLRL) established the NSW Lesbian and Gay Anti-Violence Project (AVP) in 1990, the situation in NSW was bleak. Oxford Street was a hunting ground for groups of young men out for a bit of ‘poofter bashing.’ Across NSW there were reports of queer people being terrorized in their homes, neighbourhoods and community spaces, by strangers and by neighbours. There was a sense that murder, violence and hate were increasing, and more - much more, needed to be done to stop it. The GLRL was reporting in early 1990 that: “…up to 20 to 30 lesbians and gay men may be being bashed each week! In the last 2 months, we have experienced at least 2 murders, possibly more”.
The NSW Lesbian and Gay Anti-Violence Project (AVP).
The genesis for the project was the urgent need for an accelerated and coordinated response to anti-LGBTIQ violence. It was modelled on similar initiatives overseas such as the Community United Against Violence (CUAV) project in San Francisco, which was established in 1979 and the New York City Anti-Violence Project, which was established in 1980. A key difference between the projects was that the NSW response was primarily focussed on hate violence, given the political dimension of the GLRL, whereas the US projects adopted a broader social welfare model, and were responding to all types of violence, such as domestic violence.
The GLRL and AVP mobilised funding through several sources such as the NSW Department of Health (Health Promotion Branch) and the NSW Attorney General’s Department (Crime Prevention Division) and through community donations. The project was was staffed by 3-5 paid employees, student interns and volunteers. Financial and in-kind support (office space) were provided by the then South Sydney City Council.
In a relatively short space of time, the AVP evolved into one of Australia’s foremost violence prevention and community safety programmes. It received four major awards including Joint First Winner of the 1994 Australian Heads of Government Violence Prevention Award.
Documenting hate and supporting survivors.
To document incidents of violence, the AVP sought to mobilise the community to report violence, both to the AVP and to the police. Starting in 1990, the project operated a violence hotline where people could phone to make a report and to get information and support, including referral to appropriate response services.
NSW Lesbian and Gay Anti-Violence Project: Report the Violence Campaign, circa 1992.
AVP staff often facilitated meetings between survivors of anti-LGBTIQ violence and the police in instances where a survivor was reluctant to report to the police or in situations where the survivor had reported to the police but was unhappy with the response or unsure how the police would follow up the report.
Although a cultural change started to occur within the NSW Police from about the 1990s, it was only in its infancy - and many would argue that it still is! Based on incidents reported to the AVP, around half of all respondents did not report the violence to the police because they believed the police would not take the issue seriously. Of those that did report to the police, around half complained of poor service.
Part of the challenge back then was that policing in and around Oxford Street was inadequate and/or threatening. There was a general consensus in the community that there was a need for evening patrols to act as a deterrent. As an aside, 30 years later, the issue now is one of over policing of the community - on the streets, and in venues and parties, often involving strip searches, sniffer dogs and other unnecessary and odious practices.
The current Special Commission of Inquiry into LGBTIQ Hate Crimes has heard evidence that: “… police were slow to investigate reports of suspected hate crimes, particularly in the 1970s and 1980s, and had engaged in entrapment to lure gay men into committing crimes.
No surprises there!
The Special Commission has also expressed frustration with how the police are providing evidence. The police have claimed that the burden of responding to the Commission’s requests for information has put a strain on their workforce and financial resources. The 78ers, veterans of Sydney’s first Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras in 1978, have condemned this position. The SMH, said the police had gall to tell gay-hate inquiry to lay off its report.
Advocating for change.
At this time, preventing and responding to violence was a priority for most LGBTIQ organisations. The Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras, PRIDE, the Gender Centre, the Gay and Lesbian Counselling Service, Lesbian Line, 2010, ACON, and others were advocating for policy and legislative reform to address and prevent hate and violence. These collective efforts resulted in some remarkable achievements.
Journal of the NSW Lesbian and Gay Anti-Violence Project, circa 1996.
In response to intense advocacy, the NSW Police appointed its first full time Client Consultant Gay Liaison Officer in 1990 and began a process of progressively rolling out the Gay and Lesbian Liaison Officers (GLLO) programme, in which appropriate police officers were designated as community liaison officers. There are now more than 200 LGBTIQ liaison officers, although not everyone is happy about it.
At the federal level, the government contributed funding to prevention programmes, including the Lesbian Loves Rights campaign, which was designed to promote the rights of lesbians and to promote protective behaviours. This may have been the first time a federal government had funded a mass education campaign to promote lesbian visibility and safety.
In the 1990s, the Australian Institute of Criminology and other research and policy think tanks convened conferences and meetings and produced discussion papers and research on anti LGBTIQ violence. Sue Thompson, the first full time NSW Police Client Consultant Gay Liaison Officer, and champion of much of the positive change within the police, has developed this detailed Timeline Hate Crimes 1978-2018. The Australian Hate Crime Network (AHCN), which is a partnership composed of three sectors of society: academics, representatives of NGOs from minority communities, and people from relevant government organisations, has produced this list of Australian materials covering the period 1990-2010.
The NSW Attorney General’s Department in 1995 set up an inquiry into the so-called “Homosexaul Advance/Panic Defence,” which led to the the Crimes Amendment (Provocation) Bill 2014. The bill removed the legal foundation for the use of the Homosexual Advance Defence, which was a common-law creation of the partial defence of provocation, in cases involving a non-violent sexual advance.
In 1996, the Department funded the Homophobia: What are you scared of?, campaign which was probably the first time a state government had put resources into a public education effort to challenge anti-LGBTIQ behaviours and social norms. Later, in 1999, the Crime Prevention Division appointed a gay and lesbian policy officer to coordinate violence prevention efforts across a range of government agencies and to work with the community on the development of violence prevention initiatives.
At the local government level, South Sydney Council appointed its first gay and lesbian liaison officer in 2000, which was a full-time policy officer post to coordinate violence prevention efforts across the council and in collaboration with the community sector.
South Sydney Council had been very active in anti-violence work. It had provided support to Mary's Place, a memorial to a lesbian survivor of a rape. Mary was brutally assaulted in Floods Lane in Darlinghurst in January 1996. The homophobic hate crime became the catalyst for a place-based art project to reclaim the laneway for Sydney’s LGBTIQ community and to stand as a memorial for all Marys (i.,e not just Mary but all women) rape survivors. The project was awarded the Australia Day and South Sydney Council award in 1998. Mary’s Place will be the focus of a future blog. If anyone involved or affected by the project, would like to contribute, please let me know.
Journal of the NSW Lesbian and Gay Anti-Violence Project, 1997.
Probably, the most important achievement during this time was the amendment to the Anti-Discrimination Act 1977 to include a new ground of complaint of vilification based on perceived or actual homosexuality. This amendment was legislated in 1993 by the Anti-Discrimination (Homosexual Vilification) Amendment Act and was a key recommendation of the Streetwatch Report, the first community study into violence against lesbian and gay men in NSW (1990).
Community education campaigns.
Large scale community education campaigns were developed to promote protective behaviours within the communities such as the reporting hate crimes.
NSW Lesbian and Gay Anti-Violence Project: Summer Campaign, 1995.
Homophobia: What are you scared of?
To address the root causes of anti-LGBTIQ violence, large scale awareness campaigns were developed to challenge behaviours and social norms that promoted homophobia and violence. One such campaign was Homophobia: What are you scared of? The initiative was awarded a Certificate of Merit in the 1997 Australian Violence Prevention Awards.
NSW Lesbian and Gay Anti-Violence Project: Violence Prevention Campaign, circa 1996.
Violence against Indigenous LGBTIQ people.
The Homophobia: What are you scared of? campaign included a specific focus on violence against Indigenous LGBTIQ people.
NSW Lesbian and Gay Anti-Violence Project: Violence Prevention Campaign, circa 1997.
The Whistle Project.
Separately from the AVP, a range of individuals spearheaded voluntary community responses. This included the whistle project, which incorporated the safe place project; and the street patrols.
Whistles were promoted and distributed as a simple way for people to raise the alarm when under threat or witnessing someone being threatened or attacked. Many businesses, particularly in inner-city Sydney, volunteered to be safe spaces where people could go for protection. These businesses were provided with signs to promote this service.
Street Patrols.
Because policing in and around Oxford Street was so inadequate, community members sought to fill this gap by establishing street patrols. Volunteers were trained to patrol Oxford Street as a deterrent as well as to provide a visible point of contact. These volunteers provided assistance and information to victims and contacted the police if required.
Did anything change?
In 1996, the Australian Institute of Criminology reported that: Despite the difficulties of comparing results from several different surveys, it is evident that attitudes within and about the gay and lesbian community have improved considerably. More survivors of incidents are inclined to report in the belief that the police will be able to help. Physical attacks between November 1991 and June 1993 more than halved. In 1995-96 the number of reports of violence against lesbians and gays in Darlinghurst and Newtown decreased by 20 per cent on the number of reports made in 1994-95.
Small but important steps in the right direction.
Ending hate.
Eliminating hate related violence against LGBTIQ people, as well as racial violence, gender-based violence, and other types of prejudice related violence, is possible. Violence is a human action, which means that an alternative human action to violence is possible, which in turn means that prevention is a smart investment.
However, without a full-scale national inquiry into the nature and prevalence of hate crimes against people because of their actual or perceived sexual orientation or gender identity, society’s efforts to eliminate it will remain elusive. Such an inquiry was among the main recommendations of the Streetwatch Report. This remains unfinished business.
And remember, you can access This Boomers Life., on facebook.
Murder and Mobilisation - LGBTIQ Hate Crimes in the 1980s and 1990s.
Until the late 1980s, anti-LGBTIQ violence was to a large extent an unrecognized phenomenon – unrecognised, that is, other than by those experiencing it. Poofter bashing was a national pastime back then and is still common today…
Hey Boomers, remember when?
Special Commission of Inquiry into LGBTIQ hate crimes.
The Special Commission of Inquiry into LGBTIQ Hate Crimes is well underway and is an essential effort by the State of New South Wales (NSW), Australia, to understand a critically important aspect of hate violence and in particular policing and murders. Its investigation into unsolved suspected hate crime deaths of LGBTIQ people (or people who were presumed to be LGBTIQ) in NSW between 1970 and 2010 should provide valuable new knowledge about these crimes, and perhaps about the cultural and social norms that enabled them and that continue to do so. Hopefully, it will bring some justice to the victims and their families and some sense of closure.
You can watch the proceedings of the Inquiry here and also read transcripts and related information here. Some of the cases being looked at by the Inquiry are listed here. The ABC has a great summary of the Statements given in the first week’s proceedings and the SMH has been running regular stories since early November.
Violence was commonplace.
Until the 1980s, anti-LGBTIQ violence was to a large extent an unrecognized phenomenon – unrecognised, that is, other than by those experiencing it. Although violence was commonplace, it was not seen as warranting a response by federal or state governments. This was not dissimilar to violence against women which was, and still is, commonplace but was not considered a matter requiring concerted action by governments until 1994 when the first National Strategy on Violence Against Women was initiated.
‘Poofter bashing’ was considered a national pastime back then. Based on current media reports, it is still common today. See: “They wanted to kill me': Sydney man believes he was victim of hate crime assault”.
While the situation has significantly improved, there is still no NSW or national study on the nature, cause, prevalence and impact of homophobia and transphobia, much less coordinated efforts by national and state governments and territories to prevent it. Such a study and response, were among the main recommendations of the Streetwatch Report. Similar recommendations were made by other reports and inquiries such as ACON’s ‘In Pursuit of Truth & Justice’ report. This remains unfinished business.
Murders +
While the Inquiry is primarily focused on unsolved murders, it is also seeking to understand the broader social context in which these murders occurred – that is the violence experienced by lesbians, by gays, by bisexual, and by trans people, and how the communities responded to the violence - and how government agencies responded to the violence. This is where we Boomers fit into this story.
I was invited to give a Statement to the Inquiry primarily covering the period 1988 to 1999 when I was part of the community effort to prevent and respond to hate crimes against lesbians and gay men in NSW. Before leaving Australia in 2002 to pursue a career in international development, I served in a range of roles within LGBTIQ community organisations, including as board member of Twenty-Ten LGBTIQ Youth Services and the Sydney Star Observer, and as chair of the Outreach Committee of the 2002 Sydney Gay Games. From 1989 to 1991, I was co-convener of the Gay and Lesbian Rights Lobby (GLRL) and from 1991 to 1999, I was the Coordinator of the NSW Lesbian and Gay Anti-Violence Project (the AVP). In was in this capacity that I was invited to provide information to the Inquiry.
I recommended to the Inquiry that Dr Gary Cox and Carole Ruthchild be invited to give Statements given their pivotal roles during this period – as convenors of GLRL and as authors/instigators of studies on anti-LGBTIQ violence. Gary was co-convenor of the GLRL (1988-1989). After yet another frustrating and unproductive meeting with the police, he developed the conceptual framework for the Streetwatch Project, to document these crimes. He authored the Streetwatch Report: A Study into Violence Against Lesbian and Gay Men (1990) and the Count & Counter Report: A study into Hate Related Violence Against Lesbian and Gays (1994). Carole Ruthchild was also co-convenor of the GLRL (1989-1992). She was instrumental in the establishment of the Lesbian and Gay Anti-Violence Project and co-author of the Off Our Backs Report: A Study into Anti-lesbian Violence, (1992), which was the second report in the Streetwatch series.
Looking forward.
Change is possible when there is consensus for action, with predictable and sustainable financial investments in that action.
Eliminating hate related violence against LGBTIQ people, as well as racial violence, gender-based violence, and other types of prejudice related violence, is totally achievable. Violence is a human action, which means that an alternative human action to violence is possible, which in turn means that prevention is possible.
However, without a full-scale inquiry into the nature and prevalence of hate crimes against people because of their actual or perceived sexual orientation or gender identity, society’s efforts to eliminate it will remain elusive.
New Blog series.
In preparing our respective Statements for the Inquiry we realised that there was no ‘go to source’ for some of the documents we needed. This period was pre-internet so much of the materials from that time are not online. This is not to say that the history of the time is not well documented: It is! For powerful, personal and compelling accounts of the early period read the Statements from Gary Wotherspoon, Barry Charles, and Ulo Klemmer. See also the Statements from Leslie Peterkin, Gregory Callaghan and Brent Mackie. For a trans perspective, read the Statement from Eloise Brook.
This short blog series will seek to provide a basic history of the community response to violence from the late 1980s to the late 1990s and provide a source for key documents, which we will share with Australian Queer Archives (AQuA), which has been ‘collecting, preserving and celebrating Australia’s very queer histories since 1978’.
Gary and Carole will be penning the next couple of blogs based on their Statements and reflections of the period. I will also be reaching out to friends and colleagues and asking them to share their experiencing and insights.
Lost on the Covid-19 knowledge spectrum, yet again!
Dear Boomers, before we wrap ourselves in a bundle of good news, I have a question for you. Where do you sit on the COVID knowledge spectrum? This is not a question about how much you know about COVID, but how this knowledge makes you feel…
Dear Boomers, before we wrap ourselves in a bundle of good news, I have a question for you. Where do you sit on the COVID knowledge spectrum? This is not a question about how much you know about COVID, but how this knowledge makes you feel.
Over a long liquid lunch last week, a friend and I were bemoaning the fact that at times we felt like we were awash with information about COVID and what the future may hold and yet at other times, the feeling was more like being in a knowledge free wasteland, where we were clueless about what was looming on the horizon. Hence the concept of the COVID knowledge spectrum was born. We both felt like we were spinning from one end of the spectrum to the other and feeling no better for it and none the wiser, but on other days, feeling like we have got this thing beat. This article is more about the latter
Expecting the unexpected.
At one end of the spectrum, we live in constant surprise and often horror about what COVID does next. This is the world of ‘never say never’ and ‘expect the unexpected,’ because we are on the white-knuckle ride of our lives, with no end in sight. The sudden arrival of Omicron is an example of this as is the recent arrival of its offspring, Omicron BA.2. (For a review of this new sub-variant that soothes the nerves, read: Omicron BA.2: What we know about the Covid sub-variant).
In, After another COVID summer, it's only January 29 and I've never felt so tired, Virginia Trioli, presenter on Mornings on ABC Radio Melbourne, and the former co-host of ABC News Breakfast, said that: “I only wish our political and medical leaders had taken their cue from the scientists and treating doctors and managed to co-ordinate a meaningful and reassuring message about this path out before Omicron hit what was supposed to be our long, hot-vax summer. Because I reckon that a great deal of the exhaustion, we are experiencing is borne out of the anxiety of living in information overload but a public health message deficit.”
Our sense of unease is fuelled by twin realities. Omicron is often described as more infectious but less deadly. At the same time, in Australia, more people have died from COVID in the first four weeks of this year than in all of last year. And while we understand that a more infectious variant means more people being infected and hence more deaths, this knowledge is not particularly reassuring.
The horror stories about the impact of lockdowns, staff shortages and deaths in aged care is distressing for everyone - residents and their families and friends, staff, and onlookers. The only exception seems to be Senator, Richard Colbeck, Minister for Senior Australians and Aged Care Services (And Minister for Sport!) who spent three days at the cricket when it was clear there was another emergency unfolding in aged care. What does it say about the values and priorities of a Prime Minister who thinks it is a smart idea to combine the portfolios of aged care and sport? It is beyond words!
Our science has learned so much!
At the other end of the spectrum, our knowledge about COVID is mind boggling extraordinary. Our science has learned so much and in a tiny space of two years. Not only has the world developed vaccines but has managed to shoot up more than half the global population. A spectacular achievement, although the low rates of vaccinations in disadvantaged and socially excluded communities in middle- and high-income countries, and in the vast majority of countries in Africa, is a shameful failure. Gordon Brown, former prime minster of the UK, describes the failure to distribute vaccines to poorer countries as a: "stain on our global soul". At the same time, countries such as Cambodia, which until a few years ago was one of the poorest countries in the world, has managed to achieve a higher vaccination rate than 90 per cent of high-income countries, including the UK and USA.
A shared belief across the spectrum.
No matter where we sit on the spectrum there is one shared belief. It is that there will be other COVID variants after Omicron. They may already be with us (e.g., Omicron BA.2). And what we also know is that we have no idea if they will be more or less deadly. But putting aside for a moment this unsettling reality, the news about the future is really incredibly good.
The end of the pandemic is in sight?
On I January, I shared an opinion piece published in the Sydney Morning Herald: Welcome to 2022, the year this pandemic ends, by Dr Nick Coatsworth, a strategic health leader, infectious diseases expert and former federal deputy chief medical officer. His prediction (some say based on dodgy science) was: “In 2022, the COVID-19 pandemic will end. Driven by the inexorable, inevitable spread of the Omicron variant and the use of vaccines, the global population will generate immunity to this virus.”
Given my liking for upbeat stories about the end of the pandemic, here is another one, this time published in The Lancet: COVID-19 will continue but the end of the pandemic is near. The authors argue that by the end on March this year, a high proportion of the world’s population will have been infected with the omicron variant: “With continued increases in COVID-19 vaccination, the use in many countries of a third vaccine dose, and elevated levels of infection-acquired immunity, for some time global levels of SARS-CoV-2 immunity should be at an all-time high. For some weeks or months, the world should expect low levels of virus transmission. The era of extraordinary measures by government and societies to control SARS-CoV-2 transmission will be over. After the omicron wave, COVID-19 will return but the pandemic will not”.
Back to Virginia: “We may be in the middle of the biggest, and most widespread wave of infection that we've seen, but COVID-19 right now is now a disease that for the vast majority will be treated at home with fluids and analgesics. Stop and think about that: what an incredible change in two years.”
If a quick end to the pandemic in its current destructive form seems too much to hope for, we may just have to settle for a cessation in hostilities according to the World Health Organization (WHO). Europe entering Covid pandemic 'ceasefire', says WHO. Dr Hans Kluge, WHO Regional Director for Europe, reckons that: "This period of higher protection should be seen as a 'ceasefire' that could bring us enduring peace."
Yes, while an end to the pandemic, for all people in all countries, is what we desire, a ceasefire for now will do just fine.
P.s This Boomers Life is now on Facebook. It is a private group so send me a message if you would like to join: facebook.com/groups/thisboomerslife. Obviously, the posts are shorter but are still in keeping with the overall goal which is to provide a space for fellow baby boomers, and our admirers, about this wonderful and crazy life, queerdom, aging (dis)gracefully, politics and trying to stay on the left side of the culture wars. I hope to see you there.
For my fellow Boomers who have never been enticed into joining fb, I shall continue to post here but probably not as often.
This Boomers Life is on Facebook.
https://www.facebook.com/groups/thisboomerslife
This Boomers Life on Facebook.
Hello dear Boomers! This Boomers Life is now on Facebook. If you are a fb user, send me a request to join as it is private group: facebook.com/groups/thisboomerslife. Obviously, the posts are shorter but are still in keeping with the overall mission which is to provide a space for fellow baby boomers, and our admirers, about this wonderful and crazy life, queerdom, aging (dis)gracefully, politics and trying to stay on the left side of the culture wars. I hope to see you there.
For my fellow Boomers who have never been enticed into joining fb, I shall continue to post here but probably not as often.
As an aside, one of the reasons I set up this website and started blogging was to escape the confines of fb, its stifling rules and predatory practices. Alas, I am relenting for now, until I can find another easy way of connecting with friends and fellow travellers.
Oh baby, are we peaking?
Hey Boomers, remember that special feeling? Many of us felt it at extraordinary events like Mardi Gras. For others it was most weekends. For some, it was a fast way to kick start a slow day. This blog is about a different kind of peaking in our new Covid-19 century.
Hey Boomers, remember that special feeling: over the top confidence, dilated pupils, fast heart rate, feeling connected, feeling energetic, feeling happy? Many of us felt it only at extraordinary events like Mardi Gras. For others it was most weekends. And for some, it was a fast way to kick start a slow day. That was in the 1980s, 1990s and early this century. For the hardier Boomers amongst us, it was far more recently.
This blog is about a different kind of peaking in our new Covid-19 century.
Delta is peaking.
The big news in Australia and overseas is that our knowledge about the Delta variant of Covid-19 is rapidly increasing and with it our ability to defeat it. There are new drugs showing great promise in reducing illness and death while the vaccines are continuing to be effective against Delta. There is also a drug in the pipeline which provides protection for people who cannot be vaccinated because of compromised immune systems.
While Delta is clearly more infectious, the science tells us that it not more deadly, particularly in populations with high vaccination rates. While some data suggest the Delta variant might cause more severe illness than previous variants in unvaccinated people, the vast majority of hospitalization and death caused by COVID-19 are in unvaccinated people. While young people are being infected at higher rates, this is not translating into higher deaths although there is a reasonable level of anxiety about the immediate and long-term impact of Covid-19 on children. Also, Covid-19 is continuing to evolve into a disease of the unvaccinated and a disease of the young (given that many older people are vaccinated and protected from the virus), which means there is real fear that emerging variants will pose more serious health risks to children.
In Australia, Boomers and those aged over 50, continue to carry the heaviest burden of Covid-19, accounting for 97 per cent of deaths. As of 6 October, 1,357 people had lost their lives to Covid-19, of which 18 were below the age of 39 and a further 22 below the age of 49. While these deaths translate into immense grief for the families and friends impacted, they are statistically minor, compared to the number of people dying of other health related diseases. According to Infectious diseases expert Peter Collignon: “If you ‘re 80 and you get Covid you’ve probably got more than a one in 10 chance of dying, compared to a 30-year-old where it’s probably one in 10,000.”
Panic levels may also be peaking.
While many are nervous about what will happen once restrictions are lifted and international borders are opened, the news is still promising. While the number of infections is likely to rapidly increase (brace yourself for a white-knuckle ride), there is little evidence globally that there will be a significant increase in the number of deaths.
There is a concern that States and Territories with low vaccination rates and low infection rates could become perfect hosts for Delta, as they have no background immunity through exposure to Covid-19. These jurisdictions have successfully kept the virus at bay, but this success may translate into a health crisis delayed rather than averted. Therefore, Queensland and Western Australia will not be pushed to open up any earlier than they absolutely need to.
There is no compelling argument that all of Australia should open at the same time. Nor is there a compelling argument that States and Territories at the front of the race to open should wait for the others to catch up, before doing so.
The vaccination rate is peaking.
With 86 per cent of the total population eligible for a Covid-19 vaccine, Australians are on track to being one of the most vaccinated groups of people in the world. The remaining 16 per cent of the total population is those aged under 12 years of age. This age group is not yet eligible to be vaccinated.
Australia is likely to achieve a vaccination rate of between 75 and 80 per cent of the total population, assuming that no more than 10 per cent of this group will be unable or unwilling to get the jab. This compares to 80 per cent in Singapore, 77 per cent in Canada, 72 per cent in the UK and 64 per cent in the US. Interestingly, these countries have peaked with new vaccinations reduced to a trickle whereas Australia is still doing around 2 million jabs a week. As an aside New Zealand is doing remarkably well at 69 per cent and rising rapidly.
Alas, political incompetence is not peaking.
Unfortunately, political incompetence is not peaking but surging.
These positive numbers mask a stark reality, which is that those groups most vulnerable to Covid-19 and who were reliant on the Federal Governments for timely access to vaccinations have remained unprotected. These groups include Indigenous Australians and people with severe disabilities. Obscenely, the PM said today that we were on the ‘home stretch out of the pandemic.’ That is clearly true for those not left to the Feds to protect.
First Nations Australians were supposed to be a high priority in the vaccination rollout, but first dose vaccination rates are currently much lower than the national average. Based on data as of 26 September, 51 per cent of Indigenous Australians aged 12 and over have had one vaccination dose Australia-wide, while only 32 per cent have had both doses. For people with a disability in group home settings, 68 per cent are fully vaccinated, and 76 per cent have gotten one jab. As the Guardian highlights, this means nearly a quarter remain unprotected.
For a more detailed discussion on how the Feds continue to stuff up the vaccination rollout, see an earlier blog: Political opportunism gone wrong. Another view on why Australia’s vaccine rollout has been such a mess.
Lockdowns have peaked.
Oh, joy of joys I here you squeal! As I have written elsewhere, the idea that Covid-19 could be brought to heel through ongoing lockdowns and social control is poor politics dressed up as public health policy. Yes, social distancing, good hygiene and the wearing of masks in at-risk-settings will be with us for some time and that is a good thing. But, sending in the police to bust up a family gathering or to fine people for sitting on a beach, is not. This chapter in our Covid-19 response, is rapidly coming to an end. The same can be said for ‘go early, go hard,’ which people have been banging on about since the get go. These approaches worked in certain contexts but as can be seen from the situation in Victoria, and to a lesser extent in the Australian Capital Territory (ACT) and across the pond in New Zealand, they have reached their ‘use-by date.’
Gladys has peaked.
The political career of the then NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian has certainly peaked. She resigned last Friday giving the political equivalent of the ‘finger’ to all concerned after the Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC), revealed it was investigating her over a secret relationship and dubious dealings with a former lawmaker, 'Dodgy' Daryl Maguire.
The new NSW Premier has already peaked, hopefully.
After successfully climbing the greasy political pole, we can only hope it is all downhill from here for Dominic Francis Perrottet, MP, the newly appointed 46th Premier of NSW and out and proud conservative cultural warrior.
An avid Trump supporter and climate sceptic, he is on the public record opposing legal efforts to compel priests to disclose child abuse, same sex marriage, and the decriminalisation of abortion. It is reassuring that he lost all three battles. The new premier is expected to actively oppose the proposed voluntary assisted dying law, which will be debated in November. He will no doubt back an anti-trans bill and another bill to prevent religious discrimination by institutionalising other forms of discrimination. Hopefully, he will lose these battles as well, as communities escalate their opposition to these retrograde measures.
Happy peaking Boomers! Here is my tune for the week: Paul Capsis singing Summertime, on Shazam or Spotify. Enjoy!
Goodbye Gladys. Hello Chris (yes, Chris!)
Hey Boomers, we may yet live long enough to see another Labor Premier rule in New South Wales.
Hey Boomers, we may yet live long enough to see another Labor premier rule in New South Wales (NSW), Australis’s most populous state.
On Friday, the then Premier Gladys Berejiklian resigned, giving the political equivalent of the ‘finger’ to all concerned after the Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC), revealed it was investigating her over a secret relationship and dubious dealings with a former lawmaker, 'Dodgy' Daryl Maguire. Dodgy Daryl may not have been a lover extraordinaire, but he was certainly a very good listener but for all the wrong reasons. She is the third Liberal Premier to resign after coming under the scrutiny of the corruption watchdog.
With her replacement being a social conservative, our collective gaze will turn to Chris Minns, recently appointed leader of the NSW Opposition and would-be Labor premier of NSW.
The odious Dom Perrottet.
Dominic Francis Perrottet, MP, is the newly appointed 46th Premier of NSW and a conservative cultural warrior. So here we have it. An avid Trump supporter and climate sceptic now rules the NSW roost, aided and abetted by the dominant but limp ‘moderate faction’ of the Liberal party. Go Figure!
He is on the public record opposing legal efforts to compel priests to disclose child abuse arguing “the confessional seal is sacrosanct no matter what sins are confessed.” He remains a strong advocate against same-sex marriage on the grounds that “marriage is about every child’s fundamental right to grow up with their own mum and dad.” More recently, he opposed the decriminalisation of abortion on the grounds that he could not support laws that stopped “the beating heart of an unborn child.”
He is expected to actively oppose the proposed voluntary assisted dying law, which will be debated in November. He is also expected to back an anti-trans bill and another bill to prevent religious discrimination by institutionalising other forms of discrimination.
18 months and counting.
With the next NSW state election due in March 2023, which is less than 18 months away, we are all looking at you Chris and the Labor party. Chris is on the public record stating that he will not be a cultural warrior for the left i.e., he is not a fan of identity politics, but he will be a strong advocate for equality and social justice, and for workers. Lets see how he goes. By the time of the election, NSW Labor would have spent 12 years in opposition for its previous sins. It will well and truly be time for a change.
Eighteen months and counting.
Lockdown fetishists, disco fever, and learning to live with Covid-19 today.
Boomers, while it may be too soon to dust down our disco shorts or to order our disco biscuits, the exit out of lockdown is fast approaching.
Hey Boomers. It’s here! Learning to live with active Covid-19 infections in the community is not something on the horizon for us to worry about later. It has arrived, and possibly sooner than many of us would have wanted, but here we are. We are learning to live with it today. And this is very good news indeed.
Sadly, many of us across the country are in lockdown. Lots of us in the state of New South Wales (NSW), home to Australia’s most populous city, Sydney, are about to start our third month isolated from several of life’s loves and pleasures. The good news may seem hard to find, but it is all around us in conversations and in actions. And while it may be too soon to dust down our disco shorts or to order our disco biscuits, the exit out of lockdown is fast approaching.
Lockdowns may have been a necessary evil, but their days are numbered.
The idea that Covid-19 can be brought to heel through ongoing lockdowns and social control is poor politics dressed up as public health policy. Yes, social distancing, good hygiene and the wearing of masks in at-risk-settings will be with us for some time and that is a good thing. But, sending in the police to bust up a family gathering or to fine people for sitting on a beach, is not. This chapter in our Covid-19 response, is rapidly coming to an end and whether we like it or not, NSW is leading the charge.
It is time to end the clarion call of ‘go early, go hard’.
People have been banging on about the need to ‘go early, go hard’ since the get go! Thankfully, NSW had ignored this call and we have been spared the endless lockdowns used elsewhere. The NSW strategy has relied on investing in the health system, testing, contact tracing and quarantining. It had worked a treat up until this current outbreak. This begs the question: if NSW could successfully contain pre-Delta outbreaks, where was the demonstrated need in other jurisdictions to ‘go early, go hard’?
Putting aside the question of whether NSW or other jurisdictions should have adopted a ‘go early, go hard’ strategy, the evidence was clear that the Delta variant of Covid-19 was much more infectious. It was so infectious in fact that we as a nation happily denied our fellow citizens and permanent residents their right to return to Australia. Despite this awareness, NSW decided to pursue its proven strategy apparently oblivious to the additional risks posed by Delta. The mistake was repeated a second time by not applying a different approach to stopping the virus from leap-frogging into rural and isolated cities and towns, which is creating a crisis for many Aboriginal communities.
The Aboriginal population of many of these towns can be as high as 50 per cent (compared with Aboriginal people being just over 3 per cent of the total NSW population). A great source of information about indigenous issues in NSW is the Koori Mail.
Not adapting to changing circumstances is not just a failing of NSW.
Down south, the Premier of Victoria, Daniel Andrews, (also known unkindly as Dictator Dan), is using his old toolbox to fight the new variant. Melbournians are in their sixth lockdown, covering more than 200 days, since the onset of the pandemic, which is more than six months! While Victoria may have better luck than NSW in stopping the daily escalation in cases, it is proving to be a challenge. But there is nothing new about the response. Same old, same old, as they say.
Plagues and fetishes.
Remember the 1918 influenza (incorrectly named the ‘Spanish Flu’ as it originated in the USA)? Ever since 1918, this persistent bug has mutated and evolved to survive. It has killed more people than the 14th century’s Black Plague with more than 50 million casualties world-wide. Your last bout of the flu was most probably a variant of it. No doubt children of today will be having ongoing bouts of Covid-19 in adulthood.
My favourite read for the week comes from journalist, Chris Uhlmann, who penned a provocative piece in the SMH: “Some lockdown fetishists appear to be planning to make shutdowns a lifestyle.” He went on to suggest that: “There are sage warnings from “experts” not to pin our hopes of liberation on high rates of vaccination, for their perfect future to be realised restrictions must be as endemic as the disease.” More: “If this group of first ministers and their medical advisers had been running the response to the 1666 plague, a genuinely terrifying disease, it’s a fair bet that we would still be bouncing in and out of lockdown.”
Disturbingly, Boomers appear to be the most vocal lockdown fetishists. We can only be grateful they were more libertarian and anti-authoritarian in their youth. If not, could you imagine the response to HIV/AIDS? Oxford Street would have been converted into lockdown central and we would have been belled like proverbial cats to prevent straying and other unsafe behaviours. Thankfully, these pre-Boomers successfully campaigned against the closure of sex on premises venues, opposed proposed draconian laws and kept human rights at the core of the response. Such voices and activism have been sorely missed in the current crisis.
A uniquely NSW response to Covid-19.
The response of NSW Health and the NSW government overall has been far from perfect but more competent than most comparable jurisdictions locally and abroad. The Premier, Gladys Berejiklian, may be guilty of numerous crimes, but her handling of the Covid-19 response is not one of them. She has been relentless in her efforts to allow people maximum freedoms while ensuring that NSW Health had sufficient resources to keep the virus at bay. Now she is being equally relentless in her efforts to change the conversation about how to best manage the current Covid-19 outbreak in a population increasingly being vaccinated. She wants the focus to be on learning to live with the virus right now. As she keeps saying, we are doing this sooner than we would have liked but that is the new reality. But Delta is unlikely to be defeated. The path to living with the virus is a population fully vaccinated, with tighter restrictions being only pitstops along the way.
NSW and the Doherty Report.
There is a lot of noise out there about NSW opening up too early and going against the recommendations of the Doherty report, which provides the ‘roadmap’ for the national plan for meeting the challenge of Covid-19 infections in the community, once certain vaccination targets have been reached. However, these two issues are not comparable. The Doherty report is concerned about macro level issues of States/Territories opening up to each other and Australia opening up to the world. The issue in NSW is about how to lift some restrictions in a population with high vaccination rates. It is not about lifting all restrictions, all together.
For example, in NSW the challenge being considered is: in a community with no or few cases of Covid-19 and high vaccination rates, where can life return to some sense of normality? This is no a theoretical or heretical question. The construction sector is one area where vaccinated workers are allowed to return to work. Similarly, vaccinated ‘tradies’ can continue to work subject to certain restrictions, such as having a Covid-19 test every three days. As well, high school students from communities with high infection rates are being offered vaccinations so that they can return to school and prepare for their HSC examinations.
In what other ways can restrictions be lifted safely?
Frankly, I would like to nominate my local pub. It sits within a community with virtually no Covid-19 cases and relatively high vaccination rates. If the pub can trade safely i.e., fully vaccinated staff serving fully vaccinated customers, there should not be a problem so long as it can be done safely and monitored to ensure compliance. The same goes for the local hairdresser, baker, butcher and candle-stick maker.
Investing in vaccinations.
NSW is not only changing the conversation about how to manage Covid-19 in the community, but also its response. It has ramped up the availability of vaccination sites in the most affected communities. Greater Sydney's worst hit Covid-19 hotspots are closing the gap on NSW's highest vaccine rates. State-wide, more than 60 per cent of us over 16 have had the first jab. This will increase to 70 per cent in about 10 days and to 80 per cent about 10 days after that. So long as the momentum for vaccinations continues in the same direction, we should hit the first vaccination ‘sweet spot’ of 50 per cent of the eligible population fully vaccinated by the end of September.
Opening to the world will mean more Covid-19 in the community.
There is no evidence that Delta is retreating globally or that a less infectious variant will replace it. This means that when we start opening up our international borders, Delta or a more infectious variant will certainly arrive. The idea that opening up to the world was contingent on there being no or low infections in the community has always been misplaced.
The exit route is within sight.
While it may be too soon to dust down our disco shorts or to order our disco biscuits, the exit route out of lockdown is fast approaching. It is more vaccinations, sensible targeted public health measures to protect the vulnerable and greater freedoms, not less.
Gladys, maybe it is time to give our Kevin a call?
Unfortunately, Glady’s cry for more Pfizer vaccines from within our hermit Kingdom has been ignored or rejected. Is it time to get Kevin onto the job?
Who can forget Kevin Rudd’s famous line from the launch of the ALP campaign for the 2007 federal election: ‘My name's Kevin, I'm from Queensland and I'm here to help.’
More recently of course, Kevin got onto the blower to the head of Pfizer to request more Pfizer vaccines for Australia, much to the annoyance of our PM, who should have done this first.
A cry for help rejected.
Unfortunately, Glady’s cry for more Pfizer vaccines from within our hermit Kingdom has been ignored or rejected. The response from the man who has been labelled as the ‘Prime Minister for NSW’, was no! - except for a lazy 50,000 or so doses he had hidden in his bottom draw.
Mansplaining, keeping the pubs open and sending in the military but no Pfizer.
The Premier of Queensland, Annastacia Palaszczuk, has been mute on the request, possibly because she has been preoccupied with taking the political knife to John Coates, the head of Australia’s Olympic Committee, for his obnoxious mansplaining of her, made worse by the fact it was in front of the world’s media. You will recall that Coates lectured the Premier and ‘ordered’ her to attend the opening ceremony of the Tokyo Olympics. Palaszczuk had previously said she wouldn't be attending the ceremony. Odious indeed. And back to the thread of the blog, no help offered to NSW.
The response from the Premier of Victoria, Daniel Andrews, who seems to have recovered from his politically related PTSD (see earlier blog) that was easily activated by the mere thought of a ‘lockdown’, was priceless: “It’s not my job to get the pubs open in NSW.” The response from the Premier of Western Australia, Mark McGowan, was no doubt to vulgar to quote in a sordid blog such as this one, but he did suggest sending in the military: “Whether it's getting the ADF out there to assist, soldiers, airmen, sailors, whatever it might take”, presumably to shoot any Sydneysider seen exercising anywhere near Bondi Beach.
Calling Joe Biden… calling Joe Biden…
Gladys, what other option do we have? Kevin may be a Queenslander, but he just loves sticking it to our PM, so go on and give him a call. Get him working for you. It might be best if Kevin does not call the head of Pfizer again, given that this would really get up the nose of the PM, but he could certainly call Joe Biden, the US President and one of our closest allies. We do have a special relationship after all! The President is throwing around surplus vaccines like rainbow confetti at a gay wedding. No doubt he loves Sydney. Having recently met our less than impressive PM, he would acutely understand the problem and take pity on us for our multiple misfortunes.
Go on ‘call me says Debbie Harry’
Anti-vaxxers may be loud and annoying but they are having little success with us Boomers, the age group on the frontline of this pandemic.
The data coming out of the US, the UK and locally in the ACT gives us hope.
Howdy Boomers and greetings from my lockdown to yours, unless of course you are not in lockdown but happen to be living in one of those mythical places called freedom. And that my friends will be my only reference to this lockdown as there is nothing new to say or do other than to scream and shout, to argue the toss about too little too late, or to repeatedly bang one’s head on the home mini-bar.
Some good Covid-19 news!
Anti-vaxxers and fellow travellers such as anti-lockdowners are certainly loud. Based on the number of people taking to the streets over the weekend to voice their distain for lockdowns and vaccines, they are coming out in a big way. Thankfully they are having little success with the age groups on the frontline of this pandemic. We Boomers are resisting their calls in very impressive numbers. The data coming out of the US, the UK and locally in the ACT gives us hope.
In the US, data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) shows that more than 89 per cent of those aged over 65 have had one jab and over 79 per cent are fully vaccinated. Not bad at all! As a aside, for those aged over 18 and below 65 the data is still good with more than 68 per cent having had one shot and more than 60 per cent being fully vaccinated. The good news in this bit of data is that even in a country riven by political division and plagued by anti-vaxxers, Boomers are getting the jab. The same appears to apply for both the UK and here at home in Australia.
Across the larger pond in the UK, the numbers are more impressive with 9 in 10 people aged 50 and over (93 per cent) fully vaccinated.
In the ACT, more than 79 per cent of those aged over 50 and a whopping 93 per cent of those over 70 have had their first jab. These figure may be inflated slightly given reports of border raids whereby enterprising Boomers from NSW are heading across the border for their jabs.
The average for those aged 60 and over across all States and Territories is over 60 per cent which is promising given how shoddy the vaccination rollout has been thus far. Unfortunately, the number of people over the age of 70 that are fully vaccinated is abysmally low, particularly in NSW, but that is a story for another time.
What swelled the ranks of the protests in Sydney?
As an aside, I wonder how much the construction industry’s whining and carping about the shutdown of the construction sector swelled the ranks of the protests in Sydney - remember the truckies convey/slow crawl through the CBD as a protest just after the announcement? Only a couple of days before the protests, the construction industry warned of: "catastrophic" consequences if the current two-week shutdown of building sites in NSW is extended. In the same article, the Australian Constructors Association CEO went on to say that it was likely that: "quite a high number of companies would fold." While we all applaud strong advocacy for the protection of rights and jobs, did this over-the-top response have the intended/unintended consequence of driving tradies and others into the arms of the anti-vaxxers?
Clip of the week.
Here is my clip for the week. Cheers and lots of them!
Political opportunism gone wrong. Another view on why Australia’s vaccine rollout has been such a mess.
There appears to be growing evidence that the cause of the shambolic vaccine rollout is not just the result of incompetence. Political opportunism or more precisely the desire to ….
There appears to be growing evidence that the cause of the shambolic vaccination rollout is not just the result of incompetence – although there is a proverbial mountain of evidence to support this claim. Political opportunism, or more precisely, the desire to shore up votes in the lead up to the upcoming federal election seems to be a more culpable candidate.
Political opportunism bites back.
The PM had wanted to show that no only did the Federal Coalition Government save us from Covid-19 in 2020, but that it had also saved us again in 2021 by rolling out the vaccination programme and being able to take credit for it.
Political opportunism is not necessarily a bad thing and many of us could be accused of deploying it when the time suited us. It is, as we know, very common across the political spectrum and across formal and community politics and organising. It is often referred to as an attempt: to maintain political support, or to increase political influence - possibly in a way which disregards relevant ethical or political principles. We can say many things about the Federal Government but no-one could accuse its players of being weighed down by concerns of ‘ethical or political principles’.
What is shocking is not the use of political opportunism, but the incompetent way it has been used.
A series of articles in the Conversation certainly points to this conclusion although it is not explicitly stated. The articles tend to favour the view that incompetence is the main cause, which after all makes sense, but surely it goes deeper than that? So how do you sabotage a response to a national emergency and global pandemic?
First, you bypass the level of government responsible for vaccinations.
The States and Territories are the level of government responsible for vaccinations. A case in point is the annual campaign to vaccinate the aged and vulnerable against the flu. Yet, the Federal Government chose to bypass the States and Territories and do it themselves. The Feds also initially opposed mass vaccination hubs to be run by the States and Territories, but eventually relented. Why the opposition and where would we be without them?
Second, you bypass the tried and effective supply chains.
You bypass the usual and effective supply chain mechanisms for delivering vaccines to health facilities across the country. Instead you enter in multi-million dollar contracts with a bunch of new players. As reported in the Conversation, the decision to engage a bunch of new companies in the distribution of vaccines: “shocked many in the pharmaceutical supply industry”. The government already had in place competent mechanisms to supply pharmaceutical products right across Australia.
Third, you outsource vaccinations for people in aged and disability care facilities.
To get the jabs into the arms of people in aged and disability care facilities, and the workers in these facilities, you again bypass the States and Territories and sign a whole lot of new multi-million dollar contracts with companies that have little capacity to deliver within the agree timeframes. Oh, and you forget to include the jabs for the workers in the contracts and hope that the punters don’t notice. And when we do notice, the Feds blame the workers for not getting the jabs.
In a humanitarian response, there is nothing wrong with putting in place new structures to get a job done. This is what the UK Government did. It established a new authority to manage the vaccination rollout as it believed the NHS could not do it quickly enough. This proved a successful move as the high rate of vaccinations demonstrates. Back home, setting up new systems was and still is a mess although the situation is improving with more than 1 million doses being administered each week. Yet, the time lost to incompetence has had terrible consequences as reflected in the long lockdown in NSW and sporadic lockdowns in other jurisdictions.
The Federal Government is playing a losing game of politics with the rollout of the vaccination programme. The polls are telling the story but will punters still remember it by the time of the next federal election, which is due before May next year. I do ‘hope so’, I hear you say …
Pass the bottle, pass the drugs and shoot me up now. Danger lies ahead!
An eternal optimist was I. A worry wart I have become! The 2021 celebratory champagne is back in the proverbial cellar. The heavily malted whiskey has assumed pride of place next to the …
Dear fellow Boomers, what a mess!
An eternal optimist was I. A worry wart I have become! The 2021 celebratory champagne is back in the proverbial cellar. The heavily malted whiskey has assumed pride of place next to the organic chicken for dinner, the salad lunch and the breakfast cereal not to mention next to the loo roll and the coffee grinder. How has it all gone so wrong? Is our success in keeping Covid-19 at bay about to take a turn for the worse?
Remember 2020?
It is impossible not to, you say. We all deserved a stiff drink or two in reward for simply surviving the year. That was the year we were able to keep the dreaded Covid-19 at bay by sealing our borders, by prohibiting most punters from travelling overseas and by imposing restrictions on said punters rights to free movement and assembly. That was the public health advice and most of us, including this complacent Boomer, accepted it. We could not see other options and the idea of a magic fix in the form of a vaccine seemed but a distant fantasy. Here we are almost 15 months later and the biggest vaccination campaign in history is underway with more than 1.25 billion doses having been administered across 174 countries.
How wonderful for them we say, yet we are still living like it is 2020!
From champion bug slayer to sitting duck.
Part of my dread is that we have gone from being a world champion in bug slaying, to a country more at risk of Covid-19 than ever.
This year was going to be different - 2021 was meant to be our year! We were promised our drugs in the form of vaccines and the joy of being shot up by this October. The promise was that by now, the aged and those with a serious disability would be fully vaccinated. And with that ring of protection in place, borders would be opened as safely as it was possible to do so. But this opportunity has been botched and the vaccination rollout remains wanting, despite having just passed the 3 million mark.
But here we are almost at the mid-point in the year with June and Queen’s birthday (possibly her last) less than a month away, and those crunching the vaccination data tell us that we can expect to reach the 40 million doses needed to fully vaccinate Australia’s adult population by late 2022. And while only the most pessimist among us believe that it will take this long to get the job done, the Federal Government is now saying that the borders will not be open until at least mid-2022, which probably means that the vaccination rollout will take at least this long.
In other words, the strategies we used in 2020 to defeat the virus will be reused in 2021 given the shoddy rollout of the vaccination programme. My pessimism lies in the Government’s assumption that we will be equally supportive and compliant once again, despite the evidence suggesting otherwise.
The good news is that 2001 is the year the punters are finding their voices. Bravery is again becoming widespread. There are louder and more persistent calls for more open borders, the right to travel overseas and the right to return home. These matters are before the courts and the findings will shape the national policy response to the pandemic. People of many political persuasions were equally outraged by moves to prohibit citizens and permanent residents of Indian heritage caught in a health catastrophe from returning home.
The virus will continue to bang on our door demanding entry. But the more of us that get vaccinated the louder will be the call for the borders to open. It is going to be a difficult 12 months ahead.
Covid-19 and salami slicing our rights.
To be fair, threatening to imprison our fellow punters for seeking to return to our fine shores after fleeing from a global health emergency, is not really salami slicing. It is more the equivalent of taking a meat axe to our rights and notions of citizenship…
Photo courtesy of the SMH
To be fair, threatening to imprison our fellow punters for seeking to return to our fine shores after fleeing a global health emergency is not really salami slicing. It is more the equivalent of taking a meat axe to our rights and notions of citizenship, but more on this later.
Salami slicing refers to a series of many small actions that slowly whittle away freedoms and other rights. It is a commonly used metaphor in the field of human rights. It is also what has been happening globally and here in Australia. Since the onset of the pandemic, we have seen our rights sliced away in many ways. The slices were small and seemed so reasonable: we nodded in consent with few grumbles. Then the meat axe struck - citizens were not only being provided with little support to return home during a global health crisis, but were being threatened with being locked up if they did!
We are now more than a year into a truly global humanitarian crisis that is still only in its infancy. Globally, the situation is getting worse, not better, despite the improving situation in a small but growing number of well-heeled countries. These bright spots on a globe of misery are in good shape because of their effective roll out and take up of vaccines. It may have been ok a year ago to accept the notion that we could not bring home citizens stranded overseas, except in dribs and drabs, because of the risks involved. And it may have been ok a year ago to say that we cannot let citizens leave because of the risks posed when they sought to return home. But can we truly sustain this position?
For the nearly half (49%) of Australians born overseas (first generation) or with at least one parent born overseas (second generation), the promise of open borders is not about beach towels on exotic sandy beaches. It is not just about the freedom to attend funerals and visit the sick beds of those that matter. It is much more than that. It is about the freedom to fulfil family obligations that are as complex and varied as we are multicultural.
And what about our fellow citizens and permanent residents overseas that have had the bad fortune to be infected by Covid-19? We continue to abandon those that are seriously ill with Covid-19, even when they are in countries with health systems collapsing under the weight of the virus. On the weekend the first rescue flight out of India arrived half empty because so many of those hoping to travel were refused because they reportedly tested positive. In other words, we may bring home those at risk of Covid-19 such as those in the worst affected hotspots in India, but we will not bring home those who are infected and consequently in greater need. Not only is this unethical. It is illogical.
You may be muttering to yourself that this is ‘too difficult and too risky’. Possibly, but why? The problem is that it is not seen as a priority and there has been no serious thinking about how to get it done. How flat does the proverbial curve have to be to allow such cases to be managed in hotel quarantine or god forbid, in our hospitals that now have capacity to manage a large number of cases?
We have had more than a year to figure out how to do this safely and still there is no progress.
It would appear that Australia’s total intellectual output and problem-solving prowess amounts to no more than the ability to lock the doors!
The Israel-Palestine Crisis
Hi Boomers, we are at this moment again. And unfortunately, it is not peace!
Hi Boomers, we are at this moment again. And unfortunately, it is not peace!
Many of you have been engaged in the cause for Palestinian justice, and human rights more broadly, for eons and know the issues well. However, you may find the attached article useful and worth sharing. There is also a link to a recent report from Human Rights Watch that looks at the ongoing conflict from a wider perspective.
The International Crisis Group, which is an independent organisation working to prevent conflict, has published a really good Q&A on the current escalation in violence, and what makes it different and potentially more disastrous for all sides of the conflict.
My posting to East Jerusalem was bookended by the previous heightened conflicts in 2012 and 2014. In Gaza, the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Israel. I met extraordinary smart and caring Jewish and Arab people who believed that the other was basically the spawn of the devil and would say the most horrific things about each other. One of my enduring memories from that time was witnessing and hearing how hate is an essential ingredient in war. Dehumanising the ‘enemy’ because of their race, religion, gender, sexuality and so on, makes the business of killing, raping and maiming so much easier. It really is harder to kill someone you love, like or respect.
One of the features of this current crisis is the violence between Israeli Jews and minority Israeli Arabs that has erupted in several Israeli towns. The International Crisis Groups warns:
“Israel should denounce violence and incendiary hate speech, no matter the source, and mete out impartial justice to all. Israeli officials have a particular responsibility to combat ethnic hatred emanating from the Jewish far right and to make sure Palestinian citizens are protected from both police and civilian violence in the same way that Jewish citizens are. Palestinians leaders in Israel have a parallel obligation within their own communities. Many around the globe, and especially in the U.S. and Europe, have been surprised by the images of Jewish mob violence, but the sentiments they embody did not spring up overnight. They have long been cultivated and endorsed at the highest levels of the state. Tamping down ethnic incitement is a matter of self-preservation for the Jewish majority, because the alternative, a steady escalation of civil strife, is already on the horizon.”
Human Rights Watch in a recent report, A Threshold Crossed: Israeli Authorities and the Crimes of Apartheid and Persecution, argues that Israel’s treatment of Palestinians: “amount to the crimes against humanity of apartheid and persecution.” And while many will bristle at this notion of Israel being labelled an apartheid State, it is hard to see how this will not become Israel’s fate given the path it is on.
Of course, this latest round of violence will be used by some to voice their anti-Semitism and promote their hatred while others will go into overdrive trying to make the links between terrorism and Palestinian rights. And yes, we are also at this moment again.
Sweet, sweet dreams and vaccination nightmares.
So, while the punters in the US will celebrate their Independence Day in July and while the punters in the UK will be celebrating their summer, back home in Australia, we will be relying on last year’s strategy to work again this year. We will still be living like it was 2020!
Remember this?
Back in December, unlike other well-heeled countries such as the UK and USA, Australia was not in the grip of a health emergency courtesy of Covid-19. The argument then was that there was no need for our vaccination rollout to be driven by a sense of urgency. This was the view of the Australian Government. By and large most of us seemed to have accepted this logic, although I doubt many of us really embraced it – particularly the bit about there not being any urgency to getting the vaccination job done.
Picture this.
Five months later, these same comparable countries – the UK and the US - are in a far better place because of their humanitarian / urgent response to Covid-19. In the US, more than 60 per cent of adults have received their first jab and about 40 per cent have received their second. Every adult is now eligible for the jab and the plan is that come July, more than half of the adult population will have been fully vaccinated. Not bad given the chaotic state of affairs when Donald Trump was tumbled out of office in January. In the UK, more than 70 per cent of the adult population has had the first jab. The plan is to offer all adults the first jab by July. Sales of sunscreen are up in both countries as the exhausted citizens contemplate travel to exotic lands beyond their respective borders. International borders are open and travel, albeit to a miniscule number of countries, is allowed.
Back in fortress Australia – the country with no health emergency - we have only managed to give around 3 million jabs by mid May, with less than 5 per cent of adults being fully vaccinated. Not only have the vaccination programmes helped the US and UK overcome their respective Covid-19 crises but it has positioned them to be better able to control and hopefully ward of future threats.
Now, picture this.
So, while the punters in the US will celebrate their Independence Day in July, and while the punters in the UK will be celebrating their summer, back home in Australia we will be relying on last year’s strategy to work again this year. We will still be living like it was 2020!
There is irony in all this of course. Both the US and the UK mismanaged their Covid-19 response whereas Australia did exceptionally well. Now the situation is reversed. We have well and truly mismanaged our vaccination rollout, whereas the US and the UK are doing remarkably well.
We are no more protected now then we were last year. Once again, it would appear that Australia’s total intellectual output and problem-solving prowess in terms of the health aspects of Covid-19 amounts to no more than the ability to lock the doors!
Happy Easter, you wonderful Boomers!
Easter was originally the celebration of Ishtar, the Assyrian and Babylonian goddess of fertility and sex. Her symbols - like the egg and the bunny - were and still are symbols of fertility and sex. Nooooooo, eggs and bunnies do not have anything to do with the resurrection!
Why the bunny and the eggs?
Easter was originally the celebration of Ishtar, the Assyrian and Babylonian goddess of fertility and sex. Her symbols - like the egg and the bunny - were and still are symbols of fertility and sex. Nooooooo, eggs and bunnies do not have anything to do with the resurrection…
Take a walk on the wild side.
![IMG_7919[3711].JPG](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5feff615e1367528109005a8/1617190289636-CDXP409Y56IM5C6PGEKW/IMG_7919%5B3711%5D.JPG)
And for those of you not into Easter or Ishtar, but who appreciate a walk on the wild side no matter what the holiday, here is a snap of the very lovely Lou Reed, at an age when we Boomers were toddlers with promise. Here is a video and the tune.
I am women!
And for all of you who turned the brutality and grubbiness of patriarchy in Australian politics into a revitalised movement for change, this Easter we owe you a big debt of gratitude. Here is a video and the tune.
A traditional Easter.
![IMG_7920[3713].JPG](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5feff615e1367528109005a8/1617190433426-EB6I60R05U1KCNM0C86U/IMG_7920%5B3713%5D.JPG)
And for those of you who are more traditionalists, here is a snap I took when working in East Jerusalem back in 2014. Listen to: Victricem manum tuam - Gregorian Chant of the Easter Octave.
Enjoy!
Queer Boomers you can dance in Victoria, but just don’t mention hotel quarantine!
The Victorian Government recently announced a further easing of COVID-19 restrictions, including for nightclubs. While this is wonderful news for the people of Victoria who have been hardest hit by the pandemic in Australia, it is not without some irony – in fact a bucket full of irony. Here are my highlights.
The Victorian Government recently announced a further easing of COVID-19 restrictions, including for nightclubs. While this is wonderful news and much deserved for the people of Victoria who have been hardest hit by the pandemic in Australia, it is not without some irony – in fact a bucket full of irony. Here are some highlights.
Exiting the political stage on a stretcher.
COVID-19 can end a political career. Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews was once a highly regarded political figure in Australia, and while it is premature to say his political career is terminal, it is most certainly on life support. In fact, he has exited the political stage on a stretcher after suffering a severe bout of Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). A disorder characterised by failure to recover after experiencing or witnessing a terrifying event. In the Premier’s case (and in indeed for many Australians watching in horror), this terrifying event was the Victorian hotel quarantine system. Like the Premier, this system has also been carted off the political stage on a stretcher. It now resides in intensive care.
Political spin gone rogue.
Political spin can come back and bite you. Unfortunately for the Premier, his PTSD has been exacerbated by a bad case of political spin gone rogue, this time self-inflicted and to his nether regions. In what has been coined the ‘Victorian gold standard hotel quarantine system’, the Premier said in response to a question about why the system had too few places compared to the other States: “We have less capacity because we have a different model and I believe higher standards.” He went on to say: “This is not about boasting, it’s just a fact … The AMA over in WA is calling it the ‘gold standard’, that’s not terms I use, that’s what they said… If it was anything other than a good system, then I doubt very much other first ministers across the country would have agreed to copy it.”
Unfortunate.
Bad karma?
In politics as in life, bad karma is real. One can only speculate about how the PTSD and self-inflicted injuries caused by political spin, contributed to the Premier narrowing avoiding permanent spinal damage in a fall that has forced him to take leave for six weeks. The result of a dance with karma I can hear some of you say.
Missteps to safety.
The supreme irony is that Victoria is at this moment in time, the safest place in Australia. And this is not because its response to COVID-19 has been competent – quite the opposite is true.
Victoria does not have to bother with processing international travellers and managing a hotel quarantine system of any significance. This has not only created a further obstacle for Australians wishing to return home, including residents from Victoria, but has shifted the burden to the other States and the Northern Territory.
Competence not required.
Boomers, enjoy the dance as we all take comfort in the knowledge that maybe, just maybe, competence in political leadership is not after all, an essential prerequisite for combatting this dreaded bug. Just ask Boris Johnson, the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, and our own beloved Scotty from Marketing, Prime Minister of Australia, and of course Donald J Trump, the ever present and recently defeated (hooray!) President of the USA.