My alarm rings, its 830 in the morning. By then I have been up for about half an hour- Early morning pondering- the usual. I get up and begin the best part of my morning, BREAKFAST. Breakfast, coffee, and the news sums up my morning routine. Since I have been here, the topics I have heard most about concern Mel Gibson being a racist woman beater and, the election. The next federal election will be held at the end of this month. I have developed a particular interest in the election so here is a little about who is running...
Julia Gillard (Australian Labor Party) is Australia's current Prime Minister and first female Prime Minister. I find her fiery red hair amusing all on its own, though her personality seems to fall short of it. She is an unmarried woman, with a partner (it is not unusual for Australians to have a life partner but never marry) and no children. But that is the least of what makes her interesting.....drum roll ...... She's an an atheist, yes an atheist. At least that is what I got from her "No I don't [believe in God]...I'm not a religious person" statement. So far ...I like. If it were the U.S all religious groups would have been burning her picture in mass bon fires before she got a chance to finish that sentence. But oddly, she is against gay marriage... which I don't understand. If religion is not the motivation for her opposition to same sex marriage then I am curious, what is? I tried doing some research, to find out if she has spoken any further on this topic but haven't found anything yet. Moving on ..... Gillard talks a lot about moving forward... literally. The morning news station counted how many times she has said "moving forward" in a number of speeches and the count reached somewhere in the twenties each. Her priority in this election is to "move forward" in health, calling for an increase in doctors and nurses if elected and placing an emphasis on mental health research.
Large ears and a funny looking smile, Tony Abbott (Liberal Party of Australia) has the perfect face for political cartoons ha ! of which typically involve him being something of a bigot, sexist- one of those "Im not sexist, I have three daughters/ Im not racist, I have black friends" types. He also is not the best public speaker, one of the reasons someone described him as "Australia's George Bush". I noticed his approval ratings have been increasing in the past few days- which actually came to my surprise- I mean this is the man who said "a woman's greatest gift is her virginity". It seemed as if Gillard was promised the vote of most women, but according to morning news (I only have one news station) his approval from women has been increasing. In the case of holding "traditional values"- Abbott takes all. A conservative Catholic- no surprise this funny looking man described reducing the number of abortions performed a year as a "national priority".
Clearly I need to do more research beyond what Sunrise Morning News is telling me =)
[sniff:sniff] I think my dinner is burning so ....
Until next time.
CHEERS
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