“They come by boat and plane to invade us,and disturb our peaceful lifestyle, and take what is ours.”
So screamed the Hobart Mercury’s front page story about interstate property buyers. Does it have a familiar ring?

It is exactly what our indigenous people would have been able to say about the begining of white settlement.
It’s always good to ask the question, who has won and who has lost?
Kevin said he wasn’t going to lurch to the right on this issue of asylum seekers. Was his integrity on the issue part of his down fall?
It’s been interesting that both Philip Adams (who resigned from the Labour party over the nature of Kevin Rudd’s departure)and Rev.Tim Costello have come out and referred to Kevin’s untimely demise as something like a death in the family.
Could it also see the death of statesmanship and the arrival of the “ship of fools?”
A politician says “I’ll be what ever you want me to be, so long as you give me power.”
A politician’s field of vision is the next election, while a statesman’s field of vision is the next generation.

The next generation is watching: Who will give voice to their aspirations for justice and sustainability?
Wow! What if it’s only the Greens?
The moral blindness is clear to all but but the politically blinkered. One of the weathiest nations is seeking to co-opt one of the poorest to help manage its’ latent xenophobia and selfishness, because there is not the capacity to to lead by telling the bigger story of what greatness looks like.

Let’s not forget the mean and bullying attitude that coloured our negotiations over the oil field on our shared boundary with East Timor(were powerful interests involved there too?). The potential revenues could have transformed that tiny nation.
The Labour party machine men undermined Kevin Rudd’s attempt to upgrade our aid to them.

Both parties are now showing a considerable lack of leadership and moral vision in the race to the bottom.
I seem to remember it says in the Bible something about the blessings that await those who care for the battling single mum, the homeless, and the refugee. (the widow :the orphan:the stranger)
You will notice all ofthe above are without home and community. Maybe that’s our problem;could it be, we’ve lost our own sense of home and community?