SCION of Rhodesian plantation owners and newly elected ‘independent’ senator David Pocock is manically eager to overturn the Howard government’s prohibition of voluntary assisted homicide in the Northern Territory, Norfolk Island and his home constituency of the ACT. More than one Labor MP intends to do that anyway but the famously unctuous Wallabies hero has his own private bill at the ready if the government doesn’t move fast enough. Oddly, neither he nor the territories minister, Kristy McBain – both allegedly committed to the Voice – has referenced the exhaustively canvassed and documented Indigenous view of euthanasia. Across the nation, it is seen as strictly forbidden. In 2019, Western Australia’s Pat Dodson lamented what he said “radically changes our understanding of life.” In Queensland, VAD laws are looked upon with horror. In the NT, 99.77% of officially surveyed Indigenous people in 1996 were strongly opposed. Surveyor Chips Mackinolty concluded that even “the very existence of the legislation poses an unacceptable risk to the health of Aboriginal Territorians.” It was, in other words, spiritually menacing.
The ‘assisted dying’ intersection is rich with eirenic potential and anthropological significance. As demonstrated by a royal commission and numerous scandals – each one as quickly buried by our self-forgiving utilitarianism as the one before – Anglophone culture has forgotten how to live with, and care for, the elderly. Given the evidence that pre-modern Aborigines could be ruthlessly cruel to the infirm and the expendable as a matter of Darwinian necessity, one exegesis of the opposition to euthanasia in their present milieux is that the taboo is a part vestige of another civilisation: ours. Was not Bishop Harris of Townsville being told how Europeans once treated the old and the dying at the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Catholic Council in 2020? At least in this one respect, are the Indigenous like the isolates of Éire who conserved the patrimony of antiquity after the fall of Rome? We certainly fit the bill as the Huns.
In the midst of this doom and gloom is an invitation to begin to turn things around. Thanks to ancient indigenous wisdom and the latest in science and technology, we have never known more about these life support systems, what we are doing to them, and what can and must be done to halt this catastrophic decline…”
– Picky fan of wisdom David Pocock in a forgettable maiden speech to the Senate yesterday
Instead of heeding these voices and curating from them a mutually healing unity of wisdom, death-obsessed whites and retro-ATSIC gravy-trainers instead lecture the governed (whose sovereignty was just trampled for two years) about ceding to them a Constitutional portion of their supposed monopoly of consent. Bear in mind too that the lecturers and the tramplers overlap, Venn as now. Historiographical folly it may be but I’m drawn to the idea that Aborigines, whose recent forebears were saved from ancient cruelties by the best of the Christian catechists, now preserve a requisite treasure of Western Civilisation – family love and care of the aged until death – within their ethics. What a gormless and hypocritical moment it is in the troubled life of 21st century Australia that the barbarians pretending to listen are the ones shouting Aborigines down.
What did the aborigines do with their elderly who were too frail to walk significant distances? No ättestupa in that culture as far as I know but I defer to more knowledgeable others.
‘Venn as now’ Gold…
I think the implication is that Christianity revolutionised Aboriginal care of the old and infirm and now ‘sorry time’ is central to Aboriginal culture.
As for Pocock I’m beginning to believe all that stuff about contact sports and brain injury. What else could explain him and Peter Fitzsimons? Wasn’t he the ponce throwing the tanty because he couldn’t have an auslan signer beside him during his maiden speech? How long before he brings his emotional-support bichon frise into the chamber with him? Overall, it’s been one of the worst parliaments so far for first night prima donnas: Pocock, Nanny Monique Ryan and look-at-me Lidia.
There are two questions here.
Should people be able to kill themselves. The answer to that is no.
The other question is whether the parliament can makes laws for their citizens just like the States. the answer to that is yes.
Suicide is popular, just like abortion.
In an democracy you can only continually make the case against it.
Pocock doesn’t wear a tie in the Senate, man.
He’s hard core.
Reminds me of the time Pocock twice complained to the ref about the word “faggott” being used during a game.
Methinks he had one eye on a political career even back in 2015.
?
I presume you mean, can the NT, ACT and Norfolk Island make laws for their citizens just like the states (that is, without let or hindrance from the Commonwealth).
The answer to that is no, unless a referendum is successfully held to remove section 122 from the Constitution.
Non Mentis
Can you please translate your comment at 0901 into something at least vaguely resembling English, if a pre-school failure can actually do something that complex?
They cannot at present which enables the commonwealth parliament to overrule it.
The question is should territorial parliaments be able to determine their own laws like the states. Of course they should
Pocock claims to be a Christian, wouldn’t marry his financeè, with whom he lived in a defacto arrangement iirc, until ssm was legalised, now his marriage is deliberately barren because planet, he promotes euthanasia, and the list goes on, he’s everything a green nihilist should be.
Perhaps you can explain why Albanese doesn’t put that proposal to the people in a referendum. Why is Labor exclusively interested in overturning the Andrews law (re euthanasia) by legislation but not interested in expunging section 122?
Here are some possible explanations: 1) for military strategic reasons, the Commonwealth wants to maintain ultimate control of the NT; 2) to avoid ludicrous brawls and embarrassments in Canberra, the Commonwealth doesn’t want an actual state overlaid on its own seat; 3) Norfolk Island is not a viable state.
Pocock makes me cringe with embarrassment.
Albo does not have to do a thing. the commonwealth parliament simply allow the various territory parliaments to do their job. They are after all elected by their constituents or do you want to reject anything you do not like. Norfolk Island has an administrator . It does not have a parliament. It is part of a commonwealth electorate.
NT and the ACT belong to the Australian people and the Commonwealth parliament is the parliament in charge of those territories you ignoramous.
Additionally Canberra rejected self government and it was forced upon them by communists in the Commonwealth bureaucracy (i.e the Pocock voting inner suburbs of the ACT) anyway, but you already know that.
Re the NT, if the 265,000 people in that vast empty, Asia facing terrority wish to change their status from a territory to state they can hold a referendum to demand to become a state and cut the cord to the Commonwealth, with all that means, if they really like.
(they don’t and won’t).
Next up from the Big Brained Australian educated class: “How dare states intervene in local council affairs, why can’t local councils hold their own diplomatic negotiations and alliance pacts with China? They are after all elected by their constituents! Well??”.
Non Mentis
They are after all elected by their constituents or do you want to reject anything you do not like
In this case, it seems that it is AnAl who wants to “reject anything” he does not like.
What do the parliaments in the NT or Canberra do then. err they have self government.
Alas the deplorables have no answer. You simply do not over ride legislation because you do not like it.
So does your local council.
Next up Randwick Council signs a security pact with China, bans gay marriage and legalises street euthanasia for all covid karens over the age 60.
“Self governance!”
The territory “governments” and their power exist at the whim of the Commonwealth – it created them, it manages them and it can dissolve them at will. just like your local council exists at the whim of the state government.
And the ACT didn’t even want its fake parliament, which naturally you ignore as you declare it the sovereign supreme.
If the NT and ACT have a problem with that (they really don’t) – they can hold internal referendums and demand to become big boy states. LOL.
Which is precisely what state governments in Victoria have done.
Or sacked the whole council.
And the Morrison government overturned the Victorian government’s Belt & Road deal with China.
The issue, in any case, is not territorial self-governance.
The issue is another bunch of communist lunatics who literally cannot wait to authorise the killing of people.
They love abortion, teen mutilation, child molestation and euthanasia because they see these as tip-of-the-spear toxins in their campaign to demoralise and forever defeat the Christian cons. They care about the terminally ill about as much as they care about the bashed women of Aurukun.
Non Mentis
What do the parliaments in the NT or Canberra do then. err they have self government.
The ACT government is an overblown city council, and should be reduced to such. The NT government would cease to operate without Commonwealth funding. Who pays the piper, calls the tune.
And yet these are the same sort of people, C.L. (typified by m0nty), who, during the many months long Covid lockdowns (which has and continues to cause lasting damage; physical, mental and financial) described those opposed to lockdowns as “granny killers.”
Pocock’s claims to religiosity very much fly in the face of his attitudes and behaviours. You either believe in what the Good Book says, or you don’t.
Also, how could anybody seriously suggest a 34-year-old who has NEVER had a proper job is fit to be a Senator. A member of the “house of review.” Should be a minimum age. And I say that as someone in their 30s
In the end, you can only legislate against those that are incapable of killing themselves. Those capable are unstoppable. All the talk is just fluff.