THIS YOGHURT KILLS BABIES

I wrote this a while back (October 2007) on a blog that no longer exists (an early effort), however, in light of poor old Andrew’s mournful whining today about poor old Kevin Andrews, an apparently “cautious and deep[ly] Christian” fellow and an “honest man”, I thought it an apt and dandy time for a recycle …

Oh, those were the days, my friends, those were the days …

We thought they'd never end.

THIS YOGHURT KILLS BABIES (REDUX)

On the ABC television program "Insiders" of August 5, 2007, host Barrie Cassidy interviewed Kevin Andrews, the current Federal Minister for Immigration about his decision to deport Dr Mohamed Haneef on the basis of allegations that Haneef had been mucking it up and hooning about with some of those despicable terrorists we're forever being 'lerted and 'larmed about. Of course, most of these allegations have now been widely discredited and dismissed, and the good Minister Andrews in his desperately clumsy attempts to convince us all that his accusations were justified continues to reveal himself to be a man whose grey matter appears to comprise little else than a few dusty tumbleweeds and a blowfly.

And, aside from those pesky Indian doctors, Andrews ain’t too keen on foreign black folks either.

However, at the tail end of the interview, Cassidy began to ask Andrews about another matter entirely ...

Broadcast: 05/08/2007

BARRIE CASSIDY: I also read this morning that you are an adviser and an honorary patron to the radical - as it's described in the newspaper - radical pro-life group Life Decisions International. Is that true?

KEVIN ANDREWS: Look, I've been a patron, the Americans used the word "honorary adviser" because in America a patron is someone who pays money. I've been a patron of a pro-life organisation for about 10 years.

BARRIE CASSIDY: This group advocates economic boycotts against companies producing contraceptive pills. Is that something that you support?

KEVIN ANDREWS: Can I say, I'm a patron. I'm not involved and have never been involved in the day-to-day operation of the organisation. I'm, you know, patron of a variety of organisations.

BARRIE CASSIDY: But as a patron you lend your support to that organisation?

KEVIN ANDREWS: That's right.

BARRIE CASSIDY: And you wouldn't put your name to it unless you supported their tactics, and their tactics are to support an economic boycott against companies like GlaxoSmithKline, for example.

KEVIN ANDREWS: It's a free world, Barrie. People can advocate what they like. But as far as I'm aware, there's nothing illegal involved. As I said...

BARRIE CASSIDY: Nothing illegal about an economic boycott but it's something that you clearly support otherwise you wouldn't put your name to it.

KEVIN ANDREWS: Look, the bottom line is that this is an organisation which is pro-life. Everybody knows I'm pro-life. I'm patron of an organisation that's pro-life.

BARRIE CASSIDY: And pro-economic boycotts.

KEVIN ANDREWS: Well, as to the way in which they advocate a pro-life outcome, that's fine.

BARRIE CASSIDY: I'm just curious, one thing - what have they got against Walt Disney? Why are they demanding a boycott against Walt Disney?

KEVIN ANDREWS: (laughs) As I said, I'm not involved in their day-to-day operations. I'm a patron of it. I'm not running away from that. It's been on my declaration of interests forever and a day or ever since I've been a patron of it. That's that.

BARRIE CASSIDY: Thanks for your time this morning.

KEVIN ANDREWS: My pleasure.

Walt Disney aside, that Lion King of theirs having been long revealed to be queerer than a carpentry joint tacked together by someone with St.Vitus' dance, Life Decisions International also appear to be dead-set opposed to that infamous "culture of death" concept known as carpet on floors, listing among their "boycott targets", the companies Carpet One, Flooring America, Flooring Canada, and Flooring One.

Now, I know nothing of carpets, plush rugs never before having struck me as particularly sinister, but, perhaps summat's afoot aboot that lump of piles on my floor which has yet to shew it's evil intentions.

But why on earth would the poor old Coach Dairy Goat Farm of Pine Farms, New York be in their sights?

What have they got against a decent lump of curd?

DEAD MEN'S FORESKINS

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STEVE & STEPHEN MAKE NO PORNO

Kevin Smith has "made" a new "movie".

It's called "Zack and Miri Make a Porno" ...

From "Variety" ...

"Fifteen to 20 newspapers rejected ads for the pic, while Boston and Philadelphia ran them without "Make a Porno." Salt Lake City's Larry H. Miller megaplex, which played "Tropic Thunder" and "Sex Drive," warned in advance that it would not book the movie -- "on moral grounds," says Faber."

"Family" "First" "Senator" "Steve" "Fielding" has yet to be reached for "comment" on whether He will "permit" screening of this "entertainment" in the temple that is our "country" in the "forseeable" future, however, a "spokesperson" for the "Senator" confirmed today that He remains "committed" to "vigorous" examination of any and all "material" that may "include" "adult themes" potentially “unsuitable” or “unfit” for viewing by "adults".

“Senator” “Fielding”, added the “spokesperson”, now reserves the right to confer or withhold the status of adulthood on or from whomsoever He chooses.

Somewhat surprisingly, “Senator” “Fielding” is not a “horse”.

These days, He’s the Emperor.



From 2008, “Zack and Miri Make a Porno”, Trailer, directed by Kevin Smith

I’M A LOSER, BABY, SO WHY DON’T YOU KILL ME

Some people have seriously fucked up their lives by not choosing to do stuff that other people have done and those people will die.

And I am one of them.

Oh, poo.

Anyway, here’s a few of the things I forgot to do, and, in the forgetting of them did I unwittingly seal my fate forevermore as nothing other than an insubstantial fart of failed fat cells flapping impotently over the face of the planet …

A HOUSE

I forgot to buy a house.

Oh, poo.

I live in a rented flat. I’ve been living in rented flats and houses for the better part of 27 years, ever since I moved out of my parents’ house when I was 22. And half of that time has been spent living in rented flats with other people.

That was called “sharing”. I don’t think “sharing” happens much nowadays as lots of people seem to think they’re far better off living at home with their mums and dads until they’re about 45 years old at which time they just might be able to afford to buy a bedsit up a back alley in King’s Cross just down from where that whacked out crackhead smashed her baby’s brains out on a park bench the week before last until some cops shot her in the kneecaps. It’s only about one and a half million bucks, but it’s close to shops and transport and it’s certainly got character alright, that’s for fucking sure. Where else can you entertain yourself at night when there’s bugger all on the box by peering out the window at the winos underneath beating the crap out of one another and then hoiking up their stomach lining on your front stoop.

But hell, it’s a home, goddammit, and it’s yours and you’re entitled. It’s an Australian right. It oughta be in a constitution somewhere.

Whydonchawritealettertoyalocalmemberofgummentandseeifyacangetitputin? Huh? HUH?

I’ve been perfectly comfortable up to now renting flats and houses and sharing some of them with other people. It meant we had more money for other things. Like going out and seeing bands and movies and shows and buying compact discs and having parties and eating out and drinking and taking drugs and all that stuff I thought people were supposed to do when they were young enough to do it.

But I was wrong. I should have left high school and started to think about planning for my retirement when I turned 18. Apparently, that’s the way to go. Leave school and start preparing for when you’re dead.

I thought renting a place to live in was perfectly acceptable in today’s modern society but according to some people, it’s the utter fucking pits of deprivation and despair and it’s a wonder it hasn’t yet driven me and others like me to fling ourselves off our balconies in foaming fits of self-loathing.

Oh, well.

Some friends of mine just bought themselves a very nice house on the NSW Central Coast.

It cost them about $325,000.

I don’t have $325,000. I pay $1300 a month in rent. If I borrowed $325,000, I’d probably be paying double that in mortgage installments and I’d have to eat wild thistles and lick the cheese off discarded burger wrappers in order to live. I don’t think that would be much fun, but apparently it’s a far better thing to do than living in a rented flat according to all the people who are supposed to know what the better things to do are.

My friends had to borrow some of the deposit for their house from their parents. That’s fair enough, I guess, especially if the parents had it to lend.

My parents can’t afford to lend me money to put a deposit on a house for me to own, though.

They’re on a pension. It’s all they can do from day to day to scrape up enough pennies to buy themselves some new bits of cardboard so they’ve got a clean surface to eat their own poo off of. Or some old bottles that they can keep their urine in for when they need to freshen up with a splash under the armpits before venturing out in public to forage in skip bins for rotting root vegetables and bruised fruits.

Fucking losers.

Which brings me to the next thing …

MARRIAGE

I forgot to get married.

Oh, double poo.

I don’t know why this is, but the concept of marriage never seemed to take a hold on my mind as a thing that desperately needed to, or even should, be done. I could’ve taken the option a few times, really I could have. I just didn’t. If I had taken the option, I’d be part of a “working family” right now and my life would have some sort of validity. According to some it would, anyway.

Maybe it had something to do with the fact that I grew up with married people. My parents.

As a child, I remember watching as my parents argued, or had a fight about some trifle or other and wondering to myself, “Why do you bother with this? You all seem so fucking miserable”. Sometimes my parents would go visiting other married grown-ups, friends or relatives, and, as is the way of these things, poor fucking Ross would get bundled into the backseat of the car to go visiting too when all poor fucking Ross wanted to do was stay home and get down and dirty with some Lego or paint camouflage stripes on a Tamiya model kit tank.

So I’d wind up sitting in the houses of these married people who mostly seemed to communicate with each other through a series of guttural, monosyllabic grunts and grimaces and, if some sort of conversation ever actually happened to evolve from these primitive beginnings, it was usually about how this or that relative of theirs was fucking hopeless or in trouble with the law or was getting divorced or was having kids or had the shits with them or it was about the dickhead neighbours next door or it was a bit of shocked oohing and aahing over the fact that a Chinese couple had just moved in down the other end of the street which was unusual in those days and did you know the Chinese buried their food in the backyard for 12 days before they ate it and when they did eat it it was made of cat and Mabel three doors down lost her cat last week and it wouldn’t surprise us in the least what happened to it if you know what I mean, you know? Bloody foreigners.

Jesus Christ, the things you have to put up with when you’re a kid.

And through all this, all I could think of was how miserable and “small” everybody seemed to be. It was as if, having exhausted whatever few joys they thought marriage had to offer them, they then settled for a life devoted to giving each other the shits on a regular basis instead.

No thank you.

But, turns out I was wrong again. Finding that someone special to spend the rest of your life with and yell at and be yelled at and get the shits with is supposed to be good for one’s longevity.

Fancy that.

Which brings me to the other thing …

CHILDREN

I forgot to have children.

Oh, poo all over.

I once had some friends who had children and one day, the mother cooed to me, “Oh, Ross, you don’t know what you’re missing”, to which I could only reply, “Yes, I do. I’ve met your kids. They’re fucking horrid.”

Needless to say, that was not a friendship that endured much longer after that. But it was true. Her kids were insufferable little shits. When the family popped over to visit, the kids would run rampant through the house, into any room they wanted, into the fridge, constantly yelling at the top of their fucking lungs about this, that or the other thing until, after an hour or two of this, all I wanted to do was grab them by the scruff of the neck and shove their heads into the toilet bowl and piss on them.

And I was once in a relationship with a woman who had a two year old son. My God, this kid, when he decided to void his bowels, you’d swear the spirit of Jackson Pollock had taken nest in his colon. There wasn’t a Huggie on the planet that could withstand the power of his explosive expulsions of luminescent poo. They could’ve made a Huggie from titanium and vacuum sealed it to his butt and still that stuff would find its way to splashy, smelly freedom. The odds of getting the bond back on that rented flat at the time was a long-shot bet, that’s for damn sure.

But I’m realistic enough to know that not all kids are like this. Many children are utterly delightful, given to refreshingly innocent but honest appraisals of life and the world around them, such as “Look at that old bald man, mummy.”

I’d be a crappy father. I would, I really would. Not deliberately, on-purpose crappy, but crappy nonetheless. I’m bad-tempered, impatient and I need lots of time to myself or else I get really ratty in the head. Having a kid crawling all over me demanding attention to its every action or utterance on a daily, nay, hourly basis would melt my brain.

But I’m wrong. I shoulda had one for the country, one for mum, and one for dad (which would be myself, I guess). We’d send the one for the country off to fight a war somewhere and take a bullet through the head so we could have a parade and some things for the display cabinet at home; the one for mum would take her side during the divorce proceedings and hate my guts for the rest of my life and say nasty things about me on the internet; and the one for dad (which would be myself, I guess) would dutifully and lovingly nurse me in my shriveled dotage, feeding me mushed pears and peas with a spoon, wiping the drool off my chin and making sure I didn’t choke to death on my own dentures if I decided to get adventurous one day and eat some solids.

Talk about fucking everything up in life. Boy, did I take a wrong turn.

I’m sorry.

I shoulda bought a house and I shoulda got married and I shoulda had kids and then I coulda been somebody. Instead of what I am. Which is a bum. I coulda been a contender, Charlie. You was my brother, you was supposed to …

Hang on.

I don’t have a brother called Charlie …

…

Never mind.

Anyway, I see it all now. My whole life before me. Or at least what’s left of it.

Spending the rest of my days living in a rented flat without a wife and a bunch of kidlets to keep me warm and comfy. There to expire one distant day in isolated anonymity with only the stench of my rapidly decomposing corpse to alert the neighbours to my passing. The door smashed down by ambulance officers who, upon entering, will upchuck their lunches and then settle down to the business of scraping my innards off the walls after the build-up of gases in my internal organs made my stomach explode like a red roman candle.

Shit, eh?

I’ll make sure there’s some BAM in the laundry.

At this late stage in the game, it’s the least I can do.

Sorry about that.

BRIT-NAY'S MAMA (APOCALYPSE REDUX)

I'm currently busier than a maggot on a stackburger so, in view of the news of these "shocking" revelations, and instead of buggering about with something new, the time seems apt for a re-presentation of Rebus Flatbush and "The Tale of Brit-Nay's Mama" ...

From “Rebus Flatbush’s Famous Fables & Folk-Tales of the American Mid-West” ...

“Now ... Feetus, Teetus an’ Meetus, you boys git in here and settle yerselves up for bed cause I’m a gunna speak a story at yer ... This here’s a story ‘bout Brit-nay’s momma ...

Once upon a time Brit-nay’s momma done once lived raht here in this ol’ trailer park, an’ afore she done popped out Brit-nay, she useta set in her trailer a’drinkin’ an’ a cussin’ at herself ‘cause she weren’t a fam-ous person. She’d rub her big bumpy belly and take a big swig a’ corn likker and tell herself, “Mah baby’s gonna be someone one day, yessir she is, I’m a gonna show ever’one I ain’t no common piece ‘a trailer trash, no sirree I ain’t! I gots talents! An’ so will mah chil’, dagnabbit!!”

Then she’d let go of a buncha burps and farts so loud they fair stunned all the woodchucks fer miles aroun’ and set the grizzlies a-runnin’ for higher ground and then she’d fall down lahk a dead person an’ set fire to herself agin an’ we’d all haveta come a-runnin’ with buckets ‘a water and put her out. This useta happen, oh ... ‘bout every day or two.

(Feetus ... stop rubbin’ yerself agin yer’ brothers an’ pay attention, boy ... )

Anyhoo, Brit-nay was popped outta her momma’s belly one afternoon in the toilet block while she wuz givin’ Otis the janitor a seein’ to ‘bout sumfin’ (though why they wuz both nekkid at the time ah ain’t ever been able to figger, but ah guess that’s a’ no mind of mine to think upon), an’ she picked her baby up outta the toilet bowl an’ says “I gots myself a ticket to a fortune at last!”

An’ she taught that chil’ how ta dance an’ swivel her liddle hips an’ poke out her chesty bits and sing into a hairbush, all the time tellin’ her, “You gonna be fam-ous, Brit-nay, yes you are, an’ ah don’ wanna hear any arguments about it, you gonna be someone and ahm gonna be someone too! ... Now you gotsta learn how to poke out yer liddle baby pillows sum more and smile when all those nahce men from the talents agency come ‘round ... Oh!, that reminds me ... we gotsta git yer teeth bleached agin! ... You stay raht there now whiles I git the Persil.”

An’ sure e-nuff, Brit-nay got herself fam-ous an’ made a whole buncha money, an’ her momma made a whole buncha money too coz she done went and made herself Brit-nay’s manager person.

An’ then one day, when Brit-nay was a lot older, she started actin’ jes lahk her momma what with the drinkin’ and the smokin’ an’ cussin’ an’ gettin’ herself tattoos an’ havin’ a baby wif some fella who lahked to wear his pants ‘round his knees so as to show off his unnerwear an’ such ... Yessirree, she was actin’ up sumfin’ feerce all the time, an’ she got herself a dee-vorce an’ lost custody a’ her own l’il baby, an’ on top a’ all that, she went an’ tol’ her ol’ momma to go feck herself, ‘cause she was mahty sick of her.

An’ her poor ol’ momma soon found she had no more money left an’ she weren’t fam-ous no more an’ she had to come back an’ live with Otis the janitor in the toilet agin’.

Now, the moral of the story, boys, is this – no matter how many times you change the size an’ shape of yer trailer, the trash’ll always stay the same ...

(Er, Teetus ... take yer thang outta Meetus’s earhole and git yerself off to sleep, son.)”

SO PRETTY

Isn’t classical music pleasant? Isn’t it nice?

And classical art? Isn’t it sweet?

Quite lovely, yes ... quite ... unintrusive.

A balm for the soul in these horrid, troubled times where mankind, his ribs, and civilisation itself teeters on the brink of moral destruction and infernal, infinite purgatory ...

Pftht.

I don’t mind classical music. I even own some (though I can well do without opera, as that particularly ghastly form of singing makes me want to bash puppies). I’m quite partial to 20th / 21st century Estonian composer Arvo Pärt, for example. And classical art doesn’t bother me in the least. Landscapes and portraits and such, sweeping vistas and rolling hills and bowls of fruit and scrummy vegetables and lovingly rendered depictions of various young and old men and women, their every fold of flesh dripping delightfully with all manner of just-dicky detail. It’s all very inoffensive and unthreatening really, isn’t it?

Poncing about on the innyweb the other day, I landed at the London Review of Books and began reading a few articles (as one does), this one to be precise, and was struck by a comment from the reviewer ...

“As an apprenticeship in dissidence, a childhood sacrificed to classical music is hard to beat. Classical music is always acceptable to authority because it cannot overtly challenge power with subversive ideas or disturbing representations. Parents and states know they are on safe ground when their children or subjects are playing Mozart or Schubert – and enjoying it.”

Halle-fucking-lujah.

And so it is with visual art. Thus, Bill Henson was not acceptable to authority, and should not be acceptable to us who do not regard ourselves as authorities, authority in this case resting only in one professional paranoid hysteric, and two of the nation’s most ridiculously populist creative typists who continue (mistakenly) to refer to themselves as “journalists”.

Therefore, Hetty Johnston and Andrew Bolt and Miranda Devine, may I say to you all with deep and heartfelt sincerity, from the very bottom of my soul ...

Suck it up, cunts.

BILL HENSON SPEAKS ...

A brief interview with Leo Schofield ...



... and below is the letter I fired off to the Sydney Morning Herald this morning. Very possibly a good way to gather a death threat or two ...

"Bill Henson's work is to pornography what bashing nails into one's forehead with a mallet is to brain surgery. Child pornographers seek to produce and distribute images of abuse. There are no abusive elements to Henson's images. And pedophiles will be aroused by the depiction of children in any context, whether it be a television commercial for nappies to live footage of attendees at a Wiggles concert. With the rising cacophony of tabloid outrage now reaching a fever pitch from people who probably think art begins and ends with a Mona Lisa tea towel, I feel we may now rightfully claim the mantle of being the most hysterically stupid nation on the face of the earth."

IT'S OFFICIAL ...

We are now the most hysterically stupid nation on the face of the earth ...

Gallery manager Amanda Rowell said the reaction was blown out of proportion. "It has never been like this before. This is no different to any other exhibition he's had and he's had many exhibitions here," she said. "He's a master, there's no one in the world like him."

College of Fine Arts Associate Professor Joanne Mendelsohn thinks the reaction to Henson's work is surprising. "I remember seeing a major exhibition of his work at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, it might have been his Venice works, about 10 years ago. Not a peep, not a murmur, and yet the work that was shown then is remarkably similar to the work that has caused such an uproar now," she said.

Well, 10 years of a government led by a man with a grand passion for a tracksuit and who once argued for the rights of various redneck, racist dickheads to take Australian flags to a fucking rock concert will do that to a country, I guess. And it won't be getting any better at any time soon, given that we are now governed by a man who feels the appropriate way to celebrate an election victory after 11 years in opposition is with a cup of tea and a fucking biscuit.

... Of all the countries on the planet, I am convinced that Australia now leads the world in having the highest percentage of whingeing, whining, grasping, greedy, pseudo-puritanical poncing little fusspots, busybodies, moral panic merchants and general all-purpose knobjockeys and know-it-all and know-what’s-best-for-you obsessive-compulsive hysterics within its borders ...

... So let us dispense once and for all with the mythical "Whingeing Pom" for the noise they make is but a distant whimper compared to the perpetual cacophony of complaints that greets every new dawn from the footsoldiers in the legions of the stupid that comprise the good ol' true-blue, dinkum Aussie bloke and sheila, the "ordinary, average Australian working family" who now run rabid throughout the land in a manner that would make a plague of cane toads seem but a mere piffling trifle ...

When it comes to whingeing, we just never seem to quit.

... We are now a nation besieged, apparently. A pedophile lurks at every corner. A hundred million billion images of child pornography fester behind every link on every website one may ever conceivably click. That man in the park with that boy, that child, is not his father or grandfather, but an evil minion of Satan definitely up to no good. That bloke going into that public toilet is not going there to take a pee, but intends instead to loiter with dastardly criminal intent. That teacher looks suspicious. That single fellow who lives down the road ... hmmm, he's a quiet one, he is. You know what they say, "You've got to keep your eye out for the quiet ones" ... "Let us kill him in the public square" ...

... Those teenagers at that pub ... they're ... DRINKING! And SMOKING! And then ... and then ... My God, then, THEY'RE GOING TO HAVE SEX AND DESTROY THE WORLD! ... THOSE FAT PEOPLE WILL KILL US! THAT BURNT SAUSAGE YOU HAD 25 YEARS AGO AT THAT BARBECUE WILL GIVE YOU CANCER! SO WILL YOUR MOBILE PHONE! ... AND SOMETHING MUST BE DONE ABOUT GORDON RAMSEY, FOR HE IS THE ANTI-CHRIST WHO WILL DELIVER OUR CHILDREN UP UNTO A PIT OF HELLFIRE AND ETERNAL DAMNATION!

And I only earn $150,000 a year and was intending to have children, but however will I manage now without a government handout?

Poor me. Poor them. Poor us. Oh, woe.

Can people honestly believe that the dirty little creeps who regularly deal in child pornography and pedophilia will leave their sweaty little keyboards behind and don a plastic mac in order to pop off to an art gallery, sip some cheap wine, nibble a canapé or two and then slink off to the gallery toilet to have a quick fiddle with themselves? What utter rubbish.

Cheesus Crust on a cross, as a nation we've all gone completely ratty in the head, it would seem. About anything and everything imaginable.

As at 8.55 a.m. this morning what were the most "popular" "news" stories of the day on the News.com.au website? How about "Web dating can be disappointing" at No.1? How about "Jodie "cheated" on dumped lesbian lover" coming in at No.2? Or "Teenage boy jailed for taking call in court" at No.3? And "Briefs may fly in Zaetta sex scandal" at No.4? And at No.5, "Police raid on naked kids "art"?

What a pack of brain-dead fucking maroons we have all become.

New Zealand looks inviting ...

... Or Tasmania perhaps. That's practically another country. I might go there.

I hear they give good fruit.

UPDATE: Same as it ever was - Jonathan Jones from The Guardian

EVERYTHING STOPS NOW!

"I think it makes sense to hope that one day there may be an international day of prayer ... It will be a chance for people of faith around the world to stop at the same time to pause to praise an Almighty. It will be a time when we could pray together for a world that sees the promise of the Psalms made real: 'Your love is ever before me, and I walk continually in your truth' " US President George Bush said.

In anticipation of the day when everything "stops" for prayer, some enthused US citizens take the idea for a test run ...



From 2007, Charlie Todd & Improv Everywhere in Grand Central

PROTECTING THE SANCTITY OF MARRIAGE AND CHILDBIRTH IN A FAITHLESS AND SECULAR AGE

A MODEST PROPOSAL FOR LEGISLATION TO BE TAKEN UNDER CONSIDERATION AS A POSSIBLE FUTURE BLUEPRINT BY OUR STATE AND FEDERAL REPRESENTATIVES. MAY GOD BLESS AND PROTECT THEM.

1. As a condition of entering into marriage (marriage herein defined as a conjugative union between an adult male person and an adult female person, adult in this respect defined as any individual over 16 years of age), all couples should be required to produce a child or children within a nominal period of three to five years (maximum) of wedlock. Should no child or children be forthcoming from the union due to physical incapacity or disability; impotence; infertility; advanced age; or professionally diagnosed medical condition (approved documentation required), a child should be assigned to the couple in question from the relevant state or territory’s Federal Government Surplus Youth Repository.

2. If any couple refuse to comply with the proposed legislation in respect of either (a) bearing a child or children, or (b) undertaking care of any child assigned to them for care, then it should be determined through application of the legislation that the marriage be declared null and void, and any and all agreements undertaken by the relevant parties either during the union or made in preparation for the union (for example, financial or property matters; prenuptial agreements) no longer be binding on either party under any circumstances.

3. Contraceptive medications and/or devices should henceforth from the date of enactment of the proposed legislation only be made available via prescription to those married couples who have successfully bred a minimum of 3 children within the nominal period of three to five years (maximum) of continual wedlock. No contraceptive medication and/or device should be prescribed to any individual or individuals who are not engaged in a conjugative union of a type that has been approved by an appropriately authorised religious faith and practitioner thereof. Unauthorised supply and consumption of contraceptive medications and/or devices should be determined an offence under the proposed legislation and punishable by law and should attract a fine and/or term of imprisonment up to, but not exceeding AU$50,000 and 5 years incarceration.

4. Under the proposed legislation, termination of a pregnancy upon request should not be permitted under any circumstances. Should the pregnancy have resulted from an occasion of alleged or confirmed sexual abuse, the carrier of the developing foetus should be provided with appropriate and comprehensive counseling by State or Federally accredited health and welfare officials until such time as the pregnancy reaches full-term, and birth of a child or children has been achieved.

5. If diagnosis determines that the pregnancy may pose a hazard to the health of the carrier of the foetus, the right of the foetus to a full life should prevail over that of the carrier in any and all cases. In such an event, appropriate and comprehensive counseling should be provided to the carrier and/or their partner so that they may adequately prepare for any ensuing trauma that may present during the pregnancy, including the possibility of the carrier’s death. In case of the latter, generous financial assistance from the Australian Federal Government’s Bereavement Bonus Fund should be made available (upon application) to the surviving spouse for a period of up to, but not exceeding 6 (six) months subsequent to the carrier’s demise.

6. Should a pregnancy be terminated due to an alleged event of miscarriage, the carrier of the foetal matter and their primary health care provider should be required by law to report the event within 7 (seven) days of occurrence to the Australian Federal Police Foetal Abuse Investigative Division (F.A.I.D.). It should be the responsibility of F.A.I.D. to engage the cooperation of all relevant parties so as to ascertain whether or not the miscarriage event was either deliberately induced by the carrier and/or her partner, or was the result of any inappropriate behaviour (for example, consumption of alcohol, tobacco, illegal drugs, unsuitable foodstuffs) that could rightly be deemed as damaging to the health of the developing foetus. Should F.A.I.D., during the course of their investigation, find that the occurrence of the event falls outside the applicable definitions of “accidental” as set out in the proposed legislation, the individual concerned should be charged under that legislation and a fine and/or term of imprisonment up to, but not exceeding AU$100,000 and 5 (five) years incarceration be imposed upon them.

From 1979, Sister Sledge "We Are Family"