“… procreate and cherish”
Our Treasurer Peter “but he promised” Costello is again telling Australian women to breed for their country.
I find it curious that in every discussion about falling fertility rates the Treasurer focuses his attention on women. In this is he acknowledging that it is the woman who decides to have a baby? Or is he honouring the vital role of mothering? Is the Treasurer perhaps mourning the peripheral role a man plays in the choice to have a child or is he concerned about the growing absent – father syndrome?
I would like the Treasurer to acknowledge a broader concept of primary carer- man, father, grandparent, and other caring adult.
I also want the Treasurer to understand that asking members of the population to consider their contribution to the recruitment needs of the Department of Defence in twenty years time when they contemplate starting a family is going to have them thinking “fuck off” not “let’s fuck.”
In the western world, in 2006, individualism will win out over altruism every time and being a parent requires a lot of altruism.
The above image comes from here. I wonder if this is what the Treasurer pictured when he thought of a woman’s role and not enough military personnel.
July 25th, 2006 at 5:30 pm
Did you see the ‘fistfuck’ motion he did for the old granny he was talking to about it??
I kid ye not.
July 25th, 2006 at 7:10 pm
No I didn’t!
What is with this man’s complete lack of understanding of where government should end and the private individual begin?
Was he insinuating that there’s still life in those old ovaries and it’s her duty to use them…eeuwwww – his arrogance makes me so angry.
I hope she was an old granny like mine was. My Oma would have told him exactly what she thought of his obvious disrespect.
July 27th, 2006 at 9:08 am
Armaniac, I believe Petey’s gesture was probably intended a bit more broadly. His disdain for us little people is so obvious in that famed smirk that he could keep his hands in his pockets for the rest of his life and we’d still be fairly clear on his sentiments.