ERROL PARKER | Editor-at-large | Contact
A well-educated young worker from our town’s cosmopolitan French Quarter has grown tired of taking part in our society and has joined the thousands of other people in their position and set their sights abroad.
“I can’t see myself getting ahead here,” they told The Advocate from inside the Camel smoking lounge at Remienko Memorial International Aerodrome.
“People can say I didn’t try but what am I working for? I wasn’t born into a wealthy family. What’s the point in competing with people who get born into a position lightyears ahead of your own? Australia isn’t a fair and equitable society anymore. It’s just have’s and have not’s. The political class won’t change anything so why would I spend my time on this planet trying to pay off some Meriton dog box that the government wants me to beg for?”
“Honestly, if you come from not much and you stay and participate in this society, you’ve got rocks in your fucking head. We’re supposed to compete for housing with cashed up overseas investors that are legally allowed to just buy property and leave it empty because they don’t want people to cause wear and tear on it. First home buyers are competing with investors that might have a dozen properties. How can that produce a fair and equitable society? Is it actually too much to expect society to be fair and equitable?”
“People are living in tents because they can’t find a place to live. People are dying in ramped ambulances out the front of hospitals because there’s no bed. Kids are going to school in classes nudging 40 in some areas. Buses are packed, trains are bursting and all people worry about are massive American utes on the road,”
“Australian society doesn’t reward hard work anymore. You can work your whole life and still end up in a cardboard casket getting cremated by the state. Fuck this place, man. Even the most reverent defenders of this system will say that things were better in the past. I’m done with it. I thought Albo was going to help us. Instead, he’s just carried on the legacy of John Howard and every other self-interested chair sniffer that’s come after him,”
“Anyway, that’s my flight calling.”
More to come.
