ERROL PARKER | Editor-at-large | Contact
A self-congratulatory young man from our town’s leafiest enclave has shrugged off suggestions that the government is putting too high a price on regional security while many across Australia are out on their arse just trying to survive.
Despite accepting that the nation is quickly turning into those who have and those who have not, Alistair Sterling-Coleman of Betoota Grove said the slow death of the Australian middle-class is something we all have to accept if we want peace in the Indo-Pacific.
“I’m with the government on this,” he said.
“Making sure China is in check at all times is critical to the future prosperity of Australia. If that means we need to gut the NDIS and make people on Centrelink either get a job, whether they can work or not, it’s a small price to pay.”
“Do you know what people in the 40s did when they had crippling anxiety and depression? They went to work. They got on with it. They didn’t sook about it on social media. I think this government has got it right. The good, prosperous times are over, and we’re entering a new age where economic instability and regional insecurity are upon us. Albo is going through the same shit Curtin did.”
“We can still have progressive policies and be tough on China. Policies designed to protect the environment, policies to safeguard the passage of my parents’ wealth to me – and then on to my children. Protecting our hard work. I’d call myself a teal, but I’m lucky enough to have moved, with the help of my parents, to the French Quarter, where we have a local Labor councillor elected, so I don’t need to be a teal.”
“Plus, the teals are women, and I’m a neo-liberal Labor man, which means I have a problem with them. Being middle-class is overrated, anyway. Struggling to pay a mortgage and service a loan on a Mazda CX-9 is no way to live.”
More to come.
