CLANCY OVERELL | Editor | Contact
A local sales professional deep with the Betoota Heights Sowest Business Park has cited her close, possibly made up, ties to the Aboriginal during a discussion about the inclusiveness of Australia Day.
Kass Sully (56) says she believes there’s a difference between the 200,000 people that marched throughout the capital cities over the weekend, and everyday Aboriginal people, like the non-existent Murri family she is claiming to be friends with.
“They don’t care at all. They think its a day for ALL Australians” says Kass.
The discussion, which is veering on unacceptably political for a light post-long weekend workplace convo, started after one of the workplace ‘lefties’ – another female colleague under the age of 40 – mentioned that her and her friends have stopped having piss ups on January 26, because they now feel like it seems a bit insensitive to Aboriginal people.
“I just don’t feel like we should be celebrating a day that marked the beginning of plague and dispossession for Aboriginal people” said the office leftie, who probably voted Yes in the plebiscite as well.
However, Kass, says she won’t be made to feel guilty about the critically disproportionate incarceration and youth suicide rates faced by Aboriginal people – because her husband’s mate Johnno doesn’t seem to think Australia Day is a problem. And his wife is ‘half aboriginal.’
As Kass points out, Johnno, who’s full name she can’t remember, feels exactly the same way as she does about January 26th. In that it’s a day to do exactly what her family does every other public holiday, and weekend, which is have a barbeque and a few drinks. Except with that extra Australianess.
Given that no one else in this particularly suburban workplace has any Murri friends, made-up or otherwise, Kass is able to raise her brow with a big grin and her head turned slightly to the side – knowing that she has defeated this whingeing leftie snowflake with her superior knowledge of the inter-generational trauma faced by Aboriginal people.
“So yeah…It’s just something else for them to complain about” she says with a smug grin on her face, before swivelling her chair back towards her computer screen to sign off on another six boxes of blue ball point pens for the Pink Bins account.
