An Open Letter to Tony Abbott About This Unpleasant Business With Indonesia
Dear Tony,
We all know nothing solves international diplomatic fall outs like an open letter, so I'm writing you one now. I'm taking time from studying for my political science exam, but I don't think my lecturer would mind. He likes you. At any rate, he's a big fan of your idol and mentor, John Howard. I came to university greatly looking forward to all the brainwashing I'd receive from leftist academics, but there hasn't been any; the lecturer has taken a decidedly pro-Howard stance. But I digress.
We've been caught spying on Indonesia. Oh dear. Spying is a bit like masturbation; everyone does it but it's frightfully embarrassing when you get caught. The thing to do here is for you to rock up to Jakarta, cap in hand, and do a little humble grovelling to the Indonesian government. We're so, so sorry. We didn't mean to spy on you and we never thought you'd find out and the Australian government doesn't even read the reports from our intelligence agencies - that we got into Iraq is proof of that.
You won't though. You're claiming that all this happened on former PM Kevin Rudd's watch, and it's nothing to do with you. Now your side of politics is famously reluctant to apologise for anything you don't feel personally responsible for, so this is not without precedent. Here's the thing though - with you pouting and saying "No fair. Was Rudd's fault. No fair. Not saying sorry" - the Indonesians don't care. Really. You are our Prime Minister, you have been elected to (god help us) represent us. Indonesia doesn't care about our domestic political stoushes. Australia spied on them, you're head of the Australian government, ergo you, yes you, need to say sorry.
So why won't you? Why do you risk our most important international relationship for the sake of appeasing the Murdoch-reading crowd? Do you think you might lose their support? For it's pretty clear from here there's nothing you can do to make them love you less - not supporting paedophiles, not personally profiting from charity bike rides, not locking suicidal four year olds behind razor wire, nothing. You crap in their faces and they cry "more, more!". And I can assure you there's very little you could do by now to make the rest of us love you less, either. So you may as well apologise. It may even win you some brownie points - your breathless fans will simply blame the ABC, Fairfax, the left and the Greens. We can keep sending our cattle to be slaughtered and our brainless kids to be executed. And when Peta tucks you into bed tonight, you can sleep well.
We all know nothing solves international diplomatic fall outs like an open letter, so I'm writing you one now. I'm taking time from studying for my political science exam, but I don't think my lecturer would mind. He likes you. At any rate, he's a big fan of your idol and mentor, John Howard. I came to university greatly looking forward to all the brainwashing I'd receive from leftist academics, but there hasn't been any; the lecturer has taken a decidedly pro-Howard stance. But I digress.
We've been caught spying on Indonesia. Oh dear. Spying is a bit like masturbation; everyone does it but it's frightfully embarrassing when you get caught. The thing to do here is for you to rock up to Jakarta, cap in hand, and do a little humble grovelling to the Indonesian government. We're so, so sorry. We didn't mean to spy on you and we never thought you'd find out and the Australian government doesn't even read the reports from our intelligence agencies - that we got into Iraq is proof of that.
You won't though. You're claiming that all this happened on former PM Kevin Rudd's watch, and it's nothing to do with you. Now your side of politics is famously reluctant to apologise for anything you don't feel personally responsible for, so this is not without precedent. Here's the thing though - with you pouting and saying "No fair. Was Rudd's fault. No fair. Not saying sorry" - the Indonesians don't care. Really. You are our Prime Minister, you have been elected to (god help us) represent us. Indonesia doesn't care about our domestic political stoushes. Australia spied on them, you're head of the Australian government, ergo you, yes you, need to say sorry.
So why won't you? Why do you risk our most important international relationship for the sake of appeasing the Murdoch-reading crowd? Do you think you might lose their support? For it's pretty clear from here there's nothing you can do to make them love you less - not supporting paedophiles, not personally profiting from charity bike rides, not locking suicidal four year olds behind razor wire, nothing. You crap in their faces and they cry "more, more!". And I can assure you there's very little you could do by now to make the rest of us love you less, either. So you may as well apologise. It may even win you some brownie points - your breathless fans will simply blame the ABC, Fairfax, the left and the Greens. We can keep sending our cattle to be slaughtered and our brainless kids to be executed. And when Peta tucks you into bed tonight, you can sleep well.
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