Breaking Point

Baby G turned four this week.. We spent the day in a peaceful seaside town, and he was gifted a Transformers set and surfboard amongst other things, had chicken schnitzel at the club for dinner, and ice cream cake, and fell asleep with all right in the world, as we thought how very lucky we are to have him.

 The next day the world woke to the heartbreaking picture of a little boy who will never be four, Aylan Kurdi, drowned on a Turkish beach, fleeing the war in Syria along with his mother and brother, who also died.

The world reacted with grief and horror, the current refugee crisis personified in the tiny body clad in his little red shirt and blue shorts, alone and wet on the sand.

We needed a solution, some way to help these people fleeing a situation more appalling than most of us could imagine, so bad they would risk their lives on flimsy boats to escape. Our Prime Minister, Tony Abbott, had one. Europe could stop asylum seekers drowning by stopping the boats, as Australia claims to, turning them back to where they began.

Think about it.

Abbott would have sent the boat Aylan was on back to Syria.

Back to ISIS. Back to ISIS, whom he has called a death cult coming after us, compared unfavourably with the Nazis, and wants to Australia to bomb.

And this is what Abbott would deem to be the humane solution. Death where we don't have to see or hear about it. That is what Abbott calls keeping people safe.

We’ve reached the breaking point. There have been many, many terrible things about the Abbott government, and almost nothing of worth. But this is the limit of what any decent person can consider tolerable. I’ve always said I don’t hate Abbott, just his policies, and if we wait it out he will get his just rewards at the next election, tossed out unceremoniously on his bony old behind.

No more. Abbott’s comments today have left me in shock, and I thought there was nothing he could do or say that was bad enough to shock me. The man is deluded, showing signs of a severe deficit of rationality, let alone compassion, which makes him a danger to himself and others – and the nation. He must go, now, by whatever means possible. Can we petition the Queen to sack him? Surely she has enough compassion and reverence for decency not to let Australia founder under this muppet. Time for a revolution in the streets? An Australian spring? I don’t know, I don’t want to. I’m busy, and tired. But if that is what it takes. Abbott is dangerous, and crazy, and a disgrace to Australia, and we have to do something, anything, to get rid of him. If anyone has any ideas, tell me. Let's work  together on this.

As for you, Aylan, a little boy who deserved better, I'm sorry. I'm sorry your life ended this way, and I'm sorry for our Prime Minister, who would send you back to what you lost your life escaping from.