A Letter to Sturt Residents

Dear Sturt Resident,

It’s not often that I write to Sturt residents - Christopher Pyne is the local member and as some of you will know, his wife does much of his campaigning - woman to woman.

As a working mother of three children, I would have thought that she had enough to do keeping them and Christoper in check. But according to her recent campaign letter, she is concerned about “managing the household budget, finding suitable child care, balancing work and family time and ensuring our children have a good education”.

Well, I thought that Christoper was a member of the Liberal party - but it sounds like she is campaigning for the religious right, Family First party. Maybe she know’s something that we don’t?

She goes on to say that “Christopher takes his job very seriously. I see the effort that he puts in to helping our local community… I hope you’ll support him so he can keep using his experience to fight for us in Canberra”. Good point.

I wonder if this would be the same experience that helped push WorkChoices through without any scrutiny - which we now know was designed to reduce the wages and conditions of the low paid - particularly women and young people?

Do you suppose this is the same experience that let Philip Ruddock, Amanda Vanstone and others detain children in the most horrible conditions inside detention centres at Baxter and elsewhere?

Do you think that it might be the same experience that has allowed Mal Brough to invade Aboriginal communities in the Northern Territory on the pretext of “saving the little children” when he has not implemented one recommendation of the “Little Children are Sacred” report?

I am wondering if it’s also the same experience that resulted in the AWB scandal where $300 million was used to bribe Saddam Hussein and fund his military at the same time that we were considering whether to go to war against Iraq?

It’s probably also the same experience that resulted in the Australian Government blindly following George Bush into war in Iraq - a war that has so far resulted in 3,867 dead and 28,489 wounded - US military soldiers and over 655,000 dead Iraqi civilians?

It might also be the same experience that caused Liberal insider Guy Pearce to write his book “High and Dry”, which shows how John Howard is wilfully blind to Australia’s real interests - and who has allowed climate change policy to be dictated by our biggest polluters?

So yes Carolyn, it is important for Australians to consider these important issues carefully when they vote on November 24th.