one day I woke up and realised all the waiting and yearning was actually me living my life and it’s happening right now and it’s still good even if it’s not perfect and there is no moment when all your dreams get fulfilled and everything makes sense. like… this is it. this is life. you’ll waste away your youth waiting for some imagined future if you don’t love life for what it is now and make the most of it
Blatantly Partisan Party Review IX (federal 2022): David Pocock
Running where: ACT
Prior reviews: None, this is a new party
Yes, I mean this is a new party. To have a name appear above the line on Senate ballots, you must be a registered party (hence no-party-no-more Nick Xenophon getting the unlabelled Group O in SA). Normally, individuals running on a “don’t ya know me and what I stand for?” platform tack on something so that they are the Jacqui Lambie Network or the Rex Patrick Team or Katter’s Australian Party. David Pocock, however, has had an inspired moment and simply registered his party’s name as his personal name. This isn’t the David Pocock Group, Network, or Team. This is David Pocock.
I should explain what’s going on in the ACT for those unfamiliar. The territory leans strongly left: it has had a Labor territorial government since 2001, currently in coalition with the Greens (and the Liberals have only held power for approx. 8 years since the first territorial election in 1989). At federal level, however, it only elects two senators, each requiring a quota of 33.3%, so (since no party is ever getting 66.6%), it always elects one Labor and one Liberal. This means that the ACT’s senate representation is often seen to not really reflect Canberrans’ views. Labor always gets a quota, but sometimes the Liberals drop below it—usually so slightly that they get over the line with just a handful of preferences, but this has led some others to sense opportunity. The Greens have polled as high as 22.9% (2010) but they have not drawn enough of that vote from former Liberal voters to leap into the second seat. This year we have two high profile independent campaigns hoping they might succeed instead: Kim Rubenstein (see forthcoming review of Kim for Canberra) and David Pocock.
If you’re a rugby union fan, you already know Pocock from his playing days, during which he captained the Wallabies. He had strong and outspoken political views as a player, and now he’s trying to go a step further and win office. Pocock has been involved in conservation activities for about as long as he’s been in the public eye. His commitment is such that he was arrested in 2014 for his role in a non-violent protest against coal mining expansion in northern NSW.
Pocock declared his candidacy for the ACT last year and is running hard with a focus on climate policy and integrity. These two issues form the core of his platform. Moreover, he is committed to a First Nations Voice to Parliament (the first step in the Uluru Statement’s call for Voice, Treaty, Truth) and to territorial rights and equality across Australian society.
If I have a critique, it is that his enviro policy is a bit too obsessed with electrification for electrification’s sake. It needs more attention to the source of the electricity (is it renewable?) and electric cars have so many non-tailpipe-related environmental issues that Pocock really needs clearer policies to expand and improve active and public transport.
As I browsed Pocock’s policies, I found myself wondering why he is not simply running for the Greens. I suspect it is that he thinks he has a better chance of peeling off socially-liberal, climate-conscious Liberal voters this way. It appears, too, that he is uninterested in being subject to party discipline and wants independence beyond parroting a party line. Given that one of the main reasons I’ve never gone into politics is because I prize my own independence and would struggle to toe a party line on all occasions, I respect that.
It seems his policies and principles suggest he would make reasonable independent judgements on issues that come before parliament. I find little objectionable in his platform, which seeks greater equality and future opportunities. And, look, you know someone is on the right path when I—a New Zealander whose first and firmest sporting love is the All Blacks—am prepared to talk positively about a man who scored a try against us in a Rugby World Cup grand final (we won, though).
My recommendation: Give David Pocock a good preference.
(Indeed, if you are tossing between voting 1 Greens or Pocock, there are some strategic implications to consider in terms of who is more likely to get ahead of the Liberals if there is a tight count)
I think a lot about how we as a culture have turned “forever” into the only acceptable definition of success.
Like… if you open a coffee shop and run it for a while and it makes you happy but then stuff gets too expensive and stressful and you want to do something else so you close it, it’s a “failed” business. If you write a book or two, then decide that you don’t actually want to keep doing that, you’re a “failed” writer. If you marry someone, and that marriage is good for a while, and then stops working and you get divorced, it’s a “failed” marriage.
The only acceptable “win condition” is “you keep doing that thing forever”. A friendship that lasts for a few years but then its time is done and you move on is considered less valuable or not a “real” friendship. A hobby that you do for a while and then are done with is a “phase” - or, alternatively, a “pity” that you don’t do that thing any more. A fandom is “dying” because people have had a lot of fun with it but are now moving on to other things.
I just think that something can be good, and also end, and that thing was still good. And it’s okay to be sad that it ended, too. But the idea that anything that ends is automatically less than this hypothetical eternal state of success… I don’t think that’s doing us any good at all.
have you ever noticed you pick up little habits and phrases from the people you love? it’s no wonder our hearts are so easily broken when people leave. we become a reflection of the people that we care about and those personality traits stick with us even if the people don’t
I make my ramen the way a friend taught me in eleventh grade. Every fall, I listen to a playlist made for me by a boy I drove across a border to hook up with. I eat sushi because a girl who won’t talk to me anymore made me try it, and Indian food because my best friend’s parents ordered for me before I knew what I liked. There are movies I love because someone I loved loved them first. I am a mosaic of everyone I’ve ever loved, even for a heartbeat.
Can someone please explain to me why the cat reacts in that way?
It looks like the cat is getting scritches on their back close to the base of the tail. That’s a hard to groom spot for cats, so having somebody else groom it feels pretty great. Outdoor cats especially can get itchy there, and the biting motion is a response to the scritches feeling really good. It’s kinda like a dog kicking their leg like they’re scratching when you give them a good belly rub. So no worries, this cat is not stressed!
basically, i think the general rule of thumb is: if someone REALLY wants the blood that’s inside of your body, and they’re like… a vampire, or a dracula, or some sort of mansquito, then that’s probably okay. a dracula and a mansquito are made for removing things like blood and swords from inside your body.
that’s basically fine.
if something wants to get at your blood, and they’re, say, some kind of murdersaurus, or maybe a really big frog, that’s where the problems start to arise. a really frog is not made for removing blood, and your blood knows this, which is why it is so vehement about wanting to stay IN your body instead of coming out.
unfortunately this will not deter a really big frog, because a really big frog is full of things like prizes, and value, and quite a lot of hatred, and it would REALLY rather like to replace any and all of those things with your blood, and basically by any means possible.
These words scan with a fantastic degree of confidence considering that together they make no sense at all
