Successive generations of Australian children who grew up with Norman Lindsay's book of The Magic Pudding - read the online book - refused to believe it's just a fairy tale.
Having been card-carrying members of the Noble Society of Pudding Owners for the past three to four decades, they gladly traded their votes for the party handing out the most ‘pieces of silver’. Entitlement (to a share of another person’s income) having long ago replaced gratitude, they chucked a tantrum when somebody tried to take away the lollies.
When I came to this wonderful country in the 1960s, I never heard of unemployment benefits, rent assistance, family allowances, and single mothers' pensions. Men relocated to secure employment even though their prolonged absence would cause their wives and young families a degree of hardship. When somebody got injured, there was no disability pension to be claimed. Were the people tougher then, or was it they simply had no other option than to draw on the resilience within and do what had to be done?
The sacrifices and solid foundations laid by these earlier generations have been crucial to Australia being one of the most blessed nations on earth. But what is the legacy that today’s generation is going to leave to the yet unborn?
If the venom, vitriol and disappointment being expressed about the recent (not so tough) budget are any indication, then we must go down as the greediest, most self-centred, petulant and narcissistic generation that ever lived.
We have become a nation that's taken way too much for granted for way too long and will be shock-horror mortified when reality bites us in our overweight arses. In the meantime, the cargo cult mentality continues ...
