Are all Australians like this?

The other night my family celebrated the 80th birthday of my deceased grandfather. Sadly, my grandfather could not attend this party, due to his unfortunate state of being dead. Thus we celebrated in his honour, a rather odd thing to do if I do say so myself.

Rendering things yet more odd, was the presence of my cousin's husband's mother freom Brazil, who had very little english speaking ability and required constant translation from Matt, the aforementioned husband. To add to the multilingual fun, my aunty was hosting a japanese exchange student, and had politely requested that I translate for Rina using my vastly superior japanese language skills. I like to think I didn a passable job, and it was me or nothing since no one else spoke even a modicum of japanese, but nonetheless it resulted in an even more crazy family get together than usual.

It started fairly sedately, with a single bottle of wine during dinner, and with myself, my younger cousin and Rina playing the new credit card edition of monopoly, where everything costs millions instead of hundreds. It is an understatement to say that I anihalated the others, as I was the only one with houses on all my numerous properties, however, as my opponents were a foreigner who didn't understand the game and a child, this was perhaps not an unexpected outcome. In fact, after realising that I should have made some poorer decisions earlier on in the game, I spent all of my money on houses and announced that the winner was the player who had the most cash. Which was Rina, then my cousin, and finally in last place, myself.

After dinner, which involved a multitude of toasts by my aunty's and Matt's mother, Matt's family left and it was only my mother's family, the Musker clan, remaining, they got down to business. And by 'got down to business' I mean 'started singing.'

This may seem like a strange idea, but after attending these little get togethers for almost 20 years now, one grows to expect that at some point in the night, there will be singing, dancing, and, in all likelihood, both. In truth, we were fortunate that the sisters were kind enough to abstain from dancing, and went straight for the main course, singing in other languages. For the most part, in honour of my grandfather's birthday, traditional german song were sung, but as always, there were some danish songs thrown in for nan's sake, and of course, there comes a time in every night when it's time to bring out the ABBA.

So while the remaining family members made there way through the sixth bottle of wine singing 'Tinga Linga Lata' (don't ask, I don't know), I was attempting to have a discussion with Rina, which was hindered by our lack of talent in language learning. Nonetheless, I laughed after mentally translting one of Rina's questions.

"Are all Australian families like this?" I hurried to assure her that, no, most Australian families found my family extraordinarily strange and did not enjoy singing foreign language songs around the dinner table with several bottles of wine. I informed her that my family was so unusual (and had such a love of wine) that my own mother was named after a favourite, and cheap, bottle of wine. I wondered idly whether this was a suitable environment for a bewildered exchange student.

After discovering that Rina was in a band, my aunties (all 4 of them) and my mother, requested that Rina sing for them. Rina was very decidedly not keen on this idea, repeatedly saying "no, no, no." Her protest was that she played the guitar in her band and couldn't sing very well. I said that she couldn't be as terrible as my aunties, shortly after which my aunties requested I tell Rina "I bet you think we are very good singers" to which Rina replied "no, no, no."

I thought afterwards how I should have lied and told Rina that yes, all Australians are like this, and left her more mentally scarred than she already was. BBut alas, 'twas too late. In my retelling of this story to a friend - which I am sure was equally as long winded and boring as this - somehow became a discussion about politics, (which is often the case with my friends and I) and it seemed there was a common theme between the two conversations.

The majority (and by majority, I mean all) of my friends are left-wing liberals, and I use the term liberal to indicate liberal thinking, rather than the Liberal party, which in Australia is, absurdly, the conservative party. It was one of our greatest follies, but when the Liberals elected Tony Abbott over Malcolm Turnbull - who was in fact quite possibly the best liberal party leader ever - we felt positive that the Liberals had lost any chance of winning the election. Why? Tony Abbott is considered a bit of a crazy.

Tony Abbott was a the minister for health under the Howard government, and was infamous for his inability to seperate religion from political decisions. He was a very strong opponent of legalised abortion, and strongly fought against the controversial abortion pill, which is indeed, illegal, as is all abortion in Australia. In fact, the only way to get an abortion, is to have proof that having the baby would harm the mother. Fortunately, this allows abortions in the case of medical illness of mother or child, and allows for abortions in the case of mothers who are deemed mentally incapable.

He also believed that global warming was a myth, and still refuses to include any carbon reduction policies.

While the majority of Australia is still a largely Christian domain, most politicians make an effort to seperate their various religious views from political decision making, and base policy on what is necessary, what is safe, and what the public has expressed a desire for. Tony Abbott does not. As opposition leader, he has revealed very little about any form of policy - I highly suspect there is none. As health minister, he revealed his inability to remain unbiased and impartial.

During his campaign, Tony commented that "a woman's virginity is a precious gift", one of many comments that show the extent of Tony's double standards in regards to men and women. Tony, who believes that women should treasure virginity, but who once believed he had fathered an illegitemate child and makes no comment on males saving themselves, clearly shows Tony's sexist nature.

Throughout his campaign, Tony admitted that not everything that he said could be taken as truth, saying that unless it was a scripted speech, he may not be willing to follow through with his promises. Basically, Tony admitted to lying. Later, Tony made another blunder when he spoke on national television, admitting that he was afriad of homosexuals. He later publicly appologised, but the truth remains that Tony Abbott is homophobic, and the idea of a person being afriad of the people they lead is a horrifying thought. As the back of the train ticket says: fear breeds cruelty."

One of my greatest fears is that Tony Abbott will win the August election, which makes me laugh when I remember thinking that only fools would vote for Tony Abbott. My father once told me that in Australia, more often than not people vote against a party, not for a party. So rather than voting for good policy, people simply vote against the current policy if they are unhappy with any aspects of it. Here is my question: Are all Australians like this?

Because if they are, Australia has suddenly become a very scary place to live.

Of course, if anyone watched the political debate on Sunday night, they may be comforted by the fact that Julia Gillard won the debate, speaking with clarity of her governments policies and the unfavourable policies of Tony Abbott. Tony, who would like to bring back work choices, the scheme which was so heavily disfavoured by the Australian public that they refused to re-elect prime minister John Howard for another term.

The famous worm was showing the positive and negative decisions of a group of people watching the debate, showing an average line and a line each for males and females. Julia Gillard may have won the debate, but the males of the audience favoured Tony Abbott by a startling amount. Is this really going to turn into a gender contest? Is it really that difficult to stomach having a famle prime minister that men would rather face the prospect of a homophobic, xenophobic, sexist prime minister?

I hope the information given in the debate aids voters in maing an informed decision, but lets be honest, most Australians were probably watching masterchef. In fact, I believe that 3 million watched the debate as opposed to 4 million watching Masterchef. Adam won by the way, which is good, he was my favourite. I just hope my other favourite can win in August, otherwise it's going to be a very big slide backwards for Australia.