Apparently this is as good as it gets. Reading The Australian on the weekend we read a front page story by Matt Price that here in our sun burnt country “life doesn’t get any better.” Quoting from authoritative sources such as Federal Health Minister Tony Abbott, Price wrote:
“Almost never before in the history of the world has there been a happier country than contemporary Australia,” Tony Abbott said this week. The Health Minister made important qualifications about “all sorts of human agony” that persist in modern Australia. “Notwithstanding the problems we have, we are an extraordinarily successful and happy society.” If it is possible to gauge human happiness, those things we can measure lend weight to the contention most Australians have never had it so good.”
The story was illustrated with a picture of six beautiful people – all young and female, all white, all but one blonde, all good looking sportspeople, lounging next to an indoor swimming pool, about to enjoy a glass of champagne from a bottle being opened by one of the women.
For a moment we were wondering if this article was some kind of provocation – a hearty and jovial ‘fuck you!’ to the doubters out there who think we’ve slipped into the fascist rule of the sentimental where so long as the beautiful people are happy and wealthy we’ve never had it so good. Never mind the war, the concentration camps, the destruction of the planet, aside from everything that’s wrong, everything is just fine. It’s enough to drive an anonymous art collective into the streets, flaming Molotov cocktails in hand.
Then we remembered where we were. This is Australia. It’s summer and the week before Christmas. That so-called “story” published on the front page of the country’s only national newspaper was just a soothing lullaby to send us into our collective coma, due for revival sometime in late January (or February depending on the weather). Did someone mention a cocktail? Make ours with an olive!
