# I STAND WITH THE ARTS

By Diana Simmonds

June 30 2016

# I STAND WITH THE ARTS

What that really means is that I stand with Australia  – with our children, their children, young and old Aussies, from wherever and whenever we came – the arts and our cultures make us what we are; what we want to be and what we will be, the nourishment from which everything grows.

Having said it before and now saying it one more time: vote wisely and kindly. Vote below the line – take your time (it’s not as if you have to do it again next week, we’re not talking Brexit) and think about the future. 

For me that means putting the Liberals and the ratbag parties last (watch out for the anti-vaxxers, they’ve disguised themselves as sweet healthy types). Watch out for the haters and the bigots, there is no place in a civilised society for any of that.

Flawed though they are, I’m voting Labor. 

They have an articulated and wide ranging arts policy and it’s headed by a man who actually cares about the portfolio and the arts (Mark Dreyfus). 

Bill Shorten has said they will put marriage equality through the parliament without wasting $160 million on a pointless plebiscite.

Education, health, infrastructure and we the people are high up the list of Labor priorities.

I have yet to see Bill Shorten or any other Labor minister slobbering over Gina Rinehart and volunteering our cash for her coffers.

I look at Labor and see decent, intelligent people: Bill Shorten, Tanya Plibersek, Penny Wong, Anthony Albanese, Chris Bowen, Tony Burke, Joel Fitzgibbon, Kate Ellis, Jenny Macklin, Doug Cameron...and on.

Look at the government and it’s the line-up from a Hammer Horror slash flick: Tony Abbott, Julie Bishop, Scott Morrison, Barnaby Joyce, Mathias Corman, George Brandis, Jamie Briggs, Michaelia Cash, Peter Dutton, Kelly O’Dwyer...and poor old Malcolm Turnbull is a rabbit in their cross hairs.

Please don’t risk Australia’s future with the current mob.