For all the good it will do ...

The Hon. Mike Rann, Premier of South Australia
The Hon. Jack Snelling, Minister for Employment, Training and Further Education
The Hon. Jay Weatherill, Minister for Education and Children's Services


Dear Messrs Rann, Snelling and Weatherill,

The Women's Studies Resource Centre has been in touch with women across South Australia asking for our help, as your government's funding has been withdrawn as from July 1 and that will force the closure of the Centre.

Observers like myself are aware of the stealth by which the Howard Government conducted a war of attrition against women throughout the eleven years they were in power: programs, organisations and resource centres like this one were slowly, steadily, almost unnoticeably discontinued, dismembered, disbanded, abolished, demolished and/or defunded, quietly, one by one.

It may be that it is the State Labor Government's policy to continue this demolition job done at federal level by its ideological opponents. But as a Labor-voting South Australian woman, educator and scholar who deplores the closure of any library, I would like to think not.

South Australia has a proud tradition of practical promotion and support of women's rights stretching back to their pioneering granting of the vote to women in the 1890s, only the second place in the world to do so.

This tradition was reinforced and much enhanced by the progressive social policies of Premier Don Dunstan's Labor government in the 1970s. It has always been my understanding that the current State Labor government is particularly proud of that era in its history, and regards Don Dunstan, rightly, as a hero. All of this surely suggests some respect for his beliefs and a willingness to honour his legacy.

I would draw your attention to these two elements in particular of the Resource Centre's work:

• The WSRC is a not-for-profit organisation that has contributed to the practical promotion of gender equity and the improvement in the status of women in Australian for 35 years.

• The collection is used by DECS, TAFE, ACE and university staff and students, both locally and nationally, by private schools and colleges, registered training providers, researchers and community borrowers.

I hope that the Government will see fit to re-think this funding decision.

With best wishes,
Yours sincerely,
Etc

Well would you look at that

From the ABC website:

A political party for people with disabilities is on the cusp of winning its first seat in an Australian parliament.

The Dignity for Disability Party looks set to pick up a seat in the Upper House of South Australia's Parliament after last weekend's election.

That will be a historic result and one that will bring mixed emotions for supporters because the party's lead candidate died during the campaign.

Kelly Vincent, 21, is almost certain of winning a seat in the Upper House, which would make her South Australia's youngest parliamentarian and the state's only MP in a wheelchair.

"They would have to put a ramp at Parliament House," she said.

"They would have to change the rules. There'll be no more standing votes or standing. There'll be no more standing as far as I'm concerned.

"So big changes are going to happen just purely if I get elected."

How good is that? What satisfaction there is, as a voter, in seeing your top preference below the line get across the, erm, line.

On the other hand, like my friend R said, how appalling is it that there should be a perceived need for a party called Dignity for the Disabled in the first place? Much less that so many people would see the need that they voted it all the way to the Upper House.

And is there really not a ramp at Parliament House?

Not with my vote you won't

So I go to the ABC website to see what's happened this afternoon and the first thing I read is speculation that some people apparently want SA Premier Mike Rann replaced as leader by Treasurer Kevin Foley.

It's not that I am a Rann enthusiast, though it's always nice to have an undeniably smart and tough bloke running the state, whatever his failings may be. It's more that Foley's public behaviour and demeanour, particularly in Parliament, has been consistently that of a bully and a boor. I can't see him leading any sort of group out of a paper bag; while clearly a Type A personality, he seems to me to be a fundamentally divisive one.

If they want to replace Rann with Education Minister and former Adelaide Mayor Jane Lomax-Smith then I am all for it. Hooray. But if they replace him with Foley, then I will be voting Green or Independent somewhere to the left of Labor at the 2010 state election.