What to Do if No One is Looking After You

Danielle Spinks Earl
9 min readDec 27, 2019

Whether it is a lack of intellectual capacity or failings of moral fortitude, political leaders are not fulfilling a core job responsibility to look after people.

Photo by Li-An Lim on Unsplash

You are probably angry at me right now. You have every right to be.

Let me say I’m sorry.

I’m Australian. I’m sorry Australia has sabotaged global attempts to avoid climate disaster.

In the Madrid climate talks, eagerly awaited by a world ready to act, Australia behaved like the immature and disruptive kid in the room.

Australia is now ranked 57 out of 57 on international climate change policy. We’re the worst in the world.

The speeches made by representatives in Madrid were highly embarrassing, bald-faced lies. It was a disgrace.

The political reality here is that if you say something often enough — no matter how ludicrous — people remember it.

At the most recent federal election, the current Australian Government (the right-wing LNP) were not polled to win. It was supposed to be the ‘climate’ election. But Australians, en masse, are not politically engaged. We don’t have high levels of tertiary education. There’s a strong anti-intellectual culture.

Not Thinkers, Drinkers

We’re drinkers.We began as a penal colony and our first currency was rum. Seriously.

Since those days, not a lot has changed. We are not Thinkers. Don’t disparage us with such a moniker. We are DRINKERS. And proud as punch. Spiked punch. Ha ha!

We are not the sharpest tools in the shed.
Does that make sentence make sense to you? Let me put that another way.

screenshot of tongue stuck to a pole in snowy weather
Source: Dum and Dummer movie screenshot: Youtube

We are not the brightest bulbs in the chandelier.

Not known for our critical thinking skills, we voted for who we could relate to. There was a candid photographer with the now-PM on the campaign…

Danielle Spinks Earl

Creative and professional writer. Runs My Virtual Marketing Manager. Living the best life with multiple sclerosis since 1998.