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| Western Australia, Courtesy Toni Smith |
"I wonder what would happen if you let it out of the cage," he said to the often drunken man who lived in a caravan out the back of the house. "I suppose it would not survive."
"No," came the reply. "It's been in a cage all its life."
But every time Michael came near the bird, it would stare at him quizzikally, tilting its head sideways and looking him straight in the eye.
He tried the "Hello Cocky" mantra that many captive Sulphur-crested cockatoos could imitate, and got no response.
But often enough the bird seemed to be talking, in peculiar little streams. He could not make out the words, although they seemed to make some kind of internal sense.
The cage would have been large enough for budgerigars perhaps, but Sulphur-crested cockatoos are large birds, and there was nowhere for it to fly. If it had ever flown.
Each morning the wild cockatoos which added so much beauty to the surrounding farmland would gather at the cage, as if providing their captured cousin with some succour for the day.
Perhaps they were just picking up stray seed, but there was barely any seed to attract them, and they stayed for a considerable time, just sitting on top of the cage or on fences nearby; as if keeping a silent vigil for their captured friend.
What did they talk about? What did they say to each other?
The birds lived as long as 70 years, a long time to spend in a cage.
As the heat of the day set in, the bird's wild cousins would fly off into the local scrub, staying in the area for a time before letting off their raucous cry and heading over to the nearby grain silos to check the available pickings.
Later the same day he watched from the veranda of the local makeshift tavern what was perhaps the same flock gathering on the telegraph lines and and stunted gum trees; nearby a ramshackle old railway house leftover from the time when this had once been a place of activity, behind the birds the flat of the Liverpool Plains stretching into a hazed distance, the checkered fields brown from the recent dry, a windmill in the distance. The dust adding atmosphere.
"What are you doing in this part of the woods?" he asked a couple who had wandered down from the caravan park, clearly visitors. Because all the locals were farmers or farm workers.
"Escaping the Muslims," the man said, with his not so diminutive wife in full agreement.
"Where?" Michael asked.
"Brisbane," came the reply.
"Didn't know they had even got there," he said in what was meant to be a jocular tone.
"Oh yes," they said. "And the Indians. There's not a corner store they don't own. Them and the Chinese. They work all hours. They're taking over. We just want to get away from them."
"Another triumph of social engineering, of the days when multiculturalism was the state religion, before domestic violence, feminism, environmentalism, global warming and now alcohol-fueled violence replaced it as the bureaucratic mantra of choice," he thought to himself.
Soon the couple were gone, they didn't like his attitude, his failure to agree to everything they said, and Michael went back to staring at the darkening fields, the sulphur-crested cockatoos, the atmospheric old farm buildings.
And to thinking of all that had been lost.
THE BIGGER STORY:
The incoming human rights commissioner, Tim Wilson, has called for Queensland's anti-bikie legislation to be repealed, arguing “Bikies have just as much right to freely associate as other Australians”.
The statements, posted on his blog before he takes up his controversial appointment, puts him at odds with the Queensland Liberal government and, by association, the federal Liberal government which appointed him.
These laws are a demonstration of the worse consequences of what happens when people are treated as groups under the law, and not as individuals
Mr Wilson says the Queensland anti-bike laws are “inconsistent with an individual's right to freely associate and should be repealed” in a blog post on Wednesday.
“These laws are a demonstration of the worse consequences of what happens when people are treated as groups under the law, and not as individuals”.
AdvertisementThe laws adopted by the Queensland Liberal government under Premier Campbell Newman in October, formally the Vicious Lawless Association Disestablishment Act 2013, name 26 bikie gangs as criminal associations and impose mandatory six-month prison sentences for participants found to be knowingly associating together in a public place.
“The imprisonment of people for free association that are not otherwise engaged in criminal activity is deeply, deeply disturbing. The fact that other states have and continue to look at replicating these laws is equally disturbing”, Mr Wilson writes.
The comments extend a campaign dating from Mr Wilson's days as a director of the Institute of Public Affairs, a post he resigned after being appointed to the Human Rights Commission by federal Attorney-General George Brandis in December. Mr Wilson also resigned from the Liberal Party after his appointment.
Speaking on ABC-TV's The Drum in October, he said the Queensland laws were “overturning a whole principle of liberal democracy” and he was “extremely disappointed the Newman government has gone down this path. “I don't think it will deliver anything for Queensland and I think it will have very serious repercussions”.
Mr Wilson reiterated that concern in a blog post the day after his appointment was announced. “If bikies commit crimes the police should investigate and prosecute criminals. But from a human rights perspective it is entirely unjust that freedom of association should be squashed to make the job of the police easier to investigate.
“Rather than empowering police to prevent an already comprehensive list of crimes, these laws have created a host of new crimes that could easily be used to punish law-abiding citizens in the wrong place at the wrong time,” he wrote.
Mr Wilson's appointment as a human rights commissioner was controversial because the Institute of Public Affairs had previously called for the abolition of the commission. Mr Brandis said Mr Wilson would “help restore balance to the Australian Human Rights Commission” which under Labor had become “increasingly narrow and selective in its view of human rights”.
Read more: http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/queensland/human-rights-chief-tim-wilson-slams-antibikie-laws-20140108-30h1g.html#ixzz2q29UBglf
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