Well, once again I haven’t blogged for a bit. I’ve sat down several times, and I’ve had many thoughts buzzing around inside my head, but until now, I suppose I just haven’t quite managed to put them into any kind of order. That actually may still be the case.

Currently, everything big seems chaotic, while everything small seems quite normal – most of the time. By big, I mean world events, national events, wars, terror attacks, and what seem like inexplicable decisions made by big players. By small, I mean going to work, spending time with family, chatting with friends while drinking coffee, and cuddling the pets.

But recently, the big events have begun to have more and more impact on the small things of day to day life. You can probably tell from my wildly varying blog posts that I have quite a keen interest in a number of things. But this week, I’ve begun to think twice about whether I can tweak some appointments down the valley (200km round trip) so that they can be on the same day rather than separate ones, to save on fuel.

That of course, is because fuel prices have suddenly jumped between thirty and fifty cents per litre. last week, I paid $1.71 per litre, while today, the cheapest I can find locally is $2.25 per litre. That’s quite a jump if you’re buying fuel. And why is that? Well, apparently someone is bombing Iran. And now the Middle East is once again in utter chaos. Fuel prices aside, there’s a lot more at stake of course, and people are now dying as a result of the war. That’s a big thing.

At the same time, I look at our local politics here in Australia. We’re generally pretty laid back in terms of our politics. Or we have been previously. But now, even here, I see what I can only describe as imported US style partisanship and populism attempting to make inroads on our previously relaxed attitudes.

Now I don’t mean that Australians have never cared about political things at all. We do. Passionately in many cases. And this has all been for the greater good mostly. We have compulsory voting, which means we all vote, and voting happens on weekends, so everyone can vote, with early polling and postal voting available for those who can’t attend in person. It means that every Australian citizen has the right, and the responsibility, to have a say. Some don’t take it seriously of course (having been a vote counter in previous years means I have seen some interesting pictures, and messages to politicians on ballot papers – things that the actual pollies never see), but most do.

But one of our defining ‘cultural’ things (for want of a better word), is that our vote is a private thing. And even if we chat about politics, it’s in generally an ‘Ok I totally disagree with you, but that’s OK’ kind of way. But over the last four to five years, I’ve seen the words ‘woke,’ ‘right,’ and ‘left,’ bandied around more frequently, and some people subscribing to more (what I’d call) extreme political views, and patterns of speech.

Hence the rise of a party called One Nation, which (to my way of thinking) promotes anything but ‘one nation.’ Now, (I’m sure you can tell) that I’m not a fan. Said party has done nothing of consequence, has little or no actual policy. You can check out there website yourself to see – I personally don’t believe that a short paragraph about something is actual policy. Nor is something that denies actual science a good policy.

But people hear the sounds of ‘populism,’ the demonisation of ‘other,’ and words that do not take into account the complexities of actual life and living, and hop on board. Particularly in rural areas.

Those of us who’ve spent the majority of our lives in Australia’s rural and remote areas know we suffer from lack of services, and industries, have shorter life expectancies, and have to travel for assistance. But we produce the food, the energy, and almost everything that goes into Australia’s export markets. And we’ve been neglected for decades by all sides of politics. It’s a pretty fertile ground for populist politics. Even if those parties are likely to harm our livelihoods and living standards.

And populist parties like One Nation know this, and see rural Australia as a good place to further their own ambitions. And I do mean ambitions. I say this unequivocally. Because the people with the loudest voices in said party have been in Australia’s government for years. Until now there have only been a few of them, but like all politicians, they’ve had a vote and a voice, which as far as I can tell, has had no impact on rural or remote Australia. Certainly not in a helpful way.

And what do people actually want from populist parties? It seems their immigration policies. Which would have an incredibly detrimental affect on rural and remote Australia, particularly in terms of health.

You see, without our overseas trained medical professionals, we probably won’t have doctors and other health staff coming to rural and remote areas. I am a rural health professional. I’m a physiotherapist. But nearly all of our local GPs have come from overseas, or have a recent migrant heritage. (Thank you to them for coming here.) And I don’t even live in a remote area any more. I live in a rural town, about 100km from the coast. Of course, my family are also from a migrant background, just a few more generations back, and not from places that populist parties would consider problematic.

So I am genuinely startled when locals tell me that we have too many ‘woke’ policies, and that ‘the left’ of politics is never for the people, and that populist type parties are going to make a huge difference to rural and remote Australia.

I’m also even more startled when some of my fellow Christians hop on board with populist parties. My impression is that they see policies on abortion that resonate with them, and then ignore the racism. Or the attempts to water down gun laws. Or the words that demonise entire people groups. Or the bizarre denial of climate change. Or the really weird and fringe views about health policy.

I can absolutely understand and respect people whose views on fiscal policy differ to mine. Or their views on international diplomacy or defence, or who have differing views on how to achieve good health policy, as long they have reasoning attached to them. What I don’t understand is the sudden change to aggressive wording, or racism, or demonisation. I also don’t understand the attack type attitude that frequently goes with this.

Division in a time of world chaos (because it really is right now) is not great. And with the rise of AI, social media bots, and algorithmic echo chambers, people can fall down a rabbit hole pretty easily.

I’m frequently brought back to Jesus words in Matthew 26 when his disciples asked him a question:

³⁶ “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?”

³⁷ Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’^[a] 38 This is the first and greatest commandment.³⁹ And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbour as yourself.’^[b] 40 All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”

Maybe I just wish (naively) that we could all get along, look out for our neighbour, share our stuff, and not be greedy. Weird, I know, but…