g'day, mate...

Just thought I'd talk about mateship today, mate... On account of our Prime Monster, John Winston HoWARd having a bee in his bonnet about Orstrayan Values.

[sigh] Yeah, again, mate...

Yeah, I know, mate... As if he'd know anything about mateship...

Oh yeah, I forgot, he's real good mates with Dubbya. Not real good mates with six hundred thousand dead Iraqis or their families and friends, but greal good mates with Dubbya. Not real good mates with the workers, their families and friends, but real good mates with their bosses...

Shit, sorry mate, I digressed...

Mateship, HoWARd reckons, is an Orstrayan Value. So I googled it, mate... And here's the upshot of it:

On the one hand, it means being real loyal to your mate, mate. The sort of loyalty HoWARd thinks he's got from Dubbya... Know what I mean, mate? [nudge, nudge, wink, wink]

On the other, it can mean any one of the following as well, mate:

# Solidarity with other whites whilst disposessing and systematically killing off the Aborigines.

# The kind of "brotherhood" bond typically found between members of the Australian Defence Forces, Freemasons, Opus Dei, trade unions, secret societies, the Mafia, the IRA, the CIA, the Bader-Meinhof Gang, the Stern Gang, al Qeida, or the Cronulla Rioters.

# And this, by Assistant Professor Kim Sawyer of the University of Melbourne:

In its most benign form, it is simply friendship. But mateship is often more than benign. Mateship often implies a joint monetary interest. Mates form companies, award contracts to each other, appoint each other, protect each other and honour each other. The corporatisation of mateship is one of the most profound principles of Australia. Australia is neither a democracy, nor a meritocracy. It is a mateocracy. One of the principal returns to mateship is a job. Mates appoint each other for three main reasons.

First, a mate can be relied upon to act with fear and with favour; fear of offending their mates and favour towards their mates.

Secondly, when a mate is appointed, an obligation is created, an obligation that must be repaid. An appointment of a mate is a contingent future claim on that mate.

Thirdly, mates appoint each other because it minimises their risks. Mates are mates because they often think the same. With a mate, there are fewer risks.

Enter the whistleblower. The whistleblower commits a truth, and a truth normally offends a mate. By offending a mate, the whistleblower offends the network of mates. The whistleblower is the outsider. Australian whistleblowers line-up against tight, well-controlled networks of mateship which extend into all areas of governance. If Australian whistleblowers survive, they must survive without
mates. [*]

So there you have it, mate... I hope you now better understand John HoWARd's obsession with Orstrayan Values, in paticular, Mateship. He frequently stresses the need for mateship... Especially, he wants people who are applying for Orstrayan Citizenship to understand the meaning of mateship... Know what I mean, mate? [nudge, nudge, wink, wink]

[*] Borrowed from here.