“G’day .. thats King speak,” he says. “Looks like you’re a long way from home, you lost?”.

No, no says I but I’d also rather not be found. What’s with the Green Shirts and the leaflets? Selling God?

“Ha Ha”, he says, “God is all around”. “Where you from?”, he says again, more in a way of intimidation than as a friendly greeting. Its obvious, even to these young country boys & girls, that I’m not from about here. I had to ask what was with the Green Shirts .. the leaflets? Well, usually I don’t want one, a leaflet .. whether they’re selling gods or buying votes. Usually, when I see them coming I wave them away and say politely, No thanks guys I’m a most profligate sinner and damned proud, irredeemable! Socialist, Anarchist and Democrat .. a total lost cause.
These fellas, these accosters are young, younger than me and too young to vote. They’re also bigger than me. Millennial youth – bigger, fatter, thicker & slower – something in the food. I ask again, what’s with the Green Shirts? They’re all sporting lovely bright green shirts and assorted redneck headwear and there’s another small group hanging about on the other side of the bridge. Looks like they’re getting ready to rob someone.

“We’re Bella’s Band*” says the young lady, “working for the election. Keeping the country out of the hands of migrants and Chinese and city lefties.” I’m strongly under the impression that I’m on the city lefties side of the equation as part of this noble cause. “Where you from?” Ah says I , from the city come out here to drink your water. She’s cute, she smiles .. too young to vote. Too young to be out harassing lefties on a Sunday morning, drinking her water or not. So I say, the leaflets, what are they about? Its going to be hard to differentiate between green lies now, is it? And you still haven’t told me, what’s with the Green Shirts? “Its a nice colour” she says. Yes it is, I say, .. you look lovely, but I’m sure there’s more to it than that. You should look it up on your little box .. check out the black and brown ones too. She frowns, has no idea what I’m talking about.

So this Bella’s Gang, Band, they’re wandering all about the zones, the regions, selling this Fence Australia In for Australia’s Future and it looks like they’re selling it to city lefties too. Old ones, old ones on the move – but all up on the postal vote – they can’t say no to doorknockers especially if they’re young & wearing green shirts. After all, that’s what the grandkids back home keep saying to em. ‘Vote Green, grandma, green’s good for the future’. Out here greens not good for the future its going to take too long. Out here they’ve shortened the future to the point where they run out. Its tangible. Except, out here the futures past. It’s been raped and spat out already. Now, the kids, these kids here in their lovely green shirts, live on lies. Lies that aren’t possibly believable, are they? We either have to jump a very large part of the present to get to these kids belief in future or, we have to turn the clock back to a time when what they apparently believe was possibly true. Nostalgia. What business is nostalgia for 16 year olds? What sort of fool would let his daughter join a group of minor cowboys running about in gangs through caravan parks wearing green shirts and telling lies? Ah here he comes. Nice cap .. ‘Ebay!’.

“Heya brother, hows yas goin’ .. kids hasslen yas?” No, says I, they wouldn’t know where to begin. He’s big, a real Aussie .. Made in China tags hanging out the back of his cap. No point telling him it’d only bring on a sermon of ignorance based on neoliberal apologetics and I doubt his kids would grasp any significance. “You given the city fella a leaflet .. yas got a couple mate?”
I explain I don’t want one, find it unnecessary, have said so to his daughter. Also I add, I don’t like being preached to .. and, if I do choose to read some of his literature I shall pick one up from off the ground where the Gnomads are depositing them. He says, “Relax buddy, you don’t like Green. C’mon kids keep away from this dick. He’s a red. Fuckin communists!”. Great I thought, I’ll leave it at that and turned back to my bubbling crude.

“Oi, you red faggot .. tomorrow this place is going to be crawling with Green .. we’re having a carnival. Three Hour Enduro .. non stop!”, the green Dad yells as he waddles off. “Three hours .. thats a long time.” sighs the young green one. It is, say I, sometimes a future. She smiles and hands me a leaflet. I sigh … She has lovely green eyes and would look so much nicer in black .. or brown.

So what is it these Greens want? They want lower taxes even though in most cases they scrabble and thieve to avoid paying them. They want cheaper electricity and more water regardless of the cost to the future, they want less environmental interference. They want doctors that they don’t have to pay for and, most important, they want the next King to build a big fence around the country to keep out evil; Chinese, communists, terrorists and religious fundamentalists .. unless they pretend to be Christian and they’re white, in which case they are apparently ok? The rest, well we should be slaughtered out of site of children. They like pacific solutions. They want welfare abolished – yes, these are farmers, shooters, fishers who are all currently living off the back of the forced generosity of the rest of Australia – unless; unless its them who need it and then of course its their due. No mention of education, open education, I s’pose that fits into the evil bit of the outside world they are so ignorant and scared of … But, they do want their phones and they don’t want them censored in any way but don’t think its a bad idea if the baddies, the criminals, the terrorists have their phones censored .. ‘blocked’ they call it. Ah, I knew there’d be a place for education hidden in here somewhere – ours but not yours. And they want to save whales and they don’t want atomic war! Christ, I’d a thought we’d be a bit past when we were worried about the impact of atomic war – it’d be a godsend.

“See ya tomorrow” she chirps and follows Dad and the gang back toward the bridge and the waiting 2 strokes. 3 hours of petrol and dust tomorrow .. promised. Green petrol, green dust and green noise. Jeez, wouldn’t it be fun to have Ms Hanson-Young dumped out here on the morrow, all kitten’d up in her outdoors stuff binoculars and red tape. A dispute on green. Lord she’d be livid .. her green usurped by vandals, racists and psychopaths. Imagine the lawsuits and wasted public money regardless of whose vivid green she sees as red. Lord let it happen .. dump her out here in the dirt tomorrow I’m in the box seat .. a 3 hour enduro.

These greens hey, they’re a problem .. hard to differentiate between .. both a bit dishonest, well, dishonest, I’m being generous of course. Though out here in the nether regions city green is few and far between and I suppose that there won’t be much conflict at the polls over just what green is, or what is the right green. Unless we can get Ms Hanson-Young and her big-shtick P.C. diplomacy out on the hustings.

Pink, pink! Lovely, I say, and its not the dawn … She smiles. Looks much better in bright pink than falsified green, though I would’ve imagined that Dad wouldn’t be too happy. Lord, he probably hasn’t noticed, after all pink ain’t red. “How ya doin’? Ready for the big enduro today?”, she chirps.

Well, I’m not participating darlin, so I spose I’m as ready as everyone else is. What happen to the green shirt?
“Ah, I looked up the other colours you recommended .. didn’t really like them though, didnt like the cut, I s’pose we coulda picked brown ones for the election. What do ya reckon?” Yes, I say, a bit more integrity in brown shirts, you didn’t like the black? Italian fashion? Keep you in the good books with Pistol Pete .. I’m sure there’d be a way to have them Australian made. Give our refugees something worthwhile to do while they’re out there wallowing in the Pacific, eh? Lazy inconsiderate fuckin sods they are. She laughs … Oh, lord, here’s dad again, wonder what hes got rattling around in his head this morning .. other than booze and bullets ..

“So, ya sleep well, Mr Communist?” Its a fantastic way to open a conversation, is it not? Yep, I did thank you, I answer. So, all up for the big day, 3 whole hours of endurance. Do you make it ’round in that time big fella? His daughter sniggles, he calls me a fuckwit and gives me a salute I do recognise .. “Eat my dust, brother!”, he spits, and waddles away into the crowd of boys in green shirts. Times have changed I sigh to myself.

There’s an awful lot of fear out here in the Lucky Country .. I said. “No! No”, she said, “There isnt any fear out here … What do you mean fear?”

I peered into her trying not to have my eyebrows raise … Fear, I said, your whole spiel is based on the transference of fear. Just the fact that your Daddies have dressed you all up in bright green shirts, shows fear. I knew this was too much for her but what could I say? I’m not able to lead them through that great library of combined wisdom that is the internet .. no one can. I say, Darlin, its deceitful .. pretending to be something you’re not, a fragile external bolstering of reputation .. I suppose it IS a defining product of neoliberalism. Fake shop fronts.

I’ve lost her again, can’t compete with an internet education so why do I bother? Its fine to build prisons but what are they for? If its only in the knowledge that we have built prisons, and that there are people in them that makes us believe in prisons as inevitable outcomes, then it should be inevitable that we will build ourselves into our very own secure prisons. Imagine that, all those who feel less secure in their prisons trying to break into yours, for better security. I suppose I would be told that we have the technology .. and I fully believe we do, but, do we have the evolution?

A couple if things I think of alot, I say, … Why, with all this technology do we not enhance the speed of evolution – sort of stir the genes of P.C, eternal youth and sterility – are we not allowed to? We DO have the technology .. & the flies, what’s this thing we have with flies? Surely, surely we have the technology to do something better with flies? I dont think that I see any animal, any animal that isn’t annoyed by flies … Of course I’m drifting, trying to get my head around the Kings world – his Promised Land – get into it with a trenching tool, if you would …
This world of his is confusing, he says its full of evil and future darkness. He says, its full of anti-christians, anti-muslims, anti-semites and myriad other evil fundamentalists – dark fellas with the wrong gods – but the light shines on him and that he and only he can lead us through this hell which is his Promised Land .. these damned flies, we probably do have the technology, perhaps they are slowly being replaced somewhere .. in and out of a tiny little machine .. outcoming miniature Home Affairs officers; evolutionarily enhanced models that don’t have to squeeze into uniforms – you would think we had this technology.

She’s blinking .. but she’s still here.

I hear a Green Meat Company has just been given a billion dollar value on your stock exchange – now I let my eyebrows raise – well done green meat, I say! Out here I can get it in less than two days but still can’t bring myself to eat it, so I’m looking forward to this. Fake meat, no not fake .. just meat thats not made from meat products. New meat, neo-meat. What do you reckon about that I say, may only need neo-water? She blinks … I reckon that insects have to be a key ingredient but I’m not so sure that they aren’t meat. Judging from the front of my car its more like egg. Still … Soilent Green – its gotta come under consideration as a future harvest, we do have the technology, do we not darlin?

She blinks again, I’m not being fair … So, don’t you think its dishonest accosting other people’s grandmas and grandads wearing green shirts? You don’t think it would be more honest if you were to be wearing black or brown shirts, regardless of the cut, after all these grandmas and grandads are like me, with an education thats prior internet? “Thats the problem with you lot” she says, “you dont know how to use the internet”.

Oh we do, we do says I, we invented it, we know how to read the internet .. its just that sometimes we like information with our advertising. Anyway, young lady, I say, times up. I risk arrest here, in this political climate, in todays Australia talking to you can get me arrested.

“Even though all my dams are full & there’s water all around, I still can’t help feeling that every drop that flows past me is wasted.” – Western Queensland farmer on ABCs Country Hour.

*Confused? These ‘Country Greens’ aren’t for the Nationals – the Country Party – they’re for the others … Shooters, Fishers, Farmers, Mad Bob’s Mob, Pauline’s Wonderful Nation, Fat Clive’s Miraculous Mining Adventures etc etc etc, but NOT the Nationals! The Nationals lean too far to the left, they say, and they’re always corrupted by the communists in the Liberal Party; the Liberal Party is going to sell their water to the environmentalists and its going to be over our dead bodies .. they say.