Drop bears and Meatballs

Recently, I read about the Swedish national phone number. Basically, anyone in the world can ring this one number and talk to a Swedish person and ask them questions about living in Sweden. I don't know how many meatball and  coffee table related questions there are, but I would like to ask them.

Its an interesting concept, one that wouldn't translate to Australia. It just wouldn't. We can't be trusted. "Don't be so harsh" you say? I got two words for you...Drop bear.

Imagine, every poor trusting person from Kentucky to Iceland would hear all about our Kangaroo stables and emu pulled carriages and most importantly about the Drop bears. I have to admit that I gleefully participate in the upholding



of this Australian Myth. We have the Common Drop bear and the more deadly Mammoth Drop bear which can reach 5m in height and even the special reflective and protective helmets that all Australians wear.

Come to think of it, maybe Ikea is the Drop bear of Sweden???

Are they selling us these awkwardly shaped, boxed pieces of flat pack furniture and laughing and laughing, all the while sitting in their solid, hand crafted wooden armchairs and just shaking their heads in disbelief??? What if they don't even eat meatballs???

Heirisson Island: City of Perth, Shame on you

Don't you think that if a protest site of around 60 or so people turns into a make shift homeless shelter with numbers above 150, that there is underlying problem??

Don't you think that the fact that these people waited for this morning and moved straight back into the camp means they haven't got a choice? or at least a humane choice?



Its such a privileged 1st world response to "Move them on". Where exactly? The thousands of beds we provide for the homeless and vulnerable? Oh thats right, they don't exist.

There is a solution to that you know.

Let them stay.

Provide a large amount of skip bins and portable toilets and showers. Have rangers do inspections every day to keep the place safe, whatever you think you need to do to make things "official" for the pen - pushers. But let them stay.

So far today, Ive seen a lady with one leg in a wheelchair asleep in the middle of  Hay street mall, and about 15 other of my regular homeless people, who I see everyday. Its before 10am.

If having a place to camp and clean up, means letting them stay at Heirisson Island, then so be it. This problem of homelessness has been swept under the carpet for too long, the City of Perth hasn't provided the services and places needed to cope with this. Let them have trees and nature and a place in this world that isn't a square of concrete to beg from.

Let them stay, because until now you haven't given a shit where they are as long as they don't make your pretty park "dirty" and you can't see them. They aren't so invisible now are they?

(Photos from sbs.com and perthnow.com)