The Day I Killed My Own Words
I sat down to write about what’s happened to Australia.
About the bacon in the supermarket that’s “Made in Australia” from imported pork.
About shipping our coal and iron ore overseas so China can sell it back to us in the form of solar panels and clothes.
About the old Australia I love and do so as a migrant. The one that laughed at The Castle loved Steve Irwin and Dame Edna without apology.
I wrote it straight. No punches pulled. The way we used to talk in the pub.
Then I read it again… and started cutting. Because I was concerned about Hate Speech Laws.... and getting a knock on the door from the Thought Police....
“Too strong.”
“That bit might get me reported.”
“That word could be twisted.”
“Better soften this.”
By the end, the thing I publish (if I publish it) won’t be what I felt in my guts. It’ll be a polite, laundered shadow. A filtered imposter.
And that, more than anything else, breaks my heart.
Because this is supposed to be Australia.
The country where a bloke could once stand up and say, “This is what I reckon, mate,” without first running it through a lawyer and a sensitivity filter.
The country where taking the piss, calling things as you see them, and loving your own culture wasn’t treated like a thought crime.
Now?
Someone recently told me I've become unsociable.
Perhaps they're right.
The strange thing is, I'm not lonely.
Quite the opposite.
There is a certain peace in no longer feeling obliged to navigate conversations where every sentence must be measured, qualified and explained.
No walking on eggshells.
No wondering whether a casual remark will be interpreted in the least charitable way possible.
No performing.
Just peace.
So this is my piece now.
Not the original rant.
The carefully edited safe version.
Just the honest admission that I no longer feel free to write what I actually think and feel about the country I love.
And that might be the most telling sentence an old new Australian has ever had to write.
So here it is. The sanitised version.
Cheers.
Monty
