This op-ed by Caroline Overington in The Right-thinking-Australian is gold. Pure gold:
THERE are a number of women living on islands in the South Pacific who adore children and would like to come to Australia to help us look after ours.
They want to bounce Australian kids on their knees, peel bananas and mangoes for them and teach them to play simple music instruments.
They love to sing lullabies… they love little kids. They were raised in a culture where family is important. They are kind, gentle and often speak some English. They can play pat-a-cake all day.
There is an army of highly-paid, highly-qualified, very frustrated professional women in Australia who want to hire them… Business loved the idea, saying they could put the men to work, picking fruit.
Parents could put the women to work, doing household chores and taking care of the children.
The islanders would get jobs that pay more, with better conditions than they can get at home.
Unionists were apoplectic, saying it amounted to exploitation of brown-skinned people.
Can’t they ever look at the bright side?
It’s almost impossible to unpack the patronising racism of this particular op-ed, because it comes so thick and fast. Gentle Pacific Islanders who are just dying to peel bananas for wealthy white kids? And some of them even speak English!
The mind boggles.
Of course, one has to ask, has Caroline ever heard of kanakas? Or of slavery in general?
Please note, I’m not against people, unskilled or otherwise, coming to Australia to work from the Pacific Islands, but creating a class of indentured domestic servants for upper-class Australians isn’t a good way to improve the lot of Pacific Islanders.
Edited to add: hat-tip to commenter Chris for giving the rest of the collective the heads-up on this rather alarming little piece.
Christ!
I guess they’re picking the bananas and mangos that are being unpeeled for the kiddies…
How do you unpeel a mango?
Bugger. And here I am looking for someone that can stimulate and teach my child beyond knee bouncing and want him to learn piano…what a stuck up white b#tch I am.
Really, is this actually parody?
Count my mind as duly boggled.
I’m glad she got a hostile response on the comments page:
Pardon me while I pick my jaw off the ground. Local carers with qualifications just too expensive, Caroline?
“Parents could put the women to work, doing household chores and taking care of the children.
“The islanders would get jobs that pay more, with better conditions than they can get at home.”
Which might go some way towards paying their sky-high major city rents, and travel expenses to their highly paid professional employers in some of the better suburbs.
Still, I suppose it would give the Overingtons of this world another source of dinner-party conversation besides the latest hilarious events in chambers: Bitching abut the help.
And another gripe of mine is when’business’ or the ‘market’ are personified.
What with the O’Reilly post and now this I’m just flabbergasted.
And
’cause afterall these brown people have much in common with monkeys with their love of fruit and all.
But of course I suspect Overington’s real gripe is with feminists who dare to pursue a career at the expense of their poor children who will be left at home, attended by savages.
Although if we take the line of the personal being the political, it all pales into insignificance compared with the decision of the Queensland DPP concerning Palm Island. OJ Simpson must be wondering why he paid lawyers when you can get the same result by living in Queensland and not needing lawyers.
Agree wholeheartedly, steve. Ken has a great post on the DPP’s decision over at Troppo:
http://www.clubtroppo.com.au/2006/12/14/queenslands-justice-system-has-anything-changed/
OMFG
How do you unpeel a mango
Hold it lengthwise, tallest part vertical and then slice down either side of the stone. You can then scoop the flesh out with a spoon or carve squares in and pop out the pieces. Trim the other two sides of the mango.
Alternatively get the Aussie kid lovin’ simple patta cakin’ help.
Yes, but it’s slicing rather than peeling!
There will be a rally at midday next Wednesday, December 20, in Queens Park, Brisbane City, to demand that Ms Clare, the DPP, should be sacked.
Queens Park is on the corner of George and Elizabeth Sts.
In Australia already the middle classes employ indentured domestic servants who love kids, peel bananas for them, cook meals for the household, do cleaning and keep house. No need to import people from the islands. Here we call them working class women.
Overington manages, in the service of her employer’s need for lively copy, to inflame opinion very well, but the issue itself is nevertheless worth discussion.
When we bar guest workers we do this to protect local wages. If this is admitted, then I have no problem with the tightness of the argument. But implying that racism and exploitation are the outcomes of guest worker schemes is either disingenuous or naive.
I’m amazed how tone-deaf Overington is.
Hasn’t she read Uncle Tom’s Cabin or watched Gone with the Wind?
Or does she hang out only with people who have been specially bred to be duped by Borat?
(On consideration, maybe that’s a necessary qualification for employment in the Murdoch stable.)
Overington has quite a back catalog too.
This from Sept 27.
Tone deaf or hitting the right not every time – her News Ltd blog sure gets a lot of comments. There’s very big money in this type of writing.
Ahhhh women’s lib, aint it grand gals? And these are the same gals that wanted Howard to open the doors to economic refugees, country shopping halfway round the world.
Or maybe we could hire an Indian graduate to teach Caroline to spell “Mandarin”? Or perhaps News could hire some Fijian sub-editors?
Here’s a more economic idea.
Why doesn’t News Limited sack Overington and her ilk and employ peasants from assorted parts of the Third World?
They’d be much cheaper than Overington.
And they couldn’t possibly write greater nonsense.
News shareholders, upon scrutinising their fattened dividend cheques, would cheer Rupert to the echo.
Mark
You’re not setting up a peeling v slicing stoush are you?
In any case, Overington is a wimp.
Doesn’t she know that 9/11 “changed everything”. And all Overington can conceive is a sentimental evocation of Aunt Jemima, the House Negress, tending the massa’s chillun.
Get with the program Caroline!
Wouldn’t pampered white brats learn much more about the real world of extremism and terror if they were exposed directly to it?
I’ve read frequently of how keen Uganda’s Lord’s Resistance Army is for very young recruits.
Why not pack the rug rats off to darkest Africa? Think of the life-lessons the survivors will learn.
I can’t reconcile Ms O’s awb bbqing of dolly et al and this gauche golly gee heck wiz…
http://blogs.theaustralian.news.com.au/coverington/index.php/theaustralian/comments/america_the_flawed_but_still_our_friend/
and now brownies for babies…super…all over the shop like a mad …..’s shit…ok ok person.
I’m with wbb.
Let’s all take a deep breath.
Not so long ago the government rejected the notion of a guest worker scheme involving Pacific Islanders. This went down like a lead balloon with the said Islanders and parts of the government’s rural constituency.
Canada has such a scheme where Mexicans and others from Central America come for a limited time on regular wages for seasonal jobs like harvesting fruit and veg. When our mob knocked back a similar proposal here the bananas around Innisfail were just about to come on stream. A segment I heard on the radio indicated that the local labour had largely moved on, the backpackers had given the place a miss and the farmers were struggling to get half the labour they needed.
Silly stories like Overington’s don’t help anyone.
anthony
We Queenslanders have a certain possessive attitude towards mangoes!
Affluent cities like Singapore and Hong Kong in Asian hire nannies from the Philippines. Kids raised under those conditions turn out to be spoilt brats.
Bob, it doesn’t do much for the kids they often leave behind in the Philippines either.
Doesn’t Ms Overington realise that the city folk who would employ the Pacific mammas live in the city, and that the fruit the husbands of the mammas would pick grows in the country?
It’s not only racist, but geographically obtuse.
Those first sentences made me laugh out loud.
Hilarious.
Personally, I’m not going to have a baby until I can get a big nigger with huge breasts to look after it for me.
I think that you will find a lot of news copy is now being written in places such as India (though not by peasants) and being used by newspapers around the world. Don’t know if News Limited use such schemes though.
Let me say again but possibly much more clearly: I am NOT opposed to guest worker schemes, provided that they are sensible and implemented properly and don’t disadvantage either the people who come to work for them or the countries those people are coming from.
Also, I am not opposed to having other people care for rich white women’s children. However, there’s issues such as certification (seriously, I don’t think child care is a job that should be done by anyone with a talent for fruit-peeling and I’d be VERY wary about having someone look after my children who wasn’t someone I knew well, or at least throughly police-vetted), wage-protection, and ensuring workers aren’t exploited. Singapore, for instance, has a huge issue with the exploitation of domestic workers who are generally from other, less well-off countries in Asia. These women are usually lucky to get a day off a month, are extremely low-paid, and suffer violence and abuse quite regularly. Is this the sort of situation we want in ‘egalitarian’ Australia?
Additionally, there’s the issue of the ‘brain drain’ facing the Pacific Islands, where their best and brightest young people leave to work overseas, further entrenching the poverty and lack of skills within local communities. This is perfectly understandable on a individual level but it’s also a genuine problem faced by disadvantaged communities the world over.
None of this was addressed by Overington’s ridiculous statements about dark-skinned women who just love babies.
That should be ‘potential future children BTW’.
A few years ago I had the idea of writing a dystopian science fiction novel in which the affluent countries would overcome their demographic decline by promoting a global commercial surrogacy racket in which women from places like Mozambique would be hired to have one for the white mum, one for the white dad and one for the contracting Western country. It’s probably just as well it didn’t get written because the likes of Overington would seize on it as a brilliant idea.
I assume they’ll be bringing the bananas with them. Or can rich people afford nannies and bananas?
“There are [sic] a number of women… They can play pat-a-cake all day.”
I wonder if Overington has ever visited the South Pacific? I wonder if she could give us some stats about these hordes of monomaniacal women?
Um – shouldn’t this go in “Asshattery” too? Just askin’.
Streuth Paul, with IVF that’s not a bad idea. Takes all the wretched pain out of motherhood and the sisters can have the designer babies of their choice. Ah liberal progressivism, aint it grand?
Dunno about liberal progressivism, obby, but a bit of relevance and accuracy in commenting would be pleasant to see.
Yes, observer. You miss the point entirely. What Kate is saying is is that Overington’s argument is based on false economy: If we farm out childcare to Islander women, that might save us money, sure. (Lord knows how much local childcare workers are overpaid, the greedy bitches!) But Overington didn’t factor in how much bananas cost per kilo nowdays.
I wonder if guest worker schemes might cause less brain-drain than the current skilled migration scheme geared for permanent migration of the highly educated, although it’s pointless speculating probably, as Australian policies on this stuff will only ever be directed to achieving maximum economic outcomes for Australia.
I think Obby’s just talking about Paul sci-fi plot, rather than trying to comment substantively on the post.
Articles like these make you think that Walkley Award Ms Overington won in 2004 was just plain dumb luck.
Well, colour me surprised. Most of Overington’s work that I’ve ever read before is all about how much women miss out on if they outsource childcare to work all hours. So which is it, Caroline?
BTW, I’m sure the mangoes would have to be peeled. Those brown skinned people couldn’t possibly be doing with knives!!
Caroline seems to have a theme going about childcare.
Good coverage at Audrey and the Bad Apples:
http://audreyapple.blogspot.com/
Point of order. It’s arsehattery, if there has to be any category denoting headgear and stupidity at all, Gummo.
I don’t think it should be, incidentally. A good hat is a sign of distinction.
Likewise a good arse, Liam, but together perhaps not.
Liam, I trepidatiously note that recently I have been seeing in the wild the dreaded coinage “assberet”.
Only in North America, I hope. The article anywhere else is an arseberet.
Why, why, why oh why oh why has no-one suggested the obvious solution to the problem raised by the
boneheadedperceptive CO?We should simply move the kiddywinks offshore.
That way they get to experience life in idyllic island paradise, with all its attendant banana peelings, bouncings, and whatnot;
mammiesdignified native carers get to stay at home with families, while hubbies can still pick fruit; hardworking and highly paidNorth ShoreAussie mums remain free to share endless bounty by paying award wages; and CO has more time to devote to career writing drivel.Win win!
The real problem, of course, is why anyone should be able to earn more money doing things other than looking after their own children, by paying less money to those who do the caring as currently happens in all our various childcare arrangements (regardless of race). Why are childcare workers not paid well?
This indicates that caring for children is of less value than doing other kinds of work. And it’s a view I disagree with.
See, Obs would like all the wretched pain to stay in motherhood, where it belongs.
I have some sympathy for your argument, B16fan. Child-care workers are very badly paid.
However, they do look after more than one child at a time – so one doesn’t have to necessarily earn more than a child-care worker to pay for 15-20% of a child-carer’s time.
Ooh, Caroline Overington is the bane of my life! I make it a habit of shaming her whenever one of these ridiculour pustulous bubbles spews forth from the Bog of Eternal Wench.
I didn’t realise others took time to shame her though. Woot! Let’s make tee shirts.
wbb, I agree. So they are paid very badly *and* they look after more than one child! Is that a classic case of “overworked and underpaid”?
Well, I have 4 kids, so it’s not exactly that more kids means lots more work. It can mean somewhat less work, if they play well together. But in most childcare situations you are looking after a few children of about the same age, none of whom can do very much for themselves. And that *is* a lot of work.
“Affluent cities like Singapore and Hong Kong in Asian hire nannies from the Philippines. Kids raised under those conditions turn out to be spoilt brats. ”
There are in fact domestic helpers (from other countries ) employed from Beijing and Tokyo in the north all the way to Jakarta in the south.
Helpers more usually come from India ,Sri Lanka , Bangladesh, Indonesia and the Phillipines. There are a few chinese helpers also.
A much smaller number of men are employed as drivers in the same countries.
The standard salary for these helpers in Hong Kong is approx $HK 4000.This is about $Aussie 680 a month.
They receive a return airfare yearly ( or cash equivalent ) , must have a living space of approx 100 sq feet ( a rule often ignored )and one day off a week.
Depending on the employer they can be asked to work from 2 to 20 hours a day.
They should be provided with accommodation and all meals ( the actual composition of the meal is at owners discretion )for 6 days a week.
They can be deported or jailed if they work for other people or at other locations apart from those described on their work visa.
There is an annual holiday which starts after 2 years employment , of one week in year 2 and for each year of employment a further day is added .
So in year 3 the leave is 8 days .
There are 11 statutory public holidays which are compulsory holidays also.
The japanese don’t employ these workers as domestic helpers rather the women are offered jobs as entertainers and work as hostesses in bars and parlours. The idea of foreigners “living in” is repellant to many japanese and once japanese women marry the domestic duties are often expected to be their domain.Most domestic helpers are employed by expatriates who are from many different countries.
In Singapore the wage is not set or protected by any agency. Hong Kong is alone in giving some protection to these workers .
I’m not sure that the children looked after by helpers are more likely to be spoilt brats because of their experience of living with domestic helpers rather than they are often spoilt brats to start with.
The workers themselves view such employment as an opportunity to get a better wage than any available at home and that goes for nurses and teachers. There is an enormous demand for such positions and successive administrations in the Phillipines work hard to keep their citizens in this type of work.They acknowledge that it is a terrible skills drain but rely on the foreign exchange so earnt.
Just by the by, loved Audrey’s moniker for Caroline – Ms Ove.
Very caring and sharing of you, but I would say it takes a lot more training to do brain surgery than raise a child. Not that is of less value, but kind of specialists vs. generalist type thing (sorry this not making too much sense, my two year old is singing at me as I type).
And Christine Keeler, genius idea of the day award to you my friend!
Very sarcastic of you, Megami.
Well, you can think work which requires more training is necessarily of more value if you like. The caring of a child, whether at home or by paid carers is of great importance, because of the *child*, not because of the training.
Excellent response from Glen of melbourne from the Oz’s own blog comments section:
Mangoes are easy to peel when they’re unripened. which is the way they are often eaten in Cambodia (served with a dry salt and chilli dip, in case anyone wants to try this little gourmet tip). They’re supposed to be good at keeping the teeth clean, though looking at the general state Khmer dental hygiene I have to wonder if that is true.
Australia’s wool industry is heavily reliant on New Zealand shearers, many of whom are Maoris. They can enter Australia easily under the CER arrangements. I think Australia should extend entry for Pacific Islanders who want to work as fruit pickers because that industry is currently heavily reliant on overseas backpackers for its labour force. I’d rather see the money going to Pacific Islanders to help support their families than to some young pom or other European to fund their gap-year travels.
It’s unskilled labouring,and back-breakingly hard work, but can be very well paid for those who can work hard and fast as the orchardists pay by the bin (half-tonne) and want to get the fruit off the trees quickly.
This is quite illogical.
What you mean to say is:
And this isn’t true.
Persons who are employed to make cheap products in their own countries have the option of political action to change the conditions of their work. This is true even though their freedom of action may be circumscribed by local law.
Yet, when they are transported to another country “guest workers” immediately lose rights relative to the people among whom they live. Their existence as political beings is more or less expunged.
Therefore the parallel asserted is factually incorrect.
AS it happens, when we lived in Cairns we had Papua New Guinean neighbours, and lucky for me… i happened to have a gorgeous bunch of young girls (aged between 8 and 15) who fell over themselves to bounce my babies on their knees, sing songs and peel bananas for them – for nix – (and i’ve got the photos to prove it).
Their dad/uncle (it was a rather large and extended family) was pretty high up with the SP Beer Company, flush with money and had sent his family down to Aust for the educational opportunities.
The ironic thing is that, by comparision, we were the poor ones by miles!!)
Ove’s idyllic employment opportunities for Islander women rather horribly reminds me of apartheid – middle and ruling class homes with little shacks in the bottom of the garden where the maid/nanny lived. Who if she was lucky might pop back to family on weekends. Not likely if home is several hours flight away. An experience many migrant workers throughout SE Asia could illuminate for Ove’s benefit.
boredinHK: “There is an enormous demand for such positions, and successive administrations in the Phillipines work hard to keep their citizens in this type of work. They acknowledge that it is a terrible skills drain, but rely on the foreign exchange so earnt. ”
It’s that last clause that bothers me the most. The steady and increasing growth of ‘remittance economies’ throughout the Third World is maybe an even bigger problem than the so-called ‘brain drain.’ Entire countries structure their finances on the sheer, dumb expectation of checks sent back home, from poor people whom they have effectively forced out of their native land through the home country’s incompetence. Yes, it’s a free-market transaction in a manner of speaking, but then so is the crack-whore trade. Instead of improving their own internal economic-political structure, some Third World governments just keep bingeing on stupidity and corruption, and hoping that their hard-working overseas relatives will keep them afloat. Think of it — an economy based on sentimental attractions! It’s pathetic, and these governments ought to start being called on it. Remittances from immigrants and guest-workers back to foreign countries should be heavily taxed, just to wean these imbecile governments off their crutches and make them start finding practical solutions to take care of their own people.
GregM: “Mangoes are easy to peel when they’re unripened. which is the way they are often eaten in Cambodia (served with a dry salt and chilli dip…”
Slice the mango, Naaman, and dress it
With white wine, sugar, and lime juice.
Then bring it, after we’ve drunk the Moselle,
To the thickest shade of the garden…
–Wallace Stevens
See, even poets like their mangoes prepared funny…
Someone may have already pointed this out, but upon scanning the Australian’s blog index, the offending article and all comments seem to have magically disappeared. How strange! One can only hope that Overington herself will follow…
Interesting!
Vanished, but not gone, however. You can read Ms Ove’s article in full at Audrey and the Bad Apples:
http://audreyapple.blogspot.com/2006/12/audrey-apple-and-case-of-odious-ove.html
âAffluent cities like Singapore and Hong Kong in Asian hire nannies from the Philippines. Kids raised under those conditions turn out to be spoilt brats. â?
Interesting but not necessarily accurate. Where I am now, it is virtually an obligation to hire a “nanny” if you have children. Minimum wages are set by the central government but few if any pay that lowest figure.
As an expat you are expected to provide as much employment as possible in the community and for want of a better term spread the wealth. That does not make someone in and by itself an exploiter of others.
(I am not however excusing those miserable shits in Singapore and other places who take the whole family to Mc’s, all the family eating away, while the maid looks on and holds the baby)
The children don’t become spoilt brats because they have a nanny, they become a spoiled brat because they have lousy parents in the first place.
If you go to Ove’s backlock and click on the link through her name, you’ll find the original article. It’s not technically been wiped from the site, but I dare say the goblins at News Ltd decided they’d make it impossible to find so as not to be seen supporting one of their columnists, a la Ms Iktimal Hage Ali.
Buying a plasma tv sends a Chinese kiddy to uni, writes Ove today:
http://blogs.theaustralian.news.com.au/coverington/index.php/theaustralian/comments/getting_your_claus_into_consumption/
Alleviate third world poverty – spend! spend! spend!
I’m speechless.
that the first column of hers i bothered to read.
Is this women for real?
wtf?
FOr the record Caroline, dear, THERE IS NO SANTA.
In Australia we have the Christmas Curlew.