She was a tiny Sheila, Mrs Miller,

Yet fought her whole life for the Rights

Of Man and of course the female folk too.

Not shy to stand up for a womans sufferage

To cast a vote, and live a life safe and secure

Her humanism and solidarity to the Labor cause

Against the greed and might of treacherous

Capitalists remains true to this day.

Emma was firm in her mission of a better life

For the battlers, the women and children who

Were paupers on less than a minimum wage,

Who could ill afford a loaf of bread

After paying the rent in rat infested squalor

On the flood-traps of the Brisbane river.

Her weapon was to use her intelligence, but

When push came to shove, she drew out

Her hat-pin and stuck it in the Commissioners horse

Who barred her way to petition the Premier that day.

The powers that be took a fall, but not before

They'd trounced on the right to march

In city streets, shouting, Cop that!

Swinging and swooping down on the masses

With their batons.

1900 seems so long ago but the message of Emma Miller

Is clear - Not to lay idle when there's people suffering

The tyranny of bullies and bastards

Who use their power and money to entrench inequality.

There was no way that the 'Grand Old Lady' was

Inferior as she took on the hierachy!

True and loyal to the cause, she was a giant amongst women

And men, even though she was only 4ft 10inch tall!

She travelled and inspired from Toowoomba to Charleville

In a carriage, organising campaigns and

Events like no other, so we must remember and

Honour the lady who led the struggle up the steps

To Legislative chambers.

(C)copyright Julie McNeill 2006

      BLEEDING HELL! I swore at Radio One in Birmingham when I was home alone as a nine year old, colouring in and listening to Enoch bloody Powell saying there were too many Jamaicans, West Indians, Pakistanis, you name it they were coming in and destroying Great bloomin' Britain.....

The announcer was polite to the Honourable gentlemen. Didn't say ON YER BIKE like he did to the peasants that called in who disagreed with him.

WHATS THE BLOODY DEAL? I asked my Brummy self. Who the hell is this Enoch who doesn't like the sight of black people....I had a crush on Easton Shaw from my school. He was the best soccer player. He was smart and good looking and he was nice, a bit shy. His sister was my best friend and they were black as the ace of spades.

My mum said I wasn't to go out with a black boy because everyone would say I was black mans bait from then on and ruin my chances to be a bride.

BULLSHIT MUM I said to myself. I had read MARTIN LUTHER KING in the school library and he and I had a dream. I read it out loud and strong for school assembly and played the song, "what we need is a great big melting pot, big enough, big enough, to take the world and all its got, keep on stirring for a hundred years or more, to turn out coffee coloured people by the score!"

That was one answer I supposed, but we could all live with each other in peace and understanding and mutual respect.

Very simple - but why didn't people try it?

Thirty-five years later in a veil of tears, menopause and BLEEDING, RUDDY(Nan said that's the polite way of saying bloody) Pauline Hanson is invited onto radio to warn those Muslims and Asians not to bloody come here(no matter what the billboards say). 

It was alright for me of course, being a white Pom who could breed more whiteys but my daughter has now met a black African-white-Anglo-Indian man whose family was colonised and worked for the bleedin' British, then fled from Bloody Idi Amin to their Colonial capital, tried to get on with life when every bloody where was the sound of the Nationl bloody Front marching.

I'm white, I'm Australian, Pauline, but will you lynch me when I say - I hate the bloody Aussie flag - I always have, with the bleedin' Union Jack. Makes me cringe - what do you say to that, you bleeding Fascist - why don't you go over bloody there, where you came from and get off my bloody radion station.

Bloodies in the Bible, Bloodies in the Book, if you don't bloody believe me, have a bloody look

Monday 22nd January, 2007 - Ipswich North&Suburbs branch meeting.

116. The Commonwealth shall not make any law for establishing any religion, or for imposing any religious observance, or for prohibiting the free exercise of any religion, and no religious test shall be required as a qualification for any office or public trust under the Commonwealth.

Justice Lionel Murphy stated that

Section 116 contained a great right, and ‘great rights’, are often expressed in simple phrases. ‘It would detract greatly from the freedom of and from religion guaranteed by those clauses if they were to be read narrowly.’ To interpret this section as prohibiting only the establishment of a single religion is to mis-read it: the section refers to the establishment of any religion. It works thus as a guarantee of freedom from religion, as well as of religion.

I've had a fair share of my personal views and experiences covered in the local papers lately, in relation to the increasing trend of the Howard Government to throw money to religious organisations for public welfare and health services, eg. chaplains in state schools, pregnancy counselling, buying/running public hospitals with religious doctrine as policy. I am passionate about this issue because the effect on our lives of religious beliefs has and can impact on our experience of suffering and achieving our potential as human beings.(Consider the millions of victims of HIV in SE Asia and the Pacific, Africa whose Church will not promote the use of condoms).

There is always the contest of ideas, but what the guiding principles of secularism does is promote the integrity of each man and woman to take responsibility and to use the knowledge and evidence of Science for our best interests. As a woman I will gather the facts and make the decision about what is best for me in particular to my body in life, unto death. Feelings aren't facts, so my spiritual side is that side of the brain which is stimulated by a sense of oneness and the kalaidescope of imagination that creates and finds beauty. I wrote a poetry performance show in Melbourne which described the sacred joy and wonder of conceiving a child, but I also intuitively knew when I couldn't bare another. No man can dictate to me because of his interpretation of an ancient text I respect - but don't believe in myself.

For 200 years in the Black Country my grandmothers followed their men with their barrows full of kids from mine to mine till menopause set in. In 1847 my Great Great Great Grandmother Ann Brothwood was in the Wolverhampton Union Poor House and made to wear a special mark on her uniform to show she was a wicked unwed mother.

In 1938 my nan gave birth to a baby girl whilst in domestic service so my grandparents bought the child up as their own and nobody knew of her shame untill 1982. My nan got married to a Higgins, whose Irish parents had dropped the O' so nobody would discriminate against them, so by the time my dad grew up in the 1950's he was full of the Protestant British Empire who couldn't trust the lazy Paddies, not realising until I told him his roots were from Ireland, and he vilified his own!

In 1941 my mother was born in Father Hudsons Home and told she didn't belong to anybody. Even God rejected her because she was a bastard ' even to the 10th generation' (Deuteronomy), but the Church, then shipped her out to New South Wales to be trained for domestic labour. The long term effects of such treatment by Church and State I submitted to the Senate Enquiry reports of the Forgotten Australians.