"ACTRESS Cate Blanchett epitomised her role as the poster girl for the age of self-delusional entitlement when she eulogised Gough Whitlam on Wednesday.
“I am the beneficiary of free, tertiary education,” she trilled.
Whoops. I was paying taxes when Blanchett was born and I was a contributor to the cost of her education.
If I, and millions of other Australians were paying for her degree, it was not free. Similarly with the “good, free healthcare” she benefited from.
That healthcare cost a mozza – and it’s costing more now. Hyperbole and extravagance of speech and gesture are the stock in trade of actors, the gestures have to be large so those in the back row can see and hear and perhaps Blanchett had this in mind as she played to her audience at the Sydney Town Hall.
“I am a product of the Australia Council,” she gushed.
That may be, but the Australian Council for the Arts, the Australian Film Development Corporation and the National Film and Television Training School were established during Liberal Prime Minister John Gorton’s term, according to the National Archives.
The so-called “free” education and healthcare she benefited from enabled her to put the “little I earned after tax and rent … towards seeing shows, bands, and living inside my generation’s expression”.
Among the examples she offered of her generation’s expression was a 2004 film called Little Fish: ‘‘A story like Little Fish would not have been told without the massive changes to the Australian cultural conversation initiated, and shaped, by Gough Whitlam’s legacy.”
I was one of the unfortunate few viewers who, having contributed to the production of the film through my taxes, actually paid an admission fee to see what they were creating with my money. In truth I found it to be one of a number of bleak movies made with taxpayers’ money which depicted sleazy drug addicts doing what most drug addicts do – lie and cheat and destroy lives.
As Blanchett acknowledged to swoons and applause, she was “but three” when the Whitlam government came into office and has many reasons to “be grateful ‘til the day I die”, but in reality she has many more reasons to be grateful to the taxpayers who bankrolled the great man’s many excesses.
Of course Blanchett was merely supporting the myriad of myths that now enshrine Whitlam’s legacy. The legends have grown since he was sacked in 1975 and flowed freely since his death on October 21, almost all of them untrue."
[Piers Akerman –, Saturday, November, 08, 2014, (11:58pm)]
“I am the beneficiary of free, tertiary education,” she trilled.
Whoops. I was paying taxes when Blanchett was born and I was a contributor to the cost of her education.
If I, and millions of other Australians were paying for her degree, it was not free. Similarly with the “good, free healthcare” she benefited from.
That healthcare cost a mozza – and it’s costing more now. Hyperbole and extravagance of speech and gesture are the stock in trade of actors, the gestures have to be large so those in the back row can see and hear and perhaps Blanchett had this in mind as she played to her audience at the Sydney Town Hall.
“I am a product of the Australia Council,” she gushed.
That may be, but the Australian Council for the Arts, the Australian Film Development Corporation and the National Film and Television Training School were established during Liberal Prime Minister John Gorton’s term, according to the National Archives.
The so-called “free” education and healthcare she benefited from enabled her to put the “little I earned after tax and rent … towards seeing shows, bands, and living inside my generation’s expression”.
Among the examples she offered of her generation’s expression was a 2004 film called Little Fish: ‘‘A story like Little Fish would not have been told without the massive changes to the Australian cultural conversation initiated, and shaped, by Gough Whitlam’s legacy.”
I was one of the unfortunate few viewers who, having contributed to the production of the film through my taxes, actually paid an admission fee to see what they were creating with my money. In truth I found it to be one of a number of bleak movies made with taxpayers’ money which depicted sleazy drug addicts doing what most drug addicts do – lie and cheat and destroy lives.
As Blanchett acknowledged to swoons and applause, she was “but three” when the Whitlam government came into office and has many reasons to “be grateful ‘til the day I die”, but in reality she has many more reasons to be grateful to the taxpayers who bankrolled the great man’s many excesses.
Of course Blanchett was merely supporting the myriad of myths that now enshrine Whitlam’s legacy. The legends have grown since he was sacked in 1975 and flowed freely since his death on October 21, almost all of them untrue."
[Piers Akerman –, Saturday, November, 08, 2014, (11:58pm)]
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