Bi-Lo Aisle 14
The winter recess in Parliament is a marvellous time to catch up on ordinary things. I was speaking round our branches and churches each week on behalf of our Senate candidate Paul Green, writing this magazine and other materials, conducting interviews in my office, and preparing my talks for our national convention.
Rev. Fred Nile spent several weeks on holidays in Queensland and in Korea, so things were quiet. So, for just about the first time in years I went with my wife to our local supermarket. BI-LO is part of the Coles chain. I wanted to purchase some shoe polish, so while my wife continued with our week’s purchases I headed for the shoe polish.
Incidentally, does anyone else polish their shoes each day these days? I have polished my shoes daily for over fifty years. They are well worn, but they have worn well. Nugget Black and Kiwi Brown. But my children seem to have shoes that rarely need polishing, and my observations of school teachers, pupils, sales assistants and other politicians indicate that most wear shoes that do not need polishing, or else they manage without doing the polishing.
My wife told me I would find the shoe polish in aisle 14. Despite the fact that she does all our weekly shopping, like most men I believe I could do the supermarket shopping more quickly and efficiently than any member of the opposite sex. After all, men know instinctively whether it is more economical to buy a 450 gram tin of ‘Milo’ for $5.85 or two tins of 200 grams on special at $2.98 each, taking into account how our grandchildren eat it! Men just know these things! Or with Zucchini at $9.98 a kilo, whether to buy three already wrapped in plastic or three unwrapped.
I had often thought I would list by rows where everything was so I could go straight to them, but I discovered my wife does that now. She has a list in a top drawer in the kitchen complete with pen, and as something is used, its replacement is added to the list. They are not in order as she discovers what is needed, but each is put into little categories of their own. Fifteen categories – one for each aisle in fact. Then she reads the advertisements for specials for that week, and adds anything else that is needed. Nothing that is not needed is not on the list, and nothing is purchased that is not on the list.
So off to aisle 14 I go for the shoe polish. As I enter the aisle, I am stopped in my tracks. On the left hand side is a heading: Rodent Eradication paraphernalia. Wow! Rat traps! Do you realise how many different sizes there are? Wooden ones, plastic ones, four hole mouse traps, not to be touched by human hands internal traps; box traps, spring traps, cage traps for live capture (food for pet snakes?) electric Zapper traps (BBQ dinner for pet snakes?) plate and paddle traps and the ‘Supreme’ rat and mouse trap as made by the descendants of A. Wesley Standfield on his home made machine he built in 1933 which has produced millions of wood and spring traps. The machine produces 1000 per hour and every home in Australia has had at least one, purchased currently at 65 cents. The original mouse trap machine is in the Powerhouse Museum and is a real Heath Robinson invention. (Is there anyone alive who remembers the humorous Heath Robinson drawings?)
I remember when I was five years of age, visiting Chandlers Iron Mongers in Station Street Box Hill, where I grew up. As I walked around the long counters I noticed a pile of ‘Supreme’ rat traps. I had watched the men in my parents’ bakery set them with their foot. I knew how to set them. I set about a dozen rat traps and lined them all up in front of the counter before moving on. I wonder if I ever caught anything? Any customer or staff?
On the Bi-Lo shelf on aisle 14, next to the traps they had every kind of rat and mouse bait, poison, pellets, tablets, enough to fill a shopping trolley. Then I noticed a curious thing. Opposite the section labelled Rodent Eradication paraphernalia, was a section labelled ‘Pet food’ and there was every kind of packaged and tinned pet food for every kind of pet imaginable. Dog and cat food especially. Each one proudly listing its special ingredients designed to please pussy or puppy. I remembered my days at Wesley Mission when I was responsible for a sheltered workshop for profoundly intellectually disabled people. I went there one day to see our people at work. They loved my visits and would proudly show off what they were doing. This day they had one hundred pallets of a well known brand of dog food. Tens of thousands of tins of dog food. It was a production overrun. The factory wanted our people to take off the dog food labels, and replace them with new labels advertising cat food. The intellectually disabled thought they were marvellous, turning dog food into cat food with a change of label!
So here were tins of dog and cat food, packages and boxes of pet food of every kind, bird seed and fish food, and yes even packaged food for pet mice and rats! You would have to be careful walking down aisle 14 at BI-LO and not choose from the wrong side of the aisle. One side would end your pet cruelly forever. The other side would feed them with tenderness.
It’s a bit like walking down the aisle on the way to a Senate election. I heard on the news on 23rd August on both the ABC and Commercial stations the lead item which said ‘New South Wales Senate candidate for the Christian Democratic Party has compared controlling Muslim immigration in Australia to stopping the spread of bird flu’. The party officially introduced Pastor Paul Green as the party’s number-one candidate for the Senate at a media conference in Sydney today.
Mr. Green says he believes Australian people are very concerned about Muslim immigration and would support an immediate moratorium.
‘If there was bird flu coming from a people’s groups across the nation, would we not stop to assess the risk management of what it means to Australia and then assess the factors, and say, ‘Is it safe to continue that or withhold it until it is dealt with?’, he said. The news reports named the NSW CDP Senate team as agreeing with the policy.
I wonder which side of the aisle that came from? That is CDP policy and many do liken Muslims to the bird flu. But what is that doing to the relationships between Muslims and other Australian citizens? What is that doing to us in the eyes of other Christians? Like the Christian School Principal who said to me that same week as I addressed their conference on why they should support the CDP and our Senate team. He said he used to support the CDP in its early days but now never voted for us because of many stupid things we would say at election time. I asked him to give us just one more chance and vote for us this time. No wonder all of the mainstream denominations have given the CDP away and do not support us.
The politics of fear and loathing will win some votes at election time, but it is short term and costs us long term credibility and the support of the very people who could make a significant long term difference to our party.
Just at that moment a lady with a full trolley of a week’s groceries bumped into my back. It was my wife. We headed to the check-out counter. But I had to double back to aisle 14. I had forgotten the shoe polish!
Rev. The Hon. Dr Gordon Moyes, A.C., M.L.C.
