The first time I heard my nephew Hamish had been invited to join the Western Jets Under 16’s footy squad I was so excited and proud. He’s such a talented boy in his own right and it was well earned recognition for him. You can imagine my surprise then, when I heard he’d received an invitation to join the Western Bulldogs Rookie B draft squad on the grounds that my sister was born in South Africa I nearly died laughing, my nephew nearly died in the arse.

Apparently one can be eligible for special consideration to join the Rookie B squad if they have a parent who is A) indigenous, B) from a low income family or C) has a parent born in Africa. The temperature dropped into the minuses with the frosty response that came from my blond, blue eyed nephew when he found out she’d ticked the born in Africa box. ’Oh Muuuum, geez, like, what the actual fuck???”. His chair scraped back across the floor and he flung his fringe sidewards as he rose to stomp off, shaking his head in disbelief.

‘Remember, when we turn up at the to the training they’re going to expect me to be black, or at least underprivileged’, he said, somewhat acknowledging that his 15 years of age understood his automatic position of entitlement in white Australian society.

Next minute, my daughter Amethyst walked in, with her ears pinned back and eyebrows raised. “What the actual fuck Aunty Mish’, she stood with her superhero cape flapping in the breeze, ready to defend the rights of all the underprivileged, indigenous and African people to whom those positions were obviously being reserved. After all, Amethyst had never used her Aboriginally or povo single parent upbringing to gain any advantage. Aunty Mish never had any cred as a parent either, best leave it to her 26 year old niece to step in and show her what a moral conscience should look like.

Another voice yoo-hoo’d from down the hallway ‘Is that your dog?’. Looks like Maxi Taxi the adopted Spadoodle had escaped again, probably to avoid the pending conflict or at least create a diversion as she often did- dogs aren’t stupid you know! Hamish, with another loud sigh, stomped off down the hallway to investigate. It was clear and obvious to him that he was the only one responsible enough to perform this task, and in all fairness, Maxi’s adoption papers were in his name.

My daughter naturally said her piece from the mighty soap box that she is often found standing atop. We all know better than to argue, so with copious amounts of head nodding and ‘mmm’ ing we got through yet another lecture, and finally she shut the fuck up.

Maxi Taxi was saved, my nephew refused to attend the Rookie B squad training, my sister and I poured another drink and Amethyst continued to huff and puff to anyone who would listen on Facebook.

2014 was my Annus Horribilis. Disease, emergency surgeries, sexual assault and resulting court appearance, unplanned pregnancy, genetic diagnoses, forced house relocation, and near bankruptcy. The only trauma we weren’t touched by was death, and we came very close to that when my car was destroyed (with my husband in it) when another vehicle ran a red light at 120kph.

My husband and I decided to head off on a three day cruise as a circuit breaker. Just the two of us; our first time away together without kids since our honeymoon. It was an opportunity to take a rest from all the drama at home, spend some quality time together, and reinforce our strength as a team.

On the second night of the cruise there was a formal dinner. Portrait stands were set up along the main hallways for guests to have their photo taken while dressed up for the dinner. I didn’t want to participate because of my weight (I was over 100kg and big in the thighs, bum and upper arms), and my husband is very self conscious of his baldness and severe rosacea (caused by autoimmune issues), so we walked past most of the stands on our way to dinner.

Just before the dining room I noticed an older lady and her daughter at one of the portrait stands. The lady was in a wheelchair and was very thin and frail. She was also missing more than half of her face, to the extent that what was left of her teeth and jaw were visible through a giant hole that had once been her cheek. One eye was barely in place above a sunken cheekbone, and much of her nose was missing. She’d clearly had some kind of face, skin or mouth cancer and was most likely terminally ill. Yet she was sitting in her wheelchair, her daughter holding her hand by her side, having her portrait taken.

I was initially confused and repulsed by what I saw. And then it hit me. This was probably the last cruise the mother and daughter would ever take together before the mother’s death, and it was also probably the last opportunity for them to be in a portrait together. It didn’t matter what either of them looked like. What mattered was how they felt about each other, how they were sharing the mother’s last days, how they wanted to capture their limited time together photographically, and how they were still celebrating life and love no matter how much tragedy had befallen them.

After they had finished I spoke to the photographer and asked if we could organise a private portrait sitting for the next day. I wanted to get my hair and makeup done properly, pick out a flattering outfit, and steel myself mentally for the process. I also wanted to be able to relax in front of the camera with my husband and without a crowd of onlookers. Plus I knew that I would probably cry at some point; not just about how I looked and how alien my body felt, but about everything that we had endured that year. I truly was emotionally overwhelmed at that point.

So we turned up the next day and had a private portrait session. I actually hated every second of it, and I did cry at the end, but I pushed myself through for two reasons….

– My husband and I had no portraits of ourselves as a couple, apart from our wedding photos, and I was seven months pregnant in those (it’s a long story). Our history together in pictorial form was completely missing.

– Our kids had no photos of us at all; we were both so pre-occupied with our physical inadequacies that we either avoided photos with the kids, cropped ourselves out of them, or deleted them. Had my husband died in the car accident that day, the kids and I wouldn’t have had a single photo of him that was younger than six years old.

So we had the portraits taken, and also had very mixed feelings when we received the proofs. I looked chubby in the face (and not how I see myself in my mind’s eye) but I was glad that my thunder thighs and upper arms were tastefully concealed. My hubby hated his face and we agreed to opt for black and white prints to help tone down the rosacea (in colour he looks like he fell asleep in a solarium wearing sunglasses). Out of 50-60 proofs we agreed on five that we felt were OK.

Those five prints cost a lot of money and when we got home we put them in a cupboard because I didn’t want them mounted publicly in my house. I wasn’t ready at that point to combat the shame of my diseased body.

I pulled the prints out the other day because I regularly think of the old lady with most of her face missing, and I wanted to remind myself of how far I’ve come in the last year after finally sorting out my health issues and transforming my life. The photos actually look more flattering than I remembered; this is partly because I went to a lot of trouble to select the most flattering proofs that made me look slimmer than I was, and also partly because I’m looking at things through different eyes now that I’ve learned that health conditions were the cause of my body blow-out.

Where once I looked at my obese body with shame, I now see it completely differently. I see it as the body of a warrior, someone whose spirit and determination are not tied to her outward appearance. In those pictures I see a woman who fought incredibly hard to hold her family together through tragedy, who battled the medical establishment and its belittling and ignorant attitudes to get real answers for herself and her family, and who kept getting back up each day and moving forward, no matter how much adversity life threw at her.

I think my eight year old son summed things up pretty well this week when he said “You know Mum, you look really different now that you’re skinny. But I actually didn’t ever notice that you were fat before. You were always my beautiful Mum.”

The party was dull. More dull than he predicted. He stood staring blankly at the lattice slice for what turned out to be way too long. What did it mean? Was it munchies for the stoners? Was it an ironic attack upon the previous generation? Was it an empowering stance against body fascism?

“Dude? Do you want a slice?” It was the second time the host had asked and all of the enthusiasm had drained from his tone.

“No. No thank you.” The host moved on and Marcus was left again to stand alone in the living room. He figured it was at least another hour before he could convince Emily that he’d had a great time. That she was right. That he just needed to get out more and be with people. He would thank her and squeeze her hand. He took another sip off his beer and went back to trying to make sense of the gathering.

Rich kids. Every line of reasoning led him back to the same conclusion. They are rich kids. Their parents support them to study. They don’t have to work. They are bored. So they hold a party and feign interest in each other. He let the conclusion morph into a smug little grin too soon. Landon, who worked the same shitty night fill gig he did was chatting animatedly in a group across the room. Fuck it. That’s it for the living room them.

He was running out of skulking options. Emily was on the back deck. If she saw him alone she would start introducing to people. The bathroom was out too. It was full to bursting and emanating a lively political debate, or at least two monologues rhythmically lacing over each other with unpleasant cadence. The front stairs turned out to be inhabited by two people feeding of each other’s reciprocal interest. Who even does that anymore? Marcus thought. Everyone pairs off online. Surely? He stepped past them and into the front yard. Their conversation paused so he had to keep walking with manufactured purpose down and around and under the house.

The cement laundry sink, the only well-lit object, presented itself like a museum artefact. He moved through the shadowy people, refusing to let his brain process the snippets of conversation as he went, and arrived at the ice filled sink. Well. So be it. Marcus swallowed the warm half a stubby in his hand. His faithful prop of the last 2 hours. He reached into the ice and retrieved the five remaining beers in the six-pack he brought. It had been his notion, in fact his entire preoccupation since he arrived to not touch them. Leave them undrunk. Somehow, to abandon five beers he couldn’t really afford at some party he desperately didn’t want to be at was to be some kind of subversive act. Some kind of great joke on everyone.

Wandering back through the drone of infuriating conversation he found an empty couch. At the end of the uneven brick paving, facing a patch of dry dirt and lattice work flanked by the cement pillar foundations of the old Queenslander. Slumping without elegance into the crusty couch he could immediately taste the stale dust cloud in his mouth. He took the first sip of fresh cold beer and nodded slowly to himself. Yup. I will get drunk. I will make an appearance for Em. I will sneak home. I will fight an orgasm out of my cock and I will find sleep. Drinking deeply he wrestled with whether his depression was an indulgence or a problem. As he eyes adjusted to the light he realised he might be forming a silhouette. An invitation on the otherwise empty couch. He quickly slid onto the dusty floor. Sat with his back to the couch and cradled his beers into his lap.

I went to get a book I lent him. I knocked at the door of the housing complex he lived in. Someone let me into the kitchen. I went to his room. Knocked. He was there, merry, all smiles and friendship.

“Come in” he said ”Tea? Coffee?” There was no chair so I sat on the neatly made bed. “Wanna watch a dvd?’ overfriendly. “ Nope , Ive just come for the book, I need it” Hes made me a cup of weak , milky tea, the cups half full, just the way I don’t like it. “ Do you wanna watch a dvd?” Hes still puttering around, quick , sharp  movements, busy. He grabs his laptop, puts it on a chair he pulls from beneath a pile of stuff. He opens the laptop. A big cockroach walks desultorily across the side of his desk, checks its email on its iphone and adjusts its aldi bag. “One of my friends” he says with a crooked smile. Its in no hurry, looks like its just done its grocery shopping. It looks tired, adjusts it antennae. I look at the dvd, now playing on the laptop screen, the image is scattered into a thousand pieces of disconnected light. “Your screen is broken” I say. He looks and points to the bottom lefthand corner “there” he points  “you can see the picture better there” I can see something but without the other pieces I cant make out what Im seeing. I realise, hes pissed. Totally plastered. Him not whatevers on the laptop screen. Ive seen him like this before, all dandelion flowerheads, bright and breezy, jumping about like a busy flea. Once upon a time I would’ve slipped into his delusional dream, his aldi bag enclave of drying washing and food on the counter chaos.

Now I jump to my feet and say “don’t worry, ill come back another day’. He looks like a naughty boy, caught out. He reaches out ,tries to engage me, makes silly noises I used to find hilarious. “AAAck” he says ‘EEEEEEE’ like the sound of air being let out of a balloon. I don’t know whether to be sorry or laugh. Laughing at him. That’s what got me in there in dreamland in the first place. I open the door, look back to the empty bed, the mess, the cockroach and broken laptop, the man that looks like a pissed Peter Pan. I used to think that’s what love is. I close the door, run hard, don’t look back.

Facebook plays fast and loose. Australia’s regulator fiddles.

Most Australians are on Facebook. Facebook has more than 15 million Australian users. Facebook collects masses of personal information about Australians – probably more than anyone else. But it flouts Australian privacy laws with apparent impunity.

A primary Facebook obligation is to publish a Privacy Policy which enables Australians to complain to Facebook and get prompt redress for privacy breaches.   A correspondence exchange three years ago between the Australian regulator, the Australian Information and Privacy Commissioner, and Facebook is on the regulator’s website. Facebook stonewalled, declining to have a document called “Privacy Policy”. The need for a viable complaints system wasn’t even mentioned in the correspondence.

Facebook argued that the Irish authorities were happy with its “Data Retention Policy”, and, in effect, that was good enough. For good economic reasons, doubtless Ireland is totally in the thrall of Facebook. The Australian Privacy Commissioner seemed to cop it sweet.

I work both sides of the street on privacy regulation: as a practising lawyer for individuals with privacy complaints; and part time as privacy officer for an Australian member services organisation.

Five months ago, a mate complained that he had been put on Facebook, with a profile and photos. My mate – now my client – doesn’t even own a computer. He wants anonymity – as is his right.

So I googled Facebook, expecting to find its Privacy Policy and address for complaints. Easily done. However I couldn’t find any Australian address – physical or virtual – or any phone number for Facebook. Snail mail to Ireland or the US were the suggested options.

So I emailed info@facebook.com – presumably in the US – arguing a serious breach of privacy and asked for my client’s immediate removal. I was directed to “the Help Center” (sic) website. Nothing relevant was there. So I emailed info@facebook.com again but got no response.
Accordingly, I complained to the Australian Privacy Commissioner, attaching my correspondence with Facebook and pointed to Facebook’s non compliance with the Privacy Act.

The Commissioner’s Office (the OAIC) was quite unhelpful. It comprised information I already knew about the Privacy Act and OAIC, and showed that OAIC had totally misinterpreted my request – which was that it should get Facebook to obey Australian law.
I immediately wrote back to OAIC arguing that my client did not supply any information to Facebook and had not consented to Facebook obtaining his personal information or disclosing it.
I added that I could not find a Facebook Privacy Policy which even remotely complied with Australian law, thus preventing Australians getting redress for privacy breaches. I concluded that Facebook thumbs its nose at Australian privacy protections.

About a month before I first complained to him, the Privacy Commissioner released a Report [23 September 2016] that OAIC had examined “the privacy policies of 45 businesses used by Australian consumers every day”, finding that:

• 71 per cent failed to properly explain how information was stored; and
• 38 per cent didn’t include easily identifiable contact details for complaints.

The Commissioner said his office is working with businesses to improve.

Given Facebook’s massive size and role as a probably the biggest dealer in the personal information of Australians, the Privacy Commissioner should give very high priority to ensuring that Facebook is squeaky clean. It is anything but, and the regulator seems paralysed. Is it fear or awe?

 

Two summers ago I read an article in The Age that changed the course of my life.It was an article about The Foster Girls and their courageous parents.

This is for them

Shame had kept me silent.

I spoke at The Royal Commission.

I am here for those who’s lives were ruined by men of the church and this Institution.

This is not about winning or losing its about showing up and being seen.

This is about knowing something and not being silent

This is who I want to be.I want to be that person who stands up for her rights.I want to be that person.

I was groomed in a very calculated way.

He said he was a man of god and that I should do what he says.

This went on for 2 years.

By the age of 13 I decided to take my own life.

I took some of my mothers sleeping tablets.I woke up.

Fast forward….

You have to trust that you can survive your own emotions and