ABPA - Australian Bush Poets Association

Creation of the Fragile Australian

The modern world now is a perilous place,
Wherever we look there is danger to face.
We attend safety meetings, wear fluorescent clothes,
We stand out like beacons and frighten the crows.

We can’t climb up ladders if they are too high,
For we are so fragile we may fall and die,
And children are treated like they’re prone to break,
Their playgrounds are gutted for their safety’s sake.

The monkey bars, swings, and the wooden seesaw,
We’re told are as deadly as weapons of war,
While danger is lurking just over the hill,
A pervert or psycho just waiting to kill.

And on the TV we are constantly told,
No chances to take if we wish to grow old.
In flood times we’re warned to keep clear of the drains
As if we are babies without any brains.

Parades of do-gooders preach on the TV,
About all the dangers they everywhere see.
So suddenly new safety laws are enacted
And lost liberty is the price that’s exacted.

These measures we’re told are to stop litigation,
A disease that was once very rare in our nation,
But if this is true, and if this is the cause,
Would surely be better to limit the laws.

Put brakes on the lawyers, (my - how they would curse),
Stop ambulance chasers who fatten their purse.
But most politicians, you see, practice law,
So tend, in this argument, to see a flaw.

But how much of this nanny state can we take,
Before those who still have a brain start to wake
Up to the fact that this stuff is designed
To deaden your spirit and weaken your mind.

With clever persuasion and media compliance
They’ll gradually wear down your own self reliance
Until you become but a dependant drone,
‘Til even your soul - even that will they own.

© Dennis N. O'Brien, 2011, 2012

Aww, you didn't put enough sugar on your cornflakes this morning, Dennis! I don't see you developing too many drone-like properties!

Yeah Dennis, common sense has been removed from the vocabluary and replaced with cotton wool! When the insulation debacle was in full swing, someone filmed a couple of kids helping by passing the packs of batts into the roof, kicked up a hell of a stink about slave labour, safety issues, blah blah blah.....lucky they didn't see what we did as kids on the farm!

Stephen I'm shocked that you would think I eat cornflakes
(don't you know how evil that unmentionable multinational company is?)
And sugar? that refined poison!

No, I've just finished a bowl of organic lentils sweetened with organic honey
swimming in a sea of organic soy milk.
And no I don't think I'm turning into a drone although people do say that I tend to drone on.

Ross, Yes the health and safety Nazis are everywhere.

It's easy to think of safety regulations as oppressive, but don't forget, for example...the miners and construction workers who have been injured or died in unsafe working conditions, the people in the match factories who died a horrible death from phosphorus poisoning, the Sydney Harbour Bridge workers who were killed in the construction work, the asbestos victims, the people exposed to dioxin, the medical workers who have contracted various diseases, the little children whio have drowned in backyard pools. When my son was about 8 yr old, his best mate lost an eye on cracker night when an exploding fragment hit him. Maybe if some had been more responsible we wouldn't have come to this situation.

Ah......cracker night, that brings back memories Neville.
Now you're making me all nostalgic.

Yes Neville, safety rules are certainly an essential part of life....but so should common sense be! Much of the occupational health and safety is brought about by stupid people doing stupid things and then being awarded stupid amounts of money because some stupid magistrate would rather see the employer get hit rather than the stupid person who made the stupid mistake!......stupid really isn't it?......


You are right Dennis...the fragile Australians!

Yep I'm a work Place Health and Safety Officer and you see some people do some stupid things and when you point them out they say "But I've been doing it like this for years ".

You can only put the rules in place based on the dumbest and hope they do not injure someone else.



good poem though

Cheers Dennis.

Thanks Bob and Ross.
It's about degree really. I was in the regular army for 6 years and although safety was taken seriously during training (particularly weapon safety) I never attended a safety meeting as such after that - there weren't any to my knowledge (how did we survive?). I worked in a mine for 5 years (in New Guinea) and never attended a safety meeting. When I started I was told the rules, which were strict, given my safety gear (hard hat, clothes, glasses, steel toed boots (no florescent clothing)) and let loose - that was it. There were plenty of signs to let you know what was required in different areas and you were in big trouble if you didn't comply -they assumed you had a brain, if you didn't - too bad, you wouldn't last long one way or another.
The mine which employed about 5,000 workers had a common sense safety culture and a very good safety record. A friend of mine works in a mine here now and says he spends almost as much time on safety issues as anything else.
A female relative is the safety officer at an office in Brisbane and tells me that that she had to fill out a "near miss report" for a leaking water cooler due to a small puddle near it - scary stuff.
I could give lots of other insane example but won't bore you with them.
Not suggesting that safety shouldn't be an issue but I think it has got way out of hand, is being exploited by empire building bureaucrats and commercial vested interests and is affecting productivity and generally making people soft.
Anyway thanks for the comments.

...told you we would get on OK Dennis! I too worked in the mine at Tenant Creek for awhile as an underground electrician, we did have the odd meeting which allowed safety issues to be adressed, but they were more about keeping all the drillers, fitters, sparkies etc. informed about what each other was doing. They had just started alcohol testing when I left...(no that's not why I left!)...which was a good thing, I saw some pretty average blokes turn up for work before that. It has since of course progressed to drug tests which I think are all good things! You are dead right about it now being over the top though, paper cuts, leaking water coolers....you gotta be joking!