Fuck Yeah to Australian Breakfast and Getting Things Done
Fuck Yeah to Australian Breakfast and Getting Things Done
Bacon-and-egg rolls in Canberra
Australia is obsessed with quantifying Australianness. I’d argue there’s nothing more Australian than a breakfast of a bacon-and-egg roll with a flat white on the side. Apart from, maybe, a failing government forcing an expensive and unnecessary vote to quell its own internal discord.
It’s 2017, and these aren’t the simple bacon-and-egg rolls of our grandparents’ generation. Turkey-bacon and tofu for the vegan or religious among us. Scrambled eggs over the classic fried egg for the picky eaters. Soy milk, almond milk, artful shapes made for Instagram posts.
And it’s 2017, and this isn’t the vote of our grandparents’ generation. ‘Should the law be changed to allow same-sex couples to marry?’ Yes or no. This isn’t a question; this is a call to arms.
I’m sitting across from my sister, Caitlin, on this start-of-Spring-do-I-need-a-jacket early morning at Lonsdale Street Roasters in the hip neighborhood of Braddon, in Canberra, Australia’s capital. After this, she’ll walk up a block and spend the next few hours asking brunch-goers and Saturday shoppers if they’ve received their ballot yet and explain her case for the ‘Yes’ vote. But for now, it’s two sugars and the morning papers.
She wasn’t always like this; usually, she’d have a smashed avo with feta with a debrief of the night before at the more respectable hour of 11 a.m. But she’s incensed at the question our government has asked her, and our parents, to answer about our youngest sister. They’ve forced us to reduce our sister Shannon—and her relationship—to a box to be ticked on a form. Yes, obviously Yes!
Around the country this morning, there are, no doubt, scores of Australians doing the same. A steady, solid breakfast of protein and caffeine for volunteers and supporters who have made it their goal to protect loved ones and strangers from having to fight for their own equality in a vicious battle no one but Australia’s far-flung right wing asked for.
Let Shannon and her partner, let our friends and the hundreds of thousands of LGBT-identifying Australians Caitlin will never meet, sleep in today. Let them wash away the cruel ‘No’ campaign, the letters in newspapers and ads on TV telling them their existence is wrong, with a mimosa or two. Let the government, which sits just a few minutes’ drive from here, answer to them. And they will, with polling showing record engagement and a likely ‘Yes’ win.
There’s nothing extraordinary about what Caitlin is doing. But it’s the ordinary that gets shit done in Australia. This ordinary is quintessentially Australian. And we’ll get this done, too.