Julie McCrossin

Ladies and gentlemen, I want you to have a look at love and war, what they've got in common, and how none of it is fair. Shocking images on the telly from all over the worlds troublespots show us that war means refugees, trapped in squallor, with a bunch of people that they barely know. Now, what does that remind you of? I put it to you that love for most of us means marriage, and a lifetime of enforced contact, with roving relatives we never choose to meet...who have an odd similarity to inbred Olympic officials who've been getting off with the extras in "Deliverance." Okay, war is dreadful, and you have to eat dog biscuit ration packs that finally make airline food taste great. But a loving marriage, it can also be very very dangerous.

I personally spent years of my life in my family going to "bring a plate" Sunday family picnics. Where Aunty Pam always bought tuna surprise...again. Everyone crowded onto a blanket, all the kids just having switched from saying, "When will we get there?", to..."When will we go home?" And always of course, Uncle Bill, with so many roving hands, Micheal Jackson seems like a good idea for a babysitter. Now, I wish you well if there's nothing you love better than a family gathering, but if your family reminds you of soccer hooligans when the grog runs out, well I put it to you that a NATO refugee camp can be a lucky escape from an Aussie family picnic, because at least there's the opportunity and the possibility of an airlift out.

Clearly all is not fair in love and war, but what is sort of spooky is how hard it is to tell the difference between love and war. TV's full of terrible conflicts, but any lawyer will tell you that if you want to see really scarey disputes, you go to the terrible court of love gone wrong, the family court. Where once rational human beings mortage their kidneys in order to give all their money to lawyers to fight over who gets the garden gnome. But pop along to the court, the family court of love gone wrong and you're going to see women who make the ancient goddess who killed her own children, cooked them up and served them up to her husband...look like mildly dysfunctional Margaret Fulton. Okay, I know war is tough on kids, but compared to the custody battles in the family court, King Solomons suggestion to just cut the child in half is a win win situation.

Now, we know war means a hell of a lot of fear and stress, but even old people like me can remember their nerve wracking first sexual experience. I want to sit down with an early adolescent boy or girl, look them in the eye, and tell them that one day they'll have sexual intercourse. That's what we call it when we don't use the "F" word. One day they'll have sexual intercourse with their clothes off, and the lights on, with their eyes open...and the car door shut. But there's nothing there about love and war.

But, one of the unfairest things about love, for some women is that inevitable, powerful yearning to "have his baby". Don't get me wrong, I realise that having a baby is the greatest joy in most womens' lives, but of course motherhood hits mums just that little bit harder than dads in what we call the career and housework department...and I always get sexually aroused when women start talking about washing up. One morning she wakes up and finds herself standing on her front doorstep. There's a baby on her breast, and she's waving to her man as he drives off to work. Suddenly she realises she's utterly alone, with a small thing that has the entire conversational range of "goo goo, ga ga". This once high flying woman suddenly screams. She loves that baby, and she has entered the twilight zone of baby boom motherhood psychosis.

Ladies and gentlemen, mums and dads, I want you to say no to the idea from this team that anything goes, and I want you to say yes to my idea that fairness must apply in all circumstances. I want to see a world when men say to their women, "Darling, lets both work part time, your careers important too," and then he smiles and says, "Darling, let me clean the toilet this week." Ladies and gentlemen, I look forward to a world with values. I look forward to seeing you there. Thank you very much.