Longtime supporter and graphic designer for the Sex Party, Ilia Chidzey has been beavering away in her dungeons for the past 6 weeks working on a brand new project with intrepid comedian, gough. The fruit of their labours has finally been let loose on an unsuspecting world! Here is the media release to titillate your appetite:
Once upon a time there was a young man named Jimmy Green and he had a tremendous adventure in the Magic Forest. In fact, the adventure was of such grand proportions a picture book detailing it to the nth degree has been not only written, but illustrated.
Nineteen insanely inappropriate and raucously funny illustrations, hand crafted by the hugely talented Ilia Chidzey, accompany this equally misguided and comical fairy-tale. You have never seen or read a fairy-tale quite like this ever before in your life and it will leave a lasting impression on you.
This eBook written by gough and with original drawings by Ilia Chidzey is only 3 dollars and comes in a PDF format. So download"Jimmy Green and his Adventures in the Magic Forest" today, it'll have you giggling inappropriately for hours after your first read through. But don't be fooled, this picture book is not for your three-year-old, unless of course you want child protective services coming after you.
Yesterday Prime Minister Julia Gillard visited the 6PR studios in Perth for a now infamous interview with Howard Sattler. Before the bizarre and inappropriate question regarding her partner’s sexuality the Prime Minister was asked about her opposition to same sex marriage.
Sattler: Now you remain opposed to same sex marriage yourself?
Prime Minister Gillard: Yes I do. Well I don’t think we should change our Marriage Act. I do think that we should recognise all relationships of love including same sex relationships, but I feel that marriage has had a particular status in our culture and that we can grow up new institutions and new ways of recognising relationships.
Sattler: Why aren’t you married?
Prime Minister Gillard: Well I mean personal choice and I think the fact that I’m not married shows you obviously I think that you can have a relationship that’s committed and full of love and full of significance in your life without being married.
later…
Sattler: Some people say you, she doesn’t believe in marriage at all, why doesn’t she get married?
Prime Minister Gillard: Oh well look people can say whatever they like. I mean it’s umm for me. I went, I go to weddings. I have the special sense of delight when you do. I recently, relatively recently had the opportunity to go to my niece’s wedding. She’s now expecting her first child. These things are very significant in people’s lives but it’s not the only way of recognising that a relationship is full of trust and full of love.
The understandable reaction to Sattler’s inappropriate question should not overshadow the Prime Minister’s position on same sex marriage which does real harm to a great number of Australians.
When the Prime Minister says “personal choice” sadly she does not recognise the truth of those words and the privilege she has within a heterosexual relationship. She has a choice as to whether she marries her partner yet her opinion and her vote in Parliament denies that choice to same sex couples.
The Australian Sex Party would use their votes in Parliament if elected to ensure that same sex couples have that same choice available to them. That special sense of delight can be shared at the weddings of all Australians, not just the heterosexual. And who in good conscience would deny others that special sense of delight?
You can help the Australian Sex Party vote for marriage equality in Parliament by:
We have so many exciting things happening in Perth this week. We would love you to join us at one, (or all!) of these events.
• Friday 14th June Want to hear directly from some of the biggest names in smaller parties (including Fiona Patten, President of the Australian sex Party) running in the 2013 Federal election?
Come along to GetUp's 'Now That's a Party!' 6pm Friday 14 June. State Library of WA Auditorium.
More parties standing in this year's election mean more voices that the major parties are forced to listen to. Come along to this forum and hear what they have to say. Click here to find out more and register to attend.
• Saturday 15th June WA Sex Party Members and Supporters Catch-Up with Fiona.
You are invited to catch up with The Australian Sex Party team and our President, Fiona Patten, on Saturday 15th June at 3pm. at the Metro Bar & Bistro inside the Adina Apartments Hotel (33 Mounts Bay Road, opposite the Perth Convention and Exhibition Centre)
It will be a great chance to ask us about policy and discuss the political issues close to your heart in the lead-up to the September election. Please join us for a drink and discussion. Friends and family most welcome.
Please RSVP to
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• Friday 14th - Sunday 16th June Come down to Perth Sexpo and say g'day to the Sex Party team. We are having a stand at Sexpo where we will be explaining our policies, talking about the upcoming federal election and putting sexy Sex Party tattoos on all sorts of body parts.
If you are interested giving us a hand on our stand there is still time to put your hand up and volunteer. We love having locals join our team and donate a few hours to helping spread the Sex Party message. If you have a few hours free and are interested please email:
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Actor Jane Phegan in The Major Minor Party. Photo: Katherine Griffiths
The Major Minor Party Devised and performed By Version 1.0 - Until June 1 The Playhouse Canberra Theatre Centre
Jane Phegan with Kym Vercoe in The Major Minor Party. Photo: Katherine Griffiths
A single spotlight illuminates the tenderly entwined figures of a man and a woman. It is an image that recurs and invites response, provokes thought, engages intellect and feeling, and suspends the familiarity of preconception.
Audiences who have been fortunate enough to witness insightful past works by Version 1.0 will know what to expect. Their latest offering, inspired by the success of the Australian Sex Party in the 2010 election, will not disappoint. For audiences unfamiliar with Version 1.0's evocatively theatrical, imaginative and forceful expose of social and political injustices and contradictions, The Major Minor Party will tease the intellect, confront opinion, challenge one's notion of morality and hurl down the gauntlet to grapple with one's inner monologue.
Theirs is the theatre of ideas and the playhouse of debate, and what better place to set their scene than in the national capital, Lord Denman's ''city bearing a resemblance to the city beautiful of our dreams'', the heart of Australia's sex industry and the home of federal politics, where major and minor parties vie for power and persuasion?
And yet I think the company attempts to digest too broad a diet of ideas.
The Major Minor Party has been devised to celebrate its world premiere during Canberra's centenary, and months of research have weighed heavily upon the issues that this daring production strives to consider. The Australian Sex Party's plea for civil liberties falls upon the deaf ears of Family First, One Nation, or the Shooters and Fishers Party, as it tackles too vast a panoply of issues, such as marriage equality, voluntary euthanasia, abortion, censorship and the separation of church and state. Sex sells swiftly but the search for social equality and justice suffers a much longer shelf life.
The ensemble performances by the five performers onstage are faultless, steely in their conviction, atmospheric in their choreography, pacing and posture, vocally enticing, and true to their intent. The ecclesiastical design features stained glass windows depicting the icon on the hill, as the baptism of the faithful accosts our concept of democracy in graphic contrast. Images abound between the silence of anticipation and the pauses for reflection. The atmosphere is charged with Version 1.0's imagination: the sad, but hollow porn shoot, the judgmental art gallery opening, the lonely, awkward dance of sexual confusion and exploitation, the earnest subjugation to the consolation of devout faith, or the pontificating morality of the pedal-powering political Messiah.
James Lugton, Kym Vercoe, Jane Phegan, Irving Gregory and Drew Fairley. Photo: Katherine Griffiths
Want to see Australian Sex Party leader Fiona Patten's 2010 Sunrise debate with Family First's Wendy Francis recreated as a wrestling match? That's one of the scenes in Version 1.0's The Major Minor Party, which premiered at the Playhouse on Wednesday.
Producer Sandy Collins said Centenary of Canberra creative director Robyn Archer used to be a neighbour of Robbie Swan, Patten's partner, and suggested to Version 1.0 a show looking at the Australian Sex Party - what Patten called ''the major minor party'' in Australian politics - would be an apt theatrical contribution this year.
Version 1.0 is a collaborative enterprise - there is no writer or director - whose members do extensive research and use existing documentation - interviews, media reports and other records - to present shows on different issues. ''We're looking at civil liberties and the Australian Sex Party's response to the efforts of minor parties and the Christian lobby,'' said Collins.
Also under examination is the issue of the separation of church and state, an issue about which cast member Jane Phegan, who plays Patten, felt strongly.
''If we have 80 per cent practising Christians in Parliament and 8 per cent of the population are practising Christians, well, you don't speak for me, do you?'' she said.
But, she said, there was a range of viewpoints within the membership of Version 1.0 and the idea was to make people think.
''Really, it's a case of battling out what will make it to the stage during the research and development phase,'' she said. ''The points are argued most vehemently.''
