Staining the walls of the palace of public discourse



Tuesday 27 November 2012

Take It Outside

There’s a certain look lawyers get in their eyes when they think they’ve got someone on the ropes – that moment when the path to victory becomes very clear to them and there’s a sense that momentum will inevitably carry them over the line.  It’s a mix of grand self-assuredness, anticipation, aggression and a deep, deep appreciation of just how clever they are.  Yesterday that look was all over the face of Deputy Opposition Leader, and former lawyer, Julie Bishop as she outlined the Opposition’s case against the Prime Minister with regard to the AWU “slush fund” matter.  At least, that’s what I think she was doing...

You see it was actually hard to clarify whether Bishop was articulating points of evidence or raising matters that needed further investigation.  Was she making claims or just asking questions?  Sometimes it seemed even Jules wasn’t sure and the media at the press conference appeared equally baffled as they tried, repeatedly, to disentangle substantiated allegation from simply pondering out loud.  Bishop was walking the very fine line that exists between defamation and conveying the right message often enough so that everyone just starts to believe it.  As the delightful Rose McGowan’s character in the movie Scream points out, “If you hear that Richard Gere gerbil story often enough, you start to believe it’s true.”

The slippery and largely in-substantive way the Opposition has handled this line of inquiry is a disappointment.  It is not a disappointment because they are playing the person rather than the ball.  It is a disappointment because personal integrity does matter in our public leaders and, therefore, inquiries like this also matter ... but the Opposition have fluffed their lines.  Rather diligently research and then prosecute a considered case, they have gone for the “throw enough shit and some might stick” approach.  What we might call, The Gerbilist Approach.

Hey, leave me out of this!


The issue of playing personal politics is always a vexed one.  It is critical that we know and understand the ethics and values of those who hold personal office.  The “AWU affair” – or perhaps we should call it “AWU-gate” – may have happened 20 years ago, but that does not mean its reach is not current.  Unethical behaviour, especially illegal behaviour, makes one beholden to others – to the co-conspirators, the silent witnesses and the suspicious.  Failures of integrity cast a long shadow. Therefore, we deserve to know if our public leaders are compromised in any way.  After all, all public offices are only held in trust.

This is not to say that an isolated error of judgment, or the indiscretions of youth, should ever disqualify someone from public life. But we should be able to make an informed judgment about a candidate and the origin of their positions on issues.  In fact, many of us appreciate a leader who has made mistakes – it renders them human.  That they admit to and learn from these mistakes may indeed make them a better leader.  Many of the role models we hold up as great leaders were on their second time around, having recovered from previous failures of judgement and integrity.

In WWI, his pride led many Australians to die on the beaches at Gallipoli.  In WWII, he fought them on the beaches to save a nation.


Even if we accept that we have a right to understand what shackles of the past our leaders are carrying, it is still possible to explore these issues in the wrong way.  The Gerbilist Approach serves no-one – it seeks not the truth, but only to entertain and distract through scandal.  It is the 21st century equivalent of the public flogging of criminals, but with lower standards of justice.  And why would any right thinking person seek public office when this is the potential reward?  In the long run, we all suffer for it.

I’m confident that right now the majority of Australians would believe that our Prime Minister was involved in something dodgy.  I’m equally confident that most could not articulate what she is supposed to have done, but the mud of allegation has stuck and dried.  The Opposition, therefore, has achieved what they set out to do.  Whether it is true, whether it actually benefits the people of Australia is, of course, irrelevant.  They are winning the game and can sense the momentum of the kill.  We, meanwhile, are left with a system of public justice and accountability the integrity of which is as questionable as those whom it seeks to investigate.  We have a system of slander, where a system of considered inquiry is needed and owed.  And that’s the disappointment in all this ... [fades to static]


Friday 23 November 2012

Playing Faust

Last weekend I was lucky enough to see Radiohead perform live.  I’ll resist the fan-boy gush and simply say that the performance was mesmerising.  While they played some of the old classics, unfortunately, they didn’t play one of my all-time favourites: the quietly haunting, All I Need.  One of the things I love above this song – indeed, it has become inseparable from the song itself – is the film clip that was produced for it as part of MTV’s EXIT Campaign to end child exploitation.  The clip shows the parallel stories of an average kid in a Western country, contrasted with the life of a child living and working in poverty in a third world country.  There is a beautifully simple arc to the story, which I won’t give away but rather encourage you to check out the clip:


The piece highlights a paradox that I’ve always felt to be true: that it’s the people in the worst poverty, suffering the worst oppression, that seem to work the hardest (for the smallest reward, if any).  However, just seven short days after the Radiohead concert, I would like to thank Tony Abbott for opening my eyes.  It seems I was deceived.  Those arriving to our country to flee poverty, violence, threat and fear are all idle scroungers.  According to Little Tony, they are characterised to a man, woman and child by a “something for nothing mindset”.  Thank you, Tony.  As a friend of mine might put it: I think I just got cancer from listening to you.

Now, of course, among those who seek asylum in our country there will be those who seek to exploit our welfare system.  Exactly as there are those among our community today who do the same thing.  But, equally, there will be those – the vast majority – who want nothing more than to find a job and raise their families with the freedom and opportunity that we so often take for granted.  Indeed, it might do us all well to reflect on how hard we actually work and how much we sacrifice to buy our luxury goods, compared with the sacrifices and efforts of those who make them for us.

But this gross caricature of asylum seekers was only one of Abbott’s assertion used to justify a proposed reduction in Australia’s refugee intake.  Little Tony was also quick to point out that many refugees arrive, wait for it, illegally.  That reducing overall refugee intake decreases illegal arrivals defies logic.  Experience would suggest that creating even an impression of scarcity leads people to panic.  The great irony is that, by reducing our refugee intake, we may in fact increase the boats heading south from Indonesia – with refugees starting to behave something like bogans at a stocktake sale.  But Abbott’s focus on the “illegals” conveniently overlooks the very nature of asylum.  To seek asylum is not an act borne of civility, it is an act borne of desperation and fear.

Abbott’s primary thesis though was that Australia simply cannot afford to take 20,000 refugees per year.  This is despite a considerable body of research showing that the net effect of migration is that of economic benefit.  This is despite Australia reputedly suffering from a labour shortage – a crisis so severe that some of our more nefarious employers are even seeking to bring in their own boat people.  This is despite the previous Liberal Government introducing middle class welfare to encourage Australians to breed – produce one for Mum, one for Dad and one for the country, we were told.  This is despite the fact that we hold ourselves out to be a fair country.

There is no logic or justification to Abbott’s comments.  They are nothing more than repugnant political posturing. It making these statements, Tony Abbott has become the hollow man of Australian politics.  Form without substance.  An empty surface of arrogant privilege.  There is nothing human beating there.

Beyond what it says about him as a person, there is a more troubling aspect to this direction from Abbott.  He has now established a pact with a fickle and dangerous demon: the lowest common denominator in us all.  He has joined hands with the voracious id of society.

The problem with a race to the bottom is how far do you go before you stop?  In a previous post, Chasing Ordinary, I discussed comments from Liberal MP, Malcolm Turnbull.  Turnbull suggested that his party would not vary too far from the middle ground.  However, the danger of the narrative like the one espoused by Abbott is that, if left to fester, it has to power to shift the middle ground.  It is difficult to ask people to be compassionate – especially, if they perceive it might cost them something.  It is easy to spread the virus of fear, a virus once released cannot be controlled.  Abbott’s comments open the door to hatred.  They validate more extreme views and stir the corner of darkness that exits within us all.  In this environment, the moderate person is the one who is less extreme than the worst of what we are.

It is easy to make carcinogenic statements like Little Tony’s when in opposition.  In government, you have to own the human consequences of your decisions.  But, once in government (which seems inevitable), will Abbott be able to pull back on the reigns in this dizzying race to the bottom?  Will his seemingly seductive demon allow him such humanity?  Abbott has forgotten that this beast, in its brutal simplicity, is demanding and unforgiving.  Its appetite can only by whet, never satisfied.  This may prove to be his tragedy.  And ours … [fades to static]

Tuesday 20 November 2012

Our Ghosts May Be Heard

Every year, myself and a couple of mates get together for our annual road trip.  It's an institution of indulgence - we eat too much, drink too much, make too much noise and laugh out loud.  This year, we headed off to country Victoria to take in some fishing and sample the night life.  It was while standing in a local pub on a Saturday night, listening to a surprisingly good band, that we noticed something strange - a creeping sense that while our presence was being tolerated, we weren't exactly welcomed here.  There was a tension in the stares from the thick-necked blokes hovering around the bar.  We were familiar with this scene though.  So, rather than push our luck, we simply grabbed a late night hotdog and took the party back to the caravan park ... no doubt to the annoyance of our neighbours.

Our experience equates to the diet coke of intolerance - being starred at hardly rates as oppression.  However, it does highlight that very real antagonism to "other" that exists in the (anglo) Australian culture.  An antagonism that has been writ large in the story of the alleged abuse of some French tourists on a bus in my home town of Melbourne.

Anglo-Australian culture is rooted in  identity crisis.  We arrived as foreigners in a foreign and hostile land.  From the very beginning we were at odds with our surroundings. Scared and isolated, we fought hard to maintain our Anglo identity in spite of the reality of our place in the world.  We classified our indigenous people as fauna.  We sent boys off to die in brutal wars that did not directly impact us.  We introduced policies to keep ourselves white.  We refused to engage with our Asian neighbours.  For years, we did all these things to retain a perverse Anglo heritage and position.  

Like the frontier sentry on the eve of battle, we developed a neurotic intolerance to anything we are not, anything that would threaten our position as a great European outpost, anything that would contaminate and cast uncertainty on our self-image.  We told ourselves: we are not Asian, we are not aboriginal, we are not Muslim ... and we clearly aren't French either.  These things are "the other" and we were united, like wide-eyed pioneers huddled around the camp fire, by our fear and resentment of them.  It's Us or Them - only one can prevail.

While, no doubt, our sense of identity has matured as a nation, the ghosts of our fear and isolation can still be heard.  They can be heard in our histrionics about turning the boats around.  They can be heard in the words of the whitest man in the country seeking to define who is an "authentic" aboriginal, as opposed to one raised in captivity presumably.  They can be heard in a bus load of thugs yelling, "Speak English or die!" They can be heard in institutionalised discrimination against single mothers.  It's Us or Them, they whisper.

Perhaps I am being unfair to the Australia psyche.  Maybe fear of "the other" is a human condition - there's plenty of psychological research to suggest this is the case.  But should we accept this status?  Surely, it is incumbent upon us as a society - if not a species - to evolve?  But just as you can't pick yourself up by your shoe laces, we can't move forward as a society without leadership from those who define our social narrative.  And here, of course, lays our essential failing: that we tolerate, and thereby tacitly endorse, a narrative of conflict, threat and anxiety.

Even in the commentary from some of those raging against the actions of those troglodytes on that bus, we see the philosophy of divisiveness and vilification.  Take for example the profoundly stupid words of The Age crime reporter, John Silvester: 

I cannot recall hearing anyone I know under 25 making a racist or homophobic comment. I know plenty twice that age who still think The Black and White Minstrel Show was cutting-edge culture.

John Silvester (above) - social commentator par excellence

Apart from being delusional, unhelpful and possibly the dumbest thing I've heard outside an Adam Sandler film, here we again see the media setting up divisions where none existed and none are necessary. It's Us or Them ... and They are everywhere we turn.  

Make no mistake, our yobs on that bus were not alone... [fades to static]


Wednesday 14 November 2012

What's Left?

Like most 1 year olds, my little boy’s choice of toys is both amusing and a little deflating.  Having just bought him a life-size plush dog to play with, it was with mixed emotions that I watched him ignore it in favour of an empty cornflakes box.  While I was busy wondering how long I’ll be able to get away with giving him empty boxes for Xmas, my attention was snapped back as the box went skidding across the floor in a fit of temper.  With some developmental significance that is entirely lost on me, his favourite game at the moment is putting stuff in other stuff.  In this case, he had put his toy shovel inside the cornflakes box and could get it back out again. An impressive tantrum ensued.  The arms were flapping and the feet stamping in way that couldn’t help but remind me of Karl Rove (while immediately consoling myself with the fact that my boy is only one and will grow out of this behaviour).

I didn't want those cornflakes anyway!

Being more than just excellent YouTube fodder, Rove’s childish antics on the night of the US elections highlight a deeper point.  As a good friend of mine once put it, “Those tory bastards believe their rightful position is in government.”  When you honestly believe you’ve been born to rule, losing must be such an insult to the natural order that a petulant display of primitive emotion is the only available and appropriate reaction.  It almost makes Rove and the whole Fox News menagerie seem human.  Almost.

In Australia, the centre-right Liberal Party is not as vulgar or aggressive as their Republican colleagues in this attitude. But the belief is still there and permeates much of the media in the form on an ingrained and implicit narrative that the Liberal Party is the party of government and that Labor is nothing but big spending, economically dodgy, hopelessly factionalised and mired in dirty Union politics.  Liberal “believers” see themselves and their party as above politics – a movement of rationality and order.  God bless ‘em. The reality, of course, is that a political party is a political party is a political party (the clue, folks, is in the name).  Even our gracious benefactors in the Liberal Party have shown they are not above making mileage out of drowning children, buying votes or having the occasional public factional hissy fit.

But when you just know you have a god-given right to rule, you have a vested interest in the status quo.  Thus, in the Liberal Party, in among the dusty relics of conservative values, we see strict leadership structures and obedience, and a largely administrative policy base, where efficiency is the watch-word.

This is where the opportunity for the Left exists and where much of the antagonism toward the Gillard government may stem.

If the Right is born to rule, the Left must earn that privilege.  There is little value then in the Left trying to do so solely on a platform of efficiency and “responsible government”. The Right owns these virtues.  Rather, we look to the Left for ideas, change and innovation – a creative humanist agenda with a leadership willing take a risk on the big idea.  At its best, the Right delivers us an efficient world, where we all advance, albeit not in step.  The Left, at its best, makes us want to be fairer and proud in that fairness.  It makes us want to be better – better as individuals and better as a nation.

The Australian Labor Party has a record of this kind of creative humanism, with the introduction of universal healthcare, expansion of higher and vocational education, a re-orientation of our nation away from Europe to embrace our Asian neighbours, a robust social welfare system and more.  Big ideas.  It’s not that Labor owns social justice issues, I’m told there are some bleeding-hearts left in the Liberal camp, it’s that Labor – the Left – are willing to directly affect social issues through a policy agenda of active change from the ground up, rather than the top down.  So the Left gives us Medicare and a better, inclusive education system – building the substrate of social development.  The Right gives us “The Intervention” in Indigenous communities and, before that, The Stolen Generation – policies premised in that innate belief that “we know best”.

And so we come to the Gillard government.  It’s very failing has been to allow big ideas to be transmuted into administrative reform.  On the issue of the environment and climate change, the solution is a new tax.  On the issue of an equitable sharing of wealth from the nation’s mineral resources, the solution is another tax.  On the issue of refugees, the solution is bureaucratic: offshore processing.  On the issue of education, the solution is a website and metrics.  These are not the inspiring and aspirational policies that people look to from the Left.  In fact, they look a little and sound a little like a conservative, administrative agenda ... but this duck don’t quite waddle right and don’t quite quack right.

Lost your pluck?

Now, much that is written here may be unduly influenced by fondness for things passed or even selective memory, but the point remains: by failing to provide an agenda of ideas, a politics of hope and inspiration, the Gillard government has violated our expectations.  It is this violation that has marginalised Labor in the minds of many in our community, even among the “true believers”.  The spite often directed at Gillard is too vicious to be the spite resulting from poor governance (especially when, by global measures, we’re actually doing OK).  It is the spite of a broken promise.  Not just a specific promise, like never introducing a carbon tax, but a larger promise – perhaps reinforced by the fact that Gillard is our first female PM – of fresh ideas to build confidence in ourselves and raise up our view of ourselves. 

The essential promise of the Left is and must be: our ideas are better. If the Left moves to administrate rather than inspire, to a politics of efficiency rather than aspiration, it will be doomed.  It simply can’t play that dry game as well as the Right and, anyway, what reason would we have to vote for them – why go for the hybrid when we already have those who were born to rule in this vein?  Indeed, the cultural legacy of the Howard years is an Australia largely focussed on entitlement and selfishness – a national psyche of demand and gratification.  We need political leadership from the Left to change our view of what is important and what is possible.  We need an agenda of ideas ... [fades to static]

Tuesday 13 November 2012

Taxi!

I have to confess that I am an avid cyclist.  For me, there are few things in life that match the freedom of riding quietly through beautiful country-side, climbing high above the plains to a majestic view and being entranced by the rhythm of your own breathing.  The bike is an important part of the spiritual aspect of my life.  It brings liberation, contemplation, accomplishment and cleansing suffering.  Others, however, chose more formalised forms of spirituality – going to church or saying grace or throwing acid on their children.  There are, it seems, so many ways to express your spiritual dimension these days. So who can possibly say which expressions are right or wrong?

Well, actually, we do have a system for assessing right and wrong, for defining what is acceptable and what is not, for reflecting our (so-called) shared values and norms. It’s called, The Law.  While it might be imperfect, it might even be an ass, it is the only system we have and the only system to which we all account.  Unless, of course, you belong to the Catholic Church.

There are many, many disturbing things emerging from the current child rape scandal engulfing the Church.  On most of these issues, however, there is not much most of us can add to the debate, other than our vitriol, deep sympathy for the victims and a short, but still heart-felt, fuck you to George Pell.   However, there is one issue that each of us should be concerned, maybe even vocal, about:  it is this sense that the Catholic Church exists above the law. 

The “sanctity” of the confessional box is an obvious example of this.  In all other areas of our community, if an individual were to confess a crime to you, it would be your obligation to report that to the authorities in the interests of the society in which you live. The premise is harm minimisation – we are obligated to act to help reduce the harm that individual can do to our community.  However, put on a funny robe, say you believe in fairies at the bottom of the garden and different rules apply.  The obligation to society, the Catholics would have us believe, is secondary to an obligation to a process that was invented by the Church in the middle-ages as a fundraising and social control mechanism.  The sanctity of the confessional box, in this instance, is not just an affront to the victims of any confessed crime, it is an affront – a fuck you – to our society.  That there is reputedly evidence that information obtained through confessionals has been used not to bring perpetrators within the Church to justice, but to whisk them away beyond the reach of the law, if true, suggests an organisation of unbridled evil.

The Catholic Church may not be, to use George Pell’s flippant words, “the only cab on the rank” in terms of child rape, but they are the only one that is more concerned about the vile passengers inside the cab than those they share the road with.

Come all ye faithfull, jump in the only cab on the rank...

It is, however, a mistake to think that this Catholic sense of priorities is just linked to old rituals and ancient rites.  In light of previous abuse scandals the Church triumphantly introduced The Melbourne Response.  A formal process of complaint investigation, counselling and compensation for sexual abuse (ironically, a response that would seem unnecessary for an organisation that says it does not have “a systemic problem of sexual abuse”).

At the heart of The Melbourne Response is the complaint review process.  This process is conducted by an Independent Commissioner (well, as independent as you can be when you’re paid by the group you’re investigating).  The official publication on The Melbourne Response from the Archdiocese of Melbourne says this about the Independent Commissioner:

An Independent Commissioner receives complaints and enquires into allegations of sexual abuse ... The Independent Commissioner then makes a determination on the basis of the evidence.  When the Commissioner is satisfied that the abuse occurred, the Commissioner notifies the Archbishop about the offender and refers the victim to Carelink [a counselling service]

Again, we see writ large the moral arrogance of the Church.  To promote a process of criminal investigation where the first step is to report the alleged crime to an internal agency, rather than the police, plants the seeds of corruption.  To have that internal agency then stand as the authority on what has or has not occurred provides the shelter and nurturing those seeds need to grow. 

Whether or not The Melbourne Response is implemented without fear or favour is irrelevant.  It is not the Catholic Church’s role or privilege to police itself.  To assume such privilege speaks volumes about the moral compass of the Church.  To allow such privilege to persist requires us to say nothing.  Perhaps it’s time we all tell that cab to get off the road ... [fades to static]


Saturday 10 November 2012

Chasing Ordinary

As the Melbourne Spring Racing Carnival comes to an end, we're reminded how much Australians love a roughie.  The under-dog, the long-shot chance, that jumps up and rolls the preening favourite.  We're even willing to overlook the fact that the ole nag might be doped to the gills with enough EPO and steroids to win the Tour de France, or is being ridden by a jockey of questionable ethics, or is from the stable of a trainer whose family of bookmakers stand to make more when said trainer's horses lose.  None of this matters too much.  It's the under-dog story we fall in love with every time.  And why not?  It's a good story after all.

It is perhaps recognition of this sentiment, inflamed by the election result in the US, that has the Australian Liberal Party starting to look a little panicky.  Rather than the muscular, shiny-coated, unbeatable stallion of old, they're now acting more like a flighty gelding. While this transformation may have been initiated by some clever politics to compromise Liberal leader Tony Abbott's form of masculinity, the election results from the US have further tempered the gelder's knife. 

The sensitive new age Liberal Party

Romney ran too negative, too conflictual, too extreme, the pundits began saying late last week.  The theme - whether right or wrong - was picked up  by those in the Liberal Party with, shall we say, less than total commitment to the current leadership arrangements.  On Sunday morning, we were greeted with these comments from the allegorically-named Malcolm Turnbull:

"The lesson for everybody is that if you run off to the extreme in politics ... you lose the credibility of the middle ground.  Elections are won in the middle ground."

Turnbull's comments were in the context of calling on his Party's leader to release policy detail rather than continuing to engage in the increasingly shrill game of emotive point-scoring that is the current political debate.  On first pass, the message seems almost noble: policy first.  But as Turnbull parades around the mounting yard, I can't help but think that maybe there's something of a limp there.

"Elections are won in the middle ground."

The implications of this statement are at once saddening and worrying.  Saddening because it speaks to a politics without conviction - a space where ideology and belief are replaced with the creeping decay of compromise and comfort.  A politics of "the line of best fit", where the game is to be ordinary rather than to offer a truly distinct, organised, coherent and challenging vision that is "right" for the country, even if some may not share it.  A world where Voltaire might have said, "I'm not sure if I disagree with what you say until the focus group results are in."  But if failure of conviction simply makes one a bit wistful, its bastard child - poll-driven policy - should make us weep.

The problem is that "the middle ground" is a vague and movable concept - the kind of concept that may really only be defined in hindsight ... and, like all history, it is defined by the victor.  So when political parties detach from ideology and positions of principle, they end up chasing the middle ground rather than leading it.  Not only do they risk losing their identity in the process, they risk giving up the chance to make a better society (according to their own philosophy, of course).  The result is a society of cyclical stagnation, where other factors start to shape political direction.  As we move toward a future, or at least an era, of individualisation and atomisation, driven by technological and cultural forces that emphasise the importance of "me", the idea of political leaders "chasing ordinary" in this environment seems a little unnerving ... [fades to static]

Wednesday 7 November 2012

The Home of the Brave

Mr President, I am very pleased to say that you have let me down.  When I started this blog, I did so out of disappointment, frustration and disgust at the standard and tone of public discourse. I did not expect to be so quickly knocked back on my heels by an impressive statement by a politician.  Even though that statement, utlimately, leads one to lament the quality of political leaders we have here in our country.

If you haven’t read it yet, Barack Obama’s victory speech makes some very interesting reading, especially to an Australian audience.  While Obama spoke in English, the language is foreign to us.  Foreign because we here in the wide-brown land have become accustomed to a negative and pernicious style of politicking.  Of course, an American presidential campaign is about as vicious a political dog-fight as can be imagined. But, on Tuesday night, I heard Obama do something that I cannot recall an Australian politician doing ... ever.  He appealed directly and meaningfully to the angels of our better nature.

“We believe in a generous America, in a compassionate America, in a tolerant America open to the dreams of an immigrant’s daughter who studies in our schools and pledges to our flag...,” he said.  The contrast with the tone of commentary from some of the political leadership in Australia around issues like gay marriage and asylum seekers is stark and saddening.  It is at the point now in this country that it is actually disconcerting to hear a political leader speak of generosity, compassion and hope.  Such language would provoke a cynical response in us.  We have been trained to forego humanism in favour of selfishness.  Australian audiences do not ask: what kind of country do I want to live in?  They ask: what’s the impact on my wallet?  This is our measure of leadership. Politics has become a contest of who can keep us most comfortable by turning back the boats of change and challenge.  May the best man win.

Compare for a moment the depth and positivity of Obama’s message with a recent speech by Victorian Premier, Ted Baillieu to his party’s State Conference:

We came to government facing enormous challenges. I think everybody in this room understands that. First of all, the economic challenges we’ve seen from the international scene in Europe and America, almost economic earthquakes in their own right. Secondly, the continuing economic and political uncertainty that’s unravelling from Canberra and continues to, and that’s about leadership; it’s about taxes, whether it’s the mining tax, the carbon tax or withholding taxes; whether it’s about policy, uncertainty about occupational health and safety, education, healthcare, the NDIS; whether it’s about the Federal Budget deficit or mounting federal debt; whether it’s about relationships with the states, unfair and uncertain GST and national partnership arrangements; and whether it’s about dud deals that the Commonwealth’s done, including the Rudd health reforms. There has been abiding uncertainty.

Perhaps explaining his reputation as a “do nothing” leader, we see that in Baillieu’s world view fear, uncertainty and doubt reign supreme.  The speech goes on (and on and on) to discuss the woes of construction costs, the status of specific government projects, intra-government relations and, of course, the failings of the Opposition.  The language is bureaucratic.  The vision does not extend beyond disconnected projects and promises.  The values are economic, rather than human.  But this is not just Baillieu’s narrative, it is the prevailing political narrative in this country.

The brave genius in Obama’s speech lays not in his appeal to our “warm and fuzzy” sides, but in his invocation of mutual obligation.  That long forgotten notion (in Australia at least) that everyone must give something back for something they get.  In Australia, we have been told that we are “battlers” or “working families” and, therefore, entitled to our middle-class welfare.  Obama, however, reminds Americans: “The role of citizens in our democracy does not end with your vote ... This country only works when we accept certain obligations to one another and to future generations, so that the freedom which so many Americans have fought and died for comes with responsibilities as well as rights...”

A society based on compassion and tolerance, where citizens embrace their responsibilities to each other and the greater good.  While, as an outsider, we may cynically conclude that America is about a million miles from Obama’s vision, inspiration lays in the fact that there is a political leader who holds such a vision and is not afraid to articulate it.  Let’s hope this bravery is contagious ... [fades to static]

Tuesday 6 November 2012

Welcome to the White Noise

Recently, I was privileged enough to find myself addressing a gathering of CEOs discussing the challenges facing their industry.  Unlike your typical caricature of corporate captains planning how to run the world, they were a well-meaning lot, who had been manipulated into a tight spot and were desperately trying to find some way out that would not only protect their shareholders, but also the wider Australian economy.  It was almost enough to renew your faith in corporate Australia.

Their industry had been quietly going about its business until someone, somewhere decided to make a political football of it in the midst of a complex public policy debate.  These CEOs were now having to adapt to life in the public spotlight - kind of like evolution with the fast-forward button on, where any mis-step sees you removed from the gene pool.  But the travails of these CEOs and their industry are not remarkable.  This story is repeated every day and, in any event, public scrutiny is rarely a bad thing, especially in a field where it's been missing, and dealing with issues like this is what CEOs get paid for.  What is remarkable is the way out of this position in which they find themselves.

Like most newbies to the crucible of public opinion, their instincts were to attack the issue with, and I quote, "reason and truth". If only we could just explain, they said, people would understand why things are the way they are.  We just need to clarify, educate and make things transparent.  We have nothing to hide after all.  Reason and truth - that's what this debate needs.

They were, of course, 100% correct.  What a hysterical, politicised public policy debate does need is reason and truth.  How else do we arrive at sensible public policy, rather than glib one-line "solutions" with all the depth of a Lady Gaga track?  However, it was my bitter duty to stand at this point and say, "Ladies and Gents, reason and truth will not carry the day."  No-one really needed me to explain why.

On another occasion, I found myself in a Board meeting of a well-known sporting organisation discussing an important strategic decision.  The Board, to their credit, recognised that too little information was available to make a good decision.  They resolved to conduct further research and instructed the CEO to report back at the next meeting.  Meeting adjourned.  That evening, a senior "respected" journalist breathlessly reported that a decision had been reached and that the organisation had embarked on a particular direction.  Hard hitting journalism at its fanciful best.  Clearly, when a journalist says, "It is understood that...", what they really mean is, "Once upon a time...".

Interestingly, the organisation ended up taking the complete opposite direction to that reported and, two years later, no-one has raised a question over the credibility of said journalist.


Caroline says...


Again, to anyone who has dealt with the news media, a story like this is unremarkable.  In the every day war between audience numbers, journalists' egos and the efforts of spin doctors, the truth becomes the first casualty.  The effects of this collateral damage are wide reaching and destructive.

It is said in politics that a government is only as good as its opposition.  While it still may be true that a government will only perform to the degree to which it is held to account, this saying doesn't reflect the new balance of power in the world of public policy.  A government, these days, is only as good as its media.

The media, for its part, has made its position clear: we want it simple, we want it popular, we want it emotive and we want it quick ... and if we don't get these things, we'll just make it up anyway.  The media has reduced public discourse to a Kafka-esque reality TV show where the clever and forthright are maligned and voted off.

This is why one can stand in a room of CEOs and tell them "reason and truth" will not win their complex public policy debate and be met with only deflated acceptance.

This is why our politicians fear adopting positions of leadership and providing a vision for our nation beyond just a patchwork of muddled policies, each targeted to a particular demographic.

This is why talk-back serpents fill the void of moral authority, engorged on base emotions.


Tougher penalties for acts of public indecency?  Call now, our lines are open!


This is why we're fuelled by fear and loathing, and distracted by noise and half-truths.

This is why I have chosen to start this blog - to provide a different voice (whether it be mine or a guest author) on what's happening in the now derelict palace of public discourse. 

Hope you enjoy the ride ... [fades to static]