Vol. 6 No. 6 July1 August 1996 $5.95

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A whole library in one black box. Spice your winter reading with 60 pocket-sized editions of the classics, including Aristophanes, Balzac, Cervantes, Conrad, St Augustine, Dante, Darwin, George Eliot, Plato, Charlotte Bronte, Edgar Allan Poe and Edith Wharton.

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Australian Book Revie-w

Australian Volunteers Abroad (AVAs) work the essential magazine in many occupations in Asia, Africa, the Pacific and Latin America. Lengths of assignment vary, for Australian books but are usually up to two years. Salaries are modest but cover overseas living costs. IN JULY: You may be a qualified professional or lnga Clendinnen reviews Robert Manne's tradesperson looking for a change, or perhaps The Culture of Forgetting a recent graduate wanting to gain experience, or maybe a retiree with skills and knowledge Henry Reynolds reviews Ted Egan's to share ... Justice All Their Own If you 're interested in finding out about the AVA program, contact the Overseas Service Bureau. Jack Hibberd on the screenplays of Cosi and Bad Boy Bubby Appl ications are being rece ived now. An essay by Liam Davison

And a symposium on the Public Intellectual

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2 EUREKA STREET • JmY/Auc usT 1996 Volume 6 Number 6 EURI:-KA SJRI:-ET July/August 1996 A magazine of public affairs, the arts and theology

36 CoNTENTS THE CONTEXT OF ABUSE Peter Lynch traces the history of sexual abuse in the Church. 4 COMMENT 38 BOUGAINVILLE ESCALATES 7 James Griffin details the new hostilities. CAPITAL LETTER 41 If we are a third-rate 8 OUR REPUBLICAN HERITAGE HIGHER EDUCATION SPECIAL Australia is republican in essentials, economy, then we can It's not looking good, say Tony Coady, argues Philip Pettit. only afford a third-rate Bruce Williams, Jon Greenaway, and Desmond &Roland Manderson. 46 'quality of life', SCEPTICISM AND TABOOS including third-rate 13 What can be gleaned from the LETTERS Demidenko debate, asks Raimond Gaita. higher education. 16 And if it is true that 50 FOREIGN CORRESPONDENCE BOOKS the sacred cow of David Braddon-Mitchell argues that Peter Steele looks for golden pavements tolerance is not enough in New Zealand 'privatisation' affords in The Oxford Book of Londoni racial politics. Max Teichmann has reservations illusory comfort, about Daniel Jonah Goldhagen's 18 Hitler's Willing Executioners {p52}i then our situation is ONE VOTE NO Jon Greenaway reviews R.M. Eversz's very dark indeed. Frank Brennan suggests that the US Shooting Elvis {p56) . Bill of Rights won't transplant here. -Tony Coady, The market 55 place of ideas, p8 . 22 IN MEMORIAM TALKING ON THE PRIVATE LINE Juliette Hughes pays tribute to Gerard Goggin and John Quiggin argue Ella Fitzgerald. that the privatisation of Telstra will be no party. 57 Cover: What's on the Australian MUCH LESS MIS-ERY EN SCENE mind. Graphic by Tim Metherall, 27 Geoffrey Milne records developments in design by Siobhan Jackson. ARCHIMEDES recent Aboriginal Theatre.

Photograph p6 by Greg Scullin. Graphics pp8, 10, by Tim Metherall. 28 59 Photographs ppl1-12 by Jon Greena­ CONTEMPT FOR THE LAW FLASH IN THE PAN way. Do we do the law justice, asks Moira Reviews of the films The Last Supper; Graphi cs pp16, 17, 18- 19, 37, 46 Rayner. Shine; Richard IIi; Bitter Herbs and by Siobhan Jackson. Photograph pp22-23 by Bill Thomas. Honey; What I have Written; Cable Guy; Cartoons p24, 25, 26 by Dean Moore. 30 and of the history of the Swinburne Film Cartoon p28 by Andrew Marlton. RADIATING LIFE School, Renegades by Barbara Paterson Cartoons pp31, 32, 33, 34 by Robyn Cooper heads off a brain tumour. (p61). Peter Fraser. Photograph p41 by Andrew Stark. Eureka Street magazine 35 62 Jesuit Publications POETRY WATCHING BRIEF PO Box 553 Too Man y Mira cles, & Bad Dreams, Ri chmond VIC 3 12 1 Christmas Eve (p39) by Peter Porter. 63 Tcll03) 9427 73 11 Ballad, by Dimitris Tsaloumas (p47). Fax 103) 9428 4450 SPECIFIC LEVITY

VOLUME 6 NUMBER 6 • EUREKA STREET 3 CoMMENT

I:URI:-KA STRI:-£1" MORAG FRASER A magazine of public affairs, the arts and theology Publisher Michael Kelly SJ Winners Editor Morag Fraser Consulting editor Michael McGirr SJ Assistant editor Jon Greenaway

Production assistants: Paul Fyfe SJ, Juliette Hughes, Chris Jenkins SJ, Amy Block, Siobhan Jackson, Dan Disney I Nrue W>NTm wm that Nod Pca,on announced hi''"~ Contributing editors ignation from the Northern Land Council and made the de­ Adelaide: Greg O'Kelly SJ cision to hang up his shingle elsewhere, it was cheering, and Brisbane: Ian Howells SJ in some ways consoling, to get some good news about other Perth: Dean Moore Australians who have also devoted much of their working Sydney: Edmund Campion, Andrew Riemer, lives to the betterment of their people. Gerard Windsor Last year Jack Waterford (above left), editor of the European correspondent: Damien Simonis Canbena Times, wrote a long profile for Eureka Street of H. C. ('Nugget') Coombs (right), the man whose signature was Editorial board for so long on Australian banknotes, one of the now endan­ Peter L'Estrangc SJ (chair), gered breed of grand-vision public servants. Jack described Margaret Coady, Margaret Coffey, Nugget Coombs as a man who 'had been the greatest living Valda M. Ward RSM, Trevor Hales, Australian for so long that he has almost vanished into the Marie Joyce, Kevin McDonald, scenery, his nagging and very modern messages almost tak­ Jane Kelly IB VM, Peter Steele SJ, Bill Uren SJ en for granted.' With the shape of Australian institutions and Austral­ Business manager: Sylvana Scannapiego ian assumptions mutating around us, it is bracing to listen Advertising representative: Ken Head to those nagging and very modern m essages of Nugget Patrons Coombs. 'What I want to do with such time as I have left is Eureka Street gratefully acknowledges the support of Colin and Angela Carter; the to look at what Aborigines are doing where they are in some trustees of the estate of Miss M. Condon; position to make choices. There's some very exciting stuff,' Denis Cullity AO; W.P. & M.W. Gurry; he told Jack. At the time he was 89. Jack remarked then that Geoff Hill and Janine Perrett; Nugget was visibly frail and just a little conscious of his the Roche family. mortality. 'But not slowing down.' Well, the judges at this year's Australian Religious Press Eurelw Street magazine, ISSN 1036-1758, Association and the Australasian Catholic Press Association Australia Post Print Post approved endorsed Jack Waterford's view of Nugget Coombs and paid pp349181 /00314 tribute to the man himself when both bodies awarded Jack's is published ten times a year profile the prize for best Australian feature article for the by Eureka Street Magazine Pty Ltd, 1995-1996 season. Their award is for fine journalism that 300 Victoria Street, Richmond, Victoria 3121 looks beyond the story of the day but is alive to what makes Tel: 03 942 7 73 11 Fax: 03 9428 4450. e-mail: [email protected] the day matter. Responsibility for editorial content is accepted by They are a tribute to an exemplary life, and to mastery Michael Kelly, 300 Victoria Street, Richmond. of the journalist's craft, but their essential focus is towards Printed by Doran Printing, the future. 46 Industrial Drive, Braeside VIC 3 195. Still in celebratory mood: Eureka Street is also delighted © Jesuit Publications 1996. to announce that the Australasian Catholic Press Associa­ Unsolicited manuscripts, including poetry and tion's award for best social justice feature went to our regu­ fiction, will be returned only if accompanied by a lar columnist, Moira Rayner, and the best photograph award stamped, self-addressed envelope. Requests for to our photographer Bill Thomas. Eureka Street has long been permission to reprint material from the magazine in debt to both for their zest and skill. It is a fine thing to see should be addressed in writing to: them thus acknowledged. The editor, Eurelw Street magazine, This is our winter double issue. See you again in Spring. PO Box 553, Richmond VIC 3 121 . -Morag Fraser

4 EUREKA STREET • jULY/AUGUST 1996 COMMENT: 2 JoHNS. LEV1 Masada versus McDonald's

0 NL Y tN ISRAH COUW RWGtON •nd politiCS bt Damascus is the home of a dozen radical anti-Israel so closely linked. Only in Israel could there be two guerrilla groups. versions of the McDonald's hamburger franchise. In During the recent cease-fire negotiations, most one the 'Big Macs' and milk shakes are sold indis­ Israelis must have asked themselves how a fruitful criminately. In the other the biblical and rabbinical dialogue with Syrian President Assad could be restrictions concerning food are enforced. The meat expected after he contemptuously kept the American and the buns must be kosher. Milk and meat prod­ Secretary of State cooling his heels at the Damascus ucts may not be mixed and cheeseburgers are there­ airport. Yasser Arafat may well have sealed the fate fore off the menu! To make matters even more of Shimon Peres when he eulogised 'the engineer' complicated, the most popular non-kosher Israeli Yahia Ayyash, the master of the suicide bombers, by McDonald's flourishes in the centre of modern Jeru­ saluting him as 'a martyr'. salem only a few hundred metres from the ultra The new Israeli electoral system allowed voters orthodox heartland of the country. The fate of those to elect deputies to the Knesset in the same way that cheeseburgers will now be decided by the power, or we elect representatives to the Australian Senate. In the restraint, of Israel's orthodox religious parties in addition a separate ballot slip gave the electorate the the newly elected Knesset. chance to directly choose the Prime Minister. Under Israel is a very small country whose population this system, it is said, Israelis voted for their new is obsessed with its abundance of history. The Prime Minister with their heads and for their party astonishing fortress of Masada built by King Herod list with their hearts. Having pragmatically stands by the Dead Sea on the edge of the great rift nominated the most appropriate national leader, the valley that now defines the political border between voters felt 'free' to choose a smaller party that repre­ Israel and the Kingdom of Jordan. Excavations sented their factional allegiance. It was not a matter continue at the ancient site. Fragments of parchment, of 'keeping the bastards honest' but rather an injec­ ostraca, fringed prayer shawls, are still being tion of ethnic, religious and ideological preference. uncovered. They testify to the last desperate stand In this way the conservative party Likud, together made by the Jews against the Roman Empire more with its even more right-wing partner Tsomet, fell than 1900 years ago. from 40 seats to 32 while the orthodox religious bloc Every day tourists visiting Masada's ruins duck expanded by seven seats to a formidable 23. However, their heads as armed Israeli Air Force jets zoom low because Mr Bibi Netanyahu, whose facade of respect over the mountain fortress on their way to their base for traditional religious values is all too transparent, 'somewhere' in the Negev desert. Nearby, at Dimona, has been chosen directly by the electorate, the entire is Israel's nuclear reactor. It is a witness to the popu­ parliament must go back to the people if the Knesset lar strategic maxim that 'Masada shall not fall a ever rejects the administration that he has second time'. Israel's new right-wing government will stitched together. be judged on its defence policy. Will it withdraw into a defensive, and perhaps suicidal, posture that relies ISRAELI EQUI VA LE NT of an Australian double upon its punitive power or will it exercise restraint dissolution is unlikely to happen. According to and continue the search for peace with its highly Professor Asher Maoz of Tel Aviv University, who is suspicious and volatile neighbours? an expert on the relationship of religion to the state: There can be no doubt that Israel's democratic 'Those who managed to enter the Knesset won't be process has slowed down the movement towards so eager to try their luck again. That means peace. Peres was often seen by his electorate as shout­ Netanyahu is much less of a hostage. As a matter of ing into the wind and, sadly, it became painfully latitude he would like to satisfy [the religious parties] obvious that, apart from King Hussein of Jordan, the but he is much less in their hands than under the old Arab world was reluctant to develop a positive atti­ system.' So McDonald's in Jerusalem may well be tude towards Israel. After years of a very 'cold peace', saved. Soccer matches will still be played on the tourist traffic between Israel and Egypt is still all one Sabbath. Cinemas will be open on Friday night and way. Islamic extremism has made Cairo very nervous. the bus service will run (though not in Jerusalem!). Only American Presidential pressure could force a However, in matters of personal religious status, very uneasy President Mubarak to Jerusalem for power may well be handed over to the orthodox Rabin's funeral. Syria gleefully helps Iran supply establishment. The ultra-orthodox, who rule the reli­ Hezbollah with plane-loads of ammunition, and gious roost in Israel, have a Masada-like attitude

V O LUME 6 N UM BER 6 • EUREKA STREET 5 towards everyone else. The non-Jewish world has long been in the June 1996 election. Sadly, the more power exerted by the identified as hostile. They are also besieged by a Jewish world orthodox, the m ore severe will be the break between the non­ that no longer believes in the eternal verities of their sacred orthodox diaspora and their secular cousins in Israel. writ nor, because of their sharp political and bu iness deals, in For the time being the Israelis are more or less content to their personal probity. It is only through legislative fiat that leave matters of religion to the m en with the black hats. The their beliefs can be imposed on a non-believing public. Jews of the diaspora will only feel alienated by a Jewish State Ultimately, orthodoxy's grip m ay well be broken by an that is seen to be intolerant of liberal and democratic va lues.• emerging coalition of secularist groups. Every jumbo-jet load of secular Jewish migrants from the former Soviet Union dimin­ John S. Levi is Senior Rabbi at the Temple Beth Israel and a ishes that unprecedented power handed to the religious parties member of the Victorian Union for Progressive Judaism.

COMMENT: 3

M AX T EICHMANN Gun La-ws and voices from the bush

T,o"M"'Nc" CA>C' tumouts of But there are few of the familial, people opposing the banning of auto­ nostalgic links here. Different lives m atic and semi-automatic weapons, always. and the vehemence of the feelings So the bush felt, as long as they expressed-no tokenism, no street leave us alone to fend for ourselves, theatre here-shocked a lot of us. we'll do our own thing. A modus More predictable was the opportun­ vivendi. But now-their economical­ istic formation of a new catch-all ly topsy-turvy world has been invad­ party, running together gun laws, ed by N ew Class values and projects immigration, and heaven knows what pushed through media and school, else, to pick up the disenchanted vote. with rising regulation and interfer­ So were the ructions in big sections ence by people on the make, with no of the Nationals. Many chickens have come hom e to roost. empathy. The gun laws are just the last straw. Of course resource The first one is the culture of permanent demonstration, use had to be changed and Native Title problems tackled-but much indulged in recent years, for often trivial reasons. I have why the medi a-driven scapegoating, the m elodrama and polar­ feared the denouement of this for som e time. In the end others isa tion? Counter-productive. may take it up, with menacing effect. 'He who rules the streets Country people are feeling marginalised and see themselves rules Germ any', as Goebbels said. The daily slagging of the as underprivileged. And perhaps they are. The underprivileged Australian police, is not in season, I suggest. often kick back. And they see much smaller, single-issue groups More importantly, were these country people really only given the inside running-but not them, a whole community. protesting against the gun laws? I heard one woman say 'We've So they are forcing us to listen. lost everything!' Was this just hype, melodrama picked up from As to guns: murder, gun violence and crazies generally, are the media way of doing things? Alternatively, what could she city problem s, spawned by the violence-addicted m edia and the m ean? Possibly a melange of old established rural perceptions. collapse of school and family. Why shunt blame onto farmers? People in the country feel isolated from urban Australia: taken Reformists should tackle the roots of this city Ramboism. Of for granted, rarely consulted, easily overridden by the force of course farmers don't need automatic weapons. How did they electoral numbers. The party they created is impotent on its get on before? They put down sick animals and culled others. own, but a prisoner in alliance with either city party. The m edia Guns are for killing or wounding people or crea tures. Soldiers either ignore or patronise them. They feel powerless. don't play with guns, and I've known very few ex-soldiers who Their vital economic contributions are downplayed and put keep guns, except as mementos. Been there, done that; it's a last-though for a long time they were the spine of our econom y, civilian hobby. But rapid-fire guns bestow omnipotence-they allowing the rest of us to take in one another's washing. They are the danger, for as Sartre said about anti-Semitism, 'It enables were being 'downsized' long before our workers or middle man­ any idiot to become a m ember of an elite'. agers. But who knew, who cared? And what about their kids? Finally, the press, having backed the ban, are now trying The city stereotypes are still Dad and Dave, or red-necked to flatter and publicise the dissenting conservatives-so as to Rambo. (Not like King Street, or our footy m atches.) If we m ove 'make trouble for Howard and Fischer'. 'The Accord is un­ to the country, we seek out other ex-city people or try to attract ravelling etc, etc.' Could anything be more destructive, or them. The gulf has always been there. In Oz, urban and coun­ contemptible' • try started off more or less simultaneously; not like Europe, or now Asia; viz. first the country then the urban aggregations. Max Teichmann is a freelance writer and reviewer.

6 EUREKA STREET • JuLY/AUGUST 1996 1 Efficiency spend nothing ~ T THE BEC>NNING OF THE SEASON, ] look The Government is now gravely disappointed and has over all the programs I am responsible for and distanced itself from some of the report's recommendations. It give them a notional mark out of ten for how bad a job I think is not, however, so much that some of the recommendations they are doing', a Commonwealth Department of Finance were courageous or contentious which was the disappointment: officer, now a permanent head, once told me enthusia tically, it was that the report failed to excite a rage against the profligacy in an effort to persuade me that he was scientific. 'And then I of the previous Government and provide a platfonn for some mark them out of ten according to how much money they are drastic action which could be blamed on Labor. In many re­ spending. I plot the co-ordinates of each program onto a chart. spects, indeed, the analysis (as opposed to the recommenda­ Then I go outside and put my finger up into the air and make a tions, most of which were taken from the back of the judgment-on a scale of one to ten-about how much the Gov­ department's Com Flakes packet) was quite thoughtful. ernment's in a cutting mood this year. Then I get a compass Forget, for example, the idea that the present middle and draw a curve on this number. Anything that's inside the generation is looting the birthright of future generations. If line is in for it from me this year'. anything, the research so far suggests the contrary. If there is Forget the economic rationalists and worry about the any problem of future generations being short-changed, it is accountants who are really running the show right now. from a lack of vision by modern-day politicians, particularly in Economic rationalism was at least about transparency and their focus on the budgetary bottom line, which has let public making the options clear, even if some heroic assumptions, investment in infrastructure decline. Australia spends at least especially about the workings of the market, were being made. 25 per cent less a year on public infrastructure than it did a But the politics of managing the bottom line, not least when generation ago, and, unlike most other industriali ed economies, politicians are giving no clear directions about what they want, the rate continues to fall. The fall is most marked at state and and when they are too gutless to talk about raising the revenue local government level, with only about half as much being side of the equation, are something else again. spent on fresh capital investment in roads, communications, One of the major functions of a Department of Finance is schools, health facilities and public housing. to cast a highly critical eye over the spending proposals of other Now while the report is impressive in providing warnings departments, and to test the rationales in support of them. It about the rising costs of caring for an ageing population, its has some bright minds who have demolished many a dream­ findings about the state of the national infrastructure are far er's woolly thinking and which has made not a few policy more complacent. There is no evidence that old levels of contributions of its own. But Finance, like Treasury, operates investment were optimal, the fall might be explained by other well only when there is a debate and when the politicians have factors and 'in short, economy-wide analyses convey little firm agendas. Putting them in charge with vague directions information about the adequacy and condition of public about squaring a balance sheet is a recipe for political disaster. infrastructure'. It's the more so when the department is obsessed with ideas The gap between the material and the report (well-laden and slogans about managing, and about reforming processes with slogans like 'risk-taking', 'best practice', 'risk manage­ without ever wondering why the processes are even there. ment', taken-as-read propositions about the need to throw out A tale going around senior public servants at the moment public service protections, develop a contract society and set tells of Finance's pulling out of its bottom drawer its assidu­ up 'purchaser-provider relationships') is breathtaking. Little ously compiled list of bete-noire programs. Finance, for exam­ wonder the Government has officially distanced itself from it. ple, hates publicly financed child care in any shape or form, is Its model for the reform of Commonwealth state relationships not terribly taken with special programs for any disadvantaged is, essentially, the transfer of most programs to the states, and groups, and is fixated with the idea that there should be no the contracting-out of all Commonwealth level services except competition for ideas or goods and services within the public the essential ones, such as, er, the Department of Finance. There administration. Every now and again a Finance Minister picks is ample material about 'incentivising' the poor but not a word up and runs with an item on the list-Peter Walsh was one of about the other side of the ledger. The commissioners and the its best marks-and sometimes, even, a win is recorded. In any department might retort that they were not asked about that, event, it is said, the department presented this list to John Fahey but neither were they asked for many of their recom­ in the early stages of this year's rounds of cuts. They came back n mendations about intergovernmental responsibilities. ticked, not as matters worth pursuing but as decisions made ready to be promulgated. Someone had to explain to him just L.TER COSTELLO HAS ADROITLY DISTANCED HIMSELF from anything how courageous this it might be. controversial within the report. But is any alternative agenda This year at least, however, the Department got its best being framed? A wise Budget Cabinet has at least a few heads opportunity for years to parade its intellectual wares. The with programs of their own, with some ability to take on the National Commission for Audit was asked to tell how it was. straighteners in debate and some instincts about where politi­ It was initially planned as a cheap stunt by Government to tell cal survival and following advice must diverge. If these are there us that the Government was broke, that it was all the previous now, it is not evident. • Government's fault and so on. The Commission was peopled by the business sector, but the secretariat, and most of the Jack Waterford is the editor of the Canberra Times. report, were pure Department of Finance.

VOLUME 6 NUMBER 6 • EUREKA STREET 7 THE NATION

T ONY COADY The market place of ideas

EmwHo G"DOATm fmm Au""l"u and communications. The belt-tightening universities should aim to become predomi­ universities as late as 1986 have a picture of motivation co-exists with another motivat­ nantly (and perhaps eventually, totally) self­ university education which is about as close ing belief: that all these activities should fu nding and market-driven. This tendency to the contemporary scene as wedding always have been the concern of private is reinforced by dubious resort to analogies photos from the 1930s are to contemporary enterprise, since they are businesses and are with what happens elsewhere in the world, video recordings of such events. Depending either more efficiently run for private gain especially in the United States. Under pres­ on your taste, the analogy may be more or more 'rightfully' so run since 'minimal' sure, the universities have moved further flattering than I mean it to be, but it brings government is morally desirable. This sec- and further in this direction although this out the radical nature of has produced serious the changes that have been The present clamour about Federal Government cuts to distortions in what they forced upon universities do and should aspire to do. (and in many cases enthu­ university funding has to be seen in the context of a decade One of the major prob­ siastically embraced by of dramatic changes in the nature of university education. lems is that countries like vice-chancellors) in that the United States main- time. The changes are due tain a significant number almost entirely to decisions made by the ond motivation is comforting, because it of private universities by resort to very high Federal Labor administration beginning in helps us believe that a good standard of fees and large private benefactions. But the late 1980s and are associated principal! y services can be maintained by pushing the Australians are not psychologically prepared with Labor's 'reforming' Minister, John costs onto private providers. In some cases, for such fees and there are reasons to sec Dawkins. The new cuts threatened by the the comfort may be realistic, but there is them as socially regressive. In addition, we 1996 conservatives are being rightly resisted good reason to think that, for many areas, it do not have benefactors with the wealth and and decried but they do not represent any is mere moonshine, no more respectable for traditions of educational magnanimity that change of direction, merely a sudden accel­ being canonised by various 'economic ad­ America can boast. eration. Even if the cuts arc 'only' in the visers'. But even where the comfort is only Where there are reasonable benefactions region of 5 per cent they will mean a grim a delusion, the first motivation cannot be available, they seldom go to subjects and outcome for tertiary education, but this lightly dismissed. If we arc a third-rate disciplines that have no immediate utility, will be partly the result of the eroded posi­ economy, then we can only afford a third­ such as classical studies, pure mathematics tion that universities have now reached. rate 'quality of life', including third-rate or philosophy. Overwhelmingly, our 'exter­ When the proposed Dawkins 'reforms' higher education. And if it is true that the nal' funding helps support such things as first appeared in the Green Paper of 1988, it sacred cow of 'privatisation' affords illusory business and management schools, applied was clear to me that behind the barely comfort, then our situation is very dark medical research, and technology. By con­ comprehensible jargon of management, indeed. trast, in the US there is plentiful outside excellence, productivity and equity, the real Politicians and other 'leaders', like the funding for humanities research; Princeton drive of the proposals could be seen as a rest of us, find this very hard to face . So we University's Center for Human Values determination by the government to retreat prefer to think that retreating from the public which hosts research by philosophers and from the solid financial support of higher support of major social institutions will not political theorists was founded in 1991 by a education that had been a hallmark of previ­ only save money but improve the institu­ grant of $20 million (US) from Laurence ous policy. At the time, I did not realise the tions. Whether this is true or not is a matter Rockefeller. In Australia, $200,000 from an extent to which this retreat would go, but it for empirical discovery, but it is being treated outside source for such activities is now clear that the 'reforms' aimed to as a matter of faith. In the case of universities, would be astonishing. destroy a central tradition of public funding the Dawkins regime bolstered this faith by for higher education. Part of the motivation the pretence that universities were merely I NCRE AS ING LY, AUSTR ALI AN universities get for this was the conviction that the Austral­ businesses with chief executive officers, what they can from outside sources and ian polity could no longer afford to fulfil its managers, products, markets and custom­ then hunt for fee-paying students wherever educational responsibilities; we were living ers (or in a kinder version, eli en ts ). they can be found. This has led to hectic beyond our means and had to face economic Traditional Australian anti-intellectualism competition for dubious recruitment in Asia, facts. (common to Ministers Dawkins and fee-paying courses wherever possible, The belief that we arc living beyond our Vanstone) fed into this vision so that the weighting appointments in favour of candi­ means has driven a clutch of social and broad benefits to the community of a dates who can attract outside money, political 'rcforms' in the past decade in both minority receiving an induction into a life factoring outside money into the formulae federal and state politics which has sig­ of reflection, criticism and inquiry were whereby the university funds departments, nalled the retreat of governments from tra­ treated with contempt, and universities pressure for upfront fees for all students, ditiona 1involvements in ban king, transport, viewed as mere providers of meal tickets. In and a general culture of 'the main chance' basic services such as electricity, water, gas, this way, it was made to seem natural that that has depressingly little to do with the

8 EUREKA STREET • JuLv/AucusT 1996 search for truth and its accompanying have increased from 14 in the 1980s to 22 scathing about Law Faculties and would reflective attitudes. today, and they will pretty certainly be have all vocationally-oriented courses rei­ An old friend of mine who is now a abolished altogether when the latest cuts ega ted to 'the lower and professional senior figure in Australian public life, and are revealed. In 1986, we had 15 full-time schools'. The combination of insight and who has long-standing connections with members of academic teaching staff, as of exaggeration in Veblen's critique is a salu­ the Labor Party, some years ago defended writing we have 12, and prior to the Vanstone tary reminder of both the value and the John Dawkins against my criticisms, but cuts we were looking at a reduction to 10 in limits of gloomy soothsaying. Of course, when I spoke to him a few months ago he 1997. If the Vanstone cuts are to be anything universities will survive the new commer­ complained bitterly about the way the aca­ like the order of 12 per cent then whole cialism in some form or other, just as some demics he met nowadays could speak about departments will have to go. There are at form of public broadcasting will survive the nothing but money. They have learned the least three Philosophy Chairs across the gutting (and even eventual abolition) of the lesson taught by his political 'mates'. On country that have been unfilled for years ABC. But it is stupid to pretend that there is the Asia front, a leading vice-chancellor and that are unlikely to be filled in the no great loss. And the loss, here as else­ was heard to rebuke a colleague who was foreseeable future. This is in a subject in where in our public life, is a loss of signifi­ talking of getting more students from a which Australia's international reputation cant and valuable intellectual and cultural country in South East Asia with the remark: is amazingly high. People no longer speak of tradition. 'Waste of time. That one's fished out.' staff-student ratios as a measure of need When the Harvard philosopher Josiah The culture of crude commercialism will because it would be too embarrassing to Royce visited Australia in 1887, hoping to ensure that the forthcoming budget cuts reveal the extent of deterioration. Mean­ recover from attacks of depression, he was will lead to more of the same, and it will while, as young scholars are employed on a greatly cheered by what he saw. In particu­ reinforce other tendencies towards the never-ending series of short-term appoint­ lar, he admired the social solidarity of the deterioration of academic life. Tenure has ments, many universities increase expendi­ emerging nation, and contrasted the concern been effectively abolished in all but name as ture on senior n1anagement and for the public good in the Australian colo­ so-called redundancy provisions are used to window-dressingprofessorial appointments. nies with what he believed to be the de­ 'downsize' faculties and departments, and And with all of this goes a mindless pursuit structive individualism of the United States, tenured staff are 'appraised' and 'assessed' of 'innovation' in teaching, man­ especially his native California. He praised annually as if they were temporary appoint­ '"r aging and 're-structuring'. the way Australians were prepared to make ees, and not very trustworthy ones at that. sacrifices to build significant public insti tu­ This is another case in which invocation of .l. HE SOCIOLOG IST TH ORSTEINVEBLEN made a tions (he was particularly enthusiastic about America has been mistaken, if not deceit­ ferocious attack in the early years of this the Melbourne Public Library.) Royce's voy­ ful, since it would be impossible to treat century upon the tendency to turn Ameri­ age to the Antipodes helped to cure him, but tenured staff in the USA in ways that are can universities into 'an arm of business'. a latter-day Royce would probably be better becoming common here. Veblen scornfully rejected any place for pro­ advised to try Germany. • Teaching conditions have developed in fessional or vocational teaching in universi­ technological sophistication but declined ties. (See Thorstein Veblen, The Higher Tony Coady is Boyce Gibson Professor of in terms of the personal contact and close Learning in America, New York, 195 7). His Philosophy at the University of Melbourne interaction once thought central to higher principal target was what is nowadays called and Director of the University's Centre for learning. In my own discipline, tutorial sizes 'the Commerce Faculty' but he is almost as Philosophy and Public Issues.

THE NATION: 2

BRUCE WILLIAMS The fate of Ruritanian

H .CHCR WUCWON NOWWW" ' Pretty soon the banter is over and the over­ A competitive industry: so says the competitive industry, and we must market heads begin to flicker and we get right down recent Hoare Report on University Govern­ our products, and that is why we Heads of to it. ment. At the same time, universities are Schools are gathered here, in the conference The people from Humanities begin to rigidly controlled from Canberra by central­ room with the wall of glass looking out onto fret. OK, we say, our product is education ised funding m echanisms. After the cuts the ornamental pond. The marketing man and the students are the clients and the expected in the first Howard Budget, Vice­ is tall and young and his opening gambit is market rules, OK, but what if the bottom Chancellors have been told that they will a good one. He asks for our associations drops out of something, say, Ruritanian have to provide a satisfactory account of with the word marketing. We are candid: Studies? What happens to the staff? The how they propose to cope before any funds lying is mentioned. The marketing man marketing man smiles easily. Surely, he are transferred. It is like a game of Monopoly knows we will say this. He points out that says, that's what voluntary departure pack­ in which MumandDadnotonly control the marketing is not the same as advertising; he ages are all about1 bank but play by different rules from the mixes common sense with jargon; he inti­ I remember the words of a colleague who kids. mates that behind his casual presentation is retired-early-a few years back: 'I joined a 'To invent a language', says Wittgenstein, a body of theory to rival quantum physics. profession and I'm leaving a job.' hauntingly, 'is to invent a form of life.' Or

VOLUME 6 NUMB ER 6 • EUREKA STREET 9 I B::~ru~AD ~~~t ~:~o=~~lt~~~ey stormed Mr Howard's office and in Wollongong they even took to an effigy of Amandathey dea th, as the case may be. In the 19th century, Vanstone with a chainsaw. In Melbourne the protest of university students and staff for Carlyle called education 'the mysterious pay claims and against funding cuts had a more sombre air-perhaps Victorians have communing of wisdom with ignorance'. The developed a higher pain threshold to government cuts. Around three to four thousand Hoare Report calls it business. It spea ks of marched to the Commonwealth offices at Treasury Place behind a coffin carried by 'quality assurance m echanisms and there­ black-garbed pall bearers. No speeches were given when the crowd arrived, only a short positioning of the student as a customer or announcement that the broadcast-van had broken down and would we kindly move client', of 'growing pressures on academic towards Spring Street where it was parked. With a shrug, the crowd shuffled off. staff to demonstrate relevance of courses'. Earlier at Dallas Brooks Hall, surrounded by cameras and lights, speakers admon­ Universities need to confront the fact ished the Government. Ted Murphy from the National Tertiary Education Union that the way in whi ch they have oper­ reminded those gathered of the promise made by John Howard during the election ated and organised themselves in the campaign that the operating grants of universities would be maintained. He questioned past may not enabl e them to adapt to a the rationale behind the expressed desire of the Coalition to shave the budget in ra pidly changing future. compensation for the operating deficit left by Labor. He pointed to improved growth statistics and asked the crowd, 'What 8 billion dollar black hole?'. The rhythmic clapping I look through the wall of glass, and of approval was joined by all, except the gentleman at the end of the aisle ten rows from notice, floating in the ornam ental pond, a the front. He had brought his infant child along, so instead moved the pram back and thin film of green stuff. forth to the beat. The econocrats do have a point. Univer­ Dani Brown, president of CAPA, the postgraduates association, said that the talk of sities today are radically different places funding cuts had already affected the thinking of postgraduate students. 'They're from what they were in the 1960s, when my spooked and they're wondering if they should go on', she said. Brown elicited a few belly friend joined a School of Humanities. In laughs when she suggested that Senator Vanstone's opinion that higher education was order to survive in the new environment, full of self-indulgent idealists might be derived from her own experience at university. they have introduced ' line managem ent', 'Universities are not ivory towers at the moment', Dani Brown said, 'but if those who which roughly m eans, do what you 're told. don't qualify by normal means can buy their way in and there is an exodus of talented The old ways, however, remain powerful. staff, then they will become so.' Decisions still get made by committees of This view of the effect of funding cuts and failed pay claims seemed to be shared by academics with a non-voting secretariat those on the march. Kirsten, who is in the first year of Architecture after completing a supplied by administration, quite as if we combined Law degree, believed that if Vanstone's ideas are carried through it would still governed ourselves. Which, to some create a system which would only benefit the rich. extent, we still do. 'And one outcome of that,' she said, 'will be that the quality of education will be On Inany campuses, as universities pre­ sacrificed. pare for the anticipated cuts, decisions are 'Higher education is a big export earner, and this could be jeopardised if the quality go ing to be made about which program s, or goes.' people, or departments arc to go. How? The Simon, an engineering student, was concerned about the equity of funding cuts, since econocra tic way is the cost-incom e equa­ both his parents are from a blue-collar background. He argues that it is in the national ti on: farewell to Ruritanian. (Monash, interest to have a strong commitment to funding universities. always dignified, has seen fit to bid a public 'Look at West Germany; higher education is totally free over there and they're an farewell, in advance, to Classics.) But up­ economic powerhouse.' posing the department happens to have a Lawrence, a lecturer in education, believed in the principle of free education. very strong research profile. Mightn't it be 'Tertiary education should be accessible,' he said. 'We shouldn't be building towards worth keeping on, cross-subsidised, perhaps, an elite system as we have been doing since the Dawkins reforms; we should be by the ca tchpenny Department of Madonna preserving the broad-based system we've inherited.' Studies? After all, aren't there some central But perhaps it was Doug who was in the best position to comment on the effect this academic values, some cross-disciplinary change in policy would have. As a PhD student in History he relies on part-time tutorial agreements about the overall shape of the work for income as well as the intellectual benefits which accrue through contact with Faculty, or the range of options that ought his department. He reckons the cutbacks would jeopardise that. He also argues that to be available to students? many Arts courses are in a parlous state already because of overcrowding and underfunding; The 'golden age' th

10 EUREKA STREET • JuLY/AuGUST 1996 government was through and through auto­ This is a transitional period, one of those cratic. dark times in which the owl of Minerva is With the expansion of the system in the alleged to fly. If the econocrats have their 1960s and through the '70s, many things way unchecked, there is no doubt that the changed. New kinds of people were re­ system will be damaged beyond repair. But cruited, new disciplines appeared. Students we will get nowhere1 either, if we continue demanded a freer choice of subject combi­ to regard the principles of academic decision­ nations and staff began increasingly to insist making as somehow self-evident, or as on teaching only within their areas of intrinsicate with forms of university gov­ research speciality. Instead of the old God­ ernm ent developed 30 years ago. I believe Professors, H eads began to be elected, which that the profession must transform itself, ushered in the reign of consensus decision­ consciously and deliberately. For many of m aking, political apple-pie and cream. us, shaped by earlier, and, it must be said, On the face of it, a healthy collegiality, kinder experiences, the transition will not the same fundamental shared values, with be easy, if it can be m ade at all. dem ocratic equity added in. Or does it turn The seminar drones on, the overheads out to be, in retrospect, only what Johnson flicker, the m arketing man is enthusing called 'a fugitive and cloistered virtue'? For about what can be accomplished in the in that era of the expanding dollar, some brave new world. room could be found for everything. It was He stresses that students now expect rarely necessary to debate matters of funda­ their course to get them a job, and how m ental principle. successful som e of the newer universities The growing incoherence of Faculties of have been in providing training programs­ Arts (or Humanities) was vividly demon­ look at D eakin, for example, under its dy­ strated when John Dawkins, as Minister for namic Vice-Chancellor. Education, demanded and got his 1 reforms', This is too much for me. 1 Do you happen the Prussian system of centralised control now another. The most subtle of arguments to know', I sweetly ask, 1 What Deakin's now in the hands of his proto-Thatcherite about intellectual coherence ends up on the dynamic Vice-Chancellor actually studied successor, Senator Vanstone. Two books bottom line. And then there are those aca­ at university? ' 1 No'. ' 18th Century English appeared, one of which rather weakly demics, perhaps younger, hardened-off by Literature', I reply. reaffirmed humanistic values while the coming to maturity in the 1 80s. These may Afterwards, however, I remember some other, frorn a radical standpoint, denounced not be econocrats, but collegial they are not. words of Paul Goodman's: spite is the the first. They are concerned solely for the flourish­ weapon of the powerl ess. • How th en do w e decide whe the r ing of their own small patch. Often, nowa­ Ruritanian really has to go? M essily, that's days, I feel w e are working with forms from Bruce Williams is head of the school of Arts how, invoking now one set of principles, which the life has silently departed. & Media at LaTrobe University.

THE NATION: 3

DESMOND & R OLAND M ANDERSON Educating Amanda

'I AM NOT A ""' BRIGHT PERSON,' said m ent's educational philosophy. Beneath the 'Why should the taxpayer ... pay for Amanda Vanstone, Federal Minister for Minister's somewhat disjointed speech lies somebody to go to university to get a higher­ Education, ina recent speech to the National a perfectly consistent position. And despite paying job?' she asks. Conference of the Australian Association of her fetching m odesty, Senator Vanstone Well, why shouldn't the 'user' pay for a Education of the Gifted and Talented turns out to be a very bright exponent of that commodity, like a tertiary degree, which is (University of Adelaide, Aprill996). Such a position. We would do well to take it of purely individual and economic value? confession of normality might come across seriously. What could be fairer? Such a view is four­ as disarming were it not accompanied by The Education Minister, it would appear, square within the ideology embraced by a deeper and more chilling statem ents such believes that the purpose of university edu­ significant proportion of the Liberal Party as 1 Education has had it too good for too cation is career advancement. She argues, and the National Party. Therefore, as the long.' moreover, that higher education in fact gives Minister for Education said, 'The govern­ It is all very well to laugh off the Sena­ its holders an unwarranted privilege, because ment agenda is to reduce spending. Univer­ toes comments. Certainly they were uttered it yields m ore influential and better-paying sity spending is going to be cut.' in a n informal context and without jobs. 1lt seem s quite unfair,' she says, 'that Yet the consequences of this approach self-censorship. But that is why they are so today's employm ent prospects are deter­ are rarely thought through. Imagine a purely revealing of the new Coalition Govern- mined by a university degree. private university system. Would there be

VOLUME 6 NUMBER 6 • EUREKA STREET 11 less privilege in society1 No, there would rather than more capable of competing. If 'service providers.' We lack means of putting still be powerful jobs and powerless jobs, Senator Vanstone is concerned about the a value on something, and not just a price (to well-paid work and poorly-paid labour, with 'unfair privileges' of education-a coterie of borrow from Galbraith). If we can 't talk this difference: access to these privileges elite students and a cabal of elite universi­ about higher education without reducing to would be limited to those who could afford ties-even an economic analysis suggests dollar signs its value to students and to the to buy their education. Already there is that her solution will m ake things worse. community, the debate may already be lost. overwhelming evidence that the main Indeed, when Senator Vanstone gave her On this very idea-that education is not determinants of one's educational success speech in Adelaide, an interlocutor made only an economic benefit-the comments are the social demographics: where you were precisely this point. The Minister could of Senator Vanstone are even more depress­ born and grew up. This inequality of oppor­ only reply, 'I have no policy in mind.' The ing. Take Willy Russell's play /film Educat­ tunity could only be exacerbated under such reason there was no sensible response forth­ ing Rita: it tells the story of a voyage of a system. coming, even from a Minister famed for her discovery which university edu cation An economic analysis that treats educa­ brightness, is that economic rationalism is afforded a working-class woman, expanding tion as a market like the market for bananas incapable of responding to arguments about her horizons and changing h er life. But the the Minister for Education claims that an Arts degree and a Law degree did not change her in the slightest. She came through 'still the san1e me.' 'When I started a BA and then a degree in law ... people thought I must know more. But I hadn't changed ... ' As far as the Min­ ister for Education of this country is con­ cerned, 'getting an education' changes the 'perception' people have of you, but not the 'reality.' But, as Rita discovered, the great gift of education lies in the way it teaches you how to think. EVEN IN ECONOMI C TERMS, the 1990s are very different from the high employment haven of the 1950s. Now it's move from one job to the next, retrain en route, be skilled at striking your own enterprise bar­ gain, change, innovate. This is the kind of virile econom y to which the Government says it is committed. But to succeed in this climate, young people need more than train­ ing: they need an education that helps them learn how to learn, so that they/ we can adapt. And they need an education that encourages them to pick up general skills of understanding and expression which will always be of value to them, no matter how will not work. Education is a 'status' good systemic social inequality. Patterns of many different jobs they do. (as Senator Vanstone complains) and not a inequality produced and reproduced by But the value of education is not just product. While the economic response to a differences in economic wealth cannot be economic: knowledge and understanding high demand for bananas should eventually analysed by an ideology w hich is unable to penetrates every aspect of our lives. An lead to the supply of more bananas, this see individuals as members of social groups educaton is an investment in the 'social does not happen in relation to a 'status' good and products of particular contexts. The capital' of the community, not just in the because supply is limited: a high demand for question of equity is concealed by a rhetoric economic capital of the individual. places in courses like law and m edicine that treats individuals as if they were already Senator Vanstone's comments don't does not lead to more places. On the contrary, 'free' and 'equal'. m ake one confident that she appreciates the it merely increases competition amongst Most importantly, Senator Vanstone importance of this kind of general , students fo r those places. appears to think of university education non-vocational educa tion. She and the Gov­ Under a free market, those who do medi­ only in terms of the economic advantages ernment seem to want a '90s economy and cin e and law would become even m ore un­ that accrue from it, and the economic costs a '50s society. fairly privileged. In this competitive of maintaining it. It can't be had. • environment, students are interested in the Perhaps the most insidious long-term 'status' attached to their degree. This effect of economic rationalism appears in Desmond Manderson is a senior lecturer at increasingly gives an advantage to estab­ the way it has restructured our language. In the Macquarie University Law School and lished universities, who accept only 'the educa tion, 'students' have become 'clients', Roland Manderson is artistic director of the best', and makes other institutions less education a 'commodity' and teachers Canberra Youth Theatre.

12 EUREKA STREET • JuLY/AucusT 1996 L ETTERS

Eureka Street welcomes letters psychological problem s and t his is Get it together from its readers. Short letters are simply untrue. Aside from the fac t that more likely to be published, and there is more tar in cannabis (when all letters may be edited. Letters smoked in a joint) than cigarettes­ From Robert Tickner must be signed, and should there is considerable clinical evidence In his criticism of the new Govern­ include a contact phone number for an association with asthma, bron­ m ent, Jack Waterford has yet again and the writer's name and address. chitis, lung cancer, relationship topsy­ characteristically and ungraciously If submitting by e-mail, a contact chosis and impairm ent of short-term dismissed the achievem ents of the phone number is essential. m e m o ry in young people. T he Hawke and Keating Governments in Address: [email protected] Penington report itself, acknowledges Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander that cannabis was the second most Affairs and sadly appears to be in a likely substan ce to be found in the 1970s time warp. blood of people killed on the roa d be­ The Native Title Act, the National tween 1990 and 1993 as illustra ted in Lands Fund, an achievement of cross­ Figure 8 of the report. Furthermore, party support for the reconciliation following the release of the report's process, were real achievem ents fo r recommenda tion s, t he Australian the nation and they would not have Medica l Association issued a press happened but for Labor Government release claiming that up to 50 per cent leadership on these issues. of detained patients admitted to psy­ While Jack is quite right to high­ chi atric units in Australia were there light the extent to which indigenous because cannabis had precipitated a human rights have yet to be addressed, relapse in their psych iatric illness. he fa ils to highlight what is required There is no evidence that marijuana to m eet this agenda as a key obj ective One thing that was missing, how­ is a safe drug and even if one adopts of the reconciliation process. ever, was an assura nce that no-one (in the rather optimistic position of argu­ As I am sure Fred Chaney would particular, no priest or religious) would ing that the jury is still out, by the time confi rm, no Minister for Aboriginal be penali sed in any way for info rming it comes in, it may well be too late. and Torres Strait Islander Affai rs has on a perpetrator of sexual abuse. Also, Second, in an article in the A us­ the power to affect change in th e per­ if any whistle- blower has suffered as a Lralian, Professor Penington claimed formance of State and Territory Gov­ result of informing in the past, an that parents, teachers and counsellors ernments in delivering basic services assurance that the church would rec­ could not talk openly and honestly to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander tify the situation in an appropria te way. about marijuana use w hile the use of communities and to compel them to Gavan Breen the drug is regarded as a criminal act. act to give effect to their pro mises in Alice Springs, NT Yet everyday, in homes and schools response to the Royal Com mission right across Australia those same par­ into Aboriginal D ea ths in C ustody Smoke screen ents and teachers talk to their students recommendation in areas within their about drink-driving, not wearing sca t cxclusi ve jurisdiction. belts or bicycle helmets, armed rob­ At my initiative, Labor went into From Dr Michael Carr-Gregg, former bery, m otor vehicle theft and assault. the last election with a commitment Executive Director of the New Zea­ Thirdly, it has been argued that the to take such issues to the Council of land Drug Foundation, now at the current law is not working, yet the Australian Governments (C OAG). Centre for Adolescent Health, Centre for Adolescent hea lt h's own If COAG can drive the process of Melbourne. research show that only 10 per cent of electrici ty genera tion reform, then Peter Norden has quite rightly praised 16-year-olds have u sed m arij ua na surely indigenous social justice issues the carefully conceived vision of the monthly, indica ting that 80 per cent are worthy of no less a level of consid­ [Victorian] Premier's Drug Advisory have elected not to. Clearly something eration by those leaders. Council a nd h as applauded t he is working fo r the m ajority of yo ung I commend the proposal to the new progressive vision embodied within it, people who h ave m ade a h eal t h y Prime Minister, Mr Howard. which has the po tential to ha ve a choice. There are some in the adoles­ Robert Tickner significa nt impact on th e m any prob­ cent health community who fear that Stanwell Park, NSW lems associated with drug use (Eureka decrim inalising m arijuana may well Street May 1996). Any m oves tha t send a message to these young people recast our response to drug abuse from that cannabis is a valid recreational Witness protection a criminal justice stance to a hea lth drug and this in turn, has the poten­ and social respon se are to be wel­ tial to actually undermine existing comed. Having said that, the report has drug education progra ms. From Gavan Breen one major failing-its claim that can­ Fo urthly, protagonists of The recent pastoral letter from nabis should be decriminalised simply decriminalisation argue that rates of the Australian Catholic Bi sh ops' doesn't stand up to rigorous scrutiny marijuana use in countries which have Conference on the question of sexual on five main counts. decriminalised the drug are lower than abuse by priests and religious was wel­ First, advoca tes of decrimi nal­ in those countries where the drug is comed by concerned Catholics and, no isation argu e that cannabis is n ot still illegal. Such comparisons tend to doubt, others. associated with any m ajor physical or be somewhat spurious on the grounds

V OLUME 6 N UMBER 6 • EUREKA STREET 13 that the way such data is coll ected (in Father Norden is correct when he terms of study methodology, sample notes that Victoria only spends 1.6 size and type) differs from country to million dollars on drug educa tion, the country and this difference in meth­ lowest per capita of any state. For odology renders an y international many of us involved in adolescent comparisons invalid. health, the Report's recommendations Furthermore, the council's propos­ around drug education, were by far and als go further than decriminalisation away the m ost crucial. Our society in other states in Australia, or in needs to be much more realistic about Holland, where civil penalties have ac­ the impact of school-based drug edu­ tually been retained. In this sense, the ca tion, recognising that it is not a proposals endorsed by Father Norden panacea for the escalating rates of drug expose Victorians to an experiment for use and abuse amongst young people. This month, which there exist few precedents. One-off drug educa tion session in pri­ courtesy of Penguin Books, Finally, allowing people to grow up mary school cannot inoculate young th e writer of each let ter to fiv e pl ants for their own use as is people against drug use. we publish will receive proposed, will most likely disarm the There is no doubt that optimal a Penguin Classic black market thus increasing accessi­ drug education involves a harm mini­ bility to the drug. This in turn will misation approach to curriculum and invariably drive the price of cannabis welfare along with a concerted endeav­ family, their school and their peers. down. our to address the underlying causes This holds out the best prospect of Experts in adolescent health can of drug use in young people. Harmful reducing the number of 'at risk' youth. demonstrate that young people's use drug use is very often a symptom of Laws play an important educative of licit drugs su ch as tobacco and underlying problems in young people, role by informing social thinking alcohol is heavily influenced by the including depression, behavioural regarding the unfo reseen risks of price of these drugs as young people problems and situations of alienation, cannabis use. There is a myth that tend to be more price sensitive. Thus neglect and abuse. marijuana use is safe, the laws need as the price of cannabis comes down, It is imperative that we build on to convey to young people that there experience suggests that there is a high the success of existing harm minimi­ are dangers and decriminalising mari­ likelihood that young people will use sation programs, accommodating our ju ana will send a very mixed message. cannabis more often. new understa ndings of why som e Michael Carr-Gregg young people take drugs and explor­ Parkville, VIC ing different m ethods of delivering drug education. CAMBRIDGE For drug education to be effective, Spirit of choice UNIVERSITY PRESS it must take into account the reality of polydrug use in yo ung people, From I. Goor, Hunters and Collectors acknowledge that health risk behav­ I do not understand John Barich's ques­ ti on,' ... why should we forego the gift The Antiquarian Imagination iours do not occur in isolation but of­ ten co-occur. There must also be an of the Holy Spirit for the sake of a in Australia understanding that emotional distress small percentage of problem cases?' Tom Griffiths ($34.95 pb, $90.00 hb) and m ental health problems are in­ (Eureka Street May '96, plO) creasingly common in young people The question refers to his argu­ "Like all the best nonfiction, it is and that drug use may be a response m ent w ith Fr Collin's view o n celibacy. Celibacy is a discipline the work ofa writer with a to their distress. The debate cuts to the heart of which the church imposes and can novelists eye for character. ... what we teach young people in change, no matter how far it goes back Lucid and subtle prose, a trans­ schools. There is a growing recogni­ in doctrinal law .The Holy Spirit is just parent medim for insights to tion, especially among som e sections that, spirit .The gift of the Holy Spirit can be prayed and waited and hoped enrich, even transform, our under­ of the Catholic Education Office, that we need to teach yo ung people psycho­ for. It can be fe lt by the recipient even, standing of the land and the logical and social competencies as well but it can not be ordered at will by any culture we live in. " as giving information about drugs, and human. Not even the Pope. I. Goor Ken Inglis, The A ustralian this m eans making the curriculum content part of multiple core stream s Moonbi, NSW not just health education and certainly SHORTLISTED! not one-off interventions. Being ourselves The harm minim isation approach National Book Council must be accompanied by a realisa tion Awards for Australian that there are identifiable and modifi­ From Chris Jenkins Sf, able factors that predispose some Andrew Hamilton's article (The next literature 1996 young people to drug taking. The Cen­ phase, May 1996) presents a provoca­ CUB 'Banjo' Award for tre believes that our best option is to tive thesis about the history and Nonfiction work with the three key agents of nature of Australia's national identity, socialisation of young people: their much of which I could agree with: our

14 EUREKA STREET • JuLY/AucusT 1996 =HarperCollinsReligious Sex, Marriage, and the Church self-understanding, how we define affairs. This confident contribution Patterns of Change ourselves as a nation must be affected could be lost if we were to become just by our external relations, and as these another outpost on the margin of some Dr Muriel Porter change, so our notion of ourselves as homogenised international culture. $16.95 a community must evolve. 'White This, I fear, would be the result of Fr Well-known Australia' has been replaced by Hamilton's urgings. multiculturalism within a generation. Chris Jenkins SJ church historian, How we deal with the stranger, the Parkville, VIC Muriel Porter outsider, is central to our self-image. has written a But our living takes place within Bill of rights the reality of a nation state with a provocative and particular history and geography that and wrongs informative shape attitudes and behaviour. And From fohn Gartlan, account of the until we are completely swallowed-up In his letter (Emel'f\ali~- arena is not a level playing field, and own works of art that assist us to ~ (') the common val­ better know ourselves and our world. ~0 ues and shared sto­ They stand independent of the '11 ':J\\0 ries we seem to historical facts on which they are Ord in ation of Catholic Women live by, shaky as based and fulfil Shakespeare's belief they may seem that the purpose of art is to hold a T hird National Conference now, will be placed mirror up to nature. under greater For that reason, it is shallow to The Fields are Ripe: R e-visioning threat. condemn such plays because Shake­ Leadership in the Catholic Church It is only Aus­ speare gets his history wrong. For the tralia's growing same reason, those plays could not m Melbourne, VIC, at Treacy College, The Avenu e sense of itself as a now validly be compared with a Parkville. Saturday Aug ust 3-Sunday August 4 distinctive and modern-day film or play praising valuable culture, Hitler or Pol Pot, no matter what the For registration brochure and all enquiries: sharing not a smug genius of the modern writer. Convenor, OCW M elbourne Conference self-satisfaction John Gartlan PO Box 1025 but a critical self­ Eltham, VIC Brunsw ick MDC awareness, that VIC 3056 emboldens it to The letter that initiated this o r participate so correspondence was published in Phone/Fax National Convenor OCW actively in world Eureka Street, Ma y 1996, p8.-Ed. (06) 2514 513

VOLUME 6 NUMBER 6 • EUREKA STREET 15 f OREIGN C OR RESPONDENCE

D AVlO B RAODON-MITCHELL Bicultural, xenophobic

S OM'T"'"c "cuu" ie h•ppcn­ coa lition of minor parties called the Celtic or Maori New Zealander. ingin New Zealand. The Prime Min­ Alliance-have remained largely It's hard, though, to believe that ister, whose National Party has made silent. They've left it to the New all this is enough to explain the N ew Zealand the darling of right­ Right to defend New Zealand's recent appeal of populist racist politics to wing think tanks the world over, immigrants. In the m eantime the so many, or the relative silence of has been making strident speeches country's econom y seem s to be suf­ those whom you might hope were attacking racism. He has cast him­ fering from the indigestion that Pe­ the natural enemies of ra cism. There self as the defender of immigration ters' crude economic nationalism are di e- hard racists in every country, and multiculturalism, a role which, gives the financial markets. but I can't believe that there arc to Australian political sensibilities, So w hat's going on here? How enough of those h ere to explain what seems to come more naturally to can a party go fr om obscurity to be is going on. parties on the left. pushing a third of the intended vote A key to unders tanding the This is due in part to an alarming and on the ba ck of xenophobia ? phenom enon can be found in the phenom enon in New Zealand poli­ There arc som e factors that peo­ attitudes to race amongst the coun­ tics: Winston Peters, a one-time ple seem to agree on. When Aus­ try's politically correct. Ri ght-o n N ational Party minister, has formed tralia had the White Australia policy, Anglo-Celti c Ki wis are sensitive to his own party-rather ominously NZ had an even m ore restrictive indigenous matters in a way that called N ew Zealand First. After a British NZ policy. With few, though puts m any of their Au stralian equiva­ time in the wilderness, they have notable, exceptions (the 'Dallies'­ lents to shame; but the very sa me become a major force. Peter is most Croats from Dalmatia-are one non ­ people are quite happy to make jokes preferred Prime Minister; his party British ethnic group that have been about Asia n drivers without the is second onl y to N ational in the here for generati ons), immigrants slightest twinge of embarrassm ent. popularity stakes and snapping very came from the United Kingdom or This is because, to som e, racism just clo cat National's heels. Australia. So the recent wave of im­ means racism against the indigenous Peters has achieved this in large migration fr om Asia came as a shock. people, and co mplaining about the part by a campaign of racial fear and Another fa ctor is ali enncss of ethnic Chi- hate. He has been careful to avoid the economic status ncsc doesn't fa ll into the more grotesque extremes of rac­ of many recent im­ that category. To regard ist vilifica tion, but his m essage is migrants. In many racism against Maori as clear. He complains about immi­ places the profil e of just a special case of rac­ gra nts not being committed to N ew immigration is of a ism generally is thought Zealand; he complains that yo u can first wave of poorer to belittle the central immediately spot immigrants in res­ people, with a racia l fact of N ew Zea­ taurants; he complains that immi­ gradual rise in aver­ land: its bicultural sta­ grants have bought themselves into age prosperity fro m tus. University courses NZ-as if fulfilli ng government generation to gen­ abou t race relations arc requirements were somehow cor­ eration. Immigrants courses about Maori­ rupt- then blam es them for the price to N Z from else­ British relations. Some of hou sing in A uc kl an d, and­ wh e re in th e M aori, and A ngl o­ thro ugh a tenuou series of connec­ Polynesia n Pacifi c Ce I tic N ew Zealanders, tion s-a high er va lu e for th e are rarely well -o ff , go further: the fo unda­ currency and con cqucnt rural pov­ but they arc a spe­ tion of New Zealand is erty. 'Immigra nts' is usually code cial case. Immigra­ the T rea ty of Wai tangi, for ethnic Chinese, most of whom tion from m ost a treaty between th e arc business migrants from Hong countries is only possible if a rigor­ British crown and Maori. Kong or Taiwan, and Korean s. ous points test is passed; it's increa - That's an extrem e view. But sup­ This has played extraordinarily ingly li kely that anyone who passes port for biculturalism-expli ci tl y well to the punters, and is largely it will be wealthy. This m ea ns that dis tinguis h ed from multi­ respon sible for the doubling of many of the ethnic Chinese entering culturalism- is widespread. What it Peters' popularity-and not just the country are wealthy enough to means is subtle bu t important. Few amongs t rural rccln ecks, bu t in the fa n the flam es of local xenophobia. It New Zealanders conceive of their metropolitan centres as well. The seems to ga ll that recent arrivals identity as deriving from the many parties of the left- the much-dimin­ com e complete with BMWs and cultures which now live there. Aus­ is hed Labour Party (itself in the midst enough cash to build houses beyond tralia's equivalent of the Kiwi sup­ of internal bloodletting) and a m otley the means of the average Anglo- porters of bi culturalism understand

16 EUREKA STREET • JuLY / AucusT 1996 their identity as being constituted Indians, non-Maori Polynesians, Chi­ This, then, is what silences New by the variety of cultures that, how­ nese, Southern Europeans don't get Zealand's Labour party on the rac­ ever problematically, contribute to to count as Pakeha . What does count? ism issue : a defence of multi­ the distinctive national mix. So part It's not a question you are really culturalism would get it into trouble of what is alien about N ew Zealand supposed to ask, becau e the answer with the guardians of Kiwi-style PC; to many visiting Australians are its is supposed to be self-evident. The and it is left to the right-wing ethnic lacunae, not the particular paradigm Pakeha is probably a N ew National government to defend details of its Anglo-Celtic and Zealand-born Caucasian of Scots or something like multiculturalism on Polynesian cultures. The politically English Protestant extraction: wit­ purely economic grounds-wealthy correct attitude in Australia-an ness the mild unease about the Irish migrants bring overseas investment important cultural index even if it's family background of Jim Bolger, the with them . not one actually h eld by vast current Prime Minis- But Labour's numbers of people-would deem it ter. Of course you don't silence has clone it no improper for any of our cultures to have to fit this mould good. The enormous merely tolerate the rest. Instead we perfectly to count as swing toN ew Zealand celebrate our diversity. Pakeha; Bolger counts. First has been largely Could biculturalism have some­ But the further you get - at the expen se of thing to do with the apparently low from it the less chance ; Labour and the left of level of resistance in NZ to some you have of being centre Allia nee . forms of racism? It's a controversial Pakeha. Easily assimi­ Unable to defe nd claim, but I think warrants investi­ lable groups (more multiculturalism, La­ gation. Biculturalism means that Scots, some Austral­ bour is also unable to there i no expectation that the ians) might make it as endorse explicit rac­ national culture has to modify to Pakeha without being ism, so they are pow­ accommodate new peoples who are born here. Some in the erless to win back the making their home in New Zealand. Dutch or Dalmatia_n ..s upport that Peters is At best, tolerance is appropriate. Per­ community who were umming up with haps, generations on, newcomers born here might coun racial fear. might be regarded as true New Zea­ just so long as they are Peters and his New landers-but only after they have culturally deracinated. Zealand First party been thoroughly assimilated. A good This is what makes the notion of may well be part of the next N ew window onto this sort of attitude is Pakeha-ness racist: not, as some Zealand government. While this will in the well-intentioned concern that Pakeha claim, because it is a term of mean trouble, with luck much of his som e have for the effect of recent abuse used by Maori. Rather Pakeha­ rhetoric won't have too severe an immigration on 'Kiwi' Chinese-the ness is an exclusive badge of privilege; impact on recent immigrants, though descendants of 19th and early 20th the racism is implicit in the way it future immigration may be halted or century immigrants. These people, excludes oth er N ew Z ealand reduced. The cui tural worry is longer­ it is complained, replete with Kiwi citizens. term . If the culture doesn 't allow vowels and cultural attitudes, are So how does this background ide­ more ways of being a fully-fledged being mistaken for foreigners be- ology affect people's attitudes to the N ew Zealander than by being a cause of the new wave of n ew immigrants? Some immigrants Pakeha or a Maori, or relax the stifling immigrants! have no chance of being Pakeha, so m onoeultural conception of Pakeha, they can't be one of the two approved there will be real problems in the I T TAKES A CLOSER look a t cultures. This means that, even if future. biculturalism to see its dynamic. they take out citizenship, there i a I doubt if the children of recent Any bicultural society has a sense in which they are here on suf­ immigrants are going to abandon foundational question to ask: what ferance. Worse, Kiwi political their cultural background and imi­ are the two cultures? In N ew Z ea­ correctness requires that these tate New Zealand's Pakeha. But if land they are Maori and so-called people be treated as interlopers, at they grow up here, consider New Pakeha- the Anglo-Celtic settler the same time it condemns racism. Zealand to be home, and believe they culture. Perhaps there is som ething No wonder people's attitudes to non have tenure in its future like any problematic in the conceptualisation Anglo-Celtic immigra nts are other New Zealander, while the rest of Maori culture, defined as it is in confused! Anyone who is merely of the country regards them as inter­ opposition to other Polynesian cul­ tolerated will become even less tol­ lopers somehow excluded from the tures, members of which live in N ew erated when they compete for jobs nation-forming pact between the Zealand in considerable numbers. and educational opportunities. And Poms and the Maori-then that is a Certainly the concept of Pakeha it's hard to remain tolerant (if tolera­ recipe for trouble of an altogether needs closer examination. To have a tion rather than celebration is all more indigestible kind. • real place in N ew Z ealand, and not that is required of you) when the to be Maori, you must be Pakeha. aliens that you are supposed to regard David Braddon-Mitchell teach es But what does Pakeha mean? It cer­ as faintly second-class turn out to be philosoph y a t the University of tainly doesn't m ean non-Maori. much wealthier than yo u are. Auckland.

V OLUME 6 UMBER 6 • EUREKA STREET 17 THE N ATION: 4

Frank Brennan watched the US Supreme Court in action months. He came home convinced that an American-style Bill of Rights will not work in Australia.

M ANY AMcR

18 EUREKA STREET • JuLv/Auc usT 1996 contemporary America dictates that there can be no comprehensive doctrine of the common good that is enforceable by law. The public interest is a figment of the collectivist imagination. What then are the demands of organised 'SOCiety? How does the court determine the values of a society that has both maintained and broken _traditions through its history? There is never any evidence that can be put before the court, only bold assertions of the historic tradi­ tion. For e~·a.mple, when the court was recon­ sidering Roe v'Wade four years ago, the attorney ~~~F1~~~~~ll!.!~;..,rP_:arenthood said the judges had to 'look very generally at whether the nation's his­ tory and tradition had respected interests of bod­ ily integrity and autonomy and else, en simply whether there has been a tradition of respect have to make a decision, they design tests such as of equality of women'. The attorney insisted 'undue burden' to disguise their value judgments. The that guidance in determining the scope of lib­ The courts of result is that where there is a need for someone to erty was not to be obtained by looking at balance the conflicting claims, the legislators are whether or not abortion was lawful at the other countries banned by the judges and the judges proceed to place time of the adoption of the fourteenth restrictions on themselves. The balancing process is amendment. have always left incomplete and the only result is the vindication, In trying to weigh the balance without by default, of individual rights over the interests of articulating what is on the other scale, judges looked to the US all. have tried to convert questions of substan­ Countries like Canada and South Africa, which tive content into questions of judicial proce­ jurisprudence have only recently constitutionalised a bill of rights, dure, using content-neutral categories, have set down a catalogue of rights but have then ex­ or- worse- indeterminate value judgments. for guidance pressly conceded the power of the elected legislators It all depends on whether the right in ques­ to limit the exercise of the rights in a manner which tion is 'fundamental' or whether the in the is reasonable and justifiable in an open and democratic petitioner is from 'a suspect class' (for exam­ society based on freedom and equality. To US law­ ple, being classed on the basis of race). interpretation yers, these words of qualification seem to take away In scrutinising the abortion code of the with one hand what was given with the other. The various States, the court now attempts to of the key rights courts of these other countries have always looked to determine if the law places an 'undue bur­ and their limits. the US jurisprudence for guidance in the interpret- den' on the woman making her decision. ion of the key rights and their limits. US There is no agreement among the judges as US judges rarely judges rarely look elsewhere. to what constitutes an undue burden. While Justice Blackmun, the author of Roe said, look elsewhere. T.;OUGHTHE US CONSTITUTION does not contain any 'Roe's requirement of strict scrutiny as similar words of permissive limitation on the rights implemented through a trimester framework and liberties set down, the Supreme Court has long should not be disturbed', he lost out in accepted that the ban on deprivation of life, liberty or Planned Parenthood v Ca sey. Justices property without due process requires the judges to O'Connor, Kennedy and Souter, whose thinking strike a balance between individual liberty and the determines the outcome of any split decision on the demands of organised society. They say the balance present court, said, 'The trimester framework no is struck by having regard for the traditions from doubt was erected to ensure that the woman's right which the country developed as well as the traditions to choose not become so subordinate to the State's from which it broke. This has meant that elected interest in promoting foetal life that her choice exists legislators have not had the last say in striking the in theory but not in fact. We do not agree however, balance. Rather, it has been the prerogative of that the trimester approach is necessary to accom­ unelected judges who are free to determine the rela­ plish this objective.' tive weights of entrenched and broken traditions in No wonder the conservatives on the court, led defining the national ethos, once they have been by Chief Justice Rehnquist said, 'Roe continues to chosen by a President and run the gauntlet of Senate exist, but only in the way a store front on a western confirmation hearings. But what is weighed against movie set exists: a mere facade to give the illusion of individual liberty? Political liberalism in reality-'

V O LUME 6 NUMBER 6 • EUREKA STREET 19 It is an illusion that the US Supreme person to portray the issue as a conflict between the Court can strike a balance between the individual David and the Goliath State. When under woman's right to choose and the State If it ever comes to balancing competing rights or interest in promoting foetal life using a interests, the best the court has been able to do is to greatest pressure, judicially applicable criterion of 'undue ask whether an undue burden or substantial obstacle the US system, as burden' as if it were not just a political has been placed in the way of the individual. Having decision or personal preference of the constitutionalised the questions, the court has failed Justice Blackmun individual judge. In Planned Parenthood to provide a judicial method for balancing the incom­ v Casey the middle votes of the present mensurable interests of the citizen as an independ­ adn1its, court thought they were consolidating ent individual and of the citizen as a member of a the Court's task calling 'the contending society. Its next foray into moral and political mine­ depends on sides of a national controversy to end fields will be constitutional challenges to state laws their national division by accepting a prohibiting physician-assisted euthanasia. This is also just one vote. common mandate rooted in the Consti­ a live issue in Australia in the wake of tution'. And this in a country that re­ Marshall Perron's crusade in Darwin. So too in Australia­ mains the most politically polarised over abortion of any country in the world. L E N oRTHERN TERRITORY's RIGHTS of the Termi­ only there As a foreigner privileged to sit and nally Ill Act 1995 has legalised voluntary euthanasia watch the Court in action over some for the first time. The decision of the Northern Terri­ the person with months, I have no doubt this was not tory Parliament has been opposed by the AMA and judicial conceiti it was a humble, failed the Northern Territory church leaders. Having failed the one vote attempt to discharge a mandate which to hold the numbers on the floor of the Parliament, can never be performed by unelected these community leaders have now turned to the is elected, and is persons in a pluralistic, democratic courts to delay the implementation of the legislation, society. Whatever the rights and wrongs claiming it is beyond the scope of the Northern Ter­ expected to weigh of abortion, its legally permissible lim­ ritory's legislative power. its have been further politicised and At times of such change, all parties concede that individual rights rendered unresolvable in the US democracy in a pluralistic, developed society is about and minority group precisely because the issue has been con­ more than implementing the will of 50 per cent plus s ti tu tionalised. one. Australians, unlike Americans, have been more claims over Commencing his epic decision in imbued with the sovereignty of parliaments. We have Roe v Wade, Justice Blackmun said, 'Our never expected courts regularly to restrict the activi­ against the common task, of course, is to resolve the issue by ties of parliaments except where there is a conflict constitutional measurement, free of over the powers of the Commonwealth and of the good and emotion and predilection.' The spectac­ States. The US was founded as a reaction against a ular failure of this effort is found in Jus­ sovereign parliament and an unelected monarch. It is the public interest. tice Blackmun's last judicial utterance commonplace for the US Supreme Court to strike on the matter two decades later:' A wom- down acts of Congress-not for trespassing upon the an's right to reproductive choice is one legislative competence of the states but for infring­ of those fundamental liberties. Accordingly, that lib­ ing the inalienable rights of the citizen. erty need not seek refuge at the ballot box ... I am 83 While NT church leaders and doctors place their years old. I cannot remain on this Court forever, and last hope in the courts striking down the NT legisla­ when I do step down, the confirmation process of my ture's attempt to extend the freedom of the individu­ successor well may focus on the issue before us to­ al to end life, Americans are preparing for Supreme day.' More than a dose of emotion and predilection in Court challenges which will strike down state all that! The limits of the fundamental liberty depend attempts to limit the individual's freedom. In 1994, a not on the ballot box directly but on the view of the Federal District Court judge struck down, for the first judge chosen and confirmed by those at the ballot box. time, a state anti-assisted-suicide law. She relied upon It is a bold step to assume that by constitutional­ the claim by the three centre voters in Planned Par­ ising an issue, everyone gains: the judges by becom­ enthood that 'matters involving the most intimate ing more important to the national life, the legislators and personal choices a person may make in a lifetime by being able to sidestep the hard decisions, the ... are central to the liberty protected by the Fourteenth unpopular and powerless by making gains nationally Amendment. At the heart of liberty is the right to which could not be achieved locally, and the citizen­ define one's own concept of existence, or meaning, of ry generally by being assured that there is a sphere of the universe, and of the mystery of human life.' personal conduct which cannot be invaded by the Given that this was part of the Supreme Court's State. But there are other ways which can be less costly new rationale for a woman's right to choose abortion, for all parties. And when the issue impacts on all, it the trial judge thought it pointed to a right of a com­ may be too one-dimensional a view of the human petent dying person to take his or her own life with

20 EUREKA STREET • JuLv/AucusT 1996 state-authorised assistance. Professor Ronald Dworkin claims. I will continue to look to the US Supreme in his recently published Freedom 's Law: The Moral Court for a jurisprudence of individual rights which Reading of the American Constitution, claims that can be a corrective for those with a parliamentary 'Making someone die in a way others approve, but he system which places more trust and accountability believes contradicts his own dignity, is a serious, un­ in the elected law makers. I am delighted that the US justified, unnecessary form of tyranny.' Church lead­ has a robust tradition for debating the issues from an ers, the AMA and many others concerned to maintain individual rights perspective. But in Australia, we do the integrity of the doctor-patient healing relation­ not have capital punishment. We do not interfere with ship and the relationship between the dying person the privacy of gays. Some US states still retain anti­ and relatives whom they do not wish to burden, want sodomy laws which have been upheld by the US to limit the options available to the dying person so Supreme Court. that all dying persons, doctors and relatives at the time Tasmania's anti-sodomy statute is a dead letter of death may be spared the burden of choice. Some of since the Commonwealth Parliament responded to these also espouse a principle of life's sanctity which the UN Human Rights Committee recommendations they think the state ought to uphold. Such arguments against interference with the privacy of gays. In abor­ have no place in the American balancing of ordered tion we accord much the same level of protection to liberty. the foetus and the woman's choice. We do not have Those who think such factors ought to be judges as the final arbiters of abortion codes and weighed by the ultimate decision makers have to redistricting maps. We allow government to accept that parliaments rather than courts are the restrict indecent material on television, and I do better decision makers. Courts are neither equipped not lose too much sleep over that. To avoid an nor mandated to weigh the balance. If Australia, in When under greatest pressure, the US the wake of the Northern Territory law, were to seek system, as Justice Blackmun admits, depends on overtly political greater powers for the courts, over time the courts just one vote. So too in Australia-only here the would follow America in giving primacy to laws person with the one vote is elected, and is ex­ role, US judges enhancing individual choice regardless of common pected to weigh individual rights and minority good considerations. Such considerations include the group claims over against the common good and try to set up ethos of health care facilities which include death as the public interest. a service, and the quality of relationships between In South Africa, it was the minority whites barriers to fence doctor and patient, a dying person and family. who insisted on a judicially enforceable bill of There can be no getting away from a balancing of rights as a fetter on the newly-enfranchised themselves off interests. Who best to do the weighing, the legisla­ majority blacks. The 'bill of whites' has been from the difficult tors elected by all or the judges nominated by the few? designed to provide judicial protection of those I fear that the bill of rights ethos quashes any sustained whose rights may be targeted by the majority. political public discussion of the common good. It inculcates The shortfall in Australia's machinery for the the notion that rights are protected not because they protection and enhancement of individual rights questions contribute to the general public welfare but only could be rectified by the passage of a statutory 'because they form so central a part of an individual's bill of rights which could be overridden by which they, life', as Justice Blackmun put it. specific later enactment of the Commonwealth Politicians can weigh notions of individual Parliament. as unelected liberties and public welfare and strike a balance. Judg­ A Senate Committee on Human Rights es are on thin ice when they try. In the US they are could scrutinise any bill proposing a limitation officials trying to required to try very often. The bill of rights has prob­ on the stipulated rights. Like the Racial Discrim­ ably given politicians greater licence over time to pass ination Act, the Parliament's bill of rights would apply a the buck to the judges. It has allowed the legislative become a comprehensive legislative standard. process to be more loose and inconsistent. Politicians Departure from the standard would require transparent can pass laws for the display of the Ten Command­ political argument more compelling than a rou­ ments knowing they will be struck down. They can tine invocation of the popular mandate by the judicial process, wildly promise to ban abortion-even in cases of major political parties. This way, the controver­ rape-knowing that the courts will not permit it. sial issues would not regularly become the sole are ill-equipped Meanwhile, they satisfy their more funda­ preserve of the judges who constitutionalise mentalist constituents. themi they would be resolved by the legislators to resolve. and judges playing their respective roles. • I RETUR TO Au TRALIA UNCO v1 cw that the com­ plex issues of the day need to be constitutionalised, Frank Brennan SJ works at Uniya, the Jesuit Social taken completely out of the hands of politicians, and Justice Centre. He has recently returned from the US reserved exclusively to judges who will go to great where he was the first Visiting Fellow at the Centre lengths in judicial reasoning to avoid simply having for Australian and New Zealand Studies, Georgetown to apply their own values in weighing the conflicting University.

VOLUME 6 NUMBER 6 • EUREKA STREET 21 : 5

G ERARD G oGGIN & Jo H N QurGGIN

r1vate• 1ne

ITH THE FEDERAL Coalition budgets. Consumers have been often Except that telecommunications is government settled in Canberra, or invoked, but rarely taken into an industry where costs are ra pidly Sydney, as the case m ay be, the battle account. reducing due to investmen t in new fo r T elstra and its spoils is on in This tendency has reached its t echno logy a nd p roduc tivity ea rnest. The government is claim ­ zenith in the government's touchi­ improvem ents. For this reason, it is ing a m andate to privatise the ness about any suggestion that the misleading to compare telecommu­ nati

22 EUREKA STREET • JuLv/Auc usT 1996 Psst ... Hey buddy, wanna buy ____ price controls. Alston turned this­ one-sided information into the QED of why Telstra should be sold, heap-­ te= hi which itT is set. Inc"' a purely •o• monetary cost-benefit analysis, disregarding the issues of community service ing scorn on the Democrats. One '":"~~~ :~~~~: ve~v~~~:~:.:~nomic week later, the country sat down to raised here, the appropriate valuation for a publicly-owned asset such as Telstra is based on the their evening meals watching the saving in public debt interest represented by the flow of profits of the enterprise. The asset value is ----Prime Minister fla ying the Demo- equal to present value of the flow of post-tax real profits discounted at the real rate of return on public crats further, relying on similar­ debt. That is, the valuation is given by the amount of debt that could be sustainably serviced on the evidence. Howard quoted from a basis of the flow of profits of the enterprise. letter from Burdon, recycling the The after-tax profits of Telstra in 1994-9 5 were $1.73 billion, a figure that is likely to grow in real ----same statistics Alston had retailed terms. If the sale of Telstra realised $35 billion, the real interest savings at a rate of 5 per cent would the previous week. (Burdon had writ-­ exactly offset the loss of profits. BU;t the likely sale price is well below this. The estimated value of ten to the Dem ocrats, omitting to­ 30 per cent of Telstra is around $8 billion, implying a total market value of less than $27 billion. tell them that he had also sent a copy Thus, the sale of Telstra will result in a substantial loss to taxpayers. ____ of the letter to the Prime Minister. A number of misconceptions need to be clarified here. The first is the idea, implied by the Coincidentally, a number of news­ treatment of asset sales as negative outlays in the Budget papers, that the proceeds of the sale of paper reports at this time speculated­ assets such as Telstra are equivalent to revenue raised from taxation. In fact, asset sales involve the on British Telecom 's interest in loss of a stream of future income, and the proceeds should not be treated as current income. The buying shares in Telstra). present Treasurer correctly criticised the previous government for using asset sales to conceal Two of the key arguments for the Budget deficits and has announced an intention to focus on the underlying Budget deficit, which iiiiiiiCoalition's case for privatisation of excludes the proceeds of asset sales and repayments of State and government business enterprise iS Telstra are that: - debt. Thus, the inappropriateness of treating the proceeds of asset sales as revenue has been clearly 1. privatisation, even amodicum,ii recognised. leads to better quality services and Unfortunately, this issue has been muddied by the announcement of an environmental spending lower prices. package of $1 billion, contingent on the partial sale of Telstra. Since the sale or retention of Telstra ---- 2. privatisation will make Telstra_ will have no effect on the underlying Budget deficit, the question of whether the proposed m ore efficient. environmental package is desirable and affordable is independent of the sale of Telstra. Indeed, the Setting aside an additional argu­ sale of Telstra will reduce public sector net worth in the long run, and will therefore reduce the m ent-or plea, rather-from Minis­ Australian government's capacity to pay for desirable programs such as environmental preservation. ter Alston that every other nation Next, many analysts focus attention on the flow of dividends remitted to the Budget sector, has privatised its phone company, or rather than on the flow of profits. That is, these analysts disregard retained earnings reinvested in is going to, so why shouldn't we, it is the enterprise. This is an error in the evaluation of either a private or a public enterprise. worth briefly dealing with these two Finally, it is frequently assumed that the value of an enterprise in government ownership must arguments for privatisation be equal to its value in private ownership. This is not true. There is a large divergence between the in some detail. rate of return demanded by private equity holders and the real rate of return on public debt or good quality private debt. This 'equity premium' reflects the inefficient and socially costly operation of UNCLEAR FROM the overseas private capital markets. Because of the equity premium, private ownership is preferable to public experience that privatisation brings ownership only in cases where substantial improvements in operating efficiency can be achieved about better quality services and through privatisation. There is no evidence that this is the case for Telstra. lower prices for residential consum­ The undesirability of selling Telstra now may be seen clearly by looking at what would have ers. As fa tuous debates over 'best happened if past proposals for privatisation had been accepted. The Fightback! manifesto, released practice' bear out, the overseas in late 1991, proposed the sale of Telstra and up to 600 other Commonwealth assets with an experience of telecommunications estimated total sale price of $20 billion (in 1991 -92 values) over four years. No specific value was privatisation is complex and diffi­ given for Telstra. However, the first year program (assumed to apply from 1992-93) included the sale cult to evaluate because of varia­ of remaining shares in Qantas and the Commonwealth Bank, along with the AIDC, Snowy tions such as cultural differences, Mountains Engineering Corporation and Commonwealth Serum Laboratories, with estimated industry structure, competitiveness returns of $5 billion. The AOTC (now Telstra) was to be sold in three tranches, commencing in the of markets, geography and type of second year of the program. It follows that the total market value envisaged for Telstra in 1991, regulation. However, the experience assuming sale over the period from 1993-4 to 1995-96, was no more than $15 billion (about $17 of Britain and N ew Zealand suggests billion in current values), even if no value is placed on the hundreds of remaining assets in the that there are real concerns for government portfolio. consum ers from even a partial pri va­ The current estimated market price for a sale of Telstra commencing in 1997 is around $24 tisation . billion. Hence, even if Telstra is sold, the delay of four to five years in the sale prices has gained In Britain, a 1993 report by the taxpayers around $7 billion in real sale proceeds as well as several billion in dividends. Against this, National Consumer Council found the real interest savings assuming the proceeds of sale had been used to repay debt would have been that: no more than $5 billion. The benefits accruing to the taxpayer from delays in privatisation simply reflects the fact that .. . trends in charges for telephone the return to these assets exceeds the opportunity cost of funds. When the asset is sold, the services important to domes tic government effectively cashes in the reinvested component of profits. But, if a short delay in customers, especially local calls, privatisation is beneficial to taxpayers, a long delay is even more so, and permanent retention of the have risen over the years relative to asset in public ownership better still. • the charges for services used mainly John Quiggin is Professor of Economics at James Cook University, Townsville.

VOLUME 6 NUMBER 6 • EUREKA STREET 23 by business customers; quality of service, network moderni­ tivity of government businesses in ... the cost of first-time access to sation and new technologies and Australia and elsewhere in the last the service rose by over sixty-one services for consumers in rural and ten years. In the case of Telstra, per cent between 1985 and January remote areas will suffer even further. these productivity improvements 1993 for those new customers who At present Telstra as a corporation is were quite significant in the period have to pay full connection charges. obliged to take into account the needs immediately after corpora tis a tion in of country people through its share­ 1988. In Britain evaluation of privati­ holders, the government, who are While privatisation oft en leads sation has been made more difficult directly accountable to voters. As a to increased profitability, as in the because British Telecom for many government business enterprise, case of the Britain utilities, this does years did not publish adequate infor­ Telstra is obliged to balance social not mean that efficiency or other mation on its prices, disconnections and narrowly commercial objec­ areas of performance have improved. and quality of service. tives-although the balance is tilt­ The conditions under which privati­ The information vacuum on the ing in the favour of profit-making. sation is taken and the subsequent effects of pri vatisation is even more Even a partial privatisation could regulatory framework of the pronounced in New Zealand. None­ upse t this balance and leave industries and government policies theless what information can be consumers at risk of not receiving are all crucial factors in determining fo und on the New Zealand experi­ the price and quality of service efficiency. For instance, in Britain it ence does nonetheless suggest cause benefits they should from an indus­ has been argued by John Ernst that for alarm. try where technology and productiv­ ' this rapid rise in profitability Take, for example, the drop in ity improvements are driving costs followingprivatisation has had more people on the network from 95.7 per down dramatically. to do with the generous terms of the cent in 1989 to93.7percent in 1994, Allan Brown from Griffith Uni­ privatisation settlement nego tiated unprecedented compared to virtu- versity has argued that it is unclear between the industri es and the Government, than the efficiency initiatives introduced by ALL YOU NE.EP DO the companies themselves'. IS SU\f' ON A NeW l.O&q St>CK f\ f~W EFF JCJENCY AND PERFORMANCE 1nay 11i0USP\ND WORKE:~S, be worsened by the incompatibility AND 'r'OU'£...(... 1-\~Vf; A HAS \i of competition and privatisation. If 601" 1Hc ~nee L...rT1L.~ lAX the government proceeds with PHD~~ OM( SH~LIER.1 privatisa tion before competition is / fully established, competition may / suffer as a result. The danger is that monopoly or dominant market power can merely transfer from public to private hands. Without competition, prices will go up and quality down. The government rel eased a discussion paper on the competitive framework for telecommunications after July 1997. In reference to this, the Minister has clearly indicated that the 'promotion of a competitive environment is of paramount importance and must have primacy ally any other OECD country. Of whether private firms are inherently over any desire for simple revenue course, the drop in connection may superior to public enterprises in maximisation from the sale of be due to the fact that the standard terms of productive efficiency, and Telstra'. This is a nod to the compe­ residential rental since 12987 has that 'it is likely that the difference tition ethos post-Hilmer (an ethos increased by approximately 30 per between their levels of productive which has the same status that ether cent in real terms, while business efficiency will be less than tradi­ had in earlier theories of the world), access charges were reduced. tionally assumed'. Obviously, there but does not address the concern These signs from Britain and New is also the difference that public that competition will not be firmly Zealand add weight to concerns that corporations generally are charged established before Telstra is priva­ privatisation is likely to result in with significant non-commercial tised. further pressures on quality of serv­ objectives, that contribute to the It is clear that privatisation ice and price that are not favourable public good. It is not often recog­ achieves a redistribution of wealth to residential consumers. Commer­ nised, also, that there has been a from taxpayers who have equal own­ cial pressures to cut costs mean that marked improvement in the produc- ership rights in a government busi-

24 EUREKA STREET • JuLv/AucusT 1996 ness to a limited number of private delivered if it looks like adversely of the timed option are clearly corporations and individuals. This affecting the sale price. The Coali­ demonstrated in the use of mobile manoeu vre is lauded by some tion has already gone quiet on its phones. Telstra has paid for its economists such as ANU's Robert ISDN promise (though it was never analogu e phone network several Alban, because it magically provides clear quite whether this did mean times over, yet both itself and Optus 'discipline'. Governance by an elite ISDN to the home) . And Minister charge premium-timed local call is preferable to the tainted and dilut­ Alston has come over all vague on rates to the over three million ing powers of democratic control. exactly when the standard telephone customers for what is increasingly a The Coalition, however, is sensi­ service definition will be reviewed­ standard service. tive to concerns over share concen­ it appears that even sending it to The government has announced tration and has announced special committee is likely to take some safeguards on untimed local calls, provisions for ordinary people, espe­ months. but they are something of a mixed cially low-income earners and The importance employees, to buy shares. If the of this is underscored I 5e~, SIR- 50 approach works, it will be a first. by the fact that it will '(OU'R£, CO~YINC E-..D Overseas experience shows that be more difficult fo r shares of privatised government the government to 70ME.ONE; \$ TAPPIN& corporations are owned in the longer compel a partly pri­ YOVR coo- -e,ees ... term by larger corporate interests vatised Telstra to ) and wealthy individuals. According carry ou t much - to the Australian Consumers' Asso­ n eeded network ciation, ninety-six per cent of shares modernisation in in T elecom NZ are now held by only rural and remote ar­ ~ 196 shareholders. John Ernst's study eas. In the case of the of UK utility reforms found that broadband cable net­ attempts to increase shareholdings work being currently by individuals in British utilities rolled out by Telstra failed. Indeed, as Ernst notes, if the to compet e with policy of extension of share owner­ Optus, privatisa tion ship was to be properly implemented, would make it less shares in privatised utilities should likely that this net- be given out equally to all citizens work will reach many for free. rural and re- Partial privatisation shows some mote areas. promise to address concerns over full privatisation by keeping Telstra U NTIMED local under government control. Yet the calls remains the nature of this control, particularly bright red panic in the long term, is unclear- not button of Australian politics. In the blessing. On the one hand, its priva­ least because the move to full priva­ recent election Labor campaigned tisation bill extends the right to tisation will not be long in coming. hard on making privatisation untimed local calls to business and The government has also prom­ synonymous with untimed local all other customers as well as resi­ ised a 'world class consumer frame­ calls, but must have found it hard to dential customers and charitable and work' to provide protection if b elieve their own overblown welfare organisations. However, the privatisation is to proceed. So far, rhetoric. The real issue is the need right applies only to Telstra's service however, the Coalition has only for untimed local calls to remain the and only to the standard telephone announced consumer guarantees in standard option for all residential service. som e areas through a patchwork of consumers in face of competition The government has suggested legislation, custom er service guar­ and privatisation, and not be under­ that all companies providing a 'fixed' antees, and codes of practices. mined by new services and pricing local call service 'could be required The Coalition has promised to structures. to offer the option of untimed local accelerate network modernisation so Proponents of timed local calls calls to all customers (residential that the digitisation of exchanges is often accuse their opponents of be­ and business) where the obligation completed by 1 July 1997, fast data ing illogical. It is difficult to see, currently applies'. But in this case, Integrated Services Digital Network however, what is logical about pay­ Telstra would have to offer its present (ISD N ) will be available. The ing more money for a basic service, local call areas, while other service government has also promised to threatening social and business uses providers' could be allowed to define consider upgrading the standard of the telephone, and the burgeoning the areas within which they provide telephone service definition . use of fax and data, such as the local calls'. This is a significant back­ This timetable for upgrading the Internet. Local call prices should not down on the previous government's network is ambitious and there are be going up for consumers by the promise to ensure that all phone sign s that it m ay not be fully ruse of charging by time. The dangers companies offer local calls at the

VOLUME 6 NUMBER 6 • EUREKA STREET 25 current level. Th ere is a further This move raises obvious concerns CCI makes wrinkle in the government tying the that quality of service and availabil­ untimed local call obliga tion to the ity of new services will run a poor protecting your standard telephone service, which is second to saving money, as has hap­ defin ed as a service used for voice pened in other tendering and con­ telephony. tracting out exercises. If tendering home and family This means that consumers and out is to proceed, the details need to other users who use data services be known before the governm en t's as easy as calling such as the Internet or facsimile may telecommunications reforms are put no longer be guaranteed an untimed into legislation. local call. 1800 011 028 While the government has com ­ mitted itself to retaining the status Ca ll 1800 011 028 now and fin d out quo on universal service lor univer­ HI! -IS THAT more about CCI Home Building, Home sal access to telecommunications), Contents and Chil dren's Accident it views this very narrowly. Since ''7eLf-IIV\ffiRTA~T Insurance. You'll fin d the service personal 199 1, universal service has been L.OUO -MOVTH E-P and attentive, the ra tes competitive and defin ed as the rights of all Austral­ A1f€f..111DI\J-5~~K.IN~ ians wherever they live to the stand­ making a clai m easy, right from the start. a rd t el ephon e servi ce land PRt\ 1\5 WI1H For honest protecti on for yo ur home and payphones). The government nomi­ MO~IL.E. P~o~~S fa n'lily, call the Church's own insurance nates a universal service carrier who ANON'( MOU$"? compa ny- CCI Insurances. is charged with this responsibility (presently T elstra). Other carriers ""~\) then pay a contribution to any losses ~-- .. CCI Insurances incurred in delivering uni versa! ~ ~ ' Cmhoilc Church /nmrance1 Lm11ted A C N ()()() OU.~ ;nO service. After 1997, con tributions to 32-1 St. Kildn Rond, Jllrlboume, 3004 universal service will be based on revenue share. This goes part of the way towards ensuring access to telecommunica­ tions, but not far enough, particu­ TRAVEL WISE TOURS larly with the spectre of privatisation -responsible travel - and further competition on

Community Aid Abr0<11d the horizon. Do you want to find out One World Travel E RsT, T HE STANDARD SERVICE to be what is really going on, be welcomed by delivered under the universal serv­ the people you are visiting and tread ice obliga tion should be the stand­ softly on their environment? ard telecommunications service, and should include as an absolute mini­ mum data capability at a level of at Come with us to: least 9,600 kilobytes per second fax • Solomon Islands and data-or the level of service for m ost m etropolitan consumers. • Guatemala Second, with over 400,000 Aus­ The be n efits to residential • Brazil tralian h ouseholds not on the phon e consumers of the partial pri va tisa­ •India network, universal service should tion of T elstra have not yet been be affordable. This m eans that, at a demonstrated. In this ligh t, it is • Laos minimum, the entitlem ents avail­ unfortunate that the Telstra sale • Mongolia able to pensioners fro m T elstra and legislation was tabled in Parliament • Tibet Department of Social Security to with no notice. • Vietnam assist with getting and staying on This has been rectified by the the phone should be extended to referral to examination by Senate • Zambia and Malawi unemployed people. This financial Committee, which at least provides assistan ce should be paid for out of fo r som e public input into the deci­ Phone (toll free) 1800 814 848 the universal service obliga tion by sion m aking process. T he Senate Phone (local) (08) 232 2727 the telecommunica tions industry. Committee is due to report in PO Box 34 Rundle Mall, S.A. 5000 Third, the government has fore­ Augu st, unless th e governm ent shadowed provisions for tendering m oves to circumvent the Senate by lATA accred!tl!d ACN 000 448291 L1cence No 3 1 3~4 out of the universal service obliga­ selling Telstra without legislative tion in selected geographical areas. amendment.

26 EUREKA STREET • JuLY/AucusT 1996 The Telstra Corporation Act 1991 prohibits the Commonwealth from selling any shares in Telstra to out­ siders. These res trictions do not, however, apply to holding of non­ voting shares, which co uld be issued L nm run ~~~:S~~~.:~~~:~~~;~~~el P<~ e- winning by the Minister amending Telstra's former director of Melbourne's Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research Memorandum and Articles of Asso­ (WEHI)-remained unconvinced of the worth of molecular biology. In a paper ciation. Also outsiders are allowed published in 1965 he commented that 'however fascinating it may be as a scholarly to hold shares in subsidiaries of achievement, there is virtually nothing that has come from molecular biology that Telstra, and Telstra is also permit­ can be of any value to human living'. ted to transfer whole or part of its Yet today the techniques of molecular biology-such as genetic engineering assets to subsidiaries where shares and protein synthesis-permeate every comer of the research institute he guided to are held by outsiders. (This has the forefront of the world stage. And WEHI's new director, Professor Suzanne Cory, already happened with eleven sub­ is a molecular biologist of international repute. sidiaries of Telstra, where private By 1993 investors in the United States were pouring more than $30 billion a interests hold shares.) year into gene technology research, in the hope of unearthing a new top-selling As one commentator has noted, pharmaceutical. Is it any wonder that a high proportion of the bright young biological 'there is nothing to prevent Telstra and medical researchers of the past decade have gone into genetics, biochemistry from putting a subsidiary such as the and related fields? existing Telstra Multimedia Pty Ltd Yet, even as Archimedes writes, the wheel appears to be turning back towards between itself and its subsidiaries, more traditional biology. Several senior researchers at WEHI are concerned at the transferring its assets and liabilities lack of good old-fashioned biologists, the ones who study organisms as a whole to it, and becoming a holding com­ withou t reducing them to a set of biochemical interactions.These researchers can pany'. Shares in Telstra Multimedia already see the day, only a few years hence, when the billion dollar human genome could then be happily project-the once insurmountable task of unravelling the molecular structure of offered to the public. '"T""' the DNA in the entire set of 46 human chromosomes-will be complete. The sequence of DNA in every human gene will be known. Then what? .1. HIS PEA-AND-THJMBLE TRICK fore­ shadowed by the government cannot The point is that genes do not work in isolation. The entire set is integrated. dispel the widespread public inter­ There are layers of genes interacting with and controlling the action of other genes. est from the wider community in The subtlety and complexity of these management systems is quite staggering. the Telstra privatisation and the Different groups of genes at different times and in different places are switched on government's competition reforms. and off to manufacture the proteins that operate cells. How else can one explain Clearly, it is not good enough to that exactly the same set of genes is responsible for the growth and action of nerve close down discussion of the Telstra and muscle cells, heart and kidney cells, retina and skin cells? sale by reference to 'mandates' which So, knowing the DNA structure of a gene may only put you a very small distance are notoriously difficult to es tablish along the road to understanding how it works. 'We've been through reduction in any case, given the range of issues biology,' says Professor Don Metcalf, the legendary WEHI researcher who officially that influence people's vo ting retired last month after more than 40 years studying the basis of leukaemia. patterns. 'We now need to take a step back, and look at how genes operate in whole Upon his election, Prime animals. Ten years ago, work with whole animals seemed nearly finished. No-one Minister Howard indicated that he wanted to be a biologist. Now we're desperately short of biologists, and it takes a wished to govern on behalf of all long time to train them- up to a decade.' His views are echoed by fellow researcher, Australians. It would be appropriate Dr Nick Nicola, director of the Cooperative Research Centre for Cell Growth Fac­ then that the government, as well as tors. He says that in the papers coming out of Boston- perhaps the area with the other parliamentarians, engage in an highest density of molecular biology research in the world-he has noticed a few ongoing process of dialogue with researchers whose names continually crop up as co-authors. 'These are the guys consumers and citizens about who can look at a genetically altered mouse and immediately tell you the liver's telecommunications, and seek to demonstrate, rather than merely shot to pieces or the eye colour is unusual.' And there is a dearth of them. assume, what benefits the sale of No-one is suggesting that we haven't learned an enormous amount from Telstra might bring. • molecular biology, or that the effort put into the human genome project has been wasted. But it is beginning to look as though we've ended up with a marvellous Gerard Goggin is Policy Advisor at resource which will take time to learn to manage and use effectively. It will also the Consumers' Telecommunica­ change the environment of medical research for ever. tions Network, a national coalition The progress of science is rarely linear. But one doubts whether James Watson of community and consumerorgani­ and Francis Crick, when they uncovered the helical structure of DNA, had any sa tions representing residential con­ inkling that research in molecular biology, for which they provided the impetus, sumers of telecommunications. The would proceed along much the same helical course. • views expressed are his own. (ggoggin@extro .u cc.su.oz.au) Tim Thwaites is a freelance science writer.

V OLUME 6 NUMBER 6 • EUREKA STREET 27 Contempt for the law L ,V• cTO,.AN PmmR woN'T"' pm"cuted fm Langer infringed is a Commonwealth one. contempt, again. A few weeks ago he told a Liberal Contempt has been headline material many times Party Council- prefacing his remarks with 'this may in the last year. Wh o magazine was punished fo r or may not get m e into more trouble, but I'll say it'­ publishing information identifying the man accused th at there w as something 'political' about the of the backpacker murders. The Tasmanian Attorney­ National Crime Authority (N CA) investiga tion into General, somewhat after the horse had bolted, tried John Elliott. to slam the door on publication of photographs of the The trial had already started. Preliminary argu­ m an accused of the Port Arthur m assacre, som ehow m ent about the admissibility of N CA eviden ce was acquired from his hom e while it was being searched. under way in the Suprem e Court, without publicity, TV stations have been ordered, or chose, to with­ to avoid prejudicing the jury yet to be empanelled. hold current affairs stories in states holding trials Ju stice Vincent, the trial judge, wrote to the Attor­ which might be aff ected by them . Yet in the US, media ney-General. The Premier's QCs told the court he was have published, with impunity, speculation and com ­ sorry: the judge said he hadn't appreciated it; the m entary on high-profile accu sed su ch as the Attorney-General consulted her Solicitor-General and M enendez brothers and O.J. Simpson, in flagra nt decided not to prosecute Mr Kennett, and thus ended breach of the sub judice rule. his third 'near m iss' in as many years. In the US, it would seem, the Constitutional On the oth er h and, the unsilked, an archic guarantee of 'fr eedom of speech' and a relatively weak political activist Albert Langer was charged, convicted regime of defam ation law has made a big difference and went directly to jail a fe w weeks earlier fo r his to perceptions about the possibility of fairness. Does this m ean that Australian juries are less sophisti cated, or Australian judges more am enable to bias than US ones? Is the public's right to know m ore important than the public interest in m aintaining a delicate reticence until the trial is over?

S0 IT IS T IMELY TO CONSIDER the laws of COntempt, and when they might guide the unwary to an all­ expenses-paid holiday in Pentridge or a fat fine­ w hich (lest we forget) a decade or so ago Neville Wran paid, fo r a rem arkably similar outburs t about the impending impeachment of the late High Cou rt Justice, Lionel Murphy. Of our three Constitu tiona! institutions-the executive (of which the Premier is the titular head ), the courts, and Parliament-only the latter two can punish for 'con tempt'. It is 'contem ptible' to say or do anything which is calculated or likely to usurp or frustra te their roles. The power to punish for contempt is a defensive weapon to protect their existence. impertinent pre-election claim, before another judge Threa ts, blackmail, deception and disruption, even of the sa me court, that his political rights were more satire, might offend. important than the Electoral Act which m akes it In late May the speaker of the Victorian Parlia­ illegal to advocate a lawful way of voting without in­ m ent was apparently so offended by an Age newspa­ dica ting preferences. It was the same court: a similar per columnist's mildly funny critique of the erratic aff ron t to the dignity and funct ioning of the conduct of Prem ier 'Mr Felicity Kennett' as a footy­ dem ocratic system , but the result was very different. player off his form that the Age editor was summoned Why? Because of our Federal legal system . Kennett's to account. The matter has apparently been resolved, offence fell under the Victorian system but the law which is just as well for Mr Guthrie. The Western

28 EUREKA STREET • JuLv/ A u c usT 1996 Australian Parliament actually jailed the odious Brian intimidation or bribery of witnesses or court officers. Easton for a week in 1995 because he would not The third way is to let one of the interested parties apologise for misleading Parliament. The tabling of lay the charge. This is most common in civil courts his petition protesting at political meddling in his and statutory tribunals. I have seen it done. A divorce preceded his former wife's suicide by a mat­ government department accused of race discrimina­ ter of days and led, ultimately, to the Royal Commis­ tion privately prosecuted the complainant because he sion that immolated the political career of the then discussed his complaint with journalists a couple of WA Premier, Carmen Lawrence. Easton has since been days before the Equal Opportunity Board was due to jailed for the more appropriate crime of perjury (in h ear it. He was fined by an entirely different the Family Court), and the more satisfactory term of 'magistrates' court. This too was not a good look for two years. anti-discrimination law. The more common use of contempt laws is in More recently, the PNG landowners who took the courts. They protect the 'due administration of on BHP over the Ok Tedi mine in their country justice,' which requires that: initiated contempt proceedings against the company (1) everyone has access to constitutionally estab­ for joining with the PNG government in an agreement, lished courts to settle disputes about their criminal and later legislation, designed to intimidate them into and civil rights and liabil- withdrawing their ities; claims or be jailed. They (2) those tribunals The laws that protect the proper eventually lost, not on will not be biased and the merits but on a tech­ their judgments made administration of justice ... are in a nicality. only on facts which have In Victoria, it been properly proved muddle. Unknotting them requires would seem, the only within them, according authority who can to laws of evidence and principled decisions about the prosecute for contempt procedure rather than proper balancing of individual is the Attorney-General: gossip; a Government Minister (3) once a dispute has rights and the public interest; the and member of the been taken to a court of Executive. This was law, citizens can be abso­ proper use of State power and effected in 1994 when lutely sure that no other the Public Prosecutions person will u surp that equality before the law. Act was amended. It was court's function, which is an overlooked compo- to decide the dispute ac- nent-though in actual­ cording to law. ity I mentioned it in my column in this journal in Traditionally, the courts' power to punish for June 1994-of the general restructuring and disem­ contempt has been initiated in one of three ways (the powerment of the DPP, then one Bernard Bongiorno Law prefers trinities): QC, the very DPP who had incurred Mr Elliott's ire First, on the initiative of a principal law officer over the decision to investigate him, and the very man of the State, either the Attorney-General or, more who had publicly criticised and considered prosecut­ recently (in Victoria) the Director of Public ing Mr Kennett for asserting the guilt of a murder Prosecutions. suspect' Second, the courts can initiate punishment them­ The laws that protect the proper administration selves. They do so quite rarely and usually only where of justice, the right to a fair trial and the means of there is a 'need to remove at once the immediate ob­ ensuring that, the role of the media in focusing public struction to the demonstration of justice'- that is, in attention on the judicial process, and the policy behind a 'live' trial. This is unpopular, because it is summa­ the laws protecting reputation and public office­ ry and without notice, and in part because it was griev­ holders, are in a muddle. Unknotting them requires ously misused by judges in high-profile US civil principled decisions about the proper balancing of liberties trials in the '60s and '70s. In 1969, for exam­ individual rights and the public interest: the proper ple, Judge Hoffman ordered Bobby Seale, one of the use of State power and equality before the law. It is Chicago Conspiracy accused, to be gagged and tied to not sensible to leave these laws- different from State a chair. This was not a good look for American jus­ to Commonwealth and between States and tice. Anyone who objected to his treatment- he was Territories-as they are: uncertain, unsatisfactory, and trying to insist on representing himself-got charged unresolved. A justice system so served by the law will too. come to deserve our contempt. • It is more seemly, and more common, for the court to direct one of its officers to investigate and Moira Rayner is a lawyer and fr eelance journalist. Her prosecute particular cases, such as threats to or e-mail is [email protected].

V oLUME 6 NuMBER 6 • EUREKA STREET 29 HEALTH

ROBYN COOPER

Radiating life

Kmo,cs' CANCeR WAS THt NAMt MY YDUNCCR MSHR g.ve to the paedi'"'c tumom, medull• blastoma, which lodged itself in the fourth ventricle of my cerebellum some 14 years ago. I was something of a medical freak then, being the oldest person in Australia though not in the world (the U.S. holds the prize) to have such a tumour. I should have been four, not 40. I sometimes wonder whether I have been the subject of a learned paper in some medical jour­ nal: against the odds I have survived this tumour, although, courtesy of radiotherapy, I am not an undamaged survivor. Fourteen years on I feel the need to talk about my tumour and the long-term effects, not to lament or bewail what has befallen me but to speak the unspeakable and to sing the song of survival, to demonstrate that brain tumours are not necessarily death sentences and that there can be life after a tumour and radiotherapy. The headaches began in the middle of 1982. They were postural headaches. I remember the first one. I was stooped over, gardening. As I stood up there was a painful pulsing in my head-a boom, boom, boom. But I did not see a doctor until September when the pulsation headaches became worse (signs of the blockage of spinal fluid to the brain, as it turned out). I had aCT scan at Royal Prince Alfred Hospital (RP AH) which showed nothing untoward. The neurophysician I saw decided I was suffering from an unusual form of migraine. But my headaches did not respond to the prescribed treatment. Despite the headaches, I managed to continue with my academic work at Sydney University. It was better to be doing something than sitting around feeling sorry for myself. After I had completed marking and submitted the results, however, I lost all control over the headaches; they refused to be repressed. The boom boom booms became BOOM BOOM BOOMS. I went back to RPAH and had another CT scan. This time the tumour appeared on the scan-it was so large it was compressing the fourth ventricle of the cerebellum. By then my balance was also affected, and I could no longer take 'dolly' (heel to toe) steps-an external sign of a tumour on the cerebellum, which controls balance. The medulla blastoma is a very sneaky tumour and does not differentiate itself clearly from normal tissue, which is why it did not appear on the first scan. By the time it was diagnosed I had a month of life left and a very large tumour to be disposed of. It was too late to explore the offerings of alternative medicine which my naturopathic friends felt I ought to do. How did I react to having a head which was host to an unwelcome rogue cell? My first reac­ tion, funnily enough, was relief. Knowledge, however unpleasant, was far preferable to uncertainty. Also, I preferred to take my chances with a tumour than to spend the rest of life chronically afflict­ ed by migraine headaches. Did I feel anger, which was the response that some friends felt they would have experienced in the same situation? No. I did not ask 'why me?' but rather 'why not me?' What was so special about me that I should be spared the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune? I also reflected that for most of the world's population, 40 was a ripe old age-living until the 70s and 80s is a privilege enjoyed by the affluent West. Most importantly, perhaps, I felt that the time had not yet come for me to meet my maker. I don't know why I felt this. Certainly it was not religious faith, of which I have little if any, although I did not object to an ardently religious friend praying fervently and noisily over my body. Although I found her prayers a bit embarrassing-they seemed to resound throughout the hospital-! felt that in case there were a God it would be a good idea to ask him/her to act on my behalf. It would also allow the Supreme Being to demonstrate his/her magnanimity and all-embracing love by saving

30 EUREKA STREET • JuLv/Auc usT 1996 a non-believer. No, it was not religious faith which sustained my feeling that this would not be the hour of my death, that my time had not yet come. Nor was it fear to confront the possible, indeed probable outcome of my illness (40 per cent survival rate before the operation, 50 per cent after radiotherapy). I had a rather stoical attitude towards my situation and accepted death as the probable denouement of my tumour tale. Rather there was in me a strong will to live, of which I was not conscious-! never said to myself 'I shall fight and defeat this alien invader'. My excellent neurosurgeon was aware of this will to live. He afterwards told me that he felt I was working with him during the operation. By way of contrast he referred to a woman who had died after an operation that was, in medical terms, as successful as mine. Her husband had recently died, and she had lost the will to live. I don't think that one can conclude from this little tumour tale that the will to live inevitably ensures survival, but it does suggest the close and often unacknowledged connection between body and mind in illness. I also felt there was a certain cachet in having a brain tumour, especially for an academic. In terms of the cancer hierarchy there is no doubt that the brain tumour is at the pinnacle. Equally the brain surgeon enjoys the greatest prestige. I myself feel a bit snobbish about my tumour. I doubt whether I would have wanted to talk about my illness had it been bowel cancer. For the three months of the summer of 1982-3 RP AH became my home. The Festive Season and my 41st birthday were celebrat­ ed in hospital. I arrived with some hastily purchased night-dresses, my feather pillow, a notebook, and a big exercise book. The pillow was soft and familiar. The different beds on which I laid my body were alien, but the pillow on which I rested my ailing head gave me a sense of security. The notebook served two purposes. Initially its function was to record the nature of my illness, possible after effects and life expectancy. I felt that having such a serious complaint might put me into a state of shock and affect my powers of reason. It didn't. The second purpose was to answer my intellectual curiosity about my illness. I wanted to get to know my tumour and understand the various tests and treatments I was undergoing. The doctors reacted differently to my notebook. The radiologist who gave me an angi­ ogram was very enthusiastic about his work and delighted by my interest. I was fascinated by the sight of my brain on the screen with the iodine coursing through to pinpoint the exact location of my tumour. I learned of the blood/brain barrier; iodine is one of the few substances that can cross it. The radiotherapist, on the other hand, felt threatened by my notebook, asked me about other doctors' reactions, and was reluctant to impart information about the nature, experience and effects of radiotherapy. It was not clear to me whether this reluctance was to be read as a protection against being sued if anything went wrong or as an unwillingness to divulge the secrets and mysteries of the expert's particular knowledge. The third object, the large exercise book, was to record my hospital experience. It is incomplete and it ends, unsurprisingly, not long after the start of radiotherapy. It contains records of my experiences in intensive care, the neurosurgical ward, and in Gloucester House. It is on this notebook as well as my memory that I am drawing in the telling of my tumour tale.

T HE FIRST GRE AT AID WAS A COPY OF Frances Hodgson Burnett's Th e Secret Garden, an early edition with illustrations by Arthur Rackham, lent to me by a most sensitive friend, to whom I shall be forever grateful. It was not long after my operation. I lay curled up in my cot in the neurosurgical ward reading this story of how two children regained their health after they discovered and brought back to life a hidden and neglected garden. Next (in order, not importance) came friends. I was lucky in having an army of friends who were wonderful during my illness. They visited frequently- sometimes leaving me quite exhausted after their visits. I entertained them with stories of hospital life, such as my discovery of the ethnic menu and my working my way through the different 'E's' . What was curious about the ethnic menu was the loose relationship between nation and cuisine. The Arabic menu included lasagne, while the Yugoslav menu included chicken cacciatore. Some dishes were ethnically universal, green bean stew being on all the 'E' menus. My friends entertained me with stories of the world outside. One friend had joined the protesters against the damming of the Franklin River in Tasmania and had been arrested. Another friend, an artist, arrived with a camera. She was assembling photographs for an exhibition of freaks and wanted to include

V OLUME 6 N U M BER 6 • EUREKA STREET 31 me. I rather fancied the idea of being in a freak show, having been fascinated by them as a child-the fa t lady, the dwarf, the India rubber man. So I was rather disappointed when she decided not to include me. I am not sure whether this was because of an unnecessary sensitivity on her part or of my failure to appear sufficiently freakish. I thought I would have passed the freak test, weighing in at 35 kilos, completely bald, and with radiation burns on my head.

N oT ALL FRIENDS WERE WELCOME VISITORS. One who came to see me before the operation asked me if I'd thought of the Four Last Things. I hadn't; I didn't even know what they were. He returned after the operation with a beautiful life-glorifying bunch of flowers, but then told me how terrible I looked and proceeded to impart the contents of a book he was reading about a man who died of a brain tumour. His visit upset me at the time, but soon became the subject of one of my many comic tumour stories for other visitors. There were also the cards, letters and flowers. At times the space around my bed looked like a florist shop. Prominently displayed were flowers from the Deputy Vice-Chancellor and a get-well note from the Vice-Chancellor. I found these useful in keeping the young residents in place. They treated me with a respect not normally accorded patients. It was as if the flowers and the card imbued me with something of the aura and power of our shared leaders. My fellow patients were a continuous source of interest. I was surprised to find that some of them were not as interested in their illness as I was in mine. Indeed one was so terrified that she did not want to know anything about it. I'm not sure whether she even knew why she was in hospital. But my fellow patients were for the most part a brave and stoic lot with interesting stories to impart. There was, for example, the man with five great-grandchildren, a cheery soul, who told me about a blind friend in hi 80's who arrived for a visit with a woman he had picked up on the way in tow. Then there was the 'traction lady' with a severe back problem, whose suffering found melodramatic expression and was incorporated into a narra­ tive of her relationship with her husband. Her back problem would be a lesson to her husband who would cease to neglect her. At the same time she was anxious that her husband, a doctor, would not be happy at having an unhealthy wife. Her many visitors took on the role of the Greek chorus in this drama. My position (bed 418A) on a veranda at Gloucester House-where I spent most of my hospital time-also helped. Gloucester House was not air-condi­ tioned. For me this was all to the good. I much prefer to breathe 'natural' air and experience the uncertainties of temperature than to breathe artificially constant recycled air. Air-conditioning makes me feel I am living in a sealed box. My bed looked onto the grounds of St Andrew's College, and beyond that to the 'dreaming spires' of Sydney University with the city in the distance. Below m e on the summer-yellow grass people strolled and jogged, walked their dogs and flew kites. To the right there was the college oval where a mini test match was in progress, the Commonwealth Bank Under Sixteen Cricket Competition. I am not a dedicated follower of cricket. But I love the culture of cricket. I love the words-'square leg', 'silly mid-on', 'deep cover'-although I am clueless as to their meaning. I love the sound of cricket-of the ball hitting the bat, the clapping of the spectators. I love the slow pace of cricket, a game played over days not hours. I love its summer associations with heat, lassitude and leisure and (to my shame) the echoes of England and her colonies. So I watched with pleasure the cricket on the ) oval, even though I had no idea of what was happening. Something less pleas­ urable to watch appeared with the beginning of the academic teaching year­ fi freshmen at the college in academic gowns walking backwards and carrying a brick. This was probably one of the lesser humiliations imposed by senior students on the freshers, part of the male ritual known variously as hazing, bastardisation and fresher bashing. But I find such rituals ridiculous, offen- sive and demeaning. They can also be dangerous. What about the help provided by those responsible for my care and recovery? The nurses in intensive care were excellent. So were the nurses in Gloucester House. I had more problems with the nurses in the neurosurgery ward who were for the most part young and inexperienced. It was in the neurosurgery ward that I had my one and only breakdown, the result of Christ-

32 EUREKA STREET • JuLv/AucusT 1996 m as Eve thoughtlessness and neglect. There was also a tendency to identify help­ lessness, confusion and dependence with infancy. The 'neuros' (as we were called), might be helpless and dependent but they are still adults. Living in a cot did not help. N o allowance was made for the fact that I was a relatively 'compos' neuro. I was repeatedly being asked m y name, m y location, the da y of the week. For variety, one of the nurses asked m e the names of the Prime Minister and the US President. This shift in questions presented Trivial Pursuit possibilities. I worked very hard at becoming 'gently ambulant' so that I might be returned to Gloucester House. By day four I was sitting up in the cot reading; on day five I took n1.y first walk; on day six I had my first shower; by da y seven I could reach up to the bed light. N ot long aft er, I was back in my old Gloucester House bed, 41 8A. The nurses did not revere the doctors and particularly resented the lack of communication and information. I often had to tell them why I was in hospital. Sometimes they had to rush after a patient being wheeled away on a trolley to find out where s/he was being taken. With a few exceptions, particularly the neurosur­ geon, the neurophysician and the radiologist, I was not too impressed with the doctors either.Th ey took little notice of the patients. I was bowled over by one in a corridor, who fail ed to see m e. However I was not in awe of them . When the medicos fo rmed themselves into a gaggle in the middle of a corridor, thereby block­ ) ing the way, I would declare 'patients have priority' and push m y way through them. When asked to talk about my tumour to a group of doctors I insisted that I be called 'Dr. Cooper'-a hard-earned title, not an assumed honorific. If a doctor addressed m e by m y first nam e I responded in kind. My radiotherapy tale is rather grim. Radiotherapy is like a prison sentence. My sentence was fiv e days a week for five weeks. It began on m y birthday. N oth­ ing could have been grimmer than the RP AH radiotherapy room s. They resembled a prison . The walls were windowless and painted a leaden grey. I could not under­ stand why cancer suffe rers should be put into such a desperately depressing envi­ ronment. Why the absence of colour, of flowers, of decorative prints? Was this bleakness an intimation of what was in store for us? Were we breaking the laws of health by succumbing to cancer? Were we Kafkaesque characters being punished for we knew not what? We waited on chairs and in trolleys, all of us bald, skeletal, and as grey as the walls. As preparation for radiotherapy I had spent a m otionless and uncomfortable hour and a half on my stom ach while the areas of m y body to be zapped- my head and spine-were covered in a network of red and blue dots and lines. The radiotherapy room itself was a sinister place. I was pushed around into position by nurses who never addressed me directly, but referred to m e as 'her', never 'you '. I was a body not a person. The m achine above m e was then turned on, and after a m om ent of deathly silence during which the nurses fell over each other in their haste to leave the room, there was a faint whirring, a signal that my body was being blasted by cobalt rays.

I WAS MEA T TO co HOME A o MAKE DAILY VISITS to the hospital for my radiotherapy. The effects of the treatment were so violent, however, that I was allowed to tay in hospital. For five weeks I was very very sick, though not near dea th as som e of my friends thought. I knew I was going through a very hard time, but I also knew I would com e out of it. I coped by thinking of each day's radiotherapy session not as the interminable 'one day m ore' but as the terminating 'one day less'. During these dark days my friends cam e with all kinds of delicacies to tempt m y appetite. But the problem was not loss of appetite but m y stom ach's capacity to hold onto any food. I was constantly vomiting, bringing up food, black bile, blood, the entire contents of my stomach. Sometimes I felt as if my whole body would be thrown up, liver, bladder, bowels, intestines, heart, lungs, the whole works, and that I would literally becom e skin and bone. I was too sick to record my hospital experiences, too sick to entertain visitors, too sick to do an ything. I lost all m y hair. My weight went down to 35 kilos. I had radiation burns on my scalp. But like m any others I survived the experience. My own radiotherapy experience has left m e wondering about the violence to, the violation of the body by radiotherapy and its cousin chemotherapy. In her Illness as Metaphor (1979) Susan Sontag refers to the m etaphors associated with cancer as being drawn from the language of warfa re. Cancer cells are invaders who have to be fought and defeated. The body becom es a battleground on which the war against cancer is fou ght. Equally military is the trea tment of cancer. Radiotherapy is a bombard­ ment of the patient with toxic rays; chemotherapy is chemical warfare using poisons. Diffe rent therapies will produce different m etaphors and it m ay well be that some time in the future gentler ways of engaging

VOLUME 6 N UMBER 6 • EUREKA STREET 33 with cancer will develop less violent and aggressive m etaphors. When I finally left the hospital in the March of 1983, it was with some trepidation. For three m onths all the decisions about my life had been made by others. I had no responsibilities. I did not have go to work; I did not have to look after the house, feed myself, pay the bills. I had become thoroughly institutionalised. I now had to take up the reins of my life again and begin directing it. I had also to adjust to the effects of my illness and its aftermath.

I NJTIALLY I WA S TO BE UNDER MEDICAL SURVE ILLANc dor ten years before I could be declared cured. However, I was pronounced to be clear after five years. For the first five years I held annual survival parties, around the time of my birthday in January. Thereafter they became post-survival parties. These parties became a feature on my friends' entertainment calendars. For m e they were a celebration of my continued life and a thank-you to those who had helped me through my tumour experience. The last 14 years have been a time of living and coping with the aftermath of my tumour and radiotherapy. No one could predict what this might be, since there are not enough tumour survivors to constitute a data bank. The main effect of the tumour has been my unsteady balance. The gifts of radiotherapy were much more extensive and far-reaching. My hair never fully grew back and I have a number of bald patches. This does not worry m e unduly, as my hair was never my crowning glory and I am fortunate in having a 'hatty' head which I take advantage of. I was never interested in wigs and from the start and I concealed my baldness beneath scarves, berets and hats. j... Radiotherapy also gave m e an early m enopause, of which I was unaware at the .l (, time. Again this did not particularly bother m e. I had never had strong maternal ~i d. \ w(l urges. Losing my periods was losing a m onthly nuisance. More serious was hearing tJ . l 7 loss, which happened gradually over the decade after my illness. But this problem "'fll\?llf . has been partially overcome by the acquisition of very expensive state-of-the art hearing aids which enable me to control what I want and do not want to hear. It is / a power that my normal hearing friends do not have. Lastly comes m emory loss. This is without a doubt the most unwelcome gift J of radiotherapy. I have always been noted for my vagueness. As a child I would som etimes go to school with my pyjamas under my uniform. But I had a well­ - functioning memory that could store and retrieve large amounts of information. - ' Over the 14 years since my illness m y m emory has deteriorated. Very little makes the transition from the short to the long term m emory. I forget names, dates, appointments, am unable to recall the films, plays and social events I go to. I rely on friends to construct my past for me. I have lost all sense of direction and get hopelessly lost. As a tourist in an unfamiliar city I spend more time looking at the map than the sights. I forget most of what I read. Academic teaching and research have becom e very difficult. I might spend a day on preparatory reading for a class, but I've lost it all by the time I m eet with my students. Lectures are easier because they are written out and in place. I have trouble with conferences as I often cannot follow what is being said (though som e would say this has more to do with the papers than my m emory). Research has become a real problem, because I have trouble in rem embering and assimilating the m aterial which provides the fo undation for research. Writing takes forever because between turning from the page to the word processor I lose what I have read. Sometimes I think that it is fortunate that breathing is involuntary; otherwise I would be in real trouble. How do I cope with this m emory loss? When I first became aware of the problem I went to some memory classes, but I found their remembering strategies too complicated to remember. You need a memory to remember mem ory strategies. I have become a much more orderly person, an ardent convert to the dictum 'a place for everything, everything in its place'. I make detailed written records of every­ thing to do with my life. This works as long as I remember to order and record. I am also learning to work within the limitations that memory loss has imposed upon me. Fortunately my mind and my imagination are still intact, and with the assistance of these I can move into a different kind of work, a different kind of writing that relies less on the m emory. This m eans leaving the leafy groves of academia through which I have wandered as undergraduate, postgraduate and teacher for the last thirty-six years, as I go into m edical retirement. But it is with excitem ent as well as trepidation that I look forward to my new post-university life. •

Robyn Cooper has just recently retired as Senior Lecturer in Fine Arts at the University of Sydney.

34 EUREKA STREET • JuLY/AuGUST 1996 P OETRY

Too Many Miracles

Honeycomb-tinted, billiard bald, unblinking, the baby stretches on his raft of lint- he is the one quite unselfconscious thing in a plethora of thinking and will give his parents no least hint of what their magic's done or yet will do: his head is huge, his penis a bold dildo; We are not rea dy for any manifestation the prosthetic ends of life already of our special case. But the best of us exaggerated, our scion of all species eschew conjecture and take by nature from prepares to venture far beyond the steady the gifts encoded in our blood a ration proposal of a humanistic thesis of hope and then the joy of work-a fuss into some overworld-the kin in him, of ordered sounds, a roping-up of syllables, fancying his mother's breath a zephyr, morality of colours, chartered skills- knows this is miracle, not synonym . and far from dark Messapian trappings choose a sun-kind ripa of philosophy, Where clay foot trod and iron claw dispersed as if to die were just to not refuse plants and unctuous animals, a fort a visitable hospice by the sea- of fragrance hides beneath the ruined gra ss- a conch-shell or a goat's horn cornucopia two and a half thousand years have done their worst might spill the face of wonder on the sand, to a once civil city and open tombs report painstaking painting, miraculous sinopia. their bodies missing and their souls as well. Leave the car and find if petrol fumes dispel And from the start our baby's being there the ambience of death: fo ught-over ground will not be pedal note of all sustainable looks no different from the urban waste existence, merely the formula he's given littering the road-here the sherdist fo und to make accommodation of the air a crinkly stone and an official chased and every swarming truth imaginable. the village dogs away. Are they chimerical Henceforth equipment matters-tooling up these glowing figures who return or is for universal martyrdom, the cup this just another necessary miracle~ which never passes, is his mise-en-scene, and love and patience and the drip of time are all apprenticeships. Words intervene to tell him there exists a far sublime since there's a word for it: he will discuss with friends the smoothness of the world and say too many miracles trouble the meniscus.

Peter Porter

VoLUME 6 NuMBER 6 • EUREKA STREET 35 THE CHURCH

PETER LYNCH The context of abuse

THE STRING OF RECENT REVELATIONS COncerning the sexual abuse of strong community urge to get back at those bodies that seek to children and adolescents by priests, brothers and lay teachers has control but are seemingly out of control themselves. aroused public anger in the community, and widespread disen­ Nor can we overlook the increasing recognition being given to chantment with the Catholic Church among its members. A the rights of children. In many ways, this is a comparatively new bishop's being admonished in a Royal Commission for failing to act social phenomenon. It is within recent memory that children on allegations of abuse, that were brought to his attention by a could, for misconduct, be violently abused, physically and emo­ young man, led to accusations of cover-up. Did the Church have tionally, simply at the whin1 of a teacher. It was ca lled character any sort of care for victims of such abusel Was it more caught up formation. Current child-rearing wisdom urges teachers and par­ in preserving its own image? ents to replace such punishments with good communication. There have been charges laid that, in some cases, reach as far In ancient Greece it was normal for men to look for companion­ back as the 1950s. But we may ask why it has only been in the last ship and fulfil their sexual needs among young boys. At the couple of years that these dark secrets have come to public aware­ beginning of the 17th century in the French court, young Louis XIII, ness and caused such disquiet. The intense public interest in child at the age of 14, was put into his wife's bed, a gi rl aged thirteen. abuse, as with any aberrant behaviour, needs to be interpreted Philippe Aries, writing on the social history of childhood, claims amidst a broad range of societal concerns and sentiments. It would that by the late 17th century the idea of ch ildish innocence, be a mistake to isolate child abuse from the array of social forces omething that needed safeguarding and defending, began to emerge. that have contributed to making it the recent focus of community There was an insistence on decency and modesty. The religious attention and outrage. Why is it front-page news now? And why is devotion associated with children being defended from moral the attention given to Church personnel offenders when the vast danger by their guardian angels arose in Europea n society ma jority of child sexual abuse cases occur within the family? at about this time. Philip Jenkins, Professor of History and Religious Studies at Pennsylvania State University, in his book Pedophiles And Priests N Ew RELI GIOUS ORD ERS, like the Jes uits and Oratorians, saw as (Oxford Uni vcrsity Press, 1996 ), argues that condemnation of child part of their task the teaching of and caring fo r children. By abuse among the clergy must be viewed as a political process. contrast, the earlier preaching mendicant Orders of the Middle Seeing it now as a special problem is the result of what he ca lls the Ages, like the Franciscans and Dominicans, had devoted their rhetoric of various interest groups and individuals with their own attention to adults. By the late 19th century, in western countries, ideologies and assumptions. While not wanting to deny or under­ the family was no longer simply an institution for the transmission estimate the damage done through the abuse of children, Jenkins of name and estate. It now had the moral and spiritual task of maintains that this social problem, like any other, reflects the fears, nurturing bodies and souls. Society had begun to take seriously the concerns and prejudices of our society. Why is it, he asks, do some welfare of children. This was certainly a feature of the Victorian behaviours rather than others come to be seen so uniquely harmful Age that saw the ri se of public education and philanthropic insti­ in certain societies and historical periods rather than others'? tutions for neglected children. Yet in Australia, Aboriginal chil­ Our own time is characterised by a mistrust of powerful insti­ dren continued to be taken from their parents in great numbers by tutions that seck to limit our freedom. It is hardly coincidental that successive governments until the middle of this century. the abuse of children by priests, m embers of religious orders and It was in 1979 that the United Nations issued its Declaration on teachers in church schools has been given most attention in the Rights of the Child. Interestingly, a glance through psychology Australia in a Ro ya l Commission dealing with corruption within textbooks of the late 1970s and ea rly 1980s reveal that they the Police Service of N ew South Wales. Police, politicians, clerics continued to hold the line that child sexual abuse in most instances and teachers all belong to social orga nisations that wield enormous had insignificant long- term effect provided adults didn 't over-react power and control over people's lives. Within the last decade, all to the disclosures made by children. How quickly the thera peutic have been investigated and found wanting. The Catholic Church in movement has reviewed its findings concerning the impact of child particular, with its perceived unbending moral condemnation of abuse upon it victims! Freudian belief about the power of infan­ things like divorce, pre-marital sex, hom osexuality, birth control tile fantasy have given way to therapists and law enforcement and abortion, has been made vulnerable to charges of hypocrisy and agencies accepting the capacity of children to be reliable in their sexual scandal within its own ranks. There doc appear to be a descriptions of alleged abuse. There has been the controversy over

36 EUREKA STREET • JuLY / AUGUST 1996 repressed mem ory therapy. The rights of the child continued to be vindicated in its portrayal of church and society. pushed forward to assume such prominence in the 1990s. Our way of life in recent years has become ca ught up in Despite m edia headlines, not all cases (or maybe even m ost ) of litigation. Everyon e from builders to brain surgeons lives in the fear child abuse relating to church workers are instances of paedophilia. of being su ed. Although countries like Australia or New Zealand The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, the have not reached the level of litigation that now exists in the bible of mental health workers, defin es paedophilia as 'recurrent United States, taking m atters to the courts is a fact of life pursued intense sexual urges and sexually arousing fantasies involving by special interest groups. The level of financial compensation sexual activity with a prepubescent child.' from the Church fo r victims of abuse in the United States has been Pa edophilia, then is a psychological abnormality relating to staggering. As well, action in the courts ensures publicity thus prepubescent males and fem ales and so distinct from being at­ drawing attention to injustice as well as providing retribution that tracted to under-age teenagers. T eenagers are adults and can be can help the healing process for the victims. The Church, with its potentially physically arousing and sexually appealing to other enormous resources in real estate, has been a particularly attractive adults. Such attraction need not be interpreted as being abnormal target in N orth America . For example, in 1994 the archdiocese of even if it is both inappropriate and illegal when physicall y ex­ N ew York was confronted with suits demanding $500 million for pressed by an adult towards an adolescent who is legally a minor. reported abuse allega tions against one priest alone. Average settle­ Of course, other psychological factors may be at work, such as an m ents in that country are said to be about $!million a victim. inability to form close personal relations with peers that leads to an Financial dealings of this magnitude have ensured publicity and the obsessive attraction to adolescents. The matter of governments Church realising its need to conform to a swift and proper legislating the minimum age for sexual relations is really one of system of reporting alleged abuse. social custom and subject to change. One aspect pertaining to the rights of children is the pressure within some quarters to lower the BOTH CO SERVATIVES AND LIBERALS point tO the issue of child abuse age of consent. to support their own view of the Church and its need to be different Along with the public distrust of powerful institutions and the from what it is. Conservatives hurl their anger at a church in which growing recognition of the rights of children, the shifting emphasis post-Vatican II reforms are believed to have gone too far. In this of the m edi a has been another factor resulting in prominence being view, lax moral teaching, no discipline and a priesthood that has given to problems within the Church over child abuse. Investiga­ identified itself too closely with the world, have led to the present tive journalism has enj oyed particular popularity despite protests crisis. For traditionalist Catholi cs, hom osexuality is an evil and the about its invasive m ethods and 'guilty before convicted' approach younger clergy is populated with gays. N o distinction is made to a story. Religious journalism has not been immune to such between homosexuals and paedophiles, so much so that the vic­ methods. Colleen McCullough's The Thorn Birds and the series of timisation of young girls is all but ignored. novels about the misconduct of the clergy, like The Ca rdinal Sins, More liberally minded Catholics argue that a church that insists by Chicago priest and critic, Andrew Greeley, prepared the way for on compulsory celibacy for its priests is going to have to expect the real thing. sexual abuse. This is not to say that celibacy is not a possible, It was the liberal American paper, National Catholic Reporter, fulfilling and holy lifestyle. But wanting to be a priest and wanting that first exposed the problem of child abuse within the Catholic to be celibate are not always the sam e thing. Children are an easy priesthood, in 1985. It launched a powerful attack aga inst church target for some susceptible men denied the normal and healthy authorities, accusing them of inaction over the clergy abuse prob­ expressions of affection and sexuality in an adult world. lem . It detailed particular cases. Jenkins writes: 'NCR not only N either celibacy nor priesthood cause exual abuse, argues defin ed the abuse problem; it had established itself and its journal­ N orbert Rigall, writing in the journal Theological Studies (March istic sources as authoritative experts on the question. ' Clerical 1994). But he goes on to say that neither can celibacy nor priesthood abuse stories soon captured the attention of the secular print be rem oved fr om the conversation, leaving behind nothing to media, radio and television. In Australia the regional newspaper, di scuss but mental dysfunctions of individuals. The liberal Catholic the Illawarra Mercury, took a particular interest in the subject. argument maintains that abuse thrives in hierarchical, authoritar­ Media attention upon the Church has com e a long way since the ian, sexually repressive institutions. cl ays of Bing Crosby's Going My Way. This conflict within Catholicism between liberals and con­ It would be easy to explain this by simply accusing the media of servatives can be seen as yet another factor that has brought sexual anti-Catholic bias. But it ought to be recognised that the secular abuse within the Church out into the open. Both sides of the debate press and electronic m edia often present very positive religious have been able to u se the issue to support their own agenda. reporting. As far as journalism is con cerned, what is of first Abuse of children by people working in the name of the Church importance is a story. And in this age of investiga tive journalism, has caused immen se harm. Respect for the Church has fallen and child abuse within the Church makes for a good story. its moral authority severely weakened. The integrity of its leader­ Feminism has been another social factor that has brought about ship has been severely tested. Anticlericalism will increase in a the intere t of the public in child abuse among cleri cs. Early time of a renewed self-confiden ce am ong the laity. Voca tions to the fe minist writings in the late 1960s dealt with rape and sexual priesthood and religious life, already low, are likely to continue to m olestation that were believed to thrive in a male-dominated drop as a result of this crisis. society. Contemporary feminist writers, like Naomi Wolf, are now But this crisis also has the potential for the Church to render anxious for wom en to move beyond the victim role. Feminist itself m ore accountable. The clergy abuse issue is not an isolated theologians, like Rosemary Radford Ruether and Elisabeth Schussler problem but one that has attained such recognition from a very Fiorenza, maintain that tradi tiona! Christian thought projects onto broad range of social and religious change within our communities. • the divine a system of male patriarchy and domination that then is capable of being legitimated in earthly relationships. Once cases of Peter Lynch teaches Practical Theology at the Catholic Institute male clerical abuse first began to surface, feminist thinking felt of Sydney.

VOLUME 6 N UMBER 6 • EUREKA STREET 37 THE R EG ION

JAMES GRJFFfN Bougainville escalates The worst violence in the Southwest Pacific since the Second World War has spread over seven and a half years and there is little prospect of peace.

AsTHI S ARTICLE GOESTO PRESS (late June), mine could be retaken and a cordon sanitaire reverted to terrorism . In return, the PNGDF Sir Julius Chan has ill-advisedly loosed the imposed. In 1988 the mine had yielded 17 obliged its critics by undisciplined sorties Papua N ew Guinea D efence Force (PNGDF) per cent of revenue and some 40 per cent of not just against known BRA locations but in another attempt to search and destroy the export earnings. Better still, it was thought also against m ere suspects. With neither Bougainville Revolutionary Army (BRA) in the rebel leadership would wilt or be elimi­ force able to eliminate the other, som e central Bougainville. Already there are re­ nated and the revolution come to a strag­ attempt at rapprochement was inevitable. ports that the ill-trained, ill-equipped, un­ gling end. Eventually in mid-1994 a foray In September 1995, with Port Moresby's der-manned, logistically underserviced and succeeded in reaching the Panguna heights approval, Australia sponsored a m eeting in unpredictable troops are again committing only, as its commander knew, to be bereft of Cairns between representatives of the BTG atrocities. The Acting Premier, Theodore logistic support and even of direct opposi­ and agents of the BIG resident in Australia Miriung, who has been foremost in pursu­ tion. The PNGDF squad was sprayed with and the Solomon Islands. ing a compromise peace within the sover­ gunshot and a lightly wou nded commander Exploratory only, the talks determined eignty of Papua N ew Guinea, is now said to led his troops back in safety to the coast. that there should be a further conference be seeking a referendum on independence. Effectually that ended any hope of a decisive but including, this time, rebel This complicates further the tragic events victory, though by no m eans all verbal leaders.Violence resumed but in D ecember in Bougainville and poses a fresh challenge bellicosity from Port Moresby. the conference was held in Cairns. Joseph to Australia to becom e more directly in­ In late August, Sir Julius Chan again Kabui, formerly premier of Bouga inville volved. became Prime Minister and immediately (1987-90) and a minister in the BIG, Sam The war in Bougainville is not just made a creative overture to the rebels. This Kauona, commander of the BRA, m embers between the PNGDF and the rebels. To led in October to a peace conference in the of the BTG led by Miriung, 'exiles' from complicate m atters, there are 'Resistance' Bougainville town of Arawa under the Bougainville living in Port Moresby, and m embers who want eventual secession but surveillance of an international South Pacific the province's four national MPs attended. oppose an outcom e which would leave the force financed by Australia. Although a few Particularly important was the chairman­ revolutionary political arm, the Bougainville observers from the rebels were there, their ship of representatives of the UN Secretary­ Interim Government (BIG), and the BRA in so-called 'chiefs' would not accept guaran­ General and the Commonwealth Secretariat control of an independent nation. They tees of safety. The conference did not lack and the presence of observers from the experienced what this could m ean when, in credibility as leaders from all parts of Unrepresentative N ations and Peoples Or­ March 1990, Port Moresby withdrew its Bougainville attended, except for the central ganisation (UNPO) and the International forces in order to curb further bloodshed. minesite area where the revolt began. Most Commission of Jurists (ICJ ). The result was an inchoate terrorist regime notable was the role played by Theodore The second m eeting broke up amicably dominated by m embers of the largest lan­ Miriung, a former Acting Judge of the PNG with a resolution to have a new round of guage group in central Bougainville (the Supreme Court and a legal adviser to the talks in March/April1996 preceded by pre­ Nasioi) such that, in less than six months, secessionists since 1990. He had defected paratory meetings to begin in mid-January. the PNGDF returned at the request of lead­ from them and brought followers There were indications, however, that the ers from Buka Island in the north. They from the North and South Nasioi question of sovereignty constituted an have been saying that, if Bougainville areas of the central coast. impasse. A letter was tabled from Francis becomes independent, they will recede to Ona, the ' President, Republic of Papua New Guinea. By the time of the last WHILE THE PEACE CONFERENCEe nded with Bougainville', a cultist, who declared that national elections in mid-1992, the PNGDF Chan uttering dire threats against the seces­ he spoke 'in the name of ever-living God had extended its presence, though not its sionist leaders for not attending, there were and the powers of the Holy Spirit', that he control, throughout the province. This was further negotiations in Port Moresby out of was 'fully supported by 99 per cent of the done at the invitation of 'Resistance' groups. which emerged a Bougainville Transitional total population of Bougainville' and that Under the N amaliu administration (1988- Government (BTG) withMiriungas premier. his army 'controls 95 per cent of the total 1992) it became policy to push forward only While he, as well as his colleagues, remained land area'. He was 'looking forward to take when local leaders requested it. at least a secessionist by preference, he said full control over all island (sic) very soon'. A new government under Paias Wingti he was now prepared to accept, on prag­ Not abashed by his self-election, he told the ( 1992-94 ), a Highlander influenced by matic grounds, Papua New Guinea saver- delegates: 'You are all mine and I love each maverick Australian mining advisers, opted eignty. one of you and I wish (you) to share with m e for a more aggressive policy. Wingti was However, even the two BRA squad the promises of our new nation of M ekamui' persuaded that the Panguna copper-gold leaders who attended the Arawa conference (a Nasioi word chosen by Ona for his new

38 EUREKA STREET • JuLY/AuGUST 1996 republic and m eaning 'sacred (land)'. Miriung (BTG) endeavoured to persuade rebel representatives that Papua New Bad Dreams, Christmas Eve Guinea sovereignty was an insuperable fact while the Comsec and UN representatives pointed out that an act of self-determina­ Your friends contending, you're forced tion was not available. The ICJ representa­ to lecture in pyjamas, the vanilla tive, however (judging by the Chairman's record from which this account is taken) pair which don't do up-just a dream, appeared to hold out the prospect that self­ the perfect stocking filler. determination was a right rather than a principle. He said that 'if there was any territory eligible for self-determination What are friends for if not to show Bougainville fitted the criteria' although the self the borders of belief this was 'a legal, not a political opinion'. At the end of the conference there was some and a dream to admit impossibility dissension among the rebel delegation as to and give despair relief! whether they could expect outside recogni­ tion for their cause. Joseph Kabui believed that victory was over the horizon for this The gifts of others become personae, reason and because the struggle would oth­ erwise bleed Papua New Guinea mortally. so you're in with great ones-Lear, Once again the peace conference was and the fiends of heath-graves are old-time followed, not by a lull in fighting, but by an increase. How much this was due to provo­ mouthpieces of fear. cation by the PNGDF can hardly be clear. However, as for the journey to Australia, All feelings beneath your seriousness Chan had provided a helicopter and safe conduct for rebel leaders to return to crowd you as you dream-trendy Bougainville through the Solomon Islands. trash grows wings and oracles speak only There was an assurance that the PNGDF would maintain their positions and not take hatred, contradiction, envy. any military advantage during the confer­ ence period. The rebel leaders, however, preferred to spend three w eeks of Rand R in Peter Porter Honiara and to return by boat without noti­ fying the PNGDF of their movements. When leave the solution to fatigue and attrition; Second, in view of the remarks of the ICJ they approached the Bougainville coast they the rebels will hope that Port Moresby will representative above, we can at least con­ were fired on. The PNGDF had moved posi­ find the struggle too expensive of life and template the chance that pressure could be tion. There were no casualties probably only resources and withdraw. In view of its fertil­ mounted for a UN supervised Act of Self­ because BRA were nearby to pro- ity Bougainville cannot be easily starved Determination. Ostensibly this would mean vide some cover. into submission; cultists can remain intrans­ the BRA laying down their arms, a most igent and, with lack of education, younger unlikely event except in some token way, as c HARGES OF TREACHERY versus failure to people will remain under their influence. in the cease-fire of March 1990. However, keep to original arrangements flew. The The longer the conflict lasts, the m ore the no multinational supervisory team (MST) BRA stepped up its aggression. One squad mine depreciates as a resource. However, would be large enough or resolute enough or subsequently breached Buka Island's Port Moresby's interest in Bougainville is would stay long enough to ensure realistic defences briefly. Nearly 20 members of the not solely the Panguna mine, the loss of disarmament. Without a lengthy prepara­ PNGDF have been killed since New Year. which it has hoped to cover through other tion and the restoration of rural prosperity Chan has lifted the ceasefire imposed in resources, but it does fear a secessionist an act of self-determination would be con­ 1994. Troops mistook this for declaring a domino effect, especially in the Islands ducted under coercive conditions. Once the state of emergency and overstepped the where such sentiments are easily revived. MST withdrew, I believe civil war, payback bounds of their authority to maintain order. Moreover, not only has Bougainville high­ fighting, would resume. Because of continued fighting there has been value agriculture and forests, its loss would Third, Port Moresby could conceivably no follow-up to the D ecember conference so also involve loss of a large area of territorial conclude that, as negotiations are futile, an far. There will be further conferences, no seas and exclusive economic zone. In spite external force should be recruited or sought. doubt, but it is difficult to be optimistic of of the body bags bringing home the dead and The use of 'Gurkhas' though once suggested, any settlement in the near future. drain on national revenue, Bougainville as can be excluded. Although a neighbour such In broad terms there are four possible yet has had relatively little political impact. as Indonesia likes to see secessionism as outcomes to the Bougainville tragedy. First, It will not be a decisive issue in the 1997 some sort of 'communism' and would dis­ that the impasse will continue into the elections. Papua New Guinea can with­ like, in principle, the implications of an foreseeable future: Papua N ew Guinea will stand this ulceration indefinitely. independent Bougainville for East Timor

V OLUME 6 N UMBER 6 • EUREKA STREET 39 and Irian Jaya, assistance from it would be however, Miriung has not made a firm pro­ tantamount to a foretaste of invasion in the posal and Chan has offered no specifics. In eyes of Papua New Guineans. Chan's dream view of the radical and precipitate ditching of a South Pacific peace-keeping force is the of the nation-wide provincial government m ore unlikely if there is the prospect of system for the rest of the country last year, facing a baptism of fire in the Bougainville Chan will have to justify a special status for morass. This leaves Australia as Bougainville in spite of past refusals to do the obvious source. so. This will affront even some of his politi­ cal supporters who, as Wingti did, fantasise RECENTL v THE AusTRALIAN Foreign about a military victory. Moreover, Minister, Alexander Downer, has reiterated Bougainville's exemption from the now a policy of no involvement further than more centralised system expires at election already pledged general military aid to the time next year. This is not a concern of BIG PNGDF. Papua New Guinea must solve the negotiators who seem to look forward to an problem and Australia supports a compro­ indefinite series of conferences. Meanwhile, mise solution based on a substantial degree in view of Papua New Guinea's unstable of autonomy being given to Bougainville. It party politics, the preoccupation of Chan is likely that several corvettes guarding the (a nd every MP) is with re-election. province against contraband traffic, aerial If a special status is to be offered, it will or satellite surveillance, and a few platoons have to grant at least the status quo ante of support and advisory troops could bellum as far as national-provincial rela­ strengthen the Resistance and dent even tions are concerned as well as a rehabilita­ Francis Ona's morale. But after the tion package and amnesties and pardons. helicopter fiasco of the late 1980s when There will be no question of the mine Australia gave four craft to the PNGDF on restarting without at least a readjustment of condition they were not to be used in an equity and royalties similar to the one offered offensive way, only to receive blame for the by PrimeMinisterNamaliu in May 1989, by atrocities committed, there is little likeli­ which date it was too late to assuage minesite hood of any direct or even publicly acknowl­ grievances alone. One major difference in edged indirect assistance. It has been easy to such a new situation would be the absence attribute Australian concern, as Prime Min­ of rankling outsiders ('redskins' as the jet­ ister Mamaloni of the Solomons does, to a black Bougainvilleans call them). The BRA I want to invest desire to restart the Con-Zinc Rio Tinto of effected their 'ethnic cleansing' in 1989-90. with confidence in Australia (CRA) mine at Panguna. If true, There would have to be some adminis­ . over 70 different A. this would reek of neo-colonialism. trative mechanism to prevent indiscrimi­ However, the mine is now in a real sense nate movement into Bougainville again, e-thical irrelevant to the fighting. There is no pros­ circumventing the constitutional provision pect of a restart. of freedom of movement. But that investments! So the stultifying situation for Australia much is the bottom line. is this: the PNGDF is incompetent, inflam­ You illl1 invest your savings and superannUJltion in: matory even, but is indispensable as a garri­ EYEN MI RJUNG's BTG WILL DEMAND more • Saving Habitat and Rare Species son; Australia wants Bougainville to remain and his survival will probably depend on • Low Energy Technologies in Papua New Guinea and fears even placating supporters who will seek some • Clean Water • Affordable Housing unforeseeable consequences in independ­ form of association just short of independ­ • Recycling ence; a PNGDF defeat and withdrawal could ence, as was done by the Bougainville ll11fi earn n competitive financial return from leave an even worse civil war behind for provincial government's special committee investing in the Australian Ethical Trusts : which Australia will still be blamed, perhaps in mid-1989. The chairman of that commit­ • conveniently • with confidence even for lack of decisive action; Papua New tee was assassinated by BRA in front of his • for a competitive return Guinea could be severely affected by defeat family for his pains. • with as little as $1,000 in Bougainville and require some drastic Meanwhile the' stop-press' as this article • monthly savings plan option intervention by Australia in support of an is being submitted is that the PNGDF has For full details, makt a free call to 1 800 021 227. even worse law and order problem than been harassing the very Buka leaders who currently exists; if Bougainville requires once invited it to return to their island to Tllr Auslralimz Ethical Trusts arr managed by Australimr intervention, Australia will almost certainly combat the excesses of the BRA. And that is Ethiwl 1trvrstmr11t Lid, ACN 1~13 188 930, ruhich rvrrs r.-;tnblislu·d in 1986 to pool iuti(Stor snvin,~s to crratr n more be a major arm of whatever international probably an appropriately bleak note on Jairnud suslttinn/Jir society. llrvrstmr1tt can only br mndrou thr application form hound into thr lodgrd and rrgistcrcd force is recruited. However, whatever the which to end this part of the saga that has prospectus dntrd 24th Octob

40 EUREKA STREET • JuLv/AucusT 1996 THE C AROLINE CHISHOLM S ERIES : 12

PHILIP P ETIIT

T,ON' TH

V OLUME 6 NUMBE R 6 • EUREKA STREET 41 In Australia we are heirs to a common set of ideas that the 18th century English-speaking world. They provided can play just the sort of role I envisage: they can provide what has been described as the language of political a shared perspective on change, terms of agreed reference debate in England and America in that century. and a language fo r articulating what is and should be We in Australia have been heirs to republican ideas going on. That guiding set of ideas is republican in on a double front: our earliest institutions were con­ character. I want to present that republican heritage as a ceived and formed under the influence of 18th century philosophy that can serve us well as we look republican ideas; and the institutions created at the time for a shared perspective on a changing Australia. of Federation-the institutions that gave us the Com­ monwealth of Australia, to use its distinctively republi­ LE ST THE MONARCHlSTS READ no further, I should hasten can title-were conceived and formed under the influence to add that republicanism, in the broad sense in which I of American, republican precedents. But while we are think of it, is consistent with monarchy, provided that heirs in these two ways to republica n thought, our the monarchy is constitutionally constrained; the only republicanism has always remained unarticulated and objection to such a monarchy is that it may give the anonymous. We have failed to register its place and wrong message, suggesting that we ordinary people are significance in the evolution of our political life. not up to the business of providing our own Head of State. Republicanism in my broad sense is characterised by Most 18th century republicans, for example, were quite one key idea and three corollaries. The key idea in the reconciled to constitutional monarchy. A broad raft of tradition, especially as republicanism had crystallised in historians tells us that in 18th century Britain all the the 18th century, is a certain idea of liberty or freedom. important sides in politics were in agreement on the I say 'a certain idea', because I believe that it is quite hard general framework of republican ideas. Yet none of those for us to tune into what republicans of the 18th century parties sought the removal of the monarch. So while I had in mind when they wrote of freedom or liberty. The sing the praises of republicanism, I will not be giving 19th century tradition of liberalism generates too much much succour to either side in the present republican static for it to be easy to get on the right wavelength. debate. The bad news for Nineteenth century liberalism introduced the idea the monarchist side is that that non-interference- being let alone-was enough for We in Australia have been heirs to we are all republicans, or fr eedom: in particular, that being let alone was enough at least all in good part re­ for freedom even if you occupied a relatively powerless republican ideas on a double front: publicans, by virtue of our position in society-say, the position of a woman or an Australian traditions. The employee-and even if your masters and betters could our earliest institutions were bad news for the republi­ interfere in your affairs with more or less impunity, did conceived and formed under the can side is that this repub­ they have a mind to do so. This notion of fr eedom would licanism is not strictly have made no sense to republicans of the 18th century influence of 18th century republican incompatible-though it and earlier. For them, freedom required not just the may be in symbolic ten­ absence of interference, but security against interfer­ ideas; and the institutions created at sion-with the preserva­ ence: not just the good fortune of having your rights the time of Federation-the tion of our British, respected by others, but the ability to command such monarchical connections. respect from others . It required a social status under institutions that gave us the The tradition that his­ which it was publicly established and publicly recog­ torians describe as republi­ nised that no one-no husband or master, for example- Commonwealth of Australia, to use canism goes back to Roman could interfere in your affairs with impunity; its distinctively republican title- times: the time, in particu­ no one had arbitrary power over you. lar, of the Roman republic. were conceived and formed This approach to govern­ 0 NE OF THE MOST IM PORTANT republican texts of 18th ment saw the state as a res century England was the anonymous Cato's Letters. The under the influence of publica, a public matter, author of those letters gave nice expression to the notion American, republican precedents. as distinct from an arena of liberty as security, liberty as power, when he wrote: for the pursuit of princely 'Liberty is, to live upon one's own Terms; Slavery is, to ambitions or private inter­ live at the mere Mercy of another'. The Baron de ests. Republicanism appeared as an influence in the Montesquieu, who did so much to persuade people that political thought of modern Europe as a result of the 18th century England was the model of a modern judicial conscious reworking of Roman ideas during the Renais­ republic, put the point in related terms: 'Political liberty sance: in particular the reworking by philosophers and in a citizen is that tranquillity of spirit which comes politicians in the small city-states of northern Italy, like from the opinion each one has of his security, and in Florence and Siena and Venice. Such city-states looked order for him to have this liberty the government must back to Rome for a picture of the republican dispensation be such that there is no reason for one citizen to fear that they should be trying to realise within their own another'. As articulated by Montesquieu, freedom means walls, and the republican ideas that they reforged spread security, not just in the objective sense of being properly throughout Europe in the centuries that followed. Partly protected, but also in the subjective and inter-subjective as a result of being imported into England during the sense of being able to deal with others without anxiety or period of the Cromwellian resolution, those ideas had subservience. established themselves firmly in the common mind of When 18th century republicans, and indeed

42 EUREKA STREET • JuLY/AucusT 1996 republicans of earlier periods, thought of liberty in this the scrutiny and questioning of public figures and par­ security- centred or power-centred way, they never ties-they would have to avoid the vice of apathy-if dreamed that it could be enjoyed by people at large; they there was to be any hope of guarding against the spread thought that the best that could be achieved was to of corruption: any hope of keeping the bastards honest. extend such liberty to the subset of adult, property­ The price of liberty, as it owning males who constituted the citizens proper. But used to be put, was eternal while pre-modern republicans were elitists in their view vigilance. Republicanism, in the broad of who could hope to enj oy republican liberty-of who These republican ideas could hope to count as citizens-I don't think this should are part of our common sense in which I think of it, put us off. Their rich, admittedly elitist conception of Australian heritage. I do not liberty off ers a challenging ideal of universal citizenship: mean that they have bulked is consistent with monarchy, an ideal that we might hope to realise in the lives of large in the ideologies around provided that the monarchy people at large, not just in the lives of property-owning, which politics has been con­ adult males. ducted in our country in the is constitutionally Liberty as security was the key idea in the web of last two hundred years. On republican them es, but there were also three associated the contrary, the explicit constrained; the only ideas. The first is the notion that a republic requires a ideologies have often been rule of law which is binding on all; a rule of law which unfaithful to republican objection to such a monarchy m eans that no one stands beyond the possibility of legal ideas. The institutional life reproach : not a m onarch, not the judges, not even an of our society has evolved is that it may give the wrong elected assembly. No surprise there. We can readily see under the low-level but sus­ why an ideology that prized liberty in the sense of tained pressure, now in this message, suggesting that we security should insist on the need for a rule of law, since area of life, now in that, of anything less than a rule of law- any arrangem ent that those ideas. The ideas have ordinary people are not up to granted unconstrained and possibly arbitrary power to been like the genes of our some figures or bodies-would m ean that citizen s were system , dictating some cru­ the business of providing our not secure against the invasions that those cial turns in its development r-r agents or agencies might perpetrate. since the time of the first own Head of State. European settlem ent. The .1. HE SECOND OF THE THREE EXTRA Strands in the republi­ heritage that they constitute has been lodged deep in the can tapestry is the idea that the republic requires, not just chromosom es of the body politic. the rule of law, but also an arrangem ent under which Som e features of our development testify to the those in public positions are disciplined by various checks presence of a republican mind at work in our in stitu­ and balances: checks and balances sufficient to ensure tions. One is that from the penal beginnings of European that there is no room in the making and administration settlement, as David N eale has recently shown, the idea of law for those in power to serve their own interests and of the rule of law played an important and growing role compromise the liberties of others. Republicans envis­ in the political and legal life of the Australian colonie . aged a range of checking and balancing m easures, includ­ Another is that in the course of the 19th century, as Paul ing the separation of administrative, legislative and Finn has documented, variou s Australian colonies abol­ judicial powers, the exposure of administrators to inter­ ished or m odified Crown immunity from legal suit and rogation in parliam ent, the m ore or less popular election were am ong the first jurisdictions in the world to eradi­ of parliam entary representatives, the division of parlia­ cate this scandalously anti-republican symbol, this ment into two bodies, and so on. The thought of repub­ assertion, in effect, that in som e respects the govern­ licans was that unless the powerful could be visibly m ent is above the law. contained by such m easures, unless they could be sup­ A third republican feature of our 19th century devel­ ported by such measures against the temptations of opment, and one of m ore substantial importance, is the office-the tradition was fairly realistic about human sustained reliance in the Australian colonies on the role nature-then there was little hope for the rest of the of public boards and statutory bodies as a check on those citizenry. in executive power: this, so far as the m embers of those The third strand that stands out in the republican organs of government were answerable to parliam ent, tapestry of ideas is that of civic virtue. Republicans not to the executive, or so fa r as they had the status of a generally emphasised, though with differing degrees of judicial tribunal. vigour, that a rule of law and a regime of checks and A fo urth was the assumption that those serving in balances would not suffice on their own for the promo­ those institutionss, and public figures more generally, tion of liberty: that they would only work, if they were could be relied on as trustees of the populace: the 18 th supported by, and were supportive of, a general culture of century n otion of trusteeship, with its republican con­ virtue. Those in authority would have to internalise the nection to civic virtue, was thereby reinforced in the public interest and reliably try to advance it; no institu­ Australian tradition. tional arrangem ent could hope to combat corruption, A fifth feature of 19th century Australia can also be and assure people at large of their liberty, unless the seen as evidence of republican ideas at work. This is the authorities were generally trustworthy. Those out of invention of the secret ballot- the Australian ballot, to authority, on the other hand, would have to be vigilant in use the name it received in other countries-as a means

VOLUME 6 N UMBER 6 • EUREKA STREET 43 of making the responsibility of government to electors There have been other facets of 20th century Austral­ m ore effective: as a mea ns, so at least it was hoped, of ian culture that we can also see, with a little imagina­ securing the voice of independent electors against threat tion, as republican in provenance or character. The of intimidation and blackmail. emphasis on the political independence of various public The most important 19th century change in the bodies-for example, and unusually, the Bureau of Sta­ development of our polity, however, was the move to tistics-the endemic distrust of politicians, the continu­ federation and we can readily ing concern about corruption and the abuse of public see the impact of republican as­ power, the frequent recourse to independent commis­ If we want to make good sumptions in the discussions sions of inquiry, the drive for more and more freedom of leading up to federation-these information, the establishment of a court for regulating sense of where we should were often mediated by the U.S. industrial relations: all of these features of our system precedents that our founders and culture fit well with the heritage of republican ideas; be going in the process of focused on-and in the consti­ they manifest a republican logic-better perhaps, a re­ tution that those discussions publican ethos-at work in our public life. institutional shaping, we fashioned. The most striking If republican ideas are to play the sort of role that I example of republican ideas at envi age, then there are two tests that they must pass. can hardly do better work in the Constitution is the First, they must be able to give voice to the claims with division of the Parliament of which the major groups in our society are identified: in than look back to the the Commonwealth into two particular, able to give voice to them in a language that houses, with the House of Rep­ other groups use and understand, even if those other heritage of republican resentatives representing indi­ groups continue to contest the claims. And second, the vid uals across the country, and republican ideas must be able to articu late chall enges ideas that have the Senate representing the that we may have ignored or downplaycd up to now but States. The rationale behind that prove, on reflection, to be worth considering: they already played an such an enforced sharing of pow­ must give us new directions at the same time ers, like the rationale behind ""1' that they confirm our old bearings. in1portant part in our the corresponding division of powers in the US Constitution, .1. HE REPUil LI CAN ETHOS OF LIBERTY, with itS emphasis On institutional development. was the old theme of checks and the centrality of the rule of law, and the need for checks balances. Such a sharing of pow- and balances in public life, ought to be appealing, I think, ers, it was thought, would help to those on the right of politics who emphasise the to ensure that no one faction could gain control of the dangers of crusading government and the fundamental legislature and pass laws that were not in the general need to give individuals space and stability for the interest: in particular, not in the ge neral interest of the organisation and pursuit of their own, private lines. But states. if it is to pass the first test, then the republican set of ideas The upshot of the pre-federation developments that I ought also to recommend itself to those on the left who have mentioned, and of federation itself, is that by the identify with the multi-dimensional movements that beginning of this century Australia was fashioned in characterise progressive politics: movements in support m uch greater fidelity to the republican ideas of 18th of women, workers, indigenous people, the long-term century Britain than Britain itself. The rule of law was un emplo yed, the handicapped, the aged, the sick, the powerfully emphasised in the non-immunity of the imprisoned. Crown from legal suit and in the presence of a written Once the republican ideal of liberty as security, liberty constitution, in particular one that could only be amended as power, is taken as an ideal for the population at large, by recourse to referendum. The rule of check and balance and not just for property-owning, adult males, the issues was highlighted by the provisions of the Constitution that these movements represent get to be seen as C

44 EUREKA STREET • JuLY/AucusT 1996 interference-and, in republican terms, unfree-for lack control in a period when government and opposition are of those general skills and opportunities provided by a terrified of incurring the displeasure of owners and edi­ good education system , by reliable m edia of inform ation tors and must be suspected of being willing to do deals. and broadcasting, and by an infrastructure that ensures a 3. The regulation of the police in a culture where safe and user-friendly environment in our cities and in drugs are prohibited and organised crim e thereby encour­ the bush. And I am thinking of em ergency m easures aged: the police are like the standing army that earlier which ensure that people are not rendered insecure republican s worried about. against interfe rence for lack of resources in those special 4. The rationalisation of our criminal justice system circumstances associated with handicap, sickness, un­ in an atmosphere where politicians are more in tent on employm ent, child-rearing responsibilities, old age, liti­ showing they are tough on crime than on reducing crime gation and so on . Once we think in republican terms, we and humanising- to everyone's benefit-the way in can see such initiatives, as we can see associated m ove­ which we treat off enders. m ents-for example, the trade union m ovem ent or the 5. The representation of our social security system in wom en 's movem ent- as being inspired, at their best, by a proper freedom -enhancing light-its representation as the drive to realise the public ideal of libertyas security a guarantee against powerlessness-in a culture where and power in the lives of an increasing number of people. the unemployed too oft en get cast as dole-bludgers. The first of m y two tests requires, not just that 6. The facilitation of equal access to legal counsel, republican ideas be capable of articulating the m ajor whether by legal aid, by the encouragem ent of class concerns with which different groups identify, but that actions, by the development they articulate them in terms which other groups use of accessible legal expert sys- and understand. Those on the left are often impatient of tem s, or w hatever, so that the The division between the concerns of liberals and conservatives who insist on relatively powerless are not at the virtues of sm all government. But perhaps they can the m ercy of those who can understand those concerns better if they see liberals and monopolise the best legal ad- left and right is often put conservatives as insisting that governm ent should not be vice. hyperactive: that it should seek change only by such 7. The explicit recruitment in tenns of a division well-tried channels, only at such a pace, and only with of community groups and so­ such a continuity that ordinary people can easily adapt; cial m ovem ents to the cause between those who ordinary people can retain the sense of living in a world of prom oting people's liberty where they know the coordinates. as security and the recogni­ support and those who Those on the right of politics, on the other hand, are tion of those groups and move­ impatient of the ambitions of the left to extend the m ents as m anifestation s of oppose big government compass of government to embrace various welfarist, civic virtue that are vital on a reformist causes. But perhaps they can m ake better sense variety of fr onts to the cause of By republican lights, of those ambitions if they see the left as being con cerned liberty: vital in ensuring con­ with the very liberty that they themselves prize: if they sumer rights, the proper treat­ government ought to be see the left as being concerned to extend the enj oyment m ent of the ill and aged, the of liberty as security beyond the elite of property-owning support of wom en in condi­ small in the sense of males to the population at large. tions of dom estic violence, the The division between left and right is often put in protection of all of us from steady and procedural, term s of a di vision between those who support and those environmen tal h azard, the who oppose big government. From the republican point reintegration of young offend- and ought to be big of view, however, this division is overdrawn. It is right to ers into their com - oppose big government, in the sense of hyperactive munity, and so on. in the sense of caring government. But it is right to support big government in and encompassing. the sense of government that recognises an obliga tion, 1F WE WANT TO make good not just to protect and regulate, but also to empower. By sense of w here we should be republican lights, government ought to be sm all in the going in the process of institu- sense of steady and procedural, and ought to be big in the tional shaping, we can hardly do better than look back to sense of caring and encompassing. the heritage of republican ideas that have already played The second test which republican ideas ought to pass, an important part in our institutional developm ent. if they are to serve in the row of a common, orientating Those ideas represent a potentially common language perspective is that of articulating challengesless obvious fo r Australian politics, yet a language that should be bu t still compelling. There are som e more or less neglected challengi ng to all sides: a language that puts new, com­ challengesthat com e in focus from a true republican pelling issu es on the agenda as well as serving to articu­ perspective, challenges that we must fa ce if we are to late the issues already there. • assume the profile of a true republic. Philip Pettit is Professor of Political and Social Theory 1. The containment of ministers who are hell-bent on in the Research School of Social Sciences, ANU . His m aking a mark in their portfolio-introducing reforms Republicanism: A Th eory of Freedom and Government that will bear their nam e-and who do not count the cost is forthcoming from Oxford University Press. This text of change to the people aff ected. was originally broadcast on ABC RN as part of the 2. The regu lation of media ownership and m edia Reshaping Australian Institutions Project.

VOLUME 6 N UMBER 6 • EUREKA STREET 45 ESSAY

RAIMOND GAITA Scepticism and Taboos Reflections on the Demidenko Debate.

S OM' c"mcs-1 AM oNC mTH•M-of Helen Darville/Demidenko's novel, The Hand that Signed the Paper, are accused of having succumbed to a form of moralism that distorted their understanding of the standards that are appropriate when judging a novel. David Marr, Andrew Riemer and Dame Leonie Kramer said that such critics do not know how to read fiction. They also said that their moralism led most of the critics of The Hand to transgress the con­ ventions of civilised discussion. Dame Leonie and Andrew Riemer (The Demidenlw Debate) even said that many of those critics are enemies of tolerance and free speech. Riemer has argued that their moralism expresses the critic's failure to appreciate the impact on our culture-and The greatest of them, Primo Levi, was thereby on what a novelist is able to do-of just the sort of secular humanist Riemer a pervasive scepticism about value and truth. wo praises and, of the others, only Wiesel I want to explore some of these themes. expresses what might reasonably be called a The charge that the passionate critics of religious sense of the evil of the Holocaust. The Hand arc enemies of free speech is silly The trouble with Darville's book is not that and offensive. However, the confusions in thought through, or was too timid to accept, it denies absolute evil. It is that it has no the charge that their moralism made them the radical implications of that claim. Wark's serious sense of the evil it depicts. If that agents of political correctness arc impor­ posture of radical scepticism is par for the seems incredible to those shocked by the tant and interesting. course-for him and for the times-and evil she records, then I would remind them Two telling events occurred at the end of would not be worth commenting on were it that they would respond in the same way to the first stage of the Demidenko debate: the not for the fact that it led him to say this: SS reports which are of terrible publication in the Australian of an article 'Darville's gesture is insidiously postmod­ evil, but without any sense of it. by Mackenzie Wark and a cartoon by Peter ern it is true. The scandal is that she under- Wilkinson. mines neat moral fables. There is no absolute W HAT CAN WARK MEAN when he says Mackenzie Wark finished an article in evil in her world- and hence no belief in that we should rethink the Holocaust, free the Australian's Higher Education Supple­ absolute innocence. Her Ukrainian killers of the illusion that there exists absolute evil m ent with these thoughts: 'To question are not devils, they are flawed human be­ and absolute innocence? He cannot mea n accepted senses of certainty is not the same ings acting on a mixture of delusion and self that there were many miserable human thing as "modish relativism". It is to begin interest'. types, even criminals, amongst the millions again to ask the hard questions, here in the 'Absolute' is a word to make muddles of the Jews and the Gipsies who were mur­ debris of the world that the eclipse of the with. Wark does it when he speaks of 'abso­ dered in the death camps and elsewhere. He Cold War and the cold warriors-has left us. lute evil' and 'absolute innocence'. So does cannot mean that because no one has ever Wark had expressed qualified admira­ Andrew Riemer when he says that the out­ denied it. Everyone knows that Jewish crimi­ tion for a claim made by Andrew Riemer in rage expressed by some of The Hand's crit­ nals were not sent to the camps as punish­ his recent book The Demidenl

46 EUREKA STREET • JuLv/AucusT 1996 though they were vermin, nothing they did Ballad can diminish the evil done to them. Noth­ ing that the Jews or the Gipsies had done could weigh in any scales against the evil 'What's the bird humming in the treeless land~ done to them in the Holocaust. That would be a reason to speak of the absolute evil of Why does the cloud spit on hissing stone~ the Holocaust, and of the absolute inno­ cence of its victims, if one were so inclined. But there is no n eed to speak that way, and 'Finch dawn and partridge dusk-the hoopoe if one does, then the moral point that gives skittered drunk across our summer days ... ' sense to it stands independently of anything that looks like religion. Thus, even if for the sake of argument 'It's simpler things I ask; I must break through we were to grant Darville's thesis that Jew­ the bird's reserve, the stone's bitter spite.' ish Bolsheviks were understandably seen as the agents of the Ukrainian famine, that concession could not take us to Wark's '... and boats hooting loud from distant ports, meaning. When that thesis is asserted against the m eaning of Holocaust, it is as irrelevant people waving on the wharves to waving strangers.' to claims about the guilt or innocence of its victims as is any true statem ent about the number of Jewish criminals who perished in 'Mother, that's as may be, but I must know it. A gap that is morally unbridgeable exists what stifles the song, drives the shiftless cloud.' between those claims. Denials of the 'abso­ lute innocence' of the Holocaust's victims achieve radical credentials of the kind Wark 'The bird's an orphan, son; it talks to itself. seeks, only if they try to span that gap. Into the drinking trough the tap drips brine. ' It is not enough to say (rightly or wrongly) that the Jews must acknowledge the causal part they played in their own destruction. 'I hear the drops, they ripple to rings my dreaming. Anyone who wants to go beyond Riemer to assert that even the Jews who perished in But where's the path you trod to bring me her e~' the Holocaust were not 'absolutely inno­ cent', must have the courage to believe that, to some degree at least, the Jews go t what 'Go find grass fields and season-wise plains. they deserved. Wark, while intending to The stone is stone. It neither takes nor gives.' praise Darville, joins her most severe de­ tractors in attributing to her the thesis that even in the Holocaust, there is no such Dimitris Tsaloumas thing as innocent suffering. It might just be muddle and hot air. In them would show one to lack the judgment make the official condemnation hypocriti­ fact I think it is. But Wark's words matter necessary for the proper exercise of reason cal, but anyone in such a society who said even if he is too muddled or too unserious on the m atters in question. It is, for exam­ that it is unthinkable to murder one's politi­ fully to mean them , because the foul claim ple, unthinkable that we should ea t our cal opponents would, at best, be whistling which they are naturally taken to express dead or can them for pet food in order to in the dark. They would be wishing that was published in Australia's premier qual­ reduce the slaughter of animals. their practice was in conflict with its being ity newspaper. Ten days earlier the same Any argument that led to such a conclu­ unthinkable to consider it a reasonable newspaper illustrated an article discu ssing sion would have found its reductio ad option rather than merely with its sincere the role played by the Australian Jewish absurdum. It is also in the same sense un­ condemnation. community in the criticism of Darville, thinkable that we should consider murder The difference matters enormously. with a cartoon depicting her in a pose of as a means of political advancement. We What is unthinkable is different for differ­ Christian martyrdom impaled on a burning have not considered this as a an option in ent cultures and changes from time to time. Channukah candelabrum. Either would have political life and rejected it on m oral or It used to be unthinkable that we should kill been unthinkable before the Demi- other grounds. It is not, and has never been, children four weeks old or less merely be­ denko debate prepared their way. up for serious consideration. That distin­ cause we don't want them. Peter Singer guishes us fundamentally from some other argues that we would not seriously wrong c ULTURES ARE PARTLY DEFINED and distin­ cultures, in which political murder is prac­ the children if we did it, and he is right to guished by what is unthinkable in them­ tised and-more importantly for the point I believe that the extent to which people are unthinkable, not in the sense that no one am making-considered an option amongst now prepared to consider that argument ever thinks them, but in the sense that they others, even though it is officially con­ marks a shift in the moral boundaries which are beyond argument; they are 'indefensi­ demned. The fact that it is practised and partially define our culture. ble' because any serious attempt to defend considered an option does not, of itself, One would seriously misunderstand

VOLUM E 6 NUMBER 6 • EUREKA STREET 47 what it mea ns to treat things as beyond seriously is like taking seriously the claim one's capacity for sober judgm ent under­ argument in this way-the place it has in an that the earth may be flat, or that Elvis mines one's ability to apply properly the adequate conception of reason and amongst Presley is alive and working for the CIA. We very concepts which give substance to the the defining conditions of cultures-if one rightly call people who believe such things idea of a rationally supported belief: in the construes it as a deeply internalised form of cranks, and the concept of a crank is not that absence of judgment the application of these self-censorship. Self-censorship is of what of someone who is so ill-educated that they concepts will take us away from rather than we think, but believe we ought not to think believe things contrary to what has been so to reality. or say. In a similar way, political correct­ firmly established that it is common knowl­ The fate of the concept of evidence in ness is directed against what many of us edge. The concept of a crank is of someone the hands of a paranoiac is an extrem e, but think and say. The distinction can be put whose beliefs or whose doubts testify to instructive, example. It represents the parody of reason that pro mpted Chesterton to say that 'the madman is In our culture it is gullibility rather than justified scepticism that not someone who has lost his reason; he is one who has lost everything except often shows itself in the attacks on science, truth and objectivity. his reason'. That is why the concept of the unthinkable, as I am invoking it, is That is why our culture is marked both by the ubiquitous profession not that of a taboo that has been so deeply internalised that it is psychologi­ of scepticism and the uncritical certainties of political correctness. cally impossible for us even to contem­ plate its critical examination. Taboos like this: self-censorship and the censorious their radical lack of judgment. were broken during the Demidenko debate, pressures of political correctness occur That is far more serious than ignorance. but the concept of a taboo fails to distin­ within the boundaries of a culture; our sense Knowledge and understanding-and there­ guish between the thought that the Jews of what is unthinkable is partly constitu­ fore, all serious radical critique-depend have misused the Holocaust and the thought tive of those boundaries. upon the exercise of sound judgment about that they deserved it. An appreciation of To believe, but not to say (or to believe, what counts as evidence, about when au­ the differences is necessary if we are to but to wish not to believe) because we judge thorities can be relied upon, when they understand-as everyone agrees that we that we ought not to, any of the following are justifiably discredited, and so on. Lack of must- what that debate shows about our would be an example of self-censorship: judgment makes us vulnerable to gullibil­ culture. that the Jews are too influential; that they ity, superstition and, at the limit, insanity. The interesting thing about Wilkinson's played a significant part in the oppression of Scepticism that is unrestrained by sober cartoon is that its off ence is not captured in som e European peoples who sought their judgm ent is one side of the coin whose other an offensive proposition- not for example revenge in the Holocaust; that the Jews side is gullibility. To oversimplify a little: in the proposition, defended by Riemer, have misused the Holocaust for their cul­ the concept of sound judgment-as it is that the hostility expressed to Demidenko/ tural and political purposes; or (to change expressed in the ways things are ruled out of Darville was in considerable part due to the the examples) that blacks have lower IQs consideration-is partly constitutive of the influence of the conservative Melbourne than whites; that aboriginal culture may be conceptual boundaries within which con­ Jewish establishment. That is not of itself inferior to European culture. cepts like evidence, common knowledge an anti-Semitic proposition, but Wilkinson's However to think that the Jews deserved, and authority mean what they do to us. In cartoon illustrating the article that expressed or even partly deserved, the evil done to our culture it is gullibility rather than justi­ it is anti-Semitic; and its proximity to clas­ them in the Holocaust is different, not only fi ed scepticism that often shows itself in the sically anti-Semitic cartoons is what makes in degree, but also in kind. The former are attacks on science, truth and objectivity. it so. If one put a leering jewish face in the conceptually appropriate targets for politi­ That is why our culture is marked both by corner, then Wilkinson's cartoon would find cal correctness. The latter is not. the ubiquitous profession of scepticism and its place in the pages of Der Stiirmer. That Take a different exa mple. In its extreme the uncritical certainties of politi- reveals the real nature of its offence. form, Holocaust revisionism attributes the cal correctness. It is not just that the cartoon is anti­ almost universal belief that the Third Reich Semitic. Its deep offensiveness lies in the attempted to rid the earth of the Jewish 0 UR ACADEM IC DISCIPLI NES-philosophy lack of regard- whether intentional or not­ people to the success of Zionist propaganda. included- have been inattentive to the dif­ of what the Holocaust had made of anti­ Because such revisionism is an off ence both ferent kind of certain ties and their correla­ Semitism and the anti -Semitic cartoons that to reason and to morals, we oft en assume tively different forms of doubt. It shows helped to convince people that the Jews that its odiousness is what inclines us to say itself in the fact that certainty is commonly were not fit to inhabit the earth with the that it is beyond argument, when we really taken to be either a psychological state or a Master race. Its astonishing indifference to should say that it is beneath argument. form of justified belief. The kind of cer­ the company it keeps makes Wilkinson's The thought is that although one may tainty which is expressed in the claim that cartoon a pictorial equivalent of speaking have moral reasons for not considering an som ething is beyond consideration- that the unthinkable. argument, som eone who was seriou sly only som eone who is a crank, or insane, or In The Culture of Forgetting, Robert committed to reason and truth over moral­ radically wicked, would consider it-is nei­ Manne has pointed out- incontestably, it ity would find no support, in any adequate ther, and is m ore basic than anything that seems to m e-that no one would dream of conception of reason, for considering an y­ can be expressed by way of elaboration on defending a novel like Darville's if it had thing to be intrinsically beyond argument. I the idea of a rationally supported belief. It is been about White Australian settlers and think this is a mistake. To take revisionism more basic because serious deficiency in the aborigines rather than Ukrainians and

48 EUREKA STREET • )ULY /Auc usT 1996 the Jews. That shows, amongs t other things, conceptual map of the different kind of pain they caused and the anger they pro­ that when the pain she and som e of her certainties and taboos. voked were m erely the ex pressions of po­ defenders caused was justified by high­ We may argue about whether the rise of litical correctness. sounding theories about truth, about abso­ political correctness has, all things consid­ Peter Craven, reviewing The Culture of lute value, about moral value more generally ered, made ours a better or a worse culture, Forgetting, now says that although Darville and about the relation of fiction to history but no culture can exist except by being, in shows som e talent, her books is 'disgust­ and to morality, those justifications were critical part, constituted by what ing'. I do not rem ember anyone who de­ ' just talk'. it trea ts as beyond consideration. fe nded the literary worth of the boo k, saying Manne's ad h ominem was not, as that during the debate. Many Jews (a nd Margaret Simons suggested (E ureka Street W E ARE A BETTER CU LTURE because it iS others) believed that The Hand treats sym­ June 1996), an attempt to 'demonstrate the now unthinkable to suggest that the Abo­ pathetically, even if it does not itself ad­ unacceptable consequence of nihilism '. It ri gines go t what they deserved at the hands va nce, the claim that at the hands of the was a call to sobriety and seriousness. of the settlers. By the same token, we have Nazis and their collaborators the Jews fi­ I have no doubt that if Wark were to been diminished by the fact that it is no nally got what they had long deserved. Until respond to the spirit of that call, he would longer unthinkable to say something simi­ Wark, all admirers of The Hand in sisted not say that while it is unthinkable to sug­ lar about the fate of the Jews at the hands of that it made no such claim and that it gest that the Tasmanian Aborigines partly the N azis. If we were seri ously to consider showed no sympathy for it. deserved their murderous treatment at the Wark's suggestion that our past disposition The matter i arguable, but it was not hands of the early settlers, Darville has to treat as unthinkable such a claim about unreasonable for Jews to beli eve what they made a case for believing that the Jews the Jews was m erely an expression of the did. Others believed it too, of course, but I deserved what they suffered at the hands of jaded, thoughtless certainties of the Cold speak here of the Jews because it is their the Germans and their collaborators. N or War, then matters would be even worse. pain and the reaction to it that is at the heart does the anti-Semitic content of Wilkinson's The Demidenko debate brought to the of this argument. Their pain and incredulity cartoon show that he is an anti-Semite. Ju st surface longstanding resentment of Jews that a book expressing such a pcrspccti ve on as com edians who are not ra cists may make and of what they had made of the Holocaust. the Holocaust should be honoured was racist jokes because their judgm ent deserted For the first time, the concept of 'the unac­ compounded by the fact that the reasons for them while they were pressing the internal ceptable face of anti -anti -Semi tism ' appeared their pain were greeted with incomprehen­ logic of, say, an Irish or Jewish joke, so in seri ous public discussion. Expression of sion, condescension and irritation. ca rtoonists who are not anti-Semitic, m ay som e of that resentment was long overdue, They knew, even if they did not fully follow a similar logic of their own craft and thoughtlessly produce an undeniably anti­ Semitic cartoon. To take [Holocaust] revisionism seriously is like taking Wark' column and Wilkinson's ca rtoon are the products of an instructive and fright­ seriously the claim that the earth may be flat, or that ening kind of thoughtlessn es . Their significance does not lie in the degree to Elvis Presley is alive and working for the CIA. which they are offensive, for that might be mitigated by the state of mind of their and our culture will be better when it is articulate it, that that response to their pain authors. Their significance lies in the fa ct openly discussed. But something darker than and outrage compromised the lip service they ex press what had hitherto been un­ resentment, and darker even than anti­ everyone (implici tly) paid to the proposi­ thinkable, and the concept of the unthink­ Semitism, surfaced in the debate. It pained tion that if The Hand did claim what many able is not one that m erely marks a high, or Jew s deeply in a w ay tha t D arville/ Jews suspected it of doing, then it would, of even an extrem e, degree of offensiveness. Demidenko's defenders were quite unable course, be disgu sting. The tension between In publishing Wark and Wilkinson, the to comprehend and it made som e of them the assertion that uch a claim would be Australian violated the kind of taboo whose uncertain of their place in Australian soci­ disgusting and the hostility to those who observa nce had been partly constitutive of ety. It was, I think, because they sensed that responded in ways appropriate to their rea­ our culture. It would have published noth­ the breach of the unthinkable that declared sonable belief that it had been made, ena­ ing of the same kind about Aborigines, but itself in the publication of Wark's article bled that claim to stay suff iciently close to not because to do so would radically contra­ and Wilkinson's cartoon had been fo r som e the surface of the public debate for it even­ vene editorial policy. There is no such policy, time a rea l possibility. It is now evident that tually to insinuate itself as one that de­ for no one has a policy against doing the m any people justifia bly resented the fact served di scussion. unthinkable. We need policy only fo r what that critics of some of the antics of the Perh aps that is wh y w hen on e of is thinkable and all too likely to be sa id or Jewish establishment (during, for example, Darvill e's admirers attributed that claim to done, and then we are within the concep­ the debates over the War Crimes legisla­ her and praised her for making it, there was tual space of self-censorship. T hus, elabora­ tion ) ri ked abuse as anti-Semites. In the not a published word of protest. By compari­ tion on the thoughtlessness of Wark and Demidenko debate, such resentment be­ son, the honours bestowed on Th e Hand by Wilkinson, on the hectic life of a large news­ cam e mixed up with som ething altogether the Vogel and Miles Fra nklin Judges is a paper and other things of that kind, w ill not unjustified and ominous. There arc many trivialmatter. • explain why they were published. T o ex­ reasons fo r this. Confu sion over the di ffe r­ plain that, we need to refer to a change in ent kind of certainties enabled the m ore Raimond Gait a is Professor of Philosophy at our culture, a change whose character can unsavou ry of them to surface, and protected the Institute of Adva nced Research, Aus­ only be understood when it is located on a them with the misguided thought that the tralian Catholic University.

VOLUME 6 N UMBER 6 • EUREKA STREET 49 BooKs: 1 PETER STEELE A great wen

The Oxford Book of London, edited by Paul Bailey, Oxford University Press, Oxford and New York, 1995. ISBN 0 19 214 192 9 RRP $45.00 (hb) $17.95 (pb)

I L ONOON, 'OU KNOW, h>' ' one can love bits of it, and become vistas of bricks and misery. Here great Belly, but no palate, nor taste interested in the rest.' and there lurched a drunken man or of right and wrong.' So Thomas None of these utterances is to be woman, and the air was obscene Hobbes, in 1680. Several decades found in Paul Bailey's Oxford Boo]< with sounds of jangling and squab­ earlier John Milton had written, of London, but any of them might bling. At a market, tottery old men 'Behold now this vast city; a city of have been. Lauds and plaints alike and women were searching in the refuge, the mansion-house of liberty, run through its pages, as do more ga rbage thrown in the mud for rot­ encompassed and surrounded with n eutral observations. A handsome ten potatoes, beans, and vegetables, His protection.' It is a toss-up p ainting in the recent Arthur while little children clustered like whether it would have been more Streeton exhibition at the National flies around a fes tering mass of fruit, disconcerting to fall into Milton's Gallery of Victoria shows Trafalgar thrusting their arms to the shoul­ power or H obbes', given their gen­ Square, 'At the Heart of the Empire' . ders into the liquid corruption, and eral attitude, but between them they It is appropriately sh adowed, as the drawing forth morsels but partially set common terms of attention to heart of any empire must be, since decayed, which they devoured on London, as indeed to many anoth er much of the blood around that organ the spot. city, in every quarter of the globe. is not its own. The OBL is con­ 'May m y enemies live here in structed by somebody well aware of No city of which this was the summer!' Swift wrote to a friend in the shadow side of a great city. Bailey determining story could have lasted Dublin; 'All I can say is that stand­ remarks in his introduction that h e from then until now, and n o doubt ing at C haring Cross and looking has 'given London's poor ... promi­ Jack London, here as elsewhere, was east west north and south I can see nence,' and it is clear that this has writing in some measure t o a nothing but dullness' Keats wrote to n ot been done from m otives of aes­ formula. But the view from below his sister-in-law in America; 'London thetic coherence or colour. If they has as many rights as any other, and sits on m y stomach like a Welsh are h ere, it is above all because they it shows a perpetual truth, whatever rabbit at midnight' Henry Adams were there, and they have been given, structures may be founded or rigged as they still are high er up. Paul Bailey, himself a given, the t esti­ Londoner by birth and residence, is It is difficult to speak adequately or mony of som e of an age, an experien ce, and a h aunted observers. practice as novelist to keep him alert justly of London. It is not a pleasant Jack London, in to London's cruelties a nd vu l­ The People of the n erabilities as they h ave displayed place; it is not agreeable, or cheerful, Abyss (1903), themselves in this century, and he writes, has been intelligent and assiduous or easy, or exempt from reproach. in culling excerp ts from the past. Nowhere in the The second-last passage is Peter It is only magnificent. streets of London Reading's 'Perduta Gente' ( 1989), the may one escape the allusion to the Inferno explicit; the -Henry James sight of abject last a lamenting 'View from Brixton' poverty, while five by Angela Carter ( 1991): n either of minutes' walk them is quite the thing to send to wrote, once m ore with an eye to from almost any point will bring your favourite travel agent. And back America. But there is also Sydney one to a slum; but the region my on page four, Richard of D evizes, in Smith's 'You m ay depend upon it, hansorn was now penetrating was his Chmnicle of about 11 85, writes all lives out of London are mistakes, one unending slum. The streets were like a monk who has been reading m ore or less grievous;-but mis­ filled with a new and different race The Book of Lamentations more takes', and E.M. Forster's 'Time has of people, short of stature, and of often than is altogether good for him: tamed me, and though it is not prac­ wretch ed or beer-sodd en appear­ ticable to love such a place (one ance. We rolled along through miles I do not at all like that city. All could as easily ern brace both volumes of bricks and squalor, and from each sorts of men crowd together there of the telephone directory at once), cross street and alley fla shed long from every country under the

50 EUREKA STREET • JuLv/AucusT 1996 heavens. Each race brings its own his poetry: Vincent Buckley, in his thought much, learned much, pro­ vices and its own customs to the Golden Builders sequence, saw M el­ duced much; the little shabby fur­ city. No one lives in it without bourne through Blake-adapted eyes: nished apartment ought to be sacred falling into some sort of crimes. David Fitts, painting in part in re­ to me. I came to London as a com­ Every quarter of it abounds in grea t sponse to Buckley's poems, produced plete stranger, and today I know obscenities ... jesters ... Moors ... another Melbourne, no less ours for much too many people ... Such an pederasts, singing and dancing girls, being all his own. 'Turn but a stone, experience is an education-it for­ quacks, belly-dancers, sorceresses, and start a wing' said a poet who had tifies the character and embellishes extortioners, night-wanderers, in mind the visionary apprehension the mind. It is difficult to speak m agicians, mimes, beggars, of angels at Charing Cross: but even adequately or justly of London. It is buffoons: all this tribe fill all the in the absence of angels, the stones not a pleasant place; it is not agree- houses. Therefore, if you do not want to dwell with evil-doers, do not live in London. Richard's lament for lost Two working men were in the Tube and began arguing innocence and violated honesty is only the first of the OBL's array in whether a certain peculiarly dressed person in the same similar vein, which includes such formidable figures as John Evelyn, carriage was or was not the Archbishop of Canterbury. D efoe, Pope, Johnson, Smollett, Dickens, Mayhew. But in his excel­ They bet. To settle it one of them went up to the person l ent introduction, Paul Bailey cautions against our being seduced and said, 'Please, sir, are you the Archbishop of by stylisation. He says, for instance, Canterbury~' The reply was: 'What the bloody hell The one spectacle in London that truly distresses me is of the hosts of has that got to do with you( The workman went back tourists, young and old, gathered outside Madame Tussaud's every to his mate and said: 'No good, mate. The old cow day of the week, every week of the year. These unfortunates have been won't give me a straight answer either way.' assured that the place is a London landmark, where they can thrill to -Arnold Bennett the Chamber of Horrors. What do they see inside but a collection of wax models of infamous murderers and politicians (the two occasion­ are themselves tongu ed with elo­ able, or cheerful, or easy, or exempt ally combined in the same person) quence- as (for instance) Streeton from reproach. It is only magnifi­ and actors and currently fashion­ saw , like the London-painting cent. able celebrities? London is not there, Turner, to whom he owed much. I want to shout at them. Ignore it. For most of m y life, now, I have And finally, from the Journals of Tell your tour guides to cease being been fond (and afraid) of Mauriac's Arnold Bennett, lazy and show you the real city. And saying, 'We write the book we de­ even as I send them my silent mes­ serve to write.' It is eminently chal­ I was told the following at dinner sage or imprecation, I know that lengeable, which is no slight to any last night. Two working men were the real London demands time and important truth: but one of its mean­ in the Tube and began arguing patience of its visitors as ings is that a work of distinction whether a certain peculiarly dressed /T well as its inhabitants. does not come out of thin air, and in person in the same carriage was or a real sense has to be lived onto the was not the Archbishop of Canter­ HE REAL CITY': it is a notion tO page-hence the rarity of works of bury. They bet. To settle it one of be mocked spontaneously by today's distinction. And one obvious use of them went up to the person and m any dutiful students in Scepticism The Oxford Book of London is in its said, 'Please, sir, are you the Arch­ 101 , and who begrudges them their reminding us where som e real living bishop of Canterbury1 ' The reply rather elementary pleasure? But has been going on, and its introduc­ was: 'What the bloody hell has that when such entertainments are done ing us to sources of vivacity of which got to do with you ?' The workman with, the fact remains that any con­ we were unaware. The range of such went back to his mate and said: 'No siderable city is unimaginably dense figures may usefully be seen in two good, mate. The old cow won't give with meanings, is a kind of White last examples: first, from the Note­ me a straight an w r either way-' • Dwarf of significance. William Blake books of H enry James, (who is well represented in this book) Peter Steele has a Personal Chair at made London uniquely his own in I have lived much there, felt much, the University of Melbourne.

VoLUM E 6 N uMBER 6 • EUREKA STREET 51 BOOKS: 2 MAx TEICHMANN The inhuman condition

Hitler's Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans And The Holocaust, Daniel Jonah Goldhage n, Little, Brown and Compa ny, London, 1996. ISBN Q 316 87942 8 RRP $39.95

T,Hmo c AUST "'M"NS ' subject of permanent interest-and involvement-for Jews and non-Jews alike. The sheer volume of continuous publicity accorded it, in the West, only partly explains its place in the minds of Western Society. This publicity has not been wholly good: it has often dis­ tracted us from other, very serious, ques­ tions which demand consideration. Some of this publicity actually contrives to create conflict, even encourage character assassination, which we can well do with­ out. And some of the self-serving publicity almost approaches a tri vialisation of this A German soldier taking aim at a Jewish mother and child during dreadful matter, and, through monolithic the slaughter of the Jews of lvangorod, Ukraine, 1942. repetition, anaesthesia of effect among at least some of its recipients. Parts of our literature, we know, are now heavily pre­ choke off interest in, and concern with, the local media appear to be courting these occupied with such topics. The vendors other pathological fea tures of the N azi S ta tc, risks; in the interests of what, or whom, one answer critics by saying that the demand is Nazism or Hitlerism. Here, Goldhagen's might ask. But the bedrock interest comes already there. If they are correct, then the book is-almost, though not wholly of from quite different sources. human condition is even worse than we had necessity- defective as a guide. There is the permanent interest ofJewish supposed. Another fl ow-on from the Holocaust people themselves, and this is wholly Then there are those who fear Jt could should have been, one would have thought, understandable. It would be strange were happen again, or-worse-is starting up a heightened attention to other dreadful things otherwise. There is the natural human evennow. In such an atmosphere a cool, human slaughterhouses and torture fi elds propensity to identify with the sufferings of hard look at history, including economic which have emerged, and are emerging, in others, the cosmic injustice of what hap­ causation, mass psychology, and political many places, and to many peoples, even pened: evoking compassion and indignation. systems is recommended, not paranoia or since WWl. But, curiously, concentration There is the perhaps curious, ambiva­ rhetoric. And in this regard, close attention on the fate of Europe's Jews has sidelined lent, but very human fascination with to the difference between Fascism and Right­ these other great horrors. cruelty, violence and death-especially un­ Wing extremism, and Nazism is required. Goldhagen's book is Eurocentric, Cen­ natural dea th. This can feed upon itself, and Thus, in teaching the history of the Third tral-Eurocentric, even Germanocentric. it is a moot point how much of it should Reich (and the period preceding it), it is This may be appropriate to the case, but it permanently be satisfied. Our media, films, mandatory that the Holocaust should not should not lead to devaluation, even

52 EUREKA STREET • JuL v/AucusT 1996 dismissal of other m oral enormities, which repetitive. It liberally displays anger, vehe­ weren't put down but they couldn't stop have become almost part of the texture of mence and blame. Goldhagen seeks to exact con scription, rising militarism , or the life as the world now lives it. a retrospective revenge on those who killed, Prussianisation of the schools and universi­ Which leads to the whole matter of what tortured and humiliated his people; there ties. human beings are-their potentialities for are also signs that he might seek to transfer N evertheless it was expected, in 1914, good and evil, the circumstances more likely these revenge fantasies onto the present that the SPD would win a majority in the to further one rather than the other. What is day- onto the Germans now living. He Reichstag within a reasonable time. But to be done here? T o paraphra e Marx, the would not be alone. then there was the War! From 1919 on, the first thing is to understand Man, then to But he, and they, would need a theory of German left polled between 35 and 40 per change him. But it seems we don' t national character- a story of a fatal flaw in cent regularly until free elections stopped. understand him very well. this character; ineradicable, a variety of origi­ Hitler never got more than 3 7 per cent in a nal sin. My m other used to sing while iron­ free election, and then just at the end. Were S0 NOW WE HAVE A MOST ambitiOUS pro­ ing: 'On land and sea, wherever you may be, these other Germans, along with the small duction by Daniel Goldhagen, which makes keep your eye on Ger-man-y'. Of Edwardian 'l' liberals and the numerous intellectuals, it clear early on that 'no one has demon­ vintage that song-a by-product of Lord artists who had said 'Olme Mich ... do what strated that the vast majority of Germans Northcliffe's anti-German campaign, dating you like but count me out, you're all rot­ had at any time renounced their cultural from 1900. Are we being told once again to ten'. Were these anti-Semitic too? Racists heritage'. And that 'Germany continues to keep our eye on Germany? And Germans? too? Goldhagen indicates they were-the this day to remain infected by anti­ Goldhagen announces that most of the SPD-on the strength of a couple of small, Semitism '. I think that these statem ents, historical interpretations preceding his are private party surveys that even Roy Morgan and many like them, set the tone, and are defective, inadequate either because they're wouldn't pass. faithful to the overall temperature of missing important facts, or misleading be­ The SPD was founded by a Jew, Lasalle­ Goldhagen's book. cause biased. Or just wrong. So he proposes based its theory on a Jew- Marx. Its leaders There is, notwithstanding, a large and to use earlier work and other contemporary and ideologu es were people like Kautsky, very detailed account of how the Holocaust findings sparingly and selectively, and to Bernstein and David-all Jews; Luxemburg was not simply a matter of scientific cold­ tell us the story as it really was, and is. was Jewish. And the communists similarly. blooded destruction fr om shtetl and ghetto, We were already familiar with other What were all these anti-Semitic Germans via the railways, to the camps, the gassing projects fo r relegating and devaluing past doing, sticking to these partie in the face of and the ovens. More than half died by other intellectual works: the Stalinists, the rising violence, a rigged and hostile legal m eans, and I thought that photographs and deconstru ctionists, h ard-line fe minists, system and press? Like the British workers, commentaries at Yev T Shem revealed that. exponents of American history as black they never won a battle; they always lost, so From memory, many locals and other non­ history, did it and do it. It frequently leaves had to obey, soldier on, or get out, as mas es Germans seem ed to be much in evidence. serious ignorance and much intolerance in had earlier. It is the height of insensitivity But there were nearly 10,000 ca mps, oft en its wake. to tar these people and that long tradition of quite mall, where Jews were done to death Goldhagen, I fear, perfo rms a similar ea rlier struggle with a brush meant in long, drawn-o ut and revolting ways, by disservice for German history and culture. for the Nazis and their friends. local police battalions, 'whole ga ngs of noisy And, by leaving out so many of the earlier louts, cavorting in torturegardens'-as Clive theories about N azism , anti-Semitism and G OLDHAG EN HA S BEEN CRITICISED for James said in his brilliant review in the New the Holocaust, he is able to re-invent the ignoring all other genocides, and the plight Yorker. wheel. So he runs with A.J.P. Taylor's loca­ of the survivors who continued to carry on It seems to follow that far fewer people tion of N azi German bastardry as within the their life as though nothing was happen­ died in Auschwitz and the larger camps core of German history, culture, their whole ing-even when it happened to their own than we had earlier assumed. The laughter political and moral style, their psyche. T heir family. Why didn't they do something, speak was fa r more widespread, m ore fa r-reaching character. This theory was alive and well in out, obstruct ? Khrushchev had the answer than we had supposed, and the author esti­ WWI-only it was the citizens of th e to that. When he was spea king at the 20th m ates that there m ight have been from Kaisereich who were so warped. Inciden­ Party Congress, retailing the horrors of Sta­ 500,00 to 900,000 Germans directly or indi­ tally, anti-Semitism was not m entioned linism, the real fates of deceased comrades­ rectly involved in this genocide. That is, then. with many of the faithful in tears-a voice perhaps, 1.5 percent of the population. (We Goldhagen lacks a certain compassion came from the hall- 'and what were you leave out Kapos and non-Germans). So this as well as an understanding of pre-Nazi doing during that time?' was no remote, scientific operation- in fact German history-particularly the area he Khrushchev stopped: 'Who said that? the technology distracts, though I think it focuses upon m ost: 19 18- 1933, the Weimar Stand up!' N o one spoke, no one moved. adds another macabre strand to this great period. 'Yes,' said Khrushchev, 'that was what I nightmare. The author has opened a new There were many Germanies before was doing'. important avenue to knowing what really 18 70; a nd compe ting cultures-a There have been someab olutely sa tanic happened. Kulturkampf. Prussia, or rather the Prus­ genocides this century. And as states lose But it is the use of this research, to help sian ruling military caste, drove one alter­ authority and the social bonds snap in more construct a variety of major conclusions native culture aft er another underground, and more societies, there seem to be fresh about G e rmany, G e rman s and anti­ and many Germans overseas. The Liberals ones in the making. A new sub-discipline Semitism , which seem s to m e, and many were crushed in 1848, the Catholics cowed called Genocide Studies has now appea red. other reviewers, quite overdone. into silence later on, and m ost energetic Rapid fire weapons and more and more The book is too long, and unflaggingly efforts made to fillet the socialists. They people with the m entality of serial killers

VoLUME 6 N uMBER 6 • EUREKA STREET 53 make things a lot easier. There is no Should w e construct a second Penultimately, if we are seeing shortage of either in Bosnia-and I bad national character stereotype? the revival of national character don't simply mean among the Serbs. Incidentally, Nazi doctrines came stereotypings as a political tool, The Croats, or rather, the Ustasha, into Germany from Austria, where Goldhagen has opened up a Pandora's had moments of glory in WWII, with they were already alive and well. box. We used to talk this way, and Pa velich announcing his Solution­ Some German anti-Semitism can1e found that it led to slaughter and for the Serbs: 'Kill a third, convert a in from the French and the English; in tolerance. So we stopped. As third, and drive the remainder out.' Social Darwinism, if anywhere, from Grillparzer said, 'Humanity; nation­ Of course there was nary a Jew left. the Anglos. German anti-Scmites ality; bestiality'. If this Pandora's Goldhagen does not mention this. and racists weren't very box is to be opened, it can't just be Was this comparable? No, nothing original. for the Germans, the Japanese, (next is- not even Cambodia, which cab off the rank?) or the Arabs. Every Goldhagen mentions as satisfying I T SEEMS GOLD HAGEN understood the nation could be called to account. some of the criteria but not enough. German people better then Himmler Would Goldhagen be happy with No, there is a difference in kind, not and Co. In two key speeches, one that? of degree, apparently. early in the war toSS leaders, another Finally, we have an old German The 86million who perished over in 1943 at Posen, to the principal community in Australia, of some the long Gulag period (Solzhen ytsin' s Nazi leadership, Himmler detailed 40,000. They might have been much figures), the result of policies and the Extermination Project and how more numerous, for before 1914they attitudes which demonised and then it must be pushed through despite were arriving at a rate which, had it dehumanised errant Russians; the all opposition. The German people continued till today, would have 40 million who died in China due to could not be trusted with these made them our largest community Maoist policies, count equally as secrets; even SS officers were trying after the Anglo-Celts. But the vicious proper objects for our horror and to protect their favourite Jews, good racial stereotyping in WWI stopped indignation; as do the Cambodians, Jews etc. They must be stamped on, all that. They only came intermit­ where 12-year-old boys were and ' we will tear the last Jew from tently thereafter. persuaded to bash out the brains of the Generals'. To the SS earlier: 'we Our Germans have been sub­ parents and farnily because they were in the SS must bear a terrible secret. jected on and off to a covert, some­ designated anti the Government­ What we do is for the good of the times overt, anti-German campaign or superfluous bourgeoisie. Volk, and we know it. But too many since 1900. Another present from How people can be induced to do ordinary Germans are still too senti­ England. Paradoxically, we as a such things, how many go in for mental, tainted with moralism, nation preaching racial tolerance 'doubling'-that is behaving nor­ religiosity and compassion. They here and in the UN, are piling up a mally and morally and intelligently cannot be told; so we must carry this lot of runs in the gam e of compound­ for much of the time, and atrociously terrible secret alone. A great burden ing national and sub-national at other times-has produced a body Kamaraden-but we are brave.' antagonisms. I thought the of philosophical and psycho­ Was the secret kept or not? Ukrainian stereotype game was analytical and religious literature Goldhagen says there was no secret, under way for a time, but cooler from the 1930s on-important to and that the average German would heads prevailed. So we have to be­ some of us, with the search for the have willingly joined in. So Himmler come more vigilant about stirring answcr/s and the failure to find it, and Co. read them wrong. Really? the national character pot, for it is haunting us. But Goldhagen shows Goldhagen specialises in logical coming, in the main, from pressure little interest in this. No one is going slides from some to all, from being groups with their own agendas and to be allowed to shoot the fox. The anti-Semitic to wanting to kill Jews, sometimes with a little encourage­ hunt is everything. and fails to distinguish between ment from overseas. Nor does Goldhagen show much direct involvement, indirect involve­ In sum, for m e, this book is inter­ interest in the role of other nation­ ment, tacit consent, and indiffer­ esting for its basic agenda, and as an alities, their contributions, their anti­ ence. Far too many Germans suffered object lesson in how not to approach Semitism, nor their hatred of one from this last, he complains. He history. • another. So Robert Manne's captive should read Orwell on 'indifference' nations walk away unscathed. And and 'tacit consent' in a totalitarian Max Teichmann is a Melbourne the Austrians. Austrians? In Yugo­ state for some clarification. writer and reviewer. slavia, of 5000 convicted 'German' war criminals, 2500 were Austrians. They were very active in the mobile These and other books are available from murder sq uads, commanded 4 of the 6 main death camps and have been The jesuit Bookshop, estimated to have killed nearly half PO Box 553, of the 6 million Jews. Hitler was Austrian, Eichmann and the Gestapo Richmond 3121 chief Kaltenbrunner were Austrian. ph (03) 9427 7311, fax (03) 9428 4450 Kurt Waldheim was an Austrian.

54 EUREKA STREET • JuLv/AucusT 1996 IN MEMORiAM

W EN PEOPLE MAKE LI STS of the musician-and that includes an aw­ finest singers of the century, Ella fullot of them-who frightened me Fitzgerald has to be there. Doyenne as much as playing for Ella. Because of jazz-singing as she undoubtedly she has the kind of gift you can't was, she transcended all the describe.' categories of jazz, blues, classical, As a singer her gift is easy to whatever, to achieve completeness perceive, but impossible to copy. in her craft. Dietrich Fischer­ She is, however a fruitful model for Dieskau, the greatest baritone of this restraint and perfect technique: the age, has long been one of her naturalness, neither forced nor admirers. sloppy; the Mozartian verve and Born in Newport News, Virginia spontaneity within tight form; the in 1917, she was a baby when her pellucidity of her vocalisation and mother and stepfather moved to the deceptive ease with which she Yonkers. Her early life is full of Ella Fitzgerald 1917-1996 negotiated difficult passages. obscurities and conflicting stories; it Aspiring singers in any genre could is hard to find out for certain whether her mother was benefit from listening to her. stillli ving when Ella began to make her mark in swing To watch her when she was singing was to learn. at 16. What is certain is that in 1934 she won a talent Her jaw was perfectly relaxed, her posture straight, contest on amateur night at the Harlem Opera House, the ribcage raised and open, the diaphragm support­ winning a prize-of-a-week's professional gig there. She ing the voice like the air under a hovercraft. She was also came under the notice of the great drummer, able to cover her passaggio, (the break between head Chick Webb, who became her musical mentor and, and chest registers) with an ease many opera singers with his wife, her legal guardian. would envy. She used joyously every bit of her voice Learning from a legendary drummer was bound in the service of the song; was able to shout, squeal, to have a good effect on the timing of one already so growl or carol with aplomb but also with a kind of talented: the minute she opened her mouth to sing honest humility to the music itself-a humility that people forgot that in real life she was plump, and a made her the very best kind of musician: a performer little shy. Suddenly there was a river of clean silver who became a window through which the audience sound and that was all that mattered. Her devotion could discover the essence of the music, the truth in to the music itself has caused some critics to com­ the composer's first inspiration. One of her de facto plain that her singing was not as 'warm' as, say, Sarah students was, of all people, Marilyn Monroe (whose Vaughan's. But Vaughan can cloy, Fitzgerald never. real musical talents were very underrated). In 1951, Her rendition of Gershwin's masterpiece, 'Summer­ when Monroe was to sing in the film of Irving Berlin's time', is an object lesson to singers who see it as an Them 's No Business Lil

V o LUME 6 NuMBER 6 • EUREKA STREET 55 BooKs: 3 JoN GREENAWAY Aiming high

Shooting Elvis, by R. M. Eversz, Pan Macmillan, 1996. ISBN 0 333 66127 3 RRP $29 .95

H AVE YOU EVER FELT that there are "Donna Wanker, Paramount T elevision. sions, of which Nina Zero is one, are unreal lives out there as full of danger and excite- Vice President, Development." Said it that but at the same time can no more be de- m ent as yours is of sensible clothing and way too, each word capitalized. strayed than Elvis could be shot- though annual bus passes? That the person who .. . "We're talking Movie-Of-the-Week, some 600 home pages on the internet full of brushes past you in the street is handcuffed major network, top stars. With this kind of sightings of Elvis gobbling down tortillas in to a briefcase, the contents of which are a package, we think we can get Madonna." Formica -clad diners of small-town USA m ys tery to them, as is their final destina- "Get her to do what? " attest to this possibility. tion ? R.M. Eversz obviously has; in Shoot- "T o play you of course."' The problem this creates fo r Eversz is ing Elvis a life is changed fr om the ordinary This is where the novel is pitched. As that Mary Alice Baker- with her dead-end to the out-of-this world as accidentally as h er s tory progr esses, jobandabusive father- is thefirstvictim of yo u choose the wrong chocolate bar from a Nina Zero, yet she keeps returning like vending machine. Banquo's ghost. This could have been used The original incarnation of her protago- to good effect by Eversz to describe a person- nist is Mary Alice Baker, a photographer at ality in transition, and perhaps in conflict a nursery rhym e portrait studio in Los with itself, but Nina is so intoxicated by Angeles. Her m ost distinguishing fea- what she can do with a free will that tures are her blonde hair and pink there is no room for self- doubt. She is nail polish, which, as she herself power-packed and extra-s trength and observ es, is hardly distinguishing \ the fi lm -maker and artist that hang at all. But after you throw in a \ on to her like sucker-fish fa il to boyfriend with a dubious body cash in on her notoriety, leaving tattoo- and even more dubious Nina by herself-and doing nicely judgm ent in business associ- thanks very much- to handle the ates-a briefcase, two goons from police and prime- time news. Central Casting, a porcelain uri- As much as Eversz loses con- nal, and an airport expl osion, the trol of her heroine, she keeps the quintessential Am erican girl loses plot under very close guard. There her pot on top of the wedding is not much that is truly intriguing ca ke. In her pl ace is Nina Zero, about the story to drag the reader complete with black hair, body- forward- no twists and unexpected piercing, a stolen truck, and a ten- turns. There is plenty about at the m o- dency to let guns go off at regular ment, both in print and on the screen, intervals. that keeps the punter cerebrally engaged. After her dram atic m etamorphosis, one Perhaps a few cooking tips fro m Qu entin would expect that her main problem would / Tarantino or our own Shane Maloney m ight be the ruthless bad guys trying to turn her co m es have spiced things up a bit. into sushi at every opportunity, but fo r larger than life, indestructible. In a passage Shooting Elvis is refr eshing in so fa r as it most of the book this doesn't seem to faze which has her escaping from the two goons is an exploration of m yth -making and our heroine. Sh e accepts the danger of on a stolen Harley-Davidson, she drops the manipulation. It is also nice to have a woman terrorism and extortion in the sa me manner bike underneath a semi-trailer and slides pulling the trigger instead of taking the others accept the hazards of sm oking- through to the other side: bullets for a change, and managing to avoid secretly relishing the naughty habit. For 'It was all so fa st and easy I thought I'd behaving like Arnold Schwarzenegger in Nina, the m ajor concern is trying to cope died, was dreaming it all up from the after- drag. A bit m ore work on story and charac- with the parasites who feed on her fame as life, thought maybe tllis is what happens in ter development and it would have been an an overnight legend of the tabloids. There is death, you don't feel a thing. I sat up, looked absolute ripper. The book's sleeve tells us a lovely encounter she has with a movie fo r m y dead body, like you som etimes see in that the author has relocated to Prague after producer fri end of the would-be-film-maker the movies when som.ebody dies. ' working as a film-m aker in LA for a decade. whose lower Hollywood fl at she is hiding Nina Zero does what only those who Maybe we can hope for a sequel involving ou t in: have theWhoWeeldysort offamecan- live the kidnapping of UN officials, 50 fee t of 'The wom an said, "You must be Nina. the kind of life the ordinary do vicariously electrical tape, and a car chase in Wenceslas O r do yo u still prefer Mary?" with the help of a drip-feed of Hollywood Square. • I said to Cass, "This is a Joke?" plasm a. She is an invention, a smoke and A business card materialized between mirrors trick. What Eversz seems to be say- Jon Greenaway is Em el

56 EUREKA STREET • JuLY /AucusT 1996 THEATRE

G EOFFREY MILNE Much less mis-ery en scene

WATEGO, in Ric hard An aspect of Watego's 1980s analysis of Recalling the rough white larrikin shows of Fotheringham's Community Theatre in which I am not entirely convinced is the the APG and Nimrod of the early '70s, Bran Australia (Methuen, 1987), remarked a matter of aesthetics. Jack Davis's first play, Nue Dae certainly doesn't shirk political number of common elements in Aboriginal Kullark (first performed in 1979) is a case in and social issues, but its good-natured sat­ playwriting up to the middle of the 1980s. point: a piece of fairly orthodox historical/ ire-of blacks and whites alike-and its Among these were the tendency of writ­ documentary thea tre, bordering at times on highly eclectic rock music influences set it ers like Jack Davis, Gerry Bostock, Kevin agitational propaganda, it leaves no doubt apart from the more sombre realist portray­ Gilbert and Robert Merritt to use the stage in its audience's mind as to its political als of the sam e issues in earlier plays. This for an 'exposition of the social and political agenda. is a piece with its tongue very injustices suffered by black Australians' However, its stage backdrop consists of firmly in its cheek. (paralleling the 'protest' poetry of the same a stylised portrait of the rainbow serpent, era). Watego goes so far as to say that, ' like reminiscent of the Swan River in the envi­ M ORE RECE TLY, WE HAVE SEEN a string many other modern dramatists ... who have rons of Perth. The backdrop is composed of of solo shows, all featuring (a nd mostly attempted to use theatre as a vehicle for several moveable panels which, when turned written by) female Aboriginal or Torres Strait social reform, Bostock has no hesitation in around, reveal icons of the invading culture: Islander performers, which reveal further assigning aesthetics a secondary role to the Union Jack is one of them, pictures of change. The pieces are Ninga li Lawford's artistic intention.' Captain Stirling and colonial watercolours Ningali (premiered at Deck Chair Theatre Much of Watego's summary is borne out of the Swan River are others. As the play in WAin 1994 and widely admired nation­ in what I see as a first wave of Aboriginal progresses, the rainbow serpent's back is ally and internationally since); Maryanne drama, including Davis's The First Born thus first seen to be broken by white im­ Sam's Oh My God, I'm Blacl

VOLUME 6 NUMBER 6 • EUREKA STREET 57 Deborah Mailman, a Queensland Murri language; cul­ drama/story-telling form serves to minute performance come together above, in The Seven tural rituals are a strong feature of elevate artistic intention to a higher brilliantly in the end, when she Stages of Grieving. the performance. status than Bostock appeared to ac­ discusses the concept of 'reconcilia­ Only Maryanne Sam's piece cord it, although it clearly goes hand tion'. This word is artfully broken shows any sense of the identity con­ in hand with political imperatives. up and played with on the projection fusion of earlier dramas. A Thurs­ The Seven Stages of Grieving screens (in its component parts day Islander, she was mostly brought bears this out strongly. The piece 'wreck', 'con', 'silly' and 'nation') up 'down south' in the absence of her combines Elizabeth Kubler Ross's before consolidating into the one big family and culture and it was only five stages of grieving (from denial word RECONCILIATION. It then when rehearsing for an appearance and isolation through to acceptance) shrinks several times until it fits on Young Talent Time as a teenager with seven phases of Aboriginal onto the opened lid of the symbolic that she looked in the mirror and history (from Dreaming, through in­ suitcase and snaps shut, as if to cap­ realised the real significance of the vasion and genocide to reconcilia­ ture it and fix the concept in the difference between her appearance tion) in a narrative about the death audience's mind. and that of her white schoolmates. and funeral of the central woman's Earlier, the familiar-enough story It is this moment that gives rise to Nana. A large block of ice hangs of aboriginal children taken from the title of her show: Oh My God, from seven ropes over a fresh grave, their parents is given a fascinatingly I'm Black. The play is entirely in onto which it drips its tears; behind different 'spin' when little mounds English and the popular songs woven are screens upon which family snap­ of earth from the grave are used to cleverly into the narrative are mostly shots, slogans and landscapes are illustrate the devastating effect on American; 'That old black magic has projected. The grave contains a skin-group relationships of remov­ me in its spell' is particularly well battered suitcase which in turn ing one part from the potential breed­ exploited. contains the actual snapshots of vari­ ingpool. We seem to be witnessing a The sense of celebration (of sur­ ous deceased relatives, which pro­ growing trend in Aboriginal theatre vival of identity and culture) in these vide the story-teller with most of her in which a drama of protest is gradu­ pieces is not accomplished without characters and material. Interwo­ ally evolving into a new perform­ difficulty. Each speaks of the con­ ven into the death/funeral/grieving ance form. It will be fascinating to tinuation of institutionalised racism narrative are elements of the wom­ see where it goes next. • and paternalism and motifs of police an's own story and the broader story brutality and community intolerance of Aboriginal history. Geoffrey Milne teaches theatre and and ignorance recur (if subtly) in All of the aesthetic, narrative and drama at the School of Arts and Media each. But the choice of the mono- political elements in this superb 60- at LaTrobe University.

58 EUREKA STREET • JuLY/Auc usT 1996 and the inability to Food poisoning stop what they've started. Luke leads The Last Supper dir. Stacy Title his merry band with (independent). 'Dying for a cause is dictatorial flair, and easy, but if you believe in something it is his single­ enough to kill for it, then that's some­ mindedness which thing special.' So we're told at the nearly leads them to dinner table by Bill Paxton's troglo­ bag the ultimate dyte Zack, who so disturbs his hosts, prize of the neo­ who asked him in for a meal on a conservative talk­ rainy Sunday night, that he is killed show host they and buried in the backyard of their despise so much. Iowa bungalow. This bunch of post­ Alas, his rhetorical graduate students then begin a spree skill exposes the to rid the world of the extremism group to their slide and intolerance which offend their into the depths of extremism before (Alex RatalowiczL only seven, wan­ liberal-humanist values in the way they can stop him becoming the ders seamlessly through a post-war true to Zack's last words. great and all-powerful American Australia rendered with an unusu­ Each Sunday a new expression of demagogue. ally fresh, unsentimental eye, not as hatred sits down at their table for Th e Last Supper is a cinematic a newly discovered episode of The dinner and a chat, and if they don't smorgasboard. Clever dialogue, Sullivans. Noah Taylor-together redeem themselves, Jude, Marc, bright performances, wonderful with his extraordinary hair- gives a Paulie, Pete and Luke (notice a trend imagery and a compelling story as very smart and funny portrayal of here?) respond with a lethal hatred the main course. The film reaffirms, Helfgott as an increasingly eccentric of their own. As this thing of theirs in a none-too-subtle way, that the student in '60s London. Taylor's feat grows like the out-of-control tomato act of assuming God-like power is a is perfectly marked by 91-year-old vine in the backyard, it forces changes moral corruptor and the greatest test John Gielgud's crystal-clearperform­ upon them. Paulie and Pete revel in of tolerance is intolerance. ance as Helfgott's tutor, Cecil Parkes. their omnipotence while Marc and -Jon Greenaway As the adult Helfgott, Geoffrey Rush Jude are weighed down with guilt delivers insane and hysterical bab­ Can play ble with a melodic clarity that sug­ EuREKA STREET gests links, however chaotic, FILM COMPETITION between his madness and his music. Here's Fred Astaire wishing he'd Shine dir. Scott Hicks (Hoyts and Rush makes this more than just a taken the lift instead in the 1950s independent). Few lives could biopic about a crazy genius: his por­ musical, The Band Wagon, directed provide the cinema with a tale richer trayal is utterly compelling. by Vincent Minnelli. This month's than David Helfgott's. Dominated Shine , thank God, doesn't resort $30 teaser is to name his co-star and in youth by his proud, cowardly and to standard representation of mental one other film they starred in brutal father (played with extraordi­ breakdown, or dwell ponderously on together. nary precision of mood by Armin inadequate medical treatment, but The winner of the May competi­ Mueller-Stahl), Helfgott demon­ does occasionally give you a little tion was Catherine Muhlebach of strates prodigious musical talent. more than you need, with the odd Lara, VIC who correctly named With offers to study overseas vetoed symbol breaking cover unnecessar­ Dead Calm and Days of Thunder as by his father, he finds enough en­ ily. But that's a small price to pay in the other Nicole Kidman films couragement from the writer a film that treats us to such suble alongside BMX Bandits in which a Katherine Susannah Prichard vignettes of the life of art as that conveyance of some sort figures (Googie Withers) to defy his father between a teenage Helfgott and an heavily in the story. and travel to London and study at equally youthful Roger Woodward. the Royal Academy of Music. -Siobhan Jackson. Despite a deal of success, David is tripped up by emotional conflicts and enters a decade of mental chaos Boar in shades and institutionalisation. While Helfgott's mind wanders the edges Richard III, dir. Richard Loncraine of mysterious places, some very brave (independent). Richard III is Shake­ people provide stability and love speare's outrageous flirtation with enough to aid his return to the con­ preening evil. It moves so fast you cert stage. think its contamination hasn' t The three actors who play caught you: the suborned plotters Helfgott at various stages of his life and smotherers and throat slitters are all impressive. The youngest are in hell before they can whistle,

V OLUME 6 N UMBER 6 • EUREKA STREET 59 but the audience still stays with the kingdom for a horse' lines from a Carlton community was reaching gleeful Richard as he turns England bogged jeep. Nigel Hawthorne, as the end of its life-cycle. Schwarz into an abattoir. Unlike Iago, Rich­ the hapless Clarence, provides the intersperses interviews with languid ard doesn't refuse to tell what he film's best moment as he eloquently strolls down Carlton allies, filmed knows. He is evil's PR man. prefigures his own death during a in late summer sunshine, that cre­ Loncraine and his collaborator/ golden rainstorm in the exercise yare\ ates an almost dreamlike feel. This star Ian McKell en have caught much of the Tower of London-the inside is a film that all who know Carlton, of an abandoned gasometer. and all who are interested in Jewish Magic' There is nothing history, will luxuriate in. It offers a magic about Annette message of hope for anyone inter­ Bening, who chews Queen ested in the migrant experience­ Elizabeth's words like stale showing how a community can gum. Maggie Smith, as the arrive clutching its cultural baggage, dread Duchess of York is pick out the best, and stride out to some compensation: her play its part in the wider society. exchanges with son Rich­ -David Glanz ard give tart life to the idea of family values. -Morag Fraser Artfully yours Keeping What I Have Written clir . John kosher Hughes (independent). If betrayal is Bitter Herbs and Honeydir. contingent upon deception, then a Monique Schwarz (Nova betrayal which never happened must cinema, Melbourne). This be a very deceptive thing. This is the is the story of the Jews of crux of the debut film by John Hughes of the play's black brio in this short, Carlton in Melbourne. But it is also based on the novel by John Scott, spectacular film. Some of their trans­ a tender tracing of the tussle be­ and at its nub is an artful work of fer tricks-it's set in the 1930s-are tween identity and integration that fiction that distracts and perplexes a Ian Mci

60 EUREKA STREET • JuLY/AucusT 1996 dicovers enough truth from the col­ piece, Ferris Bueller's Day Off?) he Paterson makes the point that lage of art to see where the greater is puffy and dull in this. the constant struggle with the costly betrayal lay. But the combination of and involved business of making This is the sort of film that the Broderick's w a tcha bili ty and films as a Swinburne student has Australian Film Industry needs. Caney's bankability (his five previ­ seen many good and creative flicks Confident and self-assured, it is com­ ous films each grossed over $100 come out from under its leaky roof, plemented by a haunting score by, million in the US alone) will guaran­ unlike some other better endowed amongst others, David Bridie from tee that this film' a hit. It's just schools. I know from personal expe­ Not Drowning, Waving, and cinema­ unfortunate that sometimes no mat­ rience, having shared a house with a tography which u ses stills to ter how many channels you have, couple of Swinburne students, what symbolise memory and imagination. there's just nothing to watch. lengths they went to (for about a The story has lapses at times but -Siobhan Jackson. year we had a stolen nine-foot row­ these are quickly forgotten. Self-dep­ ing boat perched in the front yard of recating it ain't. FILM SPECIAL our terrace house; it had been ' - Jon Greenaway discarded after a shoot). Square eyes, Shutterbox set jabberring tongues, and barely con­ Renegades: Australia's First Film tained madness was the rule when Disconnection School, Barbara Paterson, the deadline for the end of year Helicon Press, Melbourne, 1996. projects was approaching. Cable Guy dir, Ben Stiller (Hoyts). ISB N 0646234951 RRP $34.95 An argument can be mounted For those considering hooking up to There is something comfortable that the experience of learning the pay TV let this film be a warning: about the knowledge that Austral­ trade of film-making at a school is you may find there are more than ian films are shot on a shoestring counter-productive in so far as it just square eyes awaiting a 'preferred budget. We can allow ourselves to produces graduates with ideas and customer'. Steven (Math ew lapse into parochial glee when a skills not suited to the industry. True Broderick) certainly finds more in home-grown production succeeds in enough, student films don't usually the form of his cable guy (Jim Carrey) the cinemas alongside the latest sau­ roll off the screen like an episode who decides he doesn't want Steve's sage churned out by the Hollywood of N eighbours (even though a fifty-buck-bribe for extra channels. factories, because its meagre propor­ Swinbumegraduatehasdirected that Instead he wants to be his best friend, tions should have consigned it to very show) but producing the strange for life. Steve is less than enthusias­ obscurity. So if we consider the nurs­ and the experimental provides great tic, heaven knows why, given his eries where Australian film-makers opportunities: to innovate, to find mind-numbing job, his vacuous ex­ went through their teething, it's an out what works and doesn't work, to girlfriend (her favourite film is Sleep­ extraordinary achieve­ less in Seattle) and his slobby, ment that we have a film hoop-shootin' best friend. It would industry at all. seem this guy needs the manic hys­ Barbara Paterson has teria of Jim Carrey to get him off the written a history of the Hollywood life support machine. Swinburne Film School There are moments when you from its ever so humble think they're going to flick the switch origins in 1966 up to its and let Broderick and Co. die with a merger with the Victorian little dignity, but no. Instead, some College of the Arts in 1992. strokes of the most breathtakingly As Australia's first film banal emotion bring Broderick, and television ins ti tu te bonehead and buddy stumbling back and the poorer relation of into one another's arms. the Australian Film Tel­ Needless to say this film is a evision and Radio School vehicle for Jim Carrey, and features its achievements repre­ a string of set pieces of inconsistent sent an opportunity, quality-some forced, some which Paterson doe not extremely funny and some educa­ pass up, for a bit of that tional. If you've ever wondered what provincial crowing that gain experience in all the aspects of to do with the karaoke setting on Melbournites love so much. But why film-making, and to provide a con­ your hi-fi, Cable Guy will provide not, considering the calibre of the nection between theory and prac­ the answer. And an hysterical and people who have been associated tice. Renegades is a solid piece of menacing technique for warding off with Swinburne in one way or an­ research by Barbara Paterson that Shot from the set of unwanted admirers as a bonus. other. (Phillip Adams, Fred Schepisi, provides good detail of Swinburne's a Swinburne film, But no amount of Carrey mad­ Michael Leunig, Gillian Armstrong, three decades of innovation. May appropriately named ness could save this flick; while John Ruane, Geoffrey Wright, John Swinburne, and its ilk, have many Breakdown. Broderick has sparkled in the past Flaus and Jennifer Sabine to name a more. (remember his 1986 teenage master- few.) -Jon Greenaway

V OLUM E 6 N UMBER 6 • EUREKA STREET 61 WATCHING BRIEF

The beggars' Oprah

W Nvou coMo to •uch a a purple hedge, and the repellent strangeness of Jack­ pass that you must watch daytime son, crooning a legato ballad about saving the earth TV or die, then at least choose while jerking like a puppet with Tourette Syndrome. Donohue while it lasts. Not the Weird. others, I beg, for I would be loath to send the unwary Ricky Lake, (the beggars' Oprah) screens at noon, viewer into the slough of awfulness that is the rest of for people who really have no life at all. The behaviour daytime talkshow culture. Phil Donohue is in fact of both audience and guests on her show makes you paying the price of catering to people with working wonder whether suffrage should still be universal. I neurones-he is being axed-because if your brain is suppose the gun culture has made certain Americans functioning you tend not to watch daytime TV, or at reluctant to engage in verbal duels over the back fence least not Ricky La]{e or Oprah. in case injury is added to insult, so they swarm onto Oprah Winfrey is the queen of the daytime talk Geraldo and Ricky Lake instead of killing each other. shows. There are many others in America, but she has (You have to pay Rupert Murdoch to see Geraldo in managed to be the TV version of Women's Weekly every Australia at the moment, so most of us are safe for a day of the week. The only glitch in her career was when while.) Lake's guests come on air to do various things: she was unwise enough to lose weight and keep it off, dob in a relative for sleeping with the babysitter; dob in thus alienating an army of depressed overweight women their friends for sleeping with someone else's spouse, who went channel-surfing for some other loser to and their neighbour for sleeping with the dog. They identify with. She may have been earning nearly $100 dump their lovers on screen. They propose evanescent million per year but if she looked like us junk-food marriage to one another. They screech vile abuse victims then she could float easily in the dreams of the concerning maintenance evasion, ex-nuptial children, couch potato. sexual harassment (or, against some hapless husbands, She has rallied somewhat and marshalls armies of lack of it) and betrayal in general. Betrayal is the life­ famous friends (Arnie, Roseanne, Fran Drescher and a blood of the show, which has all the social concern of host of lesser lights) to come and spill the beans, some­ an Ik-tribe casino authority. times m essily, but never in the rowdy style of her peers It was with relief I turned to the Machiavelli such as Geraldo, Arsenio and the appalling Ricky Lake. program on ABC. Lately the ABC has been an oasis: Her style is somewhat reminiscent of Sibyl in Fawlty Kerry O'Brien doing what a good interviewer ought to Towers on the phone to a suffering friend: (Ooh, I know do, harrying the new head of BHP over Ok Tedi; French dear. Oh I know. I know.) and Saunders, and-0 frabjous day-Fawlty Towers Usually the context for this is the publication of again. It was also a relief to my family and friends, they an autobiography of sorts: Hollywood people are able of little faith, who had entertained grave fears for my to fill reams on the subject of their philosophy on mental health and moral fibre during my travels through success and their defaulting partners. The Loni the Mordor of the daytime talkshows. Anderson interview was a classic of this type. The studio Anyway, according to the Machiavelli program was suddenly a loungeroom; you could smell the coffee (from the BBC in 1994) the British Tories are all pretty and the gossip. And it all came out-how Burt Machiavellian chaps (or ladies). There were many quotes (Reynolds) cheated on her, how much he spent on wigs, from a Mephistophelian Ian Richardson, interspersed how his lawyers shafted her, how the Cadillac he'd given with comments from politicians and commentators her went missing mysteriously from the settlement. The from both sides. The problem with UK Labour, one gath­ live audience nodded and oohed and aahed (I know, dear, ered, was that they were just too sweet and innocent to I know!}. And when Loni revealed how Burt's mistress be unprincipled Princes. Not enough backstabbing; too had rummaged in her closets while she herself was much morality. A nai:ve lot really. But there was hope, away, the indignation of American housewifery against it seemed. (Shots of Tony Blair announcing a new, prag­ the Other Woman was palpable in a genteel frenzy of matic Labour Party.) It was but a short time later that disapproval. Oprah's audiences are well-disciplined into Tony was whisked off to Rupert Murdoch's tropical the proper expressions of enthusiasm, negative or posi­ hideaway to pick up tips from a true Prince Charming. tive. Not as drilled or disciplined, however, as Michael I can just hear him: 'Buy yourself a pig farm, mate, Jackson's very obvious claque at the World Music and start collecting clocks.' • Awards, a night-time extravaganza notable chiefly for Tina Arena's excellence, Diana Ross's decision to wear Juliette Hughes is a freelance writer and reviewer.

62 EUREKA STREET • JuLY/AucusT 1996 Eureka Street Cryptic Crossword no. 45, July/August 1996

Devised by Joan Nowotny IBVM ACROSS 1 Symbol of 21-down- instead of a m edal, perhaps. (4) 3 Popular with the crowd, they m ay save our fit athletes. ( 10 ) 10 Of course, colleague follows a turn that is som ewhat unusual. (9) 11 See 5-down. 12 To take the course as prescribed can be an advantage. (5) 13 A cake for the emperor! It will cost about 20 old francs. (8) 15 Cry of praise heard on 1-across Sunday. (7) 17 Put it back on ! What, the hat ? N o, the heading. (7) 19 Work I hear you leased to the Art Gallery, rich as it is! (7) 21 How I love sly placings of those explosive tennis sh ots! (7) 22 N ot exactly civilised to bar a crib, repaired as ordered, fro m use at the creche. (8) 24 It was som e Bantu gal I asked, in Swahili, to make corn porridge. (5) 27 Her name evoked m em ories of heath on the moors. (5) 28 Player's instrument is tuned to start with. (9) 29 T om Brown has cold soy mixture reminiscent, perhaps, of his life as a boarder. (10 ) 30 Palindromic action ? (4)

DOWN Solution to Crossword no. 44, June 1996 1 Competitors in this event rely on the plant mixture prescribed for building muscle tone .. . (10) 2 ... Another plant with quite the opposite effect? It seems you lost because of it. (5) 4 Greek m aiden who lost a race fo r the sake of golden apples! More gold here fo r her perhaps. (7) 5 & 11 -across. Magic polym ers are enzym es to build muscles, but there's no right to use them on this occasion. (7,5) 6 Knock back a drink if you win the race in noble fashion. (5) 7 The offi cial gave an unusual prize to m e even though I did act evasively. (9) 8 An indifferent peformance-repetitive therefore! (2-2) 9 Put old coins round twisted tree for a prize? What a charade! (8) 14 Helpless, in a sense, stares at sun, sides shaking with laughter! (10) 16 Sickened by the unfairness, possibly, gave an order to quash semi-final result. (9) 18 Transform ed dull piece by dropping eastern them e, thus becoming very clear in style and meaning. (8) 20 After unfo rtunate third extrem ely visible failure, fi nally fl ourished. (7) 21 State Conservative has a win. (7) 23 Som e Alhambra vocalist's shout of encouragem ent! (5) 25 A team put in reserve. (5) 26 Scottish Island resort can be the m eans of opening the door to beauty! (4)

Master of Letters in PEACE STUDIES by distance education The M.Litt. is normally taken externally over two years and involves three units of coursework and a dissertation of 20,000 words. Students are required to attend the University for fi ve days each year. Entry requires a relevant first degree at an above- average level of performance. Preliminary studies are available for students w ith other backgrounds . For the coming year, the coursework units are likely to be: •geographies of peace •economics of developing countries •the environment, development and peace •peacemaking and confli ct resolution •the philosophy and practi ce of non-violence •educating for peace and justice Enquiries: Geoff H arri s, Coordinator of Peace Studies , UNE, Armidale 2351 ph (067) 73 2414 or 73 2781 fax (067) 73 3280. Applications normally close 30 September

V o LUME 6 NuMBER 6 • EUREKA STREET 63 Tony Coady Bruce Williams Roland&Desmond Manderson

Frank Brennan

Gerard Goggin John Quiggin

Philip Pettit

Robyn Cooper

Juliette Hughes

Peter Porter Dimitris Tsaloumas