EURI:-KA SfRI:-ET & CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS Described as 'the most Special book Offer successful study of language ever published', this new THE CAMBRIDGE edition raises all the ENCYCLOPEDIA OF questions about the language that is rapidly LANGUAGE becoming the global lingua fra nca, and SECOND EDITION answers more than its fair share of them. ,'STAL
Thanks to Cambridge University Press, Eureka Street has 8 copies to give away, each worth $39.95. Just send an envelope marked 'Eureka Street September Book Offer', to PO Box 553, Richmond, VIC, 3121.
QU's first campus opened in 1967 in Rockhampton, Australia's southernmost t ropical city, 30 minutes from the Capricorn coast and Keppel islands. Today we are building Chi-tech campuses in the rapidly growing industrial and tourist cities of Bundaberg, Emerald, Gladstone and Mackay, with generous support from all our host communities. CQU also has boutique international campuses in the heart of Sydney and Melbourne, with Brisbane opening in 1998. ueensland's central region is our heartland but our 11 500 students come from every Australian State and Territory, and over 40 overseas countries. We aim to instil the Qvalues of truth, accuracy, honesty, civility, and courage. Our graduate employment rate 1s now one of Australia's highest. We are earning a growing reputation for original scholarship and research, mostly in partnership with local business and industry. CQU's distance education centre is about to be transformed into a world class facility. niversity status has enabled a rapid expansion over the last six years. However thanks should go to all who have supported CQU and our ancestor institutions over the past U30 years. If you think our future could become part of your future, we would be delighted to send you information about home and on-campus study opportunities, wherever you are. Just ring 079 30 9000.
Professor Lauchlan Chipman Vice-Chancellor and President ~ Central Queensland ~~UNIVERSITY Celebrating 30Years 1967-1997 Where Students Come First • Rockhampton • Bundaberg • Emerald • Gladstone • Mackay .. vc'lnf'•v • Melbourne and four overseas locations Volume 7 Number 7 September 1997
A magazin e of public affairs, the arts and theology
'Given that in the 19th century, science was overwhelmingly the preserve of men, what led Amalie Dietrich to comb Birri Gubba country, CoNTENTS taking the bones of their ancestral dead from 4 34 hollow trees and burial COMMENT THE BODY AND SOUL SNATCHERS Paul Turnbull tells the curious tale of platforms! In 1990 the 7 19th century scientist, Amalie Dietrich, editors of the Bulletin CAPITAL LETTER and her tragic intersections with Australian Aboriginal culture. were inclined to answer 8 that question by drawing LETTERS 40 a blunt parallel between BOOKS 14 Anthony Reid reviews Stephen Fitzgerald's Dietrich and those THE MONTH'S TRAFFIC Is Australia an Asian Country~ ; JohnS. Levi women who later surveys Ninian Smart's Dimensions of the 20 Sacred-An Anatomy of the World's Beliefs willingly participated THE LAST POST (p42}; Michael McGirr romps through Peter in Nazi genocide.' Gary Bryson, who was in Hong Kong Carey's Tack Maggs (p43). for that handover, muses over -Paul Turnbull retreat British-colonial style. 46 See 'The body and soul THE ROAR OF THE CASH REGISTERS snatchers', p34. 23 Does the bottom line dictate the repertoire? SUMMA THEOLOGIAE Geoffrey Milne reports on the funding of Australia's flagship state theatre companies. 24 Cover: The passport saga of a THE BARWICK JUDGMENT 48 Bhutanese refugee. Jack Waterford on Sir Garfield Barwick. FLASH IN THE PAN Back cover: Children playing in Reviews of the films The Van; Au Petit their refugee home away from home. Photographs by Mathias Heng 26 Margu ery; Addicted To Love; Fever Pitch; PNG ELECTION DEBRIEFING Brassed Off; Anna Karenina. Graphics pp5, 16, 20-22, 46 by James Griffin reports on complexities, Siobhan Jackson. corruption and victories. 50 Cartoons pp8, 14 by Dea n Moore. WATCHING BRIEF Photograph p19, 41 by Bill Thomas. Graphic p24 by Li z Dixon. 27 Photographs pp29-33 by Mathias ARCHIMEDES 51 Hen g. SPECIFIC LEVITY Eureka Street magazine 29 jesuit Publications OUT OF THEIR PLACE PO Box 553 Jon Greenaway reports on the strange case Richmond VIC 3 121 Tel (03) 9427 73 11 of the world's most forgotten refugees. Fax (03) 9428 4450 Photographs by Mathias H eng.
V o LUMe 7 NuMBER 7 • EUREKA STREET 3 CoMMENT
A magazine of public affairs, the arts F RANK BRENNAN and theology Publisher Michael Kelly SJ A certain justice Editor Morag Fraser Consulting editor Michael McGirr SJ I N 1993, T>" rocme>AN' on! yj u « got home fnnn c, nhem in time for Christmas. Paul Keating kept them in so that his Production editor 127-page Native Title Act could be passed. Christmas 1997 Lynda McCaffery will be a repeat performance now that John Howard has produced 264 pages of amendm ents in the name of Production assistants: workability and simplicity. The politics is even more complex Paul Fyfe SJ, Juliette Hughes, than the law. The Howard government wants to wind back Chris Jenkins SJ, Siobhan Jackson, Scott Howard, Genevieve Wallace native title as far as the Senate, the High Court and the Constitution will permit. As for the Senate, that will depend Contributing editors on the ALP because the minor parties are happy to maintain Adelaide: Greg O'Kelly SJ a full-blooded recognition of native title. Perth: Dean Moore During the winter recess, John H erron flew the globe Sydney: Edmund Campion, Gerard Windsor assuring the international community that the government's plan was 'based on the non-extinguishment of native title South East Asian correspondent on pastoral leases'. He wanted to stress that the Jon Greenaway proposed legislation 'does not extinguish native title on pastoral leases.' Jesuit Ecli to rial Board If only this were so. Andrew Bullen SJ, Peter L'Estrange SJ It must be conceded that the literalist Andrew Hamilton SJ Howard ministers are not proposing to extinguish Peter Steele Sl, Bill Uren SJ native title themselves. They are simply propos Business manager: Sylvana Scannapiego ing to legislate that States could do it in a racially discrimi Advertising representative: Ken Head natory way and the Commonwealth would pay 75 per cent Patrons of the bill. The defence runs, 'We're not doing it. We're just Eureka Street gratefully acknowledges the turning a blind eye and paying them to do it.' It is called support of Colin and Angela Carter; the federalism. trustees of the estate of Miss M. Condon; They are proposing to allow states to extinguish native Denis Cullity AO; W.P. & M.W. Gurry; title on pastoral leases so that pastoralists may be given Geoff Hill and Janine Perrett; upgraded freehold title. When Pat Dodson took exception to the Roche family. this at the Australian Reconciliation Convention in May, the Prime Minister lost his temper and shouted, 'I, in the Eureka Street magazine, ISS N 1036- 1758, name of truth and in the name of a frank discussion of these Australia Post Print Post approved issues have to repudiate the claim that my ten point plan pp3491 8 1/003 14 involves a massive handout of freehold title at taxpayer is published ten times a year expense. That is an absolute myth. It is absolutely contrary by Eureka Street Magazine Pty Ltd, to the facts and I absolutely repudiate it.' 300 Victoria Street, Richmond, Victoria 3121 When Malcolm Fraser urged the government to rub out Tel: 03 9427 73 11 Fax: 03 9428 4450 this part of the proposed legislation, Senator Nick Minchin e-mail: [email protected] replied that Fraser did not understand the measure. Fraser, Responsibility for editorial content is accepted by like Ruth Cracknell and many other Australians, understands Michael Kelly, 300 Victoria Street, Richmond. it all too well. Howard wants the Commonwealth Parliament Printed by Doran Printing, to roll back the operation of the Racial Discrimination Act 46 Industrial Drive, Braes ide VIC 3195. so that Rob Borbidge would be free to act in a racially © Jesuit Publications 1997. Unsolicited manuscripts, including poetry and discriminatory way, wiping out proven native title rights, fi ction, will be returned only if accompanied by a not for a public purpose but for the convenience of a stamped, self-addressed envelope. Requests for pastoralist with a lease on native title land. The city taxpayers permission to reprint material from the magazine would be left to pick up the tab. should be addressed in writing to: Minchin argues that continued Commonwealth The editor, Eurek a Street ma azinc, insistence that States not be permitted to act in this racially PO Box 553, Richmond VIC 3 121. discriminatory way 'would represent a massive intrusion by the Commonwealth into the land management responsibilities of State Governments.' For their part, the
4 EUREKA STREET • S EPTEMBER 1997 National Farmers Federation says they have never sought this given automatic rights of access to pastoral leases and traditional upgrade of titles. They distinguish them selves from the Queens usage rights including hunting, fishing, camping and ceremony land National Party, which would like to extinguish native title but not within one kilom etre of a homestead or improvem ents completely on pastoral leases. without permission. Pastoralists can be guaranteed the right to There is no w ay the Senate will agree to the fr eehold engage in their activities subject only to the Aboriginal rights upgrade option. The government will leave the proposal in the of access and traditional use. There should be no extinguishment bill so that its withdrawal can be a Senate bargaining chip. Also, of native title. If states were to permit primary production and John Howard would like to sheet the blam e onto fa rmstay tourism on pastoral leases, pastoralists would have the Senate when the Queenslanders vent their spleen absolute certainty in return for which they ought to be required about their sovereign right to extinguish native title to permit continued Aboriginal access. in a racially discriminatory w ay. Once the Where there is uncertainty about additional native title freeholding upgrade option is dropped, the key issue rights such as the right to build outstations and to run killer will be the balance of power between native title herds, (h erds kept fo r the owner's domestic use) native title holders and miners. This is the issue which will cause greatest holders and pastoralists could reach agreem ents about living anxiety in the ALP ranks. It could also become the centrepiece of areas for resident native title holders in exchange for the a double dissolution showdown on native title. suspension of other native title rights. With guaranteed access Western Australia's Richard Court has been prepared to and use, the only m aj or incentive for Aborigines to pursue the accept racially non-discriminatory non-extinguishment of determination of a native title claim is the statutory right to native title provided native title holders do not retain a right to negotiate. Without that right, the number of claims likely to negotiate with mining companies on pastoral lease lands. The be pursued on pa toralleases would decline markedly. T hough right to negotiate was the major legislative gain made by there has been only one successful determination of native title Aborigines with the Keating government in 1993. Aborigines so far, the National Native Title Tribunal is costing $24 million see it as the key to their economic empowerment. It is the one a year and the representative bodies receive $40 million a year major benefit derived from having one's common law native of Commonwealth funds. Aborigines are anxious to retain title claim registered. The minor parties in the Senate will not guaranteed access to the federal tribunal for the agree to the taking away of this right, so the mining industry's determination of claims. only chance will be the caressing of the demoralised ALP. 1 Since the High Court's Brandy decision, disputed They have some iron-fisted remarks by Labor luminaries [; claims at the fe deral level have to be processed at add- in their velvet gloves. Bill Hayden, embittered by the Century U ~\ ed cost through the Federal Court. Now that native Zinc experience, is on record espousing the replacem ent of the . title can exist on land covered by state titles such as right to negotiate with a guaranteed royalty-type paym ent to pastoral leases, the Commonwealth government is Aboriginal communities. He sees the negotiation process as anxious to divest the determination role as much as 'haggling over the size of pots of m oney for different things' possible to the States. Imagine asking Queensland which 'encourages excessive ambit claims to be m ade and Aborigines to subject themselves to the indignity of a Borbidge perhaps to be rigidly pursued'. Connolly-Ryan-type tribunal process in the nam e of The Queensland trio who are seen to be emblematic of certainty and effi ciency ! what is needed for rebuilding federal Labor- Goss, Rudd and Swan- were clear in their approach in 1993. Goss wanted B EAZ LEY WILL HAVE TO ADD justice to certainty. Labor will have guaranteed extinguishment of native title on pastoral leases. to hold fi rm on Keating's right to negotiate and guaranteed Goss warned Keating before the passage of the Native Title Act access to the national tribunal despite the added cost. that the right to negotiate was unrealistic and would result in By Christmas, Wik will be in the Senate and Beazley will lengthy delays. His September 1993 critique of Keating's be feeling the strain fa r m ore than Howard. That pressure will legislation could well have been headed 'Ten Point be increased by the lack of trust between Plan'. Presumably the ALP Left will hold firm on government and Aborigines and between the right to negotiate. Also, the N ew South Wales Aborigines and the other stakeholders. Right, anxious to retain the Keating patrimony, It will be further compounded by the should hold even though Kea ting never envisaged ambiguities and internal contradictions in the that native title and the right to negotiate would m ajority judgm ents in Wik in light of exist on the 42 per cent of the Australian observations by Justice Gummow, one of the landscape subject to pastoral leases. On 12 August, Wik m ajority, who, in the Stolen Generations Gareth Evan s told the N ation al Farmers case in the High Court said, 'Before federation, the comm on Federation Council that Labor would not countenance 'the law as it applied in the Australian colonies had been, as the removal of the native title holders' rights to negotiate, especially common law in Australia is now, in continuing development in the context of minin g interests given the econ omic by the courts administering it. In the nature of things, from empowerment that the present right entails'. time to time legislatures perceive the comm on law as u nsatis Kim Beazley to date has restricted himself to general factory and as requiring, in a particular aspect, abrogation or observations about the need for certainty for all players m odification . Thus the doctrines of common em ploym ent and Aborigines, pastoralists, m iners, shire councils and taxpayers. of contributory negligence propounded in English nineteenth With a realistic threshold test, native title claimants could be century decisions and the state of the law before the Married
V O LUME 7 N UMBER 7 • EUREKA STREET 5 Women's Property Act 1882 (UK) invited and received legislative public infrastructure development by private corporations. intervention. Other instances might readily be given.' Indeed they Sadly, with pressure from the states and industry, there is might. One is called Wik. little hope of the Howard government's bringing its bill into It is going to be bitter, even if it does not come to a double the ballpark of justice as well as certainty. As in 1993, that will dissolution. The bleeding will be in the Labor Party. be the Senate's task in between Christma drinks. If the Labor Ideally, Labor will hold firm on a reasonable threshold test, Party is to set a reasonable bottom line of certainty and justice, access to the national tribunal, and non-discriminatory non there will have to be considerable public sympathy for the extinguishment. It will also, ideally, insist that the right to ongoing political and economic costs to be incurred. • negotiate should be enjoyed by all native title holders whether their land is in town or in the bush, on vacant crown land or Frank Brennan SJ is Director of Uniya, the Jesuit Social Research subject to a pastoral lease, in a national park or required for Centre, Sydney.
C OMMENT: 2
LINCOLN WRIGHT
D AVm ~~~~T~z M:~~,~~~:,y n'~~~~~nd:~~ M~:::mcmusth.ve pleased with his short reign as the Howard Government's lead- known they had finally advanced the cause of industry against ing business philosopher. He has had a decisive influence over bureaucratic opposition and rationalist orthodoxy. the hoariest debate in the economic pantheon, namely, just how But Reserve Bank Governor Ian Macfarlane, who thinks far the government should intervene to push along economic government should stay out of the economy in terms of further development. As the architect of 'Going for Growth', one of assistance, especially now that the bank has relaxed the speed the most important economic policy documents since Paul limits on economic growth, agrees with the economic Keating's Working Nation program, Mortimer has helped shift rationalists. And Industry Commission chairman, Bill Scales, the Howard Government's thinking. joined the debate in typical fashion, decrying the (purported) Mortimer wants a revamp of Australia's business lack of analysis in Mortimer and the fea sibility of Mortimer's assistance, and a simplification of its delivery into five programs setting a growth target to double per capita income over a 10- designed to improve investment and innovation, business year period. Yet Mortimer and the Government's other business competitiveness and the export industries. He has compromised philosopher, Bob Mansfield (of McDonald's fame and Fairfax cleverly, sticking with the Government's desire for fi scal notoriety), would probably ask where all this rigorous analysis restraint and sound monetary policy: gains for business will has go t us so far. In fact Mansfield said just this in a 'corporate com e from the funds released through bureaucratic simplifica- capitalism meets outdated economic theory' remark last month. tion. As a result, his total package is costed at $20.1 billion At the same conference that saw the PM come out on strategic over five years-slightly less, on an annual basis, than the intervention, Mansfield declared: 'We have to face the reality current annual spending of $4.25 billion. Central to Mortimer's that whatever we are doing now is not good enough'. scheme is an investment fund, 'Invest Australia', to be located Apart from the technical merits of Mortimer's strategy, in the Department of Industry, Science and Technology, and there is also the interesting question about why the hitherto funded with $ 1.1 billion over five years. There would be non-interventionist Howard Government is flirting with substantial m onies for other program s as well-$3.6 billion for industry assistance. Ten years ago the ACTU and the Federal research and development assistance for example. Government's Trade D evelopment Council tried to create a M ortimer is also recommending a range of n ew comprehensive industry policy. Called'Australia Reconstructed', bureaucratic delivery vehicles to m anage the estimated $20.75 it fell flat with a fearful business community and a deregulationist billion five-year program. These include a centralised Hawke cabinet. This time big business wants change. Inves tment Advocate who would coordinate new foreign and The clue to the origins of the new policy climate does not domestic investment projects through DIST and, importantly, come from Mortimer's report but from another one, prepared a cabinet sub-committee on trade and industry to oversee the by the Economist Intelligence Unit for the Metal Trades process. As well, M ortimer suggests there should be an Industry Association. Titled 'Make or Break', the report was American-style National Trade Negotiator operating out of the based on interviews with top Australian executives, only 1 per D epartment of Foreign Affairs and Trade. cent of whom expressed confidence in current industry policy. At a conference in August, organised by the Australian Corporations are worried about competition from Asia Chamber of Comm erce and Industry, the Prime Minister finally (they now know Ea st Asia tilts the playing field), and new World moved on industry policy. He told a fascinated Brisbane business Trade Organisation trading rules are m aking them nervous. audience that his Governm ent was prepared to 'strategically They want an activist government to make investment in intervene' to create 'competitive advantage' for business. (It was Australia more attractive. And maybe they are winning. • also the week of the Tax Reform initiative.) Language counts in policy debate. When 'competitive Lincoln Wright is the parliamentary finance writer for the advantage' and 'strategically intervene' popped up in the PM's Canberra Times.
6 EUREKA STREET • SEPTEMBER 1997 Howard's second wind
E UMON>Ac-THt ow MAN's trutNI>-seems If income tax were to be cut by, say $10 billion, a CST rate to have given John Howard a new lease of approaching 30 per cent might then be necessary, and if anyone life, not to mention a boost in the opinion could sell that as a net cut in the tax the average citizen pays, llililiWilr.lllillilliililiiiflllil• polls, but whether the burst of energy, or they deserve re-election. John Hewson could not sell one of 15 the appearance of leadership can be per cent, and that in an environment where people were sick of sustained remains to be seen. Some of the forces he has Paul Keating. Now in government, Howard has his own baggage: unleashed are beyond his control, and have every potential to he can be portrayed at the next election as having secret tax give him deep problems. plans, and will almost certainly find himself embarrassed by Take tax, for example. In one sense, the High Court's ruling the detail of a CST. And then there is the question of whether that state franchise taxes are unconstitutional excises, ought the packages, however put together, can be shown to deliver to suit perfectly an agenda for getting wholesale tax reform and employment. a broad-based consumption tax, back on to the political agenda. In the next burst of leadership, Howard promised a new The way that the Commonwealth raises-and pays most of the surge of market intervention and industry policy, though he political price for-taxes spent by the states, is one of the major was remarkably spare on details, apart from some problems with the taxation system, and causes high irritation conventionalisms about Australia's developing for itself a to any federal government. comparative advantage in the information technology sector. The Commonwealth ought to have the states over a barrel. (The latter looks a little perverse given that his Government, It has already performed a number of heroic short-term measures in a big position to play market leader, is busily outsourcing its to maintain, at least for the moment, the lost $5 billion in own IT needs to multinationals.) revenue from state petrol, tobacco and alcohol taxes but has The Government had, of course, already gone pragmatic made no promises about preserving the system. When and if on its free trade zeal so far as cars are concerned, and is now John Howard and his Government determine their position on under heavy pressure from the clothing, footwear and the right mixture of taxes they can go beyond Fightback! (which technology industries. By his creation of expectations without did not dare talk too much about state taxes) and get together a any attempt to set any parameters on the debate, Mr Howard package that can be marketed as promoting jobs, an export has probably invited every industry special pleader to push a culture and which attaches tax power to spending responsibility. barrow to Kirribilli House. But whether he can satisfy many of Almost certainly, this should involve the states having to the expectations, or quash the strong feeling in business that take some role (and odium) in income tax collection, with the the Government doesn't really have a clue where it is Commonwealth significantly lowering its own rates but going, is another matter. allowing the states to set theirs. The Commonwealth could engage in some constitutional fictions to allow the states to I N THE MEANTIME, OTHER CONTRADICTIONS are emerging. The set their own CST (by collecting a uniform rate on their behalf) Government's purist advisers are insisting that nagging but this may make the packaging even more complicated. unemployment will not go away, even with let-her-rip growth But John Howard has already got significant political rates, unless there is further labour market reform. They are obstacles in the way of getting a popular coalition around tax very unhappy with the compromises that industrial relations reform at the Commonwealth level, a problem which will be minister, Peter Reith, made to get things through. At the same compounded if he is simultaneously making enemies with the time, however, the polling is telling the Government that states. And the states, protecting their own patch, can be sure general economic insecurity (particularly job insecurity) runs to make big problems. Labor's opportunism in continuing to very strong, and is the major reason why there has not been the oppose a CST, plus the problems created by John Howard's own pick-up in consumer spending that low interest rates, low version of Bob Hawke's fiscal trilogy, make a workable package inflation and supposed prosperity ought to be producing. So the pretty hard to attain. Government is sending out strong messages that nothing more Howard has promised no overall increase in the personal can be expected on the industrial relations front. Indeed, a tax burden, lower income taxes, a CST and compensation for Government approaching mid-term may even be looking at losers. His most significant problem is that if he is to satisfy some public sector job creation, particularly in regional areas. most of the expectations, a CST rate would have to be so high A flurry of activity, and some impressions of leadership, as to be completely unsaleable. energy and renewal, can work well in the polls. So can a few Simply to replace the present indirect taxes would require gestures to particular constituencies such as the intervention a five per cent rate, seven per cent if basic items such as food with the ACT heroin trial. But what Howard has put on the were to be excluded. To take up the state revenue losses from agenda are not like the supposed 'big picture' items-republics, the High Court decision would raise it another five per cent or reconciliation and so on-with which Paul Keating would so, and if unproductive taxes such as state payroll tax were to occasionally distract everyone. Employment, taxes, job security, be thrown out, the rate would be well over 15 per cent. To and the future of industry are what it's all about. Achievement replace the fuel excise levy-a cause particularly close to the in those areas, and on an election schedule, will test the leader National Party's heart-would add on another four or five per far more than any speechmaking. • cent. The CST is then already well over 20 per cent and has not funded a single personal income tax cut! Jack Waterford is editor of the Canberra Times.
V o LUME 7 NuMBER 7 • EUREKA STREET 7 LETTERS
Eurel 8 EUREKA STREET • S EPTEMBER 1997 fo r Beethoven's late quartets. Eureka Street highlights this, no doubt giving Noting the words equ a l offence both to admirers of Proust and to devotees of Stravinsky. From Geoffrey Dutton Then Porter compounds the crassness, In Peter Porter's article on the by saying, in one of his concluding 'few fa scinating subject of music's relation assertions': 'Literary men must be ship to meaning (Eureka Street, July/ expected to misvalue music.' What is August) he writes: 'A central concern this very literary fe ll ow up to? of mine is with the relations music especially when a few lines later he is This month, enj oys with words. It's a bullying quoting some lovely stanzas from the writer of each letter we relationship ... ' Auden, 'one poet who loved music'. publish will receive a six-pack of Of course he goes on to qualify Despite its length and learning, Eureka Street postcards. this, but intimacy seems to elude Peter Porter's article fails to address Keep in touch! Porter, who is heavily involved with some key elements in the m enage a the larger scene of liturgical music, trois of music, words and meanings, oratorio and especially opera. H e and seems wilfully to muddle others. glued to his ear, once interrupted a seems to turn away from that loving Geoffrey Dutton heated Faculty meeting to announce relationship between words and music Melbourne, VIC that Connelly had taken three wickets that exists, for instance, in Elizabethan in two overs I I never met an academic songs, especially in the songs of expressing a keen interest in racing, Thom as Campion, a poet and Bravissimo! although undo ubtedly, there were musician of the highest calibre, whose some around. own words and music have a perfect From Sophie Ma sson Thinking of Clark, I am reminded consonance. Porter's entertaining 'If we love music enough, we will of som e lines (source forgotten) image of certain works of music always know what it means.' Perhaps written about another difficult person, clambering over words like mistletoe only a poet, attuned to the music of although of the Right: or convolvulus could not be further words, could put it so perfectly. Peter God will pardon Paul Cla ude] from Campion or Dowland. Porter's wide-ranging, delicately Pardon him for writing well. Porter mentions (how could he not) balanced essay on music (July/August) William Byrt the special affinity between words and is one of the first I have read that Brighton, VIC music in Schubert's songs, but he does expresses so well the essence of music not refer to the tender or boisterous without fr eeze-drying it in words. relation, of mutual greatness, between (Another wonderful, extended essay on What if ... ? H eine and Schumann in the the subject is Anthony Storr's 'Music Dichterliebe. and the Mind'.) From [im Connolly In a quick paragraph, where with As a writer who passionately loves I refer to the article 'In a Word' by modesty that is not quite disarming, music (it is always a real tussle to Desmond Manderson, Eureka Street, he admits his lack of knowledge of decide between a new CD or a book!) June 1997. popular modern music, he is right in and who was brought up surrounded My understanding of the western saying tha t in t his music 'th e by it from babyhood, I have a! ways democratic system of government is partnership of language and music is struggled over expressing what Porter that it was developed from the Greek a m ore equal one.' However, he does expressed so well. The temptation for dialectic, the art of investigating truth not convey, for instance, that Cole a writer is to kill with kindness; to by logical discussion and reasoning Porter wrote both the words and the attempt to express the 'm ea ning' of process. music of his incomparable songs . Noel music. Yet the meaning of music is Truth appears to be the first Coward, who did the sam e, and casualty in our parliamentary and legal generously said that it was Cole who systems, the adversarial system being m ade the whole thing roll, does not COUNSELLING closer to sophistry. rate a mention from Porter. stress, grief, relationships, To quote from the poem 'If' by And what about the music that workplace iss ues Rudyard Kipling: If you can bear to fl ows from the words in the hear the truth you've spoken/Twisted composer's own titles, especially that by knaves to make a trap for fools. of Debussy or Ravel? And words that MEDIATION Perhaps one of your specialists in this sing, like Verlaine's ' Chanson divorce/ sepa ration workplace field may care to comment on the d'Automne', or Tennyson's lyrics fro m development of the western 'The Princess', which were certainly contact democratic system of governm ent, or not bullied by Benjamin Britten. WINSOME THOMAS clarify the advantages of the present And then there is the highly B.A. (Psych), Grad .Dip. App.Psyc h. system. complex area of what music m eans to M.Ed. Admin, AIMM, AHR I. Thank you for Eureka Street, it's writers. Porter hardly touches on this, great. altho ugh h e quotes a remark of Tel 04 18 380 181 or 9690 7033 Jim Connolly Stravinsky's which manages to be both Paynesville VIC inane and bitchy, about Proust's love CONFIDENTIALITY ASSURED V O LUME 7 N UMBER 7 • EUREKA STREET 9 THE NEWMAN COLLEGE music, as he says. No more, no less. drenched in 'mea ning' because they The implications of that are could afford to have Haydn write them challenging, even terrifying. They can string quartets. Similarly, in an ARCHBISHOP MANNIX suspend a verbal person over the gu lf astonishingly superior gesture, Porter TRAVELLING SCHOLARSHIP of total silence. But Porter's waves away all forms of popular exquisit ely calibrated words both music- the unpretentiou s music of bridge the gulf and acknowledge its the people dealing with love, I ust, existence. Bravo! kinship, drinking, dancing, mother Applications are invited from male and Sophie Masson hood, joy and gri ef-whi ch has always female graduates of an Australian University Armidale, NSW held far more 'meaning' for its contem for the Newman College Archbishop Mannix poraries than anything played in the Travelling Scholarship. The duration of the concert halls of the classical cognoscenti. scholarship (for a post-graduate course at an Uneasy listening There arc a number of passages overseas university) is two years, but it may which betray this insufferable be extended to three years. The scholarship snobbery, not the least of which is From David Salter Porter's dec Iara tion that ' the is currently valued at $A20,000 p.a. Eureka Street's willingness to publish despoilers of mus ica l significan ce substantial essays on difficult themes don't so much overvalue music as In order to be eligible for consideration, a must be applauded, but surely the prostitute it'. C hief am ong these candidate sho uld: space could be m ore u sefully pimps, it seem s, are the composers of • intend to pursue an academ ic ca reer in employed than by printing Pe ter film scores. Everything Porter hears at Porter's preening di splay of flawed, the cinema is 'i nflated and undistin Australia; aimless and dis tinctly am a teur guished hyperbole'. It seems to have • give evidence of capacity for su ccessfu l eruditio n . ' Literary people have escaped him that the John Williams written comical things about music' seven-note Indiana Jones leitmotiv is research; he says, and I can only agree. more loved and recognised around the • possess the qual ities of character and The self-centred cultural snobbery world than anything from the entire of his disjointed attempts to define Ring Cycle has ever been, (and Wagner general ability w hich wou ld justify the 'meaning' in music is brea thtaking. is still the undisputed World hope of his or her becoming a For Porter, 'music' is confined not just C hampion of ' inflated hyperbole'). competent member of th e Tea ching Staff to W estern music, but to Western Music is not axiom atica ll y without of a Tertiary Institute and a well-reputed classical music. The entirety of the merit or 'meaning' beca use it is acces world's ethnic music is dismissed in a sible and popular. Ca tholic in that office; single word. So, to ci te just o ne Porter's profound love of classical • satisfy the Se lec tion Committee that his exa mple from hundreds, the music is obvious, and I share it with extraordinary emotional range and him. But along with millions of others or her financia l position warrants a subtlety of Indian music is completely with more open minds-and ears-! grant from the Fund. ignored, presumably beca use Porter find eq ual depth of feeling in African cannot recognise its 'language'. Docs chan ts, late- m edi eval troubadour Appli ca nts close on 30 September, 1997. he turn his back on the poetry of Rilke music, Romanian gypsy bands, Jimi and Rimbaud on the sa m e ba sis? H endrix, Jobim, Mississippi Delta The Scholarship is awarded every two or three yea rs . Nevertheless, from wi thin his blues, Miles Davis, Argentine tangos, The next award w ill be made late in 1997. The extrem ely narrow and s ubjective Irish reels, Becher, Gamclan sc ho lar will take up the award in September, 1998. parameters, Porter presumes to draw orchestras, Sting, Ellington, Clapton useful speculation as to 'meaning' in and hundreds of others. How their Preference is given to appli ca nts w ho are graduates music. All music. It is like attempting music achieves 'meaning' I'm not sure, of the University of Melbourne, although th e award to define the ' meaning' of all sport but that it does is undeniable. may be made to grad uates of oth er Austra lian armed o nly with some rudimentary It is precisely this refusal to see knowledge of lacrosse. music in its broad socia l context universities. Porter's cultural prejudices are also which leads Porter to such silly and fuelled by undisguised elitism. As romanticised notions about the craft early as h is second paragraph he of composition . The idea that Further in fo rmati on and appli cation forms may be dismisses the genuinely popular forms composers arc also 'artists' is quite obta ined from: of music as 'decidedly low-lying'. recent. The first musician to claim this The Rector, C harming. The inescapable implica special status with any seriousness was Beethoven. Palestrina, Monteverdi, Chai rm an, Selection Committee tion is that, for Porter at least, the music w hich the vast majority of the Haydn and Mozart all understood 'art' Newman Coll ege world prefers has no meaning. Thus, well enough, but still considered 887 Swanston Street the ordinary 18th Century Austrians themselves craftsmen-and were Park vi ll e 3052 who adored their rustic hevrige bands certainl y t reated as suc h by t he ir Tel: (03) 9347-5577 and cafehavs orchestras were employers and patrons. They wrote Fax: (03) 9349-2592 condemning them selves to musical music to ord er, or they starved. vapidity while Count Estcrhazy and It is all very well for Porter to hi s sa lon must have been absolutely proclaim that 'No-one has ever 10 EUREKA STREET • S EPTEMBER 1997 believed in Gebrauchsmusik ["utility chromatic scale has no tones, only music"]' but there are at least 750 se mitones, (that's what makes it THE VINCENT BUCKLEY years of musical history to prove him chromatic). Modality is not hundreds POETRY PRIZE wrong. Generations of monks only of years 'different' from Beethoven. enjoyed the comfort and protection of Ludwig himself liked to write in their monastery because they could modes (and in any case, the Ionian is Applications are invited for the Vincent Buckley devise new and beautiful music for the our plain old C major scale, and the Prize, an award to commemorate the life and liturgy. Vivaldi churned out hundreds Aeolian is still the model for the work of the late Vincent Buckley-poet, criti c and of bland concerti as instructional minors. ) The 'masters' often 'referred Professor of English at the University of Melbourne. exercises for his pupils at a girls' to the grammar of music'. Like orphanage in Venice. Bach's Well painters and silversmiths, they took The 1997 prize is to be awarded to an Australian Tem pered Clavier was written not as great pride in the mechanics of their poet, and the successful applicant will visit Ireland 'art' but as a m anifesto arguing for a craft. M ost composers also ta ught during 1998 for a period of time to be determined particular keyboard tuning system . composition; some even wrote highly in consultation with the selection committee. Lully wrote his operas for cash and was technical books of theory and practical even granted a patent for that form. instruction, now prized as precio us Submi ssions (3 copies) wil l take th e form of a group Much of T elemann's delightful musicological sources. or col lecti on of poems and a covering letter describing instrumental music was c reated as But the mos t tendentiously little more than an aid to the digestion off ensive aspect of Porter's search for what ac ti vities will be undertaken in Ireland . Th e of the royalty and aristocrats who paid meaning in music is the notion that pri ze will provide a return airfa re and a modest him to play it during their banquets. we are born with a n inherent contribution toward s living ex penses. It wasn' t just Socialist orthodoxy understanding of its 'language'. This which led Hindemith, Krenek and Weill is 'pre-ordained knowledge', elsewhere Applica tions close on Friday 17th October 1997 to adopt the tenn Gebrauchsmusil<, m ore in the essay described as 'pre-existent and should be addressed to a realistic reassessm ent of the reality'. Porter believes 'we discover th e Cultural Affairs Office r, Australi an Ce ntre, composer's role after the 'art for art's the m eaning of music by experiencing University of M elbourne, 131 Barry Stree t, Ca rlton, sake' excesses of the turn-of-the it'. Presumably this magical capacity century Aesthetes. is genetic and occurs in all peoples, of Vi ctoria 3053 Indeed, Porter clings so passion all cultures. But some problem s arise: (ph one (03) 9344 7021; fax (03) 9347 773 1; ately to this highly romanticised ideal did the children of the Incas e-mail : r.nance@a rts. unimelb.edu .a u). of the artist/composer that he invents immediately ' understand' t he a ludicrous theory of ' trans ferable exquisite harmonies of Gesualdo when value' to excuse Ba ch's (and just about sung to them by the Conquistadores? every other composer's ) perfectly Did the offspring of Ja panese/ understandable h abi t of borrowing America n marriages at the end of their best old ideas fo r use elsewhere. WWII di g the music of Kabuki or The plain truth is that the occa ional Count Basie? The proposition is re ort to m elodic recycling was Bach's clearly preposterous. pragm a tic respon se to impossible It's impossible to demoli sh Porter's arlia m e nta ry deadlines. For long stretches of his thesis on 'm eaning' in music because NETWORK career he was required to produce-in he doesn't have a thesis. Instea d, we additio n to ho urs of instrumental are trea ted to a m eandering and 'First of all , then I urge that suppli cations, music-a new Cantata for every feast sometimes incoherent stroll through intercess ions and thanksg ivin gs be made day of the year. Is it any wonder here the author's private garden of favourite for all men, fo r kings and ail who are in used some of his favourite tunes? But, pieces and theories. In ten , t ype high positions, that we may lead a qui et still deifying Ba ch, Porter also wishes packed pages there is no room fo r a and peacable life, god ly and respectful in us to beli eve that the slow movement susta ined and supported argument. every way' 1 Tim 2: 1-2 of the Italian Concerto was so perfectly The m ost glaring o mission is any fo rmed tha t it 'ad jures addition or discussion of rhythm- the wellspring Wi th the aid of facs imile machi nes, you deviation'. Absolute tosh . There's no of all music-and still its most potent can join thousands of people Australia wide doubt that Johann Sebas tian himself clem ent. Likewise, tempo scores just res ponding to praye r reques ts fo r our i m provi sed ornam enta tion on that a single passing mention. Perhaps Mr Government. melody-and to suit the tastes of his Porter has never tapped his foo t. audiences. If he wishes to philosophise Finally, w h en he runs out of about particula r pieces of music, twaddle, the author favours u s with a Further inform ati on contact: Porter should at least acquaint him collection of his glib pensees on the Parliamentary Prayer Network, self with the performance practices of m a tter at hand. Porter's profound Canberra Christian Network their period. conclusion: 'The meaning of music is 174 Dixon Dri ve Holder ACT 26 11 Regrettably, our essayist's tra ns music'. T hat's it ? I trudged through Tel: 02 6288 1948 Fax : 02 6287 1979 parent keenness to impress with the 10,000 w ord s for t hat h alf-baked sweep of his musical knowledge lea ds banality? N ow , w ho was it sa id Name ______him to further errors. The division of 'literary people have written comical octaves does not give us keys as Porter things about music'? Address------asserts. An octave is an interval which David Salter Tel ______Fax ------occurs in any key but defin es none. A Sydney N SW VOLUME 7 N UMBER 7 • EUREKA STREET 11 university library. I a m currentl y engaged in research for a biography of Recherche Jacques-Julien Houtou de la Billardiere The big question (1755- 1834) , naturalist on Bruny From Dr Edward Duyl< er d'Entrecasteaux's expedition of 179 1- From Helga Kuhse Honorary Con sul, 1793 in search of La Perouse and Director, Centre for Human Bioethics, Republic of Mauritius author of the first published fl ora of Monash University I read Robert Barne's impassioned but Australia: Novae Hollandiae In his letter (Eureka Street, Ju ly/ cogent critical article on the n ew plantarum sp ecimen (Paris, 1804- August 1997), Father Bill Uren refers strategic direction of the National 1806, 2 vols.). to a nationwide survey conducted by Library (Eureka Street, March 1997) Having found evidence in a letter myself and four colleagues on and Warren Horton's equally to James Edward Smith that La euthanasia and other end-of-life impassioned defence in the May issue. Billardiere was in Italy in 1796, I had decisions (Helga Kuhse, Peter Singer, Over the years I have written m any a hunch that h e m ay h ave been Peter Baume, Malcolm Clark, Maurice articles in the National Library's own involved in a commission established Rickard: ' End of Life D ecisions in m agazine, celebrating the diversity by the Directory to plunder the Australian Medi cal Practice, Medical and richness of our national collection. museums of Italy in th e wake of Journal of Australia, 17/2/ 1997). I take I now h ave serious concerns about the Napoleon 's military victories. The strong issue with Fr Uren's suggestion extent to which this richness and French plunder included the Mona Lisa. that we deliberately withhe ld some diversity will be ensured in the future. I knew the names of some of the special results because they show that ' the I appreciate the budgetary problems of commissioners and found the biography overwh elming majority of doctors the m an agement and the n eed to of one, the chemist Berthollet, at the believe tha t the present la ws respond to the demands of n ew National Library: Sadoun-Goupil, M. Le precluding euthanasia do not interfere technology. I also appreciate that the Chimiste Claude-Louis Berthollet, with or inhibit their preferred National Library cannot collect 1748-1822, Librairie Philosophique J. m anagem ent of the patient at the end 'everything'. N evertheless, the Vrin, Paris, 1977. of life'. previous collection policy served I was amazed and enormously There are two points to this. The scholars well. satisfied to have my gu ess confirm ed first one refers to our all eged reasons I am an independent h istorian, within t en seconds of opening this for not publishing the results; the without borrowing rights in any book. In the ch apter on Berthollet's second to Fr Uren 's belief t hat the m ission to Italy, La Billardiere was responses to the AMA questions m ention ed in the first paragraph as support the anti-euthanasia case: anoth er special commissioner. Our study was intended to The National Library h olds the compare the inciden ce o f various AUGUSTINIANS only copy in the country of the only m edical end-of-life decisi ons in biography of Berthollet that I know of. Australia with data from the Sharing l!fe and ministry together In the twenty years since this book Netherlands. In th e N etherlands in friendship and in community was published, no other Australian voluntary euthanasia is lawful; in state, university or public library has Australia it is n ot. To this end, we as religious brothers and priests. acquired a copy. employed an English translation of an I I could cit e numerous oth er otherwise identical questionnaire used examples of su ch seemingly esoteric in a 1995 Dutch study. But, at the :~~ "' - works, to be found only at the request of th e Australian Medical Ctf17'z National Library, which I have found Association, we added two new questions profoundly important in writing A n to the Australian questionnaire. Officer of the Blue (my biography of The results of these two questions Marion Dufresne, the first explorer w ere n o t p ublish ed in the MJA ~ after Tasman to reach to Tasm ania) article-not because we wanted to ' Yo u and I are nothing but the Church .. . It and Nature's Argonaut (m y forthcom withhold the results (in fact, we had is by love that we belong to the Church.' ing biography of Daniel Solander, the included som e discussion in the article St Augustine Swedish n aturalist on the Endeavour). we originally submitted to the MJA ), Yes, I did read what was published but rather because the editor of the Please send me information about about National Library's n ew M{A asked us to remove this discussion the Order of St Augustine 'strategic plan' in the NLA News in from the text. The reason was explained NAME ...... December 1993, but I could only gu ess in a letter by the editor of the MJA and AGE ...... PHONE ...... at the implications. I may be wrong, the president of the AMA to The but I think there is a very real Australian (20/2/97): 'As these two ADDRESS ...... probability that books like the i tem s in the questionnaire were ...... P/CODE ...... biography of Berthollet (p ublished in initiated by the AMA, an editorial France in Fren ch ) will no longer be decision was made that the AMA should The Augustinia ns Tel: (02) 9938 3782 collected and Australia w ill be the take responsibility for their validity and PO Box 679 Brook va le 2100 Fax: (02) 9905 7864 poorer for it. publica tion. As a result Kuhse and her Edward Duyker colleagues were requested not to include Sylvania, NSW that information in their final article'. 12 EUREKA STREET • SEPTEMBER 1997 Will the results of the two AMA have enabled your patient to receive AUSTRALIAN questions support the anti-euthanasia better or more appropriate care! case? While a more detailed report on Ninety-six respondents (1 7 per cent) BOOK REVIEW the results will appear in a forthcoming answered 'yes'; 467 respondents (83 per issue of the MJA , the following figures cent) answered 'no' have already been released. While Fr Uren is correct when he in the September issue: AMA Question 1: points out that the fa c t that Did your perception of the law, as respondents ignored the instructions Dorothy Hewett on Tracy Ryan's Bluebeard in Drag it applies in your State or Territory, on the questionnaire is problem atical inhibit or interfere with your preferred in a statistical sense, this does not Ph ilippa Hawker reviews management of the patient and end entail that the results are insignificant. Bernard Cohen's The Blindman's Hat of life decisions! The fact remains that a very Ninety-two respondents (8 per cent) considerable number of doctors who Stuart Coupe on answered 'yes'; 1008 respondents (9 1 per chose to answer the question thought Stephen Kn ight's Continent of Mystery cent) answered 'no'; 12 respondents (l that the decriminalisation of euthana per cent) did not answer the question. sia and/or assisted suicide would have Kerryn Goldsworthy reviews N ow, this result shows, as Fr Uren allowed their respective patient to David Ireland's Th e Chosen correctly suggests, ' that the receive better care. overwhelming majority of doctors The last point- the link between Richard Haese on Art in Australia believe that existing laws precluding the provision of optimal terminal care euthanasia do not interfere with or and the option of voluntary euthanasia Peter Craven on the film version of inhibit their preferred m anagem ent of to a small but significant number of El izabeth Jolley's The Well the patient at the end of life'. But does patients-was also prominent in a it also show that all is well? Hardly. recent survey of 11 20 general 'A Big Theme Park: A Writer's Queensland' The fact that 8 per cent of responding practitioners by the Royal Australian an essay by Nigel Krauth doctors thought that existing laws Coll ege of General Practitioners. More precluded them from providing respondents (45 per cent) 'would New Subscribers $55 for ten issues optimal end-of- life care is of great personally wish to have the option of plus a free book moral significance. It suggests that voluntary euthanasia' than not (36 per many Australians die in suffering and cent) ; and 68 per cent of respondents Ph (03) 9663 8657 Fax (03) 9663 8658 pain and provides a powerful prima believed that euthanasia can be an act facie argument for law reform. This of caring. (Australian Family argument receives further support Ph ysician, April 1997). from the answers given to the next Helga Kuhse question: Clayton, VIC Only those who answered 'yes' to Three Personal Stories Question (1 ) were instructed to answer Question (2). In fact, however, 563 Giving an inch you are invited to hear doctors addressed Question (2): Would enactment of laws From John R Barich Vicki Walker from the Aboriginal providing defined circumstances in I am compelled to comment on Liz which a drug may be prescribed and/ Curran's article 'Wrong way on rights', Catholic Ministry, or administered to patients with a Eureka Street (July-Aug 97). Joan Healy RSJ, at prese nt working in terminal illness, with the explicit It m ay interest your readers that purpose of hastening the end of life, an all-party-committee of the Federal Ca mbodia, Parliament is currently examining all and a third guest to be announced in the treaties to which Australia is a signatory. They are currently taking next iss ue, evidence on the Convention on the Li mited October enrolments. Rights of the Child. Discover the New Iro n Age It is not right to say that Australia's speak of their report to the UN on this con vention w ith David Sherl ock. was 'CURSORY' as it was over an inch Spiritual journeys 12-19 October. thick. Also the Alternative Report was STUDIO 33 highly inaccurate. For instance, it said that Australia had no Departments of faci litated by Elaine Canty 33 Hill St. Urall a NSW 2358 Child Welfare. In fact these have (ex-aftern oon presenter, 3LO) ph/fax: 067 78 3333 or existed for over 100 years. If the CONVENTION needs Tu esday, 18 November 1997, at 7.30pm, ph: 067 78 3733 'watering down' it is because it is seen emai l: [email protected] u by many as a threat to parent/ Xavier College chapel, Barkers Road, Kew. on line: http://www.com.au/ child relationship. neiss/s tudio33/index. html Jo hn R Barich Enqu iries: Kate McKenzie, 0412-365-705. Ardross WA VoLUME 7 N uMBER 7 • EUREKA STREET 13 THE MONTH's TRAFFIC swallowed the buildings of the old Wrest casino prospers on the custom of the local , Malzing Their Point Hotel. Many a teacher studentship but its counterpart, or rival, in Cairns is cheque found its way to the tables, or so it floundering, in receive rship, becau se was direly rumoured. At the casino I was tourists evidently would rather be whisked Own Fun delighted to indulge what had been no more away to the rain forest and the reef. than fancy, and to play blackjack and Melbourne's casino dwarfed all of these / C ASI o', I SAID to the cab driver, and roulette as if these were trades that long ago when it occupied a temporary site. The winced. The visit could be postponed no and effortlessly I had mastered. Once I threw veritable Crown is now one of the biggest longer. After all, I had a $20 stake from five h eads in a row at two up, to the buildings in the Sou them Hemisphere. The Evreka Street in my pocket. A continued amazement of the grizzled Anzacs in the renovation of the Yarra and its inner city refusal to darken the doors of Crown seemed betting ring. Sadly I was not present on the banks that bega n so plendidly under the like an increasingly pointless and perverse famous evening when the renowned Cain government, has been jeopardised and gesture. Anyway, I had always been a fan of Tasmanian-born artist Geoffrey D yer over-shadowed by the huge bunker that casinos, as any teenage reader of James incurred a life- time ban for depositing a Lloyd Williams has built. Bond novels is likely to be. The casinos bouncer on the roulette table as the first act I was travelling to a place that I had there imagined con s tituted a s mall, in an all-in fr acas. Several of Geoff's frequently seen as the train pulled in or out glamorous, cosmopolitan alternative to the paintings nevertheless hang in the Hobart of Flinders Street Station. Many of the myths world outside, on e which offered casino; others adorn a private room in associated with theca ino were also already opportunities fo r wealth and seduction. Crown, where he is welcome. familiar. There were the tales of children Bond never chooses to manage one without After a while, Launceston secured a abandoned in cars, miserable and the other, although on a memorable occasion casino of its own and then numerous cities suffocating, while their parents played on he was 'beaten and cleaned out' at the tables wanted and got one. Alice Springs' casino is through the night. This was one of several until kindly Felix Leiter of the CIA staked in the desert; Adelaide' above the one codes for the misconduct of Asians who are him for another spin of the wheel. time main railway station; Canberra's in upposedly given to inveterate gambling. Thus it wa that, thirty years ago, I had what would be the centre of the town if While families starved, or subsisted on thin waited anxiously and pessimistically for there were such a thing. The Townsville mince and saveloys, while small bu inesses the result of a Tasmanian s tate crumbled in the suburbs, predators referendum to establish a casino in allegedly fell on the lost and broke in Hobart. This would not be the first in the casino's car parks, offering punters Australia. Everyone knew of the cash for their vehicle so that they notoriou s, state-protected 'gambling could get back inside. Once there, in dens' of Kings Cross, but Tasmanians crowds of Melbourne Cup density, they were to vote on whether they wanted a are said often to prefer to urinate stand legal, public casino by the Derwent. It ing up at the tables, rather than to lose eemed impossible that the 'Yes' side a prized position. would win, that wowsers would be With these lurid stories in mind, confounded. And what of parochial we alighted in Clarendon Street, enter considerations: why should the people ing the Crown Casino from what is of Launceston or the North West Coast known among the cognoscenti as the give already pampered residents of the Highpoint, or lumpen end, where the ca pital down south a chance to enjoy ga ming machine is overeign and its themselves in this exotic fashion ? But musical eruptions and spills of coin they did: the casino proposal was drown the noise of huff ling m occa s trongly endorsed, as Tas manians sins. From this point, my wife and I grasped at yet another straw to save the trudged for what feltlike half the length state from its apparently inexorable of the river to the Oak Room, where economic decline. It was then a matter the 'quality' can play in comfort. In of only a few days before I was writing truth, this was a social progress of a pompously to the Mercury to demand narrower scope, from throng of that the roulette wheels for the proposed lumpen-proletariat to their fellows of casino sh o uld have on e zero [the the lumpen-bourgeoisie, many of the European style) and not two [in the latter being escapees from the lower American fashion, which guarantees a middle class who have come to the greater percentage for the house). casino chiefly to be seen, but as what, By the time I started university in one wondered? Disdaining to follow us 1968, the casino was open, havi ng mostly into posh precincts, my under-age 14 EUREKA STREET • SEPTEMBER 1997 daughter and her friend nonchalantly had large foyer, the ante-room to a show that is from a proj ected $ 750 million to $2.3 billion. wins at roulette in the casino's vast, never going to open because this is the The real economic costs will never perhaps unrestricted area. show. N ew cars in daunting numbers rise be known, any more than the sum of the Since entry to the Mah ogany Room was above the gaming machines, there to be profit that will accrue to the casino's by invitation only, and m y credit rating won by some mysterious m eans or other. developers. The social bill appears to be in am ong the set of international 'highrollers' 'Free' offers abounded, whether of ' delicious' no-one's interests to call fo r or to calculate. was suspect, I had decided to commence snacks or European coach holidays fo r those In any event, accuracy is beside the my adventure in the Oak Room , whose 'seniors' to whom Crown gives a special point when what is in reckoning is such a walls are hung with three giant bronze welcom e. The Crown Club m erchandise desolate dream . -Peter Pierce coins. These depict scenes of heroic rather shop specialised in penguins and polar bears. than ludic action, lions, and warriors on The first suggested a Phillip Island tourist horseback, as if in tribute to the wonderful tie-in, but I could n ot fi gure the Arctic Cambodia adrift Assyrian exhibition which had been staged connection. at the National Gallery of Victoria not long Along every wall, m enacingly alight and before. The conditions in the Oak Room noisy, were gaming m achines. Besides the T HERE IS NOT MUCH outwardly showing in were pleasant. All of the staff appeared casino staples-blackjack, roulette, kino Phnom Penh now fr om the 'inciden t' of 5th affabl e. N ot far from the roulette table, my there were exotic entertainments as well. and 6th July; on the way in fro m the airport wife was hunched in front of an armless Sic bo, pai gow- these Asian trials of skill my car tyres give off a steady burr as they bandit, as if in some grim or blackly jesting by dice reminded m e of the 1890s Bulletin run over the tank tracks. At the crossroads, rehearsal fo r old age. At my table I h ad cartoon in which a fi endish Celestial, in the by the U ni versi ty dam , there's a large black fallen am ong desperates. One man actually body of an octopus, threatens Australia's patch where, my colleague tells m e, a tank set aside his m obile phone during a call in innocence with tentacles labelled 'opium', was burned. On the second night, I missed order to spread chips indiscriminately over 'child slavery', 'pak ah poo' and 'fan tan'. my way to a rendezvous, and fo und myself what he could reach of the table. He lost. The two latter are notorious Asian gam es of riding down t h e street wh ere Prince Another, whose three hideous gold and chance. According to family legend, my Ranariddh's house stood. A whole row of glittering rings were at least in the aesthetic m aternal grandfather regularly lost the villas is strangely dark; a close look through spirit of the place, covered 22 individual profits of his engraving business in fa n tan the gloom shows shattered windows, and numbers. The uncovered number 23 cam e nights with his Chinese neighbours. Hanson h ere and there, awnings perforated by up to m ock his deliberations. migh t nod h er head sagely at this iniquity, shrapnel. On all sides th ere were diversions. but I was again reminded of h ow' Asian' and Tourists are noticeably fewer, though Beginners could take free lessons in black Australian dom estic life in this country whether the ganja-sm oking crowd at the jack and roulette, rather than being sent have been longer and m ore deeply entwined Capitol even noticed anything untoward entirely unprepared to the tables. Escalators than her sense of history would enable her go ing on, is an open question. The streets led upstairs to the 24-hour cinem a complex. to fathom . are no less thronged, although most of those T el evisi on screen s at the bar either The Crown Casino proves emphatically with luxury cars seem to be keeping them previewed those m ovie attractions, or that the Australian social ideal of 'making parked at hom e fo r the time being. showed a trots m eeting somewhere in the your own fun', which was re-enunciated by The internal damage is far more dwindling world of rural Australia, and fa r Donald Horne in the first volume of his pervasive. Two days of artillery fire, and fro m Crown. In this ambience, chardonnay autobiography, The Education of Young several m ore nigh ts of arm ed m en prowling is accented on the last syllable. The bar was Donald, has decisively collapsed. Its demise and plundering reawakened the anxiety that fake m arble, I gauged, but there was a real is bathetically dem onstrated on all sides in is never far beneath the surface here. N early coffee m achine. And there were so m any Crown, in the too-determinedly grinning everyone has a looting story to tell; three staff: how could the unemploym ent rate of young couples, in the fake insouciance of weeks after the event, m any are still shaken. Victorians just have risen from 8.8 per cent city professional m en and wom en, in the Brai brul- the words crop up again and to 9.2 per cent when one was surrounded by solipsistic mien of gambling desperates who again in conversation. They mean changing, this unifo rmed, gainfully occupied bunch ? would never believe in such a m axim even uncertain, unstable. There's a sense of need I came upon a group of Crown 's finest if they had heard of it. Beneath all this sad ing to m ove cautiously in all things. outside a lavatory, thence to be afforded a self-exhibition is the certainty of tax by Through the windows of the dom estic glimpse of the pseudo-elan that is part of gambling, the sure and perfect realisation departure lounge, we watch workers neatly the training of First World m enials. An of private and government greed. re-concreting a m ortar-pitted patch of the earnest m eeting was in progress in which Outside the casino, along the bank of tarmac; neat signs on the exit doors express four tyros with 'Contractor' badges were the Yarra, are five towers, like miniatures the regrets of the Cambodian Airports being instructed- not on how to play the of the World Trade C entre towers in N ew Authority 'for any inconvenience caused tables, or to smile while evicting drunks York, or thin books with water streaming during rehabilitation'. ASEAN's flag carriers but on the most efficient m eans to clean down their surfaces. At hourly intervals the are already starting to return, like ungainly fouled toilet bowls. towers ignite, throwing off radiant h eat as migrating birds. Making my way back into the central flam es from them curtsey in the air, red Stung Treng, near the Lao border, is con course, I was jostled by people with against the black night sky. Purportedly barely 45 minutes away for the two dozen their hands full- a bucket of chips in one, a this s h ow cost s $ 10,000 for each who can afford air tickets today. Here too, bucket of coins in the other. All of this synchronised burst of fire. It is sm all change. things are decidedly brai brul, through space resembled a grandiose, preposterously The cost of the Crown Casino rose, after all, politics is a very small part of it. Here the V o LUME 7 N uMBER 7 • EUREKA STREET 15 Sekong and Sesan rivers meet the Mekong; steered close enough in to grab overhanging the rain has hardly stopped since the wet branches and pull out of the current long season began three months ago, and the enough for repairs. Wages from the slopes, stripped of cover by Indonesian Half an hour later, bolts sheared, and loggers, are pouring their runoff unimpeded the motor slid off its housing and dropped into the rivers. The Mekong is already near to the floor of the boat. This time, the top down the top of its banks, a full two months current spun and accelerated us alarmingly. A T THE AucusT SPEC IAL Cabinet meeting before it normally peaks. Finally, after several tries, we hauled into on unemploym ent, Professor Judith Sloan As we set out from Stung Treng's main the bank. and Dr Peter Dawkins, recognised 'experts' quay for Siem Bok, 25 km downstream, our The best thing about travelling with on the labour market, told ministers that if longboat looked uncomfortably like a blue Khmers is that any survived peril or hard we want to increase employment we have peapod bobbing in a stewpot, but the river ship of the journey becomes a huge joke. We to reduce wages, particularly at the bottom exerted its inevitable magic as we wove laughed ourselves silly as we disembarked, end of the income scale. past jungle-clad islands, watched the king with monsoon rain sh eeting down, the river Expert opinions are not to be sneezed at, fishers swoop, saw the odd flash of orange fast rising, and night coming on. A young especially when they can be supported by through green where monks stood on the couple made u s welcome in their thatch impressive economic theories about how banks, and as always, simply sat agape at shack in a clearing, while the boatman the price of commodity (in this case, human the sheer size and power of the current. crouched over repairs. The wife, as it turned effort) must be allowed to move downwards For formality's sake, an armed police out, was from Takeo province, in the dry in order to 'clear' the market of excess guard came on board at the district centre. south east, and shared several acquaint supply, that is, unemployment. The vice-governor himself had told us that ances with one of my colleagues, whose However, two things n eed to be said the local Khmer Rouge were usually the about economics experts. First, th eir children of families we'd be dealing with, apparent professionalism and scientific and would not try to hinder any real aid to objectivity is never completely free of value the villages. He'd traced with his thumb judgements and ideology. Second, they often nail a line on the map across the roadless fail to consult common sense. Taken north of the province. Here, it was said, the together, these two limitations suggest that KR had been seen moving through the policy makers should be very wary about forests from Ratanakiri, for the last great giving them too much credence. showdown with Hun Sen's men at Take, for example, the theory that says Samraong, far to the west. Or maybe not. that if wages fa ll, then the labour market On Koh Kroch-Pomelo Island-we will 'clear'. This prescription is premised squelched across the fi elds to the headmen's home village was only a few miles from on treating human effort (labour) as if it house for the village meeting. Rain fell in hers. Husband and wife in turn regaled us were any other comm odity, operating sheets; the river lapped higher and higher, with stories of boat accidents and drownings according to the standard laws of supply and deep pools formed in every footprint. nearby. The events in Phnom Penh got and demand. These laws dictate that when My colleague called to a group of women slight m ention; there's been a few more the price of a good goes up, demand will fall, transplanting rice to come and join the soldiers come up the river by boat; a bit of but supply will rise. When the price is meeting. 'You come and help us transplant talk in the market for a few days' and that, allowed to move freely, eventually the quan this lot', they laughed back. There was a really had been that. tities supplied will equal the quantities good showing of both men and women We draggled back into town long after demanded and, voila, the market is cleared 1 nonetheless, and no hesitation in telling us dark; raided the night market for cooked What would happen if Messrs Howard, where assistance is needed. Last year's rice rice, braised pig's ear and pickled marrow, Costello and Reith were to consult the was nearly all lost to flood; if the water and sloshed home through the now flooding 'battlers' on the validity of this theory? Let keeps rising, this year's will go the same streets. us say that a low-wage worker is the only way. Will we lend (not give-their emphasis) It took a while next day to track down income-earner for a family, with his partner them seed rice to replace it if that happens I the Head of provincial agriculture. He wasn't working hard and in an unpaid capacity And maybe come up with a few tools and at the provincial offices up the hill; we caring for two young children. They receive some supplementary food so they can build hired a boat to take us down his street, various forms of income support from the the road and bridge they've got planned for eventually bobbing through a gap in his Government, but his weekly wage after tax the dry season? gardenia hedge to the porch, to be told he'd is $330, or around $8.20 an hour for forty Language here is mostly Lao; and, as in gone by bicycle- through chest-deep hours. Laos, we are served neat rice spirit before water- to his own office. With no staff in Now what happens when it is suggested departure, and white threads are tied around sight to assist, and the bare minimum of to this worker that instead of being paid our wrists as the blessings are invoked-for communications equipment, he alre.o1.dy had $8.20 an hour (after tax), he will receive long life, prosperity, good health, and a safe clear estimates of damage to the crop. We only$ 7 an houri Assuming that he does not journey. talked figures for an hour, and he said, wryly, go on strike immediately, what would the We had every need of blessing as we that this year the central government had no rational response to that information be, headed home. First, the motor died-a fish funds of its own to put up- it would cost, given that he must earn atleast $330 a week had clogged the works. There were tense after all, $86 million to repair Phnom Penh. to keep his family's head above water? moments until, with the single paddle, we - Mark Deasey Does he say to himself, 'Oh, the price of my 16 EUREKA STREET • SEPTEMBER 1997 labour has fallen, therefore I will reduce its bottom end of the income scale will result say that a GST is the only way to go, but it supply. Instead of supplying forty hours a in a greater gap between rich and poor, and is not. It makes more sense, economically week, I will now supply only thirty. In this will have long-term damaging social and socially, to fund income tax reductions which case, my take home pay will be $210 and economic consequ ences. If the for the working poor by broadening the a week.' According to the standard economic Government does wish to pursue lower income tax base and thereby capturing a theory used by experts, this is what will wages in order to increase demand for labour greater amount of revenue from the working happen. at the bottom end of the market, it will be rich, or, as the case may be, the non-working Anyone with any common sense knows morally, politically and econ omically rich. Measures designed to crack down on that this not a probable reaction in the real obliged to reduce taxation on low-incom e the inappropriate use of nega tive gearing, world. The real-world worker, instea d of workers to ensure their take- home pay is family trus ts and over-gen erous offering less labour, will offer m ore in order relatively unchanged. superannuation concessions to the wealthy to ensure that this take-home pay is at least How should such a tax reduction for would be a good start. equivalent to what he was earning before. low-income workers be funded? Some will -David de Carvalho Fortunately, some academic economists have a greater grip on reality. Take, for example, John Creedy in the most recent edition of The Economic Record, Creedy, from the Economics D epartment at Melbourne U niversi ty in has an article with the rather long title, 'Labour Supply and Social Welfare when Utility Depends on the Threshold Consumption Level'. He analyses how workers behave in relation to The blaclz-armbandwagon wage changes when they must earn a certain level of income to survive. His conclusion 0 N THE READER'S ASS ISTANCE DESK, in the manuscript reading room of the State Library of is that for those on the threshold of poverty, South Australia in Adelaide, there is a sm all wooden counter sign which bears the words, earning low wages, 'it may be worthwhile 'Historical Treasures' Room'. Embossed in Gothic gold, this quaint, almost comically ... to supply higher amounts of labour in desperate title, says much about the attitude of white Australians towards their past . order to avoid poverty. Over a range of wage The traditional image of Australia as a land without 'history' has ensured that the rates, labour supply falls as the wage fledgling stories of the white Dreamtime are informed by a certain preciousness. Any increa es'. (My emphasis) m em orabilia with a faintly musty odour is immediately stamped 'heritage item' and placed What this implies is that if we want to in the m andatory 'Ye olde worlde' rosewood ca binet. Wrapped with loving hands, and reduce unemployment, which is the excess placed in the display cases of an exiled culture, our 'history' appears fragile and vulnerable of labour supply over demand, then it is not especially in the face of recent historical revisionism. implausible to suggest that we should The work of historians such as Henry Reynolds in exposing the lie of terra nullius has increase wages. Of course, this proposal revealed the frail notion of settlement that sustains the moral legitimacy of the Australian ignores the likely reaction of employers to nation state. History matters now in a way it never has before. After the High Court's Mabo wage rises, but it ignores it in exactly the and Wil< decisions, politicians who have so often relied on positive history as the building sam e way that the prescription to lower block of national community and electoral success, have been forced to face the fac t that wage ignores the likely reaction of workers. Australia's indigenous inhabitants were violently stripped of their land and culture. Since In other words, the effect on employment the election of the Howard government in March 1996, Australians have heard much about of changes in wages is not clear-cut at all. the need to reject the 'black armband' view of history. If the Government is really concerned The 'black armband view' is a phrase first coined by Professor Geoffrey Blainey in his about reducing unemployment, it will focus 1993 Latham lecture. For Blainey, this view of history was one which represented 'the less on wages and more on increasing the swing of the pendulum from a position that had been ... too self-congratulatory, to an demand for labour by m eans other than opposite extrem e that is ... decidedly jaundiced.' Blainey placed much of the blame fo r the wage reductions. It could, for example, spread of the gloomy view of Australia's past on the histories of Manning Clark, and the expand public investment in social and so-called ' guilt industry' encouraged by influential bodies outside of the historical profession, econ omic infras tructure, on e of the bodies like the ABC, the High Court, the ALP and som e education institutions. approaches suggested by Dr Tim Battin of In the wake of the coalition victory last year, Prime Minister John Howard consciously N ew England University in his paper, Full adopted Geoffrey Blainey's critique of black armband history as a central plank of his employment: towards a just society. government's drive to champion the cause of the 'mainstream.' The Prime Minister's As Battin argues, 'The failed and Menzies and Playford lectures, delivered late last year provide two examples. Interestingly, discredited economic rationalist policies Blainey's metaphor of the pendulum has also become a common fea ture of government being pursued by the present governm ent rhetoric. The pendulum serves as the symbol of balance, constancy, and utilitarianism based on the premise that unemployment values which were apparently forgotten during Labor's thirteen-year cave-in to noisy can be reduced by reducing wages and minority groups and political correctness. Like Manning Clark before him, Geoffrey working conditions are consigning one Blainey has becom e the Federal Government's poet laureate. million Australians to the poverty of But the terms 'guilt industry' and 'black armband', have been, at least in spirit if not unemployment'. word, a common fea ture of political debate in Australia for much longer than the last few What is clear is that falling wages at the year . We err if we date the debate from Blainey's Latham lecture in 1993. The relationship VOLUME 7 N UMBER 7 • EUREKA STREET 17 between Blainey and Howard goes back mourning. 'We intend a silent, dignified Australia, Blainey and Howard have more than a decade. vigil of protest', said Walker. 'Those who employed two words also found in the Blainey's view on multiculturalism, cannot afford to wear black clothes will be Aboriginal protest movement, added the immigration, and history, enunciated in asked to wear black armbands or bows.' word 'history', and managed to transform a the early 1980s, bore a striking resemblance In Hobart, on the day of the centenary spirit of mourning and defiance into a brand to Howard's 1988 initiative, 'Future celebrations, students wearing black arm mark of gloom and disloyalty. Directions'. In 1985, Blainey delivered a bands demonstrated against the Tasmanian The Howard-Blainey offensive, is, of public lecture at the Mt. Eliza Uniting government's refusal to grant Truganini's course, a direct response to the Manning Church in Victoria. last wish to be buried at sea. In Melbourne, Clark-Don Watson-Paul Keating view of In this lecture, he spoke of the 'vocal, more than 150 people marched from Captain history. In 1988, Manning Clark published richly subsidised multicultural lobby' and Cook's Cottage in the Treasury gardens, an article in Time Australia on January 25 of the need for Australia to be 'one nation' denouncing Cook as an invader and calling entitled 'The Beginning of Wisdom'. It was rather than 'a nation of many nations'. for Aboriginal land rights. In Sydney and a piece over which the Liberal Party are still Together with the 'socialist' elements in Canberra, the wearing of black dress and smarting. David Kemp, now Minister for the Hawke Government, the ABC, and black armbands was a common feature of Education, referred to the Time article in schools and universities, elite groups were vigils and protests. In the words of Kath the Senate in 1993, and quoted the following spreading the view that Australia's history Walker, the wearing of black dress passage: was 'largely the story of violence and symbolised both the genocide committed Now we are ready to face the truth about exploitation.' against Aborigines since the white man our past, to acknowledge that the coming In 'Future Directions', Howard stated arrived and the present plight of Aborigines. of the British was the occasion of three the importance of history to Coalition In 1986, a poster designed by the Treaty great evils: the violence aga inst the original policy. Looking back on the first years of 88 committee in Alice Springs, a committee inhabitants of the country, the Aborigines; the Hawke Government, the document which Geoffrey Blainey had himself been the violence against the first European warned that the professional purveyors of asked to join, called on Australians to 'wear Labor force in Australia, the convicts; and guilt were attacking Australia' heritage a Black Armband' for the 'Aboriginal year the violence done to the land itself. telling people 'they should apologise for of mourning'. In Canberra, on the following pride in their culture, traditions, institutions Australia Day in 1987, 200 people gathered One of the most prominent features of and history'. in front of the Australian War Memorial to the Keating government's determination, Naturally, Blainey and Howard were m ourn 'invasion day'. The Canberra Times inspired by Clark, to recast Australian not alone in their views. In 1988, prominent reported that 'many in the crowd wore identity, was the call for Australia to break intellectuals warned of the new tendency black armbands.' At noon, wreaths were free from its British-centred past-a con of historians to focus solely on the dark side laid on a stone inscribed with the words venient position, given that the Labor Party of history. John Hirst wrote in the IPA 'Their names shall live forevermore' and had itself been among the most vigorous review, concerned about what he called the 'two minutes' sil ence commem- champions of the White Australia Policy 'black school' of Australian history, while orated the Aborigines who died and loyalty to Empire throughout the 20th in Quadrant, Robert Manne remarked on since white settlement.' century. the 'sombre Bicentenary mood of intellec Don Wat on recently gave an example tuals'. (More recently, however, Manne has ONAusTRALIA DAY 1988, this same of Manning Clark's 1988 rhetoric when he been outspoken in his support of the 'Stolen language of protest was incorporated into addressed a seminar on black-armband Generations' Report.) the Aboriginal demonstration against the history in Melbourne. Another means of ga ining a different bicentennial celebration. Again, protesters I do not know a serious historian who perspective on the black armband wore black armbands and marched under believes that a credible hi story of this place controversy is to examine the etymology of invasion clay banners. In a somewhat bizarre could be written without acknowledgi ng the term -at lea t in the con text of juxtaposition of signs, even those crew that the country was part of the British Australian political history. Although members who sailed under the Coca-Cola Empire; exploited human and natural Geoffrey Blainey may have coined the phrase flag of the first fl eet re-enactment wore resources; and practised racism and other 'black armband history' in 1993, he was not black armbands to demonstrate their forms of discrimination. (See Don Watson, the first to apply the words 'black armband' sympathy with Aboriginal people. 'Teach it all, good and bad, Th e Australian, in the context of Australian history. This More than two decades before Geoffrey March 13, 1997.) was done by Aboriginal Australians. Blainey 'invented' the phrase ' black At the sesquicentenary celebrations in armband history', the wearing of black There are two problem s with this 1938, members of the Aboriginal Progressive armbands was a legitimate and conventional representation. First, it is one-dimensional Association wore formal black dress when vehicle of protest for Aboriginal Australians. -the British Empire might be construed to they met at Sydney Town Hall on January It was a symbol of historical dispossession, have acted only in a mean-spirited manner. 26 to declare Australia Day a day of inequality and betrayal. Second, it contains an unfortunate mourning. Forty- two years later, on April Blainey has done much more than 'coin bracketing of words. The words British 29 1970, the bicentenary of Captain James a phrase', he has provided conservative Empire are immediately followed by the Cook's landing at Kurnell, the Federal Coun politicians with a means of de-legitimising words 'exploit', ' racism' and cil for the Advancement of Aborigines and voices of Aboriginal protest. In a manner 'discrimination'. It is difficult to discern Torres Strait Islanders, led by the then Kath bearing t h e bitter irony of much exactly where British responsibility ends Walker, marked the occasion as a clay of appropriation of Aboriginal culture in and Australian responsibility begins. 18 EUREKA STREET • SEPTEM BER 1997 It is this slipshod arrangement of words in the Watson-Clark rhetoric which under Textile industry standably attracts the ire of conservatives protective of British heritage. The truth which seems to have escaped wearing thin the protagonists in the history debate, is that both sides of politics have attempted to conscript history to serve a partisan cause. This is hardly surprising-in politics, the use of history demands the present the workers are mainly of abuse of history. Politics requires of migrant women of Vietnamese history a clarity and simplicity it could background. In Michael Classon's not possibly possess. History becomes view, these workers, m any of one- dimensional-a fla g to be waved, the whom have worked for the badge of honour and pride or the emblem company for lO to 15 are unlikely of victimisation and betrayal. In this to find employment following sense, we might best understand the retrenchment. Blainey-Howard assault on black arm Alternatively, they may be band history if we saw it as a strategic push ed into agent-controlled device of political language rather than outside labour, an opti on an attack on the historical profession. increasingly favoured by Assailing black armband history could opposition companies struggling then be seen as a means of identifying the to stay in operation. With standard working unpatriotic, the rallying call to the loyal F ORTY YEARS AGO, 103 Union Road, Surrey conditions and wages difficult to police, this and the proud, the button to press when the Hills, Victoria, functioned as the suburban outworking situation creates the potential em otional response of the mainstream is to cinema, screening the latest flick every for exploitation of workers and their children. be exploited. It is history as label, slogan, Saturday night. Today it's a clothing factory, Large companies appear to view the trend and grab, an appeal to perceive the past in and the picture the place now delivers is of to shift production offshore as necessary for the simplistic juxtapositions of television one local textile company struggling for survival. Such a move follows the direction news-pride or guilt, shame or heroism, survival in the face of tariff cuts. American and New Zealand companies have celebration or invasion day. Of course, it is Manufacturing school and work wear, taken-to situate the bulk of their textile also cheap history-as the Federal Govern Surrey Clothing Company has existed as a manufacturing in Asia. The question rarely m ent's response to the Stolen Children family business for more than thirty years. confronted is an ethical one-whether report has shown. However, Michael Classon, co-partner in Australia should be employing cheap labour But finally, and perhaps most important the company, maintains that in the last in developing nations to deliver profits to of all, the government's use of the black two or three years it has become increasingly huge companies at home. armband label is instrumental in denying difficult to survive. If and when the doors at 103 Union Road the legitimacy of Aboriginal political With shrinking protection again st close on its era as a family-owned clothing initiatives. Because Aboriginal Australians imports, there has been little encourage factory, the matter will not make big news. rely on the recognition of historical dispos m ent for textile companies to remain in However, as Surrey Clothing's struggling session as the foundation of their present Australia. The larger manufacturers are position reflects the plight of small textile p olitical demands, the government's moving offshore to South-East Asia in search companies nationally, it is clear the human, representation of black armband history as of the cheap lab our used by their as well as economic, costs of textile industry overly negative and unpatriotic only serves in tern a tion al competitors. This leaves change demand consideration. to further marginalise the Aboriginal right smaller companies like Surrey Clothing -Genevieve Wallace. to negotiate. Australian history has become floundering, with little option but to sell out. Photographs by Bill Thomas, a most effective political weapon. The troubles faced by such factories are courtesy of th e staff at Surrey Hills. -Mark McKenna made m ore pressing by the fact that back-up provided by This month's contributors: secondary industries, respon Peter Pierce is professor of Australian sible for providing materials and Literature at Jam es Cook University; machinery, has also disappeared Mark Deasey is Community Aid Abroad's offshore. Classon says day-by program coordinator for Mekong, ci a y production involves Cambodia; David de Carvalho is deputy constant frustration because director of the Australian Social Welfare parts and m echanical skills are Commission; Mark McKenna is the author now so difficult to obtain. of The Captive Republic: A History of The changed prospects in Australian Republicanism {CUP); textile m anufacturing creates Genevieve Wallace is an arts/law student constant pressure on Surrey and a production assistant at Eureka Street. Clothing to reduce staff. At VOLUME 7 NUMBER 7 • EUREKA STREET 19 THE REGION GARY BRYSON 'Has een Nigel?' The Voi acr , s the room was able. It asn't just an English voice, it one of those p English ices; a crisp, no-nonsense ch -chop kind of voi e- in command, and utterly correct. If Nigel were smart, he wouldn't waste time making his appearance. T HE ROOM IN QUESTION BELONGED to the BBC, and the place reluctant, whispered goodbye to the world. And in those last was Hong Kong, on the eve of its return to China. The Voice few hours of British rule in Hong Kong, as the trappings of too belonged to the BBC, but in that room, in that place, at that colonialism were cleared off governm ent buildings and once moment, it was much more. It was the British Empire itself, Royal clubs and pubs, the spirit of colonialism made a brief, pressing on with grim authority in the face of its own end. but noisy re-appearance. Pomp and ceremony mingled with rain The handover of Hong Kong (or the takeover or the make and tears; skirling pipes and marching soldiers gave way to over or the m ove-over, depending on your point of view) was drunken flag-waving in the streets of Wanchai; and everywhere an event of great poignancy and a curious dance of pride and was the Voice, insistent and irritating. H ong Kong at that protocol. We members of the foreign m edia congregated in our moment was more imperially British than for some time. thousands, gratefully accepting the outgoing government's handouts-a t-shirt, baseball cap, Hong Kong '97 watch and reams of glossy brochures. What we hoped to witness was som e 'I'vE NEVER BEEN TO CH INA', said Liz. She'd lived in Hong Kong vague idea of history in the making. This was our collective for seven years. delusion because what actually happened was the reverse I had joined a small party of British ex-pats celebrating history was unmade. handover in, of all places, a French restaurant. It was early in Did we miss the point< What we witnessed was certainly the morning of July l , Britannia had steamed off into the night, the start of a new era in H ong Kong, an event that shouldn't be the lights were being turned off at the Prince of Wales Barracks, underestimated in terms of its global import. But the logic of the fireworks were over. Everyone was more than a little tipsy. the handover, the tenor of its conviction and the true source of 'You're in China now,' I told her. She looked genuinely shocked, its poignancy, led in another direction. For what we witnessed as if the idea had only just occurred to her. Meanwhile, the was nothing more or less than the final mom ents of the British French Canadian owner of the restaurant was busily decorating Empire. Not the beginning of the Chinese Century- that, if it the walls with Chinese flags . occurs, has its roots in earlier history. And not the subjuga tion Liz's statement underscores, in a way, the nature of the of Hong Kong, a process that may happen over years if not British presence in Hong Kong. People went there to work: to decades. The H ong Kong handover was instead a choreography advance their careers, to make more money, to increase their of finality; a choreography which, for all its dignity, its maturity business prospects-som etime soon you 'd work your way back of spirit, its sh eer bloody rectitude-was nevertheless a to London. Many arrived by accident, taking well-paid jobs 20 EUREKA STREET • SEPTEMBER 1997 that might have been beyond them in the Old Country. Some as the Union Jack comes down' Toodlepip, and sorry we can't stayed: the stereotypical 'China hand' is still to be seen here help the trams run on time any more (fade to test card and God and there, his face as creased as his tropical suit, testament to a Save the Queen). life of oriental decadence. But few would have regarded Hong Kong as a place for permanent migration in the way that other British colonies became. And you didn't have to be interested THE BRITISH HAVE A KNACK FOR SIMPLIFICATION. To Geoffrey Howe, in China to get on; the barest smattering of Cantonese would Margaret Thatcher's Foreign Minister, the issue was a kind of see you through . This was Britain after all, and the colonial 'relay race' in which the 'priceless Ming vase' of Hong Kong ideal was always to adapt your surroundings rather than adapt was passed safely from on e exhaust ed runner to a fresh yourself. contestant. Howe was the chief British negotiator of the Joint Yet the British presence is less evident in the shape of Hong Declaration of 1984. Organising the race was his job; Chris Kong than it is in Rangoon, say, or in the older Patten was his chosen runner. parts of Sydney. British Hong Kong and its And yet there is today, a lingering doubt as Victorian/Edwardian splendour has long since to whether the race had to be run. The Beijing been submerged by a peculiarly Asian government had n ever recognised Britain's architecture; tall buildings with twinkling fairy sovereignty over H ong Kong, or the treaty of lights, glaring neon which makes the city look'-'"--'' Nanking, or the lease over the N ew Territories...... ~ awake even when the shops are shut. Little 1997 was an important date only for the British, signifying the end of a lease which was not things remind you still of Britain: the disposition _ 1 lJ? of pedestrian crossings, the rain, the long wait (#~' ' acknowledged by the landlord. There are obvious for a tram until three arrive at once. diplomatic difficulties with such an arrangem ent, The real British presence in Hong Kong is hidden in the but though the logic lean s towards eviction, this is not city's heart. Today's freewheeling capitalist frenzy is sustained inevitable. Hong Kong island and Kowloon were supposedly by sound plumbing. And by good traffic management, talented held by the British in perpetuity. Why hand it all back Z Far teachers, the rule of law and a highly efficient bureaucracy. And from being kicked out by the Chinese, it seems possible that of course by cricket, horse racing, the exclusive clubs-and fox Britain botched the negotiations in a series of disastrous hunting. misreadings of China's intentions. As it happened, the son of the fox was at the ex-pat's party. In 1979 the then governor, Murray MacLehose, approached James is a stockbroker and a practical man. He didn't want to the Chinese government with a proposal to extend the lease talk about any of that 'British bullshit'. He'd stay in Hong Kong, over the N ew Territories. Business interests were nervous about he said, until he stopped making money, and then-well, he the security of contracts after 1997. It's been suggested that didn't know. He'd been there longer than many. His mother, this was Britain's first big mistake, that sleeping dogs might he told me, was the fox for the local hunt. Fox-hunting has better have been left to lie. The argument runs like this: once been a difficult past-time to pursue in a country w here there the issue was raised the Chinese had no option but to save face are no foxes, so a human 'fox' fills the bill, usually som eone by demanding the return of their territory. Did they want itZ with standing in the Anglo community. James' mother would In recent years the issue of sovereignty over H ong Kong has leave a scent trail for the hounds to follow before getting smartly become an emotional one in China, but it wasn't always so, out of the way. and hardly at all before the Joint Declaration. The Chinese have benefited from the presence of an entrep6t with the West, a site of mutual access and communication even in the darkest IT WAS NO ACCIDENT THAT WE HAD BEEN at the BBC to hear the days of the bamboo curtain, and more recently a conduit for Voice. The BBC was running the media in the same way that trade and a source of finance. Hong Kong has also been a kind the British ran the colony. of steam valve for Beijing's repressive policies. They didn't mess around. They hired a large chunk of the But saving face is the Chinese Way, and the sovereignty of Hong Kong Academy of Performing Arts and set about renting the whole of H ong Kong and the N ew T erritories becam e the out makeshift studios to the rest of us. They arranged the best central issue of the negotiations. The British didn't want this; for themselves; the best studios, the best camera positions, Margaret Thatcher proposed to China that they continue to probably the best insider contacts. Add to this the best hotels administer a sovereign Chinese Hong Kong, an idea that was and such wonders as Luncheon Vouchers, and stretch limousines rightly rejected by the Chinese. from which weary youngsters would em erge, toting tripods. That's the argument. But whether any of this was the case, It was their story after all, and it went roughly like this: or whether China forced the issue to begin with, from the after nearly a hundred and fifty years of our civilising influence moment the Joint Declaration was signed the only possible course on this once barbarous and inhospitable territory, the ungrateful of action for Britain was yet another honourable retreat, the last Chinese government is kicking us out, lock, stock and barrel. of a long line from the Empire that perfected the handover. Marvel at the tenacity with which Chris Patten has defended ..!:;:-d\ b ~ democracy and freedom' (And his dogs, Whisky and Soda, whom Ffj rT""'f\ ~~?) som eone unfairly tried to poison.) Cheer Prince Charles as he ON THE STREETS OF H ONG KONG, handover kitsch was on ample pluckily commits Britain to be watchdog over China in Hong display as the locals cashed in on the event. The discerning Kong! Jeer Jiang Zemin and his unfamiliar Mandarin slur! Weep shopper could purchase a 'once only' handover Barbie doll, or a V OLUME 7 NUMBER 7 • EUREKA STREET 21 Hong Kong '97 snow shaker, tin plates, badges, hats, the are being stacked with pro-China ring-ins, as will be the police ubiquitous t-shirt. Elsewhere there were 'special handover rates' and the Independent Commission Against Corruption (Hong on everything. Our hotel rooms were cutely priced at 1997 HK Kong's new head, Tung Chee Hwa, has alrea dy signalled his Dollars per night-only about three times the normal rate. intention to have the worcl'indepenclent' dropped from the title.) Profiteering is what Hong Kong is all about-opium in the Hong Kong is the second least corrupt city in Asia; Beijing past, handover today. The city has long been a magnet for those is so corrupt it's practically off the scale. Who will change with a genius for making money. Forget for a moment the whom? The issue of corruption topped the list in a recent poll Jardines and the Swires: the real source of Hong Kong's of Hong Kong's fears about handover; China has the potential enormous energy and resourcefulness is its Chinese people. to suck Hong Kong dry. Tung Chee Hwa will be judged by his For generations, Hong Kong has provided an escape for the willingness to keep the city clean as well as democratic, a task persecuted, the poor, the straggling refugees of China's turbulent he'll find difficult if not impossible. 20th century. They brought with them a passion for enterprise A comparison: The British Army in Hong Kong played a and an eye for the main chance that makes New useful role in fighting corruption, particularly York look slow. You got the feeling that maybe against the well-armed and well-organised all of China could be like this, if only Beijing Triads. But the commander of the People's could loosen up a little. Liberation Army will earn about as much as the Or maybe not. China is not Hong Kong and average Hong Kong secretary, and his officers the difference between them will determine the even less- a situation that practically future of both. Take, for example, David Chu. guarantees corruption in the ranks. Chu is a flamboyant Hong Kong businessman, a And in China itself, the president, Jiang motorcycle fanatic and a para-glider. A man who Z emin, warned not long ago that official shoots rapids without a raft. corruption was in danger of destroying the Chu recently para-glided from Hong Kong to Beijing, Communist Party. Officials use public money to pay for landing on the Great Wall. Fortunately, his credentials with everything from mobile phones to houses-even office towers Beijing are impeccable, and he has taken it upon himself to while foreign businesse are forced to make substantial become Hong Kong's unofficial ambassador. 'We are going to payments to ensure they make-and keep-the right do a reverse takeover,' he says. 'We are taking over China.' He's 'connections'. It is easy to imagine the glee with which corrupt smiling, but he means it. So convinced is he that Hong Kong Chinese officials are now descending on 'their' Hong Kong. will be good for China, he has given up his US passport: 'I'm the man who has bet everything on Hong Kong. My passport, £~. ,f~ -~. my investments and my family.' AROUND DAWN ON JuLY 1, I left the ex-pats and the drunks of Forthright and up-front to Westerners, Chu also knows how Wanchai behind to stand under torrents of rain and jostling to be critical the Chinese way, and how to change negative umbrellas watching the PLA make its triumphant entry into attitudes to Hong Kong. 'I'm beginning to make some difference Hong Kong. People cheered and clapped, but the mood of the in China', he says, and you almost believe him. city darkened. Perhaps it was the rain, or the early hour. Or Understandably, the Beijing leadership trea ts David Chu perhaps it was the feeling that the party really was over. as 'a very strange Chinese', and indeed he is. Westernised, Dressed in spotless new uniforms, standing immobile in cosmopolitan, able to straddle the cultural divide, he appears the backs of open trucks, the solders seemed unreadable, the very essence of Hong Kong's temperament, and perhaps of impervious to the crowds and the rain, their white gloves its future success. sinister, as if they hid the bloodstains of Tiananmen. What were Because if China is not Hong Kong, neither is Hong Kong they thinking, those impassive wet faces whose weekly pay Chinese. The British are only part of the equation. There are will barely buy them a beer in Hong Kong? foreign devils there of many hues. The owner of the restaurant Urged on by his parents, a small boy beside me waved at where the British ex-pats drowned their sorrows is a French the soldiers. There was no response. The open trucks gave way Canadian with a Chinese wife and two daughters- he's a man to a convoy of armoured cars and the cheering died clown, less who's there to stay. There are Americans, Germans, Swedes, sure of itself. Earlier, in the restaurant-a mere 6 hours before Swiss, Filipinos. Hong Kong bears the legacy of the Gweilo, the the British ex-pats had cheered Prince Charles as we watched white ghost who can never be laid to rest. It's a legacy that the flag ceremony on the bar TV. 'Com e on Charlie,' whispered makes Hong Kong a place of singularity and moment, a hybrid one. 'Don't stuff it up.' The Union Jack was carefully lowered, of breathtaking promise. folded and carried off. It was a tense moment; some were tearful, Will China change this? Undoubtedly, although the spirits some shook their heads, open-mouthed in disbelief. And then of Tiananmen are not yet pounding at the city gates. Change is the words were said, Prince Charles swallowed the lump in his more likely to be subtle. It's already happening; self-censorship throat, and it was all over. 'Let's get pissed', someone said. in the media, legislative fiddling over rights of assembly and Was it a wake or a eel bration? No-one was really sure. freedom of speech. Within two years, magistrates will be But funeral or party, it was one that few in Britain bothered to required to both speak and read Mandarin, a language of stop watching Wimbledon for. terrifying complexity and an almost impossible task for native Back in the Old Country it seems, people couldn't give a Cantonese speakers, let alone those whose first language is damn about Hong Kong, or about the end of the Empire. Europe English. In the meantime, the boardrooms and the bureaucracy is the issue to watch, and especially those crafty Germans. They 22 EUREKA STREET • SEPTEMBER 1997 eol call it looking to the future, but the great British net curtain is well and truly up, its denizens peering out in mistrust at the foreigners now beating on their doors. /'ITO, W E' ~~;~i~:A~~~ M~~~~d~~~,~~~! i:~~ :~ds to he< f•ithful That the empire means nothing to dog in The Wizard of Oz are now the title of a review article by Kathleen Nash in Semeia most people in Britain is both a reflection 74 (1996) . Semeia is 'devoted to the exploration of new and em ergent areas in methods of of realpolitik and a failure of history. The biblical interpretation'. This latest number is certainly true to type, rejoicing in the theme journalist Simon Winche ter has said 'Biblical Glamour and Hollywood Glitz'. There are lots of articles on Bathsheba and that the British public are 'in denial' about Salome, a few on Moses, even one on Clint Eastwood. In The Unforgiven, Eastwood their crumbling status. What's being looks down the barrel of his gun at Gene Hackman, who say 'I don't deserve this ... to denied is not the glorious Empire of die like thisi I was building a house.' The allusion, we are told, is to Deuteronomy 20:5. Kipling and Victoria, the Empire which Further valuable information can be found in the journal's detailed bibliography on matters brought the Magna Carta to the world. biblical and cinematic. Nor is it the Empire that massacred Luke Timothy Johnson's article 'Glossolalia: The Embarrassment of Experience', in Indians at Amritsar, invented the concen The Princeton Seminary Bulletin (July 1997L offers a different kind of scholarship. John tration camp, thrived by trading opium son is interested in the fact that speaking in tongues can be so divisive in Christian for tea. What's being denied is that this communities. Exploring the (admittedly biased) written record from St Paul through to Empire, the biggest the world has seen, the end of the third Christian century, John on concludes that glossolalia is an increasingly practically no longer exists. 'It's a grim marginal activity in the Church, perhaps reflecting the fact that religious authority, as it arithmetic,' writes Winchester. 'In a little becomes more established, becomes more hostile to haphazard inspiration. more than half a century the world's most Theologians today discuss a different issue about the significance of words. Some fabulous empire [has] shrunk to one fif tieth take the post-modern view that words only connect with other words, rather than with of one per cent of its former size-not even underlying realities, and hence argue that religious discourse can only be conducted within Charlemagne's realms declined so quickly.' the religious community. This is a rather glib summary of a position espoused by the Denial was evident in Hong Kong Yale School and made famous in George Lindbeck's The Nature of Doctrine. I do not too. With its pomp and ceremony and it's agree with this position, and I was impressed by Brad Kallenberg's piece, 'Unstuck from vague threats of 'we'll be back if you're Yale: Theological Method After Lindbeck', in Th e Scottish Journal of Theology (1997 /2). n ot careful', the handover ceremony Kallenberg gives a very fair summary of Lindbeck's work but then argues, in the light of masked an extraordinary achievement. both science and philosophy, that language is not all there is and that God is in dynamic The British Empire sh ould be relationship to the world. It is such a pleasure to read theologians who can write with a remembered less for the breadth of its sensitivity to science! boundaries-or it influence on legal Disappointment of the month also has to do with the reach of words. Liturgy Digest systems, governance, the prevalence of is a relatively new, beautifully produced journal from the University of Notre Dame, cricket-than for its remarkable process Indiana-a university famous for football teams but also a significant centre of Roman of colonial disengagement, its genius for Catholic theology. The first number for 1997 is given to several essays on the place of dism antling itself. This is the real metaphor in liturgy, but seems to become more embroiled in issues of diaphor and epiphor significance of the Hong Kong handover. than it is in a spirituality that might draw us to worship. For despite their despoti m and their More practical is the May 1997 issue of New Theology Review: An American Catholic determination to make things in their Journal for Ministry, which is devoted to the topic of reconciliation at political, social own image, the British managed to return and personal levels. Michael Lapsley SSM, a N ew Zealand Anglican priest who, in his most of their colonial possessions in preaching against apartheid became the victim of a mail bomb, writes movingly of his some semblance of good order and, with personal experiences. Reflection on the sacrament of reconciliation also suggests that its some notable exceptions, peacefully. Not celebration must find more plural forms if the sacrament is to match the plurality of the unchanged, and sometimes changed for Church proclaimed at Vatican II. the worse, though most have continued Best of all, read Michael Himes' essay, 'Why do we n eed a church to prosper. asking the pressing questions', in The Furrow (May 1997). This journal comes from St This is hardly a source of pride for Patrick's College, Maynooth, in Ireland. Himes was once professor of theology at Notre themi not glorious enough to sustain a Dame, but has transferred his allegiance to the other Catholic football university, Boston national myth, nor a celebration in Hong College. In his wise, witty, and brief essay, Himes points out that before we discuss all Kong. For Britain may finally be the other vexed questions about the Church, we need to consider a prior question: why remembered as the country for whom we need the Church. Himes' own answer goes like this: 'we cannot believe apart from empire- building was an amateur sport, community ... Trying to enter into relationship with God in some private, individualistic where the fish is thrown ba ck, and the fox fashion is a guarantee that one will be talking to oneself ... The deepest ground for this is nothing more than the ghost of a scent. claim is the central doctrine of the Christian tradition: God is communal ... and I am We came, we saw, we conquered. And then not.' How you answer this question, of course, shapes how you answer all the other we took our ball back and went home. • questions. • Gary Bryson is the executive producer of John Honner SJ teaches at the United Faculty of Theology in Melbourne and edits Pacifica: ABC Radio National's Late Night Live. Journal of the Melbourne College of Divinity. VoLUME 7 NuMBER 7 • EUREKA STREET 23 THE N ATION JA K W ATERFORD The Barwicl< Judgment Garfield Barwick, 22.6.1903-13.7.1993 G Mo
24 EUREKA STREET • SEPTEMilER 1997 burea ucrats but much of it consisted of liberalism or conservatism : most of the and made even his retirement a misery, as finding loopholes for the well-heeled seeking judges on the present High Court, for he sought, often unconvincingly, to defend profits or exemptions from scarcity and example, are closer to the Barwick mould both his conduct and his advice. emergency. than Murphy's, and tend to see as at the He was unwise, but not necessarily But it developed within him an instinct centre of their duty the protection of the wrong, to accept Sir John's invitation to which later made him very difficult to citizen agains t an ever- overreaching advise him. There was precedent for it, but characterise on the bench: at heart was the bureau cratic state. there was not only the risk, which was affection for the intricate argument that got But it would be fairer to say that the realised, of drawing himself and his court one out of doing something otherwise com citizen in Barwick's mind's-eye was a into controversy, but the fact that he was pulsory, or the master's respect for a fine businessman trying to dodge tax; for his personally of a political background: were a piece of sophistry-sometimes by focusing successors it is rather more likely to be an Harry Gibbs or an Owen Dixon to have on the purpose and sometimes on the literal Aboriginal or a battler. The businessm an, given similar advice, it would not have m eaning of words-and a strong view that of course, would be a yeoman; Barwick excited such anger. And the point becomes the interpretation and application of much despised big business, even when he took reinforced when it is recognised that Sir of the commercial and administrative law its m oney, and never forgot or forgave the John asked for confirm ation of his opinion, was entirely amoral. Just as fundamental oil company which, nearly 70 years ago, not advice about what he should do. was an ins tinctive distrust of bankrupted him when he stood guarantor Only the m ost romantic maintainers of r-r government and bureaucrats. for his brother's failed business. the rage would pretend any longer that As a judge, as when h e was a lawyer, there was anything exceptionable about .1. HOSE WHO STIC K LABELS On High Court Barwick was very results-oriented, willing the general proposition that a Governor judges reach first for attitudes on Common to adapt his judicial technique to get the Gen eral h ad the power to dismiss a wealth and states' rights, then assumptions result he wanted. He was legalistic only in governm ent which could not secure Supply, about party political affiliation. These have the sense that he shaped his arguments in and m ost might agree with Sir Garfield som.e use, but it is limited. Though Barwick legalese: he could sweep aside or ignore a that, ultimately, he had a duty to do so. But virtually invented the concept of implied precedent as grandly as anyone. Only rarely Sir Garfield's proposition- put baldly as rights within the Constitution in a states did he demonstrate a wide vision or a self-evident, in the style Sir Garfield always rights argument to defeat Commonwealth sweeping argument. More often his agenda adopted when taking others over the cliff banking legislation, and, in his later years, seem ed to be defending the reasoning of tha t a government had to h ave the bent old views to suit his political prejudices cases h e h ad won as a barrist er, or confidence of both houses of on issues such as representation of the establishing as principle arguments he had Parliament, was preposterous. territories in Parliament, he was at heart a lost. He rarely swayed other judges even Commonwealth man. His lasting judicial when they were focused on the same results; A NO T HEN THERE WAS the most nagging legacy will be in his extension of Common though most of his colleagu es were in awe question left by ll November 1975-at wealth power, particularly in the of his advocacy skills, few thought much of what stage did a political crisis become a corporations field, which laid the framework him as a lawyer or as a judge, or of his ability constitutional crisis and at what stage did a for much of today's trade practices and to reach detached and lonely judgment power become a duty? Did Sir John act too corporations law. rather than to put a case. quickly? Sir Garfield would say that the But there is more to the law than the He is now not much quoted, and the timing had been a m atter for the viceroy, s truggl e for power be tween tie rs of reasoning of many of his more significant but there can be little doubt that his government. Most lawyers with experience cases has been rejected, by black-letter encouragem ent pushed Kerr on. of politics and government are by instinct lawyers as much as the m ore adventurous It was, of course, never for Sir Garfi eld practical, and work with a strong sense of ones. Just after he died, the High Court to express a jot of regret, and by then he was parliamentary sovereignty: if a law was what dismantled another of his edifices- the use so bitter that the attacks of critics he parliament wanted, then, provided it was of loopholing by the states to get around despised-particularly journalists, modern within power, their tendency was not to clear constitutional prohibitions on state law lecturers and social theorists-only second-gu ess the way parliamentarians had excise taxes. His whole approach to tax compounded his certainty of his correctness. chosen to solve the problem. Lionel Murphy dodging, which pushed literalism to the Besides, it gave him a cause, as an advocate is a very good example. He may have been a fore, is discredited; his expansive and again. He took on all comers on the subject champion of the liberty of the subject, but imaginative reading of Section 92 of the on several occasions-once, after aN a tional he had a very strong tendency to assume Constitution, which won him the bank Press Club lunch, h e stayed to carry on the essential legality, to look for the sense and nationalisation cases, is an oddity of history: argument on the footpath for an hour or the purpose of legislation and to try to make even judges usually seen as conservative, more; later, he was virtually to regard the it work. such as Sir Harry Gibbs and Sir Keith Aickin, case as a brief. As well, the affair produced But Barwick was by n a ture anti have left more landmarks of personal not only a wide public notice he had never authoritarian, with a tendency to think any freedom in the law than he has. previously had, even as a minister, but a law or regulation an infringement of liberty Sir Garfield's most public moment was remarkable, if caustic, biography by David and an example of bureaucrats wanting to as the Chief Justice who confirmed the Marr. That will be read long after any of Sir rule the world. By instinct h e did not want mind of Governor-General Sir John Kerr to Garfield's judgments. • to let them go a millimetre further than sack Gough Whitlam. Ever after, it shaped they could. Attitudes such as this cut across most people's view of him, seem ed to Jack Waterford is editor of the Canberra centrism or states-rights, political or moral underline a continuing party-partisanship, Times.
V o LUME 7 N uMBER 7 • EUREKA STREET 25 THE REGION
JAMES GRIFFIN PNG: the election debrief
U """'cw,NTw", medi' 'dveni" On 13 July the man destined to become But before we go any further, remember m ents and billboards proclaimed KAIKAI the new prime minister, Bill Skate (a former this: after commentators have their fun BILONG TINGTING ('food for thought') Speaker in 1992-4 and then an energetic deploring the disorganisation, venality, for the 1997 national elections. Diagonally Governor of Port Moresby who had founded intimidation and sporadic violence of set for all perspectives, the huge hoarding at his own People's National Congress), had elections in Papua N ew G uinea, it is well to the turn-off to Parliament House read: said: 'We do not want to be involved with remember tha t they have delivered WHEN THE RI GHTEOUS ARE IN their [PPP-Pangu] dirty politics ... We would accepted, legitimate governments. Since AUTHORITY THE PEOPLE REJOICE BUT be going against the people's wishes ... ' 1977 in each of the last four parliaments, WHEN THE WICKED RULE THE PEOPLE Yet, together with its partner, the only one no-confidence motion has toppled SUFFER (Proverbs 29:2). People's Democratic Movement (PDM, ex the government, and the successions have This was not casual, nor even just prime minister Paias Wingti's party), Skate's occurred without violence. T here has been opportunistic, bible-bashing. Something PNC had done just that: formed a PNC no need for interim elections. extraordinary was happening in the Papua PDM-PPP-Pangu coalition. Compare, for example, the 50 or so N ew Guinea polity, thanks governments cobbled in to the shock of the first cradle-of-ci vi lisa tion Italy coming of Sandline mercen Papua New Guinea is not Africa, since the war. In Papua New aries in February and the Guinea there have been only general revulsion at what as the English colonel of Sandline five different prime was thought to be wide ministers since Somare spread political corrupti on. with his clipped guarasman aplomb assembled his coalition in 'Do not sell your country 1972; Australia has had six. to the dogs', urged the and suave cupidity discovered. Papua New Guinea is not Catholic Commission for Africa, as the English colonel Justice, Peace and Devel- of Sandline with his clipped opm ent. 'Use the power God has given me But even more barefaced was the guardsman aplomb and suave to elect good leaders who can provide good apparent apostasy of a group of som e 13 cupidity discovered. and caring government.' cleanskin independents and minuscule And so they seemed to do-for at least 'parties' of one or two such as the People's ELECTIONS I-l A VE ilEEN notoriously enough electorates to be able to effect a Resources Awareness Party (PRAP). about primary ethnic/clan interests (roads, change in the quality and direction of They were led by Father Robert Lak, bridges, schools, and access to the cash government. erstwhile University Catholic chaplain, and economy) although not exclusively so, as Then in those collusory days between P eti La fa nama of the pro fessedly strong personalities and church and other the declaration of the polls and the election incorruptible, radical nationalist affiliations can subsume them. However of the prim e minister by Parliam ent, Melanesian Solidarity Movement (Melsol). the 'national interest' has been generally som ething went wrong. Lafanama, in particular, led public ignored, with political parties or factions After the election on 22 July, the protests in Port Moresby against Sandline too weak to consolidate and articulate National daily editorialised that ' A network and corruption. Fr Lak was 'also very vocal', demands into competitive programs. of broken promises' had been left in the said the ecumenical Christian weekly, the Thirteen parties contested in 1997: fo ur wake of 'a new coalition government, hastily Independent, but n ow they ' have returned a single member, two won two pieced together from many different par compromised everything they stood for'. seats each. Even the larger parties lack the ties, groups and individuals in less than 18 Lafanama actually seconded Skate's n ece sa ry finances and a disciplin ed hours'. nomination for Prime Minister and was national structure through which to sift Papua New Guinea had gone to the polls photographed escorting Skate by the arm to appropriate candidates. The resources of preoccupied with Sandline 'and a host of the Speaker's podium. Fellow Melsols the leadership become the key to preferment other issu es', almost all of which were outside were appalled. Many-and not just as, after the polls, they are used to contain blamed on the previous governing coalition cynics-were asking if money and offices successful adhere nts and recruit of PPP (Sir Julius C han 's People's Progress were being transacted. Chan and Wingti may independents-in this election, 38 of them Party) and Pangu Pati (o riginally Sir Michael have lost their seats but these two exceedingly out of 109 seats. The absurd number of Somare's party from which he had, with a wealthy, most numeratevote-crunchers were candidates may indicate dem ocratic zest few followers, broken away). to hand in all the manceuvres. but, in a first-past-the post contest, it
26 EUREKA STREET • SEPTEMBER 1997 diminishes the legitimacy of the outcome. In one electorate there were 63 contestants; theoretically there could have been a victor with less than two per cent of the vote. Little wonder that so many people L ,wox mwoND ~~~t'~~~t~:!,::~ off VOLUME 7 N UMBER 7 • EUREKA STREET 27 Ted Diro, now leader of People's Action claimed 10 supporters, denied any conflict, PNG back onto PPP-Pangu. This put Party, six of whom were elected. Diro was refusing 'to be dragged to the gutters and Mora uta into an impossible position even if forced out of Parliament in 1991 as a result play dirty politics'. he were offered the ultimate prize. He was of a nine million kina forestry scam. He Which side would he support? He had a Papuan, uncompromised, with rare claims to be 'born-again'. His popularity in friends on both sides; there would be a experience in financial administration. But Papua brought him victory in Central decision the day before the election; PAP he could not stomach even leading PPP Regional but in spite of some journalistic wa 'not interested in any short-term Pangu. Finally, Somare was prepared to fantasies that h e might become a government'. And, ultimately, no-one was give over to him. But it was too late. So mare compromise prime minister, he never interested in him. Diro went into Opposi was nominated against Skate but only as a became relevant. tion, Dr Waiko into Government as Vice matter of form. He seemed to shrug off the Among other notable critics of the Minister, this time for Education, and still result: 'Apres Moi, .. . '? outgoing regime were Sir Mekere Mora uta, a member of PAP! Ludger Mondo (a lso What can be said for Fr Lak and for a decade the eli tinguished Secretary for PAP), a former secretary to the Catholic Lafanama? They may sincerely believe that Finance, a beLe noire to Chan, who had Commission for Peace, Justice and Bill Skate has cast off his suspicious former been scathing about the 'small band of Development, behaved similarly. associates and is committed to rapacious politicians', and Lady Carol Kidu, At the beginning of the week before the transparency in government. widow of the incorruptible Chief Justice, election, those touted seriously for Prime Sir Buri Kidu. Minister were Somare (NA), Haiveta A NEWLY ELECTED Papua New Guinea Other advocates of clean government (Pangu), Skate (PNC) and Morauta prime minister has unusual power; he w h o will not evaporate are Operation (Independent). Only Somare was not a cannot be deposed for 18 months and can BRUKIM SKRU ('Bend the knee'), a pan Papuan but as 'father' of the nation with the change the ministry. Skate has already set religious movement, a number of whose composite name, he clearly did not see that out broader terms of reference for a new nominees were successful, ICRAF as a disadvantage. Nor did he accept that he Sandline enquiry which have infuriated (Individual and Community Rights was a 'retread', and seemed jaded. Chan and should unsettle Haiveta. PPP Advocacy Group), the PNG Integral Human Somare had never fully accepted his Pangu need not dominate. Moreover, under Developme nt Trust, Greenpeace, rejection for Chan in 1980. Then, after his the reformed provincial government Melanesian Environment Foundation and triumphant return in 1982, there was a arrangements, regional MPs or their proxies YWCA. Perhaps even the female village further deposition in 1985 when his Pangu become 'governors' of their provinces and AGLOW movement which sponsored Kuk Pati was split three ways by his proteges, thus conduits for decentralised expenditures. Kuli, the first preliterate elected Wingti and Siaguru. After looking an easy As such, Lak, Louis Lamane (a fellow priest) since 19 77, will stay alight. winner in 1987 he was bested by Wingti, and and Lafanama qualify for what can be regarded reacted badly to Namaliu's election as leader as an influential, even a pastoral role. However, FOLLOWJNG THE DECLARATJON of the polls, of Pangu and Prime Minister, 1988-92. Somare's group had opposed this reform and three main camps were set up. Somare was also somewhat compro intended to modify it. In Kavieng, in Chan's home province, mised over dealings with Taiwanese In the complex politics of Papua New the outgoing coalition, PPP, with 16 MPs financiers for the erection of his monument, Guinea, more than virtue 28 EUREKA STREET • SEPTEMBER 1997 M athias Heng's photographs record a refugee people who make do-with extraordinary gusto. They cobble classrooms out of bamboo, eke out a living from wood gathering, build fragile houses from whatever comes to hand, cutting out windows to let in light and air. F ucKING THROUGH A BOOK OF PAINTINGS by Bhutanese children, I was struck by the vibrant colours. These people, after all, have allegedly been forced from their ho1nes by the arbitrary rule of Bhutan's monarchy. I was expecting a little more darkness: something like the charcoal depictions of life in a concentration camp rendered by young Jewish inmates, and now kept in the Ecole Militaire in Paris. The subjects seemed innocent enough as well-a family house in one, a small temple in another-until I turned the page on a picture, painted by a 13-year-old boy, that showed the torture of his father. Manacled and with feet tethered, he was being beaten by Bhutanese military men while he was suspended upside down from a tree. The bright colours came from paints supplied by Irish volunteers with Caritas in Nepal, who have the responsibility for educating some 40,000 children spread over 7 camps near the border. They are some of over 92,000 refugees, the bulk of whom left the tiny Himalayan kingdom because of the unrest brought about by a series of rallies in late 1990. The protests were a culmination of the tension between Hindus in southern Bhutan (whose ethnology i predominately N epalese) and their Buddhist northern rulers. While other refugee crises have accelerated and then eased, the Bhutanese in N epal could perhaps qualify as the most sedentary itinerant population on earth, and, as many of them enter their seventh year of encampment, perhaps the most forgotten. 'Over the last 20 or 30 years they have come to expect and want education and human rights improvements which were perceived by the Bhutanese King as a threat,' says Sr Mary Moorhead. Sr Mary is an educational administrator working in Jhapa, where most of the camps are located. She oversees the teacher-training of volunteers drawn from the camp populations. She gave me the book of paintings to look through before we spoke, the only preparation she felt necessary before she explained the eviction of southern Bhutanese. The eviction took place under the auspices of a citizenship act which differentiates between genuine and illegitimate residents. (The government requires that a land tax receipt from 1958 be produced as proof of legitimacy) . Most of the refugees come from farming communities. 'And some 80 per cent of Bhutan's economy is aid, so I guess the necessity of food production from the south became less somehow'. ""- __.~ -·.. ·.. _ ' '- •' . ' ( A ccoRDING TO M ARY M ooRHEAD, THERE ARE TWO MAIN REASONS why the Bhutanese refugee problem has persisted: the intransigence of the King of Bhutan and the tactical superiority of his regime in its dealings with Nepal, which has had three changes of government since 1990, all of them disrupting negotiations. There is also a lack of sufficient pressure from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. The UNHCR, she says, is geared to respond to crises, not situations that persist. Since the refugees first came to Nepal there have been 7 rounds of bilateral talks, none of which has produced anything resembling a resolution. Last October the governments of Nepal and Bhutan both put their case before the Executive Committee of the UNHCR in Geneva. The then foreign minister of Nepal, Dr Lohani, talked of the economic and social impact of the refugee population on his already impoverished country (though there is some evidence that it is in fact bringing in money), and questioned the assertion of the Bhutan government that a large proportion of the 'refugees' went to Nepal willingly. Bhutan's representative in Geneva expressed his concern for the situation of the Bhutanese in the camps but reiterated that any veri fication process prior to the refugees' repatriation or relocation will prove that most were in Bhutan illegally in the first place or emigrated toNe pal of their own free will. This has been the sticking point: how and why did they come to be in Nepali Dr Lohani told the committee, 'we find it extremely hard to understand that almost one-sixth of a population of a country should, within a short period of time, choose voluntarily to renounce the safety and security of home and society in exchange for an uncertain future in a refugee camp in a foreign country.' In the meantime, the UNHCR has coordinated a refugee operation that has been well supported by non-government organisations. As well as Caritas, which has responsibility for education, the Lutheran World Service takes care of maintenance and construction, the Nepal Red Cross distributes food rations, heating oil and blankets, and the Nepalese government provides medicines . . .._ ~"' E SSA Y P A UL T U RNBULL The body and soul snatchers W Nm H AS AGM N oM no N ORTH Qu "NSCAND •nd sou thed y winds "c fast d'ying the bush . Before the fires come in September, Uncle Monty Pryor will walk amongst the Burdekin Plum trees that his ancestors planted many generations ago at Cape Upstart, to the north of the coastal town of Bowen. This senior Elder of the Bini Gubba people will visit his ancestral country to seek guidance, as to where and how a skull returned fr om a British provincial museum should be reunited with the land. Until he is certain in his heart where the relic should be buried, and what cerem onies will need to be fulfilled, the skull will remain locked in a temporary keeping place at the James Cook University in Townsville, just to the north of Bini Gubba country. Being spiritual custodian of the skull has caused Monty Pryor anguish, but it is an obligation he is determined to fulfil, even though age and ill-health forced his retirement as D eacon in the Roman Catholic Diocese of Townsville several years ago. As he explained to m e in mid-1991 , som e eighteen m onths aft er his return from Britain with the skull: T hey stole my people fro m there. N ow you [must] put that in the rightful order. Abducting, an abduction of your peopl e, to experiment on, or to experiment on the remains or whatever may be. It's the same, sec, to taking the whole being. Paul Turnbull: The fa ct the body's dead mal< es no difference! Monty Prior: It still m akes no difference. No, because that is one of us. You' re taking part of us away to somewhere else. So it m eans virtually the sa m e thing as tal So there's a really different sense of time abow the whole thing! That there is. Through our conversation that morning the claims of Aboriginal spirituality were woven easily with Western understandings of tim e, the past and providence. Effortlessly, though not always happily, we spoke of Birri Gubba obliga tions to an cestral coun try, Monty Pryor's years of selfl ess work on behalf of Aboriginal inmates in Stuart Creek prison, the plight of the stolen children, and the continuing fight for the many years' wages that he and other Aboriginal people are still owed for their work in clearing and fe ncing the network of pastoral runs that still largely define the la ndscape of N orth Queensland. 34 EUREKA STREET • S EPT EMBER 1997 What also became obvious as we talked was Monty Prior's sorrow at knowing there are still those who do not understand the significance of the Birri Gubba continuum of birth, life in the land and return to the realm of spirit. Despite the mounting evidence as to how important the repatriation of ancestral remains is to Aboriginal peoples, there remain those who look on their continued preservation within scientific collections as outweighing the imperatives of Aboriginal religion. Monty Pryor knows too well this unwillingness to listen . During the course of his visit to Britain in 1990, he journeyed to Edinburgh. There he m et Matthew Kaufman, Professor of Anatomy at Edinburgh University, and pleaded with him to allow the repatriation of what was probably the largest surviving collection of Aboriginal remains in Europe. Kaufman was determined not to see the collection lost to science, and proceeded through the course of the m eeting to stress in exhaustive detail the importance of keeping the remains, emphasising how much Aboriginal people had learnt about them selves, and had yet to learn. A gifted scientist, Kaufman had good intentions, but the impact on Monty Pryor was devastating. This senior law man was left feeling as much a nameless specimen as the rows of crania shelved in the anatomy school's museum. As he later recalled: Well my friend, he [Professor Kaufman] gave us all the facts. He had all the facts. He was an encyclo pedia. He said he knew all about us Aboriginal people. He knew everything about us ... I just had to get up and leave. Since the late 18th century, Western science has accumulated a wealth of fact about the Australian indigenous body. This vast archive is truly encyclopedic, in the sense that it is comprised of a myriad discrete and often sequential studies of Aboriginal anatomy and morphology. Listening to Monty Pryor speak of his life, and why the bones of his people must be returned to their rightful place in the Birri Gubba's ancestral country, it is hard not to be disturbed by the unwillingness of opponents of repatriation to acknowledge how many of the older entries in this encyclopedia incorporate literal or implied traces of the violence of the frontier. Articles in 19th century scientific journals often not only contain a wealth of what is now near indecipherable anthropom etric data, but Reconstructing that indicate how remains were procured through knowingly desecrating burial places. In some past can prove complex, instances, they reveal how bones were removed from the bodies of Aboriginal people who had as is well illustrated died violently at the hands of colonists. by the circumstances 0 NE IS DRAWN TO FILL the intervening Spaces between these learned texts with a history that which eventually led _ explains how and why the bodies of Aboriginal peoples were so readily procured for scientific use. to the skeletons of eight However, reconstructing that past can prove complex, as is well illustrated by the circumstances Birri Gubba men which eventually led to the skeletons of eight Birri Gubba m en and women being traded between two and women being German museums in the early 1880s. In 1880, Rudolph Krause, a young German traded between two medical student with anthropological interests, was hired by the Godeffroy Museum of Hamburg to German museums m easure the Birri Gubba skeletons, in preparation for their sale. The museum had been founded by in the early 1880s. Hamburg shipping magnate Joh ann Cresar Godeffroy, who had employed various collectors throughout the Pacific. Forced into bankruptcy in 1879, Godeffroy reluctantly agreed to the sale of Ph otograph of Monty Pryor the museum's extensive ethnographic collections. (Krause 1881) by Barbara Erskine. The sale of the skeletons was especially embarrassing to Godeffroy. Soon after they had arrived at the museum in 1869, they had come to the attention of Rudolph Virchow, Germany's most eminent anatomist and a founder of the prestigious Anthropological Society of Berlin. Virchow moved quickly to clinch a deal with Godeffroy to furnish a report on the skeletons, to be published in the museum's own journal, together with a series of meticulously detailed plates, engraved strictly to Virchow's instructions. V oLUME 7 NuMBER 7 • EUREKA STREET 35 Virchow sough t an an thropological coup, there being at this time no comparable series of complete Australian skeletons anywhere in con tinen tal Europe. Even so, despite the finished plates being printed by Godeffroy at great expense, Virchow failed to furnish the accompanying text. After the forced sale of the museum's ethnographic collection, to the Leipzig Museum for Ethnography, in 188 1, Virchow used his influence again to assert exclusive scientific rights over the skeletons. T hat Aboriginal remains should fuel ambition and rivalry in scientific circles was not uncommon, given the significance they had come to assu me in contemporary thinking about the course of human evolution. However, what was unusual about the Bini Gubba skeletons was that they had been sent from the Bowen district to What led Amalie Dietrich to the Godeffroy Museu m by a woman, then in her mid-forties, named Amalie Dietrich. Given that in the 19th century, science was overwhelmingly the preserve of comb Birri Gubba country, men, what led Amalie Dietrich to comb Bini Gubba country, taking the bones of their ancestral dead fro m hollow trees and burial platform s? In 1990 the editors of taking the bones of their the Bulletin were inclined to answer that question by drawing a blunt parallel between Dietrich and those women who later willingly participated in Nazi genocide. ancestral dead from hollow In November that year they published a fea ture article on 19th century trafficking in Aboriginal rem ains, which am ong other things claimed that in the course of her trees and burial platforms? travels, Dietrich had sought to have an Aboriginal man murdered for his skin. One of the few, and not the most fla ttering photographs of Dietrich to survive In 1990 the editors of the was placed on fr ont cover, under the headline 'Angel of Black Death'. Bulletin were inclined to H owEVER, THE LETTERS THAT CHARITAS, Amalie Dietrich's daugh ter and only child, wove into a posthumous biography of her mother, afford glimpses of a more complex answer that question by story. Dietrich was a highly intelligent, sensitive and profoundly unhappy woman. By the early 1860s she was desperate to escape the humiliation of a failed marriage drawing a blunt parallel to a man who shared her deep love of science, but whose snobbery and depressive self-obsession had left her desperate to prove her own worth in the eyes of others. between Dietrich and those Understandably, she eagerly accepted the help of a fa mily friend in persuading Godeffroy to employ her on a generous salary collecting in Queensland on behalf of WOmen who his m useu m. The sam e friend agreed to act as guardian of her young daughter in her absence. (S umner 1993, pp3- 11 ) later T he years Dietrich spent in Queensland between 1863 and 1872 were marked by hardship and little inner peace. 'On the one hand I felt so elated and carefree in willingly this new part of the world', she confided to her daughter in a letter shortly after her arrival in Brisbane, 'and on the other hand so lonely and bewildered.' (Bischoff 1931, participated p233) Even so, the hardships and dangers of life as a natural history collector on the Queensland fron tier were preferable to the unhappiness she had left behind. As she in Nazi wrote from a bush camp on the outskirts of Rockhampton in April 1864: genocide. To be sure, I am exposed to more dangers here than when I travelled about my home, but here as there I know God can be my shield. I fear no evil. Times in the past have been so hard that I really consider myself very well-off now in comparison with former days. What freedom I enjoy here as a collector. No one circumscribes my zeal. (Bischoff, pp243-4) While Dietrich's skills as a collector quickly earned her a degree of recognition women rarely achieved in 19th century scientific circles, the letters she received announcing her Image of Amalie Dietrich election to various learned societies appear to have enhanced her consciousness that the fr eedom from Amalie, Ein Leben and self-worth she had found were dependent on the rarity of the specimens she forwarded to the (A Life), by Charitas Bischoff. Museum. 'I am always trying to imagine what they will say in Hamburg when the consignments arrive', she confided to Charitas. 'They are sure to be a little anxious as to whether I am equal to the task. I am naturally anxious as well.' (B ischoff, p236) So desperate was Dietrich to please Godeffroy that events were set in train that twice nearly cost her life. In September 1864, attempting to procure a striking specimen of water-lily, she became trapped in a swamp. All that saved her was the chance passing at dusk of a group of Aboriginal men and women on their way to a ceremony. Fright and exhaustion gave way to a serious fever, which so weakened Dietrich that she was again nearly killed, after inadvertently causing a fire in the house she had rented in Rockhampton. The bulk of her equipment and many specimens awaiting shipment destroyed, she was left distraugh t at having to inform the m useum of the disaster. 'I am so worried what Godeffroy's will say,' she wrote to Charitas. 'Will they lose confidence in me now? Will they recall me? ' 36 EUREKA STREET • SEPTEMB ER 1997 Distressed by uncertainty for over six months, Dietrich was elated when the following spring she finally received a kind and encouraging letter from the museum, expressing confidence and promising new equipment. And yet the letter was unmistakably clear how she was to make good the loss to Herr Godeffroy: We are glad to hear you intend going north, and would ask you again to send not only skeletons of the larger mammals, but also as many skeletons and skulls of the aborigines as possible, as well as their weapons and implements. (Bischoff, p259) 'Such things are very important for ethnology', the letter continued. 'We have every confidence that you will carry out all these instructions.' Dietrich had left Hamburg knowing that the museum was keen to acquire Aboriginal remains, but it seems to have been the burden of this new responsibility that set her to grave robbing, even though she now owed her life to Aboriginal people, and knew how seriously they took their obligations to the dead. (Sumner, p45) Her anxiety to please Godeffroy may also explain the circulation of a particularly grim tale in print and Queensland pioneer lore for over a century, to the effect that she sought to have an Aboriginal man killed for the sake of obtaining his ritually scarified skin. As the story goes, Dietrich, when visiting William Archer, a Rockhampton pastoralist and keen amateur naturalist, asked him to help her procure the skin of an Aborigine. What Dietrich had in all likelihood learnt as she travelled northwards was that the mortuary rituals of several peoples on the Queensland coast involved the post-mortem removal and drying of the skin of initiated men. At this time, only one such skin was known to science, having been presented to England's Royal College of Surgeons by explorer Allen Cunningham in 1829. As the story has it, William Archer understood Dietrich as wanting him to help murder a man for his skin, and ordered her off the property. Given that Archer enjoyed good relations with local Aboriginal people, it could well have been simply the suggestion he help her desecrate a burial place that so offended him. However, the story appears to have circulated widely, and came to be retold, gruesomely As the story embellished, by H.L. Roth, in his 1908 history of Mackay: The celebrated Godeffroy Museum of Hamburg had a collector on the coast from 1863 to has it, 1873, who made several ineffectual efforts to induce squatters to shoot an aboriginal, so that she could send the skeleton to the Museum! On one occasion, she asked an officer of William the Native Police what he would take to shoot so and so, pointing to one of the Native Black Trooper. She got no human skins nor skeletons from the Mackay district. Archer (Roth 1908, p81) understood In all probability Roth was accurate in only one respect: it was not until Dietrich arrived at the North Queensland coastal settlem ent of Bowen that she Dietrich as wanting him to successfully managed to procure the skeletons of Aboriginal people. help murder a man for his A T TH1S TIME THE BowEN REGION was still the scene of murderous frontier conflict. Many ethnographic 'curios' passing from the region to southern and overseas skin, and ordered her off the collectors had been gathered in the wake of punitive actions by local settlers and the infamous Native Police. Three years before Dietrich arrived at Bowen, a local property. Given that Archer cotton and orange farmer, Korah Halcomb Wills, had openly displayed the partial skeleton of an Aboriginal man in the town. enjoyed good relations with Not only had Wills joined in the punitive raid in which the man had been killed, he had packed a saw and boning knives, intending 'to get a few specimens of local Aboriginal people, it certain limbs and head of a Black fellow'. As he recalled in a m emoir he penned some thirty years later, in the aftermath of the slaughter, he had put the tools used could well have been simply in his previous occupation as a butcher on the Victorian gold-fields, to a new and terrible use: the suggestion he help her I shall never forget the time when I first found the subject that I intended to anatomize, when my friends were looking on, and I commenced operations dissecting. I went to work desecrate a burial place that business-like to take off the head first, and then the Arms, and then the legs, and gathered them together and put them into my Pack saddle and one of my friends who I am sure had so offended him. dispersed more than any other in the Colony made the remark that if he was offered a fortune he could not do what I had clone. (Brisbane, Oxley Library, OM 75-75/3, p. 59) V o LUME 7 NuMBER 7 • EUREKA STREET 37 Hardened as they were by the violence of frontier conflict, many Bowen residents were horri fied when Wills afterwards exhibited the bones during the course of festivities aimed at raising funds for local charities. His only concession to decency was to 'cover them up with a flag, the Union Jack' in case 'the ladies ought get a shock, if they were left uncovered. ' (p 67) Many cruelties were perpetrated during the expropriation of Aboriginal land in North Queensland, though Wills was rare, if not unique, in making an inhuman m ockery of contemporary scientific aspirations. Even so, the intensity of frontier conflict in the Bowen region during the 1860s was such that the desire to take revenge upon Aboriginal people through dese crating their burial places, may also have figured in the minds of some of the m en whom Dietrich fo und willing to help her in the cause of science. It is a past The late 1860s were lean years for bush workers. Men m ay have joined Dietrich simply for the m oney, given that she paid cash sums on behalf of Godeffroy which were that comfortably above the prices that Sydney and Melbourne museums-also trafficking in Aboriginal bones-were known to be willing to pay. However, one cannot rule out allows curiosity as a motive. While possessing little if any formal education, those who helped her comb the bush for the dead may have shared in som e m easure her concern to increase us to the sum of scientific knowledge about this 'savage' race of beings in w hom they had become locked in struggle, before- as seemed inevitable-they became extinct. appreciate The science of race that Amalie Dietrich and other procurers of ancestral remains were instrumental in creating was eventually to lose its hold over the settler imagination. the many complex and Today in N orth Queensland it is increasingly rare to hear term s such as 'full-blood' or 'half-caste', and rarer still to hear someone assert that identity and culture are the products subtle ways in which of biological inheritance. There is also a growing willingness to listen to the voices of the Aboriginal peoples of the region, and to reflect critically on how the quest for European ways of ordering knowledge by earlier generations of Europeans served very different ambitions. However, the legacy of 19th century sciences of m an arguably remains strong in reality have ignored, or one important respect. It continues to have its aftermath in the way we commonly think of the journey of humanity through space and time. We readily construe the past, served to discredit, the present and future as successive and discrete rea lms of existence, giving little credence to the very different temporal unities of Aboriginal being. aspirations of Aboriginal Granted, we no longer scrutinise Aboriginal religion and customary law in comparison with our sense of time so as to relegate their truths to the category of people. Knowing this 'superstition' or 'm yth'. But there is still an unfortunate tendency to judge the demands of Monty Pryor and others for the return of the ancestral dead against criteria which dimension to our past overlook, or down-splay, the very different m eanings past and present hardly seems likely to have in the lives of Aboriginal people. w ALSO HEAR CONSERVATIVE POLITICIANS AND INTELLECTUALS condemn what they call generate guilt, but the morbid obsession am ongst Australian historians with the violence of the frontier era. They point out that they as much as anyone want true reconciliation, but not a past optimistically, offers the that seems calculated to generate uncertainty and guilt. However, it is hard to imagine how reconciliation in any lasting sense can be achieved at the expense of neglecting best hope that in future we such issues as the relations that once existed between science, colonialism and trafficking in the bones of Aboriginal people. What we find is distressing, and a cause for sorrow. At the sam e time it is a past that allows us to appreciate the many complex and subtle ways in which European ways of ordering reality have ignored, or served to discredit, the aspirations of Aboriginal people. Knowing this dimension to our past hardly seems likely to generate guilt, but, optimistically, offers the best hope that in future we might prove better listeners. • Paul Turnbull teaches history at James Cook University of N orth Queensland. Notes: Bischoff, Charitas. 193 1. Th e Hard Road. Th e Life Story of Amalie DieLrich, Naturalist, 182 1-1891 . Lon don: Martin Hopkinson . Krause, f.D.E. Schmeltz and R. 1881. Die Ethnographisch-Anthropologische Abtheilung des Mu seum Godeffroy in Hamburg. Hamburg: L. Friederichsen & Co. Roth, H. Ling. 1908. Th e Discovery and Settlem ent of Port Ma ckay, Queensland. Hali fax: F. King and Sons. Sumner, Ray. 1993. A Woman in the Wilderness: the Story of Amalie Dietrich in Australia. Sydney: New South Wales University Press. Korah Halcomb Wills, Diary, Brisbane, Oxley Library, OM 75 / 75 /3. 38 EUREKA STREET • S EPTEMBER 1997 r Quartet From Chicago, one of the great string quartets of our time plays Haydn's powerful spiritual masterpiece 1 1 The Seven Last Words of Christ , with readings by some of Australia's most eminent spiritual leaders. PERTH MELBOURNE Monday 15 September Monday 22 September Program 1 - 8pm Program 1 - 8.15pm Perth Concert Hall Melbourne Concert Hall ADELAIDE SYDNEY Friday 19 September Tuesday 23 September Haydn Program 1 - 8pm Program 2 - 8.15pm String Quartet op 51, Adelaide Town Hall Seymour Centre Hob Ill: Nos 50-56 The Seven Last Words SYDNEY CANBERRA of Christ Saturday 20 September Wednesday 24 September PROCiRAM 2 Program 1 - 8.15pm Program 1 - 8.15pm Sydney Opera House Canberra School of Music Beethoven String Quartet in F major; BOOKINCiS op 18 no.J Adelaide BASS 131 246 Sydney Bridge Brisbane QPAC (07) 3846 4646 SO H Box Office (02) 9250 7777 String Quartet in E minor Canberra Ticketing (02) 62 57 1077 FirstCa ll (02) 9320 9000 Dvorak String Quartet in A flat major Melbourne Ticketmaster 11 566 Ticketek (02) 9266 4800 Perth BOCS (08) 9484 1133 Seymour Centre (02) 9364 9400 op 105 ,._._..(23 September concert on ly) B OOKS A NTHONY R EID The regional thing D"'"m uNm«uNAT< m•in title, Is Australia an Asian Country? Can are seldom far from the surface. In particular this is a ringing manifesto for change in Australia survive in an East Asian future? the story of Australia's unrequited love Australia. It is the creed of one of our m ost Stephen Fitzgera ld, All en & Unwin, 1997. affair with China in chapter 2, the nai:ve important political visionaries, who has ISBN J 864484QJ 2RRP$ 19.95 enthusiasms followed by disillusion when consistently argued for Australia to adjust Australian initiatives were subverted and in a principled, purposeful and self-reliant taking shape in what he more frequently democracy activists crushed, seems very way to the opportunities and challenges calls 'East Asia', and it is needed for the close to his own story as a China advocate. presented by its place in the world. 'peace, prosperity, security, and social and Scars are also evident from his battles with As a Foreign Affairs cadet in the early cultural harmony of its region'. Australia, ethnic lobbies as chairman of the Fitzgerald sixties, Stephen Fitzgerald fo ught to be if it takes the hard, visionary road of working Committee on immigration in 1988. This assigned to study Chinese, but resigned in at 'Asia', can be part of this association, is an engaged m anifesto, by a public 1966 to pursue an academic career when h elping to ensure an open outcome by intellectual who has also fought for his big there looked to be no future in Australia's bringing to it our strengths of dem ocracy, picture in a tough real world. C hina policy. H e en couraged Gou gh pluralism, and laid-back tolerance. If we The book has som e important things to Whitlam, the clearest hero of his book, to fail to take up the challenge we will be say about the need for ethical consistency shift this policy, and became Australia's excluded and m arginalised by 'Asia', as and clarity when business, government and first Ambassador to Beijing (1973-76). He already suggested by Australia's exclusion individuals engage in Asia. The sense of has since oscillated between the academic from the first Asia-Europe m eeting (ASEM) m oral superiority most Australians carry and business worlds. As chairman of the in Bangkok in March 1996. In that event into Asia, based on little more than a Asian Studies Association of Australia Australia will find itself bullied, ignored, or different political system, older wealth, and (1 982-84) and the Asian Studies Council trea ted as a third-world quarry in a twenty profound moral and intellectual confusion, (1986-9 1) h e was the m ost effective first century inevitably dominated by Asian is a poor preparation for dealing with elites campaigner for 'Asia-literacy' for all economies and probably ' Asian values'. The increasingly sceptical that a Western value students in our schools and universities. Asia-Pacific (APEC), Gar e th Evans' system is the right goal. What he pleads for His case is now fully set out at a fateful ingenious solution to the problem of where here is a better-defined sense of what being moment when, as he puts it, John Howard's we belong, is rejected by Fitzgerald as 'fatal! y Australian m eans, and leadership in ethical Australia has taken the first steps down the distracting and misleading' because it terms that will help business to take a wrong fork in the road, which could lead deludes Australians into think that they consistent stance. He vehem ently opposes through blindness and inertia to ' the can have Asia as well as the 'white man's the ideology of multiculturalism as divisive extinction of some distinguishing features club' led by the US. ethnic lobbying, but supports a self of this liberal, democratic and humanist Fitzgerald has the visionary's penchant consciou sly cosmopolitan and 'honey society'. Although experience has not been for seeing moral ch oices starkly. The coloured' Australia comfortable with its kind to his strategy, he remains the strongest Australia of Whitlam took a giant step in Asian present rather than pining advocate for a coherent educational and the direction of becoming 'Australian ', for a lost European past. international policy, and his book provides dealing with China as an independent an essential basis for the debate we must country sh ould. With the sacking of N ECESSARILY, HOWEVER, most of his now have. Whitlam and still more the gold-rush into practical program is about education. The His argument is that the elites of 'Asia' Asia of the 1980s the country lost its way, Australia he seeks can only be achieved are moving towards a sense of regional seemingly having nothing to offer our through educating a new generation better identity, the essence of which is the hope neighbours but greed. But the Keating period able to understand Asian societies and and confidence that their n ew-found again witnessed the right steps being taken operate in them. The solutions set out in modernisation and prosperity is of a different towards a recognition of realities, before the central part of the book are the same and superior sort to that of the West, so that the disaster of 1996 wh en a Prime Minister ones which he was able to promote in 'Asians' can avoid the dysfunctional 'played with the fu ture of Australia' by Dawkins' time as Education Minister, elements of violence, inequality, family pandering to the intolerance he perceived tempered only a little by the disappointing breakdown and political cynicism they in the electorate. In recounting this 25-year results which h ave been achieved in perceive in the US. A regional block is saga Fitzgerald's own scars and frustrations practice. Languages should be universally 40 EUREKA STREET • SEPTEMBER 1997 / - ' J Chinese New Year, Victoria Street, Richmond, Victoria. Photograph: Bill Thomas taught, with the key Asian languages most Australian sense as the vague 'other' to also China, Korea and Japan. In chapter 9 he prominent. The syllabus at all levels should which Australians must react and adjust. argues without much subtlety that China be revised to give Asia the central place it This sits uncomfortably with its use as the will dominate this region by 2020-a spectre deserves in world history, geography, purely geographic region in which Australia which guarantees that the consensuality of literature and so forth, without creating a belongs or might belong, with its extra- ASEAN cannot be extended to include di stinct and ghetto-like Asian Studies ordinary mix of western, eastern China. He may be wrong about the long special subject. ~ and global cultures. term viability of a centralised Chinese The key ways to achieve this are to polity, and he is almost certainly wrong change the Year 12 syllabus, which governs .1. HE ASIAN POLEM ICISTS most OUtSpoken about China's 'secret weapon' of the what is taught lower in the school, to reward about the identity of 'Asia'-Lee Kuan Yew, Southeast Asian Chinese (this old chestnut teachers who acquire the right kind of skills, Dr Mahathir, Ryutoro Hashimoto- also use sits oddly with Fitzgerald's contempt for and drastically to reform faculties of the term in the sense that opposes it to Australians who see themselves as surroga te education . 'If our universities in general are western values, making many other Asians Brits). But if he is right that China will be universities of British s tudies, th e uncomfortable. The attraction of a hegemonic, it is certain that Australia will quintessence of this is to be found in n eologism like' Asia-Pacific' is that it has a share with Southeast Asian countries a need Australian faculties of education' better chance of being accepted as neutrally to balance China through more local The problem is that to achieve any such geographic than the 'Asia' already laden regional ties. changes one must overcome not only the with emotional baggage. By hindsight it is easy to see that Europe rivalries of nine educational bureaucracies Much of the strength of Fitzgerald's was able to achieve the world's most but the autonomy of schools and the vision of an Asian identity relies on the effective regional bloc because the cold war voluntaristic an archy in much of the analogy of the European Community- and defined its otherwise murky eastern border syllabus, where what is trendy or popular indeed there are many parallels between sharply, and becau se there was (as in takes precedence over what is essential for Britain's ambivalence about Europe and ASEAN) a nice balance between Germany, the country's future. Australia's about Asia. But in arguing in France and Britain within it. Fitzgerald's This dilemma drives Fitzgerald into Chapter 3 ('The Asianisation of Asia') that East Asia has no such clear border. India, Sri supporting Allan Bloom's call in Th e Closing there is a growing sense of community of Langka, Bangladesh, Mongolia, Kazakhstan of the American Mind, for the core of what elites in I Asia' which will inevitably lead to etcetera have a better case for being included the nation defines as important and a tighter block, he is forced to ignore some in it than Australia does, and India in inspirational again to becom e obligatory in profound differences. The reality of regional particular is likely to be sought as a large, the school yllabus. Above all we need a cooperation he uses is ASEAN, the grouping democratic and pluralistic balance to China sense of purpose in our educational agenda. of Southeast Asian states which has been in any Asian bloc which eventually emerges. The argument is strongly put, as it must successful precisely because it has no domi All of this suggests that groupings will be be to attract attention, but it contains som e nant hegemon and shares a wariness about fluid, and if Australia's interests lie most fundamental contradictions. The first is the pretensions of China (especially), the closely not with 'East Asia' but with Japan, the problematic definition of 'Asia'. Much US, Japan and India. But the 'Asia' he wants India and ASEAN, the latter being a group of the book uses the word in its popular Australia to be part of is 'East Asia' including of similarly middling, diverse and VOLUME 7 N UMBER 7 • EUREKA STREET 41 vulnerable states as Australia. regional blocs as m eans to global ordering. guage classes, and the di scovery of Asia by Fitzgerald rejects what he calls the Both underra te the creative value of applied schools of business, law, account ' convergence thesis' that eastern and ambivalence and multiple identities at all ing, architecture and so forth- usually with western countries are becoming more like periods but particularly our own. Belonging out the benefit of training. each other as a result of global communica in several places is one of the grea t Fitzgerald's dramatic call for a rethink tions and the better sharing of the world's Australian strengths. of national priorities is timely. We need the wealth. In this he supports (but does not As a result of the initiatives of Stephen kind of long- term vision that drives all our m ention) Samuel Huntingdon's influential Fitzgerald and others moves were made in Asian n eighbours to put a higher and more argument in The Clash of Civilizations the late 1980s to fund and prioritise the coherent priority on educa tion than we do. and the Remal B OOKS: 2 JOHN S . L EVI The metaphysical ballet of belief Dimensions of the Sacred- An Anatomy of the World 's Beliefs, Nm ta n Smart, 'T Harper ollins, London, 1996. ISBN 000 686 3728 RRI' $19.95 HE GODS ARE PARADOXI CAL' warns of the ceremony was confirm ed in the lifetime. The raw m aterial is untidy and Professor Ninian Smart in Dimensions of fo llowingweekwhenneithertheHongKong idiosyncratic . Th e seven dimension s the Sa cred. 'They are invisible yet they Stock Exchange nor the real estate market encompass, with som e ideological pushing express themselves in the world'. The gods fa ltered. The gods had been appeased. and shoving, the non-theistic varieties of were plainly visible at midnight in Hong British-born Professor Ninian Smart Buddhism and the political doctrines and Kongon30June l 997andweall saw them. inaugurated England's firs t Religiou s dogmas of Marxism. Myths and creeds The n a ti o n a l e mble m s dutifully StudiesDepartmentandnow teachesatthe perform ' m etaphysi cal ballets'. So m e fluttered in an artificial breeze. A large University of California. As he observes, religions are visionary and meditative. congregation quietly assembled as the there are ' too few general studies of religion Others are centred upon the emotional and precise hour approached. Processions of and world views, and a great richness of historical realities of victory accompani ed presiding dignitaries entered fro m each side monographs'. by triumphalism whilst other religious of a purpose built hall. As the flags were In this m ost recent, tightly constructed traditions must contend with physical reverently lowered, anthem s resoundedand book of 330 pages, Ninian Smart defeat, exile and martyrdom. Geography, eyes became moist with em otion. Brief, imaginatively brings order into chaos as he literacy, class structure, urbanisation and carefully chosen speeches were delivered tackles the 'major themes' of religious life subtleties of language all shape our religious by m en whose status and physical safety and finds that there are seven dimensions practices and ideologies. had been attentively cosseted by crowds of into which the faith systems of the world This book marks the third time in the uniformed acolytes. We witnessed a can be placed. He deftly draws together the past three decades that Ninian Smart has profoundly significant ceremony involving patterns and symbols, the ideas and the attempted to describe the way human beings the ultimate destiny of millions of people. dogmas by which human b eings deal with the transcendent and ultimate It was the meeting of two cultures and acknowledge the sacred and give inner focus of life. two profou nell y disparate ideologies, meaning to their most significant and most He modestly describes his chosen order acknowledging the supremacy of money, mundane mom ents. as 'random' but the work is far from being property and mutual prosperity. The success It has been a daunting task of a scholarly haphazard and every chapter is rich in detail. 42 EUREKA STREET • SEPTEMBER 1997 Religious ritual represents the firs t Finally, each religion will express itself sent across the Iraqi minefi elds clutching dimension. It is through ritual that we are through poetry, mu ic, art and architecture. holy texts. Week after week militants kill able to express our ideas in a tangible fa shion Sometime this concrete and outward and torture fellow Algerians. Nuclear while we create a personal sense of his tori cal manifestation can be a simple as a sacred warfare, complet e with ominou s continuity. Ritual, almost by definition, is book. More fr equently, religious faith will apocalyptic religious overtones, threatens a practical, didactic m ethod in which we express itself through a vast, distinctive the Indian sub-continent and the entire are able to transcend time and place. Ritual range of imagery. Middle East. represents the outward sign of every faith N o m atter how religiously committed Dimensions of the Sacred-An community. we are, there is another negative dimension Anatomy of the World's Beliefs avoids these Philosophy, theology and doctrine to religious behaviour that mus t be tragic, negative dimensions of human constitute the second dimension of religion, acknowledged. Religion and spirituality can spirituality and religious commitment. This which operates whether that fa ith system be profoundly destructive, m anipulative, book correctly suggests that through an is theistic or nontheistic. Often philosophy anti-human, repressive and even bizarre. understanding of shared structure people of intersect s w ith ritual behaviour. In We don't need to look back to the Middle religious belief will develop a theology that Buddhism in particular, observes Professor Ages to know that Ninian Smart's seven can accommodate differing and even Smart, m editation assists the individual to dimensions fails to include the catastrophic contradictory faith traditions. Professor become inunersed in a particular conceptual consequences of being persuaded to abdicate Ninian Sm art has given us a thoughtful system . The same could be said fo r the the stewardship of mind and soul to another. taxonom y of the sacred and laid the three western monotheistic religions whose Just recall those neatly fo lded bundles of foundations for religion's next vital task. • adherents express their religiou s clothing and shoes at the foo t of each suicidal convictions or beliefs through patterns of cult m ember intent on a heavenly ga te JohnS. Levi is Senior Rabbi of the Victorian custom or behaviour. beyond the stars. Think of those sprawled Union fo r Progressive Judaism and a Thirdly, religion has a story to tell. The corpses in Jonesville in the jungle of Central President of the Council of Christians and myths, legends and heroic narratives of America. Rem ember the Iranian children Jews. past events are the integral constituents of every religious group. In Judaism the story of the Exodus and the journey towards the B OOKS: 3 Promised Land is the defining story for MICH AEL M GIRR three thou sand years of his tory. For Christians the story of the Passion has shaped their lives and i reenacted over and over again. What the Diclzens. • • There is an em otional dimension that is beyond ritual. Certain individual Jack Maggs, Peter Carey, University of Queensland Press, 1997. experiences can change the manner in which lSI\ 0 7022 2952 0 RRI' $35.00 fa ith communities grow. The visions of Amos, the enlightenment of the Buddha, TH ERE ARE TWO JA K MAGGS. Or three. labyrinthine detail and asks a deformed the conversion of Paul and the teaching of Or four. Or m aybe m ore. trapeze artist, another Tri tan Smith, to the Prophet Mohammed have provided the The fi rst Tack Maggs is the name of a negotiate them . It's a shaggy dog story, fram ework that pervades the centuries. new book by Peter Carey, his first extended leaning decidedly in the direction of The Echoes of individual inspiration are refl ected adult fi ction since The Unusual Life of Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, and by structures, by m ethods of reach ing Tristan Smith. At fi rst glance, this Tack if it weren't so funny it would be as collective decisions and by prayer. Maggs is not as beguiling, nor as witty, nor exhausting as Stern e. But Carey's Tristan The fifth foundation of religious life is even as unusual, as Tristan Smith Tristan Smith has a clear log of concerns: it is the ethical or legal dimension of religion. Smith crea t es fic tional countries, anxious about what happens when one Faith traditions are not imply collections econ omies, langu ages and cu l tures i n culture dom inates another, whether you of myths, philosophies and ritual. Religious call that colonisation or globalisation. Jack communities develop legal and ethical Maggs seem s, on the one hand, to be a more sys tem s tha t sh ape communal and conventional narrative and on the other to individual boundaries. Both the community have a less clear thematic focus. and the individuals of each community can But wait. There's another Jack Maggs. define their own identity by m odes of This is the nam e of the main character in behaviour that happen within boundaries the new book by Peter Carey. Maggs is a and recognisable limits. 'bolter', a convict who has unlawfully All religious group develop a structure returned to England from exile for the term of leadership. Clergies create hierarchies. of his natural life in N ew South Wales. In Specific learning skills and attainments doing so, he runs the risk of fo rfei ting his result in the ability to teach and to impart life. He does so because he is obsessed by know ledge . The sixth dimension of religious Henry Phipps, a young ge ntlem an, whom existence is therefore the social context in he refers to as his son. which a faith fun ctions. On arriva l, Maggs gets a job as a foo tman V oLUME 7 N uMBER 7 • EUREKA STREET 43 I WANT TO INVEST WITH CONFIDENCE (known in slang as a 'fart catcher') in the endlessly multiplying viewpoints. AUSTRALIAN house of the m an who lives next door to The figure who accompanies Jack Maggs Phipps, one Percy Bu ckle. Buckle has spent on his last attempted flight is Tobias Oates. e-thical most of his life as a grocer; he inherited a Tobias Oates is the crea tor of a third Jack Agribusiness or windfall and is still dizzied by the heights Maggs. Oates is a celebrated writer in reafforestation. TRUSTS to which he has unexpectedly risen and London in the 1830s, the man responsible Mining or rec ycling . from which he can equally suddenly fa ll. for such literary inven tions as Captain Investors Maggs has to replace a footman who has Crumley and Mrs Morefall en. He has also Exploitation or can choose recently taken his own life; the old foot been a Fleet Street hack and an early version sustainability. Through the AETru sts you man's lover, Mr Constable, is his new boss. of the investigative journalist as social Gree nhouse gases can invest your savings As always, Carey begins to weave em otional conscience. In som e respects, his career or so lar energy. and superannuation in complexity in and through the economic mirrors Dicken s' own. Oates 'had an Armaments or over 70 different pressures that act upon his characters. obsession with the criminal mind.' community enterpri ses, each expertly This Jack Maggs, the second one, bears The fact that Percy Buckle entertains enterprise. selec ted for its un ique a name remarkably similar to that of the Oates to dine is one of the deepest combi nation of earnings, convict, Magwitch, who returns from the satisfactions of Buckle's Great Good environmental other side of the world to announce himself Fortune. On one such occasion, he meets su stainability and social as the long lost benefactor of Pip in Dickens' Jack Maggs and enters an arrangement responsibil ity, and earn a Great Expectations .Jack Maggs is scarcely a whereby he promises to introduce Maggs to competiti ve financial remake of Dickens' book; it is more like the a Thief-taker who can track down Phipps. storeroom of Silas andMa Britten (professional In return, Maggs has to undergo some of return. Far fu ll detai ls thieves whom Carey describes), filled with Oates experiments in magnetism. During make a free ca ll to takings which have caught his eye. Among these experiments, Oates manages to draw 1800 021 227 these is the characterisation of Maggs. from Maggs the story of his transportation. llfl'estlll elfts in tbe Austra lia /! Ethical Tm sts CCI II Magwitch says of himself: He witnesses the scars which 'the cat' has Ollll' be 111 ade through tbe wrre11t prospect /I s left on Maggs' back. Oates keeps a detailed registered with the i111 stralialf Sew rities ' ... when I was over yo nder, t'other side of record of all he hears and begins work on his Co 111111 issio 11 a 11 d ai'Ci ilablefro/11 : the world, I was always a looking to this next bestseller, Th e Death of Maggs. This Australiau Ethical Investme111 Ltd side; and it come flat to be there, for all I l'nil 66. Ca 11 berra Business Ce 11 tre very book is another Maggs; it too struggles was a growing rich. Everybody knowed Bradfield St. Dou•ner ACT 1601. for life. Oates begins work on it in 1837; it Magwitch and Magwitch could come and sees the light of day in 1860. It starts with Magwitch could go and nobody's head a sentence whose cadence mirrors the would be troubled about him. They ain't so "TASTE AND SEE" opening of Carey's own novel. easy concerning me here, dear boy .. .' Within Oates' Maggs is a fourth Maggs, A PRACT ICAL I NTRO DUCTI ON The description fits Maggs like a glove. the character created from Jack Maggs' story. TO M o NAS TI C PRAYER There is at least one sequence where Great During their attempted flight, Oates falls Expectations closely coincides with Ja ck asleep and Maggs, the character in Carey's Th e Bened ictine nuns at Maggs. This is the convict's flight by river. book, pilfers his notebook and confronts Croydon, VIC are offering In both books, this flight is the occasion of the character in Oates' book. Maggs' introductory days of monasti c a m omentary softening in the convict's response is both unexpected and, ironically, prayer. character. In Great Expectations, it is Pip a trigger for the rest of the story: himself who witnesses the change. It is Jack Maggs was weeping. He bent his People who ha ve not lived th e reciprocated by on e of Dickens' most body into a hard, tight ball. He gra sped his monastic life form ally have celebrated changes of heart: stomach and rocked to and fro. been ab le to draw on its For now all my repugnance to him had Like The Name of the Rose, Ja ck Maggs w isdom to deepen th eir life of melted away and in the hunted and is a book which invites participation on a prayer. Th e day's teaching w ill wounded and sha ckled creature who held number of levels. It is far from simple. my hand in hi s, I saw only a man who had consist of short introductions Illywlwcker, Oscar and Lucinda and The meant to be my benefactor and who had with guided times of prayer Unusual Life of Tristan Smith all elaborate fe lt affectionately, gratefully, and together. Offered to groups of colourful conceits: a shopping-arcade generously towards m e with great turned-m enagerie, a glass church, a family between five and ten at the constancy through a series of years. Benedictine Monas tery, circus. Peter Carey's fa ck Maggs, like its The difference between Carey and central characters, is a book in flight. The Croydon, VIC. Dickens is not simply Carey's distaste for conceit it elaborates is storytelling. The A donati on of $5 per person is melodrama. Dickens creates unify ing novel is an ageing and moody form of suggested. narrative tandpoints. In Great Expectations entertainm ent. In Carey's hands it is made Lun ch etcetera provided. the principal standpoint is that of Pip, whose over to look young again, and seductive.• blindness and thoughtlessness allow the For fu rth er information and bookings ph 9725 2052 . irony of a second standpoint- that of the Michael McGirr SJ is consulting editor of reader. Carey works from a series of Eurel 44 EUREKA STREET • SEPT EMllER 1997 "KOSTKA- XAVIER BY THE SEA" A History of Kostka Hall To commemorate the 60rh Anniversary of the Foundation of Kostka Hall, the Eldon Hogan Trust is publishing a history of the school. The history is being written by Helen Penrose and Catherine Waterhouse of HistorySmiths and chronicles the establishment and development ofXavier's second preparatory school which first opened for classes in Brighton on Wednesday, February 10, 1937. A special pre-publication price of $24.95 is being given to all orders placed with payment prior to the official launch on October 21. All orders (with payment) should be forwarded to: Miss Helen Barry Xavier College - Kostka Hall PO Box 89 Brighton VIC 3186 (Telephone: 9592 2127) I DISCOVER THE JEWELS OF ITALY ROME- ASSISI - FLORENCE N 8 days all-inclusive escorted tour to Italy JESUIT with Qantas, returning at your convenience v PUBLICATIONS Special offer $3999* AND I VITA ** Departures 18 June 1997 3 September 1997 TOURS 23 July 1997 October 1997 Stay in leading four star and three star hotels - Enjoy traditional T Italian food and hospitality - Travel in luxury air-conditioned coaches Special features for Catholic travellers: A • Papal audience/visit St Peter's • Vatican Museum/Catacombs • Santa Croce-The Church of the Holy Cross T • The Basilica and tomb of St Francis of Assisi • The Cross of St Francis • The Tomb of St Clare I • The Duomo of Florence Santa Maria dei Fiori • The Religious Centre • Daily Mass with jesuit Tour Chaplain 0 ' Tw in share hotel accommodation '* Go on and ex plore oth er part s of Europe and return at w il l • Go to london and return to Australia from there for an extra $150 • N For further information ring Anne on 1300 300 552 T ,, ""' mN mMc om muttedng' funding cycle is not necessarily to be taken so in the past with organisations like J. C. in recent years about our 'flagship' State as incontrovertible evidence that a company Williamson's and it is now with those like theatre companies. Questions like 'what is about to collapse. In most cases, audience Playing Australia and Performing Lines are they there for?' and 'how are they support actually grew during the 1996 dedicated to the touring of Australian fulfilling their charter?' have been tossed financial year, although in some places (such produced (if not exclusively Australian about lately in theatre foyers and bars and as Adelaide and Brisbane) over a declining written) material across state and territory even occasionally in the press. subscriber base. Likewise, many companies boundaries and into regional areas. While Following a spate of flagship productions have invested in what is nowadays known the tendency for many of the various of American musicals (notably those of as ' product' (in the form of play regional centres in Australia to become Stephen SondheimL lightweight American commissions, new productions and so on) mere branches of the fla gship head offices and British plays from the commercial off which will not reap all of its financial or in Sydney, Melbourne and Adelaide is a Broadway and West End stages, and a even artistic rewards until later in the worrying one, we can't blame the State clutching at the box-office straws of the triennium, when commissions are realised theatres for taking advantage of the Playing stuff of amateur suburban rep., questions as actual productions and when successful Australia touring guidelines. In short, if like these seem worth asking. There is also productions are picked up and toured you're on a good thing (like a revival of The a perception that the flagships are all about elsewhere. Doll or an all-star production of the foreign the classics and foreign drama: 'Where's I should also refute one commentator's Sisters Rosensweig) you've got to their commitment to Australian drama and gloomy conclusion that the only reason exploit it for all it's worth. especially to new world' is another question some companies stayed in the black (or we've heard from critics of the State theatre plunged less deeply in to the red) is ancillary NoETHELESS, THE STATE THEATRES do system. activity, like touring. Co-production (and not face an altogether rosy road into the Fuel was added to the fire back in May more fr equently 'buying-in' from and new millennium. For one thing, I'd hate to when The Australian splashed the news all 'selling-on' to other companies) and semi be a corporate fund-raiser for a Sydney per over its front page that 11 of the 16 client national touring have been artistic and forming arts company right now: surely companies of the Major Organisations Fund accounting facts of life among the major every available sponsorship dollar is going carried deficits at the end of 1996. All of the theatre organisations for at least the last to go to the Olympic Games until 2000. I State theatre companies (the MTC, the decade. As I have argued elsewhere, this also don't much like Wayne Harrison's STCSA, the Sydney Thea tre Company and can lead to a shrinking mainstream chances of getting the 850-1000 seat theatre the Queensland Theatre Company) were in repertoire and a lessening in the amount of he needs for the Sydney Theatre Company the red, along with other thea tre companies work available to directors, designers and over the same period. It's a good claim: the like Playbox. other creative artists, but it helps companies success of this company in building up Several points need to be made about to amortise costs associated with mounting audiences and demand for its 'product' is this apparent crisis in the Australian State new productions and it increases the length such that the STC has outgrown the capacity theatre network, some of them financial of contracts for the dwindling number of of both the Opera House Drama Theatre and some of them artistic. actors lucky enough to get the touring gigs. and the Wharf (the only venue presently First, an operating deficit in one year (in A touring thea tre is the only kind of owned by a State theatre company) but it is most cases, the first) of a new triennial 'national theatre' Australia has. This was hardly surprising that Harrison's recent 46 EUREKA STREET • SEPTEMBER 1997 expansionary policies have led to a deficit Russell St Theatre at the end of 1994, and contemporary works from abroad (mostly in 1996. STC is the only State company to as is widely known- it spends substantially from the UK and the USA, including five have increased its activity in the present more to hire its State-owned theatres than musicals). The big decline, obviously, has climate of contraction. Ancillary activity it receives in State subsidy. It also been in the production of Classics: barely in the form of commercial co-production commissioned (through its patron, the one play in eight in recent years has come (as in its association with the hugely University of Melbourne, of which it is a from the likes of Shakespeare, Ibsen, Aphra successful Tap Dogs and with the forth 'Department' and tow hom it is presumably Behn, Moliere or August Strindberg. Ironi coming Rent with Cameron Macintosh) indebted) an enquiry into the ways it hould cally, it is these which have often elicited might be a good way forward. structure its affairs into an the most eloquent reviews in defence of the Nor do I fancy the job of Rodney Fisher, uncertain future. State thea tres-s tressi ng that only the new AD of theStateTheatreinAdelaide. companies as well-resourced as these are Following the growing success of the A PRINC IPAL TENET of the resultant able to do plays like The Shaughraun, to Adelaide Festival Centre's eclectic World Anderson Report is that its salvation name but one example. Theatre Seasons during the 1990s, its tenant depends on its owning its own theatre, and The State theatres are still a problem for and competitor (which had produced the many prospective sites have been looked women writers: barely 15 per cent of all typical 'world' repertoire of the State theatre at, with some sympathy from the State works produced in the last three years have network since the 1960s) opted for a so government. But, in a city with a plethora been written by women. While this called' Australian Playhouse' program until of thea tres (unlike Sydney), many of which represents a slight increase over the past 2000, focusing exclusively on revivals of are presently dark at any one time, it has to decade, this figure is still poor in the na tiona! Australian classics . I believe Chris be asked whether Melbourne needs yet repertoire as a whole, of which women Westwood got rolled from her job as another. It is one thing to save on rent by creators account for closer to 40 per cent Executive Producer of the State earlier this owning one's own venue; it is another to fill across the board. year as much for her non-mainstream it with productions, many of which would Looking into the future, I think we can programming as for her widely published have to be those of hiring companies who expect more of the same: fewer productions critici m of the SA Arts Minister. It remains already have stacks of other choices, despite shared by more companies, more from the to be seen whether Fisher will stick to the recent closure of Napier St Theatre. big names of the Australian thea tre and Westwood's fiv e-year Australian plan, but I Again, I don't much envy the job of the still more from the USA and the UK- and can't see him or his board doing so. If the successor to Roger Hodgman, who has probably more Sondheim. • State reverts to orthodox mainstream announced his resignation as Artistic programming, how will its battle for Director from the end of next year. Geoffrey Milne is head of theatre and drama subscribers with its landlord pan out? And The questions about the State theatre at LaTrobe University. what deals might have to be done with the companies' repertoire are more easily funding bodies and with the AFCT about answered: little has really changed in the OPEN TO ALL repertoire, set construction and other past decade. In 1986, the four State theatre infrastructure I companies that till survive today gave 51 There were grave problems in Brisbane productions between them , including two with the QTC mid-decade, as I reported buy-ins from other companies and a number here in September 1995, but I am cheered to of productions on tour. In 1996, the big four Following the tremendous success of our 1995 report that the new Artistic Director, Robyn achieved 43 productions between them adolescent spirituality conference we will be N evin, seems to have turned things around (including two co-productions and seven exploring further some of the issues raised at very strongly. Subscriptions and general buy-ins) plus a further four restaged and/or this conference. This will take the form ofguest public box-office takings are well up, several touring elsewhere. So there has been less speakers, with presentations by both adults and of the productions have earned extended actual'product' over the past decade and an young people. The day, sponsored by the Centre seasons (a nd extensive intra- and interstate increase in co-production and buying-in or for Adolescent Health and Eureka Street, will tours) and all have been either well-received selling-on of productions. be an enlightening time of discussion and or vigorously debated (like th e co But an examination by content of the exploration. production with local indigenous State theatres' repertoire from 1994-96 performing company Kooemba Jdarra of reveals some interesting trends. Back in the Dare: Sat II October, 1997 Louis Nowra's Radiance). 1970s and early '80s, the generally accepted Time: 9.30 am - 4.00 pm Which brings us to the Melbourne formula (expressed especially by John (registration 9.00 am) Theatre Company, with problem graver Sumner in his MTC program notes) was Venue: Old Pathology Theatre, than those of any of its three colleagues. 'roughly one-third Classics, one-third new Universiry of Melbourne With an accumulated 'debt' (rather than Australian writing and one-third contem Cost: Adults: $50.00pp mere year-end shortfalls) reportedly as high porary writing from abroad.' Perhaps Students: $20.00pp as $4.5m, but gradually declining over the surprising! y, 46 per cent of the 128 (includes lunch and refreshments) past year or so to around $3.2m, the MTC productions given by the State theatre For further information and bookings: has c urtailed its production activity companies over the past three years were Feliciry Sloman markedly in the last three years and adopted Australian-written and a pretty remarkable Ph: 03 9345 6673 an increasing!y 'safe' repertoire. It now rents one out of every five plays staged (on average) Fx: 03 9345 6502 the Victorian Arts Centre for all of its was a world premiere. An unsurprising 42 emai l: [email protected] productions, since relinquishing its own per cent of the repertoire was m ade up of VoLUME 7 N uMBER 7 • EUREKA STREET 47 refit the engine and drive to its allure. There are some lovely touches. the seaside to cater for beach For example, Hippolyte's growing frustra goers. The story is told with tion, and culinary pride, are wonderfully undying wit. At one stage, one displayed when a customer who complains of the Snapper's disposable that his Chiiteaubriand is rotten, has the nappies fa lls into the batter whole side of beef from which it was cut and gets deep fried along with laid out on his table. the rest of the fish. Yet Roddy But not all the characters evince su ch Doyle does not live on wit wit or depth. Au Petit Margu ery, like a m eal alone: The Van is both a know muddied by the inclusion of too many ing and compassionate film. ingredients, is hampered by too m any It has no illusions about how players, with too many stories to tell. This, two middle-aged m en in a tiny along with awkwardly handled fla sh-back I 1.,' galley are likely to irritate one sequences, make it less than completely • another. The friction that sa tisfying. em erges between Larry and -Catriona Jackson Bimbo carries the film into another register just when you are beginning to tire of ugly Ex-tra ordinary food jokes. On the other hand, the film shows with compas Addicted to Love, dir. Griffin Dunne (Vil sion how desperate both m en lage) is American schmaltz. No surprises: are to resolve their tensions it's the story of two jilted lovers and their and how lovable they are, for all the chips obsession with lovers past- one's convinced A man's van on their shoulders. there'll be a wondrous reconciliation, the - Michael McGirr other's bent on revenge. Matthew Broderick plays the small-town The Van, dir Stephen Frears (Independent astronomer whose kindy-teaching partner cinemas). Don't worry if you haven't seen Too many cooks and childhood sweetheart (Kelly Preston), the film version of the two earlier parts of leaves for the 'big smoke' for a short stint of Roddy Doyle's Barrytown trilogy, The A u Petit Marguery, dir. Laurent Benegui gu est teaching, and never comes back. He Commitments and The Snapper. The novel (Kino cinemas and the Elsternwick Clas refuses to accept the 'Dear John' letter and Th e Van is a further instalment in the sic). Au Petit Marguery contains all the goes on a search-and-reclaim mission, wondrous life story of Jimmy Rabbitte and elem ents you'd expect in a French film dropping everything to get his girl. his down-a t-heel family. For some reason, about food, love and loss. Inside the sm all, Meg Ryan plays the vengeful, perky Doyle's own screenplay changes Jimmy's but classy French restaurant, tragedy and bottle-blonde biker-grunge-queen, whose name to Larry and creates a fr ee-standing passion combine with hot-te mpered mission is to wreak havoc and revenge on story. You do ca tch glimpses of Sharon's perfectionism, affection and gluttony. her French-born ex (Tcheky Karyo), who used young child in the background and those Michel Aumont plays Hippolyte, the her to get a green card. It's a slight shift of familiar with The Snapper will be glad of a chef who owns and runs the restaurant character for Ryan- a bit more rough-n quick progress report on the child. with his wife, Josephine (played with grace ready- but she's still nice undernea th. Larry's friend Bimbo (Donal O'Kelly) and fortitude by Stephanie Audran, who The Frenchman and the school teacher has been retrenched. Many of his friends, was Babette, in Babette's Feast) . fall in lurve, so, of course, Ryan and including Larry (Calm Meany), are used to The story takes place on the last night in Broderick's characters, reluctantly, join being unemployed and good-na turedl y show the restaurant, its closure forced by a small force. They set up an observation pad him the ropes of his new situation. They cancer growing at the back of Hippolyte's opposite their love- targets and monitor give him useful tips about daytime TV. But nasal canal. The tumour is eroding the every move-it's high-tech observation, Bimbo is itching for something to do and chef's sense of smell, and without smell with pictures and audio .. . looks like a gets Weslie (Brendan O'Carroll), who is there is little taste. His career is ended. m ovie within a m ovie. both Barrytown's Mr-Fix-It and Mr-Break To mark the event, friends and fa m ily If you can ignore the fact that the film It, to find him a fast food va n. The one he havegatheredfor a final m eal. As the courses puts clear gloss over its characters' crimes discovers is rundown and filthy. But Bimbo progress, old arguments rise and fall, affairs (they peep, record people's private conver and Larry shake hands over it and before are revealed and resolved-life goes on. sations without consent, break and enter, long even Larry is enjoying the uncommon This is a small, warm film, about the stalk, harass) presenting them as fun-filled experien ce of being gainfully employed. emotional pull of the table and shared sporti and if you enjoy the frivolity of bitter The rise of the van is woven in with sensual experience. Aumont and Audran and-twisted lovers hell-bent on vengeance, Ireland's fortunes in the 1990 World C upi head the cast of largely unknown actors, then it's all laughs. Predictably, the jilted Larry and Bimbo owe their initial success and are th e film 's most interesting co mrades-in-arms bond and fall. Everyone to towing the van to pubs where fans are characters. The food , which sits at the gets his/her/their man/ woman and the watching the games on TV. Before long, the creative centre of the film, is handled with curtain closes on a tear-soaked audience. va n is such a success that they can afford to a physicality that demystifies it and adds to -Lynda McCaffery 48 EUREKA STREET • S EPTEMBER 1997 is telling a mother how to get to the football Bra ssed Off, and to som e extent it shows. ground with her son now that her m arriage Another director would have cut som e of Love on the goal is broken up. the speeches, and the film would have been Paul and Sarah fa ll in love. She becom es just as effective. But there is heart in it and Fever Pitch, dir David Evans (Independent pregnant. He has to grow up. For a while, it humour and righteous wrath, which make cinemas). If you have any idea what doesn't look as though he's going to be able for an em otional evening if you 're also happened to the Arsenal football club in to do so. The wit and wisdom of this film moved by superb brass playing. 1989, this film will lack suspense. But not are both based on an appreciation of the -Juliette Hughes charm. It's about the kind of fo otball sup characters, though it suff ers on several porter you presume can only exist in the occasions when the characterisation minds of cartoonists and club marketing becom es transparent and banal. It doesn't All wrongsky departments, yet is based on the best-sell take long to understand, for example, that ing autobiography of Nick Hornby. Based, Paul likes fo otball, but the point is made Anna Karenina, dir. Bernard Rose as they say, on a true story. again and again and again. There are (independent). 'We spent six months in St Paul Ashworth (Colin Firth) grew up as complexities as well, such as a scene when Petersburg and the surrounding countryside a boy whose first experience of relating to Sarah, as a gesture of acceptance, is invited making Anna Karenina' and it was a truly his father was through going to the foo tball. to a party given by som e of the kids but then remarkable experience,' warbles Bernard He becomes a case of arrested development: is unable to accept being accepted. Rose. You have to credit his enthusiasm. his passion for football makes him the m ost It's intriguing to ponder why Sarah likes Certainly his version of Tolstoy's popular teacher, both am ong students and Paul; their relationship is far less obvious touchstone novel isn't bad travelogue, parents, in the school where he works. Here than his relationship with the football club though you might reason the need. he runs up against Sarah Hugh es (Ruth which has hitherto been his m ajor place of 'We, as Westerners, know little of what GemmillL an uptight new teacher who belonging. When he finds somewhere else this country actually looks like', he declares, insists on actually try ing t o t each to call home you feel like cheering. blithely discounting a century of the m ost Elizabethan literature to her charges. In one -Michael McGirr powerful visual and imaginative evocation scene, some parents listen patiently to h er 'we westerners' have ever embraced. So he and then explain that their daughter only gives it to us in literal spades: the icy wants to be a hairdresser. Meanwhile, Paul Not the pits wastes- with wolves; the grand imperial cities, with their skating rinks and gilded Bra ssed Off, dir. Mark Herman; cinemas palaces; the czar's ransom jewellery (Anna EuREKA STREET everywhere. One of the four sins crying out wears lapis and jet); the officers' snazzy FILM COMPETITION to heaven for vengeance, we were told in uniforms and the scyth e-toting peasants' catechism class, was 'defrauding labourers sweaty blouses. Everyone remembers Anna, but in of their wages'. I've forgotten the others, But the story itself is almost incoherent, some film versions of Tolstoy's but there was a comfortable hint of hellfire evacuated of psychological subtlety, classic novel, Anna Karenina, the and pitchforks for the sinners. The villains whizzing past like a minute waltz (108 other characters simply drop out of in Brassed Off-colliery managers and loan minutes in fact -not much longer than an sight. If you can name the actors sharks-are easy to consign mentally to the Ealing comedy). It is as though Rose who play Levin and Kitty (see above n e ther regions: Thatcher's su ccessful unwittingly took up Tolstoy's late, jaded left) in Bernard Rose's new version psychopaths. Mr Howard please note. denunciation of his own work and made a then you will earn yourself the Pete Postlethwaite (now there's a good film about a silly woman who falls in love wherewithal for a night out for two northern name), is Danny Oldenroyd, an with an officer- a trifle, not something you at the movies. (But for your own inspired band master of the Grimley Colliery could care about really. And when Sophie sake try another film.) Band. The band is on the skids because the Marceau's Anna finally does kneel down in The winner of the June lads' morale is low-the pit is probably front of the train you don't much care, competition was Jesse Gainsford of going to close and there won't be any money fra nkly. Norwood, SA who had Basil to pay subs any more. Then Gloria (Tara Much of the trouble lies with the casting. Rathbone's Sir Guy say to Errol Fitzgerald) arrives, carrying her late grand Marceau, with her fringe and pout, has Flynn: 'Just get to the point, Robin. ' father's flugel, and can play it like a dream. neither range nor the kind of rounded allure Su ddenly Danny has hope as well as that would make her a credible Anna, in obsession, som ething to take his mind off anyone's film. (Imagine Ca sablanca with the incurable lung disease he acquired in Sharon Stone subbing for Ingrid Bergman.) the pit. The men fare better: Sean Bean is a stoic His son Phil is what Aussies would call Vronsky, Alfred Molina a saturnine Levin, a battler-angry wife, four kids and never and James Fox makes of Karenin a more enough money because 18 months on strike sympathetic character than he deserves to pay ruined him financially. And he needs a be. For the rest-the women gibber while new trombone if the band is going to have Bernard Rose dithers, never putting his a chance in theN a tiona! Brass Band Contest own mark on the film. Then there is the in London. dead-on-cue music- Tchaikovsky wept! H erm an wrote as well as directed -Morag Fraser VOLUME 7 N UMBER 7 • EUREKA STREET 49 WATCHING BRIEF Child's head revisited 0 UR STCAM-DRWCN T 50 EUREKA STREET • SEPTEMBER 1997 Eureka Street Cryptic Crossword no. 56, September 1997 Devised by Joan Nowotny IBVM ACROSS 1. Artificial-sounding suede from mountain-climbing 24-ac. (7) 5. Pussy-foot around stooge. (4-3) 9. Small picture made in film location' (5) 10. Popery reportedly is in good odour these days. (9) 11. Possible support down lower could, if reversed, lead to improved spirits. (6) 12. Father vehement about state of footpath when he leaves it. (8) 14. Laughing, he is involved with any 24-ac. (5) 15. Musical work left timeless tune in the composition because it was appropriate. (9) 18. Fruit-family which sheds unusual pips ankle-deep! Can be peeled! (5, 4) 20. Press this button when bad pain causes initial alarm. (5) 22. Yes, a dust storm can occur on a weekly basis. (8) 24. Female soul left body of beast. (6) 26. Artist's activity required after prang, perhaps. (9) 27. Some who plead liberal causes can speak well off the cuff' (5) 28. Man's friend departed, dammit! (7) 29. Child speaks of rare tum complaint' More adult-related, perhaps. (7) Solution to Crossword no. 55, July/August 1997 DOWN 1. Letter from Greece? Ha, ha! The two of you, apparently, are involved with this little creature from Mexico! (9) 2. Sailor's love confused with desire to forgive. (7) 3. As a dessert, palm-fruit pith is somewhat passe. (3-2-4) 4. Tribe branches out at beginning of month. (4) 5. 5-ac. begins dozing intermittently. (10) 6. Start throwing odd shoe at them in particular. (5) 7. Aver pun to be outrageous. Typical of an upstart! (7) 8. Hush! Be quiet! Game in progress! (5) 13. Choice of reputedly stupid 24-ac. can affect the election. (6-4) 16. Write again that Aunt now takes last four leaders to be sorry. (9) 17. In a whirl, Bruce and I fly to Los Angeles to view Arthur's sword. (9) 19. Small dog reportedly taking a gander at old city of China, say. (7) 21. Doctor swimming in Egyptian river more agile than most, in the circumstances! (7) 22. Classified in pretty pedantic style! (5) 23. Act about it beginning the same as before. (5) 25. Glide smoothly over the surface on 1st March. (4) JO HANNON PAINTINGS AND DRAWINGS to be opened by MICHAEL LYNCH Tuesday 2 September, 6pm. Glen Eira Arts Complex, Cnr Glen Eira & Hawthorn Rds, Cau lfi eld, VIC. Ga ll e ry Hours Weekdays 1 Oam-Spm. Exh ibition dates 2-15 September. ISSN 1036-1758 07 oodbve to II that Gary Bryson on the lessons 9 771036 175017 of Hong Kong