The Australian Workplace Since the Time of Justice Nobler Motive Than to Keep an Eye on the Enemy
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
Vol. 3 No. 2 March 1993 $4.00 us t 1<1t t 1ey were intrm ucel to the magazine by a friend or a colleague. GOOD SHEPHERD Youtli and !Famify ServiceiNC Do you know someone who might enioy Eurehll Street: We would be happy to send them SOCIAL POLICY WORKER copies for two months on a trial Good Shepherd Youth & Family Service is a Catholic Welfare Agency basis. offering a range of services to low-income families and young people in Collingwood/Richmond/Fitzroy, Hastings and St Albans. These services aim to promote justice and ensure equity of access for all to Simply fill in the form below the resources of our society. (with their permission) and send it to Jesuit Publications, The Agency requires an additional Social Policy Worker to take pri PO Box .-=) .-=)3 , Richmond, VIC mary responsibility for liaison with the media and to assist with pol 3121 icy analysis and the development of alternative policies. Qualifications: Please send a free copy of Eureka * a knowledge of and demonstrated commitment to social justice Street to: * ability to carry out policy analysis and research * experience/interest in working closely with the media * ability to produce written material at short notice * excellent communication skills An appropriate tertiary qualification and an ability to work within a strong team framework are also essential. The position is part-time - 32 hours per week. ................ .... ... ... Postcode .... ....... .. ... Salary and conditions in accordance with the Social and Community Services Award Community Development Worker Class 2b Year 3, currently $35,053 p.a. - pro rata. For job description and enquiries ring (03)419 5477 Written application with CV and 2 referees by Friday 12 March to: ..... ..... .... ... ... ......... Postcode .. ..... ... .. Kerry O'Grady GOOD SHEPHERD & FAMILY SERVICE 74 Johnston Street Collingwood VIC 3066 Volume 3 Number 2 March 1993 A magazine of public affairs, the arts and theology CONTENTS 4 30 COMMENT OBITUARY Jack Waterford pays tribute to Fred Hollows. 6 LETTERS 31 QUIXOTE 7 COUNTERPOINT 32 Paul Chadwick looks at Australia's other BOOKS non-resident paper king, Conrad Black. Peter Steele ponders words and villains in The Oxford Companion to the English 8 Language and The Oxford Book of Villains; ABSOLUTELY STRAIGHT Jack Waterford sizes up the latest crop of John Clarke tells Mark Skulley what he political books: biographies of Hewson, really thinks about the federal election. Keating, and Managing Government: Labor's Achievements and Failures, by 11 Michelle Grattah and Fred Gruen (p36). CAPITAL LETTER 38 12 FLASH IN THE PAN IT'S NOT EASY BEING BLUE-GREEN Reviews of the films Indochine; Unfor The fate of the Murray-Darling river sys given; Under Siege; High Heels; Fortress; tem symbolises Australia's environmental and The Bodyguard. dilemmas, argues Margaret Simons. 40 15 SBS PROGRAM GUIDE ARCHIMEDES How the law enmeshed the 42 Cambodian boat people, p22. 16 VOICEBOX SWITCHING ON Mike Ticher listens to ffi, and feels much Greg O'Kelly discovers that his students are older and wiser. more likely to be media-smart than media dupes 43 SPECIFIC LEVITY 19 AN INSIDER LOOKING OUT Cover photo and photo pp 16-17 Thomas Stahel profiles Archbishop Rem by Andrew Stark; bert Weakland. Photo p5 by Michael Coyne; Cartoon pp8-l0 by Dean Moore; 22 Eureka Street magazine Graphics p19 and pp32-33 THREE YEARS HARD Jesuit Publications, by John van Loon; PO Box 553, Graphks pp22-28 by Waldemar Andrew Hamilton concludes his account Richmond, VIC 31 21. Buczynski; of the experience of the Cambodian boat Tel (03 )427 7311 Cartoon p39 by Michael Daly. people in Australia. Fax (03) 428 4450 C OMMENT A magazine of public affairs, the arts and theology Publisher Michael Kelly SJ Editor Morag Fraser Production editor Ray Cassin A little list Design consultant John van Loon Production assistants John Doyle S), Paul Fyfe S), Juliette Hughes, Chris Jenkins S). TH' >mST of the fedeml election c•mp•ign one met Contributing edi tors IN w'" ropolitan daily ran a story about the acute shortage of physics Adelaide: Frances Browne IBVM teachers in Australian schools. No one else picked up the story; Brisbane: Ian Howells S) Darwin: Margaret Palmer the m edia and political circus rolled on, and soon most of us Perth: Dean Moore were fixated on an electronically extruded worm wriggling Sydney: Edmund Campion, Andrew Riemer, across the faces of the Incumbent and the Aspirant. Priorities. Gerard Windsor. Now it doesn't take Einstein's dog to understand that from European correspondent: Damien Simonis a shortage of physics teachers will flow a matching shortage of US correspondent: Thomas H. Stahel S) students, a decrease in science graduates and, eventually, an Editorial board even more acute shortage of science teachers, thereby com Peter L'Estrange S) (chair), pleting a circle of stupidity and shortsighted planning. And this Margaret Coady, Margaret Coffey, in a country that is moving rapidly, and with some small but Madeline Duckett RSM, Tom Duggan, significant success, into science-based enterprises in the region: Trevor Hales, Christine Martin, telecommunications in Vietnam, television in Indonesia, en Kevin McDonald, Joan Nowotny IBVM, gineering projects in other parts of Asia. Maybe we think we Lyn Nossal, Ruth Pendavingh, can do without physics. Feed them tax cuts. john Pill FSC, If you have been preoccupied with the election and current Peter Steele SJ, Bill Uren SJ affairs broadcasting, you may not have noticed that the ABC Business manager: Louise Metres has banished books from Radio National. You can hunt for the Advertising representative: Tim Stoney word on ABC FM, or maybe find it on a Sunday, but don't look Accounts manager: Mary Foster for the usual dose of literary delight at 8.30am on Thursdays, Patrons because The Book Report has gone. The managers have de Eurel<a Street gratefully acknowledges the creed that 'media' are better for you. Nothing wrong with a support of C.L. Adami; the trustees of the estate media program, and the new one is excellently prepared and of Miss M. Condon; A.J. Costello; D.M. Cullity; presented by Andrew Dodd. But you won't, anymore, hear the F.G. Gargan; R.) . and H.M. Gehrig; like of interviews with Michael Ondaatje, author of The Eng W.P. Gurry; J.F. O'Brien; lish Patient, or with Columbus' long-sighted biographer, Fe A.F. Molyneux; V.J. Peters; lipe Femandez-Armesto, or enjoy Barry Humphries' bile and Anon.; the Roche family; Anon.; high humour as you eat your Weeties or crawl down the free Sir Donald and Lady Trescowthick; way. Priorities. Mr and Mrs Lloyd Williams. During the first of February's television debates you might have caught an apparently jocular exchange between John Eureka Street magazine, ISSN 1036- 1758, Hewson and the moderator, Kerry O'Brien. It was one of the Australia Post registered publication V AR 91-{)756, is published eleven times a year debate's few lively moments, but there was a declaration of by Eureka Street Magazine Pty Ltd, hostilities behind the urbane jollity. The guts of Hewson's 300 Victoria Street, Richmond, Victoria 3 121. message was: 'Boy, are we going to cut you.' The coalition's Responsibility for editorial content is accepted by proposed reduction in the ABC budget has been public for ages. Michael Kelly, 300 Victoria Street, Richmond. But how many people realise that the cut is about equivalent Printed by Doran Printing, to the running costs of one ABC radio network? The ABC has 4 Commercial Road, Highett VIC 3190. already been pruned by Labor. Under a coalition government, © jesuit Publications 1993 it faces lopping. The editor welcomes letters and unsolicited manu In the course of the byzantine negotiations over pay tele scripts, including poetry and fiction. Manuscripts will vision in Australia, 'choice' has been dangled as the carrot for be returned only if accompanied by a stamped, self consumers. There is a confusion between a simple multipli addressed envelope. Requests for permission to reprint cation of available programs and real choice in most of the material from the magazine should be addressed in discussion. But the arguments also largely ignore the enormous writing to: The editor, Eureka Street magazine, social value to Australia of communally watched, high quality, PO Box 553, Richmond VIC 3 121. 4 EUREKA STREET • M ARCH 1993 free-to-air programs. The ABC has no monopoly on such ing competition. A spell as a non-unionised waiter in material, but historically, along with SBS, it has been Australia at any time during the past four years wouldn't the broadcasting body most willing and likely to exper have been a bad tutor either. iment, to promote Australian talent and to provide high This election requires that Australians think hard quality programs (which the other networks then buy about the way in which ginger words like 'choice' are up after the test drive has proved successful). It also used, because we are the ones who will have to cope services the whole country-and areas in the region with the long-term social consequences of opting for with news and current affairs programs that the com what slogans offer. mercial networks, for financial and political reasons, can't afford to run. Take Th e Ci vil War series, re-run on SBS during February, as an example of programming that can becom e a reference point for a community, and enter the common language. It has been widely discussed and has altered or extended many people's views of American history and racial politics. And what we learn about the US has application here. Tim Colebatch, in Th e Age, in voked the series to illuminate the social and economic mess we find ourselves in .