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.

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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 EurelVictoria 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 . The generals did not calculate the consequences, says Cole­ batch . We know what he means. But we won't be able to share that awareness, or the comm on language he exploits, if we are all closet­ ed away watching our own 'choice' of specialist micro­ Old skills, new country: Maurice Kadamani came to Australia from Lebanon's Bekaa Valley. He bakes wave or satellite channel traditional Lebanese bread, and finds that Australians enioy his bread as much as the Lebanese do. while the national broad- PHoTo: M ICHAEL C o YNE, FROM A W oRLD O F A usTRALIANS, DAVlD L o vELL PuBLISHING, M ELBOURNE 1992. caster goes bust, or declines in genteel poverty and faded repeats. Clive James' At election time, when words are cheap and Telecom ads said the last word on bogus thoughtful analysis hard to come by, it is all the more /c choice. Do we never learn? depressing to note the end of yet another small publish­ ing venture. ALR (formerly the A ustralian Left Review ) HOICE' IS ALSO THE WORD being brandished during is putting out its final edition in March, and with its this election campaign in the context of proposed radi­ closure the spectrum of expressed opinion will become cal changes to the industrial-relations system. This huge all the narrower. The traditional left and right have had and complex social structure has been hammered out a habit of reading one another in Australia, if for no in the Australian workplace since the time of Justice nobler motive than to keep an eye on the enemy. Now Higgins' Sunshine Harvester judgment in 1907. No one there is even less to scrutinise. God forbid that we should argues that the system is perfect. It has been rorted and all end up cramped in our private centres, wordless, abused, and it is often intensely conservative, relin­ watching sitcom re-runs on satellite. quishing traditions and practices only when cornered. Happy voting. But it has also shown itself capable of adaptation to • changing circumstances, and over the years it has guar­ -Morag Fraser anteed a measure of safety, security and dignity to Aus­ tralian workers. Try a spell as a waitress in Boston if Note: In February's Eureka Street we reported, on p4, that you want to know what pay and conditions are like in 8 per cent of our readers were professionally involved in the choice-laden world of opportunity and free-wheel- education. The figure should have been 18 per cent.

V o LUME 3 NuMBER 2 • EUREKA STREET 5 L ETTERS

Eureka Street welcomes letters Image breaker from its readers. Short letters are Words of honour more likely to be published, and all letters may be edited. Letters must From Chris McGillion, Sydney Morn­ be signed, and should include a con­ From H.J. Grant ing Herald. tact phone number and the writer's Whether ultimately it be a )Jledge of Fred Hollows was an iconoclast, not a name and address. loyalty or remain an oath of allegiance saint, and it is his iconoclasm that we towards acquiring Australian citizen­ shall miss most about him. Other ship, a public position of trust or an people (either encouraged or empow­ Australian passport, the text of the ered by him) will carry on Fred's work oath should be identical in expressing against blindness born of poverty. But reciprocal obligations and entitle­ who will shake us out of our compla­ ments; it should also be in language cency, challenge our prejudices, con­ that is understandable, uplifting, that front us with uncomfortable truths, identifies Australia and acknowledg­ and in the process inspire us to imag­ es our multicultural origins. ine and accomplish new things? All nations in their maturation And yet Fred has been eulogised in tend to remove, refine or change saintly terms. This strikes me as iron­ symbols, trappings and language as­ ic, but also as a possible insight into sociated with those who substantially the Australian psyche. Ironic because their particular demons, and, in his peopled and developed them often by Fred was no saint. Anyone who sat, own inimitable style, gave expression occupation, stealth or invasion. Eng­ and drank, and argued into the night to their quality of endurance in ways land within the United Kingdom is no with him knew that. Saintliness, of that institutionalised Christianity in exception. course, is a Christian concept. But as this country has never done? Could it Britons, the original Celts inhabit­ Fred wrote in his autobiography: 'Sex, be that the popular appeal of this ing Britain when the Romans came, alcohol and secular goodness are pretty brusque, knockabout humanitarian fought the latter and then invading keen instruments, and they surgically tells us something very profound about Anglo-Saxons before being pushed removed my Christianity, leaving no Australian spirituality? back in the 5th century into the scars.' Chris McGillion mountain fastnesses of Wales and Fred was raised in the Church of Sydney, NSW Cornwall. By the time of King Alfred, Christ and studied to become a min­ in the 9th century, the Anglo-Saxon ister before becoming an agnostic and No Joe tongue had achieved a measure of dying an atheist. But the fact that he unification. Incursions by the Danes, sent his kids to a Catholic school, and From f. O'Neill members of the same Teutonic stock that his funeral was held in Saint Sir: I have grown used to Eureka Street as the Anglo-Saxons, caused King Mary's Cathedral, Sydney, will give becoming a strongly feminist journal Alfred to offer them settlement in the the church apologists great heart. He but your December/January issue goes north-east of England. never strayed too far from the Gospel overboard when on the inside cover it The next and last invasion from message, some will say. But that is not is claimed that Christmas 'has always abroad, the Norman Conquest in 1066, the point. Fred was always quoting been a time for special focus on con­ saw the Saxon, Harold, defeated at the Bible but I suspect he believed that cerns of women'. In my innocence I Hastings by the Norman, William, the church, not he, had done the stray­ always thought it was a time for spe­ and until the 14th century French was ing. Others will argue that Christianity cial focus on families and particularly the language of the ruling classes. The was the original source of his thirst for children. In the same issue Dorothy emergence of Middle English in that justice. But the first few pages of his A. Lee in her 'Conspiracy of Hope' century, however, and its progressive autobiography show that this argu­ debunks Joseph's role in the Christmas infiltration by French, Latin, Greek ment is completely false. story and sees Christ coming as a and Italian words and phrases evolved Fred loathed the 'odour of sancti­ 'playful conspiracy between a handful into what is today called the 'English' ty' that surrounded many people in of women and the Holy Spirit'. I am language, though it is actually the the church as well as in the professions. not certain what you can do about the most international on earth. But he had faith in ordinary people. In wantonness of the Holy Spirit or the Thus Australia, while continuing one of the last interviews he gave male Christ. You can make a start and strengthening its brand of the before his death he said; 'My definition next Christmas by campaigning to English language, refurbished and in­ of God is that within humans which keep Joe out of Christmas. spired by other tongues, including causes them to strive for liberation­ J. O'Neill Celtic, is as entitled as England is to liberation from poverty, fire, drought, Cairns, Qld develop its own mores and customs. oppression of any kind.' The process of allegiance provides that Could it be that Australians view Our stress was on focus, not exclusion. opportunity. Fred Hollows as a 'saint' because he 'Sir', incidentally, is madam, but she H.J. Grant understood their struggle, identified also answers to 'father'. -Ed. Campbell, ACT

6 EUREKA STREET • MARCH 1993 A measure of control

&uw THE CANADIAN, CoNRAD BLACK, be allowed to almost exactly and the new Treasurer, Ralph Willis, buy a controlling stake in Fairfax? He has an applica­ approved it. (Interested readers may consult Corporate tion before the Treasurer to take his 15 per cent holding Cannibals-the Taking of Fairfax by Colleen Ryan and to 25 per cent. Under the Foreign Acquisitions and Glen Burge, Heinemann, 1992.) Takeovers Act, the Treasurer has sole power to approve The continuing importance of the board's advice or reject such an application. John Dawkins has post­ to Kerin is that it reveals the flaws in the system that is poned a decision until after election day. Depending on operating again for the current Black application. The whom you speak to in the Keating government, Black 1991 minute plainly reveals the futility of percentage is on a promise of success or his application is doomed. limits. After much hoo-ha, the ALP federal caucus had On past pronouncements, a Hewson government is set a maximum of 20 per cent foreign voting equity. But likely to approve the application. · the board concluded that either O'Reilly or Black would While Conrad is waiting, let us examine the way control the company with that or even less: Australian governments make these decisions about 'In our view, the fact that the new Fairfax board whether a foreign investment proposal is contrary to would have majority Australian membership may not the national interest- the sole criterion under the Act. settle the issue, as we presume the directors and policies Government policy says foreign investment in mass­ would be chosen on the advice of the foreign bidders circulation newspapers is 'restricted', but sets no limits. with the requisite newspaper expertise. The benefits Each proposal is assessed by the Foreign Investment promised by the bids depend on them bringing foreign Review Board, a four-person panel, one member of which management, technology and journalism skills to Fair­ is a senior Treasury officer. The board makes recom­ fax, which in itself might indicate effective foreign con­ mendations but has no power. It operates in deep se­ trol. On balance, we would incline to the view that crecy. (The government fought fiercely and successfully effective control of Fairfax would more likely be foreign.' to prevent disclosure under the Freedom of Information Some might say that in 1993 it is perfectly clear Act of the board's advice over the 1987 takeover of the that Black controls Fairfax through his board Herald and Weekly Times Ltd by Rupert Murdoch, an representation and management appointees, so it does American.) not matter whether his shareholding increases to 25 per If, like me, you are opposed to foreign control of cent or more. For several reasons, it does. Australia's media but want to base this position on Fifteen per cent does not give him an entirely free something more than secretions from the xenophobia hand, and the holdings of important institutional gland, you will not find anywhere in the relevant law or shareholders in Fairfax, such as the AMP, take on great­ published policy statements a reasoned analysis of the er relative significance. A takeover bid, out of which national interest in local control of media. Nor, for that effective Australian control might emerge, is a greater matter, will you find the case for foreign control. It seems likelihood with Black stuck at 15 per cent. A majority that even the unpublished 'Confidential-Limited shareholding would also permit Black to fit the Fairfax Access Only' material offers the Treasurer no help in operation more tightly into his international Hollinger determining precisely what the national interest requires group. As with the meshing by Murdoch of the bulk of when ownership of the press is at issue. Australia's press into his international News Corpora­ The Foreign Investment Review Board's minute of tion, this does not necessarily mean that Australian 5 December 1991 to the then Treasurer, John Kerin, readers and advertisers benefit. about the competing bids for Fairfax, has fallen from a If governments will not permit Black to increase truck. It shows that two members recommended rejec­ his stake, he might sell out completely. A return to tion of both the foreign bids-that of Black, sans Pack­ Australian control would be possible then. But what er, and that of the Irishman, Dr Tony O'Reilly. The other factors, precisely, lead to the conclusion that foreign two members recommended approval of both. They control of the media is contrary to the national interest? considered 'the prospect of foreign control to be out­ Here's my list, about which debate is welcomed: weighed by the benefits of foreign newspaper expertise, • Foreign interests have conflicts of loyalties that may such as higher quality journalism and more modem lead to coverage in their Australian media outlets that technology.' does not give primary attention to Australia's national These supporting reasons are not fleshed out, nor interests-say, over agricultural subsidies if the foreigner is it explained how the third bidder, Australian Inde­ were American, or nuclear testing in the Pacific, if the pendent Newspapers, could not have delivered these foreigner were French. (Local managers appointed by benefits. (In his last act as Treasurer before Hawke sacked foreign owners hotly contest this claim.) him, Kerin approved O'Reilly and rejected Black. Swift­ • Resident owners are more accountable. The more dis­ ly, Black rejigged his bid so that it matched O'Reilly's tant the ultimate power, the more likely it is that the

VoLUME 3 NUMBER 2 • EUREKA STREET 7 THE NATION

MARK SKULLEY needs of local parts will be neglected in favor of what is best for the corporate whole. • The media are not an export industry, so foreign in­ vestment has a negative effect on the balance of pay­ ments through the repatriation of profits, dividends and interest. • H the media do develop export potential as the infor­ Absolutely mation economy grows, especially in our region, then Australia should reap the benefits, not the foreign par­ ents of media companies. • An English-speaking country with as small a popula­ 'I,HOT Am moM TH' HUSTINGS is Melbourne office he uses for writing, continued over a T HE STRUGGLE FOR CONTROL over the copyright in the pot of tea at his home, reveals his concern at the in­ work of employed journalists took an odd turn just as creasingly blurred line between the serious and the Eureka Street published my discussion of it last month. trivial, between fact and comment, between the real and The Copyright Law Review Committee has received 2 7 unreal. Clarke declined approaches to pen something submissions to the inquiry established by the Federal about the controversial compensation payment over Leo Government when the big publishers applied pressure McLeay's bicycle accident. 'I have read everything I could for amendments last year. The publishers (chiefly on the Leo McLeay issue and I have yet to discover what Murdoch, Black/Fairfax and Packer) jointly argued for he did wrong, apart from being Speaker ... the rest of it amendments to the Copyright Act that would give seemed to be a perfectly standard bit of industrial employers sole copyright in the work of employed jour­ compensation, but the media decided that he was wrong nalists, including for non-newspaper uses such as in and that he had rorted the system. I found no evidence computer databases and media-monitoring services. of that, and if there was it wasn't presented.' The Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance put Clarke believes cartoonists such as The Age's Ron the case for the status quo: employers control first use Tandberg often hit the mark missed by their journalis­ in a newspaper, magazine or similar periodical, and the tic colleagues. 'I think he [Tandberg] is much sharper employees control the rest. The ACTO, through Bill on the important issues than anybody else on the paper. Kelty, backed the journalists. Among their arguments I don't think he is trivialising it, I think he is subverting were public policy considerations such as concentration ... Tandberg didn't accept the story [on Leo McLeayJ that of media control. Since Australia's media structure was was being sent out at the time. The great in so few hands, did it make sense to amend intellectu­ cartoonists question what is going on, bril- al property law to concentrate in those same hands con­ liantly.' trol of the content as well? (The Communications Law Centre and I prepared the alliance's submission.) c LARKE'S OWN BRAND OF SUBVERSION is a kind of SU­ The committee scheduled a hearing for 12 March percharged and wacky Socratic dialogue, disguised as in Sydney. But in its summary of the major written an interview with a public figure. Off-camera, Clarke is submissions the review committee declared: 'the com­ modest, listens to questions and is generally several steps mittee considers the issue of concentration of media removed from his pop-eyed, pelican-haired interview ownership to be irrelevant to the question of ownership subjects, but there is still a sense that he is conducting of copyright.' It did not say why. Before a word of oral interlocutory proceedings against himself. Clarke talks evidence, or a single question, the inquiry appears to about a suhject, he says, to find out what he really thinks have shut out the biggest issue. This may relieve some and then cuts it back to the bone for performance. 'It's participants, but it will not prevent the wider question really very good discipline for me because my first draft of control of information from being raised again when of everything is really the opposite. I like to rattle right the government and Parliament have to decide what to around the perimeter of something, so brevity is a very do. Any report by the committee that ignores the issue useful discipline precisely because it is not my natural will then lack relevance. • first impulse.' But strange things still happen with his speech, even in the unpolished stage, as when he turns Paul Chadwick is Victorian co-ordinator of the the election campaign into a slab of conrete that he does Communications Law Centre. not want to ueautify.

8 EUREKA STREET • MARCH 1993 terms of the traditional symbiosis between politicians and journalists is now 'written by the machinery of tel­ evision'. The leaders of the Canberra press gallery get to be co-stars in the soap opera and can agitate for a new cast once ratings begin to flag. 'It's like the soap that has got a main star but that bloke who keeps coming in to deliver the vegetables, he's cute, we really like him, straight we want the old guy to move over. So we start saying that in the television columns by Cyclops, the anony­ mous opinionated dingbat. That sort of stuff begins to Clarke is taking the mickey out of the medium, happen ... The old star was written out and now has a the messengers and the public figures. 'Sometimes it's column in TV Week, commenting on the new program.' designed to be humorous and nothing much else, other Barrie Cassidy, a former press secretary to Bob times it's designed to represent a particular comment, Hawke, wrote in The Australian about why television sometimes it's to do with criticism of an argument, is important in campaigning-partly for its reach, part­ criticism of the way an argument's being conducted, ly because it is easier to manipulate than newspapers or sometimes it's a criticism of the person being inter­ radio. The main aim of campaigning, Cassidy says, 'is viewed and it's sometimes a criticism of the way the to see that theme reflected in the six o'clock television interviewer does that sort of interview ... Certainly there news. That is not to underestimate the power and in­ is always something in there you actually think fluence of the press and radio but, undeniably, a great because most silliness derives from some se- many people have a limited interest in politics between rious impulse.' elections and they will form their impressions from what they see at the top of the major news bulletins ... Tele­ L OOMJNG BEI-llND IT ALL is the insatiable maw of tele­ vision is limited by its need for pictures. And this is the vision. 'They [politicians] address and present in the point. A candidate must not only deliver the message current grammar of television, which is dominated, in­ but must show the message if he or she wants to max­ evitably, by those things that are most popular, which imise chances of coverage. The visual impression is are soaps. They have accepted the imagery of television. doubly important because the size of "sound grabs" has Television corrupts, and absolute television corrupts been cut, on average, to 10 seconds or less over the years. absolutely ... I was born in 1948, so I was brought up in Providing those pictures for television becomes a care­ the '50s and '60s and when I was a kid no government fully orchestrated procedure. They must be relevant to was elected for being successful at television. Since that the story and irresistible.' time, people have become very so- phisticated users of television. There have been prime ministers who have been so deft at using television that they had less requirement for a cabi­ net; it [television] actually became an instrument of the process rather than a third party.' Television's erosion of reality makes Brits want to emigrate to Ramsay Street, and it is why bouquets arrive at television stations when the characters in a soapie tie the knot. Chat-show hosts become bigger stars than their interviewees, politicians host chat shows, and chat­ show guests-motormouth Sydney disc jockeys and the like-are mainly people who are famous for being famous. This explains Paul Keating's giving autographs at a Fifteen years ago, it was considered 'interesting' Melbourne car plant, John Hewson's jogging to a truck when a prime minister appeared on Countdown; but depot in Townsville, and the presidential-style cam­ now Annita Keating is a guest model for Vogue, and John paigns being run from bunkers in Sydney, elbow-deep Hewson takes his own make-up artist to the Great in advertising gurus, pollsters and other image makers. Debate. As Clarke says: 'It doesn't matter whether you It also explains why local candidates scarcely get a look are Ronald Biggs or Albert Einstein, as long as you are in. But what is to be made of John Hewson's willingess staying at the Sebel Townhouse.' Clarke believes the to ape the poses taken by Bill Clinton? Clarke insists

V oLUME 3 NuMBER 2 • EUREKA STREET 9 that he is no expert but points out that, midway through Well, not quite direct: even talk-back radio tries to the campaign, Hewson is being depicted in these vital filter out its callers, and has the time delay and the cut accompanying images as increasingly relaxed and con­ button as a last resort. Television, in particular, gives fident, while Paul Keating and Labor are on the defensive. the illusion of intimacy. Says Clarke: 'I don't think you Clarke says the photograph of Hewson with dark glasses get the best politicians and the best advice being given and saxophone on the Norman Gunston show was good to politicians, since packaging advice is seldom the best publicity for somebody perceived as a 'stuffy, boring advice about truth. It looks democratic but in fact dis­ technocrat', and even better considering that the par­ enfranchises the electorate who are reduced to the role ticular segment never actually made it to air. 'It's an of mug punters.. ... democracy is in a bit of strife anyway, astonishing thing to see in the newspaper a photograph but talk about the people's medium is a grave myth. It of something that hadn't happened the previous night just washes over them. It's just low-level consumerism on television ... The story was that a photograph was and the people don't control it and don't have a hell of a taken. Amazing. On the front page of almost lot of access to it. The ABC, for instance, and SBS are r-r every newspaper and it hadn't happened.' both owned by the people of Australia, but they are networked from Sydney, the same as all the other tele­ ..L HE EDITOR-rN-CHJEF of The Australian, Paul Kelly, has vision stations are. SBS has got no money, and the ABC predicted that during the 1990s the information revo­ is apparently run by people who are empire builders and lution will eliminate differences between media out­ who have centralised it in Sydney-they want to com­ lets. Late last year, in a lecture on the future of pete with commercial television stations that they will newspapers, Kelly said that the challenge facing news­ never beat in a fit.' papers was a matter of learning how to move with the Clarke says the SBS television news has been the times without also destroying their reason for being. best service for a 'very long time.' He expects the ABC In the US presidential campaign, for example, The to provide a good television news service, but says its Economist had noted a division between the 'old' news langliage, assumptions and lack of clarity make it 'un­ (quality newspapers, magazines and television net­ watchable'. He finds a tendency in campaign coverage works), and 'new' news (supermarket tabloids, afternoon towards mixing comment and reportage, and sometimes television talk shows, cable television, radio talk shows). the whole enterprise drops into'general waffle and wave Kelly said that the 'old' news had tried to ignore Genni­ upon wave of warm, predigested drivel ... The only thing fer Flowers' allegation, reported in a supermarket tab­ that matters during an election campaign is the out­ loid, that she had had an affair with Bill Clinton. But come of the election ... Nobody's talking terribly much about the ramifications of policy. They are simply talking about how this is what the policy is, and how it compares with that policy there.'

C LARKE IS NO DOUBT SINCERE in his view that democ­ racy begins with citizens being able to ask a question­ and receive an answer from their elected representatives and politicial candidates. And in thinking that voters do not now get this right, particularly when it is filtered through stage-managed television events such as The Great Debate. But it's ironic that the encroachement of soap opera into politics and life is one of the reasons his interviews are accepted, and often devastating. The Channel 10 daytime soapie, The Bold and the Beautiful, now has a voiceover at the beginning of each episode: 'Due to a temporary absence of Ron Moss, the role of Rydge Forrester will be played by Lane Davies.' The show continues with the temporary actor being told by his stage mother things such as: 'It's a family prob­ lem, Rydge. It's yours, your wife's, and your father's, and because Brooke chose to tell me about the pregnancy first, it's my problem as well.' The temporary Rydge Forrester takes it all in his stride, just as Clarke does when he is 'doing' Hawke, the story could not be contained. 'Old news has prided Keating, Elliott, Hewson, Bondy or whoever. Only Rydge itself on setting the agenda, on mediating between the isn't as funny. • politician and the public. New news wants to bring the politicians direct to the public.' Mark Skulley is a freelance journalist.

10 EUREKA STREET • MARCH 1993 Forget the substance, just listen to the rhetoric

I Ts A N>CATM CAM,AJCN, based on fear md loathing. wrong, however, to say that there is no ideological con­ Neither side is pushing its own plans and policies to test. But it is not primarily about the economy, or in­ any great effect, but each is intent on lambasting the dustrial relations, or Medicare, or tariffs, but about the other. The slogans-and neither side is talking anything role of the state. Labor stands for at least as big a role as else-are, by and large, unmemorable, and demonstrably nowi the Liberals want reductions in the power of gov­ dishonest. Each of the main contenders gets less at­ ernment to influence personal or economic transactions. tractive by the day, and, if ultimately we have to vote It is a classic contest, and the differences are so well for the bastard we hate least, we will do so without once understood by the parties-and, they believe, the elec­ having felt inspired. torate-that they tend to talk in shorthand, and to argue A pretty depressing picture, but it's not all bad. For less about principles than about cheap points. one thing, this is the first election in several decades I have been reading some of the rhetoric from the that is primarily being detemined by gut political in­ last time that there was a change of government. Odd­ stinct. That each party is so negative, and so one-track, ly, the present contest seems marginally more honest. is a measure both of the narrowness of the debate and of Malcolm on Labor. risky, out-of-step, divisive, negative, their desperation. The fight, in short, is a relatively irrelevant, insecure, uncertain, turmoil, rampant union honest one because neither has an asset that is stronger power, soaring inflation, worsening unemployment and than the countervailing deficit. a replay of the Whitlam years.' The curious thing is that neither side seems accu­ Malcolm on Malcolm: Certainty, responsibility, secu­ rately to have located the target. The coalition hammers rity, responsible, strong, reliable. Our fair and compre­ home the point that Labor has produced a million un­ hensive policies will help, expand, modernise, explore employed and that 'Labor's got to go'. Yet the polls and protect: we can all be as proud as when our sports­ suggest that voters have little faith in the capacity of men won at the Commonwealth Games. either party to reduce unemployment. Labor, and Bob on the Liberals: Debased leadership, disfigured Keating personally, are by no means pardoned for the national life. Division, confrontation, Australian against recession-but that is becoming less of a problem for Australian. People unforgivably thrown out of work. them, because the recession is now almost an accepted Turmoil and scandal. Fraud, deception, and a vicious part of the background. The strong point for the Liberals cycle of confrontation .. . is the simple proposition that it is time for a change. Bob on Bob: I will reunite you, bring the best out of youi For Labor, the strong point is fear of radical change, of we will win with caution, realism but no miracles or confrontation, job insecurity, higher health costs and overnight solutions. Controlled and responsible, order­ new taxes. And selling this involves some self-criticism ly, rational and consistent, national reconciliation, na­ for mistakes of the past: 'Yes, we are in a dreadful mess, tional recovery and national reconstruction: just as we which is partly our fault. But we are doing our best to triumphed through Curtin, you can unite in effort with get out of it. The Liberal solution is far less likely to me until victory is won. make things better and it could make you far worse off. The words were concerned with the implantation You could be a victim of their ideological experiments.' of images-much more powerful in attracting votes than Of course, each side has a plan, even if little time is any programs or promises. Every time Malcolm Fraser spent promoting it. Each side has its bag of goodies de­ said 'we', or Bob Hawke said 'I', the words that followed signed to build support. But the trouble with plans is were meant to soothe. It is an American technique called that a wary electorate seems to know that recovery de­ mind-mapping, drummed in by the apparatchiks. And pends less on the success of either party than on factors it is as phoney as a two-bob watch, though not ineffec­ well beyond the control of eitheri that the capacity of tive-at least not for Hawke, not that time round. either party to achieve much is doubtful, and that their This election is much cruder, neither of the con­ good intentions are doubtful too. Bribes or handouts will testants being as susceptible to programming. The con- have to be pretty direct to be influential. test is no less genuine. • The divide between the parties is narrow. Even on economic policy-virtually the only battleground-the differences are mainly a matter of degree. It would be Jack Waterford is deputy editor of The Canberra Times.

VoLUME 3 N uMBER 2 • EUREKA STREET 11 THE LAND

MARGARET SIMONS

It's not easy being blue-green Paul Keating taunted environmentalists about being more interested in 'green' than in 'brown' issues. The reality of Australia's land-use problems is far more complex.

L NK m CAND"'"' and you think of its 'mel!. In only because the river is in flood, and the summer has South Australia, the Murray winds through dry, flat land been cool. on its last dawdle to the sea. In summer the air smells Algae, of course, are only the most visible and top­ spicy-of baked eucalypt, and of river water. Last sum­ ical symptoms of damage to the river system. Salinity mer, the smell changed. You could say that it turned is old news. It is caused by rising groundwater dissolv­ rank, except that the Murray is always a bit rank, in the ing the salts locked in the soils and bringing them to fashion of big brown rivers. Kerouac described the the surface. Since Europeans cleared native trees and Mississippi as 'the great, rank river', and Huckleberry replaced them with shallow-rooted perennial crops, the Finn smelt its earthiness: 'It was kind of solemn, drift­ groundwater has been rising fast . Drive north from ing down the big still river, laying on our backs looking Melbourne on the Calder highway and you will see, as up at the stars, and we didn't ever feel like talking loud, you approach Mildura, the frighteningly acne-like scars and it warn't often that we laughed, only a little kind of in the Mallee, where the soil looks greasy and nothing low chuckle.' will grow but salt bush. Water tables in areas such as But the Murray is half a world away from this and, Shepparton are rising so fast that up to half the land to most Australians, more foreign. We feel more at home now used to grow fruit will be unusable-poisoned by with Kerouac and Huck's river than we do with our own. salt-within 25 years. When the smell of our river changed, it was the differ­ Last summer, as the hot months drew to a close, ence between rank and fetid. The new smell was mus­ an awareness seeped into the national consciousness. ty; sinister. It rose to meet you in the evening, when the The Murray-Darling river system, used and abused since overhead sprinklers were switched on in the fruit or­ the beginning of white settlement, was reaching a point chards. It rose out of the sink when you washed your where it could no longer cope. It is therefore hardly dishes. The smell covered you when you were in the surprising that the Prime Minister's recent environ­ shower. mental statement, launched at the beginning of sum­ The Murray water, pumped straight from the river, mer, chose the Murray-Darling as its focus. This great was poisoned by an overgrowth of blue-green algae. river system, 2500 kilometres in length and with a Outbreaks of the algae are nothing new; they have catchment covering an area equivalent to that of France happened every hot summer for some years. Blue-green and Spain combined, is a ready-made symbol algae grow in still, warm water with high nutrient lev­ for politicians wishing to appear visionary. els. The Murray, once an unreliable and faster-moving beast, has been tamed and slowed by locks and weirs so K EATING's STATEMENT was instantly criticised by as to provide a reliable source of irrigation water. Irri­ environmentalists, prompting the Prime Minister to gation run off, fertilisers, cattle droppings and human coin a new term. The conservation groups, he said, did sewage draining to the river have enormously increased not care about 'brown' issues-the hard and unappeal­ nutrient levels. ing questions of land management. Rather, they were But last summer low rainfall and hot weather took concerned only with trees and cuddly animals. His at­ the system to crisis. The growth was so bad that in places tack was unfair. The environmental statement, meant the Murray and Darling rivers and their tributaries were to convince doubters that Labor still has a serious con­ Sludge drudge: fohn Davis, of Myandetta bright green. For those who lived along the river, it servation agenda, tied together a lot of things. Some of Station, paddles wasn't just a matter of aesthetics. The algae are poi­ them were new, all of them were good in their own way. through blue-green sonous, not only to those who drink the water, but on None of them was particularly visionary, brave or algae in the Darling skin contact. Stock could not drink the water. Where difficult. River north-west of the outbreak was severe townspeople could not wash There was, for example, more money for the con­ Bourke, NSW. Photo: in it. At the time of writing, there has not yet been a trol of feral animals and weeds; a proposal that the Courtesy of The Age. major algal outbreak this summer, but this is probably International Whaling Commission should set aside a

12 EUREKA STREET • MARC H 1993

sanctuary for whales in the southern ocean (a move high money will probably be sufficient to fund about 15 in public-relations value, but which doesn't actually cost projects per year over the life of the project, with these anything); and goals for the use of recycled paper in being put forward by local communities-landholders, Commonwealth offices. school children and businesses. The big-ticket item concerned improvements to So what should be done? It goes without saying that sewage handling in the 10 towns and cities responsible there are no easy answers. Talking about dependence for 90 per cent of the nutrients in the Darling River. on the river is not just a turn of phrase. The Murray­ They are Toowoomba, Orange, Bathurst, Tamworth, Darling river basin produces a quarter of Australia's Dubbo, Gunnedah, Moree, Inverell, Narrabri and Dal­ cattle and dairy produce, half of our sheep, lambs and by. The big money in the Prime Minister's statement­ crops and about 40 per cent of all exports. If the present $46 million-will go to improving these sewerage damage continues, a large part of the Australian way of facilities and improving waste water management in the life will be threatened, and the impact will be felt by smaller communities along the river system. city and country dwellers alike. We depend on the Nobody argued. Governments, farmers and con- Murray-Darling basin, and we are causing its demise. servationists alike have argued for years that this work At the other end of the spectrum from the Prime should be done. But until the blue-green Minister's statement is the Australian Conservation algae outbreak, no one was prepared to Foundation. Its new president, Tricia Caswell, suggests put up the money. In his speech launch- that rather than talk prettily about regeneration, the If the present ing the statement, the Prime Minister nation should set a target to declare a moratorium on described it as: 'One of the great under­ further damage to the Murray-Darling river system damage continues, takings of the second half of our centu­ within five years. The Prime Minister's statement, she a large part of the ry.' Yet those whose votes have been says, focuses on 'engineering solutions', such as the swayed in the past on issues such as rain­ sewerage initiatives, rather than tackling the hard Australian way forest conservation might have found it questions about land use and sustainability. hard to get excited about dealing with 'If we seriously said we wanted to stop causing of life will be country-town shit, so the selling point damage,' Caswell says, 'then what would that mean? was something far more attractive­ Five years is a considerable period of time, and would threatened, and the sounding-a project to create a corridor really focus attention on what it is we are doing to the of trees along the banks of the Murray. river. The answers we would be forced to come up with impact will be felt It sounded visionary-exactly the would show how tokenistic these present efforts are.' sort of thing needed to fire the nation's The implications of such a moratorium are hard to by city and country imagination. Predictably, the corridor-of­ overstate. Just about every economic activity within the green proposal got most of the media basin causes damage. Irrigation, for example, is the dwellers alike. coverage, and doubtless the idea of trees backbone of a large part of the nation's economy. It is being planted along the Murray cheered also a major cause of damage. Caswell says: 'We have to We depend on the many city dwellers. But as a serious at­ look really hard at land use. It may well be that some of tempt to get to grips with the damage the lands simply shouldn't be farmed, and will Murray-Darling being done to the river, the corridor-of - have to be retired.' basin, and we are green proposal is worse than a token. It creates a false impression of action, while N EAR K ERANG, in Victoria, large areas of land are the real problems escalate. already 'retired', for the simple reason that they are so causing its demise. Far from conjuring up a grand reaf­ saline that nothing will grow. The bureaucrats do not forestation project, the government is admit in plain terms that these lands are unfarmable. providing a mere $3.1 million over four They talk about them being suitable for 'salt-tolerant years. The money will be distributed through Greening agriculture'. The scientists at the CSIRO and state agri­ Australia, the indisputably worthy conservation group culture departments are still working on what that might that never annoys anybody. Greening Australia has no mean, with research concentrating on breeding salt­ illusions about the small amount it will be able to tolerant grasses that can be used for cattle fodder. achieve. It will aim to set up 'demonstration corridors'. But although it is easy to talk about 'retiring' land The organisation's documentation admits: 'Clearly and changing land use, for the communities along the there are not sufficient funds within this allocation to river and the landowners whose way of life depends on enable the whole 2500 kilometres of the Murray corri­ farming, it can be an impossibly hard option. Such ad­ dor to have corridors of green developed across the basin.' justment, even over 30 years, would be traumatic to the Rather lamely, it continues: 'For this reason, projects local communities and the national economy. will be chosen for the demonstration potential, and There are some middle paths, but even these im­ Greening Australia will advocate for further funds from ply enormous economic adjustment. For example, both government and private sponsors .. . to extend the throughout Victoria and New South Wales, dairy cattle corridor-of-green concept.' In fact, Greening Australia's are reared on irrigated pasture that is suffering from sa­ public affairs manager, Ms Helen Anderson, says the linity as water tables rise. In the past dairy cattle thrived

14 EUREKA STREET • MARcH 1993 in areas like Gippsland, where the rainfall is high enough Genies grant wishes, to sustain them, but in the past few decades high-rainfall areas have been progressively given over to beef cattle, although they don't need such lush vegetation to survive. That process could be reversed, leading to less use of I N~ sTIRru~~~ ~~ Se~s~~.~sociobiolo~t irrigated pasture. Richard Dawkins impishly suggests that human beings As well, scientists with state agriculture depart­ are nothing more than devices whereby the genes in ments and the Murray-Darling Basin Commission are our DNA can preserve their existence: 'We are,' he conducting research into growing commercial wood writes, 'robot-vehicles blindly programed to preserve the lots, using the water that drains off orchards. In this selfish molecules known as genes ... Living organisms way the orchards will gain from the pumping effect of exist for the benefit of DNA.' For Dawkins, the gene the trees, and the block-owner's income will be diver­ has an extraordinary power and he gives it a quasi-divine sified. Victorian Department of Agriculture researchers status: the gene ' does not grow senile; it is no more likely at Mildura predict that within 30 years the flat green of to die when it is a million years old than when it is only the citrus orchards and vineyards will be interspersed a hundred. It leaps from body to body down the genera­ with native wood lots. tions, manipulating body after body in its own way and Fruit growers and dairy farmers could, theoretical­ for its own ends, abandoning a succession of mortal ly, become foresters. Our region is heading for a wood­ bodies before they sink in senility and death. The genes fibre shortage into the next century, so timber will are the immortals.' become a high-income earner. And, as well as making To be fair to Dawkins, he later admits that genes money, trees can benefit the soil. They act as solar are not really immortal. One might add that genes are powered pumps, lowering the water table and combat­ not even alive, since they are not living organisms and ing salinity. hence neither live nor die. Human beings, arguably, are But the problem is that it takes 10 years for a tree able to make choices as to whether or nor their genes to grow to the point at which it will earn the farmer an are passed on to the next generation. Biology may income, and in the present economic climate there is influence this choice, perhaps, but the genes cannot no way Australia could either give up the export income choose. from fruit growing, or support the farmers while we In an article in the British journal Philosophy, waited for the trees to grow. As one dairy farmer put it philosopher David Stove has questioned Dawkins' to me: 'Show me a way to live in the meantime, and I'd Darwinian views, arguing that sociobiology is a false plant trees. You don't have to get out to milk trees twice religion. According to Christian belief, says Stove, a day. ' 'human beings and all other created things exist for the In fact, even small changes in land use are almost glory of God; according to sociobiology, human beings impossible to achieve, and at present, in spite of the and all other living things exist for the benefit of their rhetoric and in spite of the blue-green algal threat, there genes.' The belief that genes are the most intelligent is little hope that governments will be able to summon and capable things on earth is very difficult to defend, up the necessary political will. as Stove argues through several examples. It is clear that In his environmental statement, Paul Keating called human beings 'are the most intelligent and capable the Murray-Darling a 'real and symbolic artery'. The things on earth.' Genes are 'not even starters ... in the metaphor is a cliche when applied to rivers, yet it is intelligence-capability stakes.' right for the Murray. It is our lifeline and our drain, a Stove acknowledges that all great religious beliefs great vessel, with capillaries of pipes running to and from are incomprehensible at various points, but that such it, carrying water to our gardens, our crops and our cit­ incomprehensibility does not necessarily make them ies, and discharging our wastes so they can be carried untrue. He concludes, however, that though the beliefs sluggishly out of the interior to the sea. of the sociobiologists are not incomprehensible, 'it is Although sentiment is growing, the bonds that tie one of the religions which are obviously false.' most Australians to the inland are still mainly economic. If the sociobiologists were right, and if genes were Halting the damage to the Murray-Darling basin is es­ the most intelligent and capable things on earth, then, sential to our financial survival; yet it may be that it is says Stove, 'it will be an immense historical irony. impossible to stop the damage without also causing Religion, which was driven out of biology by 19th cen­ critical economic damage. The Murray-Darling is the tury Darwinism, will have been put back by- of all symbol of the conundrums Europeans created when they people-the extremists of neo-Darwinism.' firs t moved from the coast to settle the inland, and a What would Archimedes make of this conversation symbol of Australia's fragile sense of nationhood. between the biologist and the philosopher? If genes try Clinging to the fringes of the continent, we still act like to keep genes alive, what is it that human beings try to foreigners. We are not yet at home in the interior. • keep alive? Does this debate indicate that one of the treasures that we humans try to keep alive is the idea of Margaret Simons is a regular contributor to Eureka what is absolutely true and good, therefore .. . • Street. -John Honner SJ

V OLUME 3 NUMBER 2 • EUREKA STREET 15 THE NATION

GREG O'KELLY

Switching

H o" " mec•uT C

16 EUREKA STREET • MARCH 1993 Photo: Andrew Stark

least likely to be victims. This is the opposite of the real world where, after young black males, young white males are the most likely section of the US population to be injured or killed in incidents of violence. The me­ dium is preoccupied with crime. Among the week's 300 characters are 23 criminals, and crime is at least 10 times more frequent on the screen than in life. Nor are chil­ dren spared: during their weekend daytime programs, the 'kid-vid ghetto' as advertisers call it, there are 18 violent acts an hour. A curious side effect of screen violence is the role of medicine. Screen violence rarely causes pain or suf­ fering and rarely seems to need medical attention. On the average, only 6-7 per cent of major characters require treat- ment. Nevertheless, doctors are almost beyond reproach: fewer A Year 10 student said than four per cent are shown as evil, which is half the percentage to me that in talking of practitioners of other profes­ sions that television depicts as about the media we villains. Doctors are also char­ should speak as though acterised as fairer and more so­ ciable than other characters, and we were talking about a as more intelligent, more ra­ tional, and more stable than the friend. Young people (usually female) nurses. The exposure to media messages will be about 20,000 hours. MD, says Gerbner, 'symbolises regard radio and This represents almost double the amount of time they power, authority and knowledge spend at school.' and possesses an almost uncan­ television as friends, he Professor George Gerbner, for 20 years a commen­ ny ability to dominate and con­ tator on the role of the media, and especially television, trol the lives of others.' If this said, because they are sees the consumer society as a product of television. helps to explain the demigod Gerbner's focus is on the US, but since North American status of physicians, the daytime there as company; they television heavily influences programming in the rest soap operas must contribute to of the world, his findings are probably applicable to most what strikes many foreigners as amuse you, help you industrialised countries. The world on the small screen, rampant American hypochon­ Gerbner contends, is far from the 'real' world. The aver­ dria. Almost half of all soap-op­ avoid being bored, give age viewer sees 300 screen characters a week in prime era characters are involved in time. They are portrayed with apparent realism, but bear dramatic occurrences related to you good ideas about little relation to their real-life counterparts or to the health. people and things. viewer's actual world. In a typical week, a viewer will But the media is not just the see 30 police officers, seven lawyers, three judges, 12 television, of course, it is music nurses and 10 doctors, but only one engineer or scien­ and magazines and books and tist. Service or manual workers comprise 10 per cent of newspapers. Australians are still among the most avid the screen population, but are 65 per cent of the real readers in the world, when one considers the number of world. Men outnumber women on television three to magazines and books sold per head of population. On one. On television the popular male age range is from the same measure, Australians read more magazines 25 to 55, but for women it is 25 to 35. People under than the members of any other western society. At the 18 are a third, and those over 65 a fifth, of school of which I am headmaster, of two Year 10 media ""'\ J their actual presence in the US population. studies classes totalling 60 boys, 58 have read Penthouse, 56 Playboy, 46 Dolly, 30 Cleo, and 24 Cosmopolitan. v IOLENCE IS SEEN Six times an hour in prime time, of The 'male' magazines such as Penthouse were seen which two incidents per evening are fatalities (so that occasionally, and presumably furtively, but Dolly and in 10 years a heavy television viewer will have seen Cleo were looked at much more frequently. The boys about 7000 screen deaths). Women and old people, al­ claim that their sisters up to about 16 are all readers of though actually under-represented in comparison with Dolly, after which they move to Cleo and Cosmopoli­ the real world, are disproportionately the victims. Young tan. The boys tend to skim-read these magazines, but white males occur most often in violent scenes, but are say they like to read about what interests girls, and that

V o LUME 3 NuMBER 2 • EUREKA STREET 17 their sisters buy the magazines in order to learn about are far more successful in committing suicide than fe­ fashion, make-up, jewellery, for advice on sexual prob­ males. lems, on diet and weight, for interviews with famous The other phenomenon is the disintegration of what people, and to alleviate boredom. had been the ordinary pattern of relationships. Fifteen Hugh Mackay and others speak of the 'death' of years ago, 90 per cent of marriages were first marriages; the old Australia. A number of factors have caused this, now it is 60 per cent-an enormous change in the social such as the changing role of women, the fact that parents fabric. If this rate continues, those who have only been are simply not around their children as much as they married to one partner will be a minority by the tum of used to be, so that the clarification of values comes from the century. Most Australians will either have been other sources, and concerns about security that have married several times, or not married at all. Loneliness been raised by the impact of the recession. Mackay is an increasing problem for the Australian society in claims that three important sources of se­ which our young people are growing up. The Australian curity frequently come up in discussion household is becoming smaller and less stable, and 50 with young people-the peer group, the per cent of Australian households now contain only one The image makers family, and the brand name. The use of tried or two people. In Sydney, every third household con­ and familiar brands, such as Coca-Cola, is tains just one adult. are not reassuring; no age is wrong for Coke. Ree­ All of this is reflected in the images of Australian boks and Doc Martens are the unrivalled society presented by the media, and perhaps nowhere puppetmasters­ shoes, and Sportsgirl, Country Road and more so than in advertising. The slogans with which Esprit are the strong fashion labels. Myers advertisers tout their products are as varied as the kinds especially if young and Grace Bros are neutral but Target and of social experience described in the previous paragraph: K-Mart brands must be removed, because they range from affectations of altruism, such as 'you people have been it is humiliating if friends see one wearing can rely on us', through affirmations of personal worth clothes with these labels. to the simply selfish-'the most important person in given an opportunity For the youth of the '80s, Mackay says, the world is you', 'treat yourself'. For young girls, espe­ the two great fears were annihilation, and cially, the images favoured by advertisers set harsh to think critically boredom. There was a real fear of World War standards. The average weight of models featured in the about advertising III, but that has clearly receded. There re- media is about 25 per cent lighter than the average mains the constant threat of boredom, the weight of women of comparable age in the wider popu­ and media images. great enemy of fun. Today's Australians in lation-a gap that has increased since the 1940s. the mid-teens sometimes feel despair about But the image makers are not puppetmasters­ I have found, talking employment, or loneliness or inability to especially if young people have been given an opportu­ make friends, and this emphasises a feeling nity to think critically about advertising and media to students in our that the present is everything. What is never images. I have found, talking to students in our media boring is being with your friends, and radi­ studies course, that concepts such as manipulation and media studies course, os and tapes are precious companions. If a consumer fantasy, and the amoral nature of much that teenager is isolated from his or her group, is presented, are clear to them. We need to allow our that concepts such as the radio or the tapes create an emotional children to have the truth that will set them free, and link to the experience of the group. For many that means not trying to shut out the world-a media­ manipulation and young people, television is a last resort, saturated world. granted that the other activities are not The television soap opera is a good example of a consumer fantasy are available. The videotape is important, part­ formative instrument in the lives of young people-and ly as a welcome excuse for going to a friend's young people watch them in great numbers. In the clear to them. place. typical soapie, a massive human issue is opened up be­ There are two phenomena in modem fore the first advertising break, elaborated in the next Australian society that put teenagers into two segments, and resolved in the last seven minutes. some disarray, and the media must partly define the way The issue might be abortion, alcoholism and one's par­ in which they come to terms with these phenomena. ents, running away from home, sexual relationships, There is a perception that society is much more violent AIDS, divorce, or coming to terms with a homosexual than it used to be. Whether this is in fact so is debatable, inclination. Soap operas are the morality plays of our but what is true is that there are now five times as many time, and they are far more influential than our sermons. arrests and convictions for battery as there were 20 years Where do young people hear such issues being dealt with ago, and the population has not increased fivefold in in a way that attracts and engrosses them as it does the past 20 years. Reflecting this, perhaps, we have through the soapie? Not in the pulpit, and usually not reached a point at which Australia has the second highest in the classroom. But in the classroom they can learn suicide rate among young men in the world, measured something about how to watch a soapie. • on a per capita basis. (Bangladesh has the highest rate.) Suicide is the biggest cause of death among males under Greg O'Kelly SJ is the headmaster of Saint Ignatius Col­ 35 (for those under 25 it is the motor vehicle), and males lege, Riverview, NSW.

18 EUREKA STREET • M ARCH 1993 THE CHURCH

THOMAS H. STAHEL

An insider looking out

ANAusTRAliAN -rnAN md publishemamed Frank Sheed once wrote of a famous bishop named Augustine, trying to explain what made him unforget­ table: 'To begin with, there is his personality. Reading his Confessions, you realise that you have never met a man even faintly like him. He joins the church at the age of 33; 12 years later he writes the Confessions. By now he is a bishop, and he writes of himself with an unaffected candour that would be startling in a bartender.' Australians will soon be able to judge for themselves self when he observed with characteristic frankness that whether they have ever met a bartender even faintly his career, once so remarkable, had come to a standstill: like Archbishop Rembert Weakland, of Milwaukee, 'Yes, I'm sure that they are thinking up ways to keep Wisconsin, USA. He will be the keynote speaker at the me in line, to criticise me, to isolate me .. . so my career National Liturgical Music Convention in Melbourne is over. I will die the Archbishop of Milwaukee. Noth­ next month. In at least two particulars, what Sheed ing wrong with that at all. But to get worked up over noticed about St Augustine holds true of Weakland: his something like Fribourg, to feel bad about it? To look career in the church has been remarkable, and he speaks over my shoulder and wonder if Rome will be pleased with a candour that is disarming. As if that weren't with what I say?' sufficient, he also plays the piano quite well enough to In other words-and here's what makes the right have been a concert artist. nervous-the archbishop is not unwilling to speak and The candour that some find disarming, others find act according to his own lights, even if those lights do alarming. In neither the US nor in Australia, therefore, not correspond exactly with official Roman preferenc­ is the welcome extended to Archbishop Weakland es. For example, the observations quoted above about unalloyed. In January the Archbishop of Melbourne, Fribourg and his career are typical. They are only one Frank Little, had to disown a spurious letter over his sampling from a whole array of candid statements he forged signature, on letterhead stolen from the cathe­ made to Paul Wilkes, who in 1990 conducted extensive dral office, advising Archbishop Weakland not to come interviews with Weakland and then wrote a two-part to Melbourne. In denouncing this fakery, Archbishop series about him for Th e New Yorker. Little said that the quality of other letters being sent to The archbishop was denied the Fribourg doctorate, him as part of the anti-Weakland campaign had reached in the first place, because he had held six 'listening ses­ an all-time low. Fax machines are humming on the sions' with women in his archdiocese, on such ques­ ecclesiastical right. tions as abortion and contraception, whose ostensible Why? For the same reason that Rome blocked an purpose was to let women express their views. He has honorary degree which the theology faculty of the defended such sessions by saying that a good teacher, if University of Fribourg, Switzerland, had proposed con­ he senses his teaching is not effective, will'step back, ferring on Archbishop Weakland in 1990-the same listen and ask some questions'. Rome was not pleased­ reason inadvertently revealed by the archbishop him- presumably at the suggestion that the official teaching

V o LUME 3 NUMBER 2 • EUREKA STREET 19 might be ineffective, or that that should make any dif­ lates that of Oscar Romero, who in fact is one of Weak­ ference. land's heroes. Where do Rembert George Weakland and his The things that have gained him most criticism­ independent mind come from? Born in 1927, George such as the 'listening sessions' on abortion for the Weakland grew up poor in a large family in the coal­ women of Milwaukee-would not be regarded as radi­ mining region of western Pennsylvania. His mother was cal except in the hothouse atmosphere of church cir­ widowed when George was six. As a student, he was cles. The words he has spoken that have been thought the local phenomenon who read constantly, memorised radical fall into the category, even among church people, long poems and taught himself to play the piano on his of what-everybody-thinks-but-nobody-says. If the list of mother's old upright. By the time he was 12, he had such utterances seems long, that is because there are become the local church organist. At 13 he entered the lots of things about which most people in the church preparatory school associated with St Vincent's Abbey keep quiet these days. in Latrobe, Pennsylvania, the nation's oldest Benedic­ For instance, in the interview that Weakland gave tine monastery. He received Rembert as his monastic to Paul Wilkes he said of the 1987 Synod of Bishops, name, and the order sent him for studies to Rome, where which focused on the laity and at which he spoke up for he was ordained at the age of 24. incorporating women more fully into church life, that After further studies at the Juilliard School of Mus.ic 'he would never go through such a charade again'. By and Columbia University in Manhattan, which he meant that the official'result' of the synod, Rembert returned to Latrobe to teach music the Pope's statement, could just as well have been in the abbey school. He was elected abbot at confected before the hundreds of synod documents and I spent 13 years the age of 36, and in 1967, at the age of 40, he discussions that ended up counting for nothing. About was elected abbot primate of the worldwide the Vatican bureaucracy that produces such results in Rome; the Benedictine federation. This office took him Weakland says: 'I spent 13 years in Rome; the Vatican back to Rome, where he was noticed by Paul is demythologised for me. It is not the repository of truth Vatican is VI, who appointed him Archbishop of Mil- and right thinking that some make it out to be-not at waukee in 1977. At the time,it was thought all.' demythologised that he would go even higher. On a more personal note, but also speaking for oth­ If one were looking for the source of ers whose experience might be the same, Weakland aired for me. It is not Weakland's independence as a churchman, for Wilkes some of his views on celibacy: 'Men who the repository of his Benedictine roots would certainly be part leave the priesthood because of loneliness are not weak. of the explanation. Unlike most other bish- They are simply good men who have fallen in love with truth and right ops, he has a 'family' within the church other good women. If we are alive, we are continually falling than that cold home afforded by ecclesiasti­ in love. You asked me once if I had ever fallen in love. thinking that cal politics. One gets a sense of this rootedness Yes-at 12, and most recently at 64. I'm falling in love in his remarks to Tom Reese SJ, the author all the time.' That's not the sort of frank admission one some make it out of Archbishop, a study of the archdioceses of associates with non-Renaissance prelates. To be fair, it the US and how they are governed: 'I am should also be noted that Weakland went on to say that to be-not at all. finding that more and more bishops are iso­ celibate priests had to be on their guard lest their lated. We religious had our own support emotions run away with them, and that so - REMBERT WEAKLAND OSB, groups and we had superiors who were in­ far he had done 'pretty well' in that depart- ARCHlllSHOP OF M ILWAUKEE terested in us. I find that more and more ment. bishops somehow don't get any support groups and they get isolated. They come to sINCE THE WILKES INTERVIEWS, Archbishop Weakland the bishops' m eetings, they smile and greet people, and has gathered his more systematic writings into a collec­ they go home, and no one seems to worry about who tion published last year by Orbis Books as Faith and the ministers to the bishops.' Human Enterprise: A Post-Vatican II Vision. That title If one were looking for the source of his independ­ captures the thesis that Weakland announces in the first ence just as a man, one could point to his piled-up aca­ essay in the collection, based on a conference given in demic honours, his Horatio Alger career, his fluency in December 1988: 'Many [post-Vatican II priests] feel that six languages with all that that implies about his they gave their lives to relearning their theology so they humaneness, expansiveness and adaptability, his profi­ could pastorally implement the desires of the council. ciency in music. Is there anything at which he has not Now they wonder if it may have been in vain, that the succeeded-with the possible exception of pleasing John council is being lost, or that we are returning to precon­ Paul Jll His fellow Benedictine, Sebastian Moore, com­ ciliar days in thought and attitudes. This is a serious mented to Paul Wilkes that, as a newly ordained monk, danger, and perhaps the only important one ... I do not Rembert had seemed a bit arrogant in the way of young know how I could have survived the past two decades people who know that they are talented but had also without the documents of Vatican Council II .'All seemed to be something of a goody-goody. If that is so, depends, he insists, on how those documents are inter­ then his trajectory to the status of 'radical bishop' emu- preted.

20 EUREKA STREET • M ARCH 1993 An exchange late last year with the Archbishop of New York, John Cardinal O'Connor, -an encounter that Are you Directed by Dr John Shea OSA, with staff: postdates Weakland's book- illustrates this point looking for Pastoral Counseling: Theories exactly. On 6 December, in the wake of a meeting in Pastoral Counseling: Skills which the US bishops scrapped their nine-year effort to BASIC SKILLS Pastoral Counseling Practicum write a pastoral letter on women, the New York Times Special Iss ues in Pastoral Counseling published on its op-ed page an essay by Weakland, which m argued that the Catholic Church should keep open the PASTORAL Directed by Dr Janet Ruffing RSM, question of women's ordination and, in the meantime, with staff: open up to women the positions of power now reserved COUNSELING Spiritual Direction: Theology and Practi ce for cardinals, archbishops and monsignori. The Times and Pastoral Counseling: Skills gave this piece the jaunty title, 'Out of the Kitchen, into Spiritual Direction Practicum the Vatican'. Even though the Times, through elec­ SPIRITUAL History of Spirituality tronic printing, has in effect become a national newspa­ DIRECTION? per, Cardinal O'Connor felt that a challenge had been Th ese two sequences, which can be laid down on his own turf and he responded in a long combined in the academic year, are inte­ essay published in his diocesan newspaper. It was a fair­ Graduate School of grated in a total curriculum with a distin­ minded and temperate expression of disagreement, and guished faculty in theological, biblical, that's what makes it useful for demonstrating a differ­ Religion & Religious liturgical, and pastoral studies as well as ence in theological outlook. in spirituality, psychology, youth and Education At one summary point the cardinal writes: 'Arch­ family ministry, and religious education. bishop Weakland tends by temperament, it seems to offers flexible me, to be optimistic about the possibility of cultural Assistantships & Scholarships: harmony between the church and the world. By tem­ concentrations in partial & full perament, on the contrary, I tend towards believing that spiritual direction we are in for years and years of confrontation.' It makes GRADUATE SCHOOL OF no difference to the cardinal that certain people in the and pastoral RELIGION & RELIGIOUS church think an accommodation to modem ideas of counseling in MA, EDUCATION participation and liberation requires the ordination of Fordham University women-if, in fact, that is not according to the mind of MS or APD (post Bronx, Christ, as he thinks it is not. Master's) programs. NY 10458-5 163, USA In a 31 December rejoinder in his own diocesan Tel. (2 12) 579-2537 paper, Archbishop Weakland said politely that the cardinal had, in so many words, hit the nail on the head. He recalled H. Richard Niebuhr's book Christ and Culture, with its chapters 'Christ Against Culture' and 01 10 'Christ the Transformer of Culture', saying that Cardi­ ~ Beginning Fall1993* ~ nal O'Connor would be at home in the former chapter THE DOCTOR OF and he in the latter. He also said he well understood the cardinal's tendency to 'circle the wagons', because he MINISTRY IN PREACIDNG himself had recently had trouble with the press in Milwaukee. • The first Catholic doctoral-level preaching program This figure of the 'circled wagons', companionably rooted in the ancient Dominican preaching charism. used by Weakland to show that he, too, feels beset by • Designed to form 'master preachers' able to preach and the media and other hostile forces of the world, can also promote preaching in a variety of pastoral illustrate the difference between him and men like the and educational settings. Cardinal Archbishop of New York or Pope John Paul. It • Requirements include 24 hours of study in is easy to deduce from what Archbishop Weakland has communication theory, history, theology, and skills of said and done that, were he the wagon master, the defensive circle would not be so tight. This strategy, preaching plus integrative project. even if it allows an occasional member of the wagon • M.Div. or equivalent, 3 years ministry experience and train to stray outside into the hands of the enemy, also demonstrated preaching ability required for admission. makes it easier for an occasional encircling enemy to * SUBJECT TO APPROVAL BY ACCREDITING AGENCY join the friendly forces inside. And after all, the tighter the circle, the fewer the people who can fit within it . AQUINAS INSTITUTE OF THEOLOGY • Theology and Ministry in the Dominican Tradition 3642 Lindell Boulevard • St Louis, Missouri 6318 Thomas H. Stahel SJ is the executive editor of America (314) 658 3869 • Fax (314) 652 0935 magazine. '--~ rfr 01 10

V OLUME 3 NUMBER 2 • EUREKA STREET 21 Three years h~'td

Concluding his history of the Cambodian boat people in Australia, Andrew Hamilton argues that their imprisonment has harmed the Australian community as well as ~h e Cambodians them selves.

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That evening, guarded by three soldiers in the coach to which I had been taken in such comfort, I had lost everything, even despair. There is a moment of truth when you are overcome by sheer astonishment: 'So that's where I'm living, and the sort of people I'm living with! So this is what they're capable of! So this is the world I live in!' We are so stupefied that we even lose the power to scream. It was this sort of stupefaction, with the consequent loss of all criteria, standards and values, that came over people when they first landed in prison and suddenly realized the nature of the world they lived in and what the new era really meant. -NADEZHDA MANDELSTAM, 'HOPE AGAINST HOPE', LONDON, 1989, P43.

W ETHER THE TREATMENT meted out to the Cam- had no access to legal advice, they were twice uprooted bodian boat people in the past three years is seen from in the most abrupt circumstances, and they have been their point of view or from that of the Australian com- cut off from the support offered by other Cambodians munity, it is a lamentable story. in Australia. They even saw the law changed to deprive From their own perspective, these were people who them of relief through the courts. had found their lives in their own country so intolera- From the perspective of tl1e Australian communi- hie as to risk a dangerous boat trip to get here. They ty, the events are equally disturbing. It seems that in arrived vulnerable and disoriented, and since then they Australia people can be imprisoned for three years have been imprisoned for three years. For a year they without access to the courts, that promises of confiden-

22 EUREKA STREET • MARCH 1993 tiality can be broken and that important decisions, Until the changes to the Migration Act in such as the rejection of refugee status, may not be November 1992, Australia's refugee assessment proce­ communicated to them. People can be transferred dure relied on time-consuming written submissions: the from place to place in ways that can only be de­ applicant's formal request for refugee status, the de­ scribed as psychologically brutal, with documents partmental officer's comments on the case, the initial relevant to their cases lost and agreements made judgment, the applicant's response, the delegate's judg­ in courts not honoured, and with the government ment, the appeal and so on. As well as being inefficient, unable even to defend before the courts the man­ this reliance on written submissions compromised the ner of their rejection. fairness of the process. The review committee had little When it seems that people who have been chance of judging an applicant's credibility by personal treated in this way may gain their freedom, legis­ interview, and had to rely heavily on the accuracy and lation supported by both parties can nullify the completeness of the written submissions. These in tum effects of any access to the courts they may enjoy. depended heavily on the sensitivity and accuracy of When the High Court declares that for almost interviewers and interpreters, and upon the three years they have been unlawfully detained, availability of competent legal advice. legislation can restrict their right to receive ap­ propriate compensation. And all this can happen L DECIDE WHETHER this notably inefficient and not without public outrage. notably fair process for assessing refugee status was Why did it come to this? I believe that the further undermined by lawyers and by recourse to the history of the Cambodian asylum seekers reveals courts is a complex question that goes beyond the contradictions in Australia's immigration policy, Cambodian cases. First, because the need for lawyers, of which ultimately the Cambodians were victims. and such opportunities as they have had to delay refugee But before arguing for this claim I want to reject assessment, arose from the inefficiency and unfairness two simplistic reasons given for the sufferings of of the process itself. The complexity of the process, its the Cambodians: that they were simply victims reliance on written submissions, the fact that evidence of a callous and incompetent Immigration about refugee status was both collected and adjudicated Department, and that the Australian process for within the Immigration Department, and the require­ assessing claims to refugee status-allegedly the ment that rejected claimants should be able to comment fairest and most efficient in the world-has been on unfavourable inferences, all created a need for legal made unworkable by lawyers and by appeal to the advice and fostered an adversarial relationship between courts. lawyers and the department. When social injustices occur, it is tempting There have, of course, been faults: lack of experience to blame the bureaucrats. And undoubtedly the or misjudgment by individual lawyers, and the failure role played by senior advisers in the Immigration to work in a coordinated way. But even for these faults Department, and the attitudes of individual offic­ the responsibility largely lies with the government. ers, have affected the lives of the Cambodians. But Because legal aid to the asylum seekers was not funded government departments administer policy within until quite late in the story, it was inevitably left to a framework of legislation and regulation, and the generous and busy lawyers to give their services in their history of the Cambodian boat people shows a depart­ free time. Further, as the Cambodians were moved from ment struggling with an incoherent and unethical pol­ place to place they lost contact with their legal advisers icy embodied in complex regulations. and new relationships had to be established. The notion that Australian procedures for refugee If it is incorrect to blame the lawyers for subverting determination are the fairest and most efficient in the Australia's procedures for determining refugee status, world does not stand up to examination. By international it would be wicked to blame the courts. In matters of standards, Australia is only moderately fair. It is true refugee assessment the courts can only review whether that the RAAF does not strafe asylum seekers, as the the officers of the government have abided by their own Honduran planes once did those who fled from El laws and regulations. The evidence shows that access Salvador, and that the RAN does not push the boats to that kind of review is vital in decisions so damaging back, as the US Navy does the boats from Haiti. Nor are in their effects on the individual asylum seekers, but asylum seekers at the mercy of paramilitary forces, as that it has had no effect in subverting proper processes. was once the case in Thailand. In 1990-1991, for example, only 16 refugee cases But few nations imprison asylum seekers before were appealed in the Federal Court. Of these, one was deciding whether they are refugees, and those that do withdrawn, two were decided in favour of the Immigra­ detain them ensure that this detention is regularly re­ tion Minister and five in favour of the applicant, and viewable or strictly limited. Most governments, more­ the minister withdrew from five of the cases. Sixteen over, are able to defend before the courts their adherence cases in a year is hardly a threat to the efficient working to their own procedures. Australia deserves no medal of a refugee policy. On the contrary, the fact that the for best and fairest. government should have been unable to defend almost

V OLUME 3 NUMBER 2 • EUREKA STREET 23 a third of the cases, and should have lost another third, conflict at the time of their arrival in Australia. The would seem to argue for automatic court catalyst was the decision of the then Prime Minister, review of every negative decision. Bob Hawke, to offer continued residence in Australia, on humanitarian grounds, to Chinese students who feared returning to their country after the Tienanrnen D URJNG THE CAMBODIAN IMPRISONMENT in Australia, Square massacre. This offer, made during a recession the central goal of Australian policy has been to assert and when many people were advocating a smaller im­ control over entrants to Australia. This is done by en­ migration intake, led members of other ethnic commu­ suring that people who wish to enter and reside in Aus­ nities to seek similar concessions and aroused fears that tralia should apply offshore, and so arrive after proper the integrity of the Australian immigration policy was investigation and with proper documentation. The at risk. It is easy to imagine the dismay with which the greatest threat to this control has been seen to lie in decision must have been greeted within the Immigra­ undocumented persons arriving directly on our shores, tion Department. At all events, the Cambodians were particularly by boat. Stories of 'boat people' awaken fears the victims. Before their case was heard the Prime Min­ that hordes of people will arrive uninvited and burn their ister denied that most of them were refugees and assert­ boats on a vast and undefended coastline. ed that they would be deported. At the same time, A second goal of government policy has been government officials went to Cambodia to make ar­ instrumental to the first: to deter people from entering rangements for their eventual return. without documentation and from making their appli­ The determination to make an example of the cation for residence on Australian soil. The main form Cambodians raises many questions, the most obvious of deterrence used in the past was prompt and summa­ being whether the political judgment made on their case ry deportation. These two goals, control of entry and affected the fairness with which their claims for refugee effective deterrence, have been the core of Australian status were handled. The evidence suggests that there immigration policy. may have been no specific bias against the Cambodians, A third goal of government policy revealed in the but there are many indications of a general bias against story of the Cambodians has been that the government accepting the claims of onshore asylum seekers. should be seen to act in accordance with international In 1991-92 the proportion of onshore claimants standards of legality and humanity in the treatment of accepted in Australia as refugees, or granted residence asylum seekers, as expressed in the international cove­ on humanitarian grounds, was less than five per cent. nants to which Australia is signatory. The desire to be The proportion of those whose claim for refugee status seen to act properly is, of course, ambiguous. It can mean was accepted in Canada and New Zealand was more either the desire that the real quality of one's actions than 50 per cent, while in the Netherlands, Norway and appear, or that, whatever the reality of one's actions, Sweden, where only a small proportion was accorded they appear in a good light. Under pressure the desire refugee status, more than 40 per cent of applicants were for transparency is likely to be corrupted into the desire given residence on humanitarian grounds. for a favourable public image. Some indication of the appearance of a general bias A final goal of the Immigration Department has against onshore applicants can also be found in the been to treat asylum seekers fairly and humanely with­ practice by which the Immigration Minister's delegate, in the framework of these first three goals. in many cases, ruled against the applicant when the There is an inherent tension between the first two Refugee Status Review Committee was evenly divided goals and the last two goals of government policy, for in its recommendation. Previously the convention in control of entry into Australia and effective deterrence such split decisions had been that the benefit of the doubt demand that all people who arrive uninvited on Aus­ should be given to the applicant. Finally, the policy that tralian shores should be discouraged and, if possible, the minister will not exercise his discretion to give deported. All who arrive are seen as would-be immi­ residence on humanitarian grounds to 'prohibited non­ grants, for whom there should be quotas, queues and a entrants' is consistent with a general bias against the predictable order. If Australia is to be seen to adhere to claims of onshore applicants. international standards of fairness, however, it must An example of the appearance of this general bias abide by the provisions of the UN Convention on the can be seen in a quotation from a document of the US Status of Refugees, which it has signed. The conven­ State Department which the minister's delegate has used tion implicitly distinguishes between immigrants and more than once in order to substantiate the judgment refugees: onshore refugees are to be given protection and that those who have returned to Vietnam after leaving asylum, whether they come in their tens or their thou­ the country illegally faced no danger. The delegate quotes sands and whether they are expected or not. How they the document in these terms: arrive, and how their arrival affects Austral­ ia's immigration program, is irrelevant. 'Vietnamese who emigrate are general­ ly free to return. The Vietnamese gov­ ITWAS THE CAMBODLANS' MISFORTUNE that the inherent ernment regards overseas Vietnamese tension between these goals was transfonned into open both as a valuable source of foreign ex-

24 EUREKA STREET • M ARCH 1993 change and expertise ... Thus, the gov­ regarded as prisoners, subject in their movement from ernment generally granted visas to place to place to disciplines and indignities that seem overseas Vietnamese and encouraged more appropriate for criminals. them to visit Vietnam whether they The extent to which detention without relief be­ emigrated legally or had to be granted came the linchpin of the Australian immigration poli­ permanent resettlement after illegal cy was shown in the amendment of the Migration Act departure from Vietnam.' to ensure that even the courts could not secure the release of the Cambodians into the community. This In the original document the full text of the paragraph legislation was introduced during a court case, expressly reads: to ensure that the courts could not grant personal free­ 'Vietnamese who emigrate are generally dom to the litigants. It was thus illiberal, expressing the free to return. The Vietnamese govern­ pernicious view that within society law need do no more ment regards overseas Vietnamese both than reflect, on an ad hoc basis and with retrospective as a valuable source of foreign exchange effect, the arbitrary will of the legislator. The legislation and expertise and as a potential secu­ was also, in its effects at least, racially discriminatory. rity threat. Thus, the government gen­ This is an offensive claim but I make it on precise erally granted visas to overseas grounds, and I do not suggest that either the Immigration Vietnamese and encouraged them to Minister or members of his department are visit Vietnam whether they emigrated racist. legally or had to be granted permanent resettlement after illegal departure from T HERE CAN BE MANY GROUNDS for regarding practices, Vietnam. At the same time the public whether laws or policies, as racially discriminatory. They Security Police keep an eye on them, can be discriminatory in their form, as when under especially those who come under sus­ apartheid in South Africa blacks were specifically picion as a result of their actions and excluded from using facilities open to whites. Practices associations. During the year some that are not discriminatory in their form can be racially Overseas Vietnamese were arrested, discriminatory in their intention. Under the White detained and deported for activities Australia Policy, for example, the dictation test could deemed to be subversive as described have been administered to anybody, but was intended in section J.d. above.' for use to exclude non-white applicants. Practices can also be racially discriminatory in their effects. To In his citation, the delegate omits the parts of the origi­ institute a curfew in selected neighbourhoods, for ex­ nal (in my italics) that might tell in favour of the ample, could be discriminatory if members of one par­ applicant's claim, and the use of the text is ticular race lived in those precincts. And finally, because clearly tendentious. law is not simply a set of practices but commends and enshrines community beliefs, a law can be discrimina­ A LTHOUGH THE DETERMINATION of the Cambodian tory in the way it is brought about if it is commonly claims to refugee status reveals only the general bias understood to be directed against people of a particular against onshore asylum-seekers that is integral to Aus­ race. Thus, a law in a foreign land against singing tralian policy, it appears that the treatment that the Waltzing Matilda might be perceived by many to be Cambodians have received has certainly been affected discriminatory against Australians, even if it were not by this bias. It seems that the representatives of the meant to be so. Australian community have come to place less empha­ This legislation does not appear to be discrimina­ sis on humanity in their treatment of the Cambodians, tory in its form. The basis, however, for claiming that and adherence to the standards of humanity demanded the amending legislation to the Migration Act was ra­ by international conventions has come under increasing cially discriminatory lies in the fact that it caused dis­ pressure. advantage to a limited group of people, the vast majority This has been particularly true of their detention. of whom were Cambodian or Chinese. Thus, it is dis­ The integrity of Australian immigration policy has criminatory in its effects. The legislation is also, how­ become identified with the Cambodian detention under ever, discriminatory in its intention. For part of the increasingly harsh conditions. From places where they intention in passing it was to ensure that a clear signal lived in relatively relaxed conditions that allowed some would be sent to the countries of our region, which are contact with members of the local Cambodian com­ Asian or Polynesian. While it could be argued that it is munities, they were sent to Darwin, and then to Port a pure accident that the countries of our region happen Hedland. Their psychological welfare and the continu­ to be Asian, this argument is vitiated by the fact that no ity of their relationships with their legal advisers counted signal was intended to be sent to New Zealand, which for nothing compared to the security of their detention. is also a country of our region. The difference, of course, Moreover the circumstances of their movement, par­ is that New Zealanders, who in law are called exempt ticularly from Sydney, showed how they were now non-citizens, are seen as kin. And finally, the legisla-

VOLUME 3 NUMBER 2 • EUREKA STREET 25 tion was discriminatory in the way it was brought about. For there are always possible conflicts between claims. It was perceived and often praised in the Australian In the case of immigration policy there are potential community as the legislation against the Cambodians. conflicts between the claims of the Australian commu­ And by its institution the legislation has weakened nity, the asylum seekers and potential immigrants. The resistance to other forms of racial discrimination in resolution of these claims may lead the host community Australian society. to deny to strangers some of the conditions that their human dignity appears to demand. The difficult and challenging part of any ethical framework is to resolve these conflicts in a way that respects the conditions II under which all those affected can live with dignity, and to embody this resolution in public policy. Sir Humphrey Appleby: 'Minister, govern­ The Australian policy towards asylum seekers has ment isn't about morality.' lacked an adequate ethical basis, however, as becomes Hon. James Hacker: 'Really. Then what is it apparent when the justifications given for the detention about!' and deportation of the Cambodian asylum seekers are Sir Humphrey Appleby: 'It's about stability. examined. Its proponents justify these measures on the Keeping things going, preventing anarchy, basis of the compelling need to deter the flood of people stopping society falling to bits. Still being who would enter Australia were this firm signal not here tomorrow. ' given. For this claim to count as an ethical argument Hon. James Hacker: 'But what for~' and not as the mere assertion of expediency, its propo­ -'YEs MINisTER' BY JoNATHAN LYNN nents would need to show three things: that if not dis­ AND ANTONY JAY, BBC 1984, P. 454. couraged a flood of people really would wish to enter Australia; that those who have and will come as asylum seekers make no valid claim on Australia; and that de­ tention and deportation are ethically justifiable means L STORY on>IT CAMOOo>AN OOAT "oeuc is '"' object of deterrence. lesson in the development of public policy in areas where None of these propositions stands up to examina­ there are conflicting claims. In this case, a policy evolved tion. In the first place, there is no evidence that hordes and was administered without an adequate ethical basis, of people are waiting to rush into Australia. They did resulting not only in great suffering to the asylum seek­ not do so when Australia's borders were only thinly ers, but also in damage to the interests of the Australian defended, and they do not wish to do so now. The belief community that the policy was meant to defend. that Indonesians, for example, would rush to enter When I speak of an adequate ethical basis of a pol­ Australia if Australia relaxed its vigilance is as unlikely icy, I mean that the policy must effectively respect the as the belief that Australians would rush to settle in human dignity of all the people who will be affected by Indonesia; either belief becomes credible only to those it. It is notoriously difficult to find agreement who have an inflated and unconsidered belief in the on what is entailed in respect for human dig­ cultural superiority of their own country. The only nity, but it is not a vacuous notion. It cer­ plausible case for expecting an influx of asylum seekers, tainly has to do with human flourishing. If either into or out of Australia, would be if people were we ask, for example, what are the conditions fleeing from intolerable conditions. And in that case they for the human flourishing of a group of asy­ would make a compelling claim on their neighbours. lum seekers who have left their own lands Secondly, those who justify the Australian policy with a history of trauma, have faced the risk towards the Cambodians must show that present and of a dangerous journey, and have arrived at a future onshore asylum seekers make no valid claim on land whose language they do not speak and Australia for residence or for protection. But this claim where they have no resources, we would find is untenable. Those in great need do make a valid ethic­ reasonable unanimity in the answers. al claim on those in less need, both within a nation and These people need food and drink, shel­ across national boundaries. In the case of refugees, this ter, health care, education for their children, ethical perception is recognised in Australia's subscrip­ contact with people and institutions of their tion to the UN convention on refugees and also in the own culture, freedom of movement, freedom commitment to resettle refugees. from fear of return to the horrors from which Thirdly, those who argue that the Australian poli­ '' -T"' they have fled, and the opportunity to again cy is ethically based must show that it is proper on oth­ take responsibility for their lives. This is not a com­ er grounds to detain or deport particular groups of people. plete description of what is involved in human dignity, Ethically speaking, deterrence is proper only as a fringe but informs the understanding of it expressed in the UN benefit, in cases where the deterrent can be independ­ Declaration on Human Rights and other documents. ently justified. Jail, for example, may be an effective But the fact that a group of people makes a claim deterrent to crime but the jailing of offenders does not does not imply that the claim can always rightly be met. become ethically justifiable on that ground alone.

26 EUREKA STREET • MARCH 1993 A case for deportation can be made in some been affected more by the conditions from which people circumstances. The needs of the host community de­ flee than by the conditions in the nations where they mand some measure of control over the entry of people seek asylum. into the community, and this right would seem to en­ So the Australian policy towards tail the right to deport to their own countries people onshore asylum seekers is without any who have no valid claim on the nation to which they adequate moral base, because it has come. If deportation also deters others who also have failed to show the need or the legitima­ no valid claim, this kind of deterrence can be ethically cy of the human diminishment on justifiable. which it is based. Does this In Australia, however, one hesitates to make this lack of a sound ethical base kind of argument because here the definition of what matter? constitutes a valid claim is unduly restrictive, and the argument may be taken to legitimate quite unaccepta­ I BELIEVE THAT rr MATTERS a great deal, for ble conduct on the part of the government. The example it helps to form a culture that subverts of an Iranian Christian is sufficient warning. In 1985 he the good of the community that the pol­ claimed refugee status at an Australian airport, was icy is meant to serve. This process of denied access to the lawyer awaiting him on the other culture formation has been noted and side, was promptly returned from Australia to Hong described in a variety of ways. Early Kong and from there eventually to Iran, despite an or­ writers of the Christian Church devel­ der of the Federal Court requiring the Immigration oped its broad outlines in describing the Minister to have hin1 returned to Australia. The man is effects of sin. It has been studied histor­ believed to have been killed or jailed in Iran. ically in accounts of the prosecution of Detention is more difficult to justify, particularly witches and heretics, and more recently when it is extended over a long period. The value of in the racial policy of Hitler's Germany. human freedom is recognised in the international cove­ I shall draw from these examples to il­ nants to which Australia is a party, and when the UN lustrate stages in the process, although I High Commission for Refugees dealt with the deten­ do not wish to suggest that what has tion of asylum seekers it proposed that detention should happened in Australia is of the same de­ generally be avoided because of the hardship that it gree of malignity. brings. In Australia detention has been argued to be At the first stage, people identify the necessary because without it the legal fiction that 'pro­ good of the community with large and hibited non-entrants' had not entered Australia could abstract goals, and in their policy allow ,~~e not be maintained; because without it they would escape these values to override respect for the ~ into the community; and because if they were allowed human dignity of the victims of the ~~~ij!iiJiiiil to live in the community they would threaten the in­ policy. In Nazi Germany, for example, ~ tegrity of Australian immigration policy. the good of the community was identified with racial The argument that detention is necessary to sus­ purity, and those deemed to be of other races were treated tain the legal fiction that the Cambodians have not without respect. entered Australia seems, at least to the non-legally The next stage is that of blindness. Those who trained, to be cynical beyond belief. And the claim that administer the policy simply see its victims as objects asylum seekers will escape into the community unless of the policy and are blind to the human suffering which detained is also unreasonable. At most it would demand they cause. This culture of hardness is the product not that those whose claims have been finally rejected of the cruelty of evil people but of the lack of human should be detained before being deported. But it is un­ awareness of ordinary people. So, in Germany under reasonable to detain asylum seekers earlier, precisely Hitler, the administration of the concentration camps because they wish to gain from the Australian com­ was reduced to a question of logistics, and human beings munity something which they would risk losing if they to statistics or raw material. were to lose contact with government departments. The third stage is that of zeal. Those bound to­ They have no reason to disappear into the community. gether by this culture unite against the less committed The main argument used for detention, however, members of society who question the sacrifices made has been the claim that it is necessary to defend the for the goals. The uncommitted become the real ene­ integrity of Australian immigration policy. This claim my, the more dangerous for appearing ham1less. They appears to be based on the argument that detention is are the Pinks who defend the Reds, the Semi-Arians who necessary for the deterrence of other asylum seekers. support the Arians, the friends of Jews who shelter the This argument lack moral credibility. It cannot be Jews. said too strongly that it is simply unethical to make The final stage is that of the scorched earth. By now one group suffer unmeritedly in order to deter others. everything valuable in the society has been sacrificed Nor does detention seem to have been an effective de­ to uphold the policy. The welfare of the community is terrent in our region. The flow of asylum seekers has destroyed by the cost of the policy, and the unethical

V OLUM E 3 NUMBER 2 • EUREKA STREET 27 r

culture destroys its own rationale. It has been argued, applicants for refugee status woUld have received a more for example, that the human costs involved in the im­ favourable reception had they been assessed in other position of orthodoxies after the Reformation led nations. In Australia, the benefit of the doubt is not giv­ eventually to a widespread abandonment of en to the applicant. faith at the time of the Enlightenment. Other nations, too, would accept more readily the claims of particular groups within the Cambodian boat A LTHOUGH IT MUST BE LEFT tO those intimately aSSO­ people. Those of Vietnamese and Chinese origin have ciated with the administration of Australian immigra­ strong grounds to fear a return to Cambodia, for both tion policy to say whether this process has been reflected communities have been the target of threats there, and in their own practice, the story of the Cambodian boat some members of those communities have been killed. people certainly bears examination in this regard. That But in Australia such fears were not judged sufficient to story has shown that large, abstract goals, such as the justify the award of refugee status. So, a case can cer­ integrity of Australia's immigration policy, have come tainly be made that at least some of the Cambodians to prevail over respect for· the human dignity of the peo­ whose applications have been rejected are refugees in ple who are affected by the policy. This is how the most the sense defined by the UN convention. horrifying events, such as the way in which the Cam­ If they are not refugees in that sense, however, are bodians were transferred from Sydney to Darwin, were there other reasons that may justify granting them able to be defended as proper. residence in Australia? I would argue that the The later stages of the history, too, have revealed a Cambodians should be allowed to stay on zeal directed against those who questioned the policy. three grounds. They are regarded as bleeding hearts-unrealistic, irra­ tional and emotional. Their motives are called into EffiST, THE SITUATION IN CAMBODIA remains dangerous and question and they are even blamed for the sufferings of uncertain. The description presented to the Refugee the refugees themselves. By this stage it appears that Status Review Committee by the Department of For­ the rightness of the Australian government policy is eign Nfairs has been optimistic. This is understanda­ totally beyond question, and its deficiencies are due to ble, given Australia's support of the peace plan, but the subversion by others. Increasingly, the treatment of the continued intransigence of the Khmer Rouge, and the Cambodians is planned and executed in secrecy and increased fighting in many parts of Cambodia, make a isolation. much more pessimistic assessment increasingly Finally, as we stand close to the end of the Cambo­ plausible. dian story we are in a position to ask whether the in­ Secondly, the history of these peoples' sufferings terests of the Australian community have been served within Australia makes a valid claim on the Australian or betrayed by the way in which the Cambodians have community for special treatment. The claim that they been treated. Certainly, the costs to the community of now make is different from that which they made when sustaining a policy without an ethical base have been they arrived, for they have now been imprisoned in high. On a conservative estimate the direct cost of Australia for three years, their detention prolonged and detention has been $4 million, and there is made more harsh by the inattention and decisions of ~ no assessing the indirect costs. representatives of the Australian government. It can be argued that they are morally entitled to some compen­ .1. HE INTANGffiLE cosTs for a community of acquiesc­ sation, of which residence might be the appropriate form. ing in such treatment of its guests are incalculable. The Certainly, they are entitled to more than a dollar a day. introduction of legislation in the middle of a court case Thirdly, it is in the best interests of the Australian to nullify the possibility of an adverse decision is a community to give residence to the Cambodian boat precedent whose cynicism threatens the fragile respect people. The precarious Australian traditions of fair play, for law as a guarantee of human rights. It is hard to im­ of hospitality, of respect for law and of humanitarian agine that more harm to Australian public life would concern have all been weakened in this affair. To deport have been done if all the Cambodians had been granted the Cambodians will be to accept that what has hap­ residence immediately on landing. pened is reasonable. To grant them all residence is to At the time of writing, it seems that most of the reassert the importance of civilised standards of Cambodian boat people will be deported to Cambodia. behaviour in the application of public policy. • And if they are deported, it will be because their appli­ cations for refugee status have been denied-because representatives of the Australian government will have decided that the Cambodians have no well-founded fear of persecution when they return to their own country. Although those decisions will have been made Andrew Hamilton SJ teaches at the United Faculty of conscientiously, the general bias against accepting on­ Theology, Parkville, Victoria. He has worked with the shore claims to refugee status still leaves grounds for Jesuit Refugee Service since 1983 and has been chaplain questioning them. It can be argued strongly that some to the Cambodian community in Melbourne.

28 EUREKA STREET • MARcH 1993 OUR lOTH YEAR 1993 Summer Session June 21-July 9 (MIThF: 9:30am -Noon) Elizabeth Carr, Ph.D. - Scriptures and Spirituality Michael Joncas, S.L.D. -The Eucharist July 12-16: Maria Harris, Ph.D. John D. Pleins, Ph.D. - Psalms: Songs of Tragedy, Hope, Justice Jubilee Time: Rituals for Rebirth in the July 12-30 (MIThF: 9:30am -Noon) Second Half of Life Elizabeth Carr, Ph.D. - History of Western Christian Spirituality July 19-23: Pamela Bjorklund, Ph.D. Catherine Dooley, O.P. - Sacraments of Forgiveness & Healing Spirituality of Simplicity: Acceptance of Self Joseph Grassi, S.S.L. - Johannine Writings July 26-30: Gloria Durka, Ph.D. Jon Sobrino, S.J. - Theology of Ministry for Peace & Justice Spirituality for Ministry: A Feminist Perspective June21-,July30 (T&Th: 7 - 9:30pm) 1:00 to 3:30pm MTThF • $125 per week or Pamela Bjorklund, Ph.D. - Art of Spiritual Direction Rita Claire Dorner, O.P. - Celebration: Symbol, Ritual & Life $300 for 3 weeks Michael Moynahan, S.J. -Biblical Drama: Catalyst for Conversion Festival includes the play "Troubadour• by Tim and Julie Smith; films, discussions, and biblical Write drama by Michael Moynaha11, SJ. Graduate Program in Pastoral Ministries GradlUlie credit available for these sessions Bannan Hall339 Santa Clara University Santa Clara, CA 95053 Santa Clara University ·California 408i 554-4831 A CHALLENGE AS BIG AS THE WORLD From the cloister into 'The Order of Friar all the world, the life Servants of Mary, which of the Servite Friar is a arose as an expression of challenge. evangelical apostolic life, is a community of men gathered together in the name of JESUS THE Servite Friars meet the LORD. world head-on. They are intelligent, practical 'Moved by the Spirit, we Christians, ablaze with commit ourselves, as did faith and with love for the First Fathers, to Christ and His people. witness the Gospel in Their flexible apostolate fraternal communion and takes them into a wide to be at the service of God range of educational, and all people, drawing pastoral and missionary abiding ins piration from activities in 27 countries- _...... MARY, MOTHER AND in an age when the need SERVANT OF THE for Christ's Gospel has LORD.' never been so acute. - Servile Constitutions

Jf you are interested in the Servite challenge, please contact: Father Leo, OSM, Servite Priory, PO Box 94, PARKVILLE, VICTORIA, 3052 Tel: (03 ) 347 8191. OBITUARY

p mcssoR FHo<«C' CossoMHoc­ He came to Australia as an asso­ LOws, who died on 10 February after a ciate professor of ophthalmology at the three-year struggle with cancer, only University of NSW in the late 1960s, became widely recognised for a life of setting up a new department there. He remarkable achievement after it was first attracted public prominence, realised that he was dying. But Fred however, with his politics, which were even made the best of that: he set him­ well to the left, and his interventions, self a target of raising $400,000 for an inspired by Frank Hardy, on behalf of Eritrean eye program and ended up the Gurindji people at Watti Creek, raising more than $6 million for such who were then on their celebrated programs in several Third World walk-off from Wave Hill station-the countries. beginnjng of the Aboriginal land rights This did not happen by accident. • movement. Among the Gurindji he During the past two years Fred made Fred Hollows 1929-1993 found, and loudly complained about, more than 1500 public appearances in appalling levels of eye disease, partic­ all states of Australia-often three or four a day-as well ularly trachoma. as several visits to Eritrea, Nepal, Vietnam and his na­ About this time, a group of young Aboriginals in tive New Zealand. He allowed his slow succumbing to Sydney wanted to set up their own medical service and the disease to become a public spectacle, since it helped one of them, Gordon Briscoe, enlisted his help. Fred to raise funds for projects he regarded as vital, and sacri­ Hollows became the first president of the Redfern Med­ ficed any chance of dying in quiet dignity. He even be­ ical Service, the first such service in Australia. There gan new crusades and controversies, despite the toll they are now more than SO Aboriginal medical services: their took upon his health. expansion and development owes much to his Fred Hollows was born in 1929 in Dunedin, New proselytism. Gordon Briscoe approached the federal Zealand. His father, Joe Hollows, was a train driver, an Department of Health, and with Dr Pip Ivil began internationally known chrysanthemum grower, and a working on an idea of a national attack on trachoma in solid Christian with an English socialist background and Aboriginal communities, to be led by Fred Hollows. sense of duty. In some ways the antithesis of his irasci­ After some considerable lobbying and not a little re­ ble son, Joe was also the source of Fred's sense of mis­ sistance, the scheme was adopted by the Labor sion, of his remarkable techillcal patience, and his ability government in late 1975, but was held up by the consti­ to focus on the main issue. As a doctor, a technician or tutional crisis before beginlling operations in 1976. as a woodworker, Fred Hollows had steady hands and Fred Hollows led the teams, and he pushed the great calm. He talked intimately to patients and gave Royal Australian College of Ophthalmologists into them his total attention, but could suddenly snap at a sponsoring it. Between 1976 and 1979, the trachoma nurse or assistant who, by failing to do a job properly, teams travelled hundreds of thousands of kilometres, was preventing him doing his. visiting more than 500 rural Aboriginal communities After completing school in Palmerston North, Fred in all states, and examined 110,000 people, black and decided to become a Church of Christ missionary; but, white. Up to 800 different types of pathology were feeling oppressed by a cloistered seminary, he decided recorded, including evidence of general health and that he wanted to see a bit of life first. He worked in a treatment given on the spot wherever possible. It was psychiatric hospital, dropped theology but continued at one of the most extensive public health studies ever done university as an arts student, and, rather unexpectedly, in the world, and is still used as a source was offered a position in medical school. of information, and as a model program for He took it, began a tempestuous relationship with others. his first wife, Mary Skiler, and travelled with her in Pa­ pua New Guinea and western Queensland, where they L THE FURY OF POLITICIANS and administrators, Fred worked as station hands, cooks and boredrillers. Re­ Hollows did not see his task as mere ministering to the turning to New Zealand, he completed his degree be­ afflicted: he wanted to help Aborigines to take control fore going to Britain for postgraduate study in of their own lives. The trachoma program employed ophthalmology. In Wales, Fred worked with Archie scores of Aboriginal liaison officers; it complained loudly Cochrane, the father of modem epidemiology, who had about the appalling findings and the lack of existing a strong focus on medical research that was closely al­ systems capable of dealing with them, and it identified lied to community service. Fred's most important early closely with Aboriginal political movements. work was on patterns of glaucoma and means of meas- During this period, Fred, now a widower, married uring its intensity. Gabi O'Sullivan, an orthoptist on the trachoma program;

30 EUREKA STREET • MARCH 1993 Gabi now has Fred's five young children, including twins Looking for spiritual renewal, conceived after she knew he was dying, to bring up. or updating in theology and ministry? By the mid-1980s, Fred had become disillusioned with what was happening in Aboriginal affairs. He (3tchthe thought the process was now entirely bureaucratic, with careerists running for their own ends, and that once­ S PIRIT ! central concepts, such as Aboriginal control and a focus on prevention, had become mere slogans. Aborigines Spend a Sabbatical Semester or Year at the had to liberate themselves, he would say. If they had Washington Theological Union. The Spirit of the will and sense of direction, support from outside Vatican II lives at the WTU, where religious could help. But too many had become reliant on that and lay women and men prepare for a variety support. of roles in the church. He also became increasingly critical of a focus on The WTU's Sabbatical Program provides a unique traditionalism. He supported the right of people to experience of interaction with an international choose what they wanted to do but thought governments community of students, a professional faculty and had stacked the deck to the benefit of old men, and to staff, and a rich, diversified curriculum. Shaped to the disadvantage of women and children. Many of his meet the individual needs of participants, the WTU Aboriginal friends resented his public comments and Sabbatical invites experienced persons in ministry thought him inclined to be v~ry bossy; to a variety of opportunities for physical, emotional, few, because of the old links, attacked him spiritual and intellectual development. publicly. The program features: • The availability of 350 courses per semester, for ERED FIRST BECAME interested in Eritrea when an Eritrean doctor in Rome told him about the war in his country. credit or audit, through the Washington Fred persuaded the Australian Development Assistance Theological Consortium • A bi-weekly colloquium on life and ministry Bureau to fund the training of an Eritrean eye doctor in • Human growth and spiritual development Sydney. Later, he visited the country and, struck by the workshops sophistication of pharmaceutical and chemical facto­ • Four Continuing Education Certificate Program s ries built underground or under camouflage, he con­ and Pastoral Field Education ceived the idea of Eritrea having its own artificial-lens • Social and cultural opportunities as well as time factories. The model programs he campaigned for, and for solitude, prayer, study and sightseeing in the the ones the Hollows Foundation, in carrying on his nation's capital. work, now promotes involve the transfer of First World technology to Third World communities, using existing Current tuition is $2 ,950 per semester. On-campus skills and commitment; they are not band-aid programs. housing available. For more information, please ca ll or write: It became the work of the end of his life. Muriel Curran, S.S .N.D. The same period also saw him get involved in a _II_ Christopher Keenan, O .F.M . more complex controversy, one in which his opponents Co-Directors of Continuing Education pulled their punches, believing both that he was wrong Washington Theological Union and that there was nothing to be gained by attacking a T~~ 9001 New Hampshire Avenue Silver Spring, MD 20903-3699 man known to be dying. The controversy was over AIDS, A Roman CathOlic School for Mtmsrry and, initially at least, arose from Fred's fears that if AIDS (301) 439-0551 established a foothold in Aboriginal communities, it would spread rapidly and that public health measures appropriate for dealing with AIDS in middle-class Australia were not appropriate for Aboriginal commu­ nities. Fred Hollows was a complex character. He had enormous charm, but could speak harsh and often unfair So, having no reply to give words. His impact on the Australian psyche came not only from admiration of his selflessness, but also from To what the old man said, his clear larrikin streak and capacity for plain-speaking, I cried 'Come, tell me how you live!' and the abundant evidence that he was no plaster saint. That he captured the national imagination says as much And thumped him on the head. about Australia as about the man himself. • - THROUGH THE L OOKING GLASS

Jack Waterford, Eureka Street's Capital Letter column­ Quixote is doing field research in welfare ist, worked on the trachoma program with Fred Hollows. policy. But watch out. He'll be back.

V OLUME 3 NUMBER 2 • EUREKA STREET 31 BOOKS

P ETER STEE LE

The profit of language

The Oxford Companion to the English Language, edited by Tom McArthur, Oxiord University Press, 1992. ISBN 0 19 214183 X RRP$59 .95. The Oxford Book of Villains, John Mortimer, Oxiord Uni­ versity Press, 1992. ISBN 0 19 214195 3 RRP $39.95.

T TMOIT HUMAN< of p'ycholo­ your fellows. Blandishment, solicita­ gists, Abraham Maslow, always eager tion, enchantment, canting, emotion­ to sponsor vitality, originality, and al encircling, reproaching, dispiriting, responsibility in our curious species, desolating--our lips and ears are as was without illusion as to how we open to these as they are to the tidal often perform. We are indebted to him shifts of air that we inhabit every day. was an archaeologist, not a patholo­ for some memorable tags, including Any adult knows that the daily pres­ gist. And this remains true of The 'the Jonah complex' and 'the Jungle sure of parlance can be a vile business. Oxford Companion to the English outlook'. My favourite among his 'Woe to me,' the prophet said, 'for lam Language. From 'Abbreviation' to coinages is 'the Proctological view', a man of unclean lips.' Was he being 'Zummerset', through 'Danelaw' and which is the attitude of the despairing theatrical? Would that he were. 'Maori English' and 'Shaggy Dog Sto­ cynic, who typically belittles others Still, we bear up. The wistful bib­ ry' and 'Urdu', what we are offered is and looks to find their least noble lical aspiration that we may 'speak essentially the tale of our verbal be­ motives. the truth in love' continues to get a haviour, we the tribe who write and Time was when the proctological purchase on us. Caliban is not the read the insignia of the view was to be sought mainly among emperor of his afflicted island. And 'B present moment. those who had been savaged by life, when I read these two books, what I and who thus had been schooled in hear throughout both of them is the Ut'-TIIATWORDWHICHhasmade desperation. Nowadays, the culture of note not of encroaching malady but of more difference than any other to the suspicion in which many have been countervailing vitality. Ours is the conduct of human affairs-but, we reared invites us all to become more­ only species, as philosophers and the­ read or write books about our lingo, or-less continuous proctologists: what ologians have told us for thousands of just as we deploy that lingo, alerted by Auden called 'the sneerers' ball' is years, that can either be dysfunctional hopes and fears . You must take my offered as the only show in town. Any or envisage, even design, its own word for it that, eyes shut, I tumbled orthodox proctologist will find noth­ healing. The two books in hand wit­ the book open at pages 358-359; but ing odd in one's coupling The Oxford ness to our predicament, and salute its you can see for yourself that these Companion to the English Language palliation. pages introduce, casually, such words with The Oxford Book of Villains. 'You The contrivers of The Oxford as 'misunderstanding', 'instructions', taught me language,' says Caliban, Companion to the English Language 'donations', 'appealed', 'dissolved', 'and my profit on't / Is, I know how to might be astonished that I should put 'barbarous', 'deficient', 'decline', 'frets', curse.' The disheartened and the dis­ it so. Probably most of them, as I did, 'nostalgia', 'desire', 'hostility', 'dis­ hearteners will respond, 'Of course'. cut their teeth and flexed their tongues liked', 'caricatured'. Talking, in the Language, the ubiquitous practice, in the company of Sir Paul Harvey's air or on paper, is by definition a ges­ turns out to be villainous. Oxford Companion to English Litera­ ture of the mind, but it is quite as It is true that no words are good ture, that gentlemanly tallying of certainly a lunge of the heart. Try as enough to say the harm that language primal truths about the way in which we may-and, God knows, some of us can do. If you have not been lied to English literature has taken its course. try very hard- we cannot remain the today, or misled, or sold short, then Harvey never told us, any more than victims of idiocy, of endemic privacy. you must have stayed away from print, his successor Margaret Drabble did, The heart, with an Olympic efficien­ radio, television and the company of what should, or might, have been. He cy, spans the air .

32 EUREKA STREET • MARCH 1993 Graphic: fohn van Loon

have much to be thankful for.' Hitler says, 'I have the gift of reducing all problems t o t heir simplest foundation s,' and 'Th e day of individual happiness has passed.'

I T IS ENOUGH to make us sick, as we say, just as Bosch's painting is enough to make us sick. But Mortimer's is not after all the proctological view. His collection is, like, say, The Oxford Book of Travel Verse, an entertain­ ment. The fearsome and odious per­ formers, factual or fictional, have all undergone the taxidermy of language, and their leer or snarl is transformed into spectacle. It may be, in fact, that what grips us most about literature is neither its fidelity nor its infidelity to fact, but its exhibition of change, its endemic virtuosity. The worst of news, stated memorably, secretes a little good news. Mortimer does not want, like Dickens's Fat Boy 'to make your flesh creep': he wants to bring a little If this is not necessarily gospel for order out of the chaos of ill behaviour, John Mortimer, it is atleast the kind of greed, brutality, lust, desperation, and by putting it under the luminosity of claim that might haunt him. Some­ the rest of the gang. Having a go at language. body, and no fool, has chosen as the cleaning up the masquerade is not Tom McArthur, who has not only jacket's device what they call'the bad only the best we can manage, it is the edited The Oxford Companion but thief and his taunting captors- a de­ best anyone can be conceived as man­ written 40 per cent of the entries, is by tail from Christ Carrying the Cross, aging. What Mortimer displays in his definition an orderer. Makers of dic­ by Hieronymous Bosch'. Larrikinism, menu of the monstrous is an ensem­ tionaries and all such works have a in its various forms, is carried to the ble of those who have no least com­ taxing task, not only because of the heart of the human mystery. Those of mitment to our blundering, but ad­ huge array of items to be addressed, us who have enjoyed the victory-bent mirable, project. but because language in action rears, contrivings of Horace Rumpole, the Their characters, at least as pre­ resolves, and dissolves itseU inces­ down-at-heel echoer of that proficient sented, range vastly. Graham Greene's santly, like waves in the sea. One historical faker Horace Walpole, will Rollo Martins thinks of the death­ excellent feature of the Companion is be fascinated to see what Mortimer inducing Harry Lime, 'He's never the way in which it keeps us alert to makes of our all being bent, crooks in grown up. Marlowe's devils wore this fact, but unintimidated by it. project. His pennings within the great squibs attached to their tails: evil was Facing pages have entries on Marshall yard of evil are chosen thoughtfully: like Peter Pan-it carried with it the McLuhan, Macmillan, the macron, 'The Spirit of evil, Master crooks, horrifying and horrible gift of eternal the McWord, and magazines. The Minor crooks, Murderers, Seducers youth.' In Gorky's diary, the plea at entry on McLuhan gives us an outline and cads, Con men, Hypocrites, Trai­ sentence of a man who has murdered of his career, work and influence, and tors and spies, Tyrants.' Mortimer his wife concludes, 'Why punish me, references for further enquiry. The wrote a play about- well, perhaps, all when I have already punished myself? one on Macmillan, succinctly in­ of us-called A Voyage Round My I can still eat nice little apples and formative, is a reminder of the rami­ Father, and an autobiography called eggs, just as I did before, but they no fication of publishing through all lit­ Clinging to the Wreckage. Essential­ longer possess their form er sweet erature. 'Macron' implies a classical ly, he knows thatthegameoflanguage flavour. N othing gives me any joy residue in the m ost recent of writing, is sounding, scanning, and keeping now- why then punish m e?' Stevie even while it points to language-in­ lies to a minimum. He certainly knows Smith writes to Lord Barrenstock and action today. 'McWord', a happy that the proctological view is an option Epicene, 'I think you are an object not coinage from 1983, suggests some less that the smallest of shareholders can of fear but pity/ Be good, my Lord, than entirely happy things-as in, take up at any moment. since you can not be pretty.' Uriah 'McWar: a fa st, cheap, well-packed Hatchlings of the word- which Heep, distillation of hypocrisy, says of conflict that makes you feel good and turns out to mean all of us- might his father, 'He is a partaker of glory at doesn't cause indigestion.' sum up the moral project in the form, present, Master Copperfield. But we Inevitably, the entries carry their

V oLUME 3 NUMBER 2 • EUREKA STREET 33 FORDHAM makers' marks. The column and a half Mortimer's compendium of bad per­ on' Australian Literature', for instance, sons with wits refreshed and eyes a UNIVERSITY tells us that 'The literature of Austral­ little more open. When Wilkie Col­ NEW YORK ia can be read in several ways: (1) As a lins says, 'It is a bold thing to say, but discourse about political, economic, nothing will ever persuade me that matches your interests: and spiritual colonialism and postco­ Society has not a sneaking kindness ADULT, FAMILY, COMMUNITY lonialism. (2) As a struggle to assert a for a Rogue,' 'Society' and 'Rogue' RELIGIOUS EDUCATION? unique nationality while assimilating both have more resonant character Your mentors: Dr Gloria Durka, international literary concerns and after one has been for a while in Dr john Elias. modes. (3) As a site for conflict between McArthur Country.' "Jeeves," I said, - for parish, school & home a fiction of male supremacy ... and one "mix me a stiffish brandy-and-soda." of female assertiveness and re-assert­ "Yes, sir." "Stiffish, Jeeves. Not too YOUTH MINISTRY? iveness .. .' . The code words are famil­ much soda, but splash the brandy about YOUNG ADULTHOOD? iar, and have the strengths and weak­ a bit." "Very good, sir." ' The gods Your mentor: Dr john Nelson. nesses of all codes. The entry addresses themselves cannot better or worsen - growth in faith, moral formation, Barry Humphries and Jack Hibberd, vintage Wodehouse, but they can, with spiritual development but neither Martin Boyd nor Patrick McArthur's help, quicken one's White. One can see why, and that's alertness to it. Hamlet thought the RELIGION AND SOCIETY? show business, but one is doubly actorly mauling of language 'villain­ PEACE AND JUSTICE? grateful for the list of six supplemen­ ous', and wanted it put a stop to. Right Your mentors: Dr john Elia s, tary books of reference for the round­ as he was, we are the better for lan­ Dr Ri chard Cass iby. ing out of the story. guage's services to fallen humanity. • - analysis of social issues The Compamon invites, as com­ soc ial ministry and education panions ought, more than one kind of Peter Steele SJ is reader in English in attention. If you want to know, right the University of Melbourne. PARISH/PASTORAL MINISTRY? now, something about Hawaii Creole CHURCH LEADERSHIP? English, or Hazlitt, or headers and Books, Learning and the CST Yours mentors: Dr German Martin­ footers, this book will start you off, The proposed goods and services ez OSB, Dr Gloria Durka. and give you a lead as to where to go tax is in fact a tax on lea rning, - for ORE's, Parish Admins. next. If you are, like Dr Johnson, a knowledge and the education of & Assocs. rambler, then the book is amply our children. SPIRITUALITY: THEOL. & HIST.? companionable. All good dictionaries The so-ca lled 'trade-offs' for the SPIRITUAL DIRECTION? are masked encyclopedias, and so is book industry are minuscule, and Your mentors: Dr janet Ruffing RSM, Dr McArthur's work. If the procto­ will certain ly have no impact on the Dr Frederica Halligan. logical view is best palliated by acts of final price at which books will be love, acts of knowledge are the next Margaret Burke MA. offered to the public. best thing, and the Companion - through to Supervi sed Practicum In Canada and New Zea land, a GST abounds in resources for those. has seen the number of books sold THEOLOGICAL RENEWAL? That early watermarks included a fall by approximately the same SABBATICAL? CREDIT FREE? hull's head or a bunch of grapes; that amount as the tax raised. Your mentors: Fr Vincent Novak Sj, Papua New Guinea boasts 700-750 Dr Richard Cass idy. languages (not dialects); that idioms Authorised by Tony Horgan, presi- - bibl; liturg., systematic; personal may be peculiarly rigid-there is no dent of the Australian Booksellers refreshment in community. 'bucket-kicking' as an idiom for death; Association, 649 Nicholson Street, Year-round summers on ly (4). MA, that Shakespeare's vocabulary is North Carlton VIC 3054. MS(Ed ), APD (post-MA). Begin sometimes estimated at 20,000 words; 1993: jan 19, june 24, Aug. 30. that the Swahili for 'a rich person' is 'mbenzi'--one who owns a Mercedes­ Australia in the AWARDS: Full/Partial Scholarsh ips, Benz; that in 1366 the Statutes of Information Age Anniversary Awards. Kilkenny, written in French, enjoined Australian Catholic Social Justice the use of English in Ireland; that the Council occasional paper no.14, expression 'psychobabble' is no older FOR APPLICATIONS by Christian Spurgeon and Paul than 1977: it is good that these things & INFORMATION: Chadwick, of the Communica- should be here. The unlovable F.E. VINCENT M. NOVAK SJ tions Law Centre. GRAD. SCH . OF REL. Smith, told by the judge before whom he was pleading that the latter was $3.50 including postage (dis- & REL. ED. none the wiser after 20 minutes, re­ counts for quantity). FORDHAM UNIVERSITY plied, 'Very possibly, my Lord, but at Available from Australian Catho- (tel212 579 2537) least better informed.' Sapience is not lie Social Justice Council, 19 BRONX, NEW YORK, part of the deal with a Compamon. Mackenzie St, North Sydney, 10458-5163 And yet one returns from it to NSW 2060. Fax: (02) 956 5782

34 EUREKA STREET • MARCH 1993 Trust C.C.I. for BLACKFRIARS Home, Contents &

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Mining politicians

futility of market intervention, his T ""''" NOTH>NG ""'an elec­ tion to bring on a few political work as an adviser to the Fraser books. This year's crop puts flesh government, his shift to academia, on the bones of Paul Keating and to journalism and, most profita­ John Hewson and on the past 10 bly, to Consultancy; his switch to years of Labor government. politics and his filling of a vacuum Christine Wallace's profile of created by a decade of turmoil in Dr John Hewson began with sever­ the Liberal Party; his development, al advantages. It had a major disclo­ marketing and messianism about sure-of the way in which Hewson Fightback! mark I, and, almost by organised his tax affairs during the way of an afterword, his climb­ 1980s (long after tax arrangement down in December. was known to be politically dan­ Anyone who reads either book gerous) so as to write-off a massive would probably know more about income as a consultant. Like Nor­ John Hewson than before they man Abjorensen's book, it devotes started, and would have some feel­ little attention to the question of ing of where he comes from and how a person on the public payroll, what he stands for. Few would feel as a university professor, was earn­ that they knew him better, that ing such sums consulting business, they understood what made him or whether it was appropriate. tick, as a consequence. There is Christine Wallace's book was also too much of the unknowable in first cab off the rank, and not a little his psyche, and the public and the cheaper. private Hewson are each so nar­ It has overshadowed some of row and controlled, with so much the more solid analysis of ideas con­ John Hewson, A Biography, Nor­ of his potential undeveloped, that he tained in the Abjorensen book. The man Abjorensen, Lothian, 1993. ISBN stands as aloof as ever. Both books two books are, however, best taken in 0 85091 575 9 RRP $34.95 give clues that could help in predict­ tandem, even if their conclusions are A Question of Leadership: Paul ing his behaviour-his dogmatism, his somewhat at odds with each other. Keating, Political Fighter, Michael self-reliance, and his (almost comfort­ Abjorensen's Hewson is a loner Gordon, UQP, 1993. ISBN 0 7022 ing) capacity for self-delusion and du­ 2494 4 RRP $16.95 who made it to the Liberal Party lead­ plicity. But neither tells us much Managing Government: Labor's ership without significant compro­ about how he would handle Achievements and Failures mise of his ideas, with a firm, devel­ a completely new situation. Michelle Grattan and Fred Gruen, oped philosophy of economic man­ Longman Cheshire, Melbourne agement and with a strong sense of TIS NOT NECESSARILY a sign of failure 1993. ISBN 0 582 87120 4, rrp $15.99 I mission that change of the sort he Hewson, a Portrait, Christine Wal­ that they cannot penetrate the 'real' espouses is inevitable and necessary. lace, PanMacMillian, Sydney, 1993. Hewson. For one thing, there may not Wallace's Hewson is definitely a pol­ ISBN 0 7251 0723 5 RRP $14.95 be anything much behind the mask. itician, a far more cynical manipula­ For another, one can overdo the search tor than Abjorensen would suggest­ of the image he has of himself and for the psyche. Hewson, like most a person who has been playing politics which he seeks to project. politicians, has been as much driven with some skill for 15 years, who has Both writers have mined his Bap­ by events as by his background or by shifted position as circumstances have tist roots, a lonely and repressed his own inner struggle for control over dictated, a person in perpetual con­ childhood, the self-improvement ethos his environment. Even his political flict mode, with a well-developed par­ of his growing up, his discovery of philosophy contains little that is anoia, even for a politician-at the mammon as an alternative God, his unique: the western world was full of end of the day a bit of a fake in terms Damascus-Road conversion to the politicians of his ilk in the 1980s. John

36 EUREKA STREET • MARCH 1993 Hewson did not even have much to do person than Hewson, even if he shares found and left the institutions, lob­ with the struggle for ascendancy of some characteristics with him. Keat­ bies and mechanisms of government. thatphilosophyinhisownparty. What ing, like Hewson, is in politics be­ It is a good book, with sound judg­ he does is more important than what cause he believes in something. But ments. Its parting one is to explore the he is. notions of economic management are narrowness of the difference between As I get older, the politicians I nowhere near the centre of Keating's Liberal policies and those of Labor at despise most are those without ideas, philosophy, whereas they are virtual­ the end of government, and the sug­ without ideals or a sense of mission, ly the whole of Hewsonism. Keating gestion that a Liberal administration and without any personal decency. believes in growth and jobs, and­ would produce more continuity than Even if one disagrees with the ideas, unlike some of his colleagues-thinks change. Few would have imagined, in this does not prevent one admiring that achieving this is a precondition 1983, that by 1993 there would be them. One can at least grapple with for his ideal society. But he is not scarcely any difference between Labor their ideas, and sunlight is a good trapped,.at least for any period of time, policy and Hewsonism, even as it was disinfectant. in any prescriptions and has always known then. As Gruen and Grattan On this score of things, Hewson is been entirely opportunistic in his eco­ observe, governments in power often a person to be taken into account, and nomic management. His basic beliefs take on a rather different hue from that the differing insights of Wallace and are in fact fairly conventional and which had been expected of them. • Abjorensen provide useful material fairly conservative. It is for the balance sheet. He believes that Hewson who is the radical. Jack Waterford is Eureka Street's some changes are urgently, funda­ Capital Letter columnist, and deputy mentally necessary. He entered poli­ KEATING, HOWEVER, shares many editor of The Canberra Times. tics, probably at some cost to himself, of the characteristics and contradic­ because he wanted to see those ideas tions of a Hewson: courage and ruth­ implemented. There is something lessness and a willingness to take unselfish about him. enormous risks, self-certainty and a The biggest problem for a Hewson, tendency to dogmatism, and a ten­ however, is a far from uncommon dency to paranoia and the attribution one, particularly at either extreme of of the worst possible motives to those Australian politics. One always sus­ who stand in his way. Unlike Hews­ pects that he despises and distrusts on, he also has a formidable public the electorate. He might want to save history, full of embarrassments. Un­ them, but first and foremost he wants like Hewson, he has known political to save them from themselves. His failure and has had any number of own construct of economic libertari­ public kicks in the teeth. He has gone THE NEW JEROME anism is as laden with coercive ma­ past them; one can only speculate chinery as the society of that Tory how Hewson would deal with failure. BmLE HANDBOOK 'nanny-state' or the over-regulated Keating has been so long in poli­ ed. Raymond Brown, Joseph paradise of the left from which he tics that he sometimes puts loyalties Fitzmyer and Roland Murphy. wants to save us. His educational and above principles and pragmatism An easy-to-read handbook, culled philosophical narrowness-an ethical above decencies. Keating has always from the New Jerome Biblical base off the back of a Com Flakes had far more potential for greatness Commentary-the best one-vol­ packet and 'value-free' economism­ than Hawke, who never seemed to ume biblical commentary in the means that he will never see it. If and believe in anything, but he has not world. The handbook includes ex­ when he is rejected by the electorate, shown himself to be the great leader tracts from each book of the Bible, it will, in his eyes, be their fault and he says Australia has never had. with maps and pictures. There are their look-out, not his. Each of the foregoing books is, at also 13 general articles on topics Michael Gordon's book is far less the end of the day, a potboiler, of only ranging from archaeology to how complicated. It is only incidentally casual reference value a year hence. we should understand biblical biographical, and rather more a thriller The book by Fred Gruen, an economist inspiration and inerrancy. $50.00 based on inside information. It details, of breadth, and Michelle Grattan, the T HE LAND OF w ALKING T REES: from one side, a piece of high drama in veteran Age political correspondent, MEDITATIONS FOR THE SERJOUSL y ILL the Labor Party. Disclosure, conflict is a far more substantial contribution, by Michael Hansen SJ. and drama are the stuff of a good read; destined to be read longer, but unlikely Twenty-five meditations to help they can even be used, as Paul Kelly to be read more widely. It is a techni­ people live with their afflictions. uses them in The End of Certainty, and cal tome, and, though it includes in­ The title is taken from a healing rather more successfully than Gordon, cisive comment and some definite story in the Gospel according to as a backdrop for serious discussion of conclusions, somewhat dusty and dry. Mark. $14.95 ideas and currents. Gordon steps back It is a history of a decade of Labor from some judgments, preferring to administration, with the focus on the Order from: Jesuit Publications Bookroom. PO Box 553, Rich­ let the account speak for itself. substance rather than the pyrotech­ Paul Keating is a less complicated nics; the authors show how Labor mond, VIC 3121 (Include $5 for postage and handling)

VOLUME 3 NUMBER 2 • EUREKA STREET 37 m ore like some steamy Callahan, the shoot-and-ask-no-ques­ Arthurian myth than an at­ tions San Francisco cop. tempt to grapple with the Vi­ Munny is a former killer and etnamese view of politics. thief who has aged into being an But the real love-hate sto­ unsuccessful pig farmer. He takes up ry is between mother and his guns again after two cowboys in adopted daughter, between Big Whiskey, Wyoming, slash the face France and its colony. The of a prostitute (Anna Thomson) with m other must, of course, let a knife, leaving h er permanently go. See this film. It is ridicu­ scarred. Her fellow prostitutes are lously ambitious, pretentious, outraged when the local sheriff, Little and sentimental about mat­ Bill Daggett (Gene Hackman), orders ters that should not be cause only that the cowboys should com ­ fo r sentiment. But in spite of pensate the brothelkeeper, since a all that, it emerges as an outrageously disfigured prostitute has less earning Growing pains beautiful and idiosyncratic tragedy. power. The women offer $1000 to -Margaret Simons anyone who will kill the cowboys, Indochine, dir. Regis Wargnier (inde­ and the impoverished Munny sets out pendent cinemas). 'When we were Clint's grey day to earn the reward with his friend Ned young,' the character played by Cath­ Logan (Morgan Freeman) and a young erine Deneuve says at the beginning Unforgiven, dir. Clint Eastwood (Vil­ braggart, the Schofield Kid (Ja imz of Indochine, 'we thought the world lage), has been hailed as the Last West­ Woolvert). was made of inseparable things. Men em . That judgment may be a little William Munny, unlike Dirty and wom en. Mountains and plains. Harry, cannot shoot straight; unlike France and Indochina.' This luscious the Man with No Name, he falls off and pictorially beautifulfilm is largely Eureka Street his horse; unlike both, he is capable of about the opposites by which we de­ Film Competition learning, and is un-macho enough to fine ourselves. It is also about parent­ have learned most from a woman. But hood f'Yo u are both mother and fa ther They're having an election in Oz! Eastwood is intent that his audience to me,' a plantation worker says to Gosh, Toto, the choice was never should learn, too, and Unforgiven is an Deneuve just after she has beaten him), this bad in Kansas ... Tell us exercise in debunking the myths that and other forms of responsibility, whether Dorothy would vote for make the western possible. This domination and colonialism . Paul Keating or John Hewson as happens most effectively in the con­ Because it is about extremes-love Wizard of Oz (and why), and we'll trast drawn between Munny and and hate, good and evil-it is also award two tickets, to the film of another bounty hunter, English Bob something of a melodrama. More than your choice, for the answer we (Richard Harris). They never meet, two and a half hours long, the film is like best. Send entries to: Eureka but both have violent encounters with overblown but aware of its own pre­ Street Film Competition, PO Box Little Bill Daggett and the film tensions. 'I will never understand 553, Richmond, VIC 3 121. The measures each of the three men by the French people's love stories,' a Viet­ winner of January's competition other two. namese woman tells Deneuve. 'Full was C ecilia Ea stwood's dem ythologising of suffering.' Caffery, of may work too well; I was so absorbed Deneuve plays a rubber planter St oc kp o rt, by Unforgiven 'sevocation ofthegreat who has never left the French colony Cheshire, UK, screen westerns that I wanted to see of Indochina. Thanks to her 'subjects', who th ought them all again. she has a place in the world. She knows Shirley Tem ­ -Ray Cassin who she is. She has an adopted Viet­ ple's N ew " namese daughter, Camille (Linh Dan Year's resolu- ~" Battleship frolics Pham), and both women fall in love tion would with a French naval officer, Jean­ have been: to P.~~~~ Under Siege, dir. Andrew Davis (Vil­ Baptiste. Thwarted in love, Camille get Macaulay · lage), follows the pattern set by the abandons her comfortable European­ Culkin home alone. DieHard movies. An insane, evil gen­ style We to join communist rebels. ius [brilliantly played by Tommy Lee She and Jean-Baptiste are reunited, premature, but Clint Eastwood has Jones) hires a gang of dispensable co­ she shoots and kills a French officer, certainly made a film that amounts to conspirators (enough for their violent and the lovers become hunted. the last word on his own career. His deaths to fill most of the movie), takes In a miasma of heat and rain, character in Unforgiven, William hostages (in this case the crew of an Camille and Jean-Baptiste drift in a Munny, is an ironic reversal of the American nuclear battleship), and junk to a temporarily safe haven, in roles that made Eastwood famous: the rants incoherently about revolution the meantime becoming legendary Man with No Name in Sergio Leone's until his goal is revealed to be purely heroes to the rebels; their journey is spaghetti westerns, and Dirty Harry mercenary; at which point his plans

38 EUREKA STREET • MARCH 1993 are foiled by our hero, who gets more performer is a drag artist who does tion imaginable, but its only surveil­ hindrance than help from officialdom. impersonations of her mother, a fad­ lance system consists of a metal One advantage that Under Siege ing chanteuse about to make a come­ chamber moving noisily up and down has over the Die Hard movies is that back. the prison corridors. its hero, Steven 'dumber than Amie' Marisa Paredes, as the mother, In the 19th century, Jeremy Seagal, unlike Bruce Willis, doesn't wears Armani clothes as though she Bentham realised that the most try to be cute. He is simply a lunk­ were genetically engineered for them; effective method of keeping people head, in the great tradition of Ameri­ the contrast with her daughter, stiffly under surveillance was to deny them can action movies. As in Superman, correct in Chanel suits that wear her knowledge of the eventual triumph of good over evil rather than the reverse, is poignant. when they is also a triumph of strength over The daughter stumbles through life in were being intelligence. her mother's shadow, picking up her watched. The At least as important as the influ­ leavings and palely copying her style. result of this ence of the Die Hard movies is the There are some delicious comic insight was influence ofWarner Brothers' cartoons. touches. Abril reads news bulletins the Panopti- The Tommy Lee Jones character is accompanied by a blonde rival who con, a vision MOD obsessed by them, ranting about Porky signs for deaf viewers; the joke is of imprison- Pig when under pressure and giving milked to the utmost when Abril con­ ment more himself the codename 'Roadrunner', fesses to a murder on camera. Did she profound and because he's never caught. The way really do it? I was kept guessing for a more vicious the bad guys die is also cartoon-like, while, butimaybedumberthanmost. than anything both in its overdetermination (they -Juliette Hughes the cinema are not simply killed, they are impaled, has yet given blown up, etc) and in its imperma­ Lemme out us. This pris- nence (one of them is killed at least on in this film, however, is little more three times). Fortress, dir. Stuart Gordon (Village). than an excuse for some mind-numb­ Whether this mode of represent­ This is one of the first films to be ing action and the occasional grotes­ ing violence is more or less reprehen­ entirely shot at the Warner Brothers querie. sible than the 'real' thing is debatable, studios on the Gold Coast. Much of -Damian Cox but this is not a movie to see if you are the interest of the film therefore sur­ worried about being corrupted. It's rounds its technical accomplishment. Just deserts sadistic, jingoistic, sexist and a lot of Having sat through an unfortunate fun. hour and a half, I can report that the The Bodyguard, dir. Mick Jackson -David Malachi film is well up to the technical stand­ (Village). With seven Academy nomi­ ard of the mid-price Hollywood prod­ nations already for raspberry of the Mother love uct. The miniatures are convincing year, this box-office bonanza can'tlose. and the sets effective, though rather Co-produced by Kevin Costner and High Heels, dir. Pedro Almodovar (in­ spartan. Warner Brothers appears to scripted by Lawrence Kasdan of The dependent cinemas). No one in Hol­ have established a first-class facility Big Chill (both of them should know lywood is creating female roles that for the production of American pulp better) the film squanders talent and compare with Almodovar's. There is on our shores. opportunity. the tokenism of Thelma and Louise, of This film depicts a futuristic pris­ Costner plays Frank Farmer, an course, and the soap-bubble schlock on and an American society so con­ ex-secret service bodyguard whose of Steel Magnolias; but Almodovar cerned about its burgeoning popula­ neurotic notion of duty makes a mines a rich seam of desire, betrayal, tion and pro-life morality that the nonsense of virtue. The object of his eccentricity and humour. conception of a second child is pun­ attention is Whitney Houston as High Heels explores a tragi-comic ishable by imprisonment. To illus­ Rachel Marron, a glitzy singer-star maternal relationship, in the tradi­ trate this nightmare scenario, every who swerves between Madonna-like tion ofthe director's firstfea ture, What prison-movie cliche is dredged up and monomania and down-home folksi­ Have I Done to Deserve This{. And it paraded in tiresome fashion. There is ness. She looks wonderful, but is alludes to many other movies, espe­ none of the gleeful play movie iconog­ sabotaged by a very silly script that cially Autumn Sonata and Mildred raphy that marks American pulp at its half-bakes sibling rivalry. Pierce, but the tightrope walk balanc­ best, and Stuart Gordon demonstrates Houston's singing provides this ing farce, tragedy and whodunnit is neither the directorial talent nor the noisy, overblown film with most of its uniquely Almodovar's. interest to stop the film drifting from few authentic moments. The rest of Victoria Abril, as the daughter, banality to banality. the sound track is a score for Arma­ shows a desperate gamine awkward­ Perhaps the most striking feature geddon. Costner has moved on though: ness, very different from her usual of Fortress is its consistent failure of in The Big Chill he played Alex, a stiff confident sensualist persona. When imagination. The fortress of the title, lying down. In The Bodyguard he not working as a TV newsreader she for example, is supposed to be the graduates to a stiff standing up. haunts a nightclub where the main most advanced system of incarcera- -Morag Fraser

V oLUM E 3 NuMBER 2 • EUREKA STREET 39 Television Program Guide Michael McGirr TELEVISION

SBS television has always had a the world,' says Murray, 'not just in Sport, close relationship with soccer. The terms of numbers of players and fans network broadcast soccer in its first but in political terms because of the week of operation in 1980. It also kept money it generates.' thousands out of bed with its exhaus­ Murray sees his work as having a I N 1974, I w" AM""'" of m un· tive coverage of the 1990 World Cup, crusading component. 'Most Austral­ der-13 soccer team that hardly scored during which 155,000 Australian ians grow up believing that the only a goal, let alone won a match. One homes installed UHF aerials to pick big event in the world is the Olympic time, however, we did manage to get up the transmission. Even so, with its Games, followed by the Common­ away to a 1-0 lead before most of the limited resources, playing host broad­ wealth Games. In fact, the Common­ opposing team had arrived. Unfortu­ caster for the Youth Cup will be the wealth Games hardly makes the small nately, I was a defender and inadvert­ network's biggest undertaking to date. print in most parts of the world.' Ma­ ently levelled the scores with an own 'We run on adrenalin here,' explains jor soccer tournaments, such as the goal. Later I put the opposition in front Les Murray, the Hungarian-born head Youth Cup, are in a bigger league, and with another. I suspect, to my shame, of SBS on-air presentation team. the Olympic delegates will mark Aus­ that the second goal was at least partly 'Channel9 has 10 times the budget for tralia's scorecard partly on SBS' abili­ for the benefit of the coach. He had got the same amount of sports program­ ty to present quality coverage to 70-80 a momentary whiff of victory and, ming that we do.' countries. Does this put pressure on Young Socceroo having had it put in jeopardy by the Although much of the cost will be Murray as the anchorman? 'I've done defender Craig Moore first goal, turned on me like hell's recouped from fees from overseas net­ so many of these things now that it's (left) keeps a close eye fury . So I put the matter beyond doubt. works, putting 100 hours of football to really second nature to me to work on on Brazilian striker But 1974 was an auspicious year air from five cities is undeniably ex­ them.' Gian in a warm-up for Australian soccer. It marked the pensive. But this is one occasion on Murray speaks as a commentary­ match for the first and, to date, the only appearance which SBS isn't stinting. While the box veteran of at least two World Cup World Youth Cup. of the Socceroos in a World Cup finals Young Socceroos were away playing tournaments. He has been SBS' soccer warn1-up games in presenter from the beginning in 1980. the Middle East, SBS And I when I watched the Young sat 180peopledown Socceroos play Korea at Marconi, deep to dinner in the ball­ in Sydney's west, Les was there, though room of the Sydney not as a broadcaster. He sat among the Hilton for a launch spectators, eating an icecream, and of their coverage of seemed to know many of them. the competition. One reason for sport, such hospitality is that Australia's Veteran is almost the word to use h andling of the of the Young Socceroos themselves. World Youth Cup is The cut off age for the competition is seen as fundamen­ 20 but the team has already toured tal to Sydney's Latin America and Europe. The game chances of hosting against Korea was played on the the 2000 Olympic evening before they fl ew out to the Games. Almost 30 Middle East. I met them during a pre­ per cent of the Ol­ game meal that had been timetabled ympic de legates for the middle of an aiternoon that who have to be pushed past 38°C. Even in the heat, wooed are soccer their impeccable uniforms spoke vol­ people, and many of umes about the discipline of the team. them will be here But they also seemed relaxed. series. It was also the year in which for the Youth Cup. Sydney's prospects Kevin Muscat is the captain of the most of today's YoungSocceroos were must have looked remote when the Young Socceroos. 'The nerves will born. For three weeks this month they airport strike in February meant the start to hit when we come up to play will be the focus of international at­ team took 75 hours to reach Saudi Colombia in the first ga me of the cup. tention as they compete on Austral­ Arabia. 'You must remember that When we're out there during the na­ ian soil for soccer's World Youth Cup. soccer is the most powerful sport in tional anthem.' Muscat is the only

40 EUREKA STREET • MARCH 1993 March

member of the team who played in the an own goal ? The team laughs. 'Yes,' can get all sorts of passports through last Youth Cup, in 1991 , when Aus­ he admits, 'but you're not going to being discovered. At senior level, the tralia surpassed their previous best by write about that, are you? You don't players are much more pragmatic, winning third place. They were only write about own goals.' more cunning. This is where from knocked out in a semifinal against the Moore and Muscat will more than time to time you get negative tactics host team, Portugal, where they went likely join the growing list of Austral­ and gamesmanship. But the young down 1-0 in front of a partisan crowd ians who are playing football profes­ guys are unspoilt. That's what of 120,000. 'The crowd were all boo­ sionally in Europe. They are as ubi qui­ makes this such a splendid ing and throwing bottles and doing tous as Australian opera singers. More tournament.' anything to distract us. But winning than 40 players now have contracts the bronze was one of those experi­ with clubs in France, England, Bel­ T.HE COMPETI­ ences you just can't describe. Nobody gium, Holland, Italy, Greece and TION BEG INS on 5 expected us to do so well but when we Germany, mostofthem former Young March, with an did everybody sat up and took notice.' Socceroos. The drainage, caused opening ceremony This time the expectations of the largely by the lack of professional op­ at the Sydney Australians are high. Muscat thinks portunities in Australia, helps to ac­ Football Stadium they can win: 'Every time we played in count for the difference in Australia's choreographed by Europe and South America we found standing in junior and senior soccer. Ric Birch, the man Australia has a lot of respect on the who produced the soccer field,' he said. Les Murray also and sport opening ceremo­ sees a chance of victory. Although the nies at the Los Young Socceroos' form against Korea, 'European-based players are gener­ Angeles and Bar­ Saudi Arabia and Oman was incon­ ally reluctant to make themselves celona Olympics. sistent, last December the team lev­ available for national games,' says This will be elled a four-game series against Brazil Murray,'although they will come back broadcast live and and Brazil are favoured to take the for really crunch World Cup qualifi­ repeated the next cup. 'It'll take a lot of fight,' says ers.' This creates problems. In 1989, afternoon. Round­ Muscat. Australia met Israel for such a match robin games will One member ofthe team on whom in front of 43,000 spectators at the be played in Bris­ great expectations have come to rest Sydney Football Stadium. An admin­ bane, Sydney, is a lanky 17-year-old Queenslander, istrative blunder had scheduled the Canberra, Mel­ Craig Moore. 'He is a sensational young game to coincide with the height of bourne and Ad­ defender,' says Murray, 'he will be one the European season, so four of Aus­ elaide until the of the best players this country has tralian players had flown back to be in semi-finals in ever produced.' Moore himself is la­ the country for less than 48 hours. Sydney and Mel­ conic: 'I've never thought like that. 'The coach had no time to blend the bourne on 17 I've just always been lucky enough to team and had to resort to the simplest March, and the put in a good game when it mattered.' and most expedient tactics. The team final in Sydney on He started playing soccer when he didn't play anything like it could 20 March. was five and it has always dominated have.' SBS will screen a live match at SBS sports presenter his life. Like Muscat, he spent a couple Even now, Murray's disappoint­ 8.30pm (8pm in Adelaide) on every Les Murray: 'I've done of years at the Australian Institute of ment is obvious. He strongly favours playing day of the competition. All32 so many of these Sport, somehow fitting in his school­ increasing professionalism in Aus­ games will be replayed, generally be­ things now that it's ing from there. tralian soccer. Muscat points to an­ fore the SBS news the next day. There really second nature When the Young Socceroos turned other possibility: the national senior will also be a daily digest of highlights, tome ... ' out under a burnt sunset for the final coach, Eddie Thompson, is holding interviews and previews called Aus­ game against Korea, there were sup­ training camps in Europe for the tralia 93 Highlights going to air about porters cheering Moore by name. One Australian players who are based there. l0.30pm ( lOpm in Adelaide). tattooed woman seemed as though But there may not be a great many The telecast of the quarter-finals, she would have been more at home at chances to see these young players which are sure to include Australia, the Guns 'n' Roses concert that was to after they move beyond the youth may provide a welcome respite from take place not far away on the next level. At all events, they may not be the election coverage on the evening night. 'Go Moore,' she mutters be­ playing the sam e type of soccer. 'The of 13 March. In soccer as in other tween drags on a cigarette, 'go Craig.' young players try to flaunt their tal­ things, it will be a decisive night for Not bad for 1 7. Has Moore ever scored ent,' says Murray, 'they know they Australia. •

VoLUME 3 N uMBER 2 • EUREKA STREET 41 Never trust anyone over 29

I WA< 14 W>ffiN punk mck made it big age-an uneasy mixture of would-be and rejoiced when she died, apparent­ in England. At the time I was heavily worldly cynicism and naive idealism. ly in agony. This appalling case was influenced by its ideology, which was The same two characteristics wrestle the cause of great mirth at the Jays. encapsula ted in a three-point program with each other daily for the soul of ill, The police, they reported were 'trying for revolutionary action: and the results are pretty unedifying. to get their heads around' the demonic • Never trust a hippy; In some cases the appropriate deliverance of the farmer's 'missus'. • Kill the Bill (i.e. the police); stance is obvious. Censorship, racism, DebbieSpillaneandlanRogerson, who • 'You're too old and your hair's too anything to do with the nuclear indus­ get together for an hour's banal chit­ long'. try and threats to the environment are chat every day, thought it was an I didn't have much occasion to put all Bad Things and should be taken absolute hoot that the farmer had in­ no.1 into practice, no.2 seemed OK, if seriously-to the point of tedium, in vited TV cameras to his wife's funeral, a bit extreme, but no.3 suited me fact. But in general it's OK to be sar­ to record her predicted resurrection. down to the ground. Life wasn't really castic about politicians, people in The opposite is also true-issues all that oppressive for middle-class authority and anything that even hints that demand scepticism are met with white schoolboys in the outer suburbs at dagginess. Take this news item, for gullible idealism. Witness the of London, but anyone could cut their example: 'Some good news for Syd­ uncritical approach to the New Age hair short and, hey, I was young wasn't ney's Olympic bid-it seems Barcelona on Angela Cattem's morning show. I? I resolved never to buy another will need another 15 years to pay off She grills pop psychologists on solu­ record by one of my favourite bands its Olympic debts.' In other words, the tions to teenage angst ('Do you believe after I found out that the lead singer Olympics are just a big con-trick for in karma, Dorothy?'), while listeners was a 29 year-old journalist. the benefit of their commercial spon­ are invited to ring in every day to have Grabbing at half-truths (or out­ sors. Anything that makes Sydney's their dreams interpreted (they all tell right lies) and turning them into rigid bid unpopular is therefore' good news' you something about a past life­ dogma to be defended at all costs is an (and can be tagged as such in what is surprise!). So much for 'never trust a enduring bourgeois teenage ritual. supposed to be a news report). hippy'. Fortunately for my generation it The impression that ill's political The problem is that, although its resulted in id~lising spotty youths in attitudes are largely shaped by attitudes often seem to mirror those leather jackets, rather than going off watching Ric Mayall in The Young of the teenagers it purports to identify to get killed in the Spanish Civil War Ones is reinforced by the studied air of with, ill can'tgetawaywith the excuse or trying to convert hostile African casualness that permeates the news that it's just a crazy mixed-up kid. tribes to Christianity. We didn't know broadcasts. It's a good indicator of ill's Most of the presenters must be well how lucky we were. Today, it seems, uncertainty about what is, or is not, into their 20s, if not-over the dreaded the most rebellious thing a young fair game for derision. Refugees are 30. But because it's a 'youth' station, person can do is to become deeply 'kicked out' rather than expelled; the they seem to feel the need to impose a concerned about the environment. The Prime Minister 'reckons unemploy­ terrible, self-conscious atmosphere of perfectly normal teenage desire to ment isn't going to come down soon'. enforced wackiness. The newsreader Smash the System seems to have If you hear about people 'rocking up to announces that he's come into the degenerated into nothing more the gig', they're probably talking about studio wearing·Arab headdress; they aggressive than sluggish cynicism and Guns 'n' Roses fans, but it might just read the weather report in silly voices. wishy-washy do-gooding. as easily be Bosnian government And you should hear the music they At least that's the impression you'd representatives arriving for peace talks play. get if you spent much time listening in Geneva. Small wonder that Australia's real to Australia's only national youth Inevitably, they often get it wrong young people prefer the unabashed network, the ABC's ill. Regular ex­ and wind up pouring scorn on an issue commercialism of MMM, in Sydney posure to ill presenters has much the that really demands a bit of thought, and Melbourne, or similar FM music same effect on me as arguing politics with excruciatingly awful results. The stations in the other capitals. ill is with a 'concerned' teenager. They're case of the Victorian woman who died such an obvious imposter. It's about utterly convinced of the correctness while her husband watched two friends time it grew up or shut up. • of their own position, dismiss argu­ perform an ' exorcism' on her is a good ments instead of debating them and, example. The man was clearly worst of all, have absolutely no sense deranged-he suggested that her in­ Mike Ticher is a 29-year-old journal­ of their own ridiculousness. I can ternal injuries may have been caused ist whose hair remains obstinately remember what I was like at that by demons hanging on to her organs, close-cropped.

42 EUREKA STREET • MARCH 1993 Emeka Street Cryptic Crossword no. 11, March 1993

Devised by Joan Nowotny ffi VM

ACROSS 1 For some of your income, Di, any actor would laugh to order. (8) 5 Senior lecturer's primer. (6) 8 Conspicuous diamond in memorable clasp. (10) 9 Roguish Principal I (4) 10 Your present liaisons are newsworthy items. (7, 7) 11 Perhaps I sailed too close to the wind when I communicated with you. (7) 13 My dear, big jumble sales need an organised group to succeed. (7) 15 Pluto and the Turkish governor, joined by love, act against orders. (7) 18 Indeed, the facade cut in half looks disfigured. (7) 21 Would it be an election winner, Canberra's excess going into a share premium? (7,7) 22 Her slip? (4) 23 Not working for the Speaker, this parliamentary objection! (3,2,5) 24 Abstains around the beginning of Easter? On the contrary! (6) Solution to Crossword no.lO, February1993 25 In the sentence the Schoolmistress especially emphasises the accents. (8)

DOWN 1 Part of an icon I call shapely (geometrically speaking). (7) 2 In the story, Tortoise gives warning to Worm, say, about the dangers on these roads. (9) 3 Cunningly secreted the orders without the shirt. (7) 4 Arranged date suitable for changed conditions. (7) 5 Order fence to be repaired and strengthened. (9) 6 Crooning crazily, Bing at a function sees the tension lessening. (7) 7 Cut out the sex and jumbled dice. (7) 12 Mix tonic with lees from the wine for the popular choices. (9) 14 Honours for the winners of 12, including a cold case of cocktails! (9) 16 Bad luck for the batting side-caught on the boundary because of the slope. (7) 17 Hewson .. . Keating and vice versa. Such work models! (7) 18 Underworld injury-with a twist. (7) 19 Tolerated the fanciful dressing of roberto the king. (7) 20 Abandons just rewards. (7)

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