Vol. 4 No. 7 September 1994 $5.00
Collectors' items Michael McGirr on the sale of Australia's ·post offices
Tim Winton tells H.A. Willis about ghosts, God and The Riders Graham Little conjures up the spirit of childhood John Button tackles the spirit of Aussie Rules Janine Haines takes to the road with Jill Ker Conway In Australia, early spring has a look found nowhere else: afternoon scene in Taradale, Victoria
Photo: Bill Thomas Volume 4 Number 7 September 1994 A magazine of public affairs, the arts and theology CoNTENTS 4 COMMENT 34 Alan Nichols from Rwanda; CARRY ON IMPERIALISM John Ernst on privatisation policy (pS); How the empire ended. Alan Gill reports. Morag Fraser on events in PNG and Bou gainville (p6); and Ray Cassin on the 37 Church's response to dissent (p7). THE URGE TO CONTROL Andrew Hamilton analyses the Report to 8 Parliament on Asylum, Border Control LETTERS and Detention. 11 42 CAPITAL LETTER BOOKS John Button muses on the spirit of Aus 12 tralian football in Steve Hawke's Polly THE LAND OF THE LONG LITIGA Farmer and Martin Flanagan's Southen1 TION Sky, W estern Oval; Jan.ine Haines reviews Frank Brennan makes some cross-Tas Jill Ker Conway's True North, (p44); man comparisons of indigenous rights. Leonie Purcivallooks at feminist theolo gy and theologians in Catherine Mowry 14 LaCugna's Freeing Theology (p45); Max OWN YOUR OWN POST OFFICE Teichmann identifies with Dick Hughes' Australia Post now means business Don't You Sing! Memories of a Catholic literally. Michael McGirr reports. Boyhood (p46); Paul Ormonde surveys Val Noone's Disturbing the War-Melbourne 17 Catholics and Vietnam (p48); CAN YOU KEEP A SECRET ... James Griffin reviews Buckley, Dale and Michael Gilbert on FIRB and the m edia. Reynolds' Doc Evatt and Ross Fitzgerald's Life of E. G. ('Red Ted') Theodore (p SO). 18 'FREEDOM'S JUST ANOTHER WORD' 52 Moira Rayner asks how separate church THEATRE and state really are. Carolyn Pickett goes to the International Women Playwrights Conference; Peter 19 Houghton visits the MTC's production ARCHIMEDES of Ibsen's The Lady From the Sea.
Cover and photographs pp2, 14, 16, 20 54 by Bill Thomas. ACCORDING TO WINTON SPORTING LIFE Cover design and graphic p17 H. A. Willis talks to Tim Winton about Juliette Hughes has a night out with by Siobhan Jackson. ghosts, God, and his novel, The Riders. Torvill & Dean. Cartoons pp9, 10, 44, 56 by Dean Moore. Graphics ppl2-13, 37, by Tim Methcrall. Photograph p20 by H. A. Willis. 26 55 Photographs pp26-27 IMPERILLED ARE THE PEACEMAKERS FLASH IN THE PAN by Emmanuel Santos. The Middle East peace process may bring Drawings pp28-32 by Peter Fraser. Reviews of the films Bad Boy Bub by; Tru e Photograph p52 by Lisa Tomasetti. more war, argues Andrew Vincent. Lies; The Crow; Even Cowgirls Get The Blues; Le Petit Prince A Dit; Little Bud 28 dha; The Flintstones. Eurek a Street magazine USING CHILDHOOD Jesuit Publications PO Box 553 Graham Little explores some correct and 58 Richmond VlC 3 121 less than correct versions of childhood. ON SPEC Tel (03 )427 73 11 Fax (03)428 4450 33 59 QUIXOTE SPECIFIC LEVITY C oMMENT
A magazine of public affa irs, the arts A LAN NIC HOLS an d theology Publisher Rwandan causes Michael Kell y SJ Editor Morag Fraser W.wwmt ' """Nee W
Em elw Street magazine, ISSN 1036- 1758, itary force, and how could they kill with such vigour and Aust ra li a Post Print Post approved zeal ? A number of Christian pastors and priests in the camps pp3491 8 1/003 14 in Bukavu believe that witchcraft was used- some elem en is published ten times a yea r tal recourse to Rwanda's ancient animism . This added a by Eureka Street Magazine Pty Ltd, touch to the old Hutu hatred of Tutsis. Then the moderates 300 Victoria Street, Ri chmond, Victori a 3 12 1. in the army and the government were eliminated. Then add Responsibili ty for edi torial conten t is accepted by an airlift of new m achetes from Sheffield, England. By 6 April, Michael Ke ll y, 300 Victoria Street, Ric hmond . w hen the president's plane went cl own, everything was ready. Pri nted by Doran Printing, It seem s that the m assacres were about to happen an yway. 4 Com m ercial Road, H ighett VIC 3 190. Maybe the plane crash was m erely the trigger. © Jesuit Publications 1993 The brutality of death squads and hit li sts that shocked Unso li cited m anuscri pts, including poetry and the world shocked Rwandans just as much, especially the fiction, will he ret urned onl y if accompani ed by a C hristians. For the boast had been that Rwanda was the most stam ped, self-addressed envelope. Requests for Christian nation in Africa, with a large national Catholic perm iss ion to reprint material from the magazine Church, an Anglican Church of 1.2 million members, other sho uld b ~; addressed in wri t ing to: Protestant and Pentecostal churches, and even a Seventh Day T he editor, Eurei 4 EUREKA STREET • SEPTEMBER 1994 the old hatreds between tribes, for such a genocide to and Tanzania in the 1970s and '80s, started with per be undertaken, and with such savagery? sonal confession and forgiveness, but did not extend There are several explanations to be heard in to community or tribal reconciliation. Bukavu, spoken of quietly in tents and prayed over in • Not everything is a matter of shame. Many church church services: leaders were killed because they preached an end to • Too many people 'turned their heads' at the start of tribalism. Some priests were killed because they hid the massacres. They speak of it with shame. Some Tutsis from the militias, others because they were among the leadership of the both the Catholic and 'Tutsi lovers'. The Anglican Church lost 17 priests, the Anglican churches are accused of this, of trusting the Catholics many more. the former government too much. Suffering, shame, loss. The church suffers with • The church did not give enough support to moder the whole nation. How can the church rebuild? How ate people in the army and the government. can the nation? Instead of pointing the finger, or giving • Tribalism was perpetuated in the way clergy were up because it's all too complex, Australian Christians chosen, trained and promoted. Ten of the country's might give a thought to this 1uestion: how deep is 11 Anglican bishops were Hutus. In the Catholic our own Christianity anyway? Spare a thought for the Church, I understand that most priests were Tutsi churches of Rwanda. As with the churches of Genna but bishops were Hutu. ny from 1936-45, all their choices are hard. • • The fruits of the East African Revival Movement, which started in Rwanda and spread through all the Alan Nichols is an Anglican priest and writer, who Protestant churches, overflowing to Uganda, Kenya works for World Vision Australia. COMMENT: 2 JoHN ERNST Failing to pass Go T,LMoe cciT's meosmoN to the sdc of the tries concerned were still under public ownership. nation's airports and shipping line, and the botched There are more fundamental reasons than these public flotation of the Victorian betting and gaming for questioning the efficacy of privatisation programs, giant T ABCORP, have re-ignited debate about the pur however, particularly as they move into the post pose and value of privatisation as an instrument of Hilmer world of microeconomic reform and restruc- public policy. Even more remarkable than som e turing in public utilities. The sale of enterprises and aspects of the debate itself-such as the sudden emer assets clearly involves a transfer of property rights gence from political hibernation of the Victorian Labor from the public to select groups in society, usually opposition-is the fact that it has been so mightily domestic and international capital. But along with the long in coming. transfer of property rights, the act of privatisation re Privatisation and that other catchphrase, corpo lieves the public of part of its sovereignty. Public ratisation, continue to dominate the public policy ownership provides a framework of control and agenda in this country, despite the weight of evidence accountability over strategic decision-making in key from countries such as Britain and New Zealand that areas of infrastructure and essential services; under the rhetoric of privatisation has rarely been matched privatisation this is relinquished. Privatisation casts by reality. important policy questions, like the economic, social Judged in its own terms, privatisation has more and environmental consequences of infrastructure de often than not failed to deliver. Typically, privatising velopment, adrift from the democratic process, as the governments have failed to maximise the return to British public found to their considerable dismay in taxpayers from the sale of public assets, as the exam the recent controversy over electricity generation and ple of TABCORP amply illustrates. In many instanc the future of the British coal mining industry. es, competition has been elusive and public Fundamental citizenship rights are also impaired monopolies have simply been replaced by private under privatisation. Truth-or at least the right to ones. The promises of new consumer rights and con know-becomes the first casualty. Privatisation sumer sovereignty have been made to look absurdly invariably means the removal of freedom of informa improbable under privatised industry regimes of ris tion and Ombudsman protections. And the capacity ing prices, lack of choice and deteriorating service to obtain information about the activities of monop standards. Even claims about the efficiency of private oly service providers is smothered by the veil of com ownership are dubious, for many of the more signifi mercial secrecy. Essential services become valued cant efficiency and productivity gains have been made only as commodities. The implicit right of all citi in the period prior to privatisation, when the indus- zens, of a country with the prevailing standard of VOLUME 4 NUMBER 7 • EUREKA STREET 5 living of Australia, to adequate way that it affects the weakest and services on the poor of Britain, levels of basic services (such as most vulnerable m embers of soci New Zealand and elsewhere, en ergy a11d water) is made uncer ety, then the international experi might be s ummed up in two tain by commercial imperatives ence of privatisation, thus far, words-vicious and unfair. and government ambivalence indicates that it has been a gross towards so-called community policy failure. Even supporters of John Ernst lectures in the Depart service obligations. privatisation policy would find it ment of Urban and Social Policy If, in a civilised society, the ul difficult to den y that the impact at the Victoria University of Tech timate test of public policy is the of the privatisation of essential nology. C OMMENT: 3 MORAC FRASER A tide in PNG affairs W I-I THE PNC FLAC planted at There tnight be symbolism in the August 1976, which brought an end the mountainous Panguna minesite 'victory' to shake the morale of some to the first Unilatera l Declaration of and his troops penetrating even the rebels and their sympathisers. Independence (UDI) is binding. He nearby village of Guava, home of the But the hard-core rebels know seems unaware that Port Moresby Bougainvillc revolutionary presi how brittle PNGDF logistics are and agreed to gran t and resource provin dent, Francis Ona, Prime Minister how unreliable is rudimentary air cial governmcn t as a condition of Wingti is proclaiming the beginning cover. The PNGDF cannot prevent unity. He li kcs to convey the i m of the end of the six-year war. And classic guerrilla harassment in areas pression that this devolution of pow that end is to be imposed as a mili where their numbers are depleted er was at the root of the Bougainvi llc tary victory, not the negotiated sct or even where they arc not. Even if revolt. This is not the case. Provin tlcmen t advocated by Senator Loose the BRA were to be completely elim cial government provided the North ly and his delegation (see Ew-el 6 EUREKA STREET • S EPTEMBER 1994 is more likely to forge a new unity of ister Wingti tries to crack down on Australia has considerable lever North Solomonese than a rcfusa I to the FRM rather than withdraw his age through its aiel programs, defence restore provincial governmcn t. centralisation program, he risks frac support and investments. The secc - The problem of Bo ugainvill c is turing the state more than the Bou sionists can be told that Australia now compounded by the threat of gainville crisis has. will support Port Moresby strenu further secessionism in the Islands. Questions will inev itably arise ously in the event of unjustified re There arc reports of plans for a sepa about Australia's role. Should Aus bellion. ratist security force. And to com tralia help to check Wingti's But one thing is certain: there pound gri evances, there is the fact progress? It will not want to be seen will be no kudos for Australia if it that provincial government is being as dictating to its former colony. But sits on the sidelines and imagines abolished by a Highlands-dominat the disintegration of PNG is clearly that it won't have to pick up the ed government with a reputation for not in Australia's interest, or in that pi eces. • corruption. If a buoyant Prime Min- of PNG's component parts. -Morag Fraser COMMENT: 4 R AY CASSIN W~ p0 ,. Jo~~,~~ t?. ~~n~~ ~at ~~~S ~~~ t~c~l~i' n' in ""edfili ic letter Ordinatio Sacerdotalis was talis. Fr Kennedy felt unable to give a ted institutions raise similar con- released to the Catholic world in the archbishop the undertaking he sidcrations. The churches in Aus- May, two que tions were prompted had asked for, and accordingly re- tralia now have an historic opportu- by its declaration that the church signed from his post as a teacher of nity to establi sh links with the uni- ca nnot consider admitting women undergraduate theology students. vcrsitics fr om which they were ex- to ordained ministry. What kind of The issues rai sed by this con- eluded by the secularist ideologues authority is possessed by this teach- frontation between one theologian of a century ago. Theology and rcli- ing, which although presented as and his local bishop go beyond the gious studies arc beginning to be definitive stops short of using the issue of women's ordination itself. accepted as tertiary disciplines, and language normally used for what the They concern the relationship be- students at institutions such as YTU, church proclaims ex cathedra? And tween the church and the wider so- where Fr Kennedy taught, can pur- what would the consequences be for cicty, especiall y with regard to the sue joint degrees with secular uni- those who publicly expressed dis- airing of theological controversy in vcrsitics. But if Catholic theologians sent from the teaching? the m edia, and the kind of authority cannot pursue the truth wherever it The former question may still be that the church ca n exercise over leads them, one wonders whether a matter oftheological debate, but in those who teach in institutions theology will cvcrfully shed its Ci n- Australia at least, the answer to the whose licence to grant degrees is clerella status in the academy. latter now seems clear. On Thurs- conferred by the state. Which takes us back to Fr day, 18 August, the Archbishop of These arc not simply juridical Kennedy's obj ections to Ordinatio Melbourne, Sir Frank Little, as ked questions; the answer that one gives Sacerdotalis. Anyone who has read Fr Philip Kennedy OP, a lecturer at to them will be an expression of how that document knows that it is the Yarra Theological Union (YTU), one understands what it is to be part stronger on assertion than on argu- to give him an assurance that he of the church. Some of Fr Kennedy's ment; indeed, there is comparative- would not publicly express di sagree- colleagues, for example, may take ly little theological argument of any ment with the Pope's teaching as set the view that theological debate kind, other than a simple rcasscrtion down in Ordinatio Sa cerdotalis. should be confined within the walls of the notion that for 'the Twelve' Several times, in media inter of the academy. Eureka Street, how chosen by Jesus, one can read 'bish views, Fr Kennedy had pointed out ever, agrees with Fr Kennedy that ops', and that this all-male hierar that the Pope's letter, setting out not only is there nothing wrong with chy was bequeathed to the church in ecclesiastical teaching with a high taking theology into the marketplace perpetuity. In an age when a theolog level of authority, assumed that Je but that sometimes one is bound to ically literate laity is a fact of church sus had deliberately bequeathed to do so. Simply, it is proper to do life, however, it is not clear that his followers a hierarchical male theology wherever it is proper to documents formu lated in this way priesthood, thereby establi shing a preach the gospel. And in a world wi ll receive that general acceptance church. In the light of historical and that is virtually constituted by the by the faithful which, throughout biblical studies, however, especially constant barrage of conflicting me the history of the church, has been a the hi storica l-criticalmovem cnt of dia voices and messages, the ques note of authentic teaching. When the past 200 years, the Pope's posi tion is not whether to usc the media, discussing church authority, the tion was unverifiable. Therefore, Fr but how to usc it best. That lesson, question is not only 'Who's speak Kennedy had concluded, it was inap at least, does not seem to have been ing?', but 'Who's listening?' • propriate for church authorities to lost on the Pope. expect blind obedi ence to the teach- The constraints that may be -Ray Cassin VOLUME 4 N UMJlER 7 • EUREKA STREET 7 L EITERS Eureka Street welcomes letters and his people. After a short time he One out of five from its readers. Short letters a rc had no more saliva, his mouth was more likely to be published, 8 EUREKA STREET • SEPTEMBER 1994 them, and many do it in full knowl able to fa shi on, and the degree to edge of such examples. In a fine arti which philosophers are closed to views On the other hand cle in The Tablet (23 ju ly 1994), beyond the fa shi on. Its effect, in other Donald Nicholl says that it is part of words, is to mock philosophy's claims From David Ardagh the 'intell ectual's professional defor to be radically self-refl ective and to be In one usage of the slippery term mation' automatically to scorn the radi cally reflective in its applications. 'mctaethics' viz. deciding what ethics thought expressed by Gerard Manley All that is controversial, but I would is about, Rai Gaita's ca ll for all owing Hopkins when he said 'cleave to that assert the following as fact. Philoso literature and literary criticism to whi ch is good and not even give evil a ph ers pride themselves on being ex illuminate ethi cs looks like a meta hearing'. Nicholl discusses, with hai r perts in thinking, not merely beca use ethica l suggestion. His declining to raising plausibility, the ro le that 'de they arc 'used to thinking about com disclose any firm stand on the precise formation' played in the ri se of Nazism plicated things' (La ngton), but because implications of 'sanctity of life' for and in the acceptance of its evils by so they think about thinking. However, killing a specific human being look many Germans. Philosophers may say there is in the mainstream of the sub I ike a decision not to be drawn on the (w hile tying themselves to the mast) ject no serious investigation of the normative implica ti ons of hi s norma that no respectable argument could concepts whose importance I tried to tive base; that is, the meta/normative compel anyone to approve the evil underline in my interview, VOLUME 4 NUMHER 7 • EUREKA STREET 9 Gaita's real target is a subspecies so in our understanding of the system This is the first stage of a road-w id of applied cthician-a pseudo-neutral atic relations between theoretical/ in ening. It is planned to narrow the agnostic 'proccdurali st', using a thin dicative/ assertoric reasoning of the grassed and treed plantation down the theory of human nature or none at all standard type, and practical/impera middle of the parade to provide a six and prepared to consistently crank out tive reasoning allow one to hold out lan e roadway. This will effectively the logical entailments of any general hope for there being some scope for the extend the Eastern Freeway further principle one may wish to consider. primacy of the true/false dichotomy into inner M elbourne, creating the Perhaps there are still such people, and for practical logic in rational/eth need for furth er road-widening to re driven by a liberal pluralism gone n"Iad . ical decision making. I refer here to the lease the traffic bottleneck. In the period 1940-1960-thc heyday works of von Wright, Kenny, Geach, In February 1994 th e Victorian of positivism and cmotivism- thcre Searle, and Dreyfus, and the role of Minister for Roads and Ports, Bill Ba x were many philosophers who trumpet 'defeasibility' in practical logic. Ac ter, rel eased a document called Linl< ed the complete autonomy of ethics know lcclging the usc of such logic to ing Melboume, which contained the and/or abjured any sort of 'fo undation' provide necessary conditions of sound proposed transport solution 'over the for ethi cs in theology, metaphysics or ethical reasoning need not prccl ude next 15 years'. The solution? ... ' to link even philosophical anthropology, and the notion that ethi cs is ultimately and upgrade strategic roads to provide perhaps some are in practice today. But about the preciousness (if not sancti a continuous principal road network.' this description will not fit many, and ty) of the individual as individual and This position is supported by both the certainly not Peter Si ngcr, since he is that literature, n ot logic alone, wi ll State Government and Opposition, prepared to offer and argue for an ac illuminate it better, as D ostoevski, Federal Transport Minister Lauric count of these matters, albeit his views G. M. Hopkins, Steinbeck and Gaita Brereton, and ACTU secretary Bill are quite different from those of most say. But remember it is also philoso Kelty. C hristians on a ll three counts. phers like Scotus, Kierkcgaarcl, Pierce There are a number of inner-city It would seem preferable to admit and Bubcr who fertilise this sort of re fr eeways/ bypasses/ tollways/ major such cultural, intellectual, and spirit fl ection, and Kierkegaard and Bubcr at roads in various stages of gestation . u al divisions openly and try to defend least were social m eddlers (Buber a These include the Western Bypass a philosophical anthropology that is at devout Zionist). (north-south link) and the D omain least friendly to C hristian notions of I said earlier that it would be well Tunnel (west-to-east link) and the ex the sacred both in the university and if we could convince our fellow citi tension of the Eastern Freeway with the town hall meeting rather than re zens of the correctness of our views Al exandra Parade at one encl. It is a treating too quickly into our S 10 EUREKA STREET • SEPTEMBER 1994 Downer on his uppers I N TIM EAm ANDER DowN ER will no doubt ' ecovcr fwm was closest to being right. Though party policy is more his disastrous week in Central Australia, and he will prob evasive than that: like so many Liberal policies, it appears ably be wiser for it. But his experience there, which end to say one thing but actually says another. Just the sort of ed his m edia honeymoon and stripped him of about a third duplicity shown in Perth, in fact. of his popularity rating, raises interesting questions about Downer's first mistake was not to look at the text where he can lead his party. itself, but another problem m ade recovery more difficult: Downer himself gave credence to suggestions that the relevant policy was not filed under 'A' for Aboriginal he is a skimmer rather than a detail man-a man of style affairs but under 'N ' for N orthern Territory. So he issued rather than substance, someone not well-grounded on his first clarification- the 'I had som ething else on my policy issues. Yet even on style, one of the surprises was mind' statem ent- while still unbriefed on what the poli that a person with a genuine instinct (and breeding) for cy actually was. To my polite inquiry on just that, he politics could not recover quickly. Any politician gets the suggested that I read it myself. Like his advisers, at first occasional king-hit; it is the ability to bounce up and car instance I and other reporters looked under 'A' for Abo ry on that wins respect. But this was not even a king-hit. riginal, too. Hence his second and third clarifi cations. To mix the m etaphor, it was an own goal. Paul Keating is These fumblings destroyed any warm cuddly impact a good king-hitter, with no instinct for m ercy, and now from Downer's trip. He has announced a review of Abo he knows a major point of weakness in Downer. riginal affairs policies, but even if these end up sounding The disaster was not simply a question of Downer's very concerned, one can expect that they will get little being ill-briefed. It was the impressions he conveyed that emphasis, and that they will contain all of the appease were wrong, not the fine print of Liberal policy. In fact, m ent of state interests that has so bedevilled Liberal pol the fine print signified a liberalisation of the party's icy in the past. Aboriginal affairs policy. But by the time he was finished, In the m eantime, Downer is preparing to launch his he had not only imperilled that liberalisation but turned vision statem ent. It will be fluff: the Liberal Party is to be the issue into one he will probably never dare to tackle 'pro-family, pro- jobs, pro-community and pro-Australia', again. For Aborigines, that is probably a disaster. aiming at 'growth without dram atic shocks and practi Originally, his tour was to have been a low-key visit cal, common-sense improvem ents without complicated to several poor Aboriginal communities, so he could see radical upheaval'. The focus will shift to education, health at first hand some of the ordinary health, housing, educa care and community safety. It will actually promise much tional and employm ent problems that rem ote Aborigi the same as the party does now, while claiming to em nes face. He had been talked into it by Brendan Nelson, phasise better m anagem ent and individualism. federal president of the Australian Medical Association, The Liberal Party no longer wants to frighten the who h as been pushing hard for a bipartisan push on horses. So there won 't be much about republics or mon improving health care. But two days before the visit archies, constitutions or Aborigines, and som e of it will Downer raised the temperature enorm ously, by prom is be apparently sniping at Labor from the left: Why can't ing W A Liberals that if necessary he would repeal the fed people have operations when they need them ? Why can't eral Mabo legislation. This won him a lot of cheers in students get into universities? Why don't we have a decent Perth but caused dism ay elsewhere. In fact, the fine print road network? It will be an avuncular im age of govern was a defeat for the WA Liberals. Party policy had hither m ent as benevolent provider rather than stern doctor to been to repeal the Native Titles Act, but Downer's 'if handing out the nasty but necessary m edicine. The strat necessary' qualification left open the possibility of amend egy could work, but Labor and the electorate are proba m ent and accepted the idea of federal legislation. bly too clever to let Downer get away without specific When Downer said he was going to the Territory, he policy prescriptions and som e real details of what he spoke to the former deputy leader, Michael Wooldridge, would do. who told him that the NT govermnent usually set senior Only six m onths ago, Bronwyn Bishop was attract Liberal visitors up to criticise Aboriginal land-rights ing attention because of her knack for expressing the gut legislation, especially with regard to the mining veto and instincts and prejudices of many Australian s. She lacked NT control over the Act. But whatever they said, substance and was a mistress of doublespeak, too, but she Wooldridge advised him, he should not succumb. Party had a real flair for coining slogans. But Downer's slogans policy supported the mining veto, and the so-called will not be her type of slogans, and he will face much patriation of the Act would only occur in the context of sharper questioning. He will not em erge well unless he NT statehood, i. e. perhaps never and certainly not in the does m ore homework, concentra tes on plain speaking short term. rather than on ambiguous fine print, and confronts some That was what Downer had in mind when he m ade of his party's own contradictions-especially its state his big stumble and denied any intention of changing land based structure. • rights legislation, or of handing control back to the terri tory. The first statem ent, later humiliatingly retracted, Jack Waterford is deputy editor of The Canberra Tim es V OLUME 4 N UMBER 7 • EUREKA STREET 11 THE REGION FRANK BRENNAN Land of the long litigation D "'""Nc JUDC MWT on the uonally never fished beyond 25 miles from the coast Hawke memoirs, David Lange ob but recognised the tribe's exclusive development right served, 'Australian prime ministers out to the 200-mile limit. have to win- Australians love a win In the wake of rapid privatisation, Maori have ner.' Race relations and rugby are been busy in the courts and before the tribunal, claim two fields of human endeavour in ing that Crown sales of public assets are contrary to which New Zealanders have prided the principles of the treaty. Since 1975, government themselves as winners in the trans has had to deal with public assets in light of the Tasman stakes. In the same week Crown's obligations under the treaty. When the Gov that Lange assessed Hawke 'burnish ernment introduced fishing quotas for sale by tender, ing his image with barbed wire', the Maori claimed they were entitled to half the quota in Wallabies retrieved the Bledisloe a spirit of partnership between them and the Crown. Cup and Eddie Durie, Maori judge By a variety of legislation and commercial deals, Maori and respected Chairperson of the now control over 40 per cent of the annual quota. Waitangi Tribunal, told a conference The deals have come at a price. The major comm on Maori economic development ercial deal between Maori negotiators and government that Australia was now about 10 was the purchase of the Sealords fishing empire in years ahead of New Zealand. In 1984, 1992. The Government insisted that the one-off pur he 'would have said it was about 30 chase be part of a full and final settlement of treaty years behind'. The Mabo decision grievances relating to fisheries. Maori opponents of and Commonwealth initiatives like ATSIC, the deal have been adamant that the negotiators could The courts are the Native Title Act, the Indigenous Land speak only for their own iwi and not all Maoridom. Fund Corporation, and the Council for They claim any full and final deal would itself be a going to be busy Aboriginal Reconciliation are being noticed breach of the principles of the treaty, which requires in Aotearoa. continuing recognition and respect for Maori treaty resolving disputes According to the 1991 census, 511,000 rights. Judge Eddie Durie concedes that full and final of New Zealand's 3.4 million people identi settlements are attractive to government, but the bane mnong Maori fy themselves as being of Maori ancestry. By of Maori leaders. Matiu Rata, who chaired the nego 2025, the majority of New Zealanders will tiating team for Sealords, says the $48 million-a-year about how to be able to claim some Maori ancestry. The income should be used 'like a bank, to bank- Maori Congress, one of the main national roll the development of fisheries'. carve up the catch. Maori organisations, assists iwi (tribes) to achieve their own goals, and negotiates with sLNCE THE DEAL, another Maori negotiator, Sir Tipene Retired Governor government on matters of national impor- O'Regan, has chaired the Treaty of Waitangi Fisheries tance. Professor Mason Durie, deputy con Commission. The son of a prominent pakeha surgeon General and venor of the Congress, estimates that' at least who campaigned against apartheid and the Springbok 50 per cent of Maori have no active link with rugby tours, he is the driving force behind the legal Anglican their iwi at all. ' and political strategies of his mother's people, who In 1988 the Waitangi Tribunal consid lost most of their land on the South Island. Fish is Archbishop Paul ered Article 2 of the 1840 Treaty of Waitan their main resource. Reeves describes gi, in which the Crown provides Maori with O'Regan says: 'My dream has been to move our guaranteed 'full exclusive and undisturbed people out of grievance mode and into the develop it as the possession of their fisheries which they may ment mode. But they will never come out of griev collectively or individually possess'. The tri ance mode until there's a settlement.' Two years down 'Balkanisation bunal upheld Maori claims that this guaran the track, he defends the Sealords deal: 'There was tee extended to fisheries off a tribe's coast only one option. If we hadn't taken it there would of Maoridom '. on the continental shelf out to the 12-mile have never been the capacity for a settlement-no limit. In 1992, when considering the claim possibility. It was a huge step, and I don't know wheth of the Ngai Tahu in respect of the South Is- er it was the right step for Ngai Tabu. It's left us ter land, the tribunal took into account the internation ribly exposed to others' greed.' al exclusive economic zone which extends 200 miles Maori on the South Island are not even 10 per beyond the mainland and any islands claimed by a cent of the Maori population. Fish is the only major nation state. The tribunal conceded that Maori tradi- resource up for allocation at the moment. Forests are 12 EUREKA STREET • SEPTEMBER 1994 next. Some Maori in the north take strong exception and final settlem ent of an indige to the idea that the quota proceeds would be allocat nous people's historical grievanc ed according to coastline, which would give the es. There are only durable ~ sou them tribe $56 million of the $103 million. Sir solutions that deliver present cer Graham Latimer, Chairman of the Maori Council, and tainty while keeping open the Shane Jones, one of the most respected young Maori prospect of future negotiation in . leaders in the country, are campaigning hard for allo good faith. Negotiators can speak . cation according to population. They are particularly only for their own group, but gov conscious of the history of civil disturbance at Bastion ernment will always be keen to Point which preceded the 1984 extension of the tri lock in a sufficient spectrum of the bunal's power to report on past grievances, back to indigenous leadership to legiti 1840. 'It is better to spread the money to give every mise the deal. If historical griev body an opportunity in life rather than just concen ances are reduced only to issues trate on one or two groups,' says Latimer. If distributed of property rights, social equity according to population, the south would receive only issues will still need to be ad $9 million. dressed. The community's com O'Regan sees a 'battle front em erging as som e mitment to righting past wrongs northern tribes seek to acquire South Island treaty may decline once it is appreciated resources'. His Maori opponents point to maps that that settlements are not reaching include fishing resources up to 600 miles south of the those most in need. It is only som e South Island's southern-most tip, down in the sub fudging of property rights, equity Antarctic. They claim those resources should be and welfare that will reconcile shared by all Maori, especially the dispossessed, dis past wrongs and present needs, advantaged and alienated of the Auckland suburbs, providing better outcomes for all the despair of whose lives is captured on screen at the in future. moment by Alan Duff's Once Were Warriors. This The New Zealand Government is In the wake of Mabo, film, on everyone's lips, is a distressing portrayal of already hinting that it will create a fis alcoholism, domestic violence, street gangs and youth cal envelope limited to $1 billion from Australians looking suicide among urban Maori. O'Regan says, 'We've which it will take all property settle heard the pan-Maori trumpets for some little time now ments from treaty determinations, con across the Tasman and see that as a real threat to our region and our treaty cluding by 2001. Australia, without a rights.' trea ty and with half the number of in appreciate there is no For O'Regan, the fishing quota is about tribal digenous people, is now committed to property rights, not fairness among all Maoridom . H e a land fund twice the size of the N ew such thing as a full says, 'You can't take a treaty right and allocate it in a Zealand envelope. Special program s for way that's contrary to the trea ty or in breach of it. If indigenous people are bound to favour and final settlen1ent of the treaty right is going to be used by some to expro the em erging middle class and the few priate the assets of others, that clearly has to be con propertied individuals or tribes. When an indigenous people's trary to the treaty.' O'Regan despairs of welfare some indigenous leaders become peo historical grievances ... payments on the basis of race. He claims property ple of considerable means, inevitably rights under the treaty and equates a pan-Maori dis the community at large will question If historical grievances tribution as racist and as theft. its commitment to programs on the ba The courts are going to be busy resolving disputes sis of race. are reduced only to among Maori about how to carve up the catch. Retired More so than decisions by govern Governor-General and Anglican Archbishop Paul m ent, tribunals and courts, Maori issues of property Reeves describes it as the 'Balkanisation of Maori decisions about the allocation of fi sh dam'. Reeves despairs that intra-Maori disputes about hundreds of miles off-shore will shape rights, social equity the catch will profit only the lawyers, doing nothing onshore relations of tribe and race. 'To to assist those young Maori seeking their own identi chuck it in a great pot and stir it up in a issues will still need to ty and a better future. He did not come to a sense of soup,' says O'Regan, 'is really to revert his own Maori roots until he accepted a Maori schol solely to some big generic grouping be addressed. arship to study at Oxford. He decided he could not based on race.' The choice of soup for take the scholarship without accepting the responsi all, or fish for the few will require new ways of think bility of discovering what it might m ean to be Maori. ing about justice, fairness and rights. As ever, there For him, 'Identity is both given and claimed. There is will be winners and losers regardless of race, on both a subtle interplay between the individual and the sides of the Tasman. • group.' Frank Brennan SJ is visiting fellow in the Law Program In the wake of Mabo, Australians looking across of the Research School of Social Sciences, Australian the Tasman appreciate there is no such thing as a full National University. VOLUME 4 N UMBER 7 • EUREKA STREET 13 THE N ATION MICHAEL M c GIRR That Australian institution, the local post office, has changed. In most cases the bricks and mortar are still there, but Australia Post isn't always there. What was once a public service is now a government business enterprise, and its local representatives are often licensed entrepreneurs. T,P oST Omcc T HAT WAC RowuNc ""co for 43 years no longer exists. At 14, he began as a telegraph m essenger in the Sydney suburb of Mar rickville. It was wartime, and part of his work involved fetching a clergyman to accompany him when he delivered one of the mauve-coloured tele grams that announced a death in action. 'They were pretty regular', he recalls, 'about three or four a day.' Often a clergyman was unavailable and young Rawling was asked to read the telegram to the next of kin. It was a harrowing experience, compensa ted to som e extent by the Sunday in 1942 when he worked all da y to deliver 200 telegram s telling rela tives that the 9th divison were safe in port and ready to disembark the following morning. As the '40s wore on, Wal found him self at the 'facing-up table' in the Sydney GPO, standing through the night, often for four or fiv e hours at a stretch, turning letters right way up before they were postmarked. It was dirty work under a tough regime. He used to sit near the Martin Place cenotaph for his midnight m eal, or 'crib '. Later, he took a nine months training course to learn Morse Code and worked through the era before STD phone calls, when newspapers depended on the 'press telegram' by which stories were sent across the country for a penny a word. Nowadays, Wal demonstrates Morse Code at the Telecom Museum in Ashfield. Every year in October, 180 former Morse operators gather at the Wentworthville Bowling Club for a reunion. They are trying to keep a dying art alive: the minutes are read and business conducted in Morse Code. Rawl ing, 67, finds that he is almost the youngest present. Telegrams, Morse Code, the facing-up table and even the argot which included words like 'crib' are all a thing of the past. Had he joined the post office 10 or 20 years lat er, Wal Row ling's career would have followed a com pletely different path. Like a number of Australia Post employees who joined the organisation as teen agers in the '50s and '60s, he might well have found Psst! Wanna buy a post officet The impressive neogothic pile in the Melbourne that he now owns his own post office. suburb of Flemington is still in public hands. Many like it m·e not. Another person who has spent 43 years in the Photo: Bill Thomas industry is Ken Lawry. Lawry started at 15, on the 14 EUREKA STREET • SEPTEMilEI< 1994 night telephone exchange one Christmas Eve. Since monopoly altogther. As we've seen with Optus and then his career has included 25 years as postmaster Telecom, the way would then be open for a competi in Tonga la, a town of 1200 people 25 kilometres from tor to provide a rival standard letter service, especial Echuca in northern Victoria. Australia Post an ly on the lucrative eastern seaboard. Ken nounced that the Tongala Post Office was to become Lawry, for one, is more than a little troubled a Licensed Post Office (LPO), the name given to a post by the prospect of a competitor, perhaps based The post office is office which is something between a shop with a fran in a neighbouring town, moving in on his busi- chise to sell Australia Post (and other) products, and ness. no longer a an agency for Australia Post services. An LPO, un N evertheless, our ability to get an ordi like your traditional post office, is a private business. nary letter for a basic rate to som ebody in the reassuring stone Lawry was faced with either retiring or applying Western D esert or the Antarctic T erritory is for the licence him elf, and staying in the job as a protected by law. Even so, the rural and region presence at the hub private operator. He chose the latter course. In his al task force of the Federal Labor Caucus has case it m eant taking a Voluntary Early Retirem ent written a discussion paper asking for Austral of every city, package (VER ) and using the m oney to buy the 70- ia Post's community service obliga tions to be year-old post office and residence in Tongala. The clarified. Is the organisation obliged to deliver suburb and town, licence to run the business came free with the build large bundles of school books to correspond ing. According to Milton N eilson, the national com ence students in the outback? nor even a place pany secretary of the Post Office Agents Association Caught between its two obligations of pro Limited, Lawry is fr ee to sell that licence when he viding a service and m aking a profi t, Australia which handles very chooses. It could be sold to any local shopkeeper who, Post has developed a number of stra tegies to if given the nod by Australia Post, would run the postal keep the cash register humming. One is in the much mail. With business alongside their pharmacy or bottle shop. If area of print post. Don Siemon was form erly the advent of 'retail the profitability of the business goes down and the the business manager of the m agazine Austral licensee wants to get out but can't find a buyer, Aus ian Society. H e notes that the old category of post ', the local post tralia Post has no fu rther commitment to keep run 'registered publications' was designed partly ning it. This is an unlikely scenario in Tongala. Lawry to assist unprofitable 'worthy publications' office is just is precisely the kind of postal manager that Australia which carried less than 25 per cent advertis Post wants to step outside the practice of a lifetime ing. But the new ca tegory of 'print post', which another business in and take their own licence. He knows everyone in replaces registered publications, touts for the town. He works 12-14 hours a day, and, by his own bulk-mail business of such publications as the street. account, is doing pretty well. advertising catalogues, especially those with Any regular user of Australia Post over the past the kind of reply- paid coupon that generates further six years will have noticed big changes. Post Offices business. look zippier and the range of products have diversi Rowland Hill believes that the organisation also fi ed enormously. Since 1989, Australia Post has been has an unexploited network for acting as an agent for a 'government business enterprise', m eaning, as the other principals, especially with EFTPOS enabling name suggests, that it is being run as a business rath customers to do a myriad of transactions from the er than a government instrumentality. Rowland Hill, sam e point. The Post Office has represented the Com Australia Post's national corporate communications monwealth Bank for almost 80 years but is now talk m anager, explains that this m eans the organisation ing with other banks. Its future identity will be m ore has been expected to show a return on the assets it like a 'one-stop bill shop'. has built up over generations as well as to pay gov More immediately, Australia Post is moving to ernment taxes and charges. Last year, it paid $300 wards a complete separation of its retail and delivery million in tax. The commercial pressure on Austral sectors. The post offi ce is no longer a reassuring stone ia Post has been increased by last N ovember's Indus presence at the hub of every city, suburb and town, try Commission report, which decided to diminish nor even a place which handles very much m ail. With the postal m onopoly: before that a competitor had to the advent of 'retail post', the local post office is just charge ten times Australia Post's rate on any another business in the street. Mail is sorted and de letter under 500 grams. livered through unprepossessing concrete bunkers called mail centres. Although 16 million item s of m ail W EN LEG ISLATION 1s ENACTED later in the year, the pass daily through these centres nationwide, 800,000 m onopoly will apply only to letters under 250 grams, custom ers cross the threshold of retail post outlets. for which four times Australia Post's rate will have These retail outlets are increasingly in private hands. to be charged. Australia Post has been pleading that, The posties' room behind the Clifton Hill Post if change is to be introduced, it should be gradual. office in suburban Melbourne stands empty. The only This first step will take about 16 per cent of total mail which the new licensees, Bob and Mary Taylor, business out from behind the m onopoly. A review are required to sort is that for private boxes. They are scheduled to begin in 1996 could well rem ove the hoping to be able to sub-lease the room where pos- V OLUME 4 N UMBER 7 • EUREKA STREET 15 Milton Neilson was formerly an agent and is now the licensee in Melbourne's Dcepdcne. As an agent, Australia Post estimated that he was entitled to 31.5 hours of assistance per week. He says that one of the victories of the Post Office Agents Association was that a licensee can decide his or her own staffing needs. 'I n ever really n eeded an assistant,' he says. 'The money that used to go in that direction now stays in my own pocket'. As licensees work longer hours, other people are looking for work. The agreement struck between Australia Post and the union allows for the • 1 rnur 2 loss of up to 1500 jobs during the five-year phase-in PosL office-s - men used to gear up for the cla y's rounds. Bob worked peri od for retail post. One fa ctor that prompted Bob on lhe move: in dozens of post offices over a period of 25 years un Ross to take an early retirem ent package and usc it to the unimpressivel y til h e becam e the controlling postal manager in the buy the licence a t West Wallscnd, in NSW, was modernist Comberwell, VIC Brunswick area. A reorganisation m eant that h e was shrinking job prospects within Australia Post, fo r PosL Office, wearing finally promoted into a position for which there was which he was working as a senior project officer in iL s relocation sign. actually no job. He worked, in what he considered an Sydney. The position gave him the chance to m ake a overpaid capacity, for 18 months. 'I could see the writ list of the post offi ces he would most like to own. He ing on the wall', he says. He decided to take aVER got his second pick. and tender for the li cence at Clifton Hill, part of the T here's no doubt that licensees have done well tender indicating that he was willing to negotiate to out of the current push towards profitability. On the bu y the building. The office is now open longer hours one hand, the agents' association is proud that th e than before. Arc they doing better financially? 'Oh deal it took three yea rs to negotiate with Australia yeah, certainly, ' he says. Post provides its m embers with a level of protection Milton Neilson provides a clear picture of the which the Federal Government has so far struggled extent that retail post operati ons are being sold: by unsuccessfully to implement in the case of October this year, the familiar post office agent will other people investing in a franchise. be a thing of the past. These are the 2700 postal out lets nationwide that were often run in conjunction 0 N THE OTHER HAND, ]OHN LYN CH, an Australia Post with newsagencies and grocery shops. The agents used area manager, says that the first licence he put out to to be paid a fee for service. They have been given the tender was resold within 12 m onths for treble its va l option of taking a licence and running the business ue. 'A lot of them can see the li cence being doubled for themselves. Others have been paid a cessation fee. or trebled in very quick time,' he says, noting rueful Bob Ross, the licensee of the West Wall send Post Of ly that the office in Pyramid Hill, where he started at fice near Newcastle, believes this cessation fee has 14, has recently been sold. 'They want more private been used to pacify agents who were oft en the ones boxes to rent. They want to carry philatelic lines be in local areas organising petitions against closures and cause the margin on them is 30 per cent as opposed ch ange. to the normal 12 per cent. They're business people.' Neilson says that about 600 official post offices Lynch has no doubt that the LPO provides quality have been designated to convert to LPOs, although service and that the tender system is 'watertight'. But Australia Post m aintains they have no 'hit list' and he also recalls that the post office, as a m atter of t hat potential LPOs are identified on a case-by-case course, u sed to have room for a different kind of basis. worker. At one stage, he was able to employ kids from So far, fewer than 250 have made the change; a ' backward home'. 'I rem ember the first cl ay I paid the slowdown, according to N eilson, resulting fro m one of those gu ys', he says. 'The look on his face was pressure applied by the Communication Workers just magic. J went to his Christmas party and he Union. Those post offices taken over by existing staff showed me round to all his friends. ' Is a licensee likely have not been subj ect to a licence fee . The licensee to carry that kind of worker? 'It's m ost unlikely.' simply had to buy the buildings, gaining both a busi Australia Post says that the winner in all these ness and a property in one hit. changes is the cu stom er. Retail post gives you the op Where the tender has com e from outside the par portunity to buy Christmas cards and presents at the ticular post office concerned, the licence has been sold. same place you buy the stamps to send them. 'J don't Neilson says that it was very difficult to estimate the use the post office much anymore,' says Wal Rawl va lue of these licences. He knows of cases where peo ing. 'I get annoyed w hen I go in and it looks more like ple paid $250,000 for a licence and could never hope a newsagent or a card shop. It's not a post office any to recoup their investment. He knows of a busy sub m ore.' • urba n post office for which the only tender was $5. It Michael McGirr SJ is the consulting ccl i tor of Eureka was sold after further negotiation. Street . 16 EUREKA STREET • Sti'TEMBER 1994 REPO RT RICHARD GILBERT Can you lzeep a secret • • • D UR,NC 1994 THm< HAn ""N by its recipient, the then Treasurer, publish it. But INP's openness does two public inquiries into events sur John Kerin, when he appeared before raise questions about how secretive rounding the sale of the Fairfax group the committee. Percentage Players the FIRB should be. of companies to the Canadian media contains a number of remarks about Even apart from the court case, magnate, Conrad Black, in 1991. The inaccurate and misleading material in however, the Government is likely to first report of the Senate's print m edia the document, especially in relation make som e changes to FIRB proce committee, Percentage Players, rec to AIN's qualities to run Fairfax. dures. On 15 July The Sydney Morn ommended an overhaul of foreign -in Those involved in foreign-invest ing Herald reported that the Govern vestment policy to m ake its opera m ent transactions in Australia will ment planned to release reasons for tions more open. And a $1. 5 billion follow events in the Federal Court rejecting or accepting major foreign claim for damages has been lodged in closely. Many documents provided in investment proposals. Although the the Federal Court by the unsuccessful confidence to the FIRB contain sensi changes are consistent with the gener bidders for Fairfax against the Fairfax tive com mercia! cia ta that, if released, al thrust of majority (non-government) group and its former receivers and could give recipients a competitive and minority (government) recom their advisers. Those being sued have advantage. If the court does take a mendations in Percentage Players, the have made a $400 million counter liberal view about the release of infor Government has not yet formally re claim. mation, it is possible that future over sponded to that report. Under Senate The unsuccessful bidders were the seas investors would be less ready to procedures the Government endeav INP group, led by the Irish business provide information on their propos ours to respond within three m onths man Tony O'Reilly, and Australian als, and more inclined to invest in of the tabling of a committee report, Independent Newspapers (AIN). Bob countries that have open and rigorous and it is likely that the Senate will Ellicott QC, a former solicitor-gener procedures. On the other hand, it could keenly debate the Government re al, attorney-general and Federal Court be argued that businesses which fear sponse. judge, heads the INP legal team. disclosure do so precisely because they The majority report calls on the During the Senate inquiry, the have information which sh ould be Government to establish a Foreign Government resisted requests for it to made public. Investment Commission, which hand over documents on its decisions Another point of view is that great would operate at arm's length from in 1991 and 1993 regarding the Fairfax er openness and accountability in de the Treasury and report to Parliam ent group. Hitherto, the Government has cision -m aking would improve the annually. For certain kinds of propos conducted its Foreign Investment Re quality of the FIRE's information-gath als, the commission would be the gate view Board (FIRB ) operations in a way ering and analysis. And foreign inves keeper. However, decisions in key which has seen the more sensitive tors and their representatives will be economic areas would be made by the FIRB procedures and expertise operate interested in what the documents re Treasurer after advice from the com under almost total secrecy. veal about the way the FIRB works, mission. The majority report also rec But on 18 July Justice Sheppard and about how recommendations to ommends that FIRB applications ruled in the Federal Court that the the Treasurer on foreign-investment should be released to the public after INP lawyers and certain nominated proposals are prepared. Such intelli 12 months, unless the affected party is legal counsel should have confiden gence could help in the preparation of able to demonstrate that the public tial access to the FIRB material. So, future applications- an outcome of interest requires that the material be when the case is heard later this year, greater long- term significance than the confidential. it is possible that counsel for INP and any of the other implications of end The 'ayes had it' in the Senate AIN will apply to have the documents ing Treasury secrecy. print m edia committee in requesting in question tendered as public evi The potential sensitivity of cer the release of FIRB documents, but dence. If this happens, it may lead to tain FIRB material is evident from the Government refused. All eyes are FIRB officials being cross-examined INP's 1991submission, a copy of which now on the Federal Court in Sydney to on their expertise. has been given to the Senate commit see whether, as with Mabo and the In more than 20 years of FIRB oper tee. Had this information been in the political broadcasting legislation, the ations, there have been few releases of public domain at the time of the 1991 judiciary must do the legislature's confidential material. The first major decision, it could have had a signifi work when it com es to dealing with reported breach of FIRB security oc cant influence on stock-market deci secrecy in the executive. • curred early in 1993, when a crucial sions. Three years after the decision to document on the 1991 Fairfax deci sell Fairfax to the Conrad Black-led sion was lea ked to the AIN group. Tourang group, however, the INP Richard Gilbert is Secretary of the This document was attached to the material has only limited practical Senate Select Committee on Certain AIN submission to the Senate print and commercial value-hence, to a Aspects of Foreign Ownership Deci m edia committee and authenticated large extent, the willingness of INP to sions in Relation to the Print Medi a. V OLUME 4 N UMBER 7 • EUREKA STREET 17 I 'Freedom's just another word • • • It is imporlilnt that we understond how profoundly we all feel the needs that religion, clown the ages, has sati<>fied ... firstly. the need LObe given an artinzlation of om half-glimpsed knowledge of exaltation , of awe, of wonder: life is an awesome experience, and religion helps us understand why life so often makes us feel small. by telling us what we me smaller than; and, contrariwise, because we also have a sense of being special, of being chosen, religion helps us by telling us what we have been chosen by, and what for. Secondly, we need answers to the unanswerable: how did we gel here! How did 'here' get here in the first place! Is this, this brief life, all there is! How can it be! What would be the point of that! And, thh·dly, we need codes to live by, 'rules for every damn thing' .. The soul needs all these explanations, not '>imply rational explanations of the heart. -Salman Rushdie, Herbert Read Memorial Lecture, written in hiding, 1991. 0 N MoN 18 EUREKA STREET • SEPTEMBER 1994 the individual's freedom of con to lead their ritualistic or symbolic science and observance from the observance. And they set up chains oppressive practices of secular rulers. of authority and influence which, In the three cases in point, however, naturall y, affect the community. A ,cH'M ~~~:~:~::~~~o V OLUME 4 N UMI\ER 7 • EUREKA STREET 19 C oNVERSATTONS According to Winton Tim Winton describes his new novel, The Riders, as 'a journey into the underworld'. H. A. Willis tall{s to him about the book, its 'bit of a fob ' hero, Scully, and the sources that have shaped Winton 's fiction. When you can assume that your audience holds the same beli efs as you do, you can relax a little and use more normal means of talking to it; when you have to assume that it does not, then you have to make your vision apparen t by shock-to the hard of hearing you shout, and for the almost blind you draw large and sta rt ling figures. -Flannery O 'Connor T.W oNTONOI WAS AWUC 20 EUREKA STREET • S EPTEMBER 1994 or liturgy, no notion of sacrament, the sam e time, seem s to fo llow that there. En do, fr om Japan, is one of my aside from baptism, which was very of the T< ing fames Bible. You lil V OLUME 4 N uM!lER 7 • EUREKA STREET 21 I was with some L friends a a food through all yam worl< and is ex and the next day he's off on his who, by grace and listening and hard pressed by Les Murra y in the epi nightmare, which is what the book's work, is actuall y apprehending and hall one dLzy-you graph to That Eye, The Sky: ' .. . this about, it's a journey into the under seeing something that is there. Scul interleaved continuing plane'. world. ly just thinks he can break down the loww, dragged I was always frustrated with real doors and get to what it is. Scully is lo ism, for som e of the reasons that a It's a real journey into the under not waiting around for anybody! Per out have a lot of people were frustrated with wmld. This novel is one of the darl< haps that's his Australian m ale na rea lism. The realistic novels that I es t things you've written. Scully is ture. And everywhere he goes he's rani< znuLLon read didn't include all of the reality tested mme than most of yam char turned away, every clue is a clue he's that I knew. So if this was realism, acters. m ade for himself and he gets to the curry. Lool 22 EUREKA STREET • SEPTEM BER 1994 in time. He's trapped in his own idea where you step over the line of not Being born into a culture that's of who he is and what his li fe is and being humble in the face of what is. irreligious, being brought up within who he belongs with and to. He's not Where you can try to bend reality to a ghetto that is religious, and a ghet budging from that and it's destroy suit yourself, which is where propa to within the greater ghetto of Chris ing him. He's going to be like these ganda and the tatty, sentimental, tendom, I've got this double thing of medieval horsemen who are stuck inspirational novel of the hea rt having religion and having faith and in time, who turn up at the front of cornes out- mediocrity. And also having almost nothing in common this castle keep looking for some those devotional books. I think they with the surrounding culture. And thing that never appears. are very present in a patsy Christian then I have to represent that and not Flannery O'Connor's Mystery tradition of writing and they're huge be self-conscious about including it and Manners is one of my favourite ly present in a lot of feminist and as part of the world that people in my non-fiction works. It's like a hymn Marxist writing where the writer books sec- so I've got to find a new I think Robert book or a prayer book to me. She doesn't own up to what the world is language that's authentic and which says, 'What the fiction writer will like, to what reality is like. They doesn't relax into clerical Louis Stevenson discover, if he discovers anything at shift it to suit themselves. You ca n stereotypes. all, is that he cannot move or mould smell a rat quickly, you can smell a was being rea lity in the interests of abstract phony there. T -IE REASON GRA HAM GREE NE can truth. The writer learns, perh aps Fi ction is all about copying what get to things quicker than I can is punished-and is more quickly than the reader, to be is and seeing what might be and also bccau c he can have clerical charac humble in the face of what is.' what's available. It's about being ters, he ca n have the structure of the still being And that's what Scully's having forced to cope with reality. That's Church, he can have the buildings of to deal with, what is is the fact that why fiction is more potent and more the Church itself- people are in uni punished-for he's been deserted without explana strange and mysterious than pam form. There were a whole lot of tion, without the likelihood of any phlet writing. My specifi c interest givens there that he can work with being popular. explanation being forthcoming. has always been in trying to find a that just weren't there for m e and Sooner or later, he's just going to won't be there for people with my I love Stevenson. have to cope with that. And he won't. background. We've got to do a whole Not until the end of the book he different set of manoeuvres and go . .. when I was a won't. through a whole separate process of The Riders is one of the dark thought in order to make ourselves child Stevenson books. That Eye, The Sl VOLUM E 4 NUMBER 7 • EUREKA STREET 23 I see whot people znight the difference in people's outlook. cause wrong is just according to what I think that's the flaw in our nature. That's what I was struggling for, to your values are. You have to search I think it's demonstrable, it's wit call the try to find a new language for the among people to find something that nessable every day. You are hard numinous or a new colour on the they're unequivocally opposed to. pressed to find somebody who 'znagical realist' Christian shape, a new thread in the We've got to that stage where every doesn't have those kinds of signs of story. thing is so relative. the flaw in them. And I don't mean or surreal that in the sense of 'people are worth There's traces of what 1 tal 24 EUREKA STREET • SEPTEMBER 1994 The problem there is language. isn't much of a relationship between about it because it's not som ething I Any notion, any name, any word, faith and belief. Some of the people can argue for either one way or the any picturewe haveofGod will have who want hardest to believe are not other. You know, what am I going to to be a m etaphor. Theology is a meta able to believe and some of the peo do? Drag them up and use them as phorical exploration. I don't think ple who don't try very hard are able case studies? I'm a reasonably scep it's possible to apprehend God with to believe-and not even in a super tical person .. . I've even been to things out metaphors. I think theology has ficial way, they have a belief, a strong, like healing services and ceremo come out of times and places, and comforting, nurturing, nutritional nies and whatever else and I don't the metaphors usually evolve organ belief [laughs ]- in the sense of some fe el good when I go to things like ica lly and arc what pictures people thing that feeds them- nurturing that, yo u know, I' m not into that. are able to make of God and com e to wasn't quite strong enough. consensus about. When those m eta Miracles arc incidental. The fact It's out on the looser edge of things phors cease to becom e useful, cease of the Resurrection isn't as powerful there, isn't i L! to become liberating, then they have as the symbolic meaning of Yea h, and also, I'm always worried to be rethought. I don't there's any the Resurrection. about peopl e's motives. I mea n, it's problem with that. And I don't think bad enough at the best of times, but Any notion, that precludes the notion for a search YOU CAN SEE IT in the Scriptures, .. .. It's all pretty loose goose out for characteristics or nature. you can sec it in Jesus's behaviour, there. any nmne, any his frustration at peopl e missing the Let's tall V OLUME 4 N UMBER 7 • EUREKA STREET 25 REPO RT A NDREW VINCENT IInperilled are the peaceinalzers The Middle Ea st 'peace process' is not off track. yet, but it is hardly a triumphal progress either. ance they fceP M y the dem ocratically elected Prcsidcn t concern here is with of South Afri ca. the Arab and Islamic Now compare the ANC to the oppo nents, for the PLO, for it too has 'come in from the Is rae li o ppo n e nts cold'. Yasscr Arafat ha s been rccei ve e! have a very eli ff eren t by the U S President as well as by agenda and deserve Nelson Mandcla, but unlike the tri separate treatment. umphant M andcla, Arafat seems to Perh aps the best have received little m ore than the s tarting po int fo r mayorship of Gaza, with only the such a refl ection is vagu est prom iscs of m ore to com e in the Palestin e Libera the future. tion O rga nisa tion it It is easy to sec why some Pales self. The PLO has tinians feel bitter at this turn of been arou ncl fo r a long events. They argue that the present time now, and has round of peace agreem ents, like the been associa ted in Camp Dav id agreem ent between Is many people's minds rael and Egypt in the late '70s, are with 26 EUREKA STREET • S EPTEM BER 1994 Peace with the frontline states has always been the remain in the occupied territori es, staclc to Israel making separate peace Al geria, a Ith ough fo r and the settlers are subject to len i agreements with Jordan, Syria and different reason s, goal of Israel and the ently applied Israeli law. And the Lebanon. For it is peace with these since Al geria has not economic disarray and heavyhand frontline states, rather than with the signed a trea ty with US . In the past, the edness of the Israeli army that have stateless Palestinia n people, that has Israel. characterised the occupation in gen always been the goal oflsrael and the A reviva l of terror Palestinians were eral have not changed. Most of the US. In the past, the Palestinians were ism is the great fear of 'adva nces' have been very cosm etic the obstacle to this kind of peace the Israelis, too. For the obstacle to this indeed. between Israel and its neighbours, although Camp Dav One important difference in the but now that obstacle has been re id survived the assas kind of peace politics of the occupied territories, moved. sination of President however, is that a growing number In fact, som e Palestinians see the Sa dat, there is no guar between Isra el and of Pa lestinians now see their own present seri es of agreements as the antee that an agree leadership as complicit in their con ultimate sell -out: it amounts to giv m en t wi t h Syria its neighbours, but tinuingoppress.ion. Arafat, these crit ing the Israelis and the America ns would survive the fa ll ics argue, has becom e a kind ofisraeli everything they ever wa nted, while of Assad, or that peace now that obstacle puppet, reliant on Israeli security to giving nothing substantial to the Pal with Jordan would sur protect him from the assassin's estinians. How might the agreements vive the death of Hus- has been removed. bulle t, a nd acting in Gaza t o be opposed by someone who under sein, who has cancer m aintain 'control' for the stood them in this way? As there are anyway. And who could say w heth grea ter good of Israel. few oth e r forum s to express erpeace with the PLO would survive opposition in the Middle East, resort the demise of Yasser Arafat1 So we A RAFAT REMAIN S a politieallead to terrorism again becomes a possi may be looking at the prospect of er, with responsibilities to his Pales bility. So, although we might be wit more instability in the Middle East, tinian constituency, yet every time nessing the beginnings of a kind of with more acts of terrori m-and he speaks on issues such as the sta Pa x Am erican a in the Middle Ea st, more reprisals-in the years to come. tus of Jerusalem, or the Palestinians this may be accompanied by m ore, In m any Arab countries a change of still in prison, he is further humiliat rather than fewer, acts of terror. Can regime is long overdue, and today's ed by the Israelis. In Capetown, at such acts derail the peace process? events may well be the catalyst that the time of N elson Mandela's inau N ot in the short term, certainly. brings about such changes. guration, Arafat spoke of a iihad, or N either the Bu enos Aires bombing It is time to sound a note of real h oly war, to libe rate Jerusalem, nor the Hebron massacre have sig ism, rather than of triumph, in ana w hi ch all Palestinian s see as their nificantly upset the process. But in lysing the politics of the Middle East. capital. The Israelis were incensed, the longer term, if terror is directed The triumph, such as it was, ended Ultra-orthodox fews at the and a humiliated Arafat was fo rced at the Arab governments that signed with Operation Desert Storm. • Western Wall, ferusalem, to recant. the agreements, it could ca use those pray with the chief rabbi The agreements between Israel's governments to fall, and possibly be Andrew Vincent is Acting Director during Israeli-Palestinian Prime Minister, Yitzhak Rabin, and replaced by hardline fundam ental of the Middle East Centre at Mac peace tall< s, May 1994. King Hussein of Jordan also rankle ists. This is already happening in quarie University. Photo: Emmanuel Santos with the Palestinians, for Hussein has been given a kind of trus teeship over the Mus lim holy places in Je ru salem -a trus tee s hip A ra fa t feel s should rightfully be his. This explains his recent insistence that Jerusa lem be put on the agenda now, and not in three years' time as ori gi nall y planned, but it is unlikely that the Israelis will agree to this req uest. Many Pa lestinians believe that they have been fo bbed off with li ttlc, in order to re move them as an ob- EssAY GRAHAM LITTLE Using childhood ) Lc T""THt veRS.ON a. )AC' AND )>ec I thought w"' the tmc one fa cl< and Jill went up the hill To fetch a pail of water; fa cl< fell down And brol Then up Ja ck got And home did trot A s fa st as h e could caper; And went to bed To m end his h ead With vinegar and brown paper. Then I read that Jocelynne Scutt, the feminist lawyer, was brought up on a different Jack and Jill: 'I must have been three or four, in a discussion with my older sister about the sexist content of Jack and Jill, and how, in the second verse, Jill gets into trouble for everything and has to wrap Jack's crown in vinegar and brown paper, whereas I'm sure they both had to tumble down the hill and she would have been distressed and hurt. But, no, she has to have the stiff upper lip and minister to Jack.' In The Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes, there is no Scutt version and the preferred second verse is: Up Ja ck got, and h ome did trot, As fast as h e could caper, To old Dame Dab, who patched his nob With vinegar and brown paper. The nearest I was able to come to the offending version was a verse in which the real business is between mother and daughter. This would hardly satisfy Jill's supporters, but at least it brings Jill to centre stage. Then Till cam e in, And sh e did grin, To see Ja ck's paper plaster; Drawings by Her mother whipt her, Peter Fraser Across h er knee, For laughing at facl<'s disaster 28 EUREKA STREET • SEPTEMBER 1994 That seem ed to be it. But just recently a student showed m e a page in the 1965 edition of Dean's Gift Book of N ursery Rhym es, illustrated by Janet and Grahame Johnstone. The text gives m y version of Jack and Jill- but the illustrations have Scutt's. Down in the right-hand corner, a little girl, blonde and curly and with round cheeks, is dabbing at the scalp of a boy w ho looks just as boys are supposed to, simultaneously heroic and helpless. As it happens, I am not much interested in who has the right Ja ck and Jill. What interests me is that an ideological point is made with a piece of childhood, that a childhood experi ence is used to justify a public career and, presumably, the private life that sustains it. I have com e to think of 'childhood' as a thing we carry about in our grown-up heads, a thing we are con stantly polishing and editing, or even rewriting: a narrative that places us. In this sense, childhood is selective and open to revision, a con struct shaped by who we are and what we are about in the here and now. It belongs as much to the present as to the past, and as we play the game of pro vita sua it is the joker in every hand. Richard Coe writes in When the Grass Was Taller that the problems in writing 'the Childhood' are first 'the accuracy of m em ory' and second 'the constantly changing relationship between the self who writes and the self who is remembered'. Goethe, Chateaubriand and Wordsworth 'all spent the better part of half a century struggling with successive versions of their earlier selves'. There was a time, of course, when childhood did not exist: children had no mind till their first syllogism and no heart till their first kiss. In the 18th century's discovery of childhood the pivotal fi gure was Rousseau, because he remembered his nurse beating him on the bum when he was 11 . Childhood becam e both another world, in which children have ideas and feelings that m ake them more than seedling adults, and a distinctive presence in the adult world. Then Freud made childhood a m ajor preoccupation of the century that is now coming to a close. The problem of m emory is a real one. But the other problem interests m e more-the need for the self of childhood and the self of adulthood to work out som e story on which they can both agree. How do we use our childhoods to construct an identity with which we can live, and how do we use it to con struct a political ideology, where we act for others? I want to explore the idea that childhood, as Oscar Wilde said of youth and the young, is wasted on children, that it is experienced only by the adult the child becomes, understood only in retrospect and then only in an endless series of revisions. People who observe childhood by observing children directly would not care for these questions, and it is true that not properly listening to children is one of the oldest crimes against humanity. But looking to children them selves does not guarantee their being heard. Those British children in the seri es 7-Up are in competition for their childhoods with people determined to tell them who they are every seven years. In newer versions of the series, particularly the one m ade in the ruins of the Berlin Wall, adult politicking all but drowns out the children's thoughts. Indeed, whether we are children or adults, we are all under pressure to frame our childhoods according to public meaning. In the decade of child abuse, there are m emory consultants to bring our pasts up to date, and critics t o t ell Blanche D' Alpuget she'd got her childhood wrong when she didn't m oralise in the expected manner. A C ROWN-U P D AUGHTER SPENDING A WI STFU L AFTERNOON with her m other over the photo albums- this must be about as far as you can get from an ideological use of childhood, or even from using childhood at all. It is about finding a truth, not developing a line. 'There were 30 years of photos and m em ories spread in a jumble over the table. My m other and I dipped into them at random, rest ing our elbows on the faces and places of decades past, looking for the people we were then and for the elusive, youthful signposts of what we would be L come.' At one point the mother was speaking about one of the pictures, about getting it enlarged and so on, but the daughter 'wasn't listening any more. I was gazing at a casual portrait of myself seated in a chair, eyes, even at seven years of age, serious and questioning, considering the world. I studied that face, trying to trace the woman I had become in the child that I was. Would the child be pleased with the adult? I hoped so.' Childhood is here a shrine burdened with innocence, an oracle not for ideology but for the wisdom of babes and sucklings. T rying to contact that child, the daughter picked up the picture of her seven-year-old self: 'Carefully I passed it on to m y m other, "Look at that." My voice was soft, I waited, won dering what insights she would add to the child that had becom e m e. But each of us studies the past for different signposts. "My God!", exclaimed m y m oth er, "Did I really think that wallpaper was sophisticated?". And together we VOLUME 4 N UMBER 7 • EUREKA STREET 29 laughed.' The shrine was just a dandelion after all and the child is mute. The story, which promised to Childhood can be simple and elevating, becomes complicated and depressing, a Mommy Dearest story dressed in whimsy with its terrible theme a rejecting mother lodged at the core of her daughter's adult self. The younger become a theme woman's dalliance with the photo album has only confirmed h er belief that ' the child park for nostalgic 'that had become me' is lost to her because she cannot compete with the next bright thing that catches her mother's eye. grown-ups, I ONC E MET A MAN who said he'd slammed the door on his childhood at 18, vowing never to give it a costnme drama another thought, and he hasn't. But out of sight is not always out of mind and a man's childhood may lie in wait till he's down, as in the pathos of dying soldiers calling for their mother in a foreign land. in which the Sometimes we prefer to work on other people's childhood instead of our own. Typically, the hard-boiled detective hero has had his childhood stolen from him and his mission is to give other children their villains are only childhood back. Ross Macdonald's Lew Archer roams the real and suburban deserts of California look ing for lost boys and girls he can restore to their grieving families. Some people treat their childhood as pretending- a mystery containing clues to the meaning and direction of their life. D.M. Thomas, author of Th e White Hotel, remarked of his psychoanalysis: 'I had this constant sense of expectation that there would or so monstrous come this moment of great revelation when I would discover that my mother had seduced me at three years old or something- which would cure all my ills.' Perhaps most of us are hoping for a 'Rosebud' of as to be our own among the junk in our attic. The recovery of a childhood promises continuity, but it can bring surprises. Adults sometimes fear completely it the way children fear discovering they're adopted. News items still recall the Hollywood melodramas of the '40s which featured mistaken identities, newborns mislabelled in hospital, and shock revelations alien-and the at the reading of the will: aunts who turn out to be mothers not allowed to keep their child, or orphans recognised at last, like Cinderella. Bill Clinton even found a brother in the White House. Unexpected children are news from childhood can lead to a new beginning but most of us probably want the reassurance that we had a good upbringing, that we are the proud possessors of a normal childhood that no friend might be happy little embarrassed by and no enemy will be able to use against us. Vegemites with Certainly for many people who are middle class and vote right-of-centre, the best childhood is a conventional childhood and, anyway, it's a private matter. Here is 'Lou' with his list of what didn't their minds on happen in his childhood: I was born at a very young age (laughter) , had a normal middle -class upbringing, childhood. Very nothing but the stable home, parents never fought or anything lil M Y C HILD HOOD CAN BE A CLUB T O BEAT YOURS WITH, as when a Labor Minister for Education rebuked protesting students for not being a patch on his revolutionary youth, and we all lecture our children for being more affluent at 16 than we were at 30. But a rewritten childhood can patch things up, can show sympathy or pay tribute. It can be used simply to record an existence, to say I was there, there I am, that's what I was like. Intellectuals enjoy charting the growth of their ideas, what they were reading when, seeing how much wiser they've become or being reminded how precocious they were. Of course, they risk discovering how they've slowed down or that they've been going round in circles. There is an almost clinical approach that goes down well at dinner parties in which we become specimens to our- 30 EUREKA STREET • SEPTE MBER 1994 selves, surprisingly pleased to be introvert or extrovert, Taurus, Virgo or Gemini. Presumably this is because we are not alone and, being generic, not to blame. It may be different for women. Though feminist biographies m ay still be catching up, at this m o m ent in history wom en readers are licensed to read what another woman writes as if it were autobiog raphy. Whatever the subject matter, women readers read women writers as if every woman's book is really a note from the underground childhood they all shared but weren't free to speak about before. Gender samizdat. Something like this may occur wherever there are newly liberated groups discovering the writers among them- Ea st Germans, for example, and Chinese students exiled in the West. What happens to childhoods when history itself is disrupted? What stories are Russian parents telling their children as they queue for their Big Macs? At the Sigmund Freud Institute in Frankfurt, a m an reported that in Holland every elderly citizen, encouraged by tales of a nation's Resistance, has a childhood they want to talk about, while in Germany, it is not only the Third Reich they won't talk about but the child they are asham ed they were then. Folk singers and novelists, as well as historians in what is called oral history, recover childhood in forgotten gam es and rhym es, in curses, in maps of lost landscapes and torn-down buildings and aban doned streets, in family sayings and remedies, in lists of things stuck on the fridge, in mother's recipes, in the lopsided blind and the dunny door that would never shut properly-as well as in all the names of the people who formed the crowd in our childhood epic. B uT THE conservation OF CH ILDHOOD, charming as its results often are, has its dangers. It diminishes childhood by leaving out its rough psychology, treating its emotional wildernesses and forests, its sex uality, violence, fea r, hatred and guilt, as if they were not much more than cute, like bonsai plants. Childhood can becom e a them e park for nostalgic grown-ups, a costume drama in which the villains are only pretending-or so monstrous as to be completely alien-and the children are happy little Vegemites with their minds on nothing but the new bicycle, the video gam e and the trip to Disneyworld at Christmas. The past can be a gam e families use to make contact in the present. Funny stories are standard here, elaborated, exaggerated and doubly familiar- like the one about the uncle who was shaving the corpse that farted, and the apprentice who ran away on his first day wailing he'd never be back! The childhoods of parents reassure the young that their world extends behind them and ahead of them, that they are surrounded by a host of guardian angels disguised as jolly and unreliable uncles and stern but heart of-gold aunts, barely rem embered m ad cousins, a neighbour whose 'yoo-hoo' would send half the family out the front door on sudden errands. Pondering the idea that their parents had to meet and fall in love for their own lives to begin, children experi ence a frisson at almost not-being as they drink in the tale of two families converging over time and space, of strange coincidences and near-things that saved their mum and their dad from marrying som ebody else and having different children. In the film Back To The Future, a boy travels through time to make sure his parents get together in time so that he gets born as precisely himself. There's another side to this for children whose parents separate. Conrad Black describes the small voice of his five-year old son on the transatlantic phone: 'But don't you love mummy just a little bit?' The shared biographies of blended families, the story of how we all came to be together this way must be hard to begin but vital to attempt. L E FIRST AUDIENCE FOR OUR CHILDHOOD IS OURSELVES. Politicians and other famous people have an interest in building a version of childhood into their image, but it works better if they believe it them selves. Lyndon Johnson convinced himself his grandaddy fo ught and died at the Alamo, though it suited him politically as well. Ronald Reagan constructed for himself a childhood that was m ore American than Huckleberry Finn's by editing out his horn-rimmed glasses and pipe, and his hound's tooth jacket, and h is m other's demand that he play her husband in the psychodram as of m arriage she wrote for the local church. Margaret Thatcher claimed a strict up bringing and used it to attack the welfare state and as a model for an entrepreneurial Britain. She left out her competition with her mother and her sister, the politics of her growing up, while Benazir Bhutto, in a political battle with her m other and brother, insists with presidential vigour that her father chose her as his successor. Bob Hawke graced his ambition to be Prim e Minister of Australia with a biblical prophecy vouch- VOLUME 4 N UMBER 7 • EUREKA STREET 31 safed to his mother and with stories of how all who observed his boyhood and youth were filled with It may be amazement. Hawke made his calling his own with a 'near-death' experience aft er crashing his m otorcy cle at 18. Som ething like this seems de rigueur for male reformist leaders with any pretence to charism a different for and it can be very useful if, like President C linton, their story includes rescuing their mother fro m a w01n en. Though violent (s tep)father. T here ought to be as many childhoods as there are people on the pl anet, but sadly that isn't the feminist case. On refl ection, my rem ark about childhood being wasted on children is not so funny since for centuries children all over the world have been robbed of their childhoods in mines and pa ddy fields, in biographies may the chimneys of grand houses, in boarding schools, and refu gee camps and wherever they are hurt or neglected. We thought the worst of that was over, at least in the richer societies, with progressive still be catching education, child-care and families small enough to afford their children 'quality time. ' It is not, and high on any agenda of social justice today must be the harm done to children. up, at this And yet, this is surely a tim e when charity really must begin at home. Adults will only cherish children when they can cherish childhood, when they are not m01nent in afraid of their own childhood or a complete stranger to it. We cannot expect adults without childhoods to know the first thing about responding to the mind history w01nen and heart of a child. When we begin thinking about childhood we are starting on the road readers are towards understanding children. Richard Coe reminds us that in the self-portrait-as-child we are after our 'unique qualities' and licensed to read it should portray us in all our worldly 'insignificance': what another And this sense of the significance of the ap paren tly insignificant self, who has accom woman writes as plished nothing, invented nothing, created if it were nothing, can be appreciated only in a com- pamtively democtatic social and cultuml ( ( (r (• autobiography. climate ... The wlwres which have produced the greatest flowering of Childhood literature are those which in one way or another, are or have been inspired with an ideal of democracy and of equality: Fran ce and England, North Ameri ca and Australia, the em ergent Third World, and perhaps paradoxically- Russia. A cooo sociETY REQU IRES citizens who have som e ramshackle semblance of a self. And selves need ch ildhoods rich enough to sus tain them . The other civilising work of adulthood, besides seeing to the children, has to be protecting the childhood in us that is ours to transact a self with. I com e back to Jack and Jill. A surprising number of people leave out their brothers and sisters when they talk about their childhood. It is as if the childhood we all want is a story of mum, dad and me, a story in which we are our own hero. But Jack's full story would include Jill's story, and Jill's would include Jack's. A childhood should be the history of sibling relations as well, a history in which the equivalents of The People and The Middle Class get the attention Kings and Queens, Prime Ministers and Presidents do, who stand for parents. Some such 'de-centring' is needed to guard against childhoods that are nothing m ore than bedtim e st ories that help us drift off to sleep while the light is on and a soothing voice ca n still be heard. That said, we should not expect Jack or Jill to include everybody and everything. We share our stori es, and it does not matter that Ja ck's story of the incident on the hill never completely m atches Jill's. What's important is that Jill's version gets to press too, and that they each ponder the complex and sometim es baffling role of the other as they construct their story about growing up Jack or growing up Jill. • Graham Little teaches political psychology at the University of Melbourne. His most recent book, Friend ship, is published by Text Publishing. 32 EUREKA STREET • S EPTEMBER 1994 It's not just who you know T,,eHONE "NGS . Subma VoLUME 4 N uMBER 7 • EUREKA STREET 33 N OSTALGIA ALAN GILL Canute tried to command the waves, A 'w '"' co, tho inv.,ion of the island lose its colonial status and statement of his own. Independence Anguilla doesn't rate very highly. become part of a proposed Federa from what was never quite clear. He Like the Suez (1956) and Falklands tion of St Kitts-Nevis-Anguilla. Most authorised the flying of a rebel flag ( 1982) campaigns, it form er British possessions had al the Union Ja ck- from the police involved sea and air ready been given their 'freedom ', and station. borne landings. Yet Harold Wilson's Labour government Interv ention was urged by some no one was killed in wanted to rid itself of the last vestig British MPs, and a minority of (main this madcap war es of colonialism. Webster replied ly European) residents in Anguilla. against rebels who that he didn't want independence, Their spokesm an, C an on Guy sought to remain a t hank you very much, and would be Carleton, was a Anglican cleric 'of British colony. Many quite happy for Anguilla to remain the old school', who had been deco people were embarr under the British Crown. rated during wartime service as a assed, however, in an Apart from being pro- British, chaplain to British forces in Ea st affair that might have Webster and many islanders were Africa. In addition to his pastoral been scripted by Gil also anti-St Kitts, which, one sus duties, Carleton was joint owner and bert and Sullivan . pects, was the main reason for their editor of the island's only newspa Anguilla, with a protest. St Kitts, a much larger is per, Th e Beacon. Furious at the slight popula tion of 7000 land, was quite happy to Jose its to British prestige, h e wrote an is a dot on the map colonial status, and well aware of editorial de cla ring: ' Th e o nly (S O sq. km .) of the the benefits that would accru e from solution is fo r Britain to Leeward Islands in being the dominant partner in the invade.' the Caribbean . The new alliance. The British govern region is still known ment, ignoring Anguillan obj ecti ons, C AR LETON 1S FRIENDS said that he coll oquially as the forced acceptance of federation. had Foreign Office connections. In a British West Indies, The Anguillans showed their dis cable to Harold Wilson he repea ted though offi cially the pl easure by throwing six St Kitts his invasion demand, justifying the 'British ' in the title poli cem en off the island, and, 18 ca ll by claiming that Anguilla had has been dro pped. months later, by evi cting Tony Lee, been taken over by ' Mafi a-style' T he conflict arose a British diplomat. Webster, who had Ameri ca n ga mblers, expell ed from in the mid-1960s, heard about Ian Smith's Unilateral previous havens in C uba and the when Anguilla's 'self Dee lara tion of Independence in Rho Bahamas. Webster di smissed the Fu ll weigh t of the law: appointed' le 34 EUREKA STREET • SEPTEMBER 1994 la y preacher he regarded ga mbling as Black Panthers, the trigger-happy Andrew Wa y. Some newspapers mis a sin. His cause was not helped by wing of the Black Po wer m ove spelt his name as 'Weigh'-an un the presence on An guilla of an Amer ment- is unknown.' kind error since Way weighed 22 ican Baptist minister, the Rev. Free The landing, a classic pre-dawn stone. He had been transferred fro m man Goodge, who supported UDI operation, was unopposed. The Red the mounted branch because it was and was a fri end of the 'gamblers'. D evils' parachutes were not need considered best that he no longer sit Goodge later stirred the pot by tell ed- they landed by rubber boats. A on a horse. The police continge nt, ing the unsophisticated islanders few children ran along the sand, get whose m embers had received less that British paratroopers were called ting 'in the way' of the invaders. than 48 hours' notice of their part in 'Red Devils'. Webster strolled to the beach to meet the invasion, had arrived at Alder The invasion duly went ahead his 'guests'. A party of marines dis shot the night before departure to be under the codename 'Operatio n tributed invasion leafl ets stating: given kit bags and military clothing Sh eepskin'. The name proved unfor 'Our purpose is to end intimidation'. suitable for the tropics. Unfo r tuna te. British Oppositio n MPs A marine later recalled an old tunately, they didn't have anything called Harold Wilson 'a sheep in lady coming out of her house, wav in Commission er Way' s size, sh eep's clothing', and American ing an umbrella at him, and demand so he had to go along in newspapers found amusement in the ing: 'Does the Queen know about '"r blue serge. designation SNOW! (' Senior N aval this?'. The only shot fired in anger Officer, West Indies' ), used for the was by a Red Devil who responded .1. H E INVADERS SOON FOUND that Task Force Commander, Comn10· to what he thought was machinegun their duties were not particularl y dore Martin N . Lucey, and in the fire. It turned out to be a youth ir ksome. Anguilla's beaches, not at nam e of his fl agship, HMS Fearless. starting his motor bike. all like the stony ones back home, The assault vessels comprised the Within hoursoftheinvasion ca lm proved attractive. N ot to worry that friga tes HMS Minerva (2860 tonnes) and HMS Rothesay (2600 tonnes). On board were several helicopters and 40 Royal Marines, who had been made to cover their insignia with black tape. While the ships were at sea, 3 15 Red D evil s-m en of the 2nd Battalion, 16th Brigade, of the Para chute Regiment- were fl own from RAF Brize N orton to the deep water port at Antigua, in the West Indies, to rendezvous with the invasion fl eet. Antigua had been chosen as the staging post partly because of its harbour, but also because its Pre mier, Vere Bird, supported the Brit ish endeavour. Secrecy was broken when Antiguans spo tted British troops and their equipment rumbling through the capital in trucks, and gu essed at their intentions. .~-· 'D ' Day was 19 March, 1969. ~ • "..!' ..., Webster knew about it, having been tipped off by the Antiguans, and also ~:-~ by the London Daily Express, which ~ -: ~ had a mole at Bri ze N orton and alert - ..t ' ... .. ~ , .. "-· • ~ · :~ • l' .. : .~~~~~::-~:. :~~ ed the world to what was about to was 'restored' (assuming that it ever some of them had forgotten to pack When flat fee L take place. Would the invasion be left ) and SNOWI cabled the Admi their bathing costumes: Bobbies, don 't matter: opposed? Antiguans told the troops ralty: 'Operati on Sheepskin a suc marines and Red Devils stacked their Bobbies on the that everyone on Anguilla carried a cess'. Later the same day a new fo rce rifl es on the beach, stripped off and beach at gun and would not be afraid to use it. arri ved- 4 7 London policem en , went swimming in the nude, result Anguilla. In London the Daily Mail, miffed at whose precise duties were unclear. ing in entertai ning photographs that having been scooped by the Express, Their presence was Harold Wilson 's made front pages in much of the suggested that force would be met idea. He is said to have told a fri end: Engli sh-speaking world. by force and, in an astonishing dis 'Ev eryone loves London Bobbies; When they were not on the beach, play of hype, reported: 'The firepow they give weets to children'- Commissioner W V O LUME 4 N UMBER 7 • EUREKA STREET 35 have been supplied by Canon Carle revert to colonial status. To avoid guillans for Good Government, and, ton. Heading it was Freeman Goodgc, loss of face, som e form of the old at 69, is planning a political com e who was subsequently expelled, with St Kitts-Nevis-Anguilla Federation back. several others, from Anguilla. Tony remained, though its role was left He remains a religious man, and Lee duly came back with the para deliberately vague. Today, 25 years believes he was treated unfairl y by troopers, but did not stay long, being after the invasion, Anguilla is one of the Seventh Day Adventist C hurch, replaced in rapid succession by two Britain's 14 remaining Crown Colo which says religion and politics do other junior diplomats. Webster, nics (the preferred term is now 'de not mix. 'They told me I couldn't be whose status as 'prisoner' or Chief pendent territories'). involved in the Anguilla revolutio n Minister was unclea r, made a trip to It would be nice to report that aU and be at the sam e time an Advent New York where he was received is now well on Anguilla, but this ist. They sa id I must make a choice; (albeit as a private citizen ) at the would be incorrect. There is an so I resigned. f had a duty to perform United Nations. argument about who should run to my people, and I chose that.' Britain, by now well aware that the island. Anguilla now has its Religion has also affected hi s the rest of the world regarded the own parliament, the House of A relations with the Governor, Alan whole affair as high farce, took steps sembly, with a m em to get out of a tight corncr. 1t sent no bership of 12. Rca l less a personage than Lord Caradon, power, however, rests Britain's ambassador to the United with the Govern or Nations and a junior Foreign Office 'acting on the advice minister, to ho ld peace talks on the of' an executive coun is land. On arrival Caradon promised cil of six. The six in 'talk, talk and more talk until clude the C hi ef Min we get this thing sorted ister, the post former rr out.' ly held by Webster. There is debate l_ HERE WAS, INDEED, plenty of talk, about what 'advice of' resulting in a proposed formula for really means. Your agreement which, basically, seems reporter located Ron to have been that Ronald Webster ald Webster, who still would be Chief Minister but Her lives on Anguilla. The Majesty's representative would be man who was a victor boss. Meanwhile, the invading troops in the clash of 25 years turned to PR work, building a radio ago is now seriously station and other amenities for the discontent. 'I am not Anguillans. The first broadcast was pleased at all . T he by Ronald Webster, who said, with freedom that we had his biblical training to the fore: 25 years ago is no long 'Friends and fe ll ow Anguillans ... I er there. The Gover am with you and wi ll remain with nor now has too much you ... Have confidence in me. I have power and we arc try nothing to hide from you, so do not ing to reverse that.' sell your leader's birthrightfor a dish Webster also com of porridge (sic). Remember what plained that Britain Judas did to Christ. Beware of false had acted unfairly to prophets and wolves in shccps' cloth wards Anguillans by ing.' fa iling to train local On 14 September 1969, all Brit people for sui table ad ish forces, other than a late party of ministrative jobs. Royal Engineers (who stayed a fur 'They [th e Britis h ) ther two years), were pulled out, have been using us'. together with the London Bobbies. The Queen and T hus ended an occupation that had Prince Philip recent lasted 179 days. O n the day of their ly visited Anguilla, and during the Shave. Says Webster solemnly: 'He departure an area of the airport was visit the Queen knighted the present is a man who docs not believe In cordoned off, and a large sign erected Chief Minister, Emile Gumbs. Web God.' • re 36 EUREKA STREET • SEPTEMBER 1994 THE C ARO LINE CHISHO LM S ER I ES : 3 A DREW HAM ILTON The Urge to Control INMAR CH 1994 the Joint Standing Committee on Migration published its report: A sylum, Border Control and Detention. The vast majority of the submissions to the Enquiry recommended that asylum seekers should no longer be detained while their cases were being heard. While the Committee hoped that recent changes to procedures would ensure more prompt decisions about refugee status, it recom mended in effect that they should continue to be detained. L 1e Report m erits examination. It illustrates clearly what happens when politicians or civil servants becom.e preoccupied with control. This concern has dominated immigration policy and regulations in recent years, but it has also characterised other areas of government like taxation, police and prisons. The interest in control is natural at a time when advanced technologies have made more sophisticated systems of control available. But in the report this preoccupation has led to inhumane and impracticable conclusions, and it may well be that single-minded interest in control m akes more generally for bad and inefficient policy. Th e Report The general scope of the Committee was to consider how people who arrive in Australia without a valid entry permit should be trea ted. This group includes both those who arrive without va lid visas, and those with visas who apply for refugee status on arrivaL In particular the Committee had to decide whether detention in custody is the best policy, and whether a bridging visa, which under new legislation will free from detention those who have overstayed their visa, should also be availabl e to those who arrived without visa. Finally, it had to decide whether alternatives to detention, (s uch as the bonding system ), would be applicable and enforcea ble in Australia. The Argument The central claim made by the Committee is that detention is a necessary component of Australian immigration policy. The keystone of Australian immigration policy is the requirement that all entrants should have valid visas which they have applied fo r and received off -shore. This requirement is controlled by ys tem s VoLUME 4 N uMBER 7 • EUREKA STREET 37 of passport control, surveil Australia's immigration policy suf set firmly within the context of a lance of those who have ficient to justify any means of con humane poli cy, it is axiomatic that overstayed their visas, and deten trol, for example, no objection could punitive measures should be taken tion. Detention ensures that no one be raised against shooting un author only if they arc absolutely neces will enter the Australian communi ised arrivals. But although this might sary. Numbers arc significant be Were the ty until they have been given valid be be an economical, efficient, and cause they reveal whether the situa documents, and confines those who effective m eans of control, we would tion is serious enough to warrant humane goals will be deported. in stinctively reject it. For we recog infringing on human dignity by im For these reasons the Committee nise that this particular mea ns of prisoning innocent people. But for of Australia's was persuaded by the submission of control is inconsistent with the hu- the Committee, the fact that only a the Immigration Department that manity of the policy which little more than a couple of thou immigration detention is necessary. It claimed we have adopted. sa nd asylum seekers have arrived further that detention is legally jus over four years and that then umbers policy tifiable and that it has support with I T FOLLOWS THAT MEASURES of CO n who have disappeared into the com in the community. trol arc reasonable only when they munity arc also very smal l, is irrele sufficient to On these assumptions, it is not arc broadl y coherent with the values vant. An y asylum seekers who ar the practice of detention, but the which animate policy. The Report rive without visa threaten the con justify any length of time for which som e peo on Detention ignores this crucial ceptual nea tness of the system of ple have been detained, that forms point. It moves quickly from asscrt control. means of the problem to be addressed. The i ng that Australian immigrati on pol The narrow preoccupation of the Committee therefore sought to icy is humane and needs to be con Committee with control is also control ... shorten the length of detention. Ac trolled, to ask what forms of control shown strongly in its treatment of cordingly it took comfort from re arc the most coherent and effective. litiga ti on by asylum seekers. The no objection cently more efficient processes of Thus it assumes that the humane committee claimed that this was a determining refugee status; it went goals of policy guarantee that any major cause of the length of deten could be raised outside its terms of reference to efficient methods of control will also tion and of the cost borne by the recommend that opportunities for be reasonable and appropriate. Con Australian comm unity. It therefore against litiga tion be curtailed, and it recom trol is no longer seen as a means to attended to ways of restricting ac mended that the Minister be given preserve the values of immigration cess to the co urts by asy lum seekers. shooting discretion to release people from policy, but is seen as an end in itself. In this perspccti ve litiga tion is detention in cases of special need. This ideology of control manifests seen as a barrier to cffccti vc control, unauthorised Thus the argument and the rec itself in several ways which I shall which is constituted by universal ommendations of the Report rest on now outline. detention, quick decision about sta arrivals. its initial assertion that the deten tus, and quick deportation of those tion of all unauthorised arrivals is a The Report and control. denied refugee status. Within a hu necessary and appropriate elem ent An ideology of control manifests it mane perspective we would first ask in ensuring the integrity of Austral self first in a narrowing of vision. why there has been o much litiga ian immigration policy. It is preoc Wh en we are preoccupied with con tion. We might naturally suppose, cupied with the need to control. trol and fail to reflect on the broader while we awaited further evidence, moral context within which it is that the number of lawyers willing Control exercised, we come to find increas to act pro bono might indicate som e Control has an important and legit ingly obnoxious even the small arc thing amiss in the way in which imate role in government. It has to as which remain uncontrolled. people were trea ted. do with ensuring the conditions In the report this narrow preoc The Committee took no evidence which allow a clearly articulated cupation with effective control can on this point. It asserted without policy to be administered effici ent be seen at several points. It is seen evidence that much litiga tion had ly. Without control, policy is inef for example in the Committee's re been motivated by a desire to stay in fectual. view of the Migration Reform Act, Australia at any price. The hea rt of In this sense, control is blind. Its itself dominated by the desire for the argument is that the efficiency eyes are given by the policy which it fool-proof control of immigration and of control procedures is threatened implements. It has to do with the refugee policy. The Report points by the length of detention. The length will to sustain a reasoned policy. out small anomali es, which might of detention, in turn, is largely due Hence, we cannot discuss whether be barriers to effective control. It to ready access to judicial review. particular forms of control are ap invariably corrects them by tighten Therefore in the interests of effi propriate or reasonable without also ing the force of the legislation. cient control, access to this review examining the policy to which they The unreflective way in which should itself be tightly controlled. give eff ect. the Report considers the numbers of Secondly, when we are driven by But even the best of policies do asylum seekers and of those who the ideology of control, we will treat not automatically justify all the have disappeared into the commu as less relevant the humanity of those forms of control devised to imple nity also indicates a narrow preoccu who are controlled. They become m ent it. Were the humane goals of pation with control. For if control is the objects of national polity and not 38 EUREKA STREET • SEPTEMBER 1994 subjects. Their human dignity be dignity here is reduced to minimal which it was designed to protect. In comes identified with the sum of legal entitlem ents. totalitarian societies such conflicts their legal entitlements. Ina revealing argum ent, the Com are resolved by extending steadily This instrumental attitude to hu mittee supports detention by argu the instruments of control. As a re man beings is a striking fea ture of ing that if they w ere released into sult they soon erode the human the Report. It em erges most clearly the community, asylum seekers freedom , social responsibility and in the Committee's treatment of the would have neither adequate m ea ns equality before the law which they evidence that human beings are of support nor access to m edica l were instituted to ensure. harmed by detention. The Report care. The Committee has moved now In democratic societies the in deals with this evidence only tan to take responsibility for asylum troduction of inhumane measures of gentially. In the fi rst place, it weak seekers. Because it has no responsi control generally crea tes public dis ens its force by asserting that there bility to them , it does not enquire quiet. The measures necessary to was public disquiet only about the whether they would prefer freedom make control completely eff ective, length of detention and n ot about to security, still less whether the moreover, m eet institutional obsta detention as a measure of control. current denial of medical benefits cles. For the humane values on which Moreover, it is only in the chapter and basic support to asylum seekers regimes of control infringe are often dealing with detention centres that within the community is reasona written into constitutions or into the Committee records the evidence ble. judicial practice. given about the harm done by deten The Report therefore shows a per This unresolved dilemma makes tion. Thus it would appear that the vasive lack of curiosity about the the recommendations of the Com evils of detention are caused only by human dignity and experience of asy mittee unworkable. For the logic of the deficiencies of particular places lum seekers. This does not imply the Report stipulates that the con of imprisonment. We are to presume that the Committee m embers are trollers should have unlimited pow that if only these are set right, deten callous, but only that they view asy er over the instruments of control, tion will be harmless. lum-seekers primarily as the objects and particularly the power to detain The impression that the human of effici ent control. Their humanity indefinitely . To this end judicial re It follows effects of detention are irrelevant to is simply irrelevant to the Enquiry. view is to be limited and the minis the committee's deliberations is con Thirdly, when we are preoccu ter is to have unreviewable discre that firmed by the crucial step of its argu pied with control, all questions be tion to deny release fr om detention. m ent for detention. The validity of come reduced to issues of power. As In Australia, however, it is im measures of the argument turns on the distinc obstacles to a completely controlled possible totally to limit judicial re tion between asylum seekers and world become m ore intolerable we view. Under the Australian consti control are other unauthorised arrivals. C ritics demand that those responsible for tution administrative decisions, in of detention would argue that the maintaining control have unfettered cluding those which affect aliens on reasonable differences between these groups power to remove all obstacles. This Australian soil, are reviewable. The m ean that asylum seekers should preoccupation with power can be Federal Court was established to take only when not be detained. But the Committee seen in the two major recommenda the burden of hearing such cases does not examine the peculiar hu tions of the report. The first is to from the High Court. If access to the they are m an experience and needs which limit access to the courts. This would Federal Court is limited, therefore, underlie the distinction. Instead, it diminish public scrutiny of the proc the High Court will becom e the court broadly bases its argument for detaining asy- esses of control and judgment of them of first appeal. This would have no lum seekers solely on the by standards of legality accepted table inconveniences. coherent with need for effective control. within the community. The solution to this dilemma is The other m ajor recommenda obvious: to develop policy so that it the values DIMINISHED SENSE of human tion is that a decision made to re embodies in a more precise way the dignity can also be detected in the lease asylum seekers after six m onths humane values which are held to which way in which the Report trea ts the in detention should be at the minis guide it, and then to align the proc law about asylum seekers. To justify ter's sole discretion. H e is accounta esses of control more closely with anilnate its contention that detention is not ble to no-one should he decline to these humane values. The alterna illegal, it quotes at length a judg exercise his discretion, but in any tive is continuing warfare between policy. The m ent that detention is not punitive decision to release an asylurn seeker executive and judiciary from which when it is intended for administra he is accountable to Parliament. In no one will gain. Report on tive ends. While the argument of the this recommendation, the power to The recommendation to allow Report is unexceptionable in legal maintain detention as an instrument the minister unreviewable discre Detention terms, in the absence of any further of control is unfettered. Only the tion to hold asylum-seekers in de discussion of the effects of deten power to release from it is itself tention is also politically onerous. ignores this tion, we are left to assume that rea subject to control. For the responsibility for the deten sonable asylum seekers would not When control is seen as a goal of tion of each asylum seeker rests sole crucial point. experience detention as punitive, and policy and not as a means to imple ly with the minister. As a result, that administrative ends would jus m ent it, the logic of control ulti because asylum seekers will be able tify any fo rm of detention. Human m ately turns against the values to win release only if they persuade V OLUME 4 N UMBER 7 • EUREKA STREET 39 the minister of the merits to be learned when so m any firms id entry permit. But unlike passport of their cases, those repre and individual lawyers are willing to controls, it is m anifestly a punitive senting them will have no option forego revenue in a time of reces deterrent. People imprisoned inevi but through publicity and advocacy sion, when a go vernment m ore than tably experience it as punitive. It to put the minister under as much once rushes through legislation to cannot adequately be described as pressure as possible. Thus the rela avoid an unfavorable decision in purely administrative in in tention. t ionships between the Government court, when in one case a court finds Given that detention beyond the and the bodies which represent refu a minister wrong in declaring him short time necessary to establish gees will necessarily be adversarial self unable to consider cases on lm identity and prepare for tem porary in structure. This will dam age the manitarian grounds, and another entry into the Australian communi quality of advice available to the judge severely criticises the conduct ty is punitive, the central question Minister and Department about im of a Prime Minister, a Minister of finessed by the committee arises migra tion policy to the detriment Immigration, a senior officer in the inesc 40 EUREKA STREET • SEPTEMBER 1994 When we are said, for the ideology of control has the courts to release asylum seekers, and fails to show that why it is nec driven by the affected many aspects of migra tion it is m ore generally relevant to judi essary to detain all asylum seekers. policy. Some recent practice, indeed, cial review: Apart from the unreasonable desire ideology of seem s quite inhumane. It is custom If in fact the judiciary is un to have automatic and all-embrac ary, for example, to draw up profil es tmstworthy then this country is ing systems of control, no such argu control, we of groups who regularly overstay in a crisis which must be ad m ent has been produced. their visas, and to use them secretly dressed immediately in a dra Those who support detention also will treat as to deny visas to applicants in these matic way. Ifitis notso, then its argue that without this form of con categories. That said, however, it powers should not be limited on trol many people would apply for less relevant does not seem unreasonable or inhu the basis that it is. In my view, asylum and then disappear into the mane to detain unauthorised immi the judiciary is trustworthy and community. In su ch circumstances the humanity gra nts for a very short time immedi should have jurisdiction to re the distinction advocated between ately prior to deporting them . lease people held in detention asylum seekers and other immi of those who The policy toward s asylum seek under the Migration Act. grants would collapse in the face of ers, on the other hand, must respect One of the most difficult ques public indignation. are controlled. their precarious situation, which has tions raised by the Commitee con The present measures of control, made it unreasonable for them to cerned the material support which excluding detention, appear adequate They become apply beforehand for entrance to Aus asylum seekers could expect to be to prevent this from happening. If tralia. While it is reasonable to hold given within the community. The asylum seekers were required tore the objects of them briefl y for health checks, to Report assumed, however, that the port regularly and could expect to certify their identity, to allow initial current regime by which asylum receive decisions quickly, the fig national polity interviews, and to ensure the proper seekers have been excluded from ures given within the Report suggest conditions under which they live access to benefits or to medical care that about three quarters and not within the community, it is unrea was reasonable. would comply fully. sonable to detain them routinely. It If the government considers it subjects. Their would be unreasonable, for exam reasonable to spend so much to sup I NDEED, THEIR HOPE of receiving a ple, to penalise them because they port a regime of detention, it would favourable decision depends on their human dignity have not applied off-shore for refu appear even more reasonable and doing so. There will, however, be gee status or because they have not humane to offer community groups asylum seekers whose background becomes gone through the ordinary processes assistance to support asylum seek or behaviour suggests that their re of immigration. The persecution ers. This area, however, needs m ore lease would be gravely disadvanta identified with which refugees fear in their own attention than was be given it in the geous for the community. countries would prevent them fr om Report, which seemed unduly scep It would be reasonable, then, to the sum of doing this. tical about the readiness and capac- establish an independent board to Once they have come to Austral ity of groups in the commu whom the Department could appeal their legal ia, asylum seekers should receive nity to provide support. against release into the community. decisions about refugee status as The onus would be on the Depart entitlements. quickly as is compatible with justice, ment to establish its case for limited so that they can get on with their D ETENTION IS A PARTICULARLY un detention. lives either in Australia or in their reasonable form of control, because These controls will not be fo ol own countries. The Comn1ittee was refugees are more damaged by it than proof, any more than controls over right to insist on this point. Further are other groups of people. Those traffic or taxation will produce per more, the process of refugee deter who have fled persecution are al fect compliance. But they should be mination should be transparent and ready more vulnerable, more suspi adequate to m eet the demands of the independent. The introduction of the cious of punitive m easures of con situation. Refugee Review Tribunal has cer trol, and so much more likely to be The alternative is a utopian ideal tainly contributed to an impression diminished by the dependence and of perfect control, with the conse of transparency and independence. deprivation of liberty entailed in quences we have seen. • I would disagree with the Com detention. Hence a regime of deten mittee, however, in evaluating the tion is unjustifiable. place of judicial review. Where court Those who support detention Andrew Hamilton SJ teaches at the cases are multiplied by the impecu som etimes respond to this argument United Faculty of Theology, nious, we should assume that they by saying that not all asylum seekers Parkville, Victoria. He has worked feel aggrieved. will be found to be refugees. It is with the Jesuit Refugee Service since In such circumstances it becomes therefore proper to detain asylum 1983 and has been a chaplain to the the more important that judicial re seekers until they are found to be Cambodian community in Mel view allow governmental malprac refu gees and so released, or deported bourne. tice to be revealed and corrected. as unauthorised entrants. His dossier on the Cambodian Although the point which Barney The objection is weak. It com refugees has appeared in Eureka Cooney made in his dissenting note mits Australia to imprison refugees Street in February and March 1993 was narrowly applied to the power of whom it has bound itself to protect, and in April and September 1994. VOLUME 4 N UMBER 7 • EUREKA STREET 41 B OO KS JoH N BuTTON bering ag1c• Southern Sky, We~tcrn Oval, M.ntin fLlll DAY Footscray beat Gcelongat the Western Oval in round 17 of this year's competition, I stood in the crowd next to some Footscray supporters; three young men in their 20s. They were looking forward to watching Ablctt, and to seeing Doug Hawkins achieve a record num ber of games for their club. One made a comment about the Western Oval 's old-fa shioned scoreboa rd . T here should be, he said, an electronic scoreboard. His mate repli ed 'An electronic scoreboard in the West ern suburbs? You'd have to be jo k ing!' Footscra y supporters have a sense of difference. It is understandable. Their club is the only one in the Western suburbs. It's a battlers' club, with strong and proud traditions that probably refl ect what other clubs were like when suburbs like Rich mond, Fitzroy and Collingwood were predominantly working class. In 1993 Martin Fl anagan spent a year studying the Footscray cl ub and has now produced a fa scin ating book Southern Sl Graham 'Polly' Farmer. Photo: Comlesy of The Age ball into an elitist business. It re came 'the player who caused m ore and the consequences profound in spects its loyal followers, and they concern to more players and coaches terms of Aboriginal dignity and self in turn respect it. than any player I have ever known'. esteem . Flanaga n's book refers to Foot The concern emanated not only When I left the Western Oval on scray's most important games in from Farmer's own great physical the clay of the Geelong-Footscray 1993, but is structured around the skills, but from his capacity to bring match I was disappointed about the main personalities of the club. The other players into the ga me and to result. But I did think that coach, Terry Wheeler, the president, turn the progress of a match with his if your tea 111 had to lose, the captain and vi ce-captain, some own touch of inspiration and leader it's probably less upset More than key players, and Footscray's legen ship. His unique ruck play, palming ting to lose to Footscray dary heroes Charlie Sutton and Ted the ball with deadly accuracy to a than any othe r t eam. almost any Whitten, are the dramatis personae waiting rover, and his skilled use of Someh ow there's less through which the fears, the excite handball, changed the style and hype at Footscray. They other player, ment, the pa ssion and the strate nature of football. He was one of the like winning, but they un gies of running a football club are last grea t exponents of the drop kick. derstand losin g, and they Farm er is played out. They are ably supported He set new and different standards don't rub your nose in it, by a cost of less well-known actors, of excell ence and technique, and like supporters of some remembered a band of loyal followers who, over became a football legend. wealthier and more fash the years, have watched the stars Steve Hawke's book is well re ionable clubs. Perhaps for the come and go. Flanagan gets inside searched and well written, in a clas Footscray pia yers are a bit his character , helping the reader to sical biographical manner. Beginning like the professionals in creative understand what it's like to lose a with a description of yo ung Graham the way players in Polly close ga me, to suffer an injury, to be Farmer's early life in a hostel for Farmer's era had to be: way1n dropped from the team, and som e orphan children, it fo ll ows his ca playing from commit times to win with style and courage. reer into football and upwards to his m entto thegam eand loy which he It is, however, more than a book period of clom inance as a player, and alty to a cause. about the Footscray club. It's a book his years as a coach. Martin Flanagan enhanced in which Flanagan diverges into the Martin Flanagan quotes Brent writes about the charac history of the ga m e, the players and Croswell as saying that footballers ter of teams and the na the skills performances of other clubs, the and Aborigines had something in ture of c lubs. St eve m agic moments, the competing phi common: 'people who knew noth Hawke's book is about the content of losophies surrounding football's fu ing about them thought they were magic and integrity that ture, and the interactions that make stupid'. Farmer is an Aboriginal and an individual can bring to the game. footba ll 'part of the fabric of people's was a footballer. He is not stupid. the saga of football. There lives'. He does it well. He loves 'the Indeed, more than almost any other is a danger that some clubs individual elram a of the ga me'. player he is rem embered for his 'in are under threat from the huge costs Steve Hawke has written a differ tellectual' contribution to football, associated with 'all-out profession ent sort of book; a biography of Polly and the creative way in which he alism ' and football as a TV extrava- Farmer, one of the acknowledged enhanced the skills content of the ga nza. all-time 'greats'. Farmer played his game. His Aboriginality attracted its Both books are salutary remind football in an era when most of the share of taunts, but not to the extent ers of the things that are best about clubs were m ore li ke the Footscray that provoked Nicky Winmar at a Australian football, enabling it to of today: less wealth y, and more de Collingwood ga m e in 1993. Farmer survive as a unique code for well pendent on loyalty and dedication seem s to have managed the problem over a century. Martin Flanagan has than on money. 'From a football easily, within the framework of apprehensions about the future. He point of view,' Farmer is quoted as his overriding commit- quotes Phil Cleary on the danger to saying, 'I was born 20 years too ear m ent to footba ll. Australian football,'You keep chang ly.' The ga m e, he argu ed, was 'enter ing things, and then one da y you find ing an era of all-out professionalism ' ! N 1994, HOWEVER, he is an enthusi you've changed one thing too many in which players of his talent and astic protagonist of the Polly Farmer and the magic's gone'. It's the magic success could expect to finish their Foundation, established to provide that the crowds turn out to see, and careers as wealthy men. yo ung Aboriginals with the oppor the Polly Fa rmers who inspire Farmer was, however, a 'profes tunities to develop their skills in another generation of footballers. It's sional' in a different sense of the sport and academic life. It is a pity the clubs that provide the glue that word. From an early age he cl ecli catecl that this biography doesn't examine holds it all together. himself to studying the ga me and the extent to which Farmer's career These are the lessons of history. improving his skills and techniques. influenced the commitment and It will be a tragedy if the 'change It was a practice that remained with ambition of a generation of top Ab makers' ignore them. • him through 23 seasons of football original foo tballers who have come in Perth and at Geelong, leading to after him. One is left to gu ess that John N. Button is the former Indus Ted Whitten's judgment that he be- his influence has been significant, try Mini ter and ALP Senate leader. VoLUME 4 N uMBER 7 • EUREKA STREET 43 BooKs: 2 JANJNE HAlNES very evident: 'I'd never been so hap py .. . people of every age resonated to ideas, cared about them , and thought it important to talk about them , and with me.' On the road again As I sat reading these words, I recalled the noisy intensity with which a tutorial group of Women's True North, Jill Kc r Conway, Hutchinson, Studies PhD students, from all points Lo nd on 1994 ISBN 0 09 17475 I RRI' $29.95 of the globe, had sat in a cafe oppo site the University of Adelaide the I F WE ARE PREPARED to accept the except in the most superficial way. previous day engaged in a spirited Oxford Companion to English Lit- Instead, the author simply cata- discussion on the role of women in era ture's assertion that, in the late logues the manner in which she and late 20th century Australian socie 20th century, a picaresque novel is h er four female housemates were ty. And how I empathised, too, with one that describes 'the adventures of treated by parents, m en, society and her experience of the cavalier and a lively and resourceful hero on a the law in their various cultures. All patronising attitude of m ale doctors journey' then True North, the sec- this is overlaid with wry amusem ent to h er painful and debilitating gy ond volume of Jill Ker Conway's at the fact that, in contrast to the naecological pro blem s . Things autobiography, fits the bill. Her way they were dealt with because haven't changed much. journeys and adventures might be as they were females, the women- Tru e North is not just the story of much intellectual as physical but Shiite Muslim, N ew England Con- Jill Ker Conway's 'getting of wis they clearly demanded a resource- gregationalist, devout Catholic and dom'. It is also a delightfully person fulness every bit as determined as cheerful Jew- made up a mini-hot- alised account of the places she trav any displayed by Moll Flanders or bed of intellectual, racial and reli- elled to in the years it took to com Tom Jones. Indeed, she seem s to have gious tolerance. And they needed plete her thesis. Harvard, Toronto, negotiated those travels and travails this mutual support. Ina world where N ew York, Groton, Cambridge, Par with the same apparent insouciance women could not be resident tutors is and Rome arc all described by as they did, em erging stronger as a in the H arvard Houses, and where someone whose eyes saw as much of person, with sense of humour and m ale thesis directors saw every wom- the distant past as they did of the perspective intact. an (but not any man) who contem - immediate present. She evokes, with All the more astonishing is the plated m arriage and a PhD as a 'friv- an enviable econon1y of words, an fact that she achieved all she did olous' person'whowouldnevermake Ontario m ade up in part of satellite despite the fact that, even though a committed scientist', they bol- suburbs with 'tract housing and vast she was a highly intelligent student stered each others' egos and encour- apartment buildings' but also of a and would-be scholar, she m et- in aged each others' ambitions. The 'more genteel city' where 'the effi Australia, the United States and house they lived in becam e a world cient fish m erchant still delivered Canada during the 1960s and ' 70s- in which the women shared their the m ost m odest orders'. It was the almost unremitting discrimination successes and sorrows and took in- antithesis of the 'gentle Cotswold because of her sex. Far from being t ense pleasure in defeated by this, however, she ap- 'each other's compa- pears to have been made stronger ny and the enchant- and m ore determined by the obsta- ment of sharing a cles put in her way. collective life of the At least part of this strength of mind.' character and persistence stemmed N eat aphorisms from the belief in herself she had puncture the text. developed in childhood despite, or H arvard m en are perhaps as a result of, the conflict- 'walking volcanoes ridden relationship she had with her ... giving off constant tyrannical m other- a relationship puffs of talk' while central to The Road from Coorain the Radford women and periodically referred to in this were 'less inclined to book. Surprisingly little bitterness b u bble over, but about any of this is evident in True more likely to have North, although there is a strong and read the text.' Her justified exasperation at the stupid- delight, the n and ity of a society that deliberately ex- now, in t he intellec- clucles the talents and experiences of tual drama going on women from m eaningful academic, about her du ring her political, social and economic life, time at Harvard, is 44 EUREKA STREET • SEPTEMilER 1994 hills, grey stone villages, and quiet of character-including her own Methodology is one of the con rivers', 'the gardens and the glorious noting failings and foibles as w ell as cerns of Freeing Theology. LaCugna buildings' of the English country more positive attributes with a gen says that when you look at the C luis side she had earlier experienced. erally generous spirit and wry hu tian doctrine of God (as she has done Scattered through the text are mour. The spectres of her childhood, sp cifically in her earlier God for reminders that in Australia, Cana familiar to readers of Th e Road from Us: The Trinity and Christian Life da, Britain, the United States and Comain, linger on, but by the end of [199 1] ) yo u need inevitably to look Europe, women and girls were still Tru e North I had the feeling that she at the nature of theology itself, since denied much of the fun and many of had got them pretty much under yo u have to ask what making state the opportunities m en and boys took control. They would always be there, ments about 'God' mea ns in the first for gra nted. Wh ether it was a tiny of course, but, neutralised to a great place, and that is a m ethodological tot's father taking her brother but extent by the happiness she had question. not her 'to the hockey rink where found in her marriage to John Con Anne E. Carr's chapter in Freeing the best coaches off ered instruction' way (who had his own demons), they Th eology picks up this concern and, or ' the female rule of waiting to be were no longer going to impede, again, is a good treatment not only of asked (o ut)', or the fact that even much less dominate, her progress feminist concerns, but of general the prize-winning female students could through life. • ological method. She offers a cri not, on graduation, go on to be in tique of tradition that is not estranged structors at Harvard as their m ale from it. Carr also considers the ques colleagues did, women's options in Janine Haines, a form er senator and tion of what is m ea nt by 'experi the '60s and '70s were limited in a leader of the Australian Democrats, ence'-a question that does not al way that men's were not. is researching a PhD in Women's ways get careful consideration from Jill KerConway is an astute judge Studies at the University of Adelaide. so-called 'contextual' theologies. Importantly, she stresses that what BooKs: 3 is being talked about is the interpret ed experience of women, i.e. not L EONIE PURClVAL merely subjective or individual ac counts but written and enacted sources. The emphasis on women's Behold the woman experience is a counter to what Carr Freeing Theology: The Essentials of Theology in Fe minist calls a history of exclusion- the Perspective, edited by Catherin e Mow ry LaCugna, Harpcr- caricaturing or stereotyping of wom Collins, San Francisco, 1993. ISHN 0060649,356 RRI' $29.95 en in Christian tradition. LaCugna claims that m ost C hris tian feminist theologians and advo ATHER INE MowRY LACUGNA proach characterises this exception- ca tes have been Catholic, because wasc in Australia for, among other all y clear book. LaCugna brings to- the Catholic Church, by forbidding things, the 6th International Femi- ge ther a range of articles from som e women's ordination, has forced the nist Book Fair. But she is very clear fam ous names, some of whom might hundreds of theologically trained that she is not a feminist theologian. not be as hesitant as Lacugna about Catholic women into academic the She repeats this claim in the intra- being identified as 'feminist theolo- ology rather than presbyteral minis duction to her new book Fre eing gians': Anne E. Carr, Sandra Schnei- try; further, the sexism of the tradi Th eology: The Essentials of Theola- ders and Elizabeth Johnson. LaCugna tion, with its predominantly mascu gy in Feminist Perspective, which has a gift for choosing impressive line metaphors for God, invites the she says 'i not a book about femi- contributors. I'm only sorry this col- sharpest critique. nism'. LaCugna says that she is sim - lection was not available when I was N o self-respecting Protestant the ply a Christian theologian, whose labouring through some of my units ologian would accept this view with task is an investigation into tradi- of theology . The essays give a suc- out demur, and in a recent interview tion, and an attempt to discover the cinct and critical summary of tradi- LaCugna did agree that women across riches and wealth of Christian tradi- tiona! teachings on topics like the denominations are grappling with tion in such a way that insights from Trinity, Christology, the church, the very similar issues. But she argues the past can be retrieved and made to sacram ents, m oral theology and an- that there are distinctive habits of shed light on current issues and prob- thropology . And one does not ha ve mind that belong to different de lems. This may seem a little like to merely pretend to understand, as nominations. She claims that the hairsplitting, but it is an important is sometimes the case when one is Catholic instinct is always to search point: she is firmly staking a claim reading Rahner. Most of the collec- out the tradition, and that could in for the middle ground, refusing to tion is written in a matter-of-fact clude the mystical tradition as well allow her 'theo logy from a new per- style which assumes that the reader as the dogmatic tradition. spective' to be dismissed as a minor- is intelligent but not necessarily ex- Another habit of mind she asso ity interest and so thrust to one side. perienced- ideal for those just pad- ciates with Catholic theologians has That bold and thoughtful ap- dling around the edges of theology. to do with m etaphysics. She consid- VOLUM E 4 NUMBER 7 • EUREKA STREET 45 ers that Catholics have a highly de veloped speculative tradition, and a tendency to want to draw on it in a way that she doesn't find to be the case for Protestant theologians. She argu es that the nationalist commit m ents of Orthodox theologians often shape their theology in a specific and different way again. These are inter esting observations, but LaC ugna's categories seem a little neat, even myopic. If Protestantism lacked a dogm a tic tradition we would not have had the Reformation in the first place. Despite the usefulness and thor o u ghness of Freeing Theology, LaCugna's approach displays the weaknesses common to attempts to fo rmula tc con textual theologies within an academic framework. The vitality of other theologies happy to call them selves feminist is missing from this collection. It is a teacherly book which touches on the ques tions of wom en's oppression and struggle, and it says that it is inter ested in the question of engaged the ology as against speculative theolo gy. But it is revealing that, when asked about the points of engage m ent within h er own theology, LaC ugna identifies them as being in the liturgy, which she sees as anoth er special Catholic commitment. But the truth is that aany Christian The experience should be able to make this claim. LaCugna is slightly m ore specif ic- she sees that much of what she of innocence does is a crossover with liturgica l theology, and that since her stated purpose is not to be a pastoral theolo Don't you sing! Memories of a Catholic Boyhood, Dick Hughes, gian she doesn't concentrate on those Kangaroo Press 1994. ISBN 0864176104 RRP $19.95 concerns. However, given that a po litical context can't be avoided when considering women's issues both in D ,c, Hucec;" A c.GCND, ono Cold WO<- t,goting tho Ru"''"' · side and outside the church, one of Australia's grea t jazz pianists. This, Trying to balance the dem and- wonders whether this is quite enough . his second book, is a touching and ing, claustrophobic world of his puri- Perhaps mine is an excessively ideal completely authentic account of tanical, life-den ying Catholic grand- istic expectation, but it would be growing up in Melbourne suburbia m other with that of a free-thinking refreshing and inspiring if a leading in the late twenties and thereaft er, as insouciant father, substantially oc- woman theologian (feminist or oth a m ember of a tightly knit Catholic cupied young Richard's psychic ex- erwise), the recipient of prestigious family. The two poles between which istence. T his conflict, for boys, was awards and a 'freq uent public lectur h e moves are his grandmother, who not uncommon in those pre-libcra- er on the American speaking circuit' brought him up, (his m other had died tion days. were som ething more than a highly very early on,) and his beloved, nor- Young Richard's father left the competent m ember of the academy mally absent father, who seemed her Church at 14 when his m other told that is itself under critique. • very opposite. The father, another him the Church barred the works of Richard Hughes, was the famed war H . G. Wells, whom he admired. He Leonie Purcival is a postgraduate the correspondent, w ho mixed with the returned to the faith only on his death ological student and a Uniting great. He also worked with Anglo- bed, with the help of his son, who had Church ordinand. Ameri can intelligence during th e kept the Faith. 46 EUREKA STREET • S EPTEMBER 1994 The tyranny, small-mindedness threw open her cloa k, and it is a m onopoly of power; and the Pra tes and suffocating tedium of that earli literal fact that I rubbed my eyes, half tan t hijacking of patriotism . The Irish er Australian world, and the crip believing that I dream ed, for beneath were terra incognita to many of us pling effects upon sensitive enquir she was arrayed in gossam er silk non-Catholics. This split ran on into ing children can now only be imag which m ore than indicated the per the public service workplace- where ined- one had to live through it. I fect lines of her perfect shape, wore a the Masons and Catholics set the endured the Protestant version of it jewelled girdle and barbaric orna agenda and carved up the jobs. and it could be very nearly as damag m ents .. . ' Those of us who belonged to nei ing. The free- thinking, selfish father The Chinese Nationalist Govern t h er found them selves isola ted. was idolised as an heroic rebel; the ment persuaded Hollywood in 1932 Which is why World War II and the mother-fi gu re was a frustrated, con not to make any more Fu Manchu coming of the Americans was such a trolling dogm atist. fi lm s. Racist they said. Bu t en ough of liberation. At last som e- Of course, both parents had been this High Culture. Yo ung Dick had thing we could unite upon. locked into false positions. Sex- or to grow up, in the end. Th e War ra ther its denial- was, it som etimes came, followed by the infantile pa M ANY IRISH HAVE BEE N paying seemed, the primary obsession of the ralysis epidemic, which affected 2000 back the English for all this contu female custodian- with all the pru Melburnian s in a population of just mely ever since-and I can under rient fascination and ambivalence over a million people. stand them . But this is a way of that goes along with this. T he author Dick, who'd nourished a long af continuing the old confl ict in a dif has some cogent and poignant things fair with trains, especially railway ferent form- nowadays via the Re to say about this. T he males escaped engines, tired of solitary impersona publi c. And the rush to the Right by to the com pany of th eir tions of steam engines, wound down many Catholics during Cold War was mates-their denial. his weekend suburban train-tripping not, alas, wholly a matter of religious with Grand Pop, and moved inexora piety, nor perception of the evils of YOUNG RICHARD WAS KEPT away bly towards ja zz and girls. But danc Com m unism ; not even a grab for fro m girls, from neighbours, from ing was to remain a lost cause. power in the ALP. dancing, fro m his preferred tastes in Father came to and fro. Senior, It was a way of dem onstrating boo ks; vetoed in his attempts to ex who always called his son 'Mug,' one's patriotism, and joining, or re plore the world of music, loaded with became m ore and more famous in joining, the mainstream of Austral guilt for everything that went wrong the journalistic world with each year. ian political society. This because in his grandmother's daily life. And The males grew closer as the son the Irish, along with the Labor Party, he was obliged to lea rn to bend to the approached manhood, and the father had been stigmatised- pretty suc narro wness and the uninspiring rig mellowed. Junior stopped praying cessfu lly- as suspect on patriotism, our of what was Catholi c education. that his father would fi nd Jesu s again, as being, even, not quite Australian He e caped into fantasy, meanwhile but still hoped he might. His Dad (i. e. British). yearning for his father's visitors fr om remarried at last- a Jewish lady But the cure, of lining up with the Sydney. Young Hughes was, and is, and spent more time in Asia. Finally detested Wasp Conservatives and very proud of his father. his father fell mortally ill. During joining the Cold War McCarthyite H ughes Snr had his share of trou this illness, H ughes Snr received his push, was worse than the disease, bles. His brief m arriage was unhap last Commun ion. H e shared the which had been steadily abating. We PY; his wife di ed suddenly, leaving host with hi son. A few who belonged to neither camp could him with a little child. Journalistic weeks later Senior died. only look on with despair, as we are life made the role of ca ring parent a doing again. Investment in conflict very episodic affair. Obviously a man 0 NE STR ANGER PIECE of intelli and misunderstanding seem s the of great gifts, his own father had gence, as the author ca lls it. His fa Australian way of life. taken him out of school at 14. N o ther had-'t hanks solely to the inter This story carries up to Dick reason. Fathers did t hat sort of thing vention of well-meaning, but ill-in H ughes' 18th yea r. His stoical, re to us- regularly. Hughes Snr pur formed and pan icky H ong Kong laxed way of describing conditions of sued the familiar escape ro ute of the fri ends and ad viscrs'-cu t his son utter loneliness, of living in a cold, bon viveur, bon vivant, brilliant con out of his will. Stra nge indeed. Like manipulative world of adults, wi th versationalist, and wanderer. sending your clever son out to work its contrasting fl avours of rejection Hopeless at sport, and an isolate, at 14. and aff ection, of relentless pressure young Dick Hughes depended very Looking into t his strange pre-War to excel, to win, indicates a remark Ph oto left: much on local radio, especial! y their fi shbowl, the split between the Cath able maturity, and joy fo r life. I await Dicl< Hughes wonderful serials. The Shadow of Fu olic and Pro testant parts of Austra lia the next stage of his odyssey- the on his first birthday, Manchu, based on Sax Rohmer's sto ran like an ugly fault line through the di ary of a happy survivor. • with his m other. ries was his obsession in 1939 and whole society. We knew little about 1940. It was mine. He had a particu Catholics-they had their own fam hlr crush on a slave girl- Egyptian ily life, their church, their schools, called Karam an eh. So did I. He offers their legends of British rule in Ire Max Teichmann is a Melbourne writ this description of Ka ramaneh. 'She land, their resentments at the Wasp er and reviewer. VOLUME 4 N UMBER 7 • EUREKA STREET 47 BooKs: 5 PAUL ORMONDE The war we'd rather forget IJ ~ Jh . .. _Prln... /STU/1/i/NC:THE W Ail c · h:~ Their example provid at first sight seems an odd T• ed a model for the life of wlcfora book aboutVtet If Va l Noone and hi s wife Dnam . It is not until the lllbliERS• Mary and their family last page that it prove- " How '"t got t> In lesser hands than Lanc~- Corpo11tl Jt>Cit ).,..,ry oti sm, to the limits of au th ose of a utho r Va l thority of government and N oone, it could have be churches when pronounc come tritely parochi al. It ing on the rightness o r is illuminatingly global morality of war. Melbourne could be N ew York, Lon Disturbing the War- Melbourne It was a refining experience, too, don, Toronto, Auckland-any set Catholics and Vietnam, Val Noone, because m any people who were ini ting where the Vietnam war divided Spectrum Publications, Melbourne, tiall y inclined to support the war in the community. 1993. ISBN Q 86 786 127 4. RRP $29.95 time m odifi ed or totally rever ed T he fo rces of propaganda which particularly Catholic Christianity their views. There was some move gave religious justifica tion to the in Asia and Australia. m ent in the other direction as well war were the same everywhere Ammon H ennacy provides a but the compa ri son is between a on! y the personnel were di ffe rent. deeper link for this book than just torrent and a trickl e. New York had Cardinal Spellman the title. He was cl osely associated Noone has a sympathetic under (' May my country be always right, with the N ew York Catholic Work standing of both viewpoints. He came but right or wro ng, m y country.'). et- a m onthly pacifi st paper found from a pro-Santamaria family. As Melbourne had B. A. Santamaria, ed in the 1930s by the late Dorothy the war grew on the Western consc- a man of such persuasiveness that he D ay and a peasant philosoph er of io usness th ro ugh the late was manifes tly the primary author French background, Peter Maurin. fifti es and ea rly sixti es, ity on what most Australian bishops The Catholic Worl 48 EUREKA STREET • SEPTEMBER 1994 a lifetime of trying to get somewhere torian clergy and Santamaria wel mem.ber of the editorial board of the near the truth of things-yet pains coming the President of South Viet Catholic Worl VOLUME 4 NUMBER 7 • EUREKA STREET 49 BooKs: 6 JAMES GRIFFIN It's hard to lzeep a good myth down could be given to their condition. E""" S>-mTT"w to contdb Doc Evatt: Patriot, International ute it mite to the long-awaited, Buckley et al have fudged issues ist, Fighter and Scholar, Ken Buck joint-a uthored, Evatt Foundation raised by the Wren cache. Icy, Barbara Dale and Wayne Rey sponsored centenary biography of Irrespective of this Buckley et al no lds, Longman Cheshire, Mel Australia's most enigmatic politi disappoint, a lthough the book is best bourne 1994, ISIIN 0 SR2 R0719 0, cian. Readers may recall that in the of the three-not fo ur, as the fore RR I' S49.9.'i. 'Red Ted', The Li fe of August-October 1992 issues, three E.G. T heodore, Ross Fitzgerald, word says- 'full -length bi ographies' articles were published on sports University of Qld Press, St Lucia, of Evatt so far. It is far from being man-en treprencur-poli tical fixer 1994. ISBN 0 7022 2649, RR P $24.95 com prehensive: an assessment of Catholic philanthropist John Wren, Evatt's work a a jurist is to come after the discovery of a cache of let ation with Wren because Evattlacked out as a separate monograph . In short, ters. Among them were 10 by H. V. a 'traditional' (e.g. trade union) base the biography is too short to be, as Evatt to Wren requesting politica l in the ALP and, anyway (using a w Neville Wran sa id at the launching, favours and revealing a lengthy inter quoque) 'Arthur Cal well (a lso?) ad 'definitive.' If Al an Martin's Men- fami I y friendship. mired Wren'. But we are not told zies, a relatively straightforward sub No hint of this relationship seems why. The matter just hangs there, ject, needs two volumes, so docs to have surfaced in the Evatt archives making Calwell loo k rather silly. Evatt's multi-faceted career. Some or family memory, not even from But then he was a Catholi c too, no sections are scrapp y. Wh ere Kylic Mrs 'Mas' Evatt, who seems to have doubt looking for a devious route to Tennant's hagiograph (1970) ga ve known the Wrens quite well. I could heaven . several pages to Evatt's defence of onl y conclude some suppression fol Only two of the lO letters are Iri s h e nvoys, O'Flanagan and lowed the publication of Frank Har considered. In one, Evatt asks for O'Kelly, against deportation in 1923, dy's Power Without Glory (1950), Wren's support in contesting the they do not get a mention here. not to mention the Labor Split of Deputy Prime Ministcrship in Octo Alan Dalziel's memoir (not a 'full 1954-5. ber 1946. According to Buckley ' it is length bi ograph y'), Evatt The Enig O ne of the co-biographers has rather surprising th 50 EUREKA STREET • SEPTEMBER 1994 hour', the defeat of the anti-Com Fitzgerald is very partisan, choos munist referendum in 1951. From ing to gloss over what was certainly Un iya j EUREKA srREEJ this distance one can m arvel that, 'conflict of interest', a concept his but for this highly neurotic leader, namesake of the late 1980s royal Two special days for the diary: the majority of Australians would commission fame thought som e have voted in favour of a sneak soci what lacking currency in the Joh In Melbourne on 22 October ety. Reynolds also makes coherent Hinze bailliwicks-ancl, indeed, else sense of Evatt's far-from-radical for where. Gough Whitlam in his fore 2020 Vision: Present Ideas For The Future eign policy as Alan Renouf in Let word to a previous Theodore biogra Tim Costello, Moira Rayner, Shane fu stice Be Done (19 83) and W.J. Hud phy by Irwin Young (1971) was sim Maloney, Judy Brett, Philip Kennedy OP, son (e.g. in The Monthly Record April ilarly partisan . I would have thought Peter Norden SJ, Chris McConville, Archie 1991) have clone before him. Evatt Kett Kennedy in The Mungana Af Roach and others. thoroughly deserved his presidency fair (1978) had the definitive word of the United Nations in 1948. Yet on Theodore's 'honest graft', which In Sydney on 29 October we are little closer to unravelling the is what T ammany Hall would have Politics in Australia: Catholic Perspectives 'enigm a' even though Buckley sug called it. 'Yes, we have no Munga gests Evatt could have been a long nas,' heckled the Tories and Lan Ed Campion, Race Mathews, Jim Macken, time sufferer from epilepsy. That gites as they pitched Theodore from Chris Sidoti, David Pollard, Ray Cassin, does not help much even if, as he politics to make millions in n ewspa Ann O'Brien and others. says, Manning Clark was too. So was pers with the Packers and in Fiji gold Dostoevsky. mines with them and Wren. For more information con tact: Ross Fitzgerald deals with that Wren nan1ecl a racehorse after Paul Smyth (02) 356 3888 other tragic politician, E.G. Theo Theodore but his long association dore, who was 'Red Ted' as a trade with Fitzgerald's hero wins him no Michael McGirr SJ (03) 42 7 73 11 union musterer, radical Queensland kudos. Unlike Theodore, we are told, Treasurer and Premier (w ho abol Wren 'played dirty' with 'lesser men', Uniya, named aftu the first fesuit mission estab ished the Upper House), and Com was 'unscrupulous', and 'pretended lished at Daly River in the Northern Territory, monwealth Treasurer in the Great to be a Robin Hood, taking from the is a Christian centre for social research and Depression with a Keynesian per poor to give to the poor, usually action, sponsored by the A ustralian fesuits. spective before its time had come. himself first, and then the deserving But Theodore was also 'Kirribilli poor, the struggling Irish Catholics Ted', representing a Labor electorate of Collingwood.' Fortunately there from an architect-designed North is no footnote to this, or we would This inspiring story is the Shore h arboursicle m ansion with probably have got Frank Hardy or his Mary first biography of Mary three floors, wide balconies and 'a 'pupil', Manning Clark, as a source. M Kitl MacKillop specifically devoted gardener, Hogclen, who had But I doubt if either of these author ~oette!z9P aimed at presenting the life followed the family from Brisbane'. ities would have thought Theodore and times of this remarkable In The Turbulent Years Jack needed Wren to teach him to be LESLEY O ' BRIEN woman to all Australians. Lang, malevolent antagonist, report secret in his business dealings . A moving account, it reveals the woman ed one of Theodore's ripostes on the Fitzgerald has, for the m ost part, behind the veil, once hustings: 'Simply because a man capably filled a gap in the shelf of excommunicated by the works in the abattoirs, there is no Australian biographies even if his Church hierarchy and now reason why he must live in them .' som etimes jaunty prose irks (e.g. held up by the same Church Interjectors querying his Labor cre 'filthy rich', 'fork out'). So do state as a model for others. dentials were 'lea ther-lunged low ments such as: 'But it was Jack Lang With the official brows.' In 1929, Theodore polled himself who has paid the most sig recognition of Mary as 77.9 1 per cent; in 1931, less than nificant tribute to his greatest ene Australia's first saint, than 20 per cent in the same elector m y: "Of all my political opponents attention turns to the ate. He lost to a Langite, Sol Rose E.G.Theocl ore was the toughest ... question: 'Who was this woman?' Read Mary vear, who later becam e Speaker un when he was beaten he didn't MacKillop Unveiled, der Curtin and a foe of the Big Fella. squeal".' Really-sounds like a footy authorised by the official U~! ~ \' O ' HI~tl '>. Yet it was not just pelf which was commentary. So does: 'The public Mary MacK.illop the problem, but how Theodore got had lost faith in Edward Granville Secretariat, for the answer. it. A Tory-manipulated royal com Theodore .. .' (cf. for emphasis, Ron 308 pages (inc. 32 pages of photos) $16.95 mission in 1930 ruled he was cor ald Dale Barassi! ). And the continual rupt when Premier in the Mungana inelegant interchange of 'Ted', 'The Lesley O'Brien presents a very good, down -to-earth understanding qf the diffuulties Mary MacKillop luui to endure. lflel that past pupils mine dealings. A jury in a civil court odore', 'EGT.' etc, without rhyme or qf the Josephites, lilct myself, as well as many other readers will be later acquitted him, or at least held reason, is quite ridiculous. • delighted with this account qf such a great lifl. that the charges were not proved GABI Hou.ows but the rules of evidence were differ James Griffin is an historian and ent then. critic. d: CollinsDove PO Box 3 16 Blackburn Vic 3 130 An imprint of HarperCol.linsAd>lzShers Tel: (03) 895 8 195 Fax: (03) 895 8 182 VoLUME 4 N uMBER 7 • EUREKA STREET 51 THEATR E. CAROLYN PICKETT tries brought an emphasis on story telling and exchanging of experienc es that permea ted the conference. This was enhanced by the pcrspcc Gathering plays ti vcs offered by writers and produc ers such as Deborah Levy and Joa n Littlewood from England, who talked D O,OTH' AND GR I SELDA each country to 1cl cn t1fy themselves. about their very different styles of co uldn't come, but more than 450 At first the introdu ctions were greet work; workshops with Jenny Kemp, women did ga ther in Adelaide's eel with polite, enthusiastic clapping Peggy Phelan and Pcta Tait, dealing strangely balmy winter weather to for each group, but by the time m ost with the body in space and writing celebrate theatre at the Third Inter countries had been acknowleclgccl , the body; and ritual drama with Kim national Women Playwrights' Con the mixture of cheering, whistling, Kum Hwa, from Korea. ference. stamping and celebratory cries had Id eological and political differ There were delega tes from coun set a tone of excitement that was to ences were apparent <1t all sessions tri es as disparate as Ic eland and characterise the week. Running con as a thematic clement of many, but Jamaica, South Africa and Malaysia, currently with workshop and infor also when women spoke, sometimes Ireland and East Timor. More than mation sessions were forum/per out of turn, about the oppression 40 plays were performed in ful I and formance sessions open to all dele experienced in their specific cui tu res. extracts read from 60 others, and the ga tes, and late in each day there were These were moments of deep emo Murphy Sisters bookstall stocked play readings and free performances. tion: Melinda Bobis' cantata of the hun clrcds of titles. Th c conference Although most performances were warrior woman; june Mills' song wa s opened by Muriel van cl cr Byl, over by 11 pm it W M ANY OF THE WORKSHOPS and forums were backed up by perform ances elsewhere on the program and many of the forums included per formed extracts from the work of the playwrights speaking in the session. This provided an instant connection between theory and practice, and although they were tantalisingly Conference cgates to her land she introduced the common elem ents that prevailed. short, it gave a strong sense of each participant: jumbuck Mob, South Australia's first Ritual, storytelling, identity, lan play. The conference company of Beverly Hanson, Aboriginal yo uth theatre group, w ho guage and laugh tcr, were keynote five actors who performed these ex from Jamaica. 1eel visitors in to the opening ceremo topics on separate days. The large tracts showed remarkable adaptabil ny. Marjorie Fitz-Gerald, as chair of number of delegates and presenters ity as they swi tchcd from role to role Photo by the conference, asked delegates from fro m Asian and First World co un - and from session to session. T he Lisa Thomasetti 52 EUREKA STREET • SEPTEMBER l994 THEATRE: 2 PETER HouGHTON Playworks Showcase fo rum em ployed a different group of actors w ho performed extracts fro m 10 new Australian plays, and the Artspace pl ay rea dings were ably directed Balancing Ibsen and perform ed by students of the The Lady from the Sea, by Henrik Ibsen. Melbourne Theatre Flinders Drama Centre. For a week Company productwn, duected by Roger Hodgman. delegates argued about id entity, the atrical representation, sexuality and the body, gender constructions, ritu I BSEN's POWERFUL DRAMA has, at its centre, the relationship between Doctor Wangl al, language of the body, language of and his wife Ellida, the 'Lady' of the piece. Ellida is the doctor's second wife and the culture(s) and the m erits of the mul doctor is, in a sense, Ellida's second husband. titude of plays seen. And yes, there As a young woman she was involved in a passionate relationship with a sailor. were some complaints, but discus He went to sea, and- Ellida supposed-died. She marries the widower, Doctor sion groups provided an opportunity Wangl, but is unable to enter her new life with her husband and her two step to air complaints and redress any daughters, Hilde and Bolette. She remains tied to the sea, wracked with guilt and perceived ga ps in the program . Com inexplicably resentful of her loss of freedom-the freedom which the sailor plementing these critical appraisal represents. sessions was a system of open ca u Ibsen himself worked with the belief that Norwegians are spiritually tied to the cuses programmed for wom en with sea; the fjords, to him, represented a literal and an emotional backwater. The sea special interests. With the opportu meant freedom, chaos, passion and mystery. Like his Norse forefathers, he was nity always available fo r peopl e to fascinated by the mythologies of the open sea and the analogies that could be drawn create their own fo rums it was only between the rawness of the northern seasons and the life of a mortal soul. It is this the very shy or the sulky who fa iled balance that he examines in the The Lady from the Sea. to connect with those who It is the play's challenge to embody these enormous themes in a theatrical had similar concerns. setting. Ellida is one of the most difficult roles an actress could take on as it is she who A LFORUM/PERFORMANCE sessions must carry the emotional weight from beginning to end. Josephine Byrne didn't that had non-English-speaking pre quite get there, but she came close, only occasionally illustrating the old theatrical senters were provided with efficient adage-it doesn't matter how much you feel but how accurately you feel. simultaneou s translations. T he ar The weakest link in the piece was the portrayal of the stranger by John ra ngem ents for translation from Eng Brumpton. The stranger represents the danger and passion of the world of the play. lish to other languages seemed to be Brumpton was wooden and monosyllabic. It was extraordinary that an actor, with a bit more ad hoc, and sitting among six weeks' rehearsal, could do so little with a relatively small part. And more people murmuring translations into extraordinary that a director could let him get away with it. David Latham as Chinese, Italian, Japanese etc proved Arnholm, the epitome of middle-class Norwegian values, seemed overly technical rather distracting. Despite the ab and mannered. But these performances will surely improve as the run continues. sence of Dorothy Hewett and Grisel Highlights were Frank Gallacher as Doctor Wangl and Frances O'Connor as da Gambaro, two distinguish ed Bolette. From the moment Gallacher walked on stage it was clear he knew exactly women playwrights I had particular what he represented: Ibsen's h ero, a middle-aged man capable of humility, love and ly wanted to hear, the conference change. was still packed with the famous, Frances O'Connor delivered an astute study of a woman prepared to sign away the talented and the innovative. her life to a man twice her age to extricate herself from the present situation. For Although the playwrights took a modern audience to understand this struggle on something more than an centre stage at this conference, the intellectual level it is imperative that Bolette be convincing. Some of the lines balance that was achieved between a O'Connor had to deliver to justify her character's decision would have been hard sm oothly run program and the ex enough to deliver in 1888. In 1994 they could be real stinkers. But in O'Connor's pression of diverse interests must be performance the lines carried. The audience understood her motivations exactly. acknowledged. And credit must be The support cast were al so strong. given to Julie Holledge, Phyllis Jane Hodgman's direction was strong, but with occasional lapses-as when he left Rose and Helen Ri ckards for bring the cast in flat lines across the stage. Perhaps the problem here lies with the ing the confe rence to Adelaide, con Melbourne Theatre Company's practice of turning over so many productions each sulting nationally and internation year. The demands on individuals, in particular the artistic director, Hodgman, to ally on program and fo rmat, organis churn out so much work, can generate a production-line feeling. It is difficult to ing the necessary funding and keep make art in a factory. The art may start to reflect the machinations around it rather ing the conference on a week-long than the talents within it. h ~ h . • But the nega tive aspects of the technical production I have mentioned only serve to highlight the strength of some of the acting performances. This production of The Carolyn Pickett teaches thea tre and Lady from the Sea will engage anyone who enjoys uncluttered dramatic perform elrama in the School of Arts and ance and has an interest in the first incarnations of naturalistic theatre. • Media, LaTrobe University. Peter Houghton is a Melbourne actor and playwright. VoLUME 4 N uMBER 7 • EUREKA STREET 53 SPORTING LIFE JuuETTE HuGHES Ice is nice and the sliclzer go quiclzer T M> WM W"'N 'U "'"C' NC at. The two 'judges' were buffoons rcography is part of it. They choreo sha red the status now so richly in the old circus tradition, indeed graphed mo t of the show themselves, deserv ed by synchronised swim they were skated by Konstantin and the results were stunning. Orff's ming. Like ballroom dancing, it was Golomazov and Igor Okunev, who Cal'mina Burana has been done be prolcs' genteel-night-out, hedged by had been with the Moscow State fore by ballet companies, and it can be dress-rules and movement restric Circus on Icc. T he audience got the 54 EUREKA STREET • SEPTEMBER 1994 in a home for the disabled. She have already been told. There are has had a horrendous child som e new ones in this hugely enter hood herself. Their relation taining, if obscenely expensive, ship takes off when Angel ex action movie from the director whose poses her breasts to him while Terminator fi lms made Arnie the he's under the shower. He's on lovable humanoid that he is today. safe ground here, they look just Here is a sample: Harry Tasker like his mother's breasts. Bub (Arnie), believing that his wife Helen by jilts Rachel, one of the dis (Jamie Lee Curtis) is cheating on abled patients who has also him, decides to beat her supposed never known love, and has a lover to a pulp. Harry's friend Gib baby with Angel. The film ends (Tom Arnold), realising he must with improbable scenes of do dowse this rage for Harry's own good, mestic bliss. grabs him by the shoulders, gazes Enough? Thankfully, I have into those Terminator eyes and says: forgotten most of the things 'Try and get in touch with, you know, that are done to cats and cock your feminine side.' roaches in this film. What hap By far the best joke in True Lies, pens to the people is bad enough. however, is implicit in the film's Bad Boy Bub by is indescribably vile. theme. For Harry is an urbane, inter Family values 1 If De Veer believes his own direc national superspy whose middle Bad Boy Bubby, dir. Rolf de Heer tor's statement, he must be living in class wife and daughter think he is a (independent cinemas). Beware of a cellar. dull, middle-class computer sales films offering a director's statement -Michael McGirr SJ man. His time and energy are divid at the box office. De Veer says he ed between keeping them in that wanted to make a film 'about the Eurel VOLUME. 4 NUMBE.R 7 • EUREKA STREET 55 Bosch painting, is an ea rl y sign of the The Cmw is one of the best film s leaves him because he is impotent. intelligence behind this rich, multi of the year so far- not grea t, perhaps, She turns him out on to the street, layered film. It is a story of love, but serious, art-full and sure to depriving him of hi s business, but a murder and revenge that is slowly enrapture fu tu rc cult audiences. fri end smuggles him back to Poland and elegantly told, yet has been shot -Tim Mitchell where he becomes ri ch as a property and edited in rapid-fi rc MTV style. speculator in the new capitalist econ This crea tes a fascinating tension. omy. He then fakes his death to lure The Crow has been m arketed as a Family values 4 his wife to Warsaw to claim the 'young' fi lm, with its MTV look, estate. Wh en she arrives he contacts grunge/gothic soundtrack, and Bran Even Cowgirls Get the Blues, clir. he r and, a ll vigour apparently don Lee looking precisely like Rob G us Van Sant, (independent cine restored, they become lovers again. crt Smith from The C ure IJames mas), is the story of a girl called Sissy But he is officia lly dead, and she is O'Barr modelled the original Crow (Uma Thurman), who is born with arrested and imprisoned for his cartoon character on Smith). But it is cxtraordin 56 EUREKA STREET • SEPTEMBER 1994 which father and daughter sing to Bertolucci is clearly searching. gether in the car is one- but they That is admirable. But you can't com don't overcom e the exasperation one prehend or convey Buddhist m yth, feels at the mad irresponsibility of serenity or m ystery with time-lapse dragging a very sick child ha If- dressed photography and a heavy hand with from hospital, to go on a jaunt from the kohl. -Morag Fraser Switzerland to Italy. The journey allows for som e bea ut scenic shots, but they have not been worked into Family values 8 the plot in plausible ways. Richard Berry and Anemone are The Flintstones, dir. Brian Levant excellent as the parents, giving a !Greater Union). The summer box great sense of the complex attrac office hit in N orth America this year tion/repulsion of separated spouses has been Th e Flintstones. But it is as who end up strangely en famille once much a marketing phenom enon as more with their dying child. it is a film. The hype has ensured - Jul iette Hughes that those millions of people all over the world who grew up watching the TV series will see the m ovi e, if only Family values 7 to discover how the cartoon has been transposed into film. And that curi Little Buddha, dir. Bernardo Ber osity does m aintain interest for half tolucci !independent cinemas). What an hour or so. Are the actors like the is happening to Bertolucci? The Last cartoon characters1 Are the house Emperor had patches of banal spec hold appliances right1 Does Fred tacle, but Little Buddha is a travesty. bowl with his twinkle- toe tech Take Western ennui, in the form nique? And will Dino knock him of a sour Sea ttle engineer and his over when he arrives home from the well-coiffed 'math-teacher' wife and quarry ? perfect blond son, and blend with a The answer to all these ques scurry of Buddhist monks !why must tions is 'yes'- the movie faithfully all Hollywood Buddhists look as evokes the cartoon series, much of it though they are eternally escaping a is fun, and like the series it is full of napalm attack?) who are abroad dreadful puns. The B52s become the searching for the reincarnated suc BC52s !though why not use a band cessor of a revered lama, and you with a readymade name like Dino should get interesting friction. But saur Jr1), the secretary at the quarry this is Bertolucci with his edges is Sharon Stone, the kids play in knocked off. He succeeds only in Jurassic Park, and the Flintstone fam rendering one of the great world reli ily goes to the drive-in to watch Tar Please send two free copies of gions as a sequence of gnomic pleas Wars- a film directed by Gorge Lucas Eurel V OLUME 4 NUMBER 7 • EUREKA STREET 57 News from nowhere Boa HAw"'s AUTOB'OCBMHY w.s l•unched on 16 While all this was going on, Graham Richardson, on August. Paul Keating was described in an ABC TV news Nine's Sunday, was discussing Labor's new initiatives to bulletin that morning as 'uncharacteristically silent' on get more women into the party. 'The women are coming,' the subject. But his silence is in fact wholly characteris he said to the camera by way of conclusion. 'I'd say it was tic; one of the reasons Paul Keating came to power and a good thing if I thought it would make the world a better stayed there is that he knows exactly when to be quiet place-but politicians are politicians, no matter what their including, or indeed especially, during an auto-foot-shoot gender.' ing exhibition by an adversary. Well, actually, Richo, no. It was after all you your For, as far as its effect on the Prime Minister is con self who, two weeks before, did a cute little feature on cerned, the Hawke book looks set to do the opposite of the sam e program, speculating about who might succeed what its author intended, and Keating isn't going to spoil Keating as Labor leader. You structured it like a set of it all by joining in. The book is receiving saturation TV racing tips; you gave odds. Your other two controlling coverage, and the media doesn't need any help from metaphors were war and football. You implied, in short, Keating to show the damage Hawke seems quite ready to that the real point of politics is to provide an arena for do the party in the quest for vengeance and vindication, men to compete with and sometimes attempt to kill each or the unattractive character traits being revealed in the other. But perhaps when the discourse of politics becomes process. less exclusively masculine and aggressive, the practice of One wonders how all this publicity is going to affect politics will change accordingly. (It was enlightening, if the sales of the book. It seems, after all, not to be a very depressing, to see former Hawke speechwriter Graham good book; nor, indeed, does it appear to be a particularly Freudenberg explaining on Four Corners that he'd always accurate representation of events. Even longtime support thought of Hawke's word 'consensus' as 'only rhetoric', er Gareth Evans, asked about the validity of Hawke's as though he-a speechwriter of all people-considered claims to have been a key player in the Middle East nego language to be somehow both less important than, and tiations, replied 'Well, if he was, none of us knew any easily separable from, its subject.) I've heard the word thing about it.' The kind of publicity the book is getting 'larrikin', for example, used half-a-dozen times during this might deter as many potential readers as it will attract. Hawke TV blitz, and always as a term of unqualified Even so, it would be very interesting to know what approval. When our model for heroism becomes some sort of deal was done with whom by whom in order to get thing other than the image of a naughty little boy, we the last two episodes of the ABC's classic Labor in Power might start getting somewhere, or at least start getting series back on the screen the week before the book came somewhere different. out. Much of it was old news by then, but, as with a 19th Kerry O'Brien's Lateline on the ABC also devoted an century novel, there was still a lot to learn if you concen entire program that week to the Hawke book, lining up trated on character over event. Peter Walsh, Bob Collins an array of panellists (including a dour Paul Kelly- The and Barrie Cassidy all revealed themselves as delightful: Australian editor, not the songwriter, alas- and an unin witty, benign, resigned. We saw, yet again, Paul Keating spired Barry Jones) whose cumulative effect could only say that this was the sweetest victory of all-an odd re be described as soporific. I know these things are at least mark when you think about it; did he really intend to partly determined by which city you're in, but I couldn't call to mind, at that most vulnerable of moments, that help dreaming up my own team and wishing they were other, bloody, victory by virtue of which he was there at doing it instead. I would have had Judith Brett and Gra all? Was it a calculated gamble or a Freudian slip? ham Little, both lecturers in political science, both ex Meanwhile, the episode of Four Corners that went pert handlers of psychoanalytic frameworks for reading to air the night before the book was launched was devot political character and motivation, both authors of high ed to Gerard Henderson's profile of Hawke. Cleverly en ly original books interrogating the genres of biography titled 'The Loved One'-which for those who need and/or autobiography, both thinkers whose fluency, lu reminding is, in the Evelyn Waugh satire of the same cidity, breadth of knowledge and passion for ideas have name, a polite euphemism for 'corpse'-it featured imag been demonstrated repeatedly on TV and radio over many inative questions, lively structuring, cleverly chosen in years. I would have added Hawke's publisher Louise Adler, terview subjects and a beautifully written script. It also who accurately describes herself as being endowed with showed that Hawke has not lost his habit of talking about 'loads of chutzpah'; Canberra Times editor Michelle Grat himself in the third person, a quirk which he shares with tan, whose eyes were full of tears when Hawke appeared Alexander Downer and about the psychological implica for a news conference after he lost the leadership; and tions of which one can only speculate. One of the things maybe I would have kept Barry Jones, who in that com that made this program so exceptional was Henderson's pany might have been more interesting than, in the event, general attitude to political journalism: unlike, say, Nine's ~~s. • Laurie Oakes, he cares more about analysis and ideas than he does about one-upmanship, point-scoring and scoops. Kerryn Goldsworthy is a Melbourne writer and teacher. 58 EUREKA STREET • SEPTEMBER 1994 Eureka Street Cryptic Crossword no. 26, September 1994 Devised by Joan Nowotny IBVM ACROSS 1 Unload the fish to make the pudding. (8) 5 Rare vehicle caught in south-east direction. (6) 10 The dawn-of understanding, perhaps-came when witty pun was returned to us. (5) 11 Going to earth for a solid basis. (9) 12 More satiated than ever with oaten cakes. (9) 13 Feast in theatre attic! (5) 14 N ed gave as good as he go t in retaliation. (7) 16 Educated but sounds tense! (6) 19 Hides vanished from established finn. Reorganisation needed. (6) 21 It goes round and round, back and forth, it's all the same! (7) 23 Overturn English coin in America and France. (5) 25 I'm returning to have mixed grill before morning- just a small amount. (9) 27 With circumspection, perhaps, duly rent quiet property. (9) 28 A girl astray! (5) 29 Burnt or raw, this colour can be found in Tuscan town about North . (6) 30 Public demonstrations in favour of exams. (8) DOWN Solution to Crossword no.25, August 1994 1 Getting rid of m essy soap lids 1 (8) 2 One cent Emma mistakenly paid for pie-filling. (9) 3 Sounds as if race circuits' standards decline. (5) 4 Denied donkey went round opening. (7) 6 Wild corn cut round street to make room to build. (9) 7 Bring up new melodies at the beginning of Easter. (5) 8 Place for height when breath plummets to bottom . (6) Y Good French openwork fabric headgear. (6) 15 Leave with Ben but without sentimental intermediary. (9) 17 Casual outcome of most Irish exchanges. (3,2,4) 18 Some R.I.P.s can make pledges for future life. (8) 20 Hostility shown towards m e, tiny though I be. (6) 21 Could be the ABC that produced early 'Queen' broadcast. (7) 22 What a commotion when peculiar cat lost tail! (6) 24 Being a hundred short, accuse someone of impudence. Might go well with 1-across. (5) 26 Unskilful use of mixed paint. (5) EUR[-KA SJR[-EJ subscription form Please send me Eurelw Street: for one year ($45 for 10 issues, or $40 cone. D for two years D for pensioners, students and unemployed.) ($80, or $75 cone.) Name ...... Address ...... \ i Postcode ...... Country ...... Tel...... Date ...... 'J777.~~~T,rrf-r~~2o~~~'- T~~~~ \ Enc. chq/money order D Or debit: Bankcard D Visacard D Mastercard D Card no: Ll_j _ _L__j____j_ _L__j___jL___j__j__L__j___j__L___j__j__j I say you chaps, keep bacl The Cambridge Biographical Encyclopedia is a single volume, easy-to-use reference work that has the answer to these and many more questions, in its A-Z entries, Ready Reference section and in 'Connections', a special section of 50 essays on key themes in history, ideas, exploration, the arts, science and technology. Thanks to Cambridge University Press, Eurelza Street has three copies of the Cambridge Biographical Encyclopedia, each worth $75, to give away to readers who nominate someone whose face they think should be added to those on the cover. Place your entry in an envelope marked 'Eureka Sueet Book Offer' and send it to us at PO Box 553, Richmond, Vic, 3121. Last month's winners of Alan Lawson's selection of Patrick White's writings were P. Russell, Lyons, ACT; Y. Stackpole, Upper Ferntree Gully, VIC; P. Armstrong, Chadstone, VIC; M. Ward, Brighton, VIC; J. Bunney, N orwood, SA; S. Houghton, Kensington, VIC. Winners of Jim Davidson's Lyrebird Rising were B. and J. Spiller, Murwillum bah, NSW; R. Daly, Morningside, QLD; B. Purcell, W indsor, VIC. Aurora International Travel Ajoiut project oftlze Society of ]ems aud Raptimlutematioua/ Travel an nounces an 18 day tour to ITALY, ROME & THE VATICAN Departing Nove mber 9th , 1994 with tour leader Fr David Rankin SJ in cludin g specia lly arrange d tou r hi ghli ght s in Rom e, Sien a, Milan , As sisi and Florence Free time for independent sightseeing, shopping and further travel! Pre-book in g also now av ailabl e for 1995 tours to Medjugorje. th e Holy Land . and Rome Hurry! Li mit ed Space For tour deta ils, inclusio ns and cos ts contact: Geoff Glover Pilgrim Travel Pty Ltd (03) 8169633 Li cence N" 31481 9 771036 175017