Next steps...towards the far horizon

Nicolas Rothwell, the Northern Territory- based journalist, has gone into print twice in the last week analysing the situation in the Territory since the previous Coalition government launched its intervention into indigenous communities several months ago.

The first, "Aboriginal surprise", is in the British magazine Prospect. I've not yet read the full article as it's only available (unless you can access it via a library's online database) if you pay, though The Australian published an extract in its Cut and Paste section:

Things have already begun to play out in intriguing ways in the deep deserts where the intervention task forces began their work in August. School attendance is up, communities are quieter, crime is down. Why, then, the hand-wringing and the outrage heard in the state capitals of southern Australia? Surely the mainstream population might be expected to welcome such an injection of resources into the deserts and the far north? That, though, would be to misunderstand the strange condition of the Australian intelligentsia and its intense engagement with indigenous causes.

Polls suggest that most Australians are mildly in favour of the intervention, to the extent that they care at all about Aboriginal matters, but the shrill hostility of the progressive classes drowns out this approval. In the rallies, television panels and opinion pages, it is not an intervention but an "invasion", a land grab, a rollback of Aboriginal rights, an episode that brings shame on the nation.

This mood of indignant moral fury on indigenous questions has become, over the past decade of conservative government, a key characteristic of a certain segment of Australian society one might call the "reconciliation class". Its moment of glory was a mass walk across the Sydney Harbour Bridge (in 2000), when a quarter of a million demonstrators gathered in support of indigenous reconciliation. This largely metropolitan tendency has been deeply hostile to the Howard government, regarding the presence of a conservative populist at the helm of the nation as an insult.

For three decades, the standard setting for the management of indigenous affairs has been the enlightened Left's welfarist prescription, a prescription now being shredded by the "emergency response". These ideological dimensions explain much of the fire in the anti-intervention rhetoric, as all eyes turn to the little communities of the Northern Territory.

The second piece "No time for dreaming" is in The Weekend Australian. Rothwell knows the Territory well: read his recent book Another Country if you don't believe me.

[Prime Minister] Rudd can opt to maintain the drastic social engineering package on trial in the desert and Top End; he can roll back its coercive bite and impact or sharpen its effects and broaden its geographic scope. On the choices he makes, and their success, depend the fate of a people, the future of remote communities and even, in the long run, the economic structure of the inland and the north.

[ Indigenous Affairs Minister] Macklin has been receiving her departmental briefings this week, in private, and knows the inside story of the intervention and the trends and patterns across the remote Aboriginal domain. Despite strong signs that the federal taskforce's initial efforts are succeeding - school attendances in the centre are up as much as 30per cent, while gambling and domestic violence are down - the overall landscape remains sombre.

Vast sums have been poured into Aboriginal development during recent years, but they have been ineffectual. There is virtually no economic activity and most of the remote communities remain surreal fiefdoms presided over by outside administrators.

.....

Opponents of the intervention denounce it as an invasion and call for it to be wound back. Supporters see it as the last opportunity to prevent social meltdown in a damaged world.

.....

Rudd's strategy is becoming clear; it has been telegraphed by his ministerial picks and his administration's first position statements. It will be underlined by key appointments to the commanding heights of the bureaucracy in coming weeks. Its intellectual rigour and consistency will be sharply tested by the political challenges lying close ahead.

Macklin is the key choice. By opting for his established shadow minister, Rudd has also opted for Macklin's view of Aboriginal affairs, which has been substantially shaped by deep contacts with the pro-intervention Aboriginal leadership during the past six months. The new minister shares the key beliefs of the radical reform camp; she telegraphed them in uncompromising fashion in these pages last weekend . Her view is that the crisis in remote indigenous communities can be best addressed by pragmatic measures, such as restrictions on alcohol spending to control the plagues of addiction and family violence.

It is the view that lies behind the frankly coercive aspects of the intervention: the quarantining of incomes, increased policing, the requirement that communities send their children to school and the alcohol and pornography prohibitions.

The second key appointment was a negative one. By naming the territory's Warren Snowdon, a determined critic of the intervention, as Defence Science and Personnel Minister, Rudd binds this main mouthpiece of the antediluvian Left to cabinet solidarity and removes his voice from the debate.

.....

There has been a drastic political realignment in Darwin, with the emergence of a new Chief Minister speaking the language of co-operation, Paul Henderson. Henderson knows his term in office will be judged by his ability to provide tangible improvements in the condition of remote NT communities and he has pledged himself to this goal.

One key to the indigenous policy direction of the Rudd-Macklin era lies in the new Government's choice of Aboriginal interlocutors. Galarrwuy Yunupingu, the monarch of northeast Arnhem Land, has Macklin's ear: his message to her is one of respect for traditions and contempt for the provision of passive welfare payments to Aborigines. Alongside Yunupingu stands the University of Melbourne's Marcia Langton, a long-time believer in drastic social control measures to combat alcoholism and family violence.

Yunupingu envisages a generational reconstruction project in the territory, rechristened as the "special measure" program and buttressed by the formation of a council of traditional leaders.
Langton accepts the broad thrust of the emergency response and views it as a defensive campaign undertaken on behalf of indigenous women.

In flat contradiction to this stand, a group of more recently established Aboriginal spokespeople, marshalled by figures such as Olga Havnen and Larissa Behrendt, want the intervention stopped at once and replaced by consultation with the targeted communities.

This split in indigenous ranks, a divide over first principles rather than mere tactics, seems more profound than past disputes. It spells the end of pan-Aboriginal campaigning and may well hasten the development of different strains of indigenous identity and political programs based on region, philosophy and economic circumstance. More immediately, it forces the Rudd Government to choose between stark alternatives: to back the realist tendency represented by Langton and Yunupingu or make concessions to the rejectionists, whose campaigns have broad support from Labor's progressive wing.

Hence Macklin's longing for an indigenous compromise and her desire for the anti-intervention campaigners to sit down with their opponents and broker a development program that may give the takeover in the NT, in its Rudd version, a softer face.

Hence, too, the temptation the new Labor team feels to modify key elements of the intervention, as it promised in the election campaign on the advice of NT Labor strategists. Rudd is thus committed to restoring aspects of the territory's community development employment programs, closed down by Brough early in the intervention.Not even CDEP's few proponents regard this strange make-work system, which pays remote community part-time employees slightly above welfare rates, as anything more than a stop-gap.

But the true grotesquerie of the environment CDEP engenders is little understood by outsiders. A typical CDEP program is run by a highly paid white adviser and provides basic work teams fulfilling municipal and public tasks, in effect subsidising the NT Government and local councils. Many art centres rely on CDEP to pay their indigenous staff low part-time wages and thus use the program as a kind of taxpayer subsidy to keep the price of artworks competitive. False economic signals fly everywhere and create a shadow realm that barely meets the outside financial system. CDEP, with its dependent workers, thus acts as a force to maintain poverty and deprive people of the chance to fulfil their capabilities.

The tragedy is that it is the best system so far devised and the best indigenous societies have been offered. Brough canned CDEP only when it became clear that its payments could not legally be quarantined, but this was the reform that most urgently signalled to Aboriginal communities that a new world was upon them.

Rudd and Macklin will be urged by the Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations teams overseeing the Northern Territory project to keep alive the most ambitious aspect of the intervention's mid-term blueprint: the promise that all jobs on communities will be paid at standard rates, with features such as career development, education and superannuation.

The second change federal Labor endorsed in mid-campaign is the retention of the permit system controlling access to communities. No reporter committed to press freedom could support access permits, which are granted by land councils, and function to ensure favourable media portraits of communities and the powerbrokers who control them.

But the NT Labor Government, despite being stuffed full of former journalists, bizarrely opposed, and still opposes, Brough's extremely limited plan to lift the permit requirement for road access and public areas in large communities.

It is salutary to bear in mind how vital permits have been in maintaining the silence over sexual abuse and violence in remote communities. Permits also limit economic initiatives from outsiders and touristic activity. The system's defenders portray them as a force protecting culture, whereas strong cultures are those in robust contact with the world and seclusion produces inevitable decline.

.....

In the remote communities today, a controlling elite seeks to limit and control access, so as to prevent the intolerable from being seen and felt and reported to the wider world. A masking version of reality is circulated and an oppressed class, in this case female, is maintained in fearful subjugation.

There are caricatural aspects to this summary of a complex social map, different in every tiny community, but the control system tends always to function in a similar way and to breed estrangement from the energies of the wider world. This is a straightforward moral issue for Rudd and, with his immense political capital, he can intervene in the policy debate to open up the bush while guaranteeing adequate policing and social services in communities.

Intervention, emergency, special measure: whatever the reforms in the NT are called in the Labor era, the process is set to continue. In truth, if it aims at raising remote societies to Western education and health levels, it is a project with at least a 50-year time frame. It has hardly even begun.

The commander of the emergency response, Dave Chalmers, gave an update this week on progress in the 73 target communities across the territory: 5000 health checks have been completed in 45 communities, 39 additional police have been stationed in the remote NT, 10 community stores have been licensed and 38 business managers are in place, overseeing the new order.

This is a pinprick on the surface; vast additional resources will be needed and fresh measures as yet undreamed of by policy architects if the Aboriginal societies of the centre and the north are to thrive and prosper and mesh on their own terms with the wider world.

As Labor leaders contemplate Brough's dream and seek to avoid it mutating into their own open-ended nightmare, they may want to consider far more ambitious levels of reconstruction than the conservative political order envisaged.

One key to unlocking remote Aboriginal disadvantage lies in a new description of the bush: the "failed state" model, advanced by former top NT bureaucrats Mike Dillon and Neil Westbury a year ago, explains the collapse of indigenous communities in terms of their systematic neglect and underfunding, but also in terms of the chaotic political and governance arrangements in place.

This is the far horizon of the intervention, which Rudd and Macklin will eventually have to face.

Rothwell asks more questions than he answers, but it should be clear where his (and my) sympathies lie. He seems relieved that these issues are now more out in the open than they were, but any optimism he has will be tempered by the enormity of the tasks, many of which are yet to be defined, the long time frame and the huge financial investment (not handout) required.

I hope to post more about these matters, but not now. I will be interested to see how letter writers and commentators react to Rothwell's forthrightness: the worst thing that could happen is that few will care.

Another voice in support of anti-corruption commissions

In The Weekend Australian Peter Beattie the former Premier of Queensland has come out urging each state which doesn't yet have one to establish a crime and misconduct commission.

The Queensland Crime and Misconduct Commission caused me, as premier, enormous political pain and, more than any other organisation, put my government at risk on several occasions. CMC investigations or inquiries caused me to lose a deputy premier and two members of state parliament, while one former minister went to jail, another is facing court and a couple of other ministers lost their portfolios. Since its inception in 1990, this standing royal commission has pursued crooked police officers, dishonest politicians and public officials.

.....

The CMC emerged from the Fitzgerald inquiry into corruption in Queensland which ran between 1987 and 1989. In May 1987 the then Queensland National Party government headed by Joh Bjelke-Petersen was forced by public and media pressure to set up a commission of inquiry into possible misconduct and illegal activities by police.

.....

Without the Fitzgerald report, this independent, standing royal commission would never have been created. Unlike politicians, commissioner Tony Fitzgerald QC did not depend on favourable media coverage for re-election, and the inquiry's public hearings and subsequent recommendations changed Queensland forever. Cleverly, he recommended that this independent watchdog be accountable, through an all-party committee, to the parliament, not to the executive government.

This safeguards the commission's independence. The executive is responsible only for the commission's budget, but this too is carefully watched by the estimates committee process and the parliament through the committee.

So, why am I consistently on the public record as one of the CMC's strongest supporters, and why did I, as premier, refer many of the matters to the CMC that subsequently caused me such pain? The answer is simple. Queensland needed, and indeed all states need, a watchdog beyond government control to maintain honesty and integrity in public administration.

NSW and Western Australia have similar powerful watchdogs. Even though in Queensland the CMC came about only as a result of the Fitzgerald inquiry, eventually other states, such as Victoria, will have to follow suit.

For politicians, these independent bodies are a political nightmare, but for public administration they act like a truth serum.

History has shown that a cosy link between politicians and corrupt police leads to corruption. Police power needs checks and balances. Internal police processes are not enough. There has to be external review, with the protection of the parliament.

More to the point, the public must be empowered to take allegations to an independent body to have their concerns fairly and properly investigated without the dead hand of political intervention from executive government to protect politicians, police or local government from the consequences of their misdeeds.

Here in South Australia Mr Rann and his government have consistently pooh-poohed the suggestion that we need a CMC or something like it. They believe that a combination of the Auditor- General and the police are sufficient to ensure to manage the kind of risks Mr Beattie outlines.

It must be said that there's not a lot of public interest in the matter, and the media attention has been limited: in July an editorial in The Advertiser/Adelaide Now supported the idea, but since then the paper/website have, as far as I can tell, been silent apart from publishing a couple of reader-generated comments on other stories.

If you want an example of a matter which a CMC could investigate here look at this . Unfortunately the Independent Weekly's website doesn't have the full story which it printed in last week's issue but if you read what's there you should be able to get an idea of what I'm talking about.

Update later 9 December

The Sunday Age refers to the story (which it describes as emanating from "a weekend newspaper"), and adds a terse comment :

Opposition Leader Ted Baillieu and the Victoria Police Association have now called for a commission. Premier John Brumby refused to comment yesterday, but last month described a commission as a "waste of taxpayers' money".

So far nothing from the News Ltd media here.

One law for the ...?

Two contrasting stories.

1. In this week's Bulletin Rodney Adler writes of his time in prison.

Apropos of this, yesterday The Australian reported:

The Bulletin's editor-in-chief, John Lehmann, said the magazine had offered Adler the standard contributor rate for his tale but that Adler had asked for a payment to be made to a Jewish charity instead.

"Adler understands that many Australians, especially those who lost money in the collapse of the HIH insurance group, remain angry with him for his role in the corporate disaster," Lehmann told The Australian. "He knows he will probably never recover his credibility. But his article is not an attempt to appease or justify his actions. Rather, it seeks to build on our understanding of what prison life is like for inmates and their families."

Adler was sentenced on April 14, 2005, after pleading guilty to four charges arising from his conduct as a director of HIH. The insurer collapsed in March 2001, with debts of $5.3 billion.

2. Today ABC News reports:

New law and order measures have taken effect today in South Australia, including laws to stop convicted terrorism supporter David Hicks from selling his story after he is freed from jail this month.

SA Premier Mike Rann says Hicks is free to tell his story but cannot make money from it. Mr Rann says it should be remembered that Hicks pleaded guilty to supporting terrorism when he faced trial at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba.

"Court documents show that he received training on guerilla warfare, weapons, kidnapping and assassination and I don't regard those activities as those of a good citizen," Mr Rann said.

SA Attorney-General Michael Atkinson warns that Hicks can be deprived of any money he accepts for telling his story.

"We're happy for David Hicks to tell his story but we will prevent him making a profit out of it," Mr Atkinson said. "And if a profit is made we'll take that money and put it into the victims of crime fund."

Am I alone in seeing an inconsistency or two here?

Update later 6 December

I've just noticed the news.com.au version of the David Hicks story, which has airbrushed out all references to Mr Rann. Perhaps the Premier has sniffed the breeze of the comments on the ABC website, which are mostly critical of the Australian authorities.

62 years on

Today my friend and neighbour Ted, about whom I've written previously, spoke by phone with his old shipmate and fellow ex-POW Bert King. This was their first contact since shortly after they were released from Japanese captivity in 1945.

I came across this article by Bert and made a few enquiries, which were followed up by Bob Chumley, an ex-Royal Marine bandsman who now lives in Adelaide. Bob used his network of contacts here and in the UK to locate Bert, who lives in a London suburb, and arrange tonight's phone call.

Needless to say, Ted was delighted to speak to his old friend. I'm very pleased to have played a part, with several others, in arranging this special event.

Guitar Festival

Over the weekend I went to two outdoor concerts of the inaugural Adelaide Guitar Festival.

On Friday night Slideshow: masters of the slide guitar featured Vishwa Mohan Bhatt , the irrepressible Bob Brozman , Kerryn Tolhurst, Jeff Lang , Lucky Oceans (a great pedal steel guitar player though perhpas better known in these parts as presenter of ABC RN's The Daily Planet ), Charlie Owen and, a late replacement for some no-shows, Dave Hole.

On Saturday Culture of Kings explored the roots , development and some current trends in blues music. The program featured five top notch performers: Mamadou Diabate, Alvin Youngblood Hart,Jeff Lang (again), Fiona Boyes, and the veteran John Hammond.

Two great evenings. I'd only intended to go on Friday but it didn't take much to lure me back on Saturday, when it was warmer than Friday, a fact noted by John Schaefer , the NYC guitar aficionado and DJ who MCed on each night.

The artists IMO varied from enjoyable to excellent, with most being at or well towards the excellent end of the spectrum. The organisers did a good job, too. The two big screens and nifty camerawork made it possible to watch the performers in close up, and thus to appreciate them even more.

For reviews of the two concerts see InDaily ,The Independent Weekly's email newsletter . The Australian also ran a curmudgeonly but thankfully brief survey of the whole Festival.

The organisers of Womadelaide, whose 2008 program was launched this week, should take a leaf out of the Guitar Festival's book and invest in some big screens. If they don't the audiences for Mamadou Diabate will be shortchanged robbed by not being able to watch his magnificent finger (and thumb) work on the kora except through binoculars. And I'm sure that he won't be the only performer to whom this comment applies.

GG swears in PM and ministers

Today, in a modest ceremony conducted in Canberra, Governor-General Jeffery, in one of his rare constitutional appearances, commissioned Prime Minister Rudd and his ministry. The Governor-General's speech, which summarises his constitutional role well, is on his website , which also contains a list of all the new Ministers and parliamentary secretaries.

The ABC reports some of His Excellency's other comments at the ceremony.

Perhaps Mr Rudd won't marginalise the GG as Mr Howard did. When, not if, Australia becomes a republic someone will have to fulfil the role of Head of State. My view is that the Head of Government should not be the Head of State.

A literary anniversary

Today is the 150th anniversary of the birth of Joseph Conrad.

For a succinct assessment of the man and his writing see the transcript of the ABC RN Perspective talk by Roger Osborne, which was broadcast in October.

"Airports are very stressful places for a lot of people"

So spake a Sydney magistrate who, as today's Australian reports, did not convict a university lecturer who pleaded guilty to two counts of assault and swearing in a public place (that's still an offence?) because she missed a Jetstar flight to Hervey Bay.

The magistrate expected a bucketload of criticism from the usual tabloid sources. I don't condone violence but I do think that the magistrate has a point and, moreover, that the authorities, by which I mean airline, customs/immigration/ quarantine , airport security and management, can do more to alleviate matters.

For starters:

1. Review processes with a view to speeding them up at both departure and (particularly for international flights) arrival .

This means, among other things:

• improving technology, eg x-ray equipment, to reduce/eliminate errors: on my recent trip transiting via Singapore (and not going out of the airport) I had to empty my carry on bag as the X-ray operators were adamant that I was carrying a small cutting instrument (I wasn't, but they wouldn't take my word for it).
  
• seeing that enough trained people are available to deal with the customers.

2. Provide passengers with as sufficient information as possible to help them go through departure and arrival formalities as smoothly as possible.

Suggestions:

• make information available as widely as possible and in a variety of media: online, print and, for inbound passengers, in the destination videos which are shown just before arrival.
• have clear instructions and signage throughout terminals.

If this sounds like I'm just being grumpy let me give a bouquet to the authorities at Heathrow, who seem to have, especially after the foiled bombing attempt at Glasgow airport, recognised that slow moving crowds of people in terminals can be a major security risk. My impression when I left this year was that the processing was still rigorous but that people didn't have to wait as long as has been the case in the past. By no means perfect (and the immigration counters for arriving non-British/EU citizens are understaffed - or perhaps on the morning when I passed through there were a few late arrivals ) but getting better.

In Australia the procedures at Darwin Airport were sub-standard: a long, slow moving queue stretched out of the terminal building into the tropical night, and the few instructions were bellowed out by the staff operating the x-ray machines (in a language which I, but not I imagine foreign passengers, just recognised as Australian English). Some of the staff came across as brusque and officious. Not a good way to welcome visitors and returning citizens.

Note: The version of this story printed in The Oz is longer than the online version linked to above.

Bernie Banton: "decency and humanity that was sorely needed"

Bernie Banton has died after a long, courageous and dignified fight against mesothelioma. He was 61.

The Sydney Morning Herald's obituary covers his varied working life, which included stints as a house painter, funeral director and car salesman. He came to public prominence during the long fight against James Hardie for compensation. Greg Combet, the then ACTU secretary, said of this time "Bernie has been there every day and has lent to this entire process a decency and humanity that was sorely needed." A good example and a good epitaph.

Matt Price: the fragility and caprice of life

Matt Price has died, soon - too soon - after, as I posted last month, he was diagnosed with brain tumours. He was only 46.

He was best known to most people, other than Fremantle Dockers supporters, as a political writer for The Australian. His blog posts and "Sketch" pieces were masterpieces of astute, but not often savage, observation of the quirkiness of politicians, and sometimes others. This from December last year is a favourite of mine, while this from just two months ago is another.

His obituary appears in today's Australian . The online version includes links to some of his pieces, including another favourite of mine, a description of his meeting with Bob Dylan .

To finish, a quote from a more reflective piece :

...it's simply impossible to dwell on the minutiae of politics or much else when the fragility and caprice of life comes along to kick you square in the solar plexus.

.......

Update 27 November

I've been reading more of Matt's columns and blog posts (once I start it's hard to stop). Here are a couple of other pieces.

This criticises criminal investigation methods in Perth (but the general points are surely applicable to other towns and cities).

This describes some predictions of his, eg that Kevin Rudd was foolish to challenge Kym Beazley for the ALP leadership last year, which left him with egg on his face. Extract:

Unkind readers will be able to produce a much longer litany of silly things spouted in this space: the aforementioned bung predictions were simply plucked off the top of my head. Perhaps I’ve got a few things right, too. Surely not.

That’s the fun and privilege of being a paid know-all. Were your local MP prone to get things wrong as often as your average pundit, they would quickly be hounded out of public life.

There are all sorts of columns and columnists: thought-provoking, pointy-headed, partisan, quirky, authoritative, evangelical, clever, barracking, specialised, cautious, outrageous, inspiring, weighty, humorous, hectoring, provocative, shambolic, mocking, rambling, reactionary, personal, predictable, self-indulgent, angry, moving, pointless, profound, insightful, balanced, persuasive, strident, nitpicking, satirical, outlandish and downright boring. I’ll leave it to you to categorise these scribblings but, in case you’re interested, I’m content with the small but sweet victory of readers starting at the headline and staying through until the final sentence.

What more could any writer (or blogger), no matter which of the above words might apply to their work, wish for?

"A new page in our nation's history"

Thus did Mr Rudd modestly describe his and the ALP's success in Saturday's election. I'd have not raised even an eyebrow if, given the scale of the victory, he'd used the word "chapter" instead of "page". His speech acknowledging ("claiming" seems too strong a word) victory was relatively low key: it took the cheers of his audience to remind me that I was witnessing what I hope will turn out to be a significant moment in Australian history.

Despite my tentative prediction about the outcome, it was a landslide in anyone's terms, and I congratulate all those who contributed to the victory.

Special thanks are due to those who developed or modified the policies which look like pointing the nation in a more equitable direction. Given the middle ground over which the ALP and the Coalition fought, or, in some respects merely quibbled, the ALP's strategy of emphasising a few key points of differentiation, eg Workchoices, worked well. The party also maintained a much tighter discipline than the Coalition throughout the campaign: in the past it's often been the other way round.

Naturally the media (mainstream and other) have had plenty to say: take your pick. To choose just one (not entirely at random) Crikey has its customary range of opinion embracing various permutations of the considered, the quirky and the ratbag (this one caught my eye).

Unlike Mr Costello who referred to neither Mr Howard nor Mr Rudd by name during his speech on Saturday night, I thought that Mr Howard conceded defeat graciously. Given recent and current events in Pakistan, Burma and many other countries it's good to see a smooth acknowledgment of a change of government.

Mr Howard held power for so long partly (not entirely) by massaging the underbelly of the Australian character, eg materialism, racism. I hope that Mr Rudd, for all the "me-too" propensities he displayed during the campaign, is less inclined to follow suit. His victory speech may have been short on visionary rhetoric but he did mention Bernie Banton , someone whose case was taken up by the (to the Coalition) much maligned union movement.

I wish Mr Rudd and his government well, and more than one term in office unless they prove exceedingly incompetent, but expect to offer constructive criticism from time to time.

The election

Tomorrow's election hasn't set my world on fire, even though I've followed the protracted and often tedious campaign quite closely since I returned from overseas at the end of last month (there was very little about it in the British media) .

What I've seen is both major parties trying to grab a the larger share of the middle ground. Mr Howard is a pastmaster at doing this, even though he or his followers have stumbled a couple of times eg the Lindsay Affair.

Judging from his policies, Mr Rudd has followed the principle of "keep your friends close, but your enemies closer". The main differences between the ALP and coalition policies are mostly of degree rather than kind , though in industrial relations he does, despite the dilution of the ALP's initial tooth and nail opposition to Workchoices, appear to offer an alternative option, one which is at least better than leaving the coalition's Mark 2 version intact.

I'm not sure about other areas, despite all the huffing and puffing about the alleged differences. I think it's significant that the ALP is promising "new leadership" rather than new policies, which is code for saying "things are pretty much OK at present for most people but we can handle the economy etc a bit better than the Howard - Costello team (or whatever permutation of it might emerge in the event of a coalition victory)".

I will vote tomorrow: before 10am, when the local Christmas pageant begins its journey which takes it past my house and seals off the neighbourhood (albeit in a very good cause) until about noon. As is my custom, I've invited a few friends round to watch and share some refreshments . In the evening I'll watch the count on TV, expecting to see a Labor win, though being, like both Mr Howard and Mr Rudd, of a naturally conservative disposition, won't expect a landslide.

Search for HMAS Sydney to "begin early next year"

In breaking news The Age and news.com.au report that an "official" search for HMAS Sydney will begin "early next year".

Both reports are similar, suggesting that they are drawn from the same media release. Here's an extract from the news.com.au one:

The HMAS Sydney Search Foundation today announced it would begin looking for the vessel in January or February with $4.2 million in federal funding, $500,000 from the WA Government and $250,000 from the New South Wales Government.

HMAS Sydney Search director Ted Graham said about 1500 sq nautical miles of water off WA's northern coast would be searched, reaching depths of 2500-4500m.

"The scale and complexity involved in such a search is significant, Mr Graham said.

"However, advances in technology, exhaustive archival research and the recent increase in government funding for the search, provide our best chance yet of success in finding HMAS Sydney II."

The search will be coordinated by shipwreck hunter David Mearns, who found two legendary WWII vessels, HMS Hood and the German battleship Bismarck.

I shall await developments with interest.

Another fatal rail accident near Adelaide

Apart from the sadness of hearing that two people have been killed in a level crossing accident at Virginia it beggars belief that the level crossings in the area, after some recent incidents eg this accident in August are still not safe for both road and rail users.

The accident-prone line is a the main line, not a rarely used branch, so there is little excuse for not beefing up safety. Having said this, I'll wait to hear (and see) more.

Armistice Day

Anzac Day is Australia's principal day of acknowledgment of the sacrifices made by so many people in wartime, but I was pleased to see that the custom of two (or is it one ?) minutes' silence on Armistice Day was widely observed at eleven o'clock this morning.

When I was in the UK a fortnight ago I noticed people such as TV football commentators wearing poppies then, though here I only noticed them today on, among others, the Insiders panel and the Channel 9 cricket commentary team.

I'd be interested to know how widespread the Armistice Day observation is around the world. Is it still mainly confined to the "victors" of World War 1, or has it been taken up more widely?

Back in my backyard

A longer time than I intended between posts, but I hope to be a little more prolific from now on.

Views from London

As I type this highly civilised human beings are flying overhead waiting to land at Heathrow. ( Acknowledgement to George Orwell ).

I've enjoyed the last few days catching up with my family and reacquainting myself with some aspects of English/ London life. The grandchildren are pleased to see me, and the weather has been good: today there is barely a cloud in the sky, so I must go out and make the most of it.

Last night I saw the winner of the Booker Prize, The Gathering by Anne Enright announced live on the BBC TV News: can you imagine something like that happening in Australia?

There's plenty more I could write about but the sunny outdoors beckons. I've also taken many photos and will post a selection soon.

Matt Price

I'm sorry to read that doctors have discovered tumours in Matt Price's brain. I enjoy his ability to take the mickey out of politicians so hope that he makes a full recovery, and that during his treatment he's also able to continue to publish some pieces in his characteristic style.

Death in Afghanistan

An Australian soldier, Trooper David Pearce, has been killed on active service in Afghanistan. This is distressing, if hardly surprising, news given the tenor of reports emerging from that benighted country. The ADF has released a statement on behalf of the soldier's family . I also offer my condolences to his family, friends and comrades.

It will be interesting to see what, if any, impact the death has on Australian public opinion. While there is bipartisan support for the country's involvement in Afghanistan, the secrecy in which military operations have been shrouded together with the, until now, lack of fatalities have meant that most people know, and probably care, little about what is going on there. This may now change.

Jeff Sparrow in today's Crikey runs an eye over the situation and asks "just what do we hope to achieve?" Good question, and I wait for the government (and the opposition) to attempt an answer.

Unacknowledged war veteran turns 85

This is Ted, who lives in an aged care home near me and who turned 85 yesterday. His life has included war service in the Royal Marine band of HMS Exeter which was lost in the Battle of the Java Sea on 1 March 1942. Ted survived the sinking and spent the following three and a half years as a POW of the Japanese.

The band's war service has been outlined in an article written several years ago (as far as I can gather) by one of its members. The author hadn't heard of Ted since 1945 and asked anyone who knew his whereabouts to get in touch. I've tried to do so on Ted's behalf but am still waiting for a reply. Unfortunately British service records, at least for the Second World War, are not as accessible online as their Australian equivalents . It seems that a man who suffered considerably for his country is unlikely to have his contribution acknowledged or recorded for succeeding generations. In the Internet age there is little excuse for this.

That said, Ted is making the most of his life. He is mentally alert and is a familiar sight around the neighbourhood as he pushes his walking aid briskly to and from the shops: he always has a cheerful smile and friendly word for the many friends he's made in his time here. Even so, he's told me several times that he'd like to hear from any of his former shipmates (or fellow POWs). I will of course pass any messages on.

Brief mentions #2

# Mr Rudd for two terms?


On last night's 7.30 Report Communications Minister Senator Helen Coonan, apart from fluffing her dates, appeared to suggest that Mr Rudd is seeking two terms:

Well, Kerry, anyone who knows the vaguest thing about this sort of technology knows that you start much before three months after an announcement. This has been going on pretty well since about 19... Sorry, 2005, and has been rolled out and been planned. Kevin Rudd popped up opportunistically out of the ground with a fantasy plan that's not going to be delivered, not only - forget 2009 - 2013? How many terms does Kevin Rudd think he's going to have in government? Seriously, I mean, that's not a broadband plan. If you're going to have to wait till 2013 to get broadband, you're not going to be able to do much with it.

Is this an emerging Coalition strategy: effectively admit that Labor will win the impending election but plan to limit them to one term?

# Excoriating stuff: Minister uses four syllable word on TV

On tonight's 7.30 Report Industrial relations Minister Joe Hockey said, apropos of some criticism levelled at him for criticising the bona fides of some union funded rersearchers "yet somehow I'm excoriated for my pointing out that these academics have had long-standing involvements with the union movement." In case people didn't know what he was talking about, his next sentence reverted to cliche: "I mean, what's good for the goose is good for the gander".

# Premier urged to " talk like rest of us" as he seeks new speechwriter and touches forelock to English royalty:

Interesting piece in Today's Advertiser/ Adelaide Now about Premier Rann being urged to stop sounding like Alexander Downer. Another article discusses Mr Rann's quest for a new speechwriter :

Applicants need the usual triumvirate of experience, exceptional writing skills and "a very sound understanding of government affairs, parliamentary and political processes".

A knowledge of the correct way to emphasise "the $6 billion air warfare destroyer contract" and "the state's mining boom" will, of course, be presumed.

But considering the raw material with which the applicant has to work, we make no apologies for suggesting one more essential quality. Soul.

For only a person with soul can look to a future of sustained economic growth for all South Australians.

Only a person with soul can appreciate this "all-time high in jobs, an equal all-time low in unemployment and an all-time high in private sector investment".

And only a person with soul can introduce the Treasurer to a room filled with Budget-hungry journalists and cause even the most battle-hardened cynic to shed a tear and applaud his fiscal brilliance.

If you have soul, if you can hear Mr Rann's dulcet tones shaping the future, please apply to Michele Virgo at virgo.michele@dpc.sa.gov.au. Think not what your state can do for you, but what you can do for Mr Rann.

Mr Rann has also been touching his forelock, or its contemporary equivalent, to the Duke of Kent , who is visiting SA (and slumming it by flying Qantas if this photo is accurate). HRH is here primarily to open an the Australian branch of The Royal Institution of Great Britain.

Third world rail system?

Last Thursday Adelaide commuters were, as the picture below shows , inconvenienced by a peak hour Noarlunga line train derailment just outside the Adelaide station . For reports see here and here.



The derailed Noarlunga bound train.

On Saturday The Advertiser published (not online) a letter from a passenger on the train who described the local railway system as of third world standard. IMO this is not an unfair comment as the system has been allowed to run down to the point where old rolling stock (see photo) and either decayed infrastructure or signalling or both impedes its smooth operation.


For example, see the photo below, which I took on 22 August this year. The window is typical of many on the rail cars: somehow the outer layer of glass/ plastic becomes corroded or scored and obscures passengers' ( not the driver's I hope) view. In the photo only a small portion of the window (on the right) is unaffected.

A view from TransAdelaide's window

I'm not aware that either Premier Rann or Transport Minister Conlon has commented, let alone apologised for or, radical thought, offered to upgrade the system (a plan for electrification would be nice) .

Update/ correction 2 October

There's a letter in today's Advertiser (not online) which refers to a comment about the derailment by Transport Minister Conlon: "accidents happen sometimes". The writer comments that this "is typical of the arrogant, pig-headed attitude of the state Labor Government. You were lucky this time, Mr Conlon. Next time, you may have blood on your hands." Strong words, but not unreasonable.

The sorrow of Burma

It's hard to imagine what's going on in Burma aka Myanmar but, thanks to the courage and determination of many people inside the country with the technology and internet access, we in the outside world have been kept reasonably well informed of developments.

At least until now. After holding their fire for a few days the government has moved both on the streets of Rangoon aka Yangon and in cyberspace. The international media, including the BBC , ABC and Al Jazeera , are trying to keep up with developments but it's becoming increasingly hard to do so, at least for the moment because the government has, or is trying to, cut off internet access to the outside world.

Some bloggers, such as ko-htike have been reporting from the virtual (and real) front line, but they too are now finding it hard to keep posting:


Burma time 14;28

Thousands of protester are on the street of YGN, now.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Dear All,

I sadly announce that the Burmese military junta has cut off the internet connection throughout the country. I therefore would not be able to feed in pictures of the brutality by the brutal Burmese military junta.

I will also try my best to feed in their demonic appetite of fear and paranoia by posting any pictures that I receive though other means (Journos!! please don’t ask me what other means would be??). I will continue to live with the motto that “if there is a will there is a way”.

We probably need to lobby the Chinese government or UN envoy to Burma to ask the junta to switch on the Internet. Please!

And this:

This ..... so, who is making violent.

Brief mentions

Marcel Marceau

The media reports about his death reminded me that I'd seen him perform many years ago.

The Guardian 's obituary was one of several good summaries of his life, while The Australian's tribute included an extremely succinct yet appropriate editorial: a vertically oriented :-( . For a photo see Boing Boing .

How would you fare at this interview?

Try these questions which have apparently been asked at Google job interviews. Some of the commenters have a crack at answering them, as do others at Times Online, where I first saw it mentioned.

Disappearing hyphens

The BBC (and others) report that in the latest edition of the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary more than 16,000 words have been dehyphenated (or should that be de-hyphenated?) . Some changes result in two previously hyphenated words combined into one (eg pigeonhole) , while others have been separated into two (eg pot belly). I also think there's an element of catchup/ catch-up here: I can't recall ever seeing "pigeonhole" hyphenated".


Why the radical surgery? Largely because of, the SOED people claim, the proliferation of modern communication methods like email: though the BBC and a few other stick-in-the-muds are hanging on the traditional "e-mail", as you'll see if you read the link.

IVF produces unexpected consequences

Some forthright comments about the case currently before a court in Canberra. In today's Advertiser (not online) Ross Buckley (UNSW law professor) has a piece "Canberra case confirms the law is an ass" which among other things points out that such a claim would be permitted in other jurisdictions inc SA and NSW. Earlier The Australian had a trenchant editorial while Caroline Overington (herself the mother of twins) spoke her mind.

Bollywood comes to Poland

Try this (from Boing Boing) for something different.

Worth a few thousand words

In the last few days The Australian has published some interesting pictures, including

# John Howard ostensibly "adjusting his glasses" when facing Kevin Rudd in parliament. The photo has disappeared from The Oz's website but you can see it (minus Rudd) here.

# Peter Costello apparently reprising the gesture the next day: see here to compare both pictures.

# Most surprising of all, Bill Leak's cartoon on Saturday , of which this is a sample suitable for workplaces:

Get the full picture here (you may have to scroll through some other cartoons). Titled "The Booby Prize", it shows Mr Rudd in a gentlemen's club. The suited arm on his shoulder belongs to none other than Mr Murdoch, who is saying "Cheer up mate. Look! I've booked a stripper for your birthday...", to which the Leader of the Opposition replies "Yes, but I had my heart set on a tax policy...".

Is this the first time that Mr Murdoch has appeared in a cartoon in any of his newspapers?

Wikipedia notches 2 million English language articles... and the debate goes on.

The 2 millionth English language Wikipedia article has been posted: it's about a popular Spanish TV show (the one millionth was about a railway station in Glasgow) .

And this is only part of the story: the ABC informs us that the online encyclopedia now has over 8 million articles in a scarcely believable 250 languages.

This is a magnificent achievement and confirms that many people are willing to share their knowledge (and opinions) voluntarily for a common good, even if their goodwill and industry is diminished by the actions of some contributors who grind axes relentlessly or, for their own reasons, butcher the bona fide efforts of others.

To deal with the alleged vandals new methods of monitoring and regulating content are about to be implemented. The New Scientist reports

News of the plans came to light last August when Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales announced changes to the editing restrictions on the German-language version. However, implementing those changes turned out to be more difficult than anticipated and has still not happened. Now New Scientist has learned that Wikimedia plans to start the first trial of the changes this month.

The shift is a dramatic one for the encyclopedia. For now, edits to an entry can be made by any user and appear immediately to all readers. In the new version, only edits made by a separate class of "trusted" users will be instantly implemented.

To earn this trusted status, users will have to show some commitment to Wikipedia, by making 30 edits in 30 days, say. Other users will have to wait until a trusted editor has given the article a brief look, enough to confirm that the edit is not vandalism, before their changes can be viewed by readers.

This is sure to ease some readers' doubts. Most malicious edits involve crude acts of vandalism, such as the deletion of large chunks of text. Now such changes will rarely make it into articles.

These benefits will come at a price, though. New users could be deterred from participating, since they will lose the gratification that comes from seeing their edit instantly implemented. That could reduce the number of editors as well as creating a class system that divides frequent users from readers. The trusted editors, likely to number around 2000, may also find that articles are being changed too fast for them to monitor.

Not all versions of the encyclopedia will follow this route, says Erik Moller of the Wikimedia Foundation. While editors on the German version are happy with a hierarchy of contributors, the English editors favour a more egalitarian approach. So English readers are likely to continue to see the latest version of an entry, with a page that has been certified as vandalism-free by trusted editors available via a link.

For edits that are more subtly inaccurate, perhaps because they have been designed to promote an agenda, another tool is in store. It allows select groups of editors, probably associated with specific subject areas, to vote on whether an article should be flagged as high quality. Readers would still see the latest version of an article by default, but a link to a high-quality version, if it exists, would also be available.

As well as relying on trusted editors, Wikipedia's upgrade will involve automatically awarding trust ratings to chunks of text within a certain article. Moller says the new system is due to be incorporated into Wikipedia within the next two months, as an option for the different language communities.

The software that will do this, created by Luca de Alfaro and colleagues at the University of California, Santa Cruz, starts by assigning each Wikipedia contributor a trust rating using the encyclopedia's vast log of edits, which records every change to every article and the editor involved. Contributors whose edits tend to remain in place are awarded high trust ratings; those whose changes are quickly altered get a low score. The rationale is that if a change is useful and accurate, it is likely to remain intact during subsequent edits, but if it is inaccurate or malicious, it is likely to be changed. Therefore, users who make long-lasting edits are likely to be trustworthy. New users automatically start with a low rating.

The Australian via The Times also reports this. The Times has also printed an update:

Jimmy Wales said that changes to the online encyclopedia which meant it would now be overseen by a group of 'trusted editors' did not mean that ordinary users weren't free to edit the site, only that they had to have been registered for 4 days before making a change.

This would hopefully lead to a reduction in the number of high profile pages - such as George W. Bush's - that suffered from spontaneous vandalism, he said, as well as improve the reliability of the site, which has been shown to be untrustworthy on several occasions of late.

"There are no plans to restrict anybody's status," Mr Wales said. "Anyone can make an edit, but if the user hasn't been registered for at least 4 days, then it would have to be approved by someone who has been registered before going live."

Mr Wales acknowledged that Wikipedia's reliability had come into question following the discovery that some organisations, including political parties, had been tweaking their entries to improve their image.

But he dismissed the idea that the changes - which will initially only affect the German site - were a response to a planned competitor to Wikipedia, ' Citizendium', which will solicit entries from the public but be edited by a group of experts to root out inaccuracies.

Mr Wales said that it was Wikipedia's aim to "protect the public from goofballs doing bad things" whilst at the same time allowing the "spontaneous acts of goodwell", which were a valuable feature of the site.

I assume that "goodwell" should be "goodwill", but what would a Wikipedia article (or an article about Wikipedia) be without at least one typo?

I should also mention John Quiggin's recent post. Quiggin is a longstanding albeit not uncritical supporter of Wikipedia. What he says about the encyclopedia ( is it time to come up another word which describes the scope and now the scale of the enterprise?) is worth reading. Extract:

The most obvious change in the past eighteen months is the way attention has shifted from the extensive margin (more articles) to the intensive margin (work on existing articles, metacontent such as categorization and classification schemes, and internal process such as the development and enforcement of policies on biographies of living persons, prompted by embarrassments like the Siegenthaler hoax and by the increasing propensity of politicans and others to edit their own entries).

There’s a natural economic logic here. With two million entries already, the typical new entry (ignoring the many short-lived attempts such as this one) is going to be something like List of state leaders in 1390s BC or Kitaōji Station. The marginal benefit of adding an entry is declining, though certainly not zero. On the other hand, the demand for internal improvements builds on itself. A stroll through Wikipedia using the Random entry function shows that the great majority of entries are tagged as needing improvement of some kind.

This process of cumulative improvement is resource-intensive, but not nearly as much as the dialectical processes that operate for controversial entries (and on Wikipedia, anything and everything can be controversial). Edits are made, reverted, reverted, tagged as needing support or violating some Wikipolicy or other, until a single sentence can consume dozens of hours of work. Still, the result is often a drastic improvement in quality compared to a starting point in which one point of view or another is taken for granted. One obvious manifestation of this is the vast increase in referencing of claims, and the increasing pickiness of policy regarding sources for such claims. Blogs have been a particular victim, with only a handful of expert-written blogs being accepted as reliable sources on particular topics. Despite the merits of the process, it’s easy to get burned out defending an article like Global warming controversy against the sustained efforts of delusionists to include lengthy and uncritical presentations of their latest talking points.

One thing is clear though. Complaining about Wikipedia now is like complaining about the Internet. There isn’t going to be any alternative for quite some time to come.

I'm not (having myself made some extremely modest contributions to the genre) one of those who thinks that there are too many articles about railway stations, but I question the justification for entries like Port Road pub crawl, which have no substantial basis in fact (or more than one person's opinion) and are riddled with errors and omissions. As it stands today the article is a bag of chaff with a few grains (which could easily be transferred to other articles) scattered throughout.

Oh, and don't expect the Port Road pub crawl article to remain in its present form for long (and don't call me a vandal if I amend and rename it).

Two years on...

Two years ago today I dipped my toe in the water and began blogging. My first post was this , a photo of me in the outback. It's still on my front page.

Compared to many other bloggers I've not been very prolific (even if I've sometimes been prolix). Blogging has made me think about what I'm posting, and often whether to post: there are unpublished drafts which, thank goodness, only I can read. Some of my pieces, both drafts and those which see the light of cyberspace, are flimsy: maybe I should collect some of them occasionally in a cuttings or snippets series.

Enough self-indulgence for the moment. I need time to think about what to post next.

"A match struck in the darkness"

In the last couple of weeks there have been several stories about the adverse impact on the lives of many people.

For example:

• An incisive Four Corners on problem gambling.

• An opinion piece in The Australian by Tim Costello and Nick Xenophon

• A story "Pub with no pokies may close" in The Australian

• A proposal by South Sydney Rabbitohs Rugby League club owners Russell Crowe and Peter Holmes A'Court to remove the club's 160 poker machines, though not without opposition from other members. The story also ran on both the7.30 Report and Lateline tonight.

To cap it all (at least for now), and closer to home there's the story reported in "> Adelaide Now of the gambler who allegedly knowingly played a faulty poker machine at the city casino and pocketed $22,000. I wonder how much he's lost over the time he's been playing?


Even The Advertiser, in an editorial ( online at Adelaide Now) couldn't resist a comment, despite the matter being sub judice:

Gaming machines are programmed to pick the pockets of people who play them. Played for any length of time, the machines cannot lose. So when a SkyCity Casino patron discovered that an apparently dodgy machine was paying almost at will, could you blame him for taking the winnings?

We do not presume to comment on guilt or innocence. The law must take its course in this case, which is now before the courts. But it would somehow be nice if the justice system recognised the irony of the gambling David who took on Goliath and - at least for a few delicious minutes - appeared to win.

I'm not much of a gambler. I've never wagered very much at a time, and I've never spent a cent on gambling or entertainment of any kind at the local casino. Even so, I don't think gambling should be banned: doing so would drive it back underground where it was years ago . Nevertheless there's a strong case for regulating it more, especially trying to identify and restrain "problem gamblers". How that might be done I'm not sure but I hope that the media attention of the last couple of weeks will produce more than the "match struck in the darkness", as Tim Costello described it on Lateline tonight.

Terry Hicks speaks to US Media

USA Today reports (via Crikey) that Terry Hicks, David's father, is still supporting his son. It's maybe not surprising that the story doesn't seem to have been picked by the mainstream Australian media.

Chaser's war on APEC

Last night's screening of The Chaser's War on Everything screened a fuller version of the fake APEC motorcade/ Osama bin Laden stunt which so discombobulated the security services during the great Sydney lockdown last week.

The video can, at least for the time being, be downloaded from or viewed on the program website. Well worth a look.

Apart from exposing some elementary weaknesses in the security arrangements (eg why wasn't there a running sheet of motorcade details ?) , the whole stunt showed, if last night's estimated viewing audience of around 3 million is any indication, that many Australians haven't lost their sense of humour. Unfortunately most politicians didn't reflect this. Mr Howard, Mr Rudd and Mr Iemma all harrumphed as hard as they could. At least Mr Downer took it more in the spirit in which it was intended:

Foreign Minister Alexander Downer denied The Chaser team had revealed a chink in APEC security, saying as they were arrested, the system worked.

But he told an APEC news conference: "Whatever you think of the humour of The Chaser ... they were clearly not going to harm anybody in a physical way.

"They presumably were, as is the nature of their show, aiming to humiliate a lot of well-known people.

"In my particular case on this one, I managed not to see them, so it just shows how lucky you can get,'' Mr Downer said, smiling.

"The point is they were in any case arrested, so I think the security works.''

Mr Downer would recall the then US Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld's visit to Adelaide last year, about which I posted . The security arrangements then were considerable, but nowhere near as restrictive as they were for APEC in Sydney. And the Chaser team didn't attempt to test them.

Farewell Luciano Pavarotti

Although he visited Australia several times, I never saw Luciano in person, though I have heard his magnificent voice on CD. My favourite is his portrayal of the Duke in the 1971 Rigoletto with Joan Sutherland conducted by Richard Bonynge. If you get a chance to listen to it (my version is Decca 414 269 - 2) do so. If you're not accustomed to listening to whole operas, try "Questa o quella..." (CD1 track 3). If you don't agree that operatic singing doesn't (cannot?) get much better than this I'd like to know. Oh, and Ms Sutherland is very good, too.

There are many tributes and obituaries online, for example this from The Times, which has links to some recordings and videos.

David Malouf on Australian values

A few days after Hugh Mackay gave us his thoughts about modern Australia, David Malouf writes in Saturday's Age about modern values. He stresses the importance of maintaining a sense of neighbourliness or, as he puts it "preserving bonds of trust" in times of rapid social, economic and technological change.

Perhaps I should just recommend that you read the entire piece (which isn't very long), but here are some extracts which I think sum up his views:

There are values that are common to men and women everywhere, whatever their culture or race, and we too share them. A feeling for family and the immediate social group. A sense of personal and group honour. A willingness to sacrifice oneself for the security of others. A sense of the sacred, and of the sacredness of creation itself.

What I am thinking of as specifically Australian values are ones that have grown up here out of the special circumstances of Australian settlement, and the effects on us, individually and in our dealings with one another, of what the land itself presented: a whole complex of values that we might think of as constituting our own New World democratic style.

These would have been well developed by the 1880s and were still in place when I was growing up in Brisbane at the end of the Second World War. My question is whether in the Australia of 2007, with its very different demographic mix and social conditions, its changed economy and technologies, those older values are still ones that we can refer back to and live by.

.....

Australian society grew out of an English and Scottish Enlightenment world that had high standards of civic duty and service. These guaranteed the kind of political and social institutions we inherited and the public tone of the place. A reliance on negotiation rather than violence in the settling of disputes. The separation of powers. Freedom of worship, and of opinion and speech. Free universal education. And rather earlier than some other places, first universal male suffrage, then votes for women.

A good many of these qualities of civil life we share with other Anglo-Saxon places; as we do an education system that, generally speaking, prefers facts and "what works" to abstract theory, and uses sport, in a uniquely British way, as a training ground for such civic virtues as team spirit, fair play and respect for your opponent. To this we have added a strong egalitarian sense, and because the grounds of living in this particular continent were hardship and poverty, a strong tendency to hang together and look out for one another in adversity. We have never regarded success as a sign of divine approval, or failure as its opposite. What we tend to say, taking in all the circumstances, is: "Poor bugger, he had no luck."

.....

We still salute those older values and in some ways make a cult of what we like to think of as our Australian style — mateship, laid-back tolerance, an easy-going humour, a hard-headed distrust of large statements and large gestures. We still have a strong sense of civic duty and devotion to the public good. The number of men and women involved in unpaid community service, for example, is larger than ever.

But that said, Australia in 2007 is no longer a mono-cultural place and it is no longer a poor one. My question is to what extent values that grew out of a response to shared adversity can be sustained in a society that for nearly half a century now has known nothing but undreamed of affluence; a society with many newcomers and little now that we could call a shared history. Affluence produces a different style or tone from adversity and leads to other temptations. Greed, perhaps. Complacency. A tendency to look out for No. 1 in a fiercely competitive world and, more subversively, to believe that you actually deserve the good fortune that has come to you. Prodigality in the use of resources. Individual wastefulness. An unapologetic and even defiant materialism. A reliance on credit and on what we call, half-humorously, "shopping therapy".

Then there are those technological changes I mentioned, which, useful as they are have also worked towards the undermining of small-town virtues. Global travel and a global economy. The influence of global media agglomerates on what we watch and hear and think. The complex moral and legal questions that arise from the use of mobile phones and the internet.

The world we live in now is confusing — the immediate present is always that. It is also contradictory. We know more of what is happening around us and in the world beyond than at any other time in history, but because information is part now of a hugely profitable industry, we are also more vulnerable than ever to misinformation. Famines, disasters, political upheavals become spectacles without context that we register, and may even be moved by, but can do nothing about. The way the media plays politics, and politicians play the media, raises serious questions about the role of what we used to call the Fourth Estate.

The media now are players, not simply observers and commentators. Acts of terror, for example, are possible only because the media are there to report them. They happen not in "history" but on our screens, in our heads, and in the shocked voices that sensationally spread terror by reporting it.

We need to remember that the object of terror is just that, terror. Beyond the physical threat to societies like ours is the moral threat of what terror of terror might lead us to: the suspension of habeas corpus and the presumption of innocence, the watering down of the prohibition against torture, old guarantees and rights we might be led to trade away in order to be safe. We know what the absolute answer to such challenges should be; but what of the practical answer, for politicians who have on their conscience the security of their people and will answer to history for what they do or fail to do?

.....

We are all of us — all except our indigenous people — newcomers and settlers here, however far back we go, and to begin with at least, strangers to one another, united only in that by sharing the land we have become neighbours. Neighbourliness is still what holds us together as a nation; that and our public institutions, and the common good, and whatever we have developed, and are still developing, of a national style.

But each day presents us with conditions to which yesterday's values are already inadequate. Staying human means staying alert. We should be wary of what prevailing opinion proposes and thinks right because it is necessary, and beware, especially, of accepting the thinking of others just because they present themselves as men of probity or as "the best minds of the day".

.....

Values are established and maintained, and the civil tone of society created, at the personal level, in the daily exchanges of individual men and women. That is where that neighbourliness was discovered that formed the bonds of our Australian society, and if it is to be maintained, that is where concern for one another, and respect for one another's difference, will continue to be discovered. The tone of a society is established by us; by our individual decisions and acts, and at the most local and personal level.

What this requires is an understanding of what at any moment we are dealing with, our history, and what we have to lose. And, at a local and personal level, a keen alertness to those pressures that in an increasingly complex world have daily, and from moment to moment, to be assessed, questioned, and sometimes, in the face even of general acceptance, resisted.

Highly recommended.