Category Archives: The Age

Letters submitted to The Age (Melbourne, Victoria, Australia) newspaper

Words and conspiracies

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In a free, democratic and diverse society it’s only to be expected that the place of religious belief in public life will be debated. This is as it should be. However in the interests of balanced and informed dialogue a bit of common wisdom in how the debate is conducted goes a long way. Respected organs of media should set the standard.

The basics of constructive debate include caution with hearsay, resisting conspiracy theories, attention to the meaning of language peculiar to certain groups, and great care when quoting phrases without a context. The present debate about Christian teaching in schools has too often lacked attention to such concerns, and it shows in some of the alarmist and polarised language now being used. This will serve none of us, our children included.

Like any organisation or professional circle, the Christian community uses peculiar sets of words, phrases, images and metaphors, some drawn from the Bible itself, others from a variety of contexts in Christian history. The world could not contain the conspiracy theories that might arise from a layman’s hearing of language used in a medical conference, courtroom or mechanical workshop (among an endless list).

When words like “preacher” start to be applied to the religious education class at the local primary school, it’s time we all asked questions.


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The silence of the plods

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I would love to know what really went on between Mr Overland and his former deputy, Sir Ken Jones – just as between Nixon and Ashby, Rudd and Gillard, Turnbull and Abbott, Howard and Costello, Hawke and Keating … and a horde of other leadership intrigues if I’d only known about them. And if starved of facts, then I have sufficient time, intelligence, imagination- and Twitter – to feed an exhaustive cache of urban myths, innuendo and conspiracy theory.

But then would we really want to live in a world of unconstrained accountability? Anyone who’s been an executive leader of just about anything, has dealt with the sometimes daily necessity of keeping certain information restricted to a very few. The absence of such constraints could be a recipe for anarchy – or worse. This is precisely because we humans love to know and love to tell. When the organisation in question is the one chiefly responsible for keeping all of us safe from the darkest of human intent, we might just be especially glad that some files stay locked and some lips stay sealed.

I still wish I knew. But I like being safe.


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Anyone for a truly secular long weekend?

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Thanks to 2011′s happy confluence of the lunar cycle, a Christian festival and the Australian calendar, Australians have enjoyed the mother of all long weekends. If the current tsunami of secularist zeal achieves its utopian dream of a land free of any public religious expression, then let’s hope this was a good one.

Observant Jewish Australians have always been resigned to taking religious festivals out of their normal annual leave allocation. Do we want a land free of the alleged “discrimination” that favours Christians over other religionists? Well then, we’d better abolish public holidays associated with the Christian calendar.

Could be a worry though, this brave new world that beckons. Consider the impact on the retail industry if the great festivals of the jolly fat Santa and the chocolate-laying bunny had to come out of annual leave. (No discrimination, please. We’re secular.) Avvagoodweegend! (And do pray it’s not the last.)


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Be sure your tweets will find you out

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Before the commentariat, Christian and other, condemns the Australian Christian Lobby’s Jim Wallace as a loony fundamentalist bigot, let’s all take a deep breath and consider …

This is the Twitter age, and we’re all still meeting its perils along with its undoubted benefits. Staff and readers of The Age should be especially attuned, given the dismissal last year of an outspoken journalist after a similarly careless post on Twitter, amidst the frenzied online banter occasioned by the ABC’s weekly Q&A program.

If, as one of the anonymous millions, you forget who you are while tweeting in under 140 characters at the speed of light, you should consider yourself lucky merely to see red cheeks in the mirror. The same misfortune bears the sword of instant professional death if you happen to have a very public profile. Catherine Deveny and Jim Wallace make the strangest of bedfellows. But they merely share the doubtful honour of learning a most common lesson before a million judges. Let’s be slow to condemn either.

Let the twitterer without sin cast the first stone.


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Not in my back pocket

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Perhaps it’s time to call a spade a spade on climate change action. Call me a pessimist, a simpleton or both. But here’s how it looks from my kitchen table …

There are really just two parties. Party ‘A’ – the parliamentarians; and Party ‘B’ – us voters. (The latter includes all sectors and interest groups.) Now for the analysis: Of party ‘A’, numbering 226, about half think action is vital in theory but electorally hazardous. The latter angst is fuelled by party ‘B’, numbering 18 million (aged 15+), about half of whom want action in theory, but not if it encroaches on our wallets or lifestyles. Not in my back pocket, thank you!

Likely outcome? Perpetual stalemate. Winner? Well certainly not the planet.

The End.


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Close to home

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A light has just dawned for me, and it’s not a pretty sight. A bunch of teens brutalise a defenceless creature in a suburban park, and we’re unequivocally sickened and outraged, and rightly. But it’s happened in the middle of both a duck hunting and a jumps racing season. These “sports” elicit outrage too, but the interests are much more sectional. Why the difference?

Probably it’s because the former is far closer to home, in several senses. This didn’t occur out in the sticks or even in a provincial centre; it happened in inner suburban Melbourne. And if it actually took place among local neighbourhood kids in Moonee Ponds, it might just as well have happened with someone’s kids in Moorabbin, Montmorency or Moreland. Again, hunting and racing are pretty removed from all but a few in our community, but anyone can take a walk in a park. Lastly, organised activities are formally monitored by public authorities. So we can calmly leave it to the politicians, the RSPCA and the “sporting” fraternities to fight it out.

But there’s no difference, is there?


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Honesty: a political health hazard

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A senior politician admits serious error on national television, and the nation’s collective lower jaw hits the dirt.

After the necessary analysis from commentators and letter writers on Kevin Rudd’s already immortalised Q&A gambit, we would be remiss to let this instance pass without asking questions larger than the Kevin & Julia soapie. Why is such transparency at the top so clock-stoppingly rare?

Is it because politicians are fundamentally untrustworthy, as current popular discourse avers? Or is it rather because our democracy is so, err, “robust” that honesty has become a political health hazard? In modern politics, it just doesn’t do to admit failure. Not if you want to extend your time in office, that is. Our culture has become far too unforgiving of human frailty. Admit misjudgement, and howls of “Incompetence!” will erupt, with demands for resignation or sacking. Few of us would accept in our own professional lives the standard of perfection we demand of those we elect to govern us. Mention a mistake and you’ll be sent packing at the next election, that is if your poll-obsessed party machine hasn’t dumped you first.

Don’t blame the pollies. They’re just dancing to our tune.


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Has the free speech horse Bolted?

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Whatever one’s personal opinion either of News Limited’s columnist Andrew Bolt as a person or, of the case now before the court — and it’s clear opinions vary widely on both, the unfolding story has occasioned much worthwhile and important debate on the subject of free speech in a democracy. Regardless of the immediate outcome of the case, and of whether a high court appeal follows, modern Australia needs the discussion to continue.

Crikey.com’s Margaret Simons has today published a defence of an earlier blog post, arguing that Bolt’s loss in the case would be ‘obnoxious’ to us all. I tend to agree with her and other free speech defenders more than with exponents of the contrary view. However some careful nuancing will be needed throughout. Of the many qualifications that might be appended to the free speech argument, one which we hear a lot is incitement. The public expression of opinion, whether by prominent journalists or by local pub patrons, ought not to be hedged with fear of prosecution, provided that such expression does not have a fomenting effect on the kinds of extremism that threaten public safety.

It’s not a simple matter, of course. For who can predict which comment or which commentator will win the wrong kind of following, whatever their intent? Nevertheless the question of incitement must remain at the fulcrum of this essential discourse.


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