Opinion- 30 January 2006 |
Harry Robinson: Values and Minister Bishop |
January
was growing sillier and sillier. Very little was happening and the political
commentariat -- especially the Canberra Press Gallery -- were almost choking on
their re-runs of old data. Then voila! Along came Julian McGuaran's defection
which set off a minor cabinet reshuffle. At last, something to write about.
As my former colleagues in the media usually do, they went into overkill and
pretended they knew much more than they really did. No matter, the copy looked
pretty good. Editors were pleased. Readers were still enjoying their holidaze
and didn't care, weren't even aware of errors. Maybe it didn't matter a lot.
Callow people must play games.
One error of judgement was that Brendan Nelson got a promotion when the PM moved
him from Education to Defence. A step up, the commentariat agreed.
Really? In peace time, the Minister for Defence is required to preside over
military forces who have too little fighting to do. They buy items of equipment
which might or might not come in handy if a real war broke out. The Minister for
Defence has to pretend he understands strategies, war games, materiel and
over-the-horizon radars.
When Kim Beasley was Defence Minister, he had himself photographed beside
bombers and in tanks. He read a great deal about Gallipoli and the Kokoda Trail
-- the last big war and the war before that. He couldn't read much about the
next war because nobody knows the how or where or why or when of it.
We can only hope Mr Nelson will do some good and not much harm while he is
mothballed in the ADF.
The true winner in he shuffle was Julia Bishop who came from nowhere to take
Education. No, she has not been a teacher or lecturer. She has been a lawyer
and, apparently, a vigorous worker on the Coalition side of the House. Since the
House is half full of lawyers and the ground for educators is thin, this need
bring no surprise. How many medical doctors have been ministers for health? I
asked one practising medico and the only one he could think of was Sir Earle
Page. Page? You are probably too young to recall the giggling old fusspot from
the Clarence River area. There was one more recently -- Dr Wooldridge who began
well but left in high dudgeon.
Education, unlike Defence, can never doze away in mothballs. There is no
peacetime for this work. The need for ever more and ever better education is
always there and always urgent.
We can hope that Minister Bishop will do well, although education is not her own
discipline. Values count for more than expertise. Having worked through her own
course of learning, we can hope she appreciates the value of learning and the
life of the mind.
It is not enough to embrace sound values: a politician ought to be able to
express thoughts, plans, cases in language that attracts and moves people at
large. It is not merely a matter of using short words or simple sentences. Bob
Brown can do that for the Greens but he does not connect with people outside the
green movement.
Sir Jonathan Porritt came to the point when he joined Fran Kelly on Radio
National's Breakfast program at the end of January. He, a veteran of Friends of
the Earth and other environmental groups, was running a surprise line -- that
the hope of saving the globe must lie with capitalists. What? The big time
polluters, the bottom line devotees, the merchants of full-steam-ahead-and-
devil- take-the- planet? Yes, them, said Sir Jonathan. They can make the
critical decisions, at least some can be brought to see that the environment
offers good business and is worth doing. (The title of his latest book:
Capitalism as if the World Matters.)
The green movement, he opined, had failed to engage capitalists because of poor
presentation. The Greens had always presented their solutions like nasty
medicines, matters of grim and joyless duty.
"The Greens need to learn a new language," said Sir Jonathan Porritt and almost
took the wind out of Fran Kelly's sails.
It's a thought that might be studied by educators and scientists who want to
persuade Minister Julia Bishop to do good things. Vice chancellors tend for
speak in dry, almost bureaucratic styles. Research directors tend to speak
disdainfully, as though the hoi polloi won't understand them, health researchers
talk about studies and percentages and statistical margins. Their values are
fine: their language is often self-defeating.
Which brings up the Australian of the Year, Professor Ian Frazer. His values
were quite thrilling and his style was a match.
Harry Robinson -- for 25 years worked in television journalism in Oz and the US and was for several years air media critic for the Sydney Morning Herald and the Sun-Herald.