Australian films give a distorted view of life in suburbia -- chaotic images highlighted



TENTACLES of settlement began spreading out from our fledgling cities in the 1800s as families sought a place to call home away from overcrowded urban living. People had left the farm for the city; now they left the city for the suburbs. In Melbourne, C.J. Dennis celebrated an ordinary larrikin in his best-selling verse novel The Sentimental Bloke. Raymond Longford turned it into one of our earliest silent films in 1919 and it was an instant hit. In the poem's final stanza, the Bloke sits in perfect contentment with wife Doreen and baby on the front porch of his suburban cottage, listening to the birds.

A detached house on a garden block was home for most people, rich, poor and otherwise, although it may not have been a way of life that lent cultural richness. In the first half of the 1900s, Australia was all about football, baked dinners and stultifying convention; at least that's how it seemed to our cultural monitors. Patrick White despised it, as did Barry Humphries, but many writers, such as Christina Stead, evoked their suburban childhoods beautifully, often in memoirs written after they'd left the country.

Sumner Locke Elliott, who was born in 1917 in Sydney, wrote Careful He Might Hear You about his youth, spent between warring aunts in working-class Carlton and ritzy Vaucluse. He left for the US in 1948 after years of an "anguished life as a covert homosexual".

Brisbane suburbia is immortalised in Johnno, David Malouf's memoir of his adolescence and early adulthood in the '40s and '50s, as it is in Over the Top with Jim (the biggest selling Australian childhood memoir), Hugh Lunn's tales about growing up in a Queenslander in Annerley Junction during the same period. (Strangely, neither has made it to film.)

Robert Drewe explored the suburbs of Perth and Sydney with his memoir The Shark Net and acerbic collection of short stories The Bodysurfers, which nailed the mores of Sydney's eastern suburbs during the '80s. (Both also became excellent television drama.)

There is little of the subtlety of these authors in films set in the suburbs. On film, it seems, we would rather deal with our demons than wallow in rosy memories. For many filmmakers, the suburbs mean cars, sport, crime, violence, westies, bogans and ethnic gangs. Some made brilliant films that were almost too convincing to stomach: The Boys and Romper Stomper. And the working class gets a bad rap, all dysfunctional families, unemployment and junkies. We did have an antidote, however, in the well-crafted, multi-layered Muriel's Wedding, Strictly Ballroom and Lantana, and, of course, the hit comedy The Castle.

Back in 1966, John O'Grady's amusing bestseller They're a Weird Mob was turned into a record-breaking film. The story of an Italian sportswriter (Walter Chiari) forced to work as a brickie's labourer pointed out with affection the foibles of Australians and the challenge of being a "New Australian". The cast included Chips Rafferty and Ed Devereaux. Clare Dunne was there, too, but a film made at the height of Australian chauvinism can't be faulted for its masculine bias.

Another striking and inflected representation of masculinity came in 1977 when Bryan Brown arrived on the scene in the short feature Love Letters from Teralba Road, about a man trying to reconcile with the wife he had bashed (an equally strong Kris McQuade). "My main aim as a director was to capture the feel of the western suburbs, which I knew well from living in Fairfield in my father's pub for five years," director Stephen Wallace said.

Don's Party, a play by David Williamson, chronicled the rise and fall of an election-night party in a middle-class house. Now Bruce Beresford's film of it wears a retro air, but in 1976 it was set in a typical home, with types familiar across the nation's aspirational suburbs talking politics and getting drunk, the sexes segregated at different ends of the house.

Donald Crombie's Caddie (1976), a story of a beautiful, tough woman battling her way through the Depression, has plenty of melodrama and soapy elements. But it's based on a true story, Caddie: The Autobiography of a Sydney Barmaid by Catherine Elliot-Mackay. It shows us what life was like for a woman forced out of the tennis-playing upper-crust suburbs and made to earn her living in rough pubs, where a few centimetres off the hem of her skirt earned enough in tips to feed her children.

In the '80s, some definitive suburban stories were produced. Puberty Blues (1981) revealed the dirty secret of life as a surfie girl in the masculine, insular world of Sydney's Cronulla beach. Even better, the two heroines leave it behind at the end of the film.

Wendy Hughes and Robyn Nevin played the duelling aunts in Careful He Might Hear You, Carl Schultz's wildly successful adaptation of Elliott's book, which swept the AFIs in 1983. Then came Bliss, adapted from Peter Carey's story of midlife crisis and directed by Ray Lawrence, about a man (Barry Otto) who dies and wakes up in a hellish world. Set in middle-class suburbia and hippiedom -- then the middle class's favourite escape hatch -- it succeeded perhaps because Carey and Lawrence worked in advertising and knew their target audience inside out.

On the other side of the country in Perth, Glenda Hambly's Fran was the story of a young mother trapped in poverty and the paucity of spirit in a housing commission estate, and her desire to have a good time. Noni Hazlehurst, who later was a real-life suburban idol in Play School and Better Homes and Gardens, won an AFI award for her role.

Jocelyn Moorhouse's Proof, with Hugo Weaving, Genevieve Picot and a baby-faced Russell Crowe, is a sharp-edged story about trust. Weaving plays a blind man who habitually takes photographs of his surroundings, then doublechecks that they match what he has been told. Proof, with its lonely parks and drive-ins, is one of our most penetrating stories of suburbia. Set in Melbourne, Death in Brunswick had Sam Neill, Zoe Carides and John Clarke in blue singlet as working-class buffoons. Then the Paris of the south took on a harder edge in Metal Skin (1994), all cars, murder and madness under rainy grey skies, and 1998's Head On, Ana Kokkinos's unsettling film with Alex Dimitriades as a speed-fuelled gay Greek boy in search of his identity.

Good or bad, suburban stories will continue to be made. Recently Last Train to Freo and Suburban Mayhem have continued the violent, confronting vein of drama, but Kenny gave a softer view. However, the blokiness is persistent: Bra Boys, Mall Boys, Wog Boys, even My Mother Frank. Another chronicler of suburbia will come along to illustrate the complexities of life in the 'burbs and capture the imagination of a nation. Meanwhile, the Kerrigan family and the Sentimental Bloke are enjoying the serenity.

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Left-leaning public broadcaster hosts antisemitic comments

Hoist with their own petard

THE ABC's Media Watch is fighting claims of hypocrisy after its website published anti-Semitic comments mocking the Holocaust and claiming a Jewish conspiracy. The comments were published a day after the taxpayer-funded media watchdog accused news outlets including The Daily Telegraph of publishing racist reader comments on their websites. In a major embarrassment, the program is accused of the same conduct and faces attack from Jewish leaders and federal Labor MP Michael Danby after its viewers suggested "Zionist groups" had taken over the ABC.

"ABC is starting to show a disproportionate number of Jews in the places of power in the ABC," one viewer said on the Media Watch website. "The only understanding I can make is that Media Watch carries the torch for Globalism and maybe even Zionist groups as they are known to push Hate Speech laws so they can't be questioned themselves in crime." Media Watch also willingly published comments by another viewer slamming media outlets for the "vilification of Muslims" and claiming Islamic Australians were being treated in the same way as the Jews in Nazi Germany. "The Muslims are used as scapegoats domestically, and internationally to defend the crime of the war in Iraq. They serve the same purpose as the Jews of Hitler's Third Reich," the post said.

The comments were posted the day after the show took aim at The Daily Telegraph by gathering a tiny sample of racist reader comments, posted over an extended period, and holding them up as indicative of the site's content.

Melbourne MP Michael Danby has written to ABC managing director Mark Scott calling for Media Watch executive producer Tim Palmer to be stood down for the "appalling" incident. "I feel compelled to write this letter to you because I believe Media Watch, the centerpiece of what should be the ABC's weathervane of engagement with the media, including critics of the ABC, is now spearheaded by an individual who has a record of aggressive belligerence to criticism," he wrote. "Mr Palmer, as executive producer of Media Watch is ultimately responsible for the content of (its) website."

The comments also sparked outrage from NSW Jewish Board of Deputies chief executive Vic Alhadeff, who demanded an explanation from the national public broadcaster. "Reasoned debate has a legitimate place in a democratic society. However, freedom of speech comes with responsibilities," he said. "An openly racist statement has no place on a public broadcaster's website - unless it is there to expose racism."

When asked about the racist comments, Mr Palmer told The Daily Telegraph: "You're easily shocked." While admitting the comments were inappropriate, he said Media Watch was "caught by surprise by the sheer volume" of emails to the site last week. Mr Palmer claimed the posts remained on the website for a "few minutes" before being taken down.

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"No resources" to investigate corrupt police in South Australia

THE Police Complaints Authority and State Ombudsman do not have the resources to investigate corruption, it has emerged. Former Ombudsman Eugene Biganovsky and PCA head Tony Wainwright have confirmed any allegations of official corruption, including against police, have to be investigated by SA Police.

The comments by Mr Wainwright and Mr Biganovsky follow calls by Director of Public Prosecutions Stephen Pallaras, QC, and former Auditor-General Ken MacPherson for an independent anti-corruption commission, similar to those operating interstate. The State Government repeatedly has ruled out setting up an anti-corruption agency, arguing the Police Complaints Authority and SA Police Anti-Corruption Branch were capable of performing the task.

Mr Biganovsky, who retired last Friday after 22 years investigating complaints against the SA public sector, said his office did not have the capacity to investigate systemic corruption in the public sector or local government. "We're all limited on what we can do," he said. "It comes to a question of time, resources and expertise." Mr Wainwright yesterday also told The Advertiser his office did not have the staffing or expertise to investigate serious corruption allegations against police officers.

Its main role was to oversee investigations by police into public complaints against officers, not conduct inquiries. "We direct investigations (against individual police officers), oversee them and assess their results," he said. "We do not have an investigative function as such. "Our main role is to oversee the investigations conducted by police into complaints received by this office."

Mr Biganovsky said he asked Mr Wainwright last year if he could officially oversee the authority's operations but the request was declined on jurisdictional grounds. "Legally, the Ombudsman has no power to oversee the Police Complaints Authority but oversees other agencies such as the Consumer Affairs Commissioner, Equal Rights Commissioner and Health Complaints Commissioner," he said. "It is a political question about whether State Parliament wants to modify the legislation to allow the Ombudsman to look at the practices and procedures of the Police Complaints Authority to ensure they are conducted fairly, efficiently and quickly."

Mr Biganvosky said the legislation controlling the Police Complaints Authority - which, by law, must conduct all of its operations in secret - was introduced in the mid-1980s and could be reviewed to "see if it is doing all the things it was intended to do."

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Crippled by paradigm paralysis

The media and governments get the terror threat. Too bad our academics and think tanks don't, writes foreign editor Greg Sheridan

THE arrest by Indonesian authorities of Jemaah Islamiah terrorists Zarkasih and Abu Dujana is of the greatest importance for Australia. It is a stunning achievement by the Indonesian police. If anyone ever doubted the benefit to us of having a competent, moderate government in Jakarta led by Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, they should doubt it no longer.

Al-Qa'ida is enjoying success in the Middle East but it is suffering real setbacks in Southeast Asia, substantially because of the Indonesian Government, which has arrested 200 terrorists and put many of them through open, credible trials.

Zarkasih was the emir of JI, its overall leader and in particular its spiritual leader, a position formerly held by Abu Bakar Bashir. Dujana was the head of military operations.

These arrests grew out of intelligence gleaned in arrests in March, which also yielded a huge cache of explosives. Now Zarkasih and Dujana will yield their own intelligence treasures. JI is still a formidable threat. It still has a core membership of 1000, with many more sympathisers. Its mainstream group has reportedly decided to abandon attacks on Westerners for the moment and concentrate on recruitment, indoctrination, exacerbating ethnic and religious conflict within Indonesia and preparing for future military conflict.

Its radical splinter, led by Noordin Top, is believed still to support anti-Western bombings. No one knows for sure where Top is, but he is believed to be somewhere in Java, while another key JI figure, Dulmartin, is likely to be still hiding in the southern Philippines. The Indonesian President, his Vice-President Jusuf Kalla, former president Gus Dur and leaders of mainstream Muslim organisations have all made statements welcoming the arrests.

This is central to Indonesia's success in the war on terror. The civil society is aligned against Islamist terrorism and is therefore able to deny it the social space it paradoxically finds in the failing dictatorships of the Middle East.

Indonesia's success in the war on terror is thus a direct security dividend from its democratisation nearly a decade ago.

However, these arrests in one perverse way indicate a specific failure by Australia. The Australian media's response to them was dominated by three international researchers: Sidney Jones of the International Crisis Group, Rohan Gunaratna, an academic based in Singapore, and US academic Zachary Abuza.

Doesn't it strike you as bizarre that there is not a single Australian researcher on Southeast Asian terrorism of international repute? This represents a profoundly important institutional failure by two groups: the first, our universities; the second, our strategic class. Six years after 9/11 and five years after the Bali bombings, there is hardly a single Australian academic working full time on Southeast Asian terrorism. Universities are funded to the tune of billions of dollars, but much of what they have come up with in terrorism research is rubbish. Much of it is postmodern theoretical nonsense about how the discourse of terrorism "demonises the other". Little of it involves traipsing around the jungles of Java or Mindanao, or the region's prisons, interviewing terrorists.

Similarly, we have two main international relations think tanks, the government-funded Australian Strategic Policy Institute, and the privately funded Lowy Institute. Both do good work and we are a better country for having them. But neither has had a single person devoted full time to studying Southeast Asian Islamist terrorism.

Both the universities and the think tanks have produced some good work on terrorism. This has been done mainly by area experts, whether Indonesianists or scholars focusing on the Middle East or whatever, analysing terrorists as part of the societies they study. This is valuable. But surely Southeast Asian Islamist extremism deserves at least a few bodies actually working on it full time. If I were founding a think tank today I'd hire the best Southeast Asianists around and tell them to work 28 hours a day on this subject and dominate the Australian debate. The media is thirsty for such expertise. So is the public. So for that matter is the Government (although of course our intelligence agencies devote vast resources to the subject).

The universities have failed in part because of their postmodern and left-liberal bias, which says that the West must be the author of all sins, and therefore they don't study terrorists in their own terms. The strategic community has failed because of its continued paradigm paralysis, its chronic inability to regard terrorism as a serious strategic issue. The platonic ideal of this outlook is represented by the Australian National University's Hugh White, who declared in the June 6 issue of The Australian Literary Review that terrorism is not a threat to the international system.

He also declared, mystifyingly, that I am "confident that traditional state to state conflict is a thing of the past". As I have never uttered or written anything remotely alleging that, and it is certainly not a view I hold, this is a bit strange. I do on the other hand believe that terrorism can threaten the international system, as can state to state conflict. Where old-fashioned strategic analysts such as White are so anachronistic is in their failure to see the complexity of the interaction of these two dynamics.

Paul O'Sullivan, the head of ASIO, pointed out in a speech yesterday that al-Qa'ida does precisely want to revolutionise the international system. Apart from the question of al-Qa'ida obtaining weapons of mass destruction, O'Sullivan pointed out: "The argument that the threat from terrorism is exaggerated also ignores the dangers terrorist networks pose to vulnerable or failing states. Transnational Islamic terrorists don't require WMD to challenge the authority and legitimacy of such states, exploit their weak spots or quietly rebuild capacity under the radar."

Governments in Jakarta and Canberra and, paradoxically, the media, have to deal with the world as it is, and therefore accord terrorism the attention it deserves. Universities and think tanks can take comfort in the chummy common room embrace of dead paradigms. But, in doing so, they offer sub-optimal service to their nation.

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