A very noisy "silence" among Australia's "censored" Leftist intellectuals

Unless you listen to them worshipfully, they claim that they are being "censored". They are like spoiled children. They should encounter REAL censorship -- like the difficulty a conservative has in getting a teaching job in the Arts faculty of a university

Seldom in the history of public debate have the allegedly silenced been so vocal. Last Friday the ABC Radio National Australia Talks program ran a session from the recent Brisbane Writers Festival. It was one of those familiar taxpayer-subsidised events where members of the left intelligentsia gather to have their prejudices confirmed.

On this occasion the Australia Institute executive director, Clive Hamilton, essentially agreed with the social researcher Hugh Mackay who essentially agreed with the journalist David Marr about contemporary Australia. Needless to say, the audience had a ball. Especially when Hamilton argued that pokie taxes at the Rooty Hill RSL should be increased to fund 1000 public intellectuals. In certain circles, there is a lot to be said for redistribution of income which takes money from lower-income earners in the suburbs and uses it to fund inner-city types who like to describe themselves as public intellectuals.

Hamilton and Sarah Maddison are the editors of Silencing Dissent (Allen & Unwin, 2007), which argues that the Howard Government is controlling public opinion and stifling debate. In keeping with the forum's format, Marr agreed with Hamilton that John Howard was intent on silencing his critics. No one in the audience appeared to query how this could be the case when both men had a gig at the Brisbane Writers' Festival and their thoughts would be preserved for posterity, courtesy of the taxpayer-funded public broadcaster.

It was much the same message on Sunday night when SBS ran an episode of Pria Viswalingam's documentary series titled Decadence. Early in the program, footage was shown of the Nazi death camp at Auschwitz with the now familiar link to modern Australia. Also, the presenter primarily interviewed members of the left intelligentsia who agree with him that Australia has become a decadent democracy. Then the academic Robert Manne joined Hamilton in alleging that dissent was not allowed under the Howard Government.

The very existence of Viswalingam's taxpayer-subsidised documentary indicates that, whatever its intentions, the Howard Government has not prevailed in the culture wars. However, the likes of Hamilton and Manne used their interviews on prime time television to argue that people like them are not heard.

The opinion polls provide the only scientific evidence about the likely outcome of the forthcoming election. They indicate that the Howard Government is heading for a devastating loss. Moreover, Kevin Rudd and many Labor candidates - especially Maxine McKew, who is hoping to defeat the Prime Minister in Bennelong - have experienced a most friendly media throughout the year. This would not have been possible if Howard either controlled public opinion or stifled debate.

The argument that the Howard Government is silencing dissent has now gone so far that ministers are criticised for taking on their critics. No such standard was ever required of the former governments headed by Paul Keating, Bob Hawke, Malcolm Fraser and Gough Whitlam.

Last Tuesday the Herald and The Age gave page one coverage to a report called Australia@Work, which was funded by Unions NSW and the Australian Research Council. The study, which is critical of the Howard Government's industrial relations reforms, was soon attacked by the Workplace Relations Minister, Joe Hockey, and the Treasurer, Peter Costello. They drew attention to the fact that the project was partly funded by the trade union movement and that two of its authors, Brigid van Wanrooy and John Buchanan, have worked for trade unions in the past.

Hockey and Costello were soon hit with the allegation that they were attempting to silence dissent - in spite of the fact that their comments were accurate. Writing in The Age last Thursday, journalist Michael Bachelard went so far as to suggest that the Howard Government had somehow sanctified the report because it was partly funded by the Research Council and because van Wanrooy had once worked in the Commonwealth Public Service "under Peter Reith", the former Howard Government minister for industrial relations. The previous morning Buchanan had run a similar line when interviewed by Fran Kelly on Radio National Breakfast.

The fact is that funding by the council does not imply Government support for the findings of publicly financed research. What's more, the fact that someone once worked in the public service has no connection whatsoever with the views of any minister - Coalition or Labor. It is disingenuous to imply otherwise.

The Australia@Work report was severely criticised in The Australian last Friday by academics Sinclair Davidson and Alex Robson. The important point about Buchanan and his team at Sydney University is not that the report was partly funded by Unions NSW or that he is on record as being a Howard-hating socialist (witness his Politics in the Pub speech of February 18, 2005). Rather, what matters about Buchanan is that he is a long-term opponent of industrial relations reform, under both the Howard and Keating governments (see his article in the June 1999 issue of the Journal of Australian Political Economy).

In other words, Buchanan's dissent has not been stifled under either the Keating or Howard governments. Nor was Manne ever silenced - not even when he wrote in 1992 that the Hawke Labor government had "put Australia in a situation from which it is genuinely difficult to foresee a non-disastrous exit". Nor was Hamilton quietened when, in 1991, he called for a "healthy" inflation rate of 7 to 8 per cent.

The fact is that many one-time opponents of the economic reform process remain credible today because neither Labor nor the Coalition ever implemented such advice. This applies to Hamilton, Manne, Buchanan and more besides. But the refusal of a government to follow (flawed) advice does not amount to censorship. Just good sense.

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Homosexual judge wants more judicial law-making

THE High Court's most vocal dissenter, Michael Kirby, has lashed out at the backwardness of his fellow judges, identifying freedoms that he says would never have been won under the chief judge, Murray Gleeson. In a bold speech, even by Justice Kirby's standards, he spoke out yesterday on behalf of "stirrers and troublemakers" and criticised a tendency by the Australian public to only recognise heroes after they died. "I often ask myself whether the Mabo decision in 1992 or the Wik decision in 1996 . would be decided by the High Court the same way today," he said.

After listing a series of developments that emerged from dissenting judgments, including expanded freedoms of the press, free speech and rights to a lawyer, Justice Kirby said: "The answer to all of these questions of whether such cases would be answered the same way today seems to be: probably not. "The surprising feature of the decisions of the present High Court is . that there are not more differing voices than mine amongst the other justices given the major questions and inherent disputability of the issues commonly presented for the court's decision."

At an annual speech in Adelaide to honour Bob Hawke, Justice Kirby called for a charter of rights and praised the freedoms developed under the stewardship of Sir Anthony Mason, chief judge from 1987 to 1995. "Australian citizens and Australian lawyers who know of these decisions of the Mason court know that law does not inevitably have to be unjust, out of date and unequal," he said. "It does not have to sustain unquestioningly the power of the past. Law can be modern, human rights-respecting, equal in its treatment of minorities and attentive to the rights to equality of all individuals."

Justice Kirby, who is the court's most frequent dissenter, said dissenting judges frequently offered a beacon whose views were ultimately accepted as correct by subsequent courts. "Occasionally progress is only attained by candid disclosure of differences; by planting the seed of new ideas; and waiting patiently to see if these eventually take root."

Justice Kirby said judges were independent and free of political influence and expediency and were therefore in a position to break with consensus opinions. This had encouraged courts to expand freedoms for women, Asians and non-white immigrants, gays and sexual minorities, and prisoners. "Other changes only gathered pace when the independent courts broke the spell of the existing consensus and injected a new dynamic," he said.

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Wishy washy church fading away

AUSTRALIA'S third-largest Christian denomination wants senior church leaders to make way for a more youthful flock to arrest a numbers crisis and reverse the effect of a congregation ageing so rapidly that half the membership could be dead within 15 years. Thirty years after the church deliberately pushed women to the fore of its leadership councils [Thus denying the Gospel], the Uniting [Methodist] Church in NSW has approved a proposal to discriminate in favour of leaders aged 50 and younger in order to encourage youth into the greying church.

The church wants to bring to its next synod in 2008 plans to allocate half of its key representative positions to those aged under 50 - or at least 60 years - during the next seven years. A draft blueprint for greater youth involvement includes the possibility that all future ministers would require experience working with young churchgoers and that the next moderator be "gifted and aged under 40".

The NSW church has been urged to reallocate the assets of disbanded inner-city parishes to new congregations in boom suburbs in Sydney's south and north-west that have no church legacy. It is also being encouraged to explore a "gradually introduced tithe" on congregational income for new mission initiatives.

The Uniting Church was one-third of the size it was 15 years ago, had experienced a 17 per cent decline in attendance since 2001, and based on present trends would probably see half its membership dead by 2002, its leaders were warned this week. Ruth Powell, director of National Church Life Survey Research, delivered a bleak prognosis to the church's NSW synod this week. "If nothing changes, the Uniting Church in NSW will halve its current size in the next 25 years," she said. "This is no time for fiddling. We have to take courageous steps now to face this future." Calling for fresh ways of expressing faith, Dr Powell said the Church of England, the Methodist Church and the United Reform Churches in Britain had all had some success in turning membership around.

Almost double the number of Uniting Church attenders were involved in practical community care and welfare as other churchgoers in other denomination and at least one-third of the synod's churches were growing. [The evangelical ones]

"The Uniting Church still has the potential to be the most relevant, connected church for Australians to explore a faith journey," Dr Powell told the Herald. "It has to celebrate and end well the institutional infrastructure suitable for a previous era and burst new structures, new leaders and hand over assets and responsibilities to a new generation to be part of a church relevant for the current context."

The incoming NSW moderator, the Reverend Niall Reid, said the church needed to stop worrying about dying, and express faith in new ways. "If we follow our calling, like Jesus we may die. But be assured, it will change the world," he said. "Our commitment has to be, whatever the outcome, to be people of grace, who do justice, love mercy and walk humbly with God and if that means we die so be it." The outgoing moderator, Jim Mein, said the church's future lay in connecting with the wider community. Lay leaders needed to be part of the "tsunami of change".

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Staff shortages leave ambulance 000 calls unanswered

Now in Western Australia too

STAFF shortages and a lack of phone operators to answer emergency calls are crippling WA's ambulance service, potentially putting lives at risk. The revelation comes amid claims that up to three St John Ambulance stations could be closed on any given night because there are no staff to man them. Liquor, Hospitality and Miscellaneous Union secretary Dave Kelly said the situation had reached crisis point, with a severe shortfall of phone operators to handle emergency calls and not enough staff to fill the next two-month roster.

Mr Kelly warned the staff shortages were potentially putting lives at risk. "These shortages must be rectified before they cost lives,'' he said. "West Australian's expect and deserve a quality ambulance service at all times,'' he said. "There are almost 30 places left blank on St John's most recent eight-week roster. "Consequently it has become common for up to three depots to be closed on any one night.''

Mr Kelly said there could be as little as two phone operators in the communication centre when there was meant to be six people before midnight, and five after 1am to take calls from across WA. The operators could receive about 6000 calls a day from WA, he said. Mr Kelly said much of the problem lay with St John's inability to recruit and retain quality staff. "Being a paramedic is simply not an attractive proposition for many people,'' Mr Kelly said. "At a base rate of about $25 an hour, their pay can be less than a registered nurse who has the advantage of working in a controlled environment. "St John's has an obligation to the public to ensure they receive the highest quality of care. This cannot be assured if there is not even enough staff to keep a depot open.''

St John Ambulance did not return calls from The Sunday Times yesterday to discuss the union's claims. But last week spokeswoman Jacqui De Roach said the agency was "certainly not struggling'' to fill vacancies. Ms De Roach said the organisation had been successful in recruiting experienced paramedics from interstate and overseas, particularly from South Africa and the UK. In addition, the ambulance service recruited 45 student paramedics from 200 applications last year. There are about 500 paid paramedics in metropolitan area and volunteers at country centres.

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