WEBVTT 1 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:04.660 Good afternoon, my name's John Giordini, it's my great honour to chair this session. 2 00:00:05.180 --> 00:00:11.220 Before we get started, if you would switch your mobile phone to silent, but keep it to 3 00:00:11.220 --> 00:00:19.360 hand in case you want to tweet at Ideas Adelaide, the hashtag being hash A-F-O-I. 4 00:00:20.940 --> 00:00:29.880 I'm pleased to introduce to you Dr Lynne Arnold, who is the Executive Officer of Anglicare 5 00:00:29.880 --> 00:00:37.280 Australia, which is South Australia's largest non-government welfare agency. 6 00:00:38.540 --> 00:00:45.420 In addition to that role, Lynne is the National Co-Chair for Anti-Poverty Week, a member of 7 00:00:45.420 --> 00:00:50.380 the Anglicare Australia Council, the Chair of Trustees of the Don Dunstan Foundation, 8 00:00:51.560 --> 00:00:57.980 and as a former CEO of World Vision, 11 years a member of South Australian Parliament and 9 00:00:57.980 --> 00:00:59.860 our Premier in 1921. 10 00:00:59.880 --> 00:01:01.080 And in 1992 and 1993. 11 00:01:01.520 --> 00:01:04.440 So it's a privilege to introduce Dr Lynne Arnold. 12 00:01:05.540 --> 00:01:06.520 Thank you. 13 00:01:41.140 --> 00:01:48.300 I'm pleased to introduce Dr Lynne Arnold, who is the Executive Officer of Anglicare 14 00:01:48.560 --> 00:01:49.920 I'm pleased to introduce Dr Lynne Arnold, who is the Executive Officer of World Vision. 15 00:01:49.980 --> 00:01:51.480 And in 1992, she was the Chief Executive Officer of the National Council for Anti-Poverty Week. 16 00:01:51.820 --> 00:01:54.260 And in 2002, she was the Chief Executive Officer of World Vision. 17 00:01:54.480 --> 00:01:59.840 And in 2002, she was the Chief Executive Officer of World Vision. 18 00:02:01.220 --> 00:02:24.100 And in 2014, she was Deputy Chief Executive Officer for broadcast 19 00:02:24.100 --> 00:02:26.260 to present this year's Joy McClellan Oration. 20 00:02:26.420 --> 00:02:29.440 And Anglicare South Australia is very proud to support 21 00:02:30.000 --> 00:02:32.460 the Joy McClellan Oration, as it has done ever 22 00:02:32.460 --> 00:02:36.120 since the mid-1990s in honor of somebody who worked so 23 00:02:36.120 --> 00:02:37.600 many years for our organization. 24 00:02:38.420 --> 00:02:40.420 Indeed, it is an oration held in her honor 25 00:02:40.420 --> 00:02:42.920 for her dedication and achievements in the church 26 00:02:42.920 --> 00:02:45.720 and also in social welfare generally in South Australia. 27 00:02:46.200 --> 00:02:47.880 She was one of the earliest graduates 28 00:02:47.880 --> 00:02:50.880 of the first professional social work course in South Australia 29 00:02:50.880 --> 00:02:53.320 at the University of Adelaide, and was 30 00:02:53.320 --> 00:02:55.600 remarkable both for her achievements and the fact 31 00:02:55.600 --> 00:02:58.680 that she did this at a time when it was unusual for a woman 32 00:02:58.680 --> 00:03:00.740 to be leading a social service organization. 33 00:03:01.660 --> 00:03:05.380 In 1963, she was awarded the OBE for Outstanding Services 34 00:03:05.380 --> 00:03:07.280 to Welfare in South Australia. 35 00:03:08.140 --> 00:03:10.400 She was director of what was then known as the Church 36 00:03:10.400 --> 00:03:14.220 of England Social Welfare Bureau from 1947 right through to 1975, 37 00:03:14.960 --> 00:03:17.580 and she was a woman of great character and strength. 38 00:03:17.840 --> 00:03:22.500 In 1950, she resigned because she felt the church was not 39 00:03:22.500 --> 00:03:23.160 providing sufficient 40 00:03:23.160 --> 00:03:26.160 resources to meet the needs of people coming for attention. 41 00:03:26.620 --> 00:03:28.860 And it was only by that means that she finally 42 00:03:28.860 --> 00:03:30.820 got some better response and came back 43 00:03:30.820 --> 00:03:32.240 on into the organization again. 44 00:03:33.340 --> 00:03:34.800 But she always had a vision for the future, 45 00:03:34.920 --> 00:03:37.500 always had a vision that we could describe as prophetic. 46 00:03:37.940 --> 00:03:41.780 And in 1974, just one year before she retired, 47 00:03:42.700 --> 00:03:46.260 she lamented the fact that not everybody, even including 48 00:03:46.260 --> 00:03:49.380 social welfare organizations, has such a prophetic vision. 49 00:03:50.020 --> 00:03:52.540 It's a matter of regret that some members of committees 50 00:03:52.540 --> 00:03:54.860 of management still see themselves closer 51 00:03:54.860 --> 00:03:57.740 to the roles fulfilled 50 years ago, she wrote, 52 00:03:58.460 --> 00:04:01.060 and have difficulty in recognizing modern attitudes 53 00:04:01.060 --> 00:04:01.800 and issues. 54 00:04:03.300 --> 00:04:05.800 And so it's very appropriate that following her death 55 00:04:05.800 --> 00:04:09.760 in 1993, Anglicare decided that they would honor her memory 56 00:04:10.380 --> 00:04:14.040 with an oration that would be aimed to focus on future ideas 57 00:04:14.040 --> 00:04:15.400 and future possibilities. 58 00:04:16.560 --> 00:04:18.700 And then we were greatly honored that the Festival of Ideas 59 00:04:18.700 --> 00:04:22.280 allowed us to incorporate this oration within the Festival 60 00:04:22.280 --> 00:04:22.520 of Anglicare. 61 00:04:22.540 --> 00:04:26.880 And so we've had some distinguished speakers 62 00:04:26.880 --> 00:04:27.580 in that regard. 63 00:04:27.800 --> 00:04:30.220 We've had Bishop Michael Challen from the Brotherhood 64 00:04:30.220 --> 00:04:32.080 of St. Lawrence, Robert Fitzgerald 65 00:04:32.080 --> 00:04:34.880 when he was president of ACOS, Professor Julian Disney, 66 00:04:35.200 --> 00:04:36.740 my co-chair of Anti-Poverty Week, 67 00:04:36.900 --> 00:04:40.520 and another living treasure in addition to Julian Burnside, 68 00:04:40.600 --> 00:04:44.940 Barry Jones, and the Reverend John Roffey, amongst others. 69 00:04:46.060 --> 00:04:47.740 Now today, it's my great pleasure 70 00:04:47.740 --> 00:04:51.700 to introduce Julian Burnside, who, as I've just mentioned, 71 00:04:51.700 --> 00:04:53.340 is a living national treasure. 72 00:04:53.720 --> 00:04:56.320 A Melbourne barrister, he specializes 73 00:04:56.320 --> 00:04:58.480 in commercial litigation, but he's also 74 00:04:58.480 --> 00:05:00.700 been former president of Liberty Victoria, 75 00:05:01.680 --> 00:05:04.360 and has acted pro bono in many human rights cases, 76 00:05:04.560 --> 00:05:06.740 in particular concerning the treatment of refugees. 77 00:05:07.480 --> 00:05:09.560 This, of course, is an issue passionately 78 00:05:09.560 --> 00:05:12.980 close to Anglicare's heart, as we work with all new arrivals 79 00:05:12.980 --> 00:05:15.540 and are also currently working with those in community 80 00:05:15.540 --> 00:05:17.100 detention here in South Australia. 81 00:05:18.380 --> 00:05:19.740 He's passionately involved in the arts 82 00:05:19.740 --> 00:05:21.680 and collects contemporary paintings and sculptures, 83 00:05:21.680 --> 00:05:23.660 and regularly commissions music. 84 00:05:24.500 --> 00:05:27.280 Chair of 45 Downstairs, a not-for-profit arts 85 00:05:27.280 --> 00:05:28.580 and performance venue in Melbourne, 86 00:05:28.760 --> 00:05:31.880 he's also written books of essays on language and etymology, 87 00:05:32.000 --> 00:05:34.380 which some of you will know is a matter very close 88 00:05:34.380 --> 00:05:37.000 to my personal interest, so I'm very struck by that, 89 00:05:37.920 --> 00:05:40.180 and speeches about the justice system and human rights, 90 00:05:40.860 --> 00:05:43.700 and a compilation of letters by asylum seekers held 91 00:05:43.700 --> 00:05:47.160 in Australia's detention camps, and also a children's book, 92 00:05:47.220 --> 00:05:51.060 so a very diverse set of interests, 93 00:05:51.060 --> 00:05:54.020 a romance man, a romance human being. 94 00:05:54.800 --> 00:05:56.600 His theme today is, do we care? 95 00:05:56.860 --> 00:05:59.380 And as I noted that this was to be his theme, 96 00:05:59.460 --> 00:06:03.300 and you've seen the summary of it in the calendar 97 00:06:03.840 --> 00:06:06.540 for the Festival of Ideas, I was struck by something 98 00:06:06.540 --> 00:06:09.180 that Freud once wrote when he was asked 99 00:06:09.180 --> 00:06:10.880 about loving one's neighbor. 100 00:06:11.420 --> 00:06:14.720 And Freud wrote, if someone is a stranger to me, 101 00:06:14.840 --> 00:06:18.480 and he cannot attract me by any worth of his own significance 102 00:06:19.200 --> 00:06:20.360 that he may already have acquired, 103 00:06:20.360 --> 00:06:24.220 from my emotional life, it will be hard for me to love him. 104 00:06:24.980 --> 00:06:28.740 Indeed, I should be wrong to do so, for my love is valued 105 00:06:28.740 --> 00:06:32.280 by all my own people as a sign of my preferring them, 106 00:06:33.000 --> 00:06:36.320 and it is an injustice to them if I put a stranger 107 00:06:36.840 --> 00:06:37.600 on a par with them. 108 00:06:38.240 --> 00:06:41.000 But if I am to love him with this universal love, 109 00:06:41.120 --> 00:06:43.940 merely because he too is an inhabitant of the earth, 110 00:06:44.400 --> 00:06:46.900 then I fear that only a small modicum 111 00:06:46.900 --> 00:06:49.440 of my love will fall to his share. 112 00:06:49.600 --> 00:06:49.980 . 113 00:06:51.300 --> 00:06:54.340 Now, in a world so much needing care, 114 00:06:54.600 --> 00:06:57.180 in a country so much needing care, 115 00:06:57.540 --> 00:07:00.740 we are greatly honored that we will have Julian Burnside 116 00:07:00.740 --> 00:07:04.300 on the subject of do we care to put the alternative point 117 00:07:04.300 --> 00:07:05.640 of view to Sigmund Freud. 118 00:07:05.760 --> 00:07:06.920 Please welcome Julian Burnside. 119 00:07:07.940 --> 00:07:09.060 Thank you very much. 120 00:07:09.080 --> 00:07:09.540 Thank you. 121 00:07:15.080 --> 00:07:16.200 Thank you very much. 122 00:07:16.380 --> 00:07:18.760 I'm so pleased to see so many people here. 123 00:07:19.340 --> 00:07:20.340 I live in Dundee. 124 00:07:20.360 --> 00:07:22.740 I'm so worried that people will get sick of hearing me, 125 00:07:23.640 --> 00:07:25.240 and I'll turn up and there will be no one there, 126 00:07:25.380 --> 00:07:26.500 and it will be devastating. 127 00:07:27.940 --> 00:07:30.020 I'm only going to say one thing that is relevant 128 00:07:30.020 --> 00:07:34.260 to the overarching theme of this festival of ideas. 129 00:07:35.120 --> 00:07:40.360 I believe completely that you cannot plan for uncertainty. 130 00:07:40.680 --> 00:07:43.420 By definition, you cannot plan for something 131 00:07:43.420 --> 00:07:44.660 which you do not know about. 132 00:07:45.260 --> 00:07:48.760 You can prepare for uncertainty, and last night over dinner, 133 00:07:48.800 --> 00:07:50.340 we had a meeting. 134 00:07:50.340 --> 00:07:58.360 a sort of challenge to see who could discover who it was who said that fortune favours the 135 00:07:58.360 --> 00:08:02.620 prepared mind. It turns out to be Louis Pasteur. I thought it went back to the ancient Greeks, 136 00:08:02.700 --> 00:08:07.260 but there you go. But it's a very important distinction. And for those of you who are 137 00:08:07.260 --> 00:08:12.440 into career planning, you'll hate me because whenever sort of senior school students ask me, 138 00:08:12.500 --> 00:08:18.100 you know, how do I plan for my future? All I say is you don't know what your future is going to be. 139 00:08:18.100 --> 00:08:23.300 All you can do is prepare your mind as best you can, and then you'll be ready for the chance that 140 00:08:23.300 --> 00:08:29.260 comes along. That's got nothing to do with my topic today, but I thought I should say something. 141 00:08:32.600 --> 00:08:37.140 I've been very interested in the subject of empathy. I read a book recently by Simon Baron 142 00:08:37.140 --> 00:08:44.420 Cohen, who I think is Borat's cousin, and it's called Zero Degrees of Empathy, 143 00:08:45.120 --> 00:08:47.980 and he discusses the subject of empathy in some 144 00:08:47.980 --> 00:08:53.920 detail and makes the point which I guess is obvious if you think about it, which is that 145 00:08:53.920 --> 00:08:59.620 empathy, like many other human characteristics, is visible right across the spectrum from zero 146 00:08:59.620 --> 00:09:07.620 empathy to an overload of it. And it's, of course, distinct from sympathy. Sympathy, to sympathise, 147 00:09:07.620 --> 00:09:16.380 is to feel sorry for another person's sorrow, but to empathise is to feel the pain or sorrow 148 00:09:16.380 --> 00:09:17.280 which they are suffering. 149 00:09:17.980 --> 00:09:24.020 And it's quite interesting to look at the spectrum of empathetic responses. 150 00:09:26.160 --> 00:09:34.780 One that occurs to me is there was an Afghan boy who was sent back, a Hazara Afghan boy, 151 00:09:34.900 --> 00:09:40.200 who was sent back to Afghanistan by Australia, who asserted that he could not be a refugee 152 00:09:40.200 --> 00:09:47.020 because the Taliban had been removed from authority in Afghanistan. This was in early to 153 00:09:47.020 --> 00:09:47.960 mid-2009. 154 00:09:47.980 --> 00:09:54.740 He was sent back from Nauru on that footing. Unlike other Afghan Hazaras who were forced 155 00:09:54.740 --> 00:10:01.260 back to Afghanistan from Nauru, instead of escaping immediately across the border into 156 00:10:01.260 --> 00:10:05.820 Pakistan, where at the time things were a little safer, he went back to his village. 157 00:10:06.000 --> 00:10:11.100 And there the Taliban hunted him out, dragged him out of his house into the village square, 158 00:10:11.820 --> 00:10:16.860 and then in front of the rest they threw him down the well and dropped a hand grenade after him. 159 00:10:16.860 --> 00:10:25.540 Anyone capable of doing that must have a pretty low degree of capability of empathising. 160 00:10:25.920 --> 00:10:34.720 And in 1937 in Nanking, when it had been overtaken by the Japanese, there is an appalling photograph 161 00:10:34.720 --> 00:10:41.540 taken by Japanese soldiers found in Russell's book, The Knights of Bushido, which is a steep 162 00:10:41.540 --> 00:10:46.420 embankment and at the top of the steep embankment there are Chinese civilians who have been bound, 163 00:10:46.420 --> 00:10:52.340 hand and foot, and blindfolded and are then, one after another, pushed over the embankment. 164 00:10:52.460 --> 00:10:57.040 At the bottom of the embankment are Japanese soldiers with rifles with fixed bayonets and they 165 00:10:57.040 --> 00:11:02.980 use the tumbling bodies for bayonet practice. Again, it's difficult to imagine anyone capable 166 00:11:02.980 --> 00:11:10.380 of understanding another person's capacity for misery to engage themselves in that sort of 167 00:11:10.380 --> 00:11:15.880 activity. And of course psychopaths are, by definition, people incapable of empathising with 168 00:11:15.880 --> 00:11:16.400 other people. 169 00:11:16.420 --> 00:11:20.680 People's suffering, notwithstanding that they may be highly intelligent people themselves, 170 00:11:21.040 --> 00:11:26.800 they may be functional in many respects, but incapable of understanding the hurt which 171 00:11:26.800 --> 00:11:28.820 they inflict on others. 172 00:11:29.500 --> 00:11:38.160 Plainly enough it's not uniformly distributed. I think I'm probably some distance away from 173 00:11:38.160 --> 00:11:43.960 the hand grenade and bayonet end of the spectrum and if I were to blame anything I'd blame 174 00:11:43.960 --> 00:11:46.400 my parents because my mother was a very, 175 00:11:46.400 --> 00:11:56.180 broadcast 176 00:12:10.940 --> 00:12:14.980 and this mum and dad and the son and daughter 177 00:12:14.980 --> 00:12:18.880 and the grandfather, the father's father. 178 00:12:19.560 --> 00:12:22.340 And the father works in the forest and he goes out every day 179 00:12:22.340 --> 00:12:23.680 and he comes home from the forest. 180 00:12:23.840 --> 00:12:26.720 And at the dinner table, the grandfather, 181 00:12:26.820 --> 00:12:28.260 who's getting a bit old and doddery, 182 00:12:29.360 --> 00:12:33.740 is inclined to bump his terracotta bowl off the table and it breaks. 183 00:12:34.240 --> 00:12:36.000 And the father gets annoyed at this 184 00:12:36.000 --> 00:12:38.360 because there's a limit to how many terracotta bowls you can afford. 185 00:12:38.840 --> 00:12:40.700 And so he gets a wooden bowl. 186 00:12:40.940 --> 00:12:44.280 To give to his grandfather so that if the grandfather knocks it off the table, 187 00:12:44.360 --> 00:12:44.960 it won't break. 188 00:12:45.340 --> 00:12:47.360 And for reasons which I simply can't remember, 189 00:12:47.700 --> 00:12:52.320 you're given to understand that having a wooden bowl is deeply humiliating. 190 00:12:52.420 --> 00:12:54.360 It's treating you like one of the pets. 191 00:12:55.160 --> 00:12:58.000 And one day, the father comes back from his work in the forest 192 00:12:58.000 --> 00:13:00.420 and he finds the son sitting on the front veranda 193 00:13:00.420 --> 00:13:03.260 and he's whittling with a knife and a piece of wood. 194 00:13:03.320 --> 00:13:04.580 And the father says, what are you doing? 195 00:13:05.060 --> 00:13:07.480 And he said, I'm carving a bowl for when you're old. 196 00:13:08.880 --> 00:13:10.800 And I actually still find that, 197 00:13:10.940 --> 00:13:12.140 that deeply upsetting. 198 00:13:12.540 --> 00:13:17.520 Quite, really very upsetting to think that that child, 199 00:13:17.840 --> 00:13:19.560 to think of the dynamics of that. 200 00:13:19.640 --> 00:13:24.360 Anyway, I blame that story for rather exaggerated capacity 201 00:13:24.360 --> 00:13:26.320 for suffering with other people. 202 00:13:27.020 --> 00:13:29.400 Now, Baron Cohen makes the interesting point 203 00:13:29.400 --> 00:13:31.200 that empathy has two phases. 204 00:13:31.340 --> 00:13:35.380 The first is the reaction, the inner reaction, 205 00:13:35.540 --> 00:13:38.720 which occurs to you if you have an empathetic character. 206 00:13:39.020 --> 00:13:40.600 And the second is the response. 207 00:13:40.940 --> 00:13:45.040 That which you do as a consequence of the reaction that you've had. 208 00:13:45.980 --> 00:13:48.880 And now, we can all identify with that because we've seen, for example, 209 00:13:49.660 --> 00:13:54.240 TV footage of horrible disasters like the tsunami in 2004 210 00:13:54.240 --> 00:13:57.620 or the recent tsunami and the consequences 211 00:13:57.620 --> 00:13:59.360 with the Fukushima power plant. 212 00:13:59.740 --> 00:14:03.420 And you experience a sense of shock and grief and horror 213 00:14:03.420 --> 00:14:05.880 at seeing these terrible things that are happening. 214 00:14:06.640 --> 00:14:08.880 But then it's immediately followed by a sense of helplessness. 215 00:14:09.560 --> 00:14:10.480 What can any of us do? 216 00:14:10.480 --> 00:14:12.540 Just people living in the community in Australia, 217 00:14:12.700 --> 00:14:15.280 what can we do that's going to make things any better 218 00:14:15.280 --> 00:14:18.800 for the wretched people we've just seen on the TV? 219 00:14:20.920 --> 00:14:24.800 And obviously, the usual response is that we make a donation 220 00:14:24.800 --> 00:14:28.480 to some charity that is going to put together some sort 221 00:14:28.480 --> 00:14:30.540 of practical resources to help the people there. 222 00:14:30.660 --> 00:14:32.780 But beyond that, it's very hard to see what you can do. 223 00:14:34.420 --> 00:14:35.760 I'm going to be talking a little bit 224 00:14:35.760 --> 00:14:37.740 about Australia's response to refugees. 225 00:14:37.920 --> 00:14:40.220 And let me tell you, this is actually not part 226 00:14:40.220 --> 00:14:42.020 of what I'm saying, so give me time out for this. 227 00:14:44.120 --> 00:14:47.680 One of the great things that Adelaide did over the, 228 00:14:48.460 --> 00:14:53.180 between about 2001 to 2006 or thereabouts, when the treatment 229 00:14:53.180 --> 00:14:59.200 of refugees in Australia was at its then worst, a lot of people 230 00:14:59.200 --> 00:15:01.540 in Adelaide formed circles of friends. 231 00:15:01.760 --> 00:15:04.280 And those circles of friends did magnificent work 232 00:15:04.960 --> 00:15:08.040 to help support refugees who were ultimately released 233 00:15:08.040 --> 00:15:08.700 into the community. 234 00:15:08.820 --> 00:15:10.120 Suffering all of the consequences. 235 00:15:10.140 --> 00:15:10.200 . 236 00:15:10.220 --> 00:15:13.240 And the consequences of indefinite detention leading 237 00:15:13.240 --> 00:15:15.800 up to the time when they were eventually accepted as refugees. 238 00:15:16.860 --> 00:15:20.700 There is a need again for circles of friends to reform. 239 00:15:21.360 --> 00:15:24.400 Because there are people who are being released 240 00:15:24.400 --> 00:15:26.560 into real community detention. 241 00:15:27.040 --> 00:15:29.220 And good on the Minister for that. 242 00:15:30.200 --> 00:15:31.600 But they're released into community detention 243 00:15:32.280 --> 00:15:34.660 with virtually no social support. 244 00:15:35.080 --> 00:15:38.880 And all you have to do is think for a moment how it would be 245 00:15:38.880 --> 00:15:39.320 for you. 246 00:15:39.420 --> 00:15:40.000 . 247 00:15:40.000 --> 00:15:40.020 . 248 00:15:40.020 --> 00:15:40.780 ! 249 00:15:51.180 --> 00:15:56.100 And understand sort of sort of sort of sort of sort 250 00:16:09.120 --> 00:16:10.000 of sort 251 00:16:10.000 --> 00:16:18.060 it. Back to my talk. Some of you, many of you perhaps saw the SBS show, Go Back to Where You 252 00:16:18.060 --> 00:16:22.660 Came From. Remarkable television, probably some of the best television I've seen in Australia ever. 253 00:16:23.580 --> 00:16:29.800 There were some very interesting aspects of empathy in that program. One was the reaction 254 00:16:29.800 --> 00:16:34.620 of the guy called Darren, who at a certain point, I think it was when they had just visited 255 00:16:34.620 --> 00:16:40.100 Villawood Detention Centre for a mere two hours, he said, and they were obviously shell-shocked by 256 00:16:40.100 --> 00:16:46.880 what they'd seen, and his reaction was, we are being forced to feel empathy without informed 257 00:16:46.880 --> 00:16:54.620 consent. There's an interesting idea. As if a human response is something to which you either 258 00:16:54.620 --> 00:17:01.080 consent or not. I really thought that was a very telling observation. I'm sure he didn't mean it 259 00:17:01.080 --> 00:17:04.500 the way it came across, but it was an interesting reflection. And the other one was 260 00:17:04.500 --> 00:17:04.600 a very telling observation. I'm sure he didn't mean it the way it came across, but it was an 261 00:17:04.600 --> 00:17:04.840 interesting reflection. And the other one was a very telling observation. I'm sure he didn't mean it 262 00:17:04.940 --> 00:17:11.480 who's the woman who lives next to Inverbrackie, and at the outset, her attitude was that if she 263 00:17:11.480 --> 00:17:19.280 had the chance, she'd shoot them. It's a less uncommon response than you would think. Anyway, 264 00:17:20.820 --> 00:17:27.960 she had an epiphany, as you may recall, when she was staying with the African family before the 265 00:17:27.960 --> 00:17:33.980 group was sent over the water. She was staying with an African family in, I think, Albury or 266 00:17:33.980 --> 00:17:34.280 somewhere. 267 00:17:34.280 --> 00:17:41.700 somewhere. And it turned out that the African lady who'd been brought to Australia from an African 268 00:17:41.700 --> 00:17:49.280 refugee camp, this African lady had had trouble carrying children to term. And Ray Colby, as I 269 00:17:49.280 --> 00:17:54.080 recall it, had had trouble carrying children to term. And you could see the lights come on. She 270 00:17:54.080 --> 00:18:00.740 instantaneously empathised with that woman. And then, by extension, empathised with other African 271 00:18:00.740 --> 00:18:02.980 women in African refugee camps. 272 00:18:02.980 --> 00:18:11.720 But her ultimate position, as I remember it, was that she really didn't care about the other refugees in other 273 00:18:11.720 --> 00:18:19.500 places. She hadn't empathised with them for their refugee status. She'd empathised with a narrow group for a 274 00:18:19.500 --> 00:18:26.320 quite different reason. Now, I thought it was an odd thing to see what I provisionally labelled myopic 275 00:18:26.320 --> 00:18:32.960 empathy. And yet, I wonder, perhaps it's more general than we know. And perhaps we only empathise with the 276 00:18:32.980 --> 00:18:37.180 specific characteristics rather than with the general problem. 277 00:18:38.440 --> 00:18:47.360 Now, Australia's response to refugees, I think, has in part been tainted by the fact that our capacity for empathy is 278 00:18:47.360 --> 00:18:54.000 compromised because we have not been, not only have we not been informed of the facts, we've been misled about the 279 00:18:54.000 --> 00:19:02.560 facts. And that makes a great difference to your capacity to empathise with the truth. Let me tell you some of the 280 00:19:02.560 --> 00:19:02.860 responses. 281 00:19:02.860 --> 00:19:12.500 I think Australia's responses to refugees, it's kind of interesting. The first that struck me quite forcibly was coming back to 282 00:19:12.500 --> 00:19:19.680 chambers after the first night of the Tampa case and receiving death threats. For all of the controversial cases I've done 283 00:19:19.680 --> 00:19:27.340 before and since, the Tampa case was the only one that attracted death threats, which I thought probably showed a lack of 284 00:19:27.340 --> 00:19:32.600 empathetic response for the people who were self-evidently helpless on the deck of the Tampa. 285 00:19:32.860 --> 00:19:36.060 I think Australia's response to refugees was quite forcibly held on the steel deck of a ship in the tropical sun. 286 00:19:36.920 --> 00:19:43.640 The next interesting response was, whenever I spoke publicly about the issue, I would get a torrent of hate mail. 287 00:19:44.020 --> 00:19:50.540 And for a quiet, conservative commercial barrister, getting hate mail was a character-building novelty. 288 00:19:54.100 --> 00:20:02.600 Mostly, it came in the form of emails, although some came in written, handwritten form or typed form. 289 00:20:02.860 --> 00:20:12.100 Those that came in typed form never included a name and address, which made me think that perhaps these are very forgetful people, but 290 00:20:13.420 --> 00:20:23.720 my view about that was changed just three or four days ago when I received some more hate mail. I hadn't received some for a while, but I got this letter, and it's from someone in Wyala. 291 00:20:24.600 --> 00:20:31.460 I won't identify the writer, although the writer does give a name and address, which I assume 292 00:20:31.460 --> 00:20:32.160 are 293 00:20:32.160 --> 00:20:33.100 genuine. 294 00:20:34.420 --> 00:20:36.000 But listen to this. 295 00:20:36.760 --> 00:20:41.760 I've heard yourself and others on the left and the Greens, the do-gooder attitude makes me sick. 296 00:20:42.100 --> 00:20:52.980 I have a motto in regards to this subject, that is asylum seekers, refugees, that is, if you want to come to Australia, that is no passport, no entry, as with paperwork, as with Aborigines. 297 00:20:53.660 --> 00:21:01.060 Most of the problems they have, drinking and so on, to me, the only good Aborigine is a dead one. I have no sympathy at all towards them. 298 00:21:01.060 --> 00:21:05.080 This is someone who's really towards the zero point on the spectrum, I suspect. 299 00:21:06.300 --> 00:21:13.320 Nothing has changed in the last 40 years or so, and it won't, because that's how Aborigines are. Hopeless losers, the writer says. 300 00:21:13.820 --> 00:21:20.340 If I was Prime Minister, I have a plan that would fix it permanently. There's a chilling observation for you. 301 00:21:20.980 --> 00:21:27.180 He also says that he would turn the boats around, if they come back two or three times, they'd be sunk, and the people left to drown. 302 00:21:28.060 --> 00:21:55.660 He thinks that would sort of sort of sort of sort of sort of sort of sort of sort of sort of sort of sort of sort of sort 303 00:21:55.660 --> 00:22:00.840 blah. I'm sick of all this crap from people like yourself pandering to asylum seekers, giving them 304 00:22:00.840 --> 00:22:06.080 red carpet treatment. I don't care about the discrimination side of things. I'm a proud racist 305 00:22:06.080 --> 00:22:16.100 and discriminator. So he does have a capacity for making his point very clear. He says, I don't care 306 00:22:16.100 --> 00:22:19.960 if it's politically incorrect, nothing will change my mind. I look forward to your reply shortly, 307 00:22:19.960 --> 00:22:26.320 but I won't hold my breath. And I can assure you all today, I plan to reply. 308 00:22:27.980 --> 00:22:31.980 And there's an interesting thing. This may be off the subject, but it's an interesting thing. 309 00:22:33.920 --> 00:22:39.960 I made a point every time I received hate mail that I could reply to by hitting the reply button, 310 00:22:40.760 --> 00:22:46.300 I made a point of responding to every bit of hate mail I got. And I had to bite my tongue, 311 00:22:46.380 --> 00:22:49.780 because most of it was extremely rude and offensive, but typically I'd 312 00:22:49.780 --> 00:22:49.940 write it. I'd write it. I'd write it. I'd write it. I'd write it. I'd write it. I'd write it. 313 00:22:49.960 --> 00:22:50.500 I'd write it. I'd write it. I'd write it. I'd write it. I'd write it. I'd write it. I'd write it. 314 00:22:50.500 --> 00:22:56.580 And so thank you for your email. I assume you don't agree with my opinions. But did you realise 315 00:22:56.580 --> 00:23:02.720 this and this and this? And I'd tell them the facts. And what was interesting about that is 316 00:23:02.720 --> 00:23:10.300 that almost every one of them replied. And every single reply was polite. Every single reply was 317 00:23:10.300 --> 00:23:15.480 polite. In 10 years, I've only had one exception to that, and that's quite recent, a person who 318 00:23:15.480 --> 00:23:19.660 seems to get his rocks off just writing rude email. 319 00:23:19.660 --> 00:23:26.500 And I'm just keeping them in a file for entertainment. Every now and then I write back to him saying, 320 00:23:26.700 --> 00:23:33.640 good on you, Bobby. Glad to see I've still got your attention. But my first few attempts to be 321 00:23:33.640 --> 00:23:40.680 polite and persuasive failed miserably. But these, and then, you know, the next step was, you know, 322 00:23:40.720 --> 00:23:43.880 I'd write back to them saying, you know, blah, blah, blah, and here are the facts. And then they 323 00:23:43.880 --> 00:23:48.480 would write back. Almost all of them would write back saying, well, that's all very well. You know, 324 00:23:48.480 --> 00:23:52.600 thank you for discussing it with me. That's all very well. But there's this and this and this. 325 00:23:53.240 --> 00:23:58.420 And so I'd reply saying, well, actually, there's such and so. You know, all of the facts actually 326 00:23:58.420 --> 00:24:06.780 do lead you, you know, inexorably to the position that we are mistreating refugees. At the end of 327 00:24:06.780 --> 00:24:11.680 it all, and it was generally two or three exchanges for each person who wrote to me initially, at the 328 00:24:11.680 --> 00:24:17.800 end of it all, about 50% of them across five years ended up saying in substance, thank you for 329 00:24:17.800 --> 00:24:18.460 discussing this with me. And I'd reply, well, thank you for discussing it with me. And they 330 00:24:18.460 --> 00:24:25.700 agreed with you now. There's a really important point. About 25% of them ended up saying in 331 00:24:25.700 --> 00:24:30.860 substance, thank you for talking about this subject with me. I don't agree with you, but good 332 00:24:30.860 --> 00:24:35.640 on you for standing up for what you believe in. The remaining 25% we needn't talk about. 333 00:24:37.000 --> 00:24:43.800 The important point out of this is that many people, when they're told the truth of the matter, 334 00:24:44.500 --> 00:24:48.280 respond quite differently. And unfortunately, the public debate, 335 00:24:48.460 --> 00:24:55.320 in Australia, about refugees has been poisoned by a couple of very powerful falsehoods. The first 336 00:24:55.320 --> 00:25:01.480 and most potent was the tag illegals. And most people in the community still continue to believe 337 00:25:01.480 --> 00:25:07.400 that the people who come here by boat and are put in detention centres are put there because 338 00:25:07.400 --> 00:25:11.780 they've broken the law or because, in a more general sense, they're criminals. And of course, 339 00:25:11.780 --> 00:25:15.960 there was the subtle suggestion that perhaps they would throw their children into the sea, 340 00:25:16.120 --> 00:25:18.300 and that makes them nasty people. And also, 341 00:25:18.460 --> 00:25:24.600 the possibility that they were terrorists or otherwise unworthy. The second tag, which worked 342 00:25:24.600 --> 00:25:29.820 powerfully against them, was the notion of queue jumpers, overlooking the fact that if you're 343 00:25:29.820 --> 00:25:36.060 fleeing the Taliban, there is no queue in Kabul where you can stand in line. And the notion, 344 00:25:36.180 --> 00:25:42.340 the notion that the orderly and polite nature of a queue is an environment that is even relevant 345 00:25:42.340 --> 00:25:46.840 for refugees is self-evidently illusory. 346 00:25:48.460 --> 00:25:52.540 The second thing about queue jumpers, I gave a talk yesterday and a lady approached me afterwards 347 00:25:52.540 --> 00:25:58.840 and she said, look, I know it's very bad on my part, but I can't help but think that the ones 348 00:25:58.840 --> 00:26:04.720 who come by boat are sort of jumping a queue because there are lots of others in Indonesia 349 00:26:04.720 --> 00:26:10.780 who are equally deserving, but they're still waiting there. And I thought that was an interesting 350 00:26:10.780 --> 00:26:15.240 point and a fairly well-made point, but I think there's an answer to it, and it's this. 351 00:26:16.200 --> 00:26:18.440 That I think you can say that, you know, there's a lot of people who are jumping a queue, and there's a lot of people who are 352 00:26:18.460 --> 00:26:25.760 with few exceptions, virtually every refugee in the world is equally worthy. I mean, everyone who is 353 00:26:25.760 --> 00:26:33.300 genuinely fleeing persecution has equal worth and an equal entitlement to some sort of help. 354 00:26:34.460 --> 00:26:38.480 But we can't help all of the refugees in the world. No matter how much we cared, we could not 355 00:26:38.480 --> 00:26:43.740 possibly help every refugee in the world. So why does it make a difference that some of them 356 00:26:43.740 --> 00:26:48.320 actually get onto our territory? Does that make them any more worthy? Of course it doesn't. 357 00:26:48.460 --> 00:26:52.400 The problem with the notion of queue jumping is that it focuses 358 00:26:52.400 --> 00:26:59.220 on individual worth instead of focusing on our obligations. Now we may have a generalised 359 00:26:59.220 --> 00:27:03.560 sense of obligation to refugees across the world, but we certainly do not have an obligation 360 00:27:03.560 --> 00:27:08.480 to go out and bring them here and think that we can save 15 million people. That's just 361 00:27:08.480 --> 00:27:10.820 not possible. To think so is ludicrous. 362 00:27:11.280 --> 00:27:18.440 On the other hand, if people arrive in Australia and they are actually physically here asking for help, 363 00:27:18.440 --> 00:27:23.800 then I think our obligation to them is different from our obligation to all of the rest who are 364 00:27:23.800 --> 00:27:30.420 not here. It is if you like, perhaps I can capture two points in one here, you know John Howard 365 00:27:30.420 --> 00:27:35.040 famously said we will decide who comes to country in the circumstance in which they come. As a 366 00:27:35.040 --> 00:27:40.560 statement of migration policy absolutely impeccable, as a statement of refugee policy absolutely wrong. 367 00:27:41.120 --> 00:27:47.260 The reason, think about this, migration is a selfish transaction, someone chooses to move to 368 00:27:47.260 --> 00:27:51.660 improve their life, the country chooses to receive them because they need more doctors or teachers or 369 00:27:52.280 --> 00:27:58.180 engineers or whatever the case may be. That's the way migration works. Refugees on the other hand 370 00:27:58.180 --> 00:28:03.160 have a different claim to our help, they are in fear of their lives, they are fleeing persecution, 371 00:28:03.560 --> 00:28:11.200 they're entitled to seek protection anywhere they can reach. Now if I'm sick of receiving visitors 372 00:28:11.200 --> 00:28:16.040 at home I'm entitled to say I will decide who comes to my home and the circumstance in which 373 00:28:16.040 --> 00:28:17.240 they come and I'm not going to take them home. I'm not going to take them home, I'm not going to take 374 00:28:17.240 --> 00:28:22.840 visitors until Thursday week. But if I see a young child running down the street being chased by a 375 00:28:22.840 --> 00:28:27.140 rapist and she runs up to the front door and says I'm being chased by a rapist, please protect me. 376 00:28:28.040 --> 00:28:38.080 Will I really say come back on Thursday week? I mean really? Who would say that? And is it any 377 00:28:38.080 --> 00:28:43.380 answer to say that there are other children elsewhere in our society who are also at risk of 378 00:28:43.380 --> 00:28:47.220 harm? Surely I owe a greater obligation to them to be protected. I owe a greater obligation to them to be protected. 379 00:28:47.240 --> 00:28:51.780 That child who has asked for my help than I owe to all of the other children in the broader community 380 00:28:51.780 --> 00:28:57.640 or across the world who may also need help in an equivalent degree. I don't think there's anything 381 00:28:57.640 --> 00:29:03.840 difficult about that. I think we need to resist any suggestion that the Q jumper tag has any truth 382 00:29:03.840 --> 00:29:11.680 in it at all. The other bit of fact, I know I'm meant to hurry on aren't I, the other fact which 383 00:29:11.680 --> 00:29:17.220 has been two facts which have been seriously distorted in the public eye is that the Q jumper tag has been 384 00:29:17.240 --> 00:29:24.520 a public discussion in this last burst of hysteria about asylum seekers. One is the notion of offshore 385 00:29:24.520 --> 00:29:30.120 processing. It's a lie. They're not talking about offshore processing. Offshore processing carries 386 00:29:30.120 --> 00:29:35.680 with it the suggestion that other countries can deal with the application for asylum, decide whether 387 00:29:35.680 --> 00:29:40.860 they're refugees and then of course they will be resettled but it's that last bit that's absent 388 00:29:40.860 --> 00:29:47.000 and it's the last bit that matters. Refugee flows are about resettling people and the people who are 389 00:29:47.000 --> 00:29:47.220 resettled are the ones who are resettled. They're the ones who are resettled. They're the ones who are resettled. 390 00:29:47.240 --> 00:29:53.760 Resettled are those who are assessed as refugees. Resettlement is the key to dealing with refugees. 391 00:29:54.100 --> 00:30:00.680 As long as they can go somewhere safe, that's the problem solved. Where they get processed 392 00:30:00.680 --> 00:30:07.380 matters not at all as long as there is a guarantee of swift resettlement. But if we send them off to 393 00:30:07.380 --> 00:30:11.980 Malaysia, we don't plan to have them back if they're proved as refugees. If we send them off to 394 00:30:11.980 --> 00:30:17.220 Nauru, we don't plan to have them back if they turn out to be genuine refugees. On the contrary, 395 00:30:17.240 --> 00:30:22.940 we just say, okay, good, your problem, you take them. This is not offshore processing, this is simply 396 00:30:22.940 --> 00:30:28.100 turning people away who've come asking for our help and you really need to understand that. 397 00:30:28.200 --> 00:30:32.700 Second thing is, smash the people smugglers business model. It sounds so respectable 398 00:30:32.700 --> 00:30:37.500 because we've been told that people smugglers are vile and smashing a vile person's business 399 00:30:37.500 --> 00:30:43.340 model is probably a sensible idea. Two things to say about that. First, not all people smugglers 400 00:30:43.340 --> 00:30:47.220 are necessarily vile. Think about Oskar Schindler. He was a people smuggler. He was a people smuggler. 401 00:30:47.220 --> 00:30:54.120