WEBVTT 1 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.320 So ladies and gentlemen, let's get the panel on stage and we'll get stuck in a bit. 2 00:00:03.880 --> 00:00:05.620 Come on down, Richard Butler. 3 00:00:13.040 --> 00:00:14.000 Margot Simons. 4 00:00:17.240 --> 00:00:18.440 Margaret Simons, sorry. 5 00:00:18.920 --> 00:00:21.680 I mixed her up with Margot Kingston. 6 00:00:26.780 --> 00:00:28.120 And Robert Mann. 7 00:00:35.740 --> 00:00:40.720 You see, Richard Butler and Robert Mann have been very slothful and lazy 8 00:00:40.720 --> 00:00:43.880 and so we're going to make them pay for it this afternoon. 9 00:00:44.780 --> 00:00:47.120 Now, let's get it on the road. Are we rolling? 10 00:00:47.700 --> 00:00:51.780 Because all this is... We are good because this is all being recorded to go out in the ether. 11 00:00:53.680 --> 00:00:56.220 At the very first meeting of the Commission for the Future, 12 00:00:56.260 --> 00:00:58.880 which was brought into being by Barry Owen Jones 13 00:00:58.880 --> 00:00:59.720 during the... 14 00:00:59.720 --> 00:01:01.360 the Hawke years, 15 00:01:02.100 --> 00:01:04.940 I was nervously chairing 16 00:01:06.040 --> 00:01:08.660 and was confronted by a British scientist, 17 00:01:09.020 --> 00:01:13.420 a fascinating bloke, who'd spent his life working on weapons, weapon systems, 18 00:01:13.580 --> 00:01:16.260 and he'd become overwhelmed by guilt. 19 00:01:17.480 --> 00:01:21.000 So what he decided to do was spend the rest of his life working on low-tech, 20 00:01:21.180 --> 00:01:22.560 but nonetheless technical, 21 00:01:22.860 --> 00:01:26.000 responses to various problems of disability. 22 00:01:26.620 --> 00:01:29.700 But what I remember is what he said to us at that first meeting. 23 00:01:29.720 --> 00:01:33.480 And it's become my second most favourite aphorism, 24 00:01:33.600 --> 00:01:35.080 and I think it has relevance. 25 00:01:35.280 --> 00:01:35.600 He said, 26 00:01:36.720 --> 00:01:38.180 data isn't information, 27 00:01:39.080 --> 00:01:40.460 information isn't knowledge, 28 00:01:40.720 --> 00:01:42.540 and knowledge isn't wisdom. 29 00:01:43.140 --> 00:01:47.180 Now, of course, we live at a time when we are deluged in data. 30 00:01:48.140 --> 00:01:52.320 Not a lot of it is processed into anything that can pass for information. 31 00:01:52.640 --> 00:01:55.660 And very little information becomes real knowledge, 32 00:01:55.700 --> 00:01:59.700 and hardly any knowledge is then transmuted into words. 33 00:01:59.700 --> 00:02:01.320 And by the time he got into wisdom, 34 00:02:02.700 --> 00:02:07.300 everyone on stage deals with data, information and knowledge. 35 00:02:07.560 --> 00:02:11.600 And I think they've made a disproportionate contribution to wisdom. 36 00:02:12.180 --> 00:02:17.500 They're going to treat this issue from very idiosyncratic angles. 37 00:02:17.900 --> 00:02:23.560 I know that Margot has got a pent-up rage she wishes to let out today. 38 00:02:23.780 --> 00:02:25.320 And rightly so. 39 00:02:25.380 --> 00:02:27.440 When Margot gets to the microphone, 40 00:02:27.720 --> 00:02:29.680 I'm sure you'll find what she has to say. 41 00:02:29.700 --> 00:02:33.760 fascinating and also somewhat terrifying. 42 00:02:34.860 --> 00:02:38.640 Richard and Margaret are both going to talk about secrets. 43 00:02:40.200 --> 00:02:41.940 Very different sorts of secrets. 44 00:02:44.700 --> 00:02:48.300 And Robert, well, I have no idea what Robert will talk about, 45 00:02:48.360 --> 00:02:50.040 but it doesn't matter because he's always extraordinary. 46 00:02:50.620 --> 00:02:54.100 Now, because it's Margot's first time with us, 47 00:02:54.920 --> 00:02:58.080 I'd like Margot Kingston, fasten your seatbelts, 48 00:02:58.120 --> 00:02:59.160 it's going to be a bumpy ride. 49 00:03:00.300 --> 00:03:01.740 Ladies and gentlemen... 50 00:03:03.060 --> 00:03:03.660 APPLAUSE 51 00:03:04.640 --> 00:03:06.480 ..my dear colleague... 52 00:03:07.720 --> 00:03:08.320 APPLAUSE 53 00:03:08.940 --> 00:03:12.520 ..one of my long-term helpmates at Late Night Live, 54 00:03:12.760 --> 00:03:16.340 the incredibly spirited and most passionate of journalists, 55 00:03:16.620 --> 00:03:17.420 Margot Kingston. 56 00:03:18.640 --> 00:03:19.240 APPLAUSE 57 00:03:24.820 --> 00:03:28.400 Hi. We're just going to talk for about five minutes each 58 00:03:28.400 --> 00:03:29.600 so that we can do a rave. 59 00:03:29.700 --> 00:03:30.300 And go to the audience, 60 00:03:30.440 --> 00:03:34.900 because, you know, you guys have got probably lots to tell us as well. 61 00:03:34.980 --> 00:03:37.480 So my rave's going to be about cross-media laws 62 00:03:37.480 --> 00:03:39.860 and I could go on for about half an hour, 63 00:03:39.920 --> 00:03:42.200 so please, Philip, just cut me off. 64 00:03:42.720 --> 00:03:43.920 I'll cut you off now. 65 00:03:44.140 --> 00:03:44.800 That'll probably... 66 00:03:44.800 --> 00:03:45.480 LAUGHTER 67 00:03:46.280 --> 00:03:48.440 Yeah, but a couple of weeks ago, 68 00:03:49.060 --> 00:03:54.200 it looked like Australia's democracy had hit the skids 69 00:03:54.200 --> 00:03:57.120 because the government thought it had got its cross-media laws 70 00:03:57.120 --> 00:03:58.840 through the Senate, through various... 71 00:03:59.700 --> 00:04:02.020 deals with independents in the Senate. 72 00:04:02.100 --> 00:04:03.000 It was really sad, actually, 73 00:04:03.080 --> 00:04:07.040 because the independents basically represent country Australia 74 00:04:07.040 --> 00:04:08.900 and the government was saying, 75 00:04:09.060 --> 00:04:11.440 oh, we'll let you have a bit of news radio 76 00:04:11.440 --> 00:04:14.920 and we'll make sure the TVs give you a bit of local content 77 00:04:14.920 --> 00:04:17.300 and you pick up the scraps 78 00:04:17.300 --> 00:04:20.140 and we'll make the big two completely dominant. 79 00:04:21.340 --> 00:04:23.340 How sad is that? 80 00:04:23.680 --> 00:04:26.900 What that law, when it finally goes through, 81 00:04:26.960 --> 00:04:28.180 and I think it probably will go through 82 00:04:28.180 --> 00:04:29.460 when it comes back in... 83 00:04:29.700 --> 00:04:30.220 in three months, 84 00:04:31.040 --> 00:04:35.760 is that it will be the end of a free and independent press 85 00:04:35.760 --> 00:04:37.380 and media in Australia. 86 00:04:38.200 --> 00:04:43.480 I know not many people think that we do a very good job, 87 00:04:43.740 --> 00:04:47.560 but in theory and in practice, 88 00:04:47.740 --> 00:04:51.520 an independent, vibrant, sceptical media 89 00:04:51.520 --> 00:04:53.600 is called the fourth estate 90 00:04:53.600 --> 00:04:56.760 and it's absolutely essential to democracy. 91 00:04:57.120 --> 00:04:59.140 It's the people's way in 92 00:04:59.140 --> 00:04:59.520 to... 93 00:04:59.520 --> 00:05:01.160 to transparency and accountability 94 00:05:01.160 --> 00:05:03.400 for those who rule us. 95 00:05:04.460 --> 00:05:05.600 It used to be politicians, 96 00:05:05.740 --> 00:05:07.840 but now big business rules us 97 00:05:07.840 --> 00:05:11.080 and politicians answer to big business. 98 00:05:11.880 --> 00:05:13.160 And the most powerful 99 00:05:13.160 --> 00:05:16.640 and compellingly powerful 100 00:05:19.040 --> 00:05:21.280 business people in Australia 101 00:05:21.280 --> 00:05:22.440 are the big two, 102 00:05:22.600 --> 00:05:25.180 Kerry Packer and Rupert Murdoch. 103 00:05:25.500 --> 00:05:28.800 We have a dangerously concentrated media 104 00:05:29.520 --> 00:05:29.920 in Australia. 105 00:05:30.140 --> 00:05:32.220 When you read about cross-media reform 106 00:05:32.760 --> 00:05:33.920 in Britain and America, 107 00:05:34.420 --> 00:05:35.420 Richard Alston will say, 108 00:05:35.500 --> 00:05:36.560 oh, well, they're all doing it. 109 00:05:36.660 --> 00:05:37.960 You know, we should do it too. 110 00:05:38.300 --> 00:05:40.000 That is really wrong. 111 00:05:40.440 --> 00:05:42.800 There is widely dispersed ownership 112 00:05:43.420 --> 00:05:45.500 of print media in Britain 113 00:05:46.240 --> 00:05:48.120 and in the United States. 114 00:05:48.820 --> 00:05:49.900 Widely dispersed. 115 00:05:50.480 --> 00:05:54.420 And in the end, print media is the core media 116 00:05:54.420 --> 00:05:56.500 when it comes to accountability and transparency. 117 00:05:57.220 --> 00:05:59.500 Because you'll find, you'll know yourself from listening to me, 118 00:05:59.500 --> 00:06:01.540 to radio and watching the news. 119 00:06:01.800 --> 00:06:04.020 It's the stories broken by the papers 120 00:06:04.020 --> 00:06:05.860 and the angles taken by the papers 121 00:06:05.860 --> 00:06:08.240 that are then fed on and opinionated about 122 00:06:08.240 --> 00:06:10.760 all day and into the night. 123 00:06:10.880 --> 00:06:12.040 And in Australia, 124 00:06:12.040 --> 00:06:13.560 I don't need to tell you guys in Adelaide. 125 00:06:17.300 --> 00:06:19.660 Basically, Rupert Murdoch owns everything. 126 00:06:20.540 --> 00:06:21.100 Everything. 127 00:06:22.340 --> 00:06:24.620 The only thing he doesn't own 128 00:06:24.620 --> 00:06:27.540 is this funny little group I work for 129 00:06:27.540 --> 00:06:28.740 called Fairfax. 130 00:06:29.500 --> 00:06:30.400 So maybe there's... 131 00:06:30.400 --> 00:06:31.020 Sorry? 132 00:06:31.140 --> 00:06:32.420 He doesn't own the ABC either. 133 00:06:32.600 --> 00:06:32.940 Yet. 134 00:06:33.840 --> 00:06:34.280 Well... 135 00:06:35.040 --> 00:06:36.480 What about the new legislation? 136 00:06:37.140 --> 00:06:41.100 The ABC doesn't have newspapers. 137 00:06:41.300 --> 00:06:44.080 Yes, you're right, the ABC has that independent thing. 138 00:06:44.180 --> 00:06:45.780 And that's what Alston said back in 97 139 00:06:45.780 --> 00:06:48.880 when he wanted to throw Fairfax to Packer. 140 00:06:48.920 --> 00:06:51.140 He said, don't worry, don't worry. 141 00:06:51.320 --> 00:06:52.920 The ABC will keep them honest. 142 00:06:53.560 --> 00:06:55.240 And then at that very time, 143 00:06:55.280 --> 00:06:56.620 there was a leaked cabinet submission 144 00:06:57.660 --> 00:06:59.020 that Alston put to cabinet, 145 00:06:59.020 --> 00:07:01.340 which said, we've got to find ways 146 00:07:01.340 --> 00:07:02.360 to close down the ABC. 147 00:07:02.600 --> 00:07:04.460 Here's what we do to stop them. 148 00:07:04.560 --> 00:07:05.520 And you've seen ever since, 149 00:07:05.740 --> 00:07:06.720 ever since 96, 150 00:07:07.660 --> 00:07:10.860 a relentless, vicious attack on the ABC. 151 00:07:11.380 --> 00:07:12.860 To the extent where, 152 00:07:12.980 --> 00:07:14.440 I don't know if you guys agree with me, 153 00:07:14.500 --> 00:07:17.280 but the ABC has closed up shop. 154 00:07:17.600 --> 00:07:19.920 The ABC is beyond straight. 155 00:07:20.000 --> 00:07:21.240 It is now fearful. 156 00:07:22.340 --> 00:07:24.360 The irony of Richard Alston 157 00:07:24.360 --> 00:07:25.520 running the same old, 158 00:07:25.580 --> 00:07:26.800 oh God, they're so left, 159 00:07:26.920 --> 00:07:28.860 they're anti the Yanks in Iraq. 160 00:07:29.020 --> 00:07:31.320 And he did his, what is it, 120 examples. 161 00:07:31.520 --> 00:07:32.600 And I mean, you look at it and go, 162 00:07:32.740 --> 00:07:35.020 um, what? 163 00:07:35.720 --> 00:07:38.020 You know, the lack of bias, 164 00:07:38.120 --> 00:07:40.920 the lack of independent commentary 165 00:07:42.100 --> 00:07:44.220 is the extraordinary thing. 166 00:07:44.300 --> 00:07:46.960 We now have a situation where the right wing think tanks 167 00:07:47.480 --> 00:07:49.640 are funding these right wing journos 168 00:07:49.640 --> 00:07:51.900 to have ABC watch and uncle watch 169 00:07:51.900 --> 00:07:52.980 and all the rest of it, 170 00:07:53.020 --> 00:07:58.100 and are just bombarding the ABC with constant complaints. 171 00:07:59.020 --> 00:08:00.860 Um, the argument I run, uh, 172 00:08:01.560 --> 00:08:04.340 is basically this with Fairfax. 173 00:08:04.880 --> 00:08:07.200 We're so dangerously concentrated now, 174 00:08:07.920 --> 00:08:12.240 and the two men who dominate our media are so powerful, 175 00:08:13.120 --> 00:08:16.580 um, that it almost is an oligopoly now. 176 00:08:16.860 --> 00:08:20.040 Back in 97, when Howard wanted to give, um, 177 00:08:20.080 --> 00:08:22.200 Packer to, uh, Fairfax to Packer, 178 00:08:22.280 --> 00:08:24.760 he didn't want to help Rupert Murdoch, 179 00:08:24.840 --> 00:08:28.820 so he didn't change the cross, the, uh, foreign limits. 180 00:08:28.860 --> 00:08:29.000 So he didn't change the cross, the, uh, foreign limits. 181 00:08:29.000 --> 00:08:31.780 And, uh, Murdoch ran a huge campaign in the papers, 182 00:08:31.860 --> 00:08:32.980 and they, and they gave up. 183 00:08:33.140 --> 00:08:37.860 But back then, Murdoch and Packer were in competition with each other. 184 00:08:38.600 --> 00:08:40.220 You roll forward to 2003, 185 00:08:40.460 --> 00:08:44.080 these guys and their sons are in partnership together. 186 00:08:44.380 --> 00:08:46.240 They jointly own Foxtel. 187 00:08:46.400 --> 00:08:49.340 They're in partnership in, in the, uh, rugby league. 188 00:08:49.600 --> 00:08:51.620 The two sons are best mates. 189 00:08:51.820 --> 00:08:56.540 There's a, uh, famous example, um, Sydney example, 190 00:08:56.620 --> 00:08:58.900 where, when, uh, Jamie was getting married 191 00:08:58.900 --> 00:08:58.980 to a young man, 192 00:08:58.980 --> 00:08:59.520 he got married to Jodie, 193 00:08:59.660 --> 00:09:03.080 a guy called Adam Harvey at the telly, great reporter, 194 00:09:03.280 --> 00:09:05.640 got this great story about Jodie's sister 195 00:09:05.640 --> 00:09:07.680 being married in this poor little ceremony 196 00:09:07.680 --> 00:09:09.980 in this poor little town on the same day. 197 00:09:09.980 --> 00:09:13.320 And, um, Lachlan rang up and killed that story, 198 00:09:13.400 --> 00:09:16.580 because he said he didn't want, um, Jamie to be upset with him. 199 00:09:16.640 --> 00:09:21.980 Now, what we've got here is a situation where a virtual oligopoly, 200 00:09:21.980 --> 00:09:26.260 these guys have shaken hands to, to, to, um, agree 201 00:09:27.080 --> 00:09:29.220 that neither will report 202 00:09:29.220 --> 00:09:32.200 anything about the other that's disadvantageous 203 00:09:32.200 --> 00:09:34.720 to their personal or commercial or political interests. 204 00:09:35.320 --> 00:09:35.940 Um. 205 00:09:36.080 --> 00:09:39.260 The only group which keeps them honest, 206 00:09:39.320 --> 00:09:41.680 which, um, holds them accountable, 207 00:09:41.880 --> 00:09:44.200 um, which investigates them, 208 00:09:44.320 --> 00:09:46.020 is Fairfax. 209 00:09:46.520 --> 00:09:47.520 And the ABC. 210 00:09:47.900 --> 00:09:49.640 You take away Fairfax. 211 00:09:49.780 --> 00:09:51.320 And you have a tax. 212 00:09:51.380 --> 00:09:51.960 Relentlessly. 213 00:09:51.960 --> 00:09:59.920 attacks on the ABC from Rupert Murdoch, Kerry Packer and the government and you tell me 214 00:09:59.920 --> 00:10:03.280 how strong the ABC is going to be. 215 00:10:07.800 --> 00:10:16.300 Back in 1997, the ABC TV had a sort of like a Monday conference thing and it was about 216 00:10:16.300 --> 00:10:23.000 the Packer plan, the government's plan to let Packer take over Fairfax and not one Murdoch 217 00:10:23.000 --> 00:10:25.240 or Packer journalist turned up. 218 00:10:25.380 --> 00:10:29.800 All the Fairfax ones did and we argued between ourselves and made various fools of ourselves. 219 00:10:30.080 --> 00:10:32.300 This is the difference with Fairfax. 220 00:10:32.380 --> 00:10:37.540 Somehow the journos have managed to keep a culture where we're allowed to speak freely. 221 00:10:37.760 --> 00:10:40.180 Now I'm speaking to you today in my personal capacity. 222 00:10:40.340 --> 00:10:44.960 The fact is that the Fairfax board wants the cross media rules to go through because they 223 00:10:44.960 --> 00:10:46.280 want to get a high price when we're talking. 224 00:10:46.300 --> 00:10:46.820 We're taking over. 225 00:10:47.580 --> 00:10:51.240 But I am permitted to say these things. 226 00:10:52.160 --> 00:10:54.420 My free speech is permitted. 227 00:10:55.400 --> 00:11:02.680 With the current cross media things deal that Howard's trying to put through, neither Murdoch 228 00:11:02.680 --> 00:11:06.540 or Packer have said a damn thing about what their plans are. 229 00:11:06.760 --> 00:11:08.760 We have no idea. 230 00:11:08.920 --> 00:11:12.460 For all we know, Packer's going to sell nine to Murdoch. 231 00:11:12.580 --> 00:11:15.080 Imagine Murdoch owning all those papers. 232 00:11:15.140 --> 00:11:16.180 And the most powerful. 233 00:11:16.300 --> 00:11:18.780 They'll control the news cycle. 234 00:11:18.960 --> 00:11:23.260 Imagine Packer or Murdoch owning the only national business daily. 235 00:11:23.600 --> 00:11:28.480 There will be nothing reported about their vast and varied commercial interests and they 236 00:11:28.480 --> 00:11:35.340 can use their media to attack companies that are questioning them. 237 00:11:37.000 --> 00:11:38.920 They will run the news cycle. 238 00:11:39.740 --> 00:11:41.540 They will owe John Howard everything. 239 00:11:41.980 --> 00:11:46.220 And we will have the neoliberal global agenda pushed down. 240 00:12:01.260 --> 00:12:14.040 If they lie they lie they lie they lie they lie they lie they lie they lie they lie they lie they lie they lie they lie they lie they lie they lie they lie they lie they lie they lie they lie they lie they lie they lie they lie they lie they lie they lie they lie they lie they lie they lie they lie they lie they lie they lie they lie they lie they lie they lie they lie they lie they lie they lie they lie they lie they lie they lie they lie they lie they lie they lie they lie they lie they lie they lie they lie they lie they lie they lie they lie they lie they lie they lie they lie they lie they lie they lie they lie they lie they lie they lie they lie they lie they lie they lie they lie they lie they lie they lie they lie they lie they lie they lie they lie they lie they lie they lie they lie they lie they lie they lie they lie they lie they lie they lie they lie they lie they lie they lie they lie they lie they lie they lie they lie they lie they lie they lie they lie they lie 241 00:12:14.040 --> 00:12:18.220 the great mass of people don't go on the net and they are very 242 00:12:18.220 --> 00:12:21.240 heavily influenced by newspapers. 243 00:12:21.860 --> 00:12:25.900 I'd just like to say one more thing before I stop. A few of us 244 00:12:25.900 --> 00:12:30.140 Fairfax journos are trying to get up a campaign to inform the public about 245 00:12:30.140 --> 00:12:33.840 this before it comes up before the Senate in three months. The big problem we've got 246 00:12:33.840 --> 00:12:36.460 is that people don't care because they think journalists suck. 247 00:12:39.320 --> 00:12:42.160 And I'd just like to say that that's fair 248 00:12:42.160 --> 00:12:46.200 enough but really, pack a mood up Fairfax 249 00:12:46.200 --> 00:12:49.980 journalists. I'd really like you to believe that we're on your side. 250 00:12:50.200 --> 00:12:54.100 We've got a lot of constraints. We've got kids to feed as well. But we're 251 00:12:54.100 --> 00:12:57.880 all you've got going for you. We're the best public interest advocates 252 00:12:57.880 --> 00:13:02.020 you've got and we might be limited but we're 253 00:13:02.020 --> 00:13:06.160 people like you. So I'm hoping that 254 00:13:06.160 --> 00:13:09.780 some of you guys will help us with our 255 00:13:09.780 --> 00:13:11.240 campaign because you've got to remember 256 00:13:12.160 --> 00:13:15.760 all the media groups want this cross media reform to go through. 257 00:13:16.040 --> 00:13:19.300 All they care about is the hip pocket. They don't give a fuck about the public interest. 258 00:13:20.300 --> 00:13:24.060 They don't give a damn. The reason the Australian people don't know 259 00:13:24.060 --> 00:13:28.040 about this is because it's on the business pages. These companies will 260 00:13:28.040 --> 00:13:32.060 be worth more if it goes through. No one is telling you about the damage this will 261 00:13:32.060 --> 00:13:36.200 do to your democracy and the damage it will do to your right to know. 262 00:13:36.340 --> 00:13:36.660 Thanks. 263 00:13:54.240 --> 00:13:55.620 Australia's Michael Moore. 264 00:13:59.560 --> 00:14:02.460 When Kerry Packer bounced back from death 265 00:14:02.460 --> 00:14:05.720 he rang me and he said 266 00:14:07.060 --> 00:14:10.100 there's no angel standing at gates 267 00:14:10.100 --> 00:14:12.140 son. No shining light. 268 00:14:13.020 --> 00:14:18.040 You're just bloody dead. But then he had some good news in which he added 269 00:14:18.040 --> 00:14:22.100 he said there's no one over there to judge you so you can do what you're 270 00:14:22.100 --> 00:14:26.460 bloody well like. True. Cross my heart he said that. 271 00:14:26.660 --> 00:14:29.700 I said well that hardly makes any difference to you Kerry does it? 272 00:14:31.720 --> 00:14:34.260 But more significantly he once 273 00:14:34.260 --> 00:14:37.860 said to me governments are there to do things for you 274 00:14:37.860 --> 00:14:41.520 not to you. It's an interesting definition. 275 00:14:42.140 --> 00:14:46.000 Isn't it? Of democracy. So there you go. 276 00:14:46.100 --> 00:14:50.160 A great secret is going to descend on Australia or a great list of topics 277 00:14:50.160 --> 00:14:53.820 we won't be able to discuss if Margot's hypothesis is correct. 278 00:14:54.180 --> 00:14:57.580 So let's continue with this theme of secrecy. 279 00:14:57.980 --> 00:15:01.980 The next bloke up here Richard is of course 280 00:15:01.980 --> 00:15:06.000 from the world of secrets. Official secrets. No one 281 00:15:06.000 --> 00:15:09.280 knows that world better than our next guest. 282 00:15:09.280 --> 00:15:13.240 He actually had a stamp with top secret on it. He took my second 283 00:15:13.240 --> 00:15:15.680 line. Which he used to wield with great authority. 284 00:15:16.480 --> 00:15:18.760 Now he's a whistle blower which is much better. 285 00:15:27.800 --> 00:15:29.020 Great work Philip. 286 00:15:29.160 --> 00:15:32.960 Great work. You just took my first two lines and I told them to you before. 287 00:15:33.120 --> 00:15:37.200 That's why I nicked them. Something's happened since we were in this room 288 00:15:37.200 --> 00:15:40.580 this morning. You can now put a third box on your leave form that says 289 00:15:40.580 --> 00:15:42.420 it actually rained in Adelaide. 290 00:15:44.840 --> 00:15:49.020 Philip's right. I lived in a world of secrets for almost 291 00:15:49.020 --> 00:15:53.240 30 years. You think about this. Maybe some others of you in this room 292 00:15:53.240 --> 00:15:56.460 can do the same thing. But it is 293 00:15:57.200 --> 00:16:01.080 awesome to be able to dictate a memo, write a 294 00:16:01.080 --> 00:16:05.320 note, a telegram to Canberra and get a stamp and put on it 295 00:16:05.320 --> 00:16:08.940 secret. What power. 296 00:16:10.860 --> 00:16:11.500 Amazing. 297 00:16:12.940 --> 00:16:16.960 And indeed I went through a period where I was accused when 298 00:16:16.960 --> 00:16:21.280 I was working in Baghdad of working for the CIA. 299 00:16:23.960 --> 00:16:25.240 And you've 300 00:16:25.240 --> 00:16:29.320 probably all got various opinions about the CIA but I tell you they're no good as an organisation. 301 00:16:30.440 --> 00:16:32.520 Because the cheques never arrive. 302 00:16:32.520 --> 00:16:34.580 But apart from that, 303 00:16:37.560 --> 00:16:39.800 if I was working for the CIA, 304 00:16:40.780 --> 00:16:43.560 the United States of America is in deep doo-doo. 305 00:16:43.920 --> 00:16:48.500 Because 10 years earlier when I was made Australia's first ambassador 306 00:16:48.500 --> 00:16:52.600 to the Zaman, I know they opened a file on me which was code named Red Richard. 307 00:16:55.920 --> 00:16:59.600 And for them to think that they could co-opt me later 308 00:17:00.140 --> 00:17:01.240 was a belly laugh. 309 00:17:02.520 --> 00:17:06.040 But for the moment, we've been talking yesterday and today about 310 00:17:06.040 --> 00:17:10.280 among other things, the disjunction between the 311 00:17:10.280 --> 00:17:14.380 knowledge that Australians have of how they've been lied to in 312 00:17:14.380 --> 00:17:18.260 public by the Prime Minister and others 313 00:17:18.260 --> 00:17:22.340 in recent times and what they feel they're able to do about it. 314 00:17:22.380 --> 00:17:26.400 A very serious disjunction in my view and other speakers have 315 00:17:26.400 --> 00:17:30.520 expressed the same view. And last night I was asked what can be 316 00:17:30.520 --> 00:17:33.940 done about it and I gave an answer that is the only one I could give. 317 00:17:34.060 --> 00:17:38.480 It sounds lame and long term but I'll refresh your memory. It was to work 318 00:17:38.480 --> 00:17:42.260 the levers of society and also quite specifically to say to people 319 00:17:42.260 --> 00:17:46.500 who seek your vote that you will not vote for them unless they can 320 00:17:46.500 --> 00:17:50.420 give you guarantees about truth in the public 321 00:17:50.420 --> 00:17:54.240 discourse and in public life. That's what you do 322 00:17:54.240 --> 00:17:58.460 proactively. But now today, in talking about 323 00:17:58.460 --> 00:18:02.100 this subject, we're talking about the thing that you must do 324 00:18:03.220 --> 00:18:06.340 defensively. You have to defend yourself 325 00:18:07.140 --> 00:18:10.580 against those who abuse the truth in the media 326 00:18:10.580 --> 00:18:14.400 in public life, who put secret stamps on things 327 00:18:14.400 --> 00:18:17.520 that are not secret. Of course I never did. 328 00:18:18.480 --> 00:18:22.480 Who try to keep you away from the things that you 329 00:18:22.480 --> 00:18:26.360 need to know. In that context you must never forget 330 00:18:26.360 --> 00:18:29.960 the seriousness of what is at stake here. It is an old saying 331 00:18:29.960 --> 00:18:33.780 but it is so deeply true that information 332 00:18:34.300 --> 00:18:37.980 is power. What Philip said at the beginning is also true. 333 00:18:38.200 --> 00:18:41.900 And I'll come back to that in a moment. Data isn't information. Information isn't necessarily 334 00:18:41.900 --> 00:18:45.980 what's the third thing? Knowledge. But it sure as hell is 335 00:18:45.980 --> 00:18:49.760 power in our society. And those who are in 336 00:18:49.760 --> 00:18:54.320 the business of making money know it. And those who are in the 337 00:18:54.320 --> 00:18:58.260 business of staying in political power know it because both 338 00:18:58.260 --> 00:19:02.300 of them in their own ways have put control over information 339 00:19:02.300 --> 00:19:06.140 at the centre of their activities. You know that I 340 00:19:06.140 --> 00:19:09.900 believe, you can tell me Philip, Robert, I don't know, you may know better, but I 341 00:19:09.900 --> 00:19:14.140 understand that the Prime Minister has today in his office in Canberra a 342 00:19:14.140 --> 00:19:17.160 special unit that monitors for him constantly 343 00:19:18.080 --> 00:19:20.300 the depredations of Alan Jones. 344 00:19:23.540 --> 00:19:47.880 Tony Blair certainly has an elaborate media unit at number 10 that we've seen in great conflict with the BBC recently. And no one has to go on at any length and tell any of you about how important handling the news, reading the polls, spinning the facts has been to the Presidency of the United States. 345 00:19:49.000 --> 00:19:50.280 If you have any doubt about that, please do not ask. 346 00:19:50.300 --> 00:20:06.040 If you have any doubt about how important information is in this country in the view of the present Federal Government in its wish to stay in power forever and to extend its reach into all levels of our society, then have a look at the activities of Minister Joseph Alston. 347 00:20:07.160 --> 00:20:09.820 That was a joke. That was Dr Goble's first name. 348 00:20:12.120 --> 00:20:12.680 Absolutely. 349 00:20:14.420 --> 00:20:16.620 The Federal Minister for Agitprop. 350 00:20:17.280 --> 00:20:17.840 I don't know. 351 00:20:20.300 --> 00:20:21.080 I agree with Margot. 352 00:20:22.740 --> 00:20:32.120 His activities towards the ABC a few weeks ago, and I'm not exaggerating, I'm telling you seriously, they shocked me to the roots of my existence. 353 00:20:32.320 --> 00:20:33.680 I thought I'd seen everything. 354 00:20:34.460 --> 00:20:40.820 In Cambodia where I dealt with the Khmer Rouge, in Baghdad where I dealt with the boys from Baghdad, Saddam and co. 355 00:20:41.840 --> 00:20:45.440 And boy, watching the news in Baghdad is hilarious. 356 00:20:46.320 --> 00:20:49.880 But you know, watching the ABC last week was the same. 357 00:20:50.300 --> 00:20:50.900 I am not joking. 358 00:20:51.340 --> 00:21:02.720 I saw ABC 7 o'clock news a few nights ago which had four and a half items on it in eight minutes to do with the activities of guess who, President Howard. 359 00:21:03.540 --> 00:21:04.880 And so it goes. 360 00:21:05.260 --> 00:21:08.120 But come back to Minister Alston. 361 00:21:08.400 --> 00:21:13.340 Minister Alston a couple of weeks ago threatened the ABC with defunding. 362 00:21:15.000 --> 00:21:19.480 He would take back the money that had been voted to them in the budget. 363 00:21:20.080 --> 00:21:20.560 Why? 364 00:21:22.500 --> 00:21:24.560 Were they committing fraud? 365 00:21:25.520 --> 00:21:29.460 Were they copying parliamentarians and topping up their travel allowances? 366 00:21:30.340 --> 00:21:31.700 Were they doing any such thing? 367 00:21:31.780 --> 00:21:31.900 No. 368 00:21:32.760 --> 00:21:39.300 This man sat there and said on the Insiders Program, which is pretty hilarious, and of course he would say, you see, I like the ABC. 369 00:21:39.520 --> 00:21:40.820 I did it on the Insiders Program. 370 00:21:41.140 --> 00:21:44.940 But he sat there and he said words like this. 371 00:21:45.220 --> 00:21:49.460 He said, this is after he'd written a letter to Linda Mottram listing six of the ABCs. 372 00:21:49.460 --> 00:21:52.620 Sixty-eight occasions on which she'd said things that he didn't agree with. 373 00:21:54.440 --> 00:21:55.800 And on the AM Program. 374 00:21:56.120 --> 00:22:09.300 He said, he threatened to defund them and he said, these are simple words, a bit like the words I used last night where Howard said, we will have, we reserve the right to determine who will live in this country. 375 00:22:09.360 --> 00:22:12.240 Simple words but which are deeply disturbing words. 376 00:22:13.020 --> 00:22:14.660 And Alston did the same. 377 00:22:14.780 --> 00:22:18.120 He said, we will not tolerate this. 378 00:22:18.980 --> 00:22:21.240 Now I beg of you to think about that. 379 00:22:21.640 --> 00:22:22.540 Think about it. 380 00:22:22.560 --> 00:22:23.020 Pause it. 381 00:22:23.060 --> 00:22:23.600 Analyse it. 382 00:22:24.120 --> 00:22:24.920 Who's the we? 383 00:22:26.820 --> 00:22:27.680 Who's the we? 384 00:22:28.920 --> 00:22:29.400 Him? 385 00:22:29.660 --> 00:22:30.140 Alston? 386 00:22:30.780 --> 00:22:31.580 The cabinet? 387 00:22:31.800 --> 00:22:32.580 The government? 388 00:22:32.760 --> 00:22:33.340 The parliament? 389 00:22:33.740 --> 00:22:34.540 The people? 390 00:22:34.660 --> 00:22:36.300 Does he purport to speak for the people? 391 00:22:36.540 --> 00:22:37.020 No. 392 00:22:37.200 --> 00:22:45.640 He was talking about this group of people at the top of the Liberal Party who think that they have a right to determine free speech in this country. 393 00:22:46.760 --> 00:22:48.000 That's what he was saying. 394 00:22:49.240 --> 00:22:51.280 And what was not tolerated. 395 00:22:51.300 --> 00:22:53.060 It means we'll take their money away. 396 00:22:53.300 --> 00:23:03.880 I remind you, he's talking about a statutory corporation, the public broadcaster, set up by an act of the Australian Parliament with a charter to have editorial and substantive independence. 397 00:23:06.520 --> 00:23:11.440 And I said elsewhere in Sydney and it doesn't matter where I said it. 398 00:23:11.500 --> 00:23:14.100 I've said it before and I'll say it again to you now and I mean it. 399 00:23:14.660 --> 00:23:17.580 I was struck in watching that. 400 00:23:17.580 --> 00:23:23.200 At how similar it was to what I had heard when I was in the Soviet Union 15 years ago. 401 00:23:23.380 --> 00:23:33.060 He reminded me of the Soviet information minister because when they would say we won't tolerate this, they meant the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. 402 00:23:33.160 --> 00:23:37.480 Not the Soviet people, not the Soviet Parliament, but the power group that ran that country. 403 00:23:37.780 --> 00:23:41.620 And Alston is speaking in exactly the same way. 404 00:23:43.080 --> 00:23:44.900 And I don't think we should accept it. 405 00:23:45.760 --> 00:23:47.480 I think it's not in our interest. 406 00:23:47.480 --> 00:23:48.120 I think it's not in our interest to do so. 407 00:23:48.200 --> 00:23:52.100 And it's why, among other reasons, that we must defend ourselves. 408 00:23:54.680 --> 00:24:01.820 Just remember, when information is power, that you've got to ask yourself a couple of crucial questions at every turn. 409 00:24:02.020 --> 00:24:06.700 These are tips from a former diplomat accused spy, right? 410 00:24:06.840 --> 00:24:07.500 Here we go. 411 00:24:08.700 --> 00:24:10.440 Watch the transactional flow. 412 00:24:11.180 --> 00:24:17.460 Whenever someone gives you a report of something, watch very carefully who started it. 413 00:24:17.460 --> 00:24:18.740 Who asked the first question? 414 00:24:18.840 --> 00:24:21.080 Who initiated the action that is under report? 415 00:24:21.340 --> 00:24:24.240 Because very often people reverse that transactional flow. 416 00:24:24.840 --> 00:24:28.340 Very often people will say, X called me on the telephone to say this. 417 00:24:28.420 --> 00:24:29.560 And actually it was the other way around. 418 00:24:29.680 --> 00:24:30.620 Y called X. 419 00:24:31.160 --> 00:24:33.140 Be careful of the transactional flow. 420 00:24:33.860 --> 00:24:39.080 When people ask a question, always know why it is they're asking that question. 421 00:24:39.220 --> 00:24:43.640 What is it that they want to know before it's given an answer? 422 00:24:44.760 --> 00:24:47.440 You always need to know exactly who was the person who asked the question. 423 00:24:47.440 --> 00:24:48.460 Who said what? 424 00:24:48.900 --> 00:24:50.160 Not a version of it. 425 00:24:50.160 --> 00:24:51.820 I believe he or she said so and so. 426 00:24:51.860 --> 00:24:53.320 You need to know exactly what happened. 427 00:24:53.420 --> 00:24:54.940 And finally, you need to listen. 428 00:24:55.140 --> 00:25:00.980 You need to listen hard around the principle that's established over and over again in human life. 429 00:25:01.520 --> 00:25:10.360 That people, especially those with bad motivation, whether they like it or not, as they go through their antics, will actually reveal to you what their real motivation is. 430 00:25:11.040 --> 00:25:12.320 So listen carefully. 431 00:25:13.760 --> 00:25:17.420 When the media comes along with a particular report of who did it, 432 00:25:17.420 --> 00:25:22.560 who did what, with which, to whom, who started it, who said what, and so on, listen carefully. 433 00:25:22.700 --> 00:25:40.800 And above all, finally, above all, when assessing a report with your own intelligence, ask yourself at all times, especially if the report seems odd, ask yourself at all times, who will benefit from this? 434 00:25:41.980 --> 00:25:47.320 Because when you have the answer to that, you might be in a better position to know. 435 00:25:47.320 --> 00:25:56.140 Whether a given report is giving you what it is your democratic right to know, that is the facts of any given matter and the causalities. 436 00:25:56.240 --> 00:26:00.200 What caused a given event to happen? 437 00:26:01.340 --> 00:26:02.760 These things are crucial. 438 00:26:03.040 --> 00:26:07.420 Never forget that facts in and of themselves don't mean a lot. 439 00:26:08.640 --> 00:26:11.020 They have to be weighed and evaluated. 440 00:26:11.440 --> 00:26:13.500 And that is the crucial act of democracy. 441 00:26:13.880 --> 00:26:17.300 You have to be able to weigh and evaluate the meaning of the facts. 442 00:26:17.320 --> 00:26:18.260 The meaning of any given event. 443 00:26:18.720 --> 00:26:24.040 But in order to do that, you have to know that event factually and truthfully. 444 00:26:24.240 --> 00:26:29.660 And so you need to know the answer to those questions that I just went through quickly. 445 00:26:29.900 --> 00:26:36.740 And above all, in this age where information is power to an extent we've never seen before, 446 00:26:36.980 --> 00:26:40.040 through the media ownership issues that Margot mentioned, 447 00:26:40.760 --> 00:26:43.580 and through the phenomenon of spin, 448 00:26:43.580 --> 00:26:49.320 that is now so radically deployed for politicians to stay in office. 449 00:26:49.660 --> 00:26:52.060 I beg of you, refuse to give in. 450 00:26:52.440 --> 00:26:58.800 Refuse to give in on your right to know the facts of any given matter, 451 00:26:58.880 --> 00:27:01.720 so that you and you alone can evaluate their meaning. 452 00:27:01.840 --> 00:27:02.240 Thank you. 453 00:27:16.660 --> 00:27:22.980 I have to remind you that nothing that you heard Richard say may be discussed outside this building. 454 00:27:24.140 --> 00:27:25.840 Because it's all top secret. 455 00:27:26.000 --> 00:27:27.000 Is that clear? Right. 456 00:27:27.560 --> 00:27:29.780 Now we deal with secrets of a different sort. 457 00:27:29.860 --> 00:27:36.560 There are sometimes journalist writers are receivers of secrets that they've got to keep. 458 00:27:37.240 --> 00:27:42.980 The secrecy of sources, for example, is one of the great paradoxes of journalism. 459 00:27:43.580 --> 00:27:47.540 But Margaret Simons, as you know, has been writing on Hindmarsh, 460 00:27:47.660 --> 00:27:50.060 which is why Christopher Pearson can't be with us today. 461 00:27:51.760 --> 00:27:56.940 And she brought to that issue the same forensic attention to detail 462 00:27:56.940 --> 00:28:01.980 that we saw in her work on the Fitzgerald Royal Commission and on the Press Gallery. 463 00:28:02.340 --> 00:28:08.600 I understand that Margaret does want to discuss some of the ethical complexities involved in information, 464 00:28:08.900 --> 00:28:12.480 when that information has been given to you on a basis, 465 00:28:12.480 --> 00:28:14.320 a virtually sacred trust. 466 00:28:14.700 --> 00:28:16.480 Ladies and gentlemen, Margaret Simons. 467 00:28:20.380 --> 00:28:26.260 Well, thank you very much. 468 00:28:26.920 --> 00:28:29.740 Philip used the word paradoxical. 469 00:28:29.740 --> 00:28:34.180 And I think that's perhaps the word that sums up what I want to say. 470 00:28:34.760 --> 00:28:39.900 I come to this session from the rather confused and certainly paradoxical position 471 00:28:40.480 --> 00:28:42.460 of a journalist who spent most of her life in the media, 472 00:28:42.480 --> 00:28:44.600 believing secrets were there to be exposed, 473 00:28:45.460 --> 00:28:50.220 and yet has just written a book which is in part about secrets 474 00:28:50.220 --> 00:28:51.920 and how they might be respected. 475 00:28:52.620 --> 00:28:55.720 The book is, of course, about the Hindmarsh Island Bridge Affair 476 00:28:55.720 --> 00:28:58.400 and that phrase that has entered the popular lexicon, 477 00:28:58.580 --> 00:28:59.920 secret women's business. 478 00:29:00.380 --> 00:29:03.440 Of course, it's nearly always used ironically these days. 479 00:29:03.500 --> 00:29:05.880 I've even heard it used in a chocolate biscuit advertisement. 480 00:29:07.360 --> 00:29:11.360 One of the decisions I had to make in writing this book was how much 481 00:29:11.360 --> 00:29:13.520 of the secret women's business, 482 00:29:13.760 --> 00:29:16.560 and I hasten to say that that's a rather inadequate term 483 00:29:16.560 --> 00:29:17.860 for what the women were trying to say, 484 00:29:17.960 --> 00:29:19.900 but it's become the accepted shorthand, 485 00:29:20.020 --> 00:29:25.940 how much of their secrets to reveal in order to make the outlines of a story 486 00:29:25.940 --> 00:29:27.680 which is really about white culture, 487 00:29:27.780 --> 00:29:30.340 in order to make the outlines of that story clear. 488 00:29:30.860 --> 00:29:33.300 Well, I didn't reveal it, or I don't think I did, 489 00:29:33.440 --> 00:29:35.900 but certainly the outline is there. 490 00:29:36.180 --> 00:29:38.740 And making those choices was very difficult. 491 00:29:39.480 --> 00:29:40.900 But, of course, as well, 492 00:29:40.900 --> 00:29:42.960 and this sits more comfortably with me, 493 00:29:43.040 --> 00:29:45.340 there are white men's secrets in the book 494 00:29:45.340 --> 00:29:47.820 and some of those are revealed for the first time. 495 00:29:48.060 --> 00:29:50.460 But then that's the accepted gain, isn't it? 496 00:29:50.480 --> 00:29:51.560 That's what journalists do. 497 00:29:53.060 --> 00:29:56.620 Secrets and respect for them is an odd notion at a festival like this, 498 00:29:56.720 --> 00:30:00.560 where ideas are celebrated and libraries are within reach. 499 00:30:01.440 --> 00:30:06.020 I well remember one of the anthropologists I spoke to in researching my book 500 00:30:06.020 --> 00:30:09.440 talking about the stories that cultures tell about themselves, 501 00:30:09.440 --> 00:30:12.200 the things we like to believe about ourselves. 502 00:30:13.000 --> 00:30:16.140 And she pointed out that one of the ideals of our culture, 503 00:30:16.260 --> 00:30:20.260 one of the persistent narratives that Western European societies tell about themselves, 504 00:30:20.620 --> 00:30:22.740 is that information is open. 505 00:30:23.440 --> 00:30:26.260 She described the film, which many of you will have seen, 506 00:30:26.340 --> 00:30:31.640 Lorenzo's Oil, as being typical of the sorts of things we like to believe about ourselves. 507 00:30:32.460 --> 00:30:38.320 The idea that given enough intelligence and diligence, anyone can find out anything. 508 00:30:38.320 --> 00:30:42.120 And for example, that an ordinary couple with a sick child 509 00:30:42.120 --> 00:30:48.480 might just find a miracle cure because they can access libraries and the knowledge of doctors. 510 00:30:50.240 --> 00:30:52.980 We believe, or we say that we believe, 511 00:30:53.100 --> 00:30:56.040 and there's certainly been plenty of people at this festival saying this, 512 00:30:56.120 --> 00:30:58.120 that information is a good thing. 513 00:30:58.760 --> 00:31:02.500 And we talk about journalists as heroes, Watergate, all that. 514 00:31:02.760 --> 00:31:04.580 And I say these things too. 515 00:31:04.680 --> 00:31:07.660 Just this week, I said to a class of journalism students, 516 00:31:07.660 --> 00:31:11.580 that if they didn't think society was better off with a free flow of information, 517 00:31:11.880 --> 00:31:13.600 then they were in the wrong jobs. 518 00:31:14.720 --> 00:31:19.340 And yet my book is about what happened when this culture of ours met another culture, 519 00:31:19.400 --> 00:31:25.060 in which secrets are absolutely explicitly a valued part of power. 520 00:31:25.380 --> 00:31:28.420 In fact, the very thing from which power arises. 521 00:31:29.260 --> 00:31:31.780 This is the remnants, if you like, of a knowledge economy, 522 00:31:32.100 --> 00:31:36.500 where the things you know are far more important to your power than the things that you own. 523 00:31:36.500 --> 00:31:38.820 And where knowledge is closely guarded. 524 00:31:39.080 --> 00:31:42.780 And the stories this culture tells about itself are quite different. 525 00:31:43.140 --> 00:31:48.480 Stories of elderly people disappointed with their children who die rather than pass on key information. 526 00:31:49.220 --> 00:31:52.480 Stories of the many and difficult things one must do, 527 00:31:52.580 --> 00:31:54.360 and the challenges one must meet, 528 00:31:54.500 --> 00:31:57.740 in order to be considered worthy to be told something. 529 00:31:58.320 --> 00:32:03.020 And indeed, it became apparent to me that the whole notion of a journalistic interview 530 00:32:03.020 --> 00:32:06.080 is, of course, a very culturally determined one. 531 00:32:07.080 --> 00:32:13.640 And that the idea of asking questions of powerful people, elders, is offensive. 532 00:32:13.940 --> 00:32:17.340 One is meant to wait until one is found worthy to be told. 533 00:32:18.140 --> 00:32:22.360 I summed some of this up in the book, and I'd like to read some of that to you. 534 00:32:23.140 --> 00:32:26.000 The world of North Terrace is the world of the Enlightenment 535 00:32:26.000 --> 00:32:28.440 and all the good stories we can tell about our culture. 536 00:32:28.540 --> 00:32:31.040 How we learn, how people can go to libraries, 537 00:32:31.300 --> 00:32:35.220 how journalists can ring up and question knowledgeable people and publish what they say. 538 00:32:35.220 --> 00:32:38.040 How we can demand knowledge and mostly get it. 539 00:32:38.420 --> 00:32:41.780 On North Terrace it is taken as a given, on the surface at least, 540 00:32:42.000 --> 00:32:43.580 that knowledge is best shared, 541 00:32:43.780 --> 00:32:47.440 that theories are there to be questioned, unpicked and interrogated, 542 00:32:47.500 --> 00:32:49.280 and subjected to rational inquiry. 543 00:32:50.440 --> 00:32:52.500 Publication is a measure of importance. 544 00:32:53.740 --> 00:32:54.840 Libraries are good things. 545 00:32:55.100 --> 00:32:58.480 So are books and museums and universities and freedom of speech, 546 00:32:58.580 --> 00:33:01.180 and public dialogue and festivals of ideas. 547 00:33:02.300 --> 00:33:04.080 Not all cultures are like this. 548 00:33:04.080 --> 00:33:09.440 In many Aboriginal cultures, secrecy is the measure of whether or not knowledge is important. 549 00:33:10.300 --> 00:33:12.160 Myths and dreaming stories are layered. 550 00:33:12.400 --> 00:33:14.280 An outer layer is told to children. 551 00:33:14.500 --> 00:33:16.680 As the children grow older, they learn more. 552 00:33:17.680 --> 00:33:20.640 Stories shift and change depending on the speaker and the listener. 553 00:33:20.780 --> 00:33:23.200 There is no written version. Nothing is fixed. 554 00:33:23.600 --> 00:33:29.440 And if something is widely known, then it is a sure sign that it is not central and not important. 555 00:33:30.520 --> 00:33:33.080 The notion that powerful secrets must remain secret, 556 00:33:33.280 --> 00:33:35.840 is particularly galling to journalists. 557 00:33:36.380 --> 00:33:40.940 The culture of the newsroom is naturally disrespectful and suspicious of secrets. 558 00:33:41.380 --> 00:33:44.780 Secrets exist in order to be uncovered and published on the front page. 559 00:33:45.300 --> 00:33:48.800 It is particularly important that powerful people's secrets be revealed. 560 00:33:49.000 --> 00:33:50.060 This is called accountability. 561 00:33:51.140 --> 00:33:54.040 I have believed in these things for most of my life. 562 00:33:54.240 --> 00:33:57.920 I would not have written this book if I did not believe in these things. 563 00:33:58.420 --> 00:34:00.800 But ideology can cloak baser motives. 564 00:34:01.180 --> 00:34:03.000 Perhaps I would not have written this book 565 00:34:03.280 --> 00:34:04.980 if I had not been curious about the secret. 566 00:34:05.300 --> 00:34:08.680 Specifically, the desire to open the famous secret envelopes. 567 00:34:08.980 --> 00:34:11.020 Nothing tempts more than the forbidden. 568 00:34:11.500 --> 00:34:13.620 Sealed envelopes beg to be opened. 569 00:34:14.480 --> 00:34:17.860 Doreen Cotignery, who is an Aboriginal custodian, says, 570 00:34:18.120 --> 00:34:22.560 I never dreamed they would want to know so much about Narendra women's bodies. 571 00:34:23.220 --> 00:34:25.420 I mean, why did they need such detail? 572 00:34:26.020 --> 00:34:28.040 Every woman goes through the same things. 573 00:34:28.120 --> 00:34:29.920 Every married man knows about it. 574 00:34:30.000 --> 00:34:32.160 But they just wanted more and more detail. 575 00:34:32.160 --> 00:34:34.800 More and more until we gave so much away. 576 00:34:36.700 --> 00:34:41.820 In writing this book, I've included information about Narendra beliefs and practices that is already published. 577 00:34:42.100 --> 00:34:45.480 And information that Narendra women have given me permission to publish. 578 00:34:46.040 --> 00:34:48.860 From a journalist's point of view, this is very reasonable practice. 579 00:34:49.540 --> 00:34:54.500 What I have done is, in the culture of the newsroom, so appropriate that it seems like common sense. 580 00:34:55.000 --> 00:34:58.620 I have not betrayed secrets as white Australians understand the word. 581 00:34:59.440 --> 00:35:02.140 Yet I know that some of the material in this book gets lost. 582 00:35:02.140 --> 00:35:04.160 But it is still regarded as sensitive by the Narendra. 583 00:35:04.840 --> 00:35:09.880 There is material on the anthropological record which they are offended to know is in the public sphere. 584 00:35:10.740 --> 00:35:17.700 There are published books in the library of the Department of State Aboriginal Affairs that you are not allowed to read without the permission of Aboriginal elders. 585 00:35:18.480 --> 00:35:23.020 And so there will be Narendra who will regard my reasonable journalistic practice as an affront. 586 00:35:23.480 --> 00:35:27.180 I will have compounded the offences of the anthropologists who preceded me. 587 00:35:29.140 --> 00:35:32.120 Writing and reading this book is easy to justify in the culture of the newsroom. 588 00:35:32.120 --> 00:35:36.580 As for the rest, I can only say there are white men's secrets here as well. 589 00:35:36.820 --> 00:35:41.860 Because our society and our attitude to knowledge are not as transparent as we like to think. 590 00:35:42.260 --> 00:35:48.380 In our society too, it sometimes seems that secrets are a necessary part of power. 591 00:35:49.440 --> 00:35:52.020 And I think that is really at the heart of what I want to say. 592 00:35:52.300 --> 00:35:56.280 Sometimes the similarities between cultures are more interesting than the differences. 593 00:35:57.420 --> 00:36:02.100 There are always gaps, of course, between what people say about secrets and what they are not. 594 00:36:02.120 --> 00:36:02.640 And how they behave. 595 00:36:03.380 --> 00:36:10.540 I became aware that some Narendra were not so concerned that the secrets not be revealed, but rather that they not be the ones to reveal them. 596 00:36:10.900 --> 00:36:18.980 So long as they kept the undertakings they had said they had given to elders, then they were happy for anthropologists to deduce what the secrets might be. 597 00:36:19.120 --> 00:36:21.420 And happy for me to quote those anthropologists. 598 00:36:22.020 --> 00:36:23.960 Others, of course, had quite a different attitude. 599 00:36:24.880 --> 00:36:31.920 And as well, the politics of the anti-Bridge campaign, if you like, the continuing cultural crisis the Narendra were involved in, 600 00:36:32.120 --> 00:36:36.780 meant that by the end of the affair they had revealed things that they previously had claimed were secret. 601 00:36:37.220 --> 00:36:40.120 This, of course, looked very like fabrication to the suspicious. 602 00:36:41.780 --> 00:36:47.920 On the other hand, of course, at the same time as there was a royal commission into black women's secrets, 603 00:36:48.080 --> 00:36:52.520 there were white men's secrets behind the reasons why that royal commission was called. 604 00:36:52.780 --> 00:36:54.680 And I'll refer to two just briefly. 605 00:36:55.420 --> 00:37:00.200 Western mining and its appropriation and use of the journals of the late Norman Tyndale, 606 00:37:00.260 --> 00:37:02.100 formerly employed by the South Australian Maritime Association. 607 00:37:02.120 --> 00:37:09.680 The Narendra were used in the Narendra Museum with the intention to use them in litigation and Western mining's attempt to hide that they had done this. 608 00:37:10.760 --> 00:37:15.800 Also, of course, the role of Ian McLaughlin and his chief of staff, Peter Miller, who did read the contents, 609 00:37:16.000 --> 00:37:18.900 or Peter Miller did read the contents of the secret envelopes. 610 00:37:19.040 --> 00:37:20.540 That, too, has been a secret. 611 00:37:21.780 --> 00:37:23.180 So where did all this leave me? 612 00:37:23.220 --> 00:37:25.500 Well, to quote Alexander Downer, I agree with myself. 613 00:37:29.460 --> 00:37:32.020 And I agree with what I said to those students. 614 00:37:32.840 --> 00:37:37.660 I do think that the free flow of information is important, that publicity is fresh air, 615 00:37:37.760 --> 00:37:40.480 and all the other things that journalism is designed to promote. 616 00:37:40.800 --> 00:37:45.320 Large parts of my life have been spent championing things like freedom of information legislation. 617 00:37:46.500 --> 00:37:50.060 But I must admit I've also gained a new respect for the secret, 618 00:37:50.240 --> 00:37:56.400 and for the murky and unsayable things that make up the world of spirituality and identity, 619 00:37:56.780 --> 00:37:58.880 the soup of culture, if you like. 620 00:37:59.880 --> 00:38:04.220 In Narangiri culture, it seems to me that it has been explicit, and not a thing of shame, 621 00:38:04.400 --> 00:38:08.020 that secrets are a part of power, the very stuff of power. 622 00:38:08.740 --> 00:38:10.800 So how do I think about such secrets? 623 00:38:10.940 --> 00:38:11.720 Well, I don't know. 624 00:38:12.120 --> 00:38:14.740 I have no firm conclusion or point of view here, 625 00:38:14.860 --> 00:38:19.500 but I do think that there are important lessons to be learned from thinking about these issues. 626 00:38:21.720 --> 00:38:28.080 It has been argued, of course, that Western European culture is superior to other cultures, 627 00:38:28.140 --> 00:38:28.860 because it is a culture of freedom. 628 00:38:28.880 --> 00:38:33.000 It is an open culture, because we do believe in these things, such as independent scholarship. 629 00:38:33.380 --> 00:38:36.000 People like Fukunyama, who was mentioned the other day, 630 00:38:36.020 --> 00:38:40.500 and also Roger Sandel, who used Hindmarsh Island as an example in his book, 631 00:38:40.580 --> 00:38:48.520 in which he argued that we were naive romanticists to idealize indigenous cultures the world over, 632 00:38:48.600 --> 00:38:52.560 and indeed that such indigenous cultures were necessarily dictatorships, 633 00:38:52.560 --> 00:38:55.400 because of their reliance on secrecy. 634 00:38:56.680 --> 00:38:57.820 But of course, 635 00:38:57.840 --> 00:38:58.860 that's all very much in the past, 636 00:38:58.880 --> 00:39:01.420 and it would be very well if indeed we're not a secretive society, 637 00:39:01.640 --> 00:39:02.360 if we are open. 638 00:39:03.260 --> 00:39:06.100 I learned a lot about anthropology in writing this book, 639 00:39:06.240 --> 00:39:09.220 which was good, because I nearly failed it when I studied it here at Adelaide University. 640 00:39:10.580 --> 00:39:15.700 But one of the things I learned was that in talking to informants about a culture, 641 00:39:16.360 --> 00:39:19.340 anthropologists have to be very aware of the gap between the rules, 642 00:39:19.520 --> 00:39:23.100 or the idealized version of how the culture is meant to work, 643 00:39:23.260 --> 00:39:24.740 and the way it actually does, 644 00:39:25.020 --> 00:39:27.440 the way members of that society understand 645 00:39:27.440 --> 00:39:30.000 which rules can be broken and how and when. 646 00:39:30.680 --> 00:39:34.680 And of course the fact is that although we talk about our society being open, 647 00:39:34.800 --> 00:39:37.400 although we have the Lorenzo's Oil view of ourselves, 648 00:39:37.920 --> 00:39:41.940 secrets are part of power in mainstream Australian society too. 649 00:39:43.340 --> 00:39:47.300 Commercial confidentiality, security, national interest, self-interest, 650 00:39:47.520 --> 00:39:51.120 all these can be given for reasons for restricting information. 651 00:39:52.720 --> 00:39:54.500 But at least these are explicit. 652 00:39:55.240 --> 00:39:57.060 And something I've been thinking about, 653 00:39:57.060 --> 00:39:58.840 recently, is less explicit. 654 00:39:59.080 --> 00:40:02.520 And I think I can illustrate it best with an anecdote from my own experience. 655 00:40:03.140 --> 00:40:08.240 I resigned from the Age newspaper in Melbourne as a journalist in 1991, 656 00:40:08.560 --> 00:40:10.900 just at the beginning of the first Gulf War. 657 00:40:11.500 --> 00:40:15.360 And the last assignment I did was to cover a lunchtime speech 658 00:40:15.360 --> 00:40:18.040 by the then head of the Armed Forces, Peter Gratian. 659 00:40:18.800 --> 00:40:22.200 Now I had resigned, it was my last assignment, 660 00:40:22.420 --> 00:40:25.340 and perhaps that's my excuse for being so gauche. 661 00:40:25.940 --> 00:40:29.720 But I actually thought Gratian didn't say anything very important in that speech. 662 00:40:29.920 --> 00:40:32.960 The only thing I found mildly new and interesting and newsworthy 663 00:40:32.960 --> 00:40:35.720 was that he talked about setting up a system of ready reserves. 664 00:40:36.140 --> 00:40:39.580 And indeed I drafted on my notebook a few paragraphs about that. 665 00:40:40.300 --> 00:40:44.260 Towards the end of the speech, an AAP reporter stood and asked a question. 666 00:40:45.140 --> 00:40:49.080 She asked, if Australia goes to war, might there be casualties? 667 00:40:49.780 --> 00:40:51.220 And Gratian said there might. 668 00:40:51.860 --> 00:40:54.480 Now I have to admit, and this was gauche of me, 669 00:40:54.540 --> 00:40:55.320 I thought that was a really good thing. 670 00:40:55.320 --> 00:40:56.060 I thought it was a really stupid question. 671 00:40:57.020 --> 00:41:00.740 I thought it was rather like saying, if we play football, might there be goals? 672 00:41:02.960 --> 00:41:06.600 But guess what story the newspapers published and on the front page? 673 00:41:07.340 --> 00:41:09.340 Peter Gratian says there might be casualties. 674 00:41:10.080 --> 00:41:13.300 And the ready reserves story actually appeared six months later 675 00:41:13.300 --> 00:41:14.880 when somebody else said something about it. 676 00:41:16.060 --> 00:41:19.220 And so here, what information did we actually want? 677 00:41:19.360 --> 00:41:21.020 What information was actually newsworthy? 678 00:41:21.380 --> 00:41:23.960 Well, I'm rather shocked to realise that news, 679 00:41:23.960 --> 00:41:25.800 far from being things that are new, 680 00:41:26.000 --> 00:41:28.280 is sometimes the stuff we already know. 681 00:41:29.580 --> 00:41:32.000 The stuff that fits our known frameworks. 682 00:41:34.060 --> 00:41:37.280 In fact, perhaps the definition of news is not something new, 683 00:41:37.440 --> 00:41:39.580 but something that is already known. 684 00:41:39.660 --> 00:41:41.220 A surprise that doesn't surprise. 685 00:41:42.460 --> 00:41:45.540 And it occurred to me listening to Robert Mann last night 686 00:41:45.540 --> 00:41:48.580 talking about why is it that the Australian population 687 00:41:48.580 --> 00:41:52.080 doesn't seem to be concerned by the fact it's been lied to in recent months, 688 00:41:52.160 --> 00:41:53.260 that maybe this is why. 689 00:41:53.960 --> 00:41:57.020 The revelations of lies are greeted with such equanimity. 690 00:41:57.460 --> 00:42:01.080 It almost seems to me at times that they're greeted with a sort of grim satisfaction. 691 00:42:01.560 --> 00:42:03.540 Oh, there you are. I knew there were lies. 692 00:42:03.720 --> 00:42:04.920 I knew there were secrets. 693 00:42:06.620 --> 00:42:09.660 It's almost reassuring to find out that we were right. 694 00:42:12.200 --> 00:42:16.680 But to return to anthropology and how it must work in the gap 695 00:42:16.680 --> 00:42:21.080 between what societies believe about themselves and how they in fact behave, 696 00:42:21.260 --> 00:42:23.240 I think so too must journalism. 697 00:42:23.240 --> 00:42:24.500 Or the best journalism. 698 00:42:24.880 --> 00:42:29.000 And so too must intellectual discourse or the best intellectual discourse. 699 00:42:29.800 --> 00:42:35.580 What troubles me about my own profession is that I think that I'm saying something deeply paradoxical. 700 00:42:35.760 --> 00:42:39.780 I think this must mean that saying the things that don't fit the forms, 701 00:42:40.020 --> 00:42:43.440 that don't confirm to existing frameworks, 702 00:42:44.380 --> 00:42:48.400 means that we must say things which are very hard to hear, 703 00:42:48.500 --> 00:42:51.540 and in fact things which are very hard even to say. 704 00:42:53.240 --> 00:42:58.200 And that means it's contradictory to talk about this kind of journalism operating in mass media. 705 00:42:58.520 --> 00:43:00.040 People won't buy it. 706 00:43:00.900 --> 00:43:04.060 So where does it leave us, and in particular where does it leave me, 707 00:43:04.100 --> 00:43:05.680 at something of a career crossroads? 708 00:43:06.020 --> 00:43:07.580 Well, I don't pretend to know. 709 00:43:08.460 --> 00:43:12.080 But I think we have to have a much more complicated relationship 710 00:43:12.640 --> 00:43:16.180 to lies, secrets, knowledge and power 711 00:43:16.180 --> 00:43:18.660 than we like to think is necessary. 712 00:43:19.040 --> 00:43:19.860 Thank you very much. 713 00:43:30.780 --> 00:43:31.380 Thank you. 714 00:43:31.540 --> 00:43:33.340 Thank you, Margaret Simons. 715 00:43:34.000 --> 00:43:38.000 Data isn't information, information isn't knowledge, and knowledge isn't wisdom. 716 00:43:38.620 --> 00:43:44.880 Robert Mann has been talking a lot about what happens when the data is inaccurate, 717 00:43:45.500 --> 00:43:49.540 or when the information drawn from the data is sullied. 718 00:43:51.120 --> 00:43:53.220 And I'm not sure quite how he's going to do it. 719 00:43:53.220 --> 00:43:56.960 I'm going to tackle, we'll find a variation on the theme for this afternoon. 720 00:43:57.280 --> 00:44:01.520 But when we were walking towards the building last night for the grand opening, 721 00:44:01.660 --> 00:44:05.080 we were worrying together about another phenomenon. 722 00:44:05.360 --> 00:44:10.140 And that is when the data and the information and the knowledge is freely available, 723 00:44:10.400 --> 00:44:14.580 and when in fact an entire community can know it and share it, 724 00:44:14.960 --> 00:44:18.760 why do they sometimes choose to ignore it? 725 00:44:20.020 --> 00:44:23.200 Now that's the thing I found most strange about this. 726 00:44:23.220 --> 00:44:24.720 You know, being in Australia in recent years, 727 00:44:24.960 --> 00:44:27.780 we know the truth about Tampa. 728 00:44:27.920 --> 00:44:30.940 I think most of us knew the truth about children overboard 729 00:44:30.940 --> 00:44:32.620 the second we heard the silly story. 730 00:44:33.480 --> 00:44:36.040 It was so clearly nonsensical. 731 00:44:36.840 --> 00:44:39.960 Most of us, I think, suspected the WMD story 732 00:44:40.600 --> 00:44:45.100 long before, you know, the evidence started to become painfully apparent. 733 00:44:45.760 --> 00:44:47.920 So there is another strange secret, 734 00:44:48.040 --> 00:44:51.480 the secret about why we choose not to know. 735 00:44:53.280 --> 00:44:55.060 the blind eye, the deaf ear, 736 00:44:55.200 --> 00:44:57.780 that we turn to so many public issues. 737 00:44:58.580 --> 00:45:00.380 But who knows what Robert's going to say, 738 00:45:00.480 --> 00:45:02.120 but whatever it is, it'll be extraordinary. 739 00:45:02.440 --> 00:45:03.700 Ladies and gentlemen, Robert Mann. 740 00:45:05.000 --> 00:45:05.440 APPLAUSE 741 00:45:12.400 --> 00:45:13.680 Thanks, Philip. 742 00:45:16.520 --> 00:45:20.280 I almost feel like talking about what Philip was asking about. 743 00:45:20.280 --> 00:45:23.000 I'm actually... 744 00:45:23.000 --> 00:45:25.060 It wasn't, as you know, 745 00:45:25.720 --> 00:45:28.180 probably the size of the audience tells, 746 00:45:28.400 --> 00:45:29.860 that I wasn't meant to be here. 747 00:45:30.400 --> 00:45:30.960 LAUGHTER 748 00:45:32.380 --> 00:45:38.500 And indeed, I'm substituting for Greg Sheridan and Robert Fisk. 749 00:45:39.080 --> 00:45:41.680 Even for me, that is a bit of a difficulty. 750 00:45:42.920 --> 00:45:43.480 LAUGHTER 751 00:45:43.480 --> 00:45:47.420 When I thought about it, perhaps all I can say is 752 00:45:47.420 --> 00:45:49.900 that someone had the idea that I would confront, 753 00:45:50.060 --> 00:45:50.260 in some way, the idea that I was a man, 754 00:45:50.260 --> 00:45:52.860 in some horrible way, my past and my future. 755 00:45:56.440 --> 00:45:57.720 Anyhow, I'll do my best. 756 00:45:59.320 --> 00:46:03.360 What I've got to say is a bit underprepared, 757 00:46:03.400 --> 00:46:06.200 but it will be things that I believe. 758 00:46:08.000 --> 00:46:12.520 And perhaps because the festival is dedicated 759 00:46:12.520 --> 00:46:15.560 to the life and work of Loach Ra Donahue, 760 00:46:15.760 --> 00:46:19.640 some of the things I'll be saying have special... 761 00:46:20.640 --> 00:46:23.160 meaning, I think, for what she went through. 762 00:46:23.900 --> 00:46:28.540 She spoke about last night with our mutual friend, Andrew Bolt. 763 00:46:29.360 --> 00:46:32.400 If I get tempted, I might tell one or two stories 764 00:46:32.400 --> 00:46:34.120 about my relationship with Andrew. 765 00:46:35.040 --> 00:46:36.280 He's a Melbourne figure. 766 00:46:37.960 --> 00:46:41.080 Some of you, thankfully, wouldn't know that he exists. 767 00:46:41.920 --> 00:46:42.480 LAUGHTER 768 00:46:43.640 --> 00:46:44.200 Um... 769 00:46:45.020 --> 00:46:45.580 LAUGHTER 770 00:46:47.600 --> 00:46:49.420 Anyway, this is what I've... 771 00:46:49.420 --> 00:46:49.620 I've... 772 00:46:49.640 --> 00:46:50.140 prepared. 773 00:46:50.780 --> 00:46:56.400 We live at a time when everyone with a minimal level of affluence 774 00:46:56.400 --> 00:46:57.980 can afford a personal computer, 775 00:46:58.240 --> 00:47:01.500 at least everyone in the West and many others. 776 00:47:02.440 --> 00:47:05.180 That is another way of saying that we live in a world 777 00:47:05.180 --> 00:47:08.480 where very large numbers of Western citizens 778 00:47:08.480 --> 00:47:10.820 have access on a daily basis 779 00:47:10.820 --> 00:47:15.400 to an astonishing range of information, analysis and opinion 780 00:47:15.400 --> 00:47:17.000 from across the globe. 781 00:47:19.480 --> 00:47:23.880 even old Luddites like myself and Philip eventually probably have caught up with the 782 00:47:23.880 --> 00:47:28.960 internet and we can read and I do now with a kind of insatiable appetite of someone who kept off the 783 00:47:28.960 --> 00:47:37.140 internet for a long time American and British and Israeli and European magazines and newspapers to 784 00:47:37.140 --> 00:47:45.760 find out things I can't find out in Australian media about the war in Iraq if we suffer from 785 00:47:45.760 --> 00:47:54.840 anything at the moment it seems to me not so much from freedom from information than the name of 786 00:47:54.840 --> 00:48:02.140 this panel but from a peculiar combination of an information overload combined with in Australia 787 00:48:02.140 --> 00:48:08.400 at least a mainstream media either incapable or unwilling to carry out its responsibility 788 00:48:08.400 --> 00:48:14.800 for interpreting information in a way that will allow citizens to make sense of their world 789 00:48:14.800 --> 00:48:15.140 you 790 00:48:15.760 --> 00:48:24.020 that is to say perhaps instead of wisdom which is a bit highfalutin for me for the media the thing 791 00:48:24.020 --> 00:48:30.620 that we don't seem to get from the media is what I would call judgment judgment of what matters and 792 00:48:30.620 --> 00:48:36.080 judgment of what are the right questions at a particular time that need to be answered there 793 00:48:36.080 --> 00:48:43.560 and the right questions that need to be asked now my instinct is always to make things concrete 794 00:48:45.760 --> 00:48:50.700 and so what I want to do is to examine the problems which arise from this combination of 795 00:48:50.700 --> 00:48:58.000 information overload and media interpretative failure by discussing briefly the meaning of 796 00:48:58.000 --> 00:49:02.980 two issues in which I've been interested in recent times and where I think the meaning 797 00:49:02.980 --> 00:49:10.720 for different reasons in both cases has been lost the two issues I want to deal with of course very 798 00:49:10.720 --> 00:49:15.280 briefly I promise you the stolen generations and the Australia 799 00:49:15.760 --> 00:49:23.260 Australian media's performance with the invasion of Iraq that I spoke about this morning I spoke 800 00:49:23.260 --> 00:49:29.040 about the war I didn't speak about the Australian media at all let me first speak about the stolen 801 00:49:29.040 --> 00:49:36.100 generations and I do this because of my interest and because of low itchers experience with the 802 00:49:36.100 --> 00:49:45.000 Australian media on this issue between 1900 and 1970 approximately 20 to 25 000 Indigenous children 803 00:49:45.760 --> 00:49:52.180 my estimation I think it's probably reasonably accurate were removed under law but very frequently 804 00:49:52.180 --> 00:49:58.320 against the will of their mothers fathers families and communities to a state or religious institution 805 00:49:59.020 --> 00:50:05.300 very frequently such children never saw their families again many had no idea from where they 806 00:50:05.300 --> 00:50:14.300 came that is to say no idea who they were I mean this is to me just a question of judgment I mean 807 00:50:14.300 --> 00:50:15.740 this is it seems to me that's the way it is it's not just a question of judgment it's a question of judgment 808 00:50:15.740 --> 00:50:27.360 and I now during the period of the Keating government an important if flawed inquiry I think it was 809 00:50:27.360 --> 00:50:35.400 flawed in some ways into the policy and practice of Aboriginal child removal was conducted at first 810 00:50:35.400 --> 00:50:41.400 public opinion was overwhelming overwhelmingly sympathetic to the stolen generations as 811 00:50:41.400 --> 00:50:45.120 Aborigines had come to call the children that had been removed 812 00:50:45.740 --> 00:50:45.840 back to the same age. 813 00:50:46.360 --> 00:50:49.140 and then as I tried to document in an essay. 814 00:50:49.320 --> 00:50:49.580 I wrote. 815 00:50:49.620 --> 00:50:49.800 called. 816 00:50:49.920 --> 00:50:50.060 in. 817 00:50:50.200 --> 00:50:50.480 denial. 818 00:50:50.940 --> 00:50:51.500 the tide. 819 00:50:51.600 --> 00:50:51.700 of. 820 00:50:51.720 --> 00:50:52.000 public. 821 00:50:52.140 --> 00:50:52.420 opinion. 822 00:50:52.700 --> 00:50:52.980 I. 823 00:50:53.000 --> 00:50:53.200 think. 824 00:50:53.220 --> 00:50:53.480 began. 825 00:50:53.620 --> 00:50:53.760 to. 826 00:50:53.860 --> 00:50:54.140 turn. 827 00:50:54.820 --> 00:50:55.100 Why. 828 00:50:55.260 --> 00:50:55.360 did. 829 00:50:55.440 --> 00:50:55.560 it. 830 00:50:55.580 --> 00:50:55.760 begin. 831 00:50:55.860 --> 00:50:56.020 to. 832 00:50:56.100 --> 00:50:56.380 turn. 833 00:50:57.300 --> 00:50:57.580 the. 834 00:50:57.660 --> 00:50:57.900 answer. 835 00:50:58.000 --> 00:50:58.120 I. 836 00:50:58.180 --> 00:50:58.360 think. 837 00:50:58.360 --> 00:50:58.460 can. 838 00:50:58.560 --> 00:50:58.640 be. 839 00:50:58.660 --> 00:50:58.840 offered. 840 00:50:58.920 --> 00:50:59.080 with. 841 00:50:59.100 --> 00:50:59.280 great. 842 00:50:59.620 --> 00:50:59.900 simplicity. 843 00:51:00.640 --> 00:51:00.920 I. 844 00:51:01.020 --> 00:51:01.080 don. 845 00:51:01.120 --> 00:51:01.260 think. 846 00:51:01.300 --> 00:51:01.380 it. 847 00:51:01.380 --> 00:51:01.460 is. 848 00:51:01.460 --> 00:51:01.480 a. 849 00:51:01.580 --> 00:51:01.780 complicated. 850 00:51:02.120 --> 00:51:02.400 matter. 851 00:51:02.980 --> 00:51:03.260 a. 852 00:51:03.400 --> 00:51:03.680 campaign. 853 00:51:03.900 --> 00:51:04.120 against. 854 00:51:04.260 --> 00:51:04.520 bringing. 855 00:51:04.600 --> 00:51:04.780 them. 856 00:51:04.780 --> 00:51:05.020 home. 857 00:51:05.060 --> 00:51:05.220 the. 858 00:51:05.320 --> 00:51:05.600 report. 859 00:51:05.680 --> 00:51:05.880 was. 860 00:51:05.920 --> 00:51:06.060 run. 861 00:51:06.140 --> 00:51:06.280 by. 862 00:51:06.340 --> 00:51:06.620 quadrant. 863 00:51:06.620 --> 00:51:13.440 magazine. But Quadrant is a small circulation magazine. Its campaign would have come to nothing, 864 00:51:13.580 --> 00:51:18.500 would never have been noticed, were it not for the fact that behind its cause were rallied 865 00:51:18.500 --> 00:51:23.840 a string of right-wing journalist columnists, mainly, who were determined to challenge the 866 00:51:23.840 --> 00:51:29.320 findings of bringing them home and to muddy the moral and historical waters in regard to the 867 00:51:29.320 --> 00:51:35.740 question of the stolen generations. Very few of any of these journalists bothered to conduct any 868 00:51:35.740 --> 00:51:42.820 real research on this subject, or even to read available research. Very few were willing to 869 00:51:42.820 --> 00:51:48.260 answer criticism of the positions they put to the Australian public on an almost daily basis. 870 00:51:49.800 --> 00:51:53.480 But through their collective work, what they told the Australian public, 871 00:51:54.300 --> 00:51:57.540 sort of the daily drip of their opinion, was this. 872 00:51:58.620 --> 00:52:03.200 The numbers of Aboriginal child removals had been vastly exaggerated. 873 00:52:05.740 --> 00:52:12.040 They said that if a few of these Aboriginal children had been removed, it was because of the vicious ostracism 874 00:52:12.040 --> 00:52:16.200 that half-castes experienced from traditional Aboriginal society. 875 00:52:17.580 --> 00:52:22.300 They told the public that many of the Aboriginal children who claimed to have been removed 876 00:52:22.300 --> 00:52:25.700 were suffering from a condition known as false memory syndrome. 877 00:52:26.260 --> 00:52:30.660 That is to say that they were deluded about the most basic facts of their own lives. 878 00:52:31.480 --> 00:52:35.720 They told the public that there was no racism involved in the removal of Aboriginal children. 879 00:52:35.740 --> 00:52:42.580 No truth in the claim that the policy involved an attempt to breed out Aboriginality from Australia. 880 00:52:43.540 --> 00:52:51.340 And they claimed that those who thought the policy were racist were suffering from a condition known as moral vanity. 881 00:52:51.600 --> 00:52:57.560 I think it might have been, not invented, but copied from somewhere from Christopher Pearson, who's known to this city. 882 00:52:58.040 --> 00:53:02.760 Or that they were driven by a pathological contempt for their own society and country. 883 00:53:02.920 --> 00:53:04.220 They were anti-Australian. 884 00:53:04.240 --> 00:53:05.720 People like Sir William 885 00:53:05.740 --> 00:53:12.040 Dean, presumably, and Sir Ronald Wilson and Malcolm Fraser were all anti-Australian. 886 00:53:12.940 --> 00:53:17.360 The campaign, in my opinion, was successful, at least in large part. 887 00:53:18.120 --> 00:53:22.960 It became impossible for ordinary people to decide what was true and what was false. 888 00:53:23.600 --> 00:53:28.700 The issue of the Stolen Generations provided an opportunity for contemporary Australians 889 00:53:28.700 --> 00:53:35.580 to grasp the racism associated with the latter phases of dispossession in Australia's history. 890 00:53:35.740 --> 00:53:42.160 Instead, the campaign against bringing them home allowed the great Australian silence to return, 891 00:53:42.360 --> 00:53:44.960 and old stereotypes to be reborn. 892 00:53:45.540 --> 00:53:53.480 If Aboriginal children had been removed, it was now widely believed that this was because of the dysfunctionality of Aboriginal society, 893 00:53:53.700 --> 00:53:56.240 or the irresponsibility of their parents. 894 00:53:56.620 --> 00:54:04.880 Only political correctness, so-called, prevented the elites, so-called, from describing the situation truly. 895 00:54:04.880 --> 00:54:19.960 And I won't dwell on this, but just say it, that in all this, nothing was more disgraceful than a kind of verballing that Loitjah O'Donoghue got from Andrew Bolt. 896 00:54:21.160 --> 00:54:33.100 Loitjah's story was that when the law in South Australia was changed, making it unlawful for whites to cohabit with Aboriginal women, 897 00:54:33.460 --> 00:54:34.780 her father, 898 00:54:34.820 --> 00:54:34.860 who was a man, 899 00:54:34.880 --> 00:54:40.680 handed all the children that he'd had with her mother over to an institution. 900 00:54:41.920 --> 00:54:47.180 And because Andrew Bolt got this story from her, he kind of got her to say, 901 00:54:47.200 --> 00:54:50.020 I wasn't stolen, I was passed by my father. 902 00:54:50.120 --> 00:54:53.100 Of course, she was stolen from her mother in any meaningful sense. 903 00:54:53.480 --> 00:54:56.100 And so the Herald Sun had a great headline, 904 00:54:56.880 --> 00:54:58.680 I wasn't stolen, Loitjah says. 905 00:54:59.260 --> 00:55:03.660 And the Prime Minister, who was in Melbourne on the morning the story appeared in the Herald Sun, 906 00:55:03.660 --> 00:55:05.120 speaking to Neil Mitchell, said, 907 00:55:05.200 --> 00:55:09.560 Ah, it's very interesting, you see, she wasn't stolen, what's all the fuss been about, kind of thing. 908 00:55:12.180 --> 00:55:17.760 Anyhow, it seems to me in that case that what was missing was this thing called judgement. 909 00:55:17.960 --> 00:55:22.680 And the capacity of people, and I'll tell another interesting story. 910 00:55:23.180 --> 00:55:32.080 I was so outraged by the handling of Loitjah O'Donoghue that I got my publisher to organise a debate with Andrew Bolt. 911 00:55:32.700 --> 00:55:33.640 And he agreed with me. 912 00:55:33.640 --> 00:55:37.400 And I agreed to the debate and it was all set up and a few days before it, he bolted. 913 00:55:39.160 --> 00:55:40.700 And he will not debate me. 914 00:55:40.860 --> 00:55:48.600 He is involved, he writes about the issue all the time, including an article a week or so ago called Evil Slurs on Our Past, 915 00:55:48.800 --> 00:55:53.740 which was another attempt to say no children had been removed for bad reasons. 916 00:55:54.340 --> 00:55:56.240 But he still won't debate the issue. 917 00:55:56.340 --> 00:56:03.620 In other words, he won't subject his opinions to the test of someone who would ask him hard questions. 918 00:56:03.640 --> 00:56:04.940 About what in fact he knew. 919 00:56:06.280 --> 00:56:13.440 Anyhow, that's case study one of a kind of media that we now have probably everywhere, but certainly in this country. 920 00:56:15.440 --> 00:56:23.840 Now, I want to speak secondly about the invasion of Iraq and the media and its response. 921 00:56:25.000 --> 00:56:31.760 The first thing to be said is that the media in Australia, with the slight exception of the Sydney Morning Herald, 922 00:56:31.760 --> 00:56:38.180 supported the war and supported the justification for the war, the weapons of mass destruction, 923 00:56:38.460 --> 00:56:46.800 and also supported the underlying justification, which was pre-emption or the pre-emptive strike as a new doctrine of foreign policy, 924 00:56:46.960 --> 00:56:50.300 with remarkably little debate even. 925 00:56:51.900 --> 00:56:58.100 Now, according to ancient custom, before wars are fought or invasions are mounted, justifications are required. 926 00:56:58.600 --> 00:57:00.680 In the case of the invasion of Iraq, 927 00:57:00.680 --> 00:57:08.400 a justification was mounted almost exclusively on the grounds that Iraq possessed a vast arsenal of weapons of mass destruction. 928 00:57:08.680 --> 00:57:10.860 I spoke about this in the morning. 929 00:57:11.220 --> 00:57:17.220 And that unless stopped, the Iraqi regime would relatively shortly also acquire nuclear weapons. 930 00:57:18.120 --> 00:57:22.980 This campaign, as I say, was supported virtually by the entire Australian press. 931 00:57:23.940 --> 00:57:27.460 That's to say, by Australian editors and responsible journalists. 932 00:57:27.880 --> 00:57:30.180 And here I have my debt to Greg Sheridan. 933 00:57:30.180 --> 00:57:32.160 I must mention him, given that he's not here. 934 00:57:33.340 --> 00:57:39.980 Concerning sceptics, people like Greg Sheridan or Tony Parkinson of the age and many others were savage and contemptuous. 935 00:57:40.760 --> 00:57:44.860 Doubts about the dangers Iraq posed to its neighbours or to the United States, 936 00:57:45.060 --> 00:57:49.400 through direct attack or through passing weapons of mass destruction to terrorists, 937 00:57:49.640 --> 00:57:56.260 were ridiculed as preposterous, infantile anti-Americanism, and so on. 938 00:57:57.460 --> 00:57:59.080 On one typical occasion, 939 00:57:59.080 --> 00:58:04.400 after Tony Blair's September 2002 shock and horror speech to the House of Commons, 940 00:58:04.660 --> 00:58:09.640 in which he told the House that Saddam's weapons could be dropped within 45 minutes 941 00:58:09.640 --> 00:58:14.000 and that Iraq had sought tons of weapons-grade uranium from Africa, 942 00:58:14.760 --> 00:58:20.460 Sheridan, in characteristic style, told us all that now we had a clear choice before us. 943 00:58:21.000 --> 00:58:23.280 The choice was this. 944 00:58:23.360 --> 00:58:27.040 Was it Saddam Hussein or Tony Blair who was a liar? 945 00:58:27.240 --> 00:58:28.140 Mm-hmm. 946 00:58:28.140 --> 00:58:31.360 It is a question to which he has not recently returned. 947 00:58:35.360 --> 00:58:40.080 The story of the naive and uncritical conformity of the mainstream media, 948 00:58:40.340 --> 00:58:41.500 apart from the ABC, 949 00:58:41.920 --> 00:58:46.800 concerning plans for the invasion of Iraq cannot be adequately documented here. 950 00:58:47.720 --> 00:58:50.700 Nevertheless, it would be easy so to do. 951 00:58:51.780 --> 00:58:56.300 As you know, since the fall of Baghdad, no weapons of mass destruction have been found. 952 00:58:57.080 --> 00:59:00.820 And since this non-discovery, fascinating evidence has emerged 953 00:59:00.820 --> 00:59:04.120 about the spin put on intelligence assessments by governments, 954 00:59:06.060 --> 00:59:11.140 and even of the outright forgery of documents on which the Americans, British and Australians relied. 955 00:59:12.860 --> 00:59:15.780 Now, and this is to me a crucial point, 956 00:59:15.880 --> 00:59:19.320 at this point I think it is, if judgment was involved, 957 00:59:19.700 --> 00:59:26.220 it is absolutely normal that the media would investigate not only the fact that, 958 00:59:26.220 --> 00:59:29.440 governments had been misled by intelligence services, 959 00:59:29.560 --> 00:59:33.660 sorry, that intelligence services had given material to governments and we'd been misled, 960 00:59:33.840 --> 00:59:37.960 but it would also have investigated its own role in this. 961 00:59:38.400 --> 00:59:43.560 I don't think I have read one article in which a newspaper seriously says, 962 00:59:43.720 --> 00:59:46.500 what in the hell has happened to us, 963 00:59:46.640 --> 00:59:52.600 that we so unskeptically and uncritically followed the line put out by the government, 964 00:59:52.780 --> 00:59:56.200 which itself was based on information which we now know. 965 00:59:56.200 --> 00:59:57.380 Was fraudulent. 966 00:59:57.540 --> 00:59:59.140 Nor has any journalist, 967 01:00:01.200 --> 01:00:05.660 who was involved in the ridiculing of people like Philip Adams and myself, 968 01:00:05.960 --> 01:00:09.320 for skeptical statements about the arguments being made. 969 01:00:09.880 --> 01:00:13.660 I didn't doubt weapons of mass destruction, I had no grounds to doubt that. 970 01:00:13.840 --> 01:00:18.680 What I did doubt was that Iraq was going to commit suicide by launching attacks, 971 01:00:18.980 --> 01:00:22.200 either on Kuwait or Israel or on the United States. 972 01:00:22.440 --> 01:00:23.920 Or support terrorists, 973 01:00:24.140 --> 01:00:26.180 which if fingered would be the obliteration of the United States. 974 01:00:26.200 --> 01:00:31.380 But I did express doubts of that kind. 975 01:00:32.460 --> 01:00:35.040 And Philip Adams and Margot too, 976 01:00:35.140 --> 01:00:40.520 we were some of the few journalists who were really questioning in hard ways what was being said to us. 977 01:00:40.720 --> 01:00:46.880 But why does Greg Sheridan in The Australian not write honest articles about the mistakes he made? 978 01:00:48.300 --> 01:00:51.000 He trusted a fellow called Rich Armitage, 979 01:00:51.140 --> 01:00:53.480 who was one of the key people in the State Department, 980 01:00:53.820 --> 01:00:56.180 and said about me in one of his articles, 981 01:00:56.180 --> 01:01:00.040 does man say that Rich Armitage, this hero, is a liar? 982 01:01:00.860 --> 01:01:02.960 You know, I hadn't said anything about Rich Armitage. 983 01:01:03.060 --> 01:01:04.500 I was talking in general. 984 01:01:05.120 --> 01:01:09.280 He's now talking to John Bolton, a friend of Rich Armitage, up in Brisbane. 985 01:01:10.100 --> 01:01:14.380 And he doesn't seem to think there's any reason to be skeptical of things John Bolton says. 986 01:01:14.680 --> 01:01:19.200 He's become a conduit for the information from neocons in the US administration. 987 01:01:19.720 --> 01:01:22.820 And he doesn't ask any questions about the role he played a year ago. 988 01:01:23.200 --> 01:01:25.300 It's as if we live, I put it out, 989 01:01:25.300 --> 01:01:27.580 I called the book The Culture of Forgetting. 990 01:01:27.580 --> 01:01:31.960 We forget what happened six months ago and don't ask ourselves hard questions about it. 991 01:01:33.220 --> 01:01:35.760 It is not then information we lack, 992 01:01:36.760 --> 01:01:40.680 or sometimes it's not, and if it is we quickly make up for it. 993 01:01:40.760 --> 01:01:45.520 What we lack, in my view, is the capacity to make sense of what we already know. 994 01:01:46.580 --> 01:01:49.500 And I want to say four almost single sentences 995 01:01:49.500 --> 01:01:54.920 about what the main problems with our media seem to me to be at the moment. 996 01:01:55.960 --> 01:01:59.620 The first is something that Margot has spoken about at length, 997 01:01:59.820 --> 01:02:01.220 the size of Murdoch. 998 01:02:01.680 --> 01:02:06.540 In Adelaide it's appalling because the print media is the analytic media. 999 01:02:07.400 --> 01:02:09.780 But everywhere in Australia it's dangerous. 1000 01:02:10.840 --> 01:02:15.440 And if Murdoch got a television channel, and if he used it in the way he uses Fox, 1001 01:02:15.740 --> 01:02:19.280 he would be moulding opinion in this country in a very dangerous way. 1002 01:02:19.640 --> 01:02:22.980 In my view, money is no longer enough for Rupert Murdoch. 1003 01:02:23.180 --> 01:02:25.280 He wants power, and real power. 1004 01:02:25.280 --> 01:02:27.540 In a way that no Australian ever in history has had. 1005 01:02:27.720 --> 01:02:33.600 He is the key funder of, in both the popular and serious media in the United States, 1006 01:02:33.820 --> 01:02:38.300 of the neo-con foreign policy, with the weekly standard and with Fox television. 1007 01:02:38.700 --> 01:02:40.500 The serious and the popular. 1008 01:02:41.380 --> 01:02:42.320 That's point one. 1009 01:02:42.500 --> 01:02:47.800 Point two, I think we lack really independent owners of newspapers. 1010 01:02:48.180 --> 01:02:51.640 Even though I owe a lot to Fairfax and respect Fairfax, 1011 01:02:52.220 --> 01:02:53.800 Fairfax is owned by investors, 1012 01:02:53.800 --> 01:02:58.040 and it's not owned by the kind of people that once owned the press in Australia. 1013 01:02:58.280 --> 01:03:01.600 People who care not so much about the profit of newspapers, 1014 01:03:02.060 --> 01:03:05.500 but about what an independent newspaper can do to a political culture. 1015 01:03:06.560 --> 01:03:12.480 Point three, in Australia we also lack independent magazines of high circulation. 1016 01:03:13.640 --> 01:03:18.640 We don't have anything like, let's say, New Statesman or Spectator in Britain. 1017 01:03:18.800 --> 01:03:21.100 Spectator conservative, New Statesman left wing. 1018 01:03:21.360 --> 01:03:23.660 We don't have anything like Nation. 1019 01:03:23.800 --> 01:03:24.880 Left wing in America. 1020 01:03:25.120 --> 01:03:27.060 Or New Yorker, often independent. 1021 01:03:27.680 --> 01:03:33.720 We don't have anything which can, as it were, give depth and dissent in our print media. 1022 01:03:33.940 --> 01:03:40.020 And there are Australian problems which we can't look overseas to find good writing and good analysis. 1023 01:03:40.460 --> 01:03:45.180 And finally, as Richard said, we did have a very powerful ABC. 1024 01:03:45.480 --> 01:03:50.260 I think the ABC is to some extent at least, I wouldn't want to overdraw this, 1025 01:03:50.400 --> 01:03:53.580 but to some extent self-censoring, and is certainly very nervous, 1026 01:03:53.800 --> 01:03:57.460 and we have, as Richard said with great eloquence, and I couldn't agree more, 1027 01:03:57.720 --> 01:04:01.080 an astonishing attack launched against the ABC, 1028 01:04:01.380 --> 01:04:06.080 as if we have forgotten that we once had things which were publicly funded, 1029 01:04:06.180 --> 01:04:08.140 but autonomous institutions. 1030 01:04:08.520 --> 01:04:13.380 As if we just don't remember one of the most fundamental features of our own society. 1031 01:04:13.720 --> 01:04:18.860 And we all sleep on, as Richard Alston mounts what really are outrageous attacks, 1032 01:04:19.940 --> 01:04:22.060 compared to the fact that I think the BBC, 1033 01:04:22.380 --> 01:04:23.780 and the British media, 1034 01:04:23.800 --> 01:04:26.880 and the British people understand Tony Blair is very unhappy with them, 1035 01:04:26.980 --> 01:04:31.580 but at least people there remember what an autonomous, publicly funded institution is like. 1036 01:04:32.780 --> 01:04:34.800 I come to my final point. 1037 01:04:35.120 --> 01:04:37.820 How is this situation to be changed? 1038 01:04:38.800 --> 01:04:40.500 This is a fruitful subject for discussion. 1039 01:04:41.100 --> 01:04:44.640 But where can such a discussion now in Australia take place? 1040 01:04:44.860 --> 01:04:48.140 Apart from Philip Adams' late night live. 1041 01:05:01.780 --> 01:05:04.780 Well, it's no secret that was well worth listening to, wasn't it? 1042 01:05:04.960 --> 01:05:06.640 Ladies and gentlemen, we're over time, 1043 01:05:06.740 --> 01:05:12.200 but I'd like you to thank with acclamation an extraordinarily passionate panel. 1044 01:05:23.800 --> 01:05:24.000 Thank you.