I have to confess at the outset that I haven’t read the report – I am really busy with work at the moment and I simply don’t have time (or energy when I do have time), but I wanted to comment instead on the practice of not reading. I was struck by this when reading Mark’s post from last night about the reactions of Gerard Henderson and Kevin Donnelly to the report released by Stuart Macintyre’s history curriculum panel. Donnelly, when interviewed on Lateline (and why is it necessary to interview him – for balance? … so that the substance of the story can be obscured by inscription in a “history wars” frame – what happened to journos perhaps reading the report and reporting on its substance not a press release?) couldn’t actually point to anything in the report which would support the line he wanted to run about a “black armband view” and wanted to mutter something dark instead about Labor being tricky about pretending not to be as left wing as they are. Incidentally, that’s the cunning new strategy that Chrissy Pyne came up with the other day, if we believe his ghost writer Glenn Milne.
Similarly, Hendo appeared to be reacting to a press release. Now these characters are held up as “public intellectuals” and their assemblage of titles (thinktank director, educator/consultant, etc) supposedly represent authority and expertise. Obviously, they’re just going to push the political line they run with constantly, but what’s happened to the idea that you should actually inform yourself about what you comment on?
(Hendo, I suppose, doesn’t have time, what with having to write 50 emails a day to Robert Manne about what they each thought about Indonesia in the 1960s, or monitoring the ABC all day for “bias”…)
Something very similar is operating with the reaction of Warren Mundine to the NT Intervention Review. Andrew Bartlett asks some pointed questions:
Yet almost all the attacks seem to be ignoring the evidence about what has been happening on the ground, and the views of the people that live there, instead treating policies such as universal compulsory quarantining of welfare payments and scrapping the permit system as sacred totems which cannot be touched, regardless of the evidence.
NSW based Warren Mundine, described by The Australian newspaper, as an “ALP powerbroker and indigenous leader”, provides a range of insults of the Indigenous leaders involved in the review, saying the report is “touchy-feely nonsense” and “a joke” written by “people who want to accept second-best.”
The inference that any changes to the Intervention constitutes a ‘softening’ is particularly ludicrous given the strong comments at the time of the original legislation setting up the Intervention was passed by Noel Pearson – The Australian’s main standard bearer in justifying their strident support for every original facet of the Intervention and attacking anyone who raised concerns – that the Intervention process “needs to be decisively improved” and it would be a “grave mistake” to be intransigent to any amendments.
If memory serves, I think Mundine has previously been critical of Indigenous leaders who he claims are disconnected from folks on the ground and sip lattes in Paddington or wherever all day. But I can’t for the life of me see that Mundine has made any attempt to respond to the report with anything other than his usual schtick, and a range of ad homs which probably reflect struggles within the Indigenous community more than the Welfare Wars script they get written into.
Elsewhere: Marni Cordell on the substance and politics of the report at New Matilda.
My thoughts exactly.
What we are seeing from Donnelly and Henderson, especially Donnelly, is a belated realisation that they are no longer part of the in-crowd. And are they pissed about, or what? Well, tough titties for them.
But it’s political-commentary-as-sporting-contest. The notion that our side is correct about everything and anyone who disagrees is by definition on the other side, which is wrong about everything, is deeply embedded in the Anglo-American culture. It’s reflected in our parliamentary processes (even to the seating arrangements) and our legal system. It’s why so many people talk about policy ‘debates’ and not ‘discussions’. In a debate you’re not interested in finding the truth or developing consensus, you’re only interested in winning an argument.
In a culture like that there’s no point in reading boring reports or having an open mind about what the other side is actually saying. All you have to do is note who is saying it and that tells you whether you agree or disagree. Then you look for points you can discredit and ignore the rest. It was all explained very entertainingly by C Northcote Parkinson many years ago.
Catch this par tucked away in today’s OO: http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24499037-601,00.html. Critical as the final report was, it was heavily watered down after the government (or probably more precisely, the public servants responsible for implementing the intervention) got a draft.
So much for the “independent” review. Now by rights this nobbling oughtta be a major scandal, but I don’t expect either Murdoch’s rag or the opposition to make any more of it. They won’t want to highlight just what a fiasco their beloved intervention was.
Here’s the opposition’s response, dd:
http://news.theage.com.au/national/intervention-review-was-watered-down-20081015-50ug.html
Kim, great point. You’ve put your finger on one of the biggest problems for journalists, commentators and policy-makers.
It’s simply not possible to read closely and follow in detail all the reports that come out across the policy spectrum. For the last year, I’ve been trying, and it’s a Sisyphean task. Take Garnaut: the various drafts, reports, modelling assumptions and speeches run to thousands of pages, and that’s before you even delve into the vast literature on this topic.
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The intervention is similar. There was a treasure trove of information contained in the various submissions to the NTER review. Some of them, for instance the submission by Larissa Berhendt and Ruth McCausland at the Jimbunna Centre of UTS, are better than the actual final report itself. Nearly all the submissions I read (and I didn’t read all of them!) stressed that the consultation was flawed and the racial aspects of welfare quarantining were opposed by the people affected. So I’m actually not surprised the final report has made recommendations to this effect.
Sounds like Abbott’s trying to have a bob each way.
“even with the draft report apparently being watered down to be less critical, the final version was still not acceptable.”
So much for the opposition maintaining pressure on the government’s probity. They are endorsing the manipulation of a government report to suit the government’s own ends. They are as badly compromised as Hendo and Co
Ken L said “In a culture like that there’s no point in reading boring reports or having an open mind about what the other side is actually saying. All you have to do is note who is saying it and that tells you whether you agree or disagree.”
That’s very true Ken, but I think its worse than that – at least when it comes to Indigenous issues. People don’t even pay attention to anything others on their own ’side’ are saying if it doesn’t suit. It’s why I keep pointing to Pearson’s comments – and he made plenty of them at the time – about ways the original Intervention was flawed. These were and are ignored by the pro-Howard crowd.
It is entrenched in symbolism that we can have Tony Abbott still rejecting ANY criticism or modification, despite the obvious fact that even with the best proces in the world – and this certainly didn’t even come near that – there are bound to be areas that need to be modified.
All of which means that such people don’t really give a shit about what is best for Aboriginal people – children or otherwise – they are just interested in winning the ‘debate’.
Thank you Kim, and especially Ken. I reckon the problem youse point out, that of adversarialism being the dominant paradigm of “our” culture, is just about the
motherparent of all problems,standing in the way of forward.
What a wag hey, whoever it was thought it’d be a great joke to call this a CommonWealth
Is it that it is vrai, that the French legal system is predicated on the idea of the judges’ job is to get at the truth, actively investigative? This whole fetish “our” system has with the a priori rule of precedent has got knobs on it, tending as it does to make to two or more wrongs a right.
First the army came for all the bongs and I’d stopped smoking, so I said nothing.
Then the army came for all the porn-stashes, and I said nothing because I was an old man.
Then they came for all the money and I had to go to a Rein-style churn-shop day-after-day jsut to get food-stamps.
Then they came for me to relocate me in a cattle-truck and there was no one left to speak for me except Jenny Macklin’s central policy unit.
The Australian put this up as a front page story (at a time when the news cycle is being dominated by recession fears and the government’s response). It’s hard to see what more they could have made of it, DD.
Given all the joy “Murdoch’s rag” has given the left, over the last few years (l’affaire Haneef, the wheat scandal, children overboard, etc), it continually surprises me that the left isn’t a bit more grateful.
Ah well, if you want quality, unbiased journalism, I guess there’s always Green Left Weekly.
Paulus, when the OO sticks to news, they generally do it quite well. I’m a bit dubious about this current story, though, as one of the report’s authors (Peter Yeuh, I think) stated categorically that it hadn’t been watered down.
The main problem the left has with the Murdoch press generally (although perhaps I shouldn’t presume to speak for all of us) is that it is mostly opinion, and opinion of the radical right at that.
In other words, you wouldn’t want to wrap your fish and chips in it for fear of taint.
“Mostly opinion”? One page of op-eds and an editorial column offends you so much? I’d like to see a bit more opinion writing in The Oz, actually.
And it ain’t all radical right, either. Did you see Paul Kelly’s piece yesterday on how Kevin Rudd is determined not to let the nation slip into recession? It couldn’t have been more pro-ALP if they had just reprinted a government press release.
Anyway, this is OT to the point Kim was making about journos’ and opinionistas’ fire-from-the-hip reactions to complex policy issues — which I think is a very valid point.
“public intellectuals”… Bwa!
My cat has more brains than Hendo and Donnelly combined. At least he knows the current newspapers are for shredding rather than reading.
Read the NTER report if not all the submissions. Makes good sense to me. My thoughts at: NT Intervention Report the way forward Hard to disagree with Andrew Bartlett’s comments on the entrenched positions. It’s the nastiness that I find hard to stomach.
I think the watering down of the intervention can be read in two ways:
1) As an attempt to appease the bureaucrats, or
2) As an attempt to stop the opposition and Hendo and co. from getting any traction in their criticisms of it
If it is the former, then clearly the report is doomed to moulder in the ever-growing pile of unimplemented reports on Indigenous issues. If the latter is the case however, there may be hope for some kind of progress, if the government is able to somehow whip the relevant departments into line. I’m with Fiona Stanley on this:
Paulus, I’ve ignored everything Paul Kelly has said or written since he started boosting economic rationalism all those years ago. I also have pretty much ignored the Oz (print and online) except for Bleak and Doonesbury since just after the election.