Susan Connolly
One of the splendid things about human beings is our capacity to imagine an alternative future. This is part of the backbone of hope — hope in the conviction that life contains promise and some growth. We are at a time where we are being called to imagine such an alternative future.
There is division about the way forward in dealing with issues — in our nation, as a major power within our region and as a minor but symbolically significant player among nations at large. Division is not necessarily a bad thing; it presents choices and it is in having to continually make choices for the common good that we display our most human capacity — the exercise of freedom.
Major divisions have occurred here recently because of an apparent lack of truthfulness in our elected representatives.
Examples of deception, cover-up, side-stepping and manipulation include the lies told about children being thrown overboard at the last election, the many lies told about asylum seekers using untrue descriptors like "illegal" and "queue jumper", the refusal to have an independent investigation into the intelligence services that are so integral to Australia's security, the spurious reasons for taking the nation to war on Iraq, our murky part in the prisoner-abuse scandal and the deceit and puppet play over the resources of the Timor Sea.
The pattern of lies and half-truths has been strengthened by the unreliability inherent in the claims of senior ministers, including the prime minister, that they "didn't know" the facts of particular cases and therefore could not be held accountable. There is also the perception of government departments being so compromised that they do not advise their minister of uncomfortable details when they suspect that those ministers do not want to know.
These are instances of deception we know about, and they have two important consequences apart from the fraudulence of any policies based on such deceit.
The first is the loss of trust. I do not trust anything now said by federal government ministers or departments because there is little evidence of any dependability.
What has this government done to display inspiring leadership or to promote human dignity? This is the real content of "the national interest", far outweighing the balancing of books and the delivering of surpluses. Too many people feel that we have been served very badly, and the result of the bad service is that we can no longer believe what is said.
Another looming deception is contained in the coming trial of Saddam Hussein. The pattern of spin and distortion has become predictable, and so the trial will be used by both the Australian government and the United States to provide election leverage. Saddam's horrendous crimes will be milked of every appalling detail to prove that it was right to thumb our nose at the United Nations, attack Iraq and unseat the dictator, and that therefore we have every reason to cast a vote the government's way.
The tabloids, commercial radio and television and the talk-backs will have a field day. They won't discuss the dangerous precedent that the Iraq war has set, and they will certainly forget the weapons deceptions.
They will not ask why other dictators have not been treated similarly, like President Suharto, who murdered half a million of his own people. They won't mention the fact that in Indonesia, a person indicted for mass murder is standing for president, nor will they mention the horrors suffered by the people of West Papua, who are being murdered, raped and tortured by the same people who did such things in East Timor.
The omissions, lies and half-truths that are now commonplace in government are also endemic in those sections of the media whose proprietors have decided to back it, notably the Murdoch press. Freedom of expression is mostly a myth; the popular media toes John Howard's line with the same subservience shown by the government benches.
The second consequence of this atmosphere of deception is the attack on our dignity. It says to the Australian people that we are held in very small esteem indeed. As the list of lies lengthens, the insult to us expands.
A further indication of the government's contempt for us is the spending of $123 million on saturation advertising, and the first of $19 billion of family payments released on the eve of the election campaign. A government that has maintained the fundamental principles of truth-telling and fair play does not have to bribe people into voting for it.
We deserve better than this, and we have the capacity to imagine something better. Looking into the Australian mirror shows us not a pretty sight. We can learn from it, however, and what it will teach us is that relationships in national life suffer if deceit and manipulation flourish, just as they do in personal life.
We can imagine a society where truth is valued highly and where all are happy to be held accountable. We can imagine a society where a person's word is given and taken with honour; a society willing to forego economic gain if such gain means losing honour or integrity.
Such a society is not beyond us because it is not beyond each one of us. It all boils down to the integrity of the individual and the willingness of the individual to sink perceived personal gain for the common good when necessary.
Australia has produced people like this in the past, and has millions of citizens who act like this in their daily lives. The trick is to find leaders who will be able to represent us adequately, and for us to be willing to hold ourselves, and them, accountable.
[This is a slightly abridged version of a speech given by Sister Susan Connolly of the Mary MacKillop Institute for East Timorese Studies to a For a Fairer Australia public meeting on July 1 in Parramatta.]
From Green Left Weekly, July 28, 2004.
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