The Gist of DEAR MR RUDD (Ed. Robert Manne, 2008).

Here’s a book addressed to Australia’s recently-elected Prime Minister, in which 20 experts (mostly left-of-centre, as you’d expect if they’re chosen by Robert Manne) offer ideas and suggestions for Australia’s future. This was a rush-job, written and edited during the couple of months after the November 2007 election, but with some brilliant offerings by academics and others on such key issues as Aboriginal affairs, climate change, the economy, human rights, education, health, the republic… and much more.

Here I’ve selected a fairly representative miscellany of opinions/suggestions – one from each contributor. Add these to the 2020 Summit ideas, and Mr Rudd has quite an agenda in front of him, eh?

‘”Dear Mr Rudd” hopes to help resume the conversation between public intellectuals and government, which broke down so badly during the Howard years’ (Robert Manne)

‘On what basis should Australia remain a constitutional monarchy? There is no credible argument left… If the queen died tomorrow, the streets of our cities and towns would not be lined with thousands of mourners as they were in January 1936 with the death of George V, when the empire “stood still and silent in grief”’ (Mark McKenna)

‘Over the last decade, this nation has experienced a diatribe from ultra-conservatives attacking Indigenous people’s quest for recognition as a distinct culture and acknowledgement of past injustices’ (Pat Dodson)

‘John Howard presented himself as the protector of the national culture against the social engineering of the left-wing elites who had got their hands on state power’ (Geoff Gallop)

‘Viewers of the televised segments of [Question Time in Parliament]

would be surprised to learn that past speakers’ rulings… forbid the barracking, cat-calling and other nonsense that moves so many of those viewers to write furious letters about the poor quality of their representatives’ (Harry Evans)

‘”Yes Minister’s” Sir Humphrey put it epigrammatically: “If you want to do those damn silly things, don’t do them in such a damn silly way”. Ministers need their departments’ help… There has not been a single case since 1901 when a minister has been forced to resign for actions of the public service about which he did not know or could not reasonably have been expected to know’ (Patrick Weller)

‘After almost 120 years it is time to cut the labour movement’s Gordian knot, that most intricate relationship between the fortunes of the political wing (the Australian Labor Party) and the industrial wing (trade unions affiliated to the ALP’ (Mark Aarons, no less!)

‘Howard [built] his credentials as a national security leader largely on his close identification with the personality and policies of the US president, and his standing suffered accordingly as the president and his policies were discredited… American policy is drifting in a dangerous direction – towards an attempt to build a coalition of democracies designed to contain China’s challenge to American primacy’ (Hugh White)

‘[Minister for Foreign Affairs] Stephen Smith… is well-placed to engage with neighbouring states in a civil rather than a patronising manner… The Tampa affair … was orchestrated to win back the votes of bigots… Achieving one’s [foreign policy] goals requires a willingness to listen rather than preach’ (William Maley)

‘When arguments get heated, battles so often occur over words: are asylum-seekers refugees or queue-jumpers? Is Hamas a terrorist organization or liberation movement? Was Australia settled or invaded?’ (Martin Krygier)

‘[Professor Ross] Garnaut described the response to climate change as “the defining challenge of our time”… Over the years the aluminium industry has made more threats than any other to take its business to countries without emission restrictions, and has bankrolled the greenhouse mafia… If unconstrained, aviation emissions will account for half or more of Australia’s total emissions by 2050 and will undermine all other efforts’ (Clive Hamilton)

‘An independent, expertise-based Murray-Darling Basin Authority… like the Reserve Bank [should] be required to communicate with great discipline, always mindful of the weight given to its statements’ (Mike Young)

‘The fundamental economic fact of Rudd’s victory is that he won in a boom. This is rare… Ultimately, economic growth comes from two sources: you can get more people into work and/or get the existing people to work more efficiently… Australia is suffering a skills shortage, as several industries struggle to find the qualified employees they need to expand and grow’ (Andrew Charlton)

‘The Australian health-care “system” is a structural and organizational shambles that has nevertheless produced world-class results… In the absence of any grand over-arching vision, the system is a product of one hundred years of short-term fixes… We have too few staff for too many hospitals, many [of which] are located where people used to live rather than where they live now’ (Bill Bowtell)

‘Australia is the only [OECD] nation with the dubious distinction of combining long hours – over one-fifth of all employees work more than fifty hours per week – with very high levels of casualization… In his essay on Bonhoeffer, Rudd wrote that “the time has come for a vision for Australia not limited bythe narrowest of definitions of our national self-interest.” The family must not be “sacrificed on the altar of market reality.” Two large British studies… concluded that “high levels of group care before the age of three (and particularly before the age of two) were associated with higher levels of antisocial behaviour at age three”.’ (Anne Manne)

‘The “Bringing Them Home” report… found that race-based child-removal policies were a special instance of genocide… This is crystal clear, for instance, in Western Australia, where the instructions and justification were aimed at eliminating the entire “race”… Throughout the last decade , Andrew Bolt, Christopher Pearson and their ilk have engaged… in polluting Australian political debate with a vicious account of the nation’s history… I have heard the life stories of many of the victims and read the documentary evidence’ (Marcia Langton)

‘The ALP’s “Forward with Fairness” policy [re workplace relations]

adopts the notion of “fairness” as its underpinning ethical principle. By contrast, the Howard government’s WorkChoices revolution arose primarily from an economic perspective…’ (Jill Murray)

‘House prices are now less affordable in Australia than in almost all other developed countries… Our three levels of government should cooperate in providing… a scheme to provide subsidies and other incentives for institutional investors in low-rent housing… At least initially, the scheme should be managed by non-profit organizations’ (Julian Disney)

‘Australia has just two universities in the top 100 [Shanghai Jiao Tong]

universities [in the world]… ANU at fifty-seven and Melbourne at seventy-nine. Canada… has two universities in the top forty’ (Simon Marginson)

‘The arts need government patronage because they create minds that matter… The optimistic claims made by Keating: “Culture creates wealth… Culture employs… Culture adds value”… Artist fees in most art forms remain pitifully low’ (Juliana Engberg).

(After reading these chapters with hundreds more generalizations and suggestions like the above, I’ve moved Mr. Rudd up my prayer-list!)

Rowland Croucher

April 2008