I don’t know why I keep expecting QandA to be intelligent, because most of what I see certainly isn’t.
Kim Powell, blogger
Although it is usually dominated by politicians, pundits and other political apparatchiks (past and present), last night’s edition of ABC Television’s Q&A consisted of one of the more unusual panels the programme has seen. This week, viewers were tuned into three actors and performers — Jacki Weaver, Miriam Margolyes and Barry Humphries. Alongside them were journalist David Marr and a Liberal party leader from the 1990s, John Hewson. There was much mirth and merriment as the likes of Margolyes and Humphries cracked jokes, with Marr joining in with his barbs along the way. (Hewson and Weaver might as well have stayed home for the night.)
The lack of informed discussion about major policy issues was hardly unique to this edition of Q&A. But where the show plumbed new depths was with the ‘wit’ — if it can be called that — of Humphries and Marr. As Kim Powell writes, misogyny and hypocrisy seemed to be the order of the day. Successful (and, yes, wealthy) businesswoman Gina Rinehart was the target of much hurtful commentary, with the starting premise provided in one question that she was ‘greedy’. Humphries saw fit to comment on Rinehart’s physical appearance, and referred to her ‘neverending hole’ — not a reference to her mining interests, to clarify. Meanwhile, Marr saw fit to pass judgement on Rinehart’s family life, and also took the opportunity to describe a sex worker who was reportedly involved with embattled MP Craig Thomson as a ‘tart’. Breathtakingly, Marr also decried the ‘vicious’ attacks on Cate Blanchett for daring to stick her head above the parapet by commenting on contentious political matters (chiefly, climate change).
As a defender of free speech, I do not dispute the right of anyone to make jokes at the expense of others (assuming they don’t cross the line into, say, defamation). I might consider the humour in poor taste, but individuals can express themselves however they like. Likewise, critics are free to attack them for the content of what those individuals have said. And both Humphries and Marr put on a deplorable show, made worse by a selection of questions from the audience that seemed only to fan the flames. I don’t believe the ABC can take responsibility for what any guests on its airwaves say — especially on a live programme like Q&A. But it can and should challenge those who cross a line into indecency. The ABC failed to do so. For that, the national broadcaster should apologise.
Evidence: too hot to handle?
Americans (chiefly those in the states bordering the Gulf of Mexico) face hurricanes. New Zealanders and the Japanese worry about earthquakes. And in much of Australia, we worry about bushfires. Without wishing to make light of the tragic toll they can inflict, natural disasters are part of the world we inhabit. But as inevitable as they are, we still try everything we can to stop them — or at least to minimise the impacts they have on us.
As Philip Gibbons notes, while many can offer up their own ‘solutions’ to mitigate risks, few bother to check the evidence to see if they work. In the case of bushfires, Gibbons concludes that many of the options commonly touted don’t have much merit. For instance, the Black Saturday bushfires of three years ago would not have been substantially lessened by more ‘prescribed burning’ (ostensibly to eliminate potential fuel for fires, but often too far away from where they would make a real difference). By contrast, greater clearing of vegetation surrounding homes would have offered significant protection. But this strategy puts a large onus on individual homeowners to safeguard themselves — less appealing than expecting the government to do the job for you. Furthermore, people move in to the bush often because they want to be surrounded by nature. That aspiration is kind of spoiled when you clear out all the nature.
And that’s at the core of the problem: for all the beauty of the environment, there is plenty of danger too. Those who live in the bush can’t take the good without the bad.
Same-sex marriage will be legalised in Australia. But it is the complexities - the reality of difference - that ultimately have to be embraced if our society is going to be genuinely accepting of homosexuality.
Tim Dunlop, writer
Advocates of gay marriage commonly argue that there is widespread public support for the proposition. And certainly, I would prefer to see same-sex marriage included in the Marriage Act than the status quo. (Of course, if I had my druthers, we wouldn’t have government regulating marriage at all.) Plainly legalisation has staunch opponents too — religious groups in particular. But it’s also likely that there is a large bloc of voters — middle class, suburban mums and dads — who would be personally indifferent to the idea of gay marriage, because it’s simply not an issue that affects their lives. For them, it is not a ‘core’ issue — unlike say, energy costs, prices at the supermarket and interest rates. That is not to suggest that issues of equality should be regarded as subordinate to economic issues — after all, politicians should be capable of passing (or repealing) laws on important social issues without distracting from important economic issues. But many voters are unlikely to give more than a passing thought to discrimination unless they (or others close to them) are discriminated against.
On the issue of gay marriage, apathy is not the only issue. Within that likely large, personally disinterested group, there may also be some thought — though they might never articulate it — that there is something ‘wrong’ about homosexuality. This sense is understandable in the same way that I can’t figure out why anyone likes Victoria Bitter. I don’t know what it is in their brains that makes them think that VB is drinkable. To me, that seems wholly ‘unnatural’. Ultimately people have different tastes and preferences, and at a high level, that’s something virtually everyone understands. It’s in the details of our lives where it gets murky. “Of course, we’ve all got different points of view… but we must ban communist parties because they threaten our way of life.” “I don’t want to tell people how to live their lives… but people shouldn’t be allowed to get facial piercings.” “Sure, I don’t have to watch it… but we’d all be better off if reality TV was taken off the air.” This might seem to be trivialising the issue: it isn’t. These are all manifestations of the inability of individuals to tolerate specific differences, even though they might publicly avow (and genuinely consider that they possess) a general tolerance for such differences.
Writing for The Drum, Tim Dunlop argues that gay marriage will one day become a reality. But that on its own is not the end point for defeating discrimination — important though it is, it is merely one hurdle to overcome. Just as the community perception of gender has changed — for example, despite pockets of resistance, we are now broadly accepting of women in the workforce in a way that would have been inconceivable fifty years ago — so too must homosexuality be normalised in the public consciousness. Put simply, while we have made great strides in achieving equality in our society, there is much still to be accomplished.
2011 Express: Society
As Time magazine declared it, 2011 was the year of the protester. Europeans took to the streets over austerity measures, while a group of Americans ‘occupied’ a park near Wall Street.
As I stood in the line, I did not have a clear list of reforms in mind. But I had read about our current ways: about cascading financial crises in the US and Europe, and about climate change.
Michael Green, participant in the Occupy Melbourne protests
And here is my greatest problem with the ‘Occupy Melbourne’ movement, and their equivalents elsewhere in Australia. The lack of clarity about what the protests stood for does not inspire me with much respect for them. This was a ‘brand’ appropriated from the United States, where the grievances — about ‘greed’ and the large bailouts granted to the financial sector, compounded by Washington DC’s budget cuts — have at least some superficial justification. But the circumstances here are vastly different. Australia’s unemployment rate is below five per cent, and economic growth is solid.
Yes, there is economic inequality. So there is in all economies. Even the Soviet Union and China (in its staunchly communist past) never achieved total income equality. Anger is seemingly directed at mining companies for influencing Australian politics. But the union movement also holds some sway. Then there’s a mix of other issues, such as climate change and immigration, which have also inspired some protesters. Policy outcomes here are undesirable to many (myself included) — but not exactly the origin of the Wall Street ‘occupation’.
Ideally, in any protest movement, a well-defined list of reforms would be advanced. But in this case, there wasn’t even a clear high-level direction being offered. This has left Australia’s occupation movement looking decidedly hollow. If you don’t know what you’re protesting about, how can you ever hope to change outcomes?
