AFN vol 44 No 4 Oct-Dec04 - Australian Fabian Society

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.fabian.org.au 

.au Newsletter of the Australian Fabian Society. Vol 44 No 4, October–December 2004 

ISSN 1448-210X 

INSIDE 

Annual Report 

Secretary’s report to the 57th 

Annual General Meeting of the 

Australian Fabian Society, 26 

August 2004. 

Page 2 

Free Thinkers 

The casual work debate: Richard 

Curtain proposes some policy 

alternatives. 

Page 5 

Political advertising just isn’t up 

to the job, argues Sally Young. 

Page 6 

Australia’s monolingualism 

threatens our future 

development, writes Greg Barns. 

Page 8 

a r e n a 

m a g a z i n e 

Australia’s leading 

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Email: magazine@arena.org.au 

Free Thinkers 

Labor’s new Triple J 

of television 

Labor’s proposals for 

digital TV will nurture 

new Australian talent, 

while keeping our finest 

traditions alive. 

by Tony Moore 

A Latham Labor Government would 

want the ABC to have two TV channels 

– one “a Triple J of Television” for 

children and youth, and one for adults. 

The ALP’s Communications spokesman 

Lindsay Tanner recently promised a 

funding boost for the ABC of more 

than $100 million in the three years 

from 2006 that “will enable the ABC 

to broadcast a dedicated quality 

children’s/youth TV multi-channel”. A 

properly funded second television 

channel is the most radical shake up of 

ABC-TV since 1956. It will significantly 

lift Australian content on the ABC and 

allow it to better service Australia’s 

diverse and ageing population, as is 

required by its charter. 

On the eve of the election campaign, 

ABC management announced that it 

was reversing its shortsighted decision 

to bow out of digital TV and kickstarting 

a new digital service offering a 

mix of children’s, documentary, arts, 

entertainment and news programming 

to commence in March 2005. The 

scuttling of the digital pioneer channels 

ABC Kids and the youth-orientated Fly 

ranked with the myopia of the hapless 

Decca Record executive who knocked 

back the Beatles because he reckoned 

guitar bands were on the way out. As 

Labor recognises, this is a tremendous 

opportunity for the ABC to remake itself 

for new generations by experimenting 

with the form and content of television. 

However, its cobbled-together budget of 

$2 million means we would see little 

more than repeats from the main 

analogue channel. 

Worse, the Howard Government has 

imposed fetters on digital TV, which 

limit content on the new channel. 

The division of education and entertainment 

is not only arbitrary, and 

deeply philistine, but a cynical ploy by 

John Howard to placate his dinosaur 

mates who control commercial free-toair 

and pay TV. The Coalition policy on 

digital TV is a cosy deal for existing 

oligopolies inimical to competition, 

consumer choice and new players. 

Australian audiences should not hold 

their collective breath waiting for 

media diversity from the Liberals. It was 

Gough Whitlam’s Labor Government 

that nurtured the new radio initiative 

Double J. Calling for “a Triple J of 

television” Lindsay Tanner has 

promised Labor will free up the 

Coalition’s content restrictions on 

multi-channelling for both the ABC 

and SBS “to unlock the full potential 

of their multi-channelling capacity”. A 

Latham Government would provide an 

untied funding boost of over $100 

million but advises that the ABC direct 

some of this to the new digital channel 

for innovative Australian content. 

Continued on page 4

PAGE 2 

NEWS 

Australian Fabian News 

October–December 2004 

SECRETARY’S 

COLUMNOLUMN 

by Race Mathews 

National Secretary 

Secretary’s report 

to the 57th Annual 

General Meeting of 

the Australian Fabian 

Society, 26 August 2004 

The AFS can look back on its 57th year 

of support for social democratic public 

policy research and discussion with 

qualified satisfaction. Membership has 

continued to increase, new activities 

have been introduced, networking 

with other organisations has expanded 

and become more effective and 

strategic planning has been placed on a 

firmer footing. 

The society is soundly positioned to 

consolidate past gains and break new 

ground, subject only to a willingness on 

the part of more members to involve 

themselves more actively and thereby 

ensure a fairer and more effective 

sharing of its work. In particular, more 

member support is needed for those of 

the society’s branch committees in 

states and territories other than 

Victoria, New South Wales, Queensland 

and Tasmania, where the more 

acceptable levels of branch activity are 

currently being achieved or are in 

prospect. Members in states where 

branches have yet to achieve a firm 

footing and schedule regular events 

might be mindful of a lame paraphrase 

of John F. Kennedy – ‘Ask not what your 

branch can do for you but what you can 

do for your branch’. 

Highlights of the Year 

Highlights from 2003 – 2004 have 

included: 

• Further high profile national events, 

including a highly successful 

December 2003 conversazione on 

‘Catching the Wave: The Why and 

How of Social Democratic Renewal’ 

addressed by Michael Pusey, Lindsay 

Tanner, Michael Jacobs, Marian Sawer 

and Fred Argy; Shadow Minister 

Kevin Rudd’s Guest of Honour 

At the NSW Branch AFS AGM on 16 June were (front row): Shann Turnbull, Danny Faddoul, 

Anna York, Richard Fidler and Rodney Cavalier. (Rear row): David McKnight, Mal Bozic, 

Mark McGrath,Tony Moore, Bob Johnston, David Lewis, Michael Chen and Race Mathews. 

Speech at the society’s 20th Annual 

Remembrance Day Dinner and the 

2004 Autumn Lectures program on 

‘And the Truth Shall Set You Free: 

Public and Community Television 

and Radio and the Public Interest’ 

featuring Donald McDonald, Ken 

Inglis, Catharine Lumby, Malcolm 

Long, Jock Given, Kath Letch, 

Lindsay Tanner, Tony Moore and 

Guy Rundle. 

• Successful programs of branch events, 

including most notably Victoria’s 

weekly ‘Wednesday Night at the 

New International Bookshop’ (now 

approaching the end of its fourth 

year) and monthly ‘Mietta’s 

Mondays’ programs and 

Queensland’s ‘This Month at the 

Paddington Workers’ Club’ program. 

The Tasmanian, New South Wales, 

West Australian, South Australian and 

Australian Capital Territory branches 

also held events, but have yet to place 

them on regular schedules. 

• Extension of the society’s networking 

to a range of public policy interest 

groups, with a view to securing their 

involvement in projects such as the 

Victorian Branch’s ‘Wednesday Night 

at the New International Bookshop’ 

program, and to embassies with a 

view to obtaining early notification 

of overseas visitors of possible interest 

for society events. 

www.fabian.org.au 

• Establishment of closer links with 

social democratic student bodies with 

student body representatives filling 

positions on the National Executive 

for the first time in more than a 

decade. As well, representatives of the 

Melbourne, Monash and La Trobe 

University ALP Clubs formed the 

Victorian Branch’s AFS Campus 

Liaison Group. We ran two very 

successful on-campus programs: 

‘Carmen on Campus’ and ‘Burnside 

on Campus’ where over a 24-hour 

period a high-profile speaker 

addresses lunchtime meetings at two 

of the participating universities and 

delivers a formal lecture – to date 

Carmen Lawrence’s Chifley Memorial 

Lecture and Julian Burnside’s Jim 

Cairns Memorial Lecture. 

• Appointment of a new National 

Research Committee with Evan 

Thornley as director and Jane Mathews 

as secretary, and the establishment of 

an Economic Policy Research Group 

as a pilot project for the future conduct 

of society research. 

• Social Change Online’s radical 

upgrading of the society’s website at 

www.fabian.org.au, the appointment 

of Donna Benjamin as national 

webmaster, and the availability 

through the website of an extensive 

body of publications including 

presentations at society events.



•Glenn Patmore’s production of The 

Vocal Citizen as his fifth – and final 

– contribution to the society’s longrunning 

Labor Essays series has 

negotiated with Pluto Press for future 

editions of the series to be produced 

in a new format and more frequently. 

Negotiations are also underway with 

Pluto to hand over stocks of past 

editions of Labor Essays to the 

society, and with RMIT Publishing 

to have past editions made available 

electronically, on an on-line basis. 

As a consequence of these changes, 

Labor Essays 2005 is likely to be 

delayed until well into the new year, 

and members will be asked to bear 

with the society until their 

entitlements to free copies can be 

honoured. It is envisaged that 

distribution of future editions of 

Labor Essays will be on the basis of a 

voucher system, which will enable 

members to claim their entitlements 

and thereby avoid having unwanted 

copies distributed by default. 

• Publication of the society’s quarterly 

Australian Fabian News – edited by 

Fiona Perry – together with weekly 

Victorian Branch and monthly 

national editions of the email, AFS 

Update. 

• The addition of three new titles to the 

society’s long-running pamphlet 

series in association with the 

AFS/Arena Publications ‘Blue Books’ 

Project – No. 61 Responding to the 

Challenge of Globalisation: The 

Democratic Imperative (Joe Camilleri); 

No. 62 Thinking About Privatisation: 

Evaluating the Privatised State to 

Inform Our Future (Graeme Hodge) 

and What’s Wrong with Social Capital 

(Chris Scanlon). 

•New fundraising initiatives, including 

bedding down the society’s new 

‘Patron Supporter’ and ‘Supporting 

Body’ membership categories, with 

minimum subscriptions respectively 

of $500 and $250 for an aggregate 

revenue gain to date approaching 

$10,000. We also encourage members 

to remember the society in their wills. 

• Faith Fitzgerald’s finalisation of the 

society’s business plan, on the basis of 

the process originally facilitated by 

Ryk Blisczcyk and Michael Henry, 

and with input from Max Dumais’ 

survey of member opinion and 

subsequent report. 

NEWS 

• Caroline Heath’s completion of her 

redesign of the society’s membership 

database, with Les Sherwin taking 

over its management. Proposed 

expansion of the database will include 

data for promotion of society events. 

Membership 

As usual, membership numbers are a 

cause for celebration but also for 

concern. The upside is that 

membership as of 30 June was 670, 

which was a clear 100 more than at the 

same time last year, and membership 

now stands at more than 700. The 

downside is that roughly 100 members 

who were financial last year and a 

further 50 who were financial in 2002 

are currently in arrears. As usual, the 

society will be grateful if these 

outstanding payments can be 

forwarded at the earliest possible 

opportunity. Given a reasonable rate of 

return of the remaining renewals in 

conjunction with some vigorous 

campaigning to attract new members, 

the strategic plan target of a 

membership of 1000 by the end of the 

year should be readily achievable, and 

provide a solid foundation for a further 

increase to the target of 2000 members 

in 2005. 


PAGE 3 

Prominent refugee, asylum 

seeker and human rights 

advocate Julian Burnside QC 

delivered the inaugural Jim 

Cairns Memorial Lecture at 

RMIT University in Melbourne 

on 17 August. 

Acknowledgements 

The society is again deeply indebted to 

all those whose efforts contribute so 

very greatly to its work – to our 

administrative officer Edna Bartlett and 

her husband Gordon, to Brian Smiddy 

and Kevin Davis of the Victorian 

Branch Committee, who unfailingly 

collect the door charges and provide 

the front of house presence at society 

events, to branch convenors and 

contacts Alistair Harkness (Victoria), 

Terry Hampson (Queensland), Paul 

Smith (NSW), Eloise Haddad 

(Tasmania), Linda Kirk (SA), John Carey 

(WA) and Alexa McLaughlin (ACT), and 

to my fellow National Executive 

members Max Dumais (Chairman), 

Alistair Harkness (Assistant Secretary), 

Jill Anwyl (Minutes Secretary), Bob 

Smith (Treasurer), Ben Barnett, John 

Button, John Cain, Faith Fitzgerald, 

Bruce Hartnett, Brian Howe, Barry 

Jones, Pamela McLure, Glenn Patmore, 

Fiona Perry, Justin Randle, Evan 

Thornley and Sally Young. 

Race Mathews National Secretary

PAGE 4 

Continued from page 1 

Tanner rightly believes communications 

ministers should not 

direct an independent ABC in its 

programming, but the policy strongly 

suggests the properly funded digital 

channel be “dedicated to children and 

youth programming and suggests preschool 

programming in the morning, 

educational programming during the 

day, tweenies programming in the 

afternoon and youth programming 

at night”. Labor wants the ABC to use 

the additional funding to produce more 

Australian content in preference to the 

over-reliance on British imports. After 

the main ABC-TV network goes digital, 

Labor envisages it specialising in adult 

programming alongside the youth/ 

children channel. Having a youth 

network enables the ABC to appeal to 

this demographic without necessarily 

alienating older viewers who have 

different tastes. Many Australians – 

especially those with kids or the young 

at heart – will enjoy having the choice of 

flicking between the two ABC channels. 

Should Labor be elected, the funding 

boost might also be used to explore new 

ways of involving audiences in 

programming attuned to the interactive 

qualities of digital technology. ALP Arts 

spokeswoman Kate Lundy has 

announced a $10 million grant to the 

Australian Film Commission for an 

“interactive digital content strategy”. 

Surely ABC New Media would be well 

placed to participate in this strategy 

with its new channel? Rather than the 

old ‘industrial silo’ mentality of 

Australian TV, the new digital channel 

FREE THINKERS 

could be the medium by which the 

diverse creative energy in the 

community, from suburban garages to 

inner city garrets, can be siphoned into 

the mainstream public conversation. I 

don’t mean a Wayne’s World of 

amateurism, but genuine democratic 

talent-scouting, a 21st century version 

of the approach of F.J. Archibald’s 

Bulletin of the 1890s, that scoured the 

bush and the back lanes looking for 

poets and artists and discovered the 

likes of Henry Lawson, Banjo Patterson 

and Norman Lindsay. The best 

Australian culture erupts when media 

enfranchise a passionate community 

and become clearing houses for new 

ideas and styles, as happened with the 

early Bulletin, ’70s new wave theatre 

and cinema, Nation Review, Double J 

and even Countdown. 

The signs for audience participation in 

the new digital channel are hopeful given 

that it will be run by New Media & Digital 

Services, the experimental mob who 

pioneered ABC Online, one of the nation’s 

best web sites in the second half of the 

‘90s. Exploiting interactivity may liberate 

the new channel from the tyranny of 

commercial ratings, providing a new way 

of measuring audience appreciation 

sensitive to deep niches rather than lowest 

common denominator massed ‘bums on 

seats’ of 20th century broadcasting. On 

this type of scale, a cult show like Double 

the Fist, that scores a huge number of site 

hits from fans offering program ideas, is 

a winner. The new channel could start 

its audience participation project with 

a serious drive in schools, to consult 

children about what they would like to 

see, and invite classes to use the new 

Humanist Society 

The Humanist Society of Victoria is actively concerned with contemporary 

questions of ethics and values of modern society. We organise public 

lectures and social activities, prepare submissions, and offer counselling 

and support to our members. We publish a monthly newsletter 

and a quarterly national magazine. 

Enquiries welcome. 

Tel 03 9857 9717 

 

HSV GPO Box 1555, Melbourne VIC 3001 



channel as a teaching aid – just as they 

did with Behind the News and the old 

school radio beloved by older 

generations. The Argonaughts could sail 

again, only this time by fibre optics and 

a set-top box. 

The ABC’s failed budget bid to the 

Howard Government estimated it 

would take $35 million to run two 

quality digital channels. A Latham 

Government funding boost will enable 

robust production of Australian content 

for the new channel. Let’s hope the 

online team break rules and take 

creative risks, as happened with The 

Jays in radio back in the ‘70s. But 

iconoclasm should be tempered by 

genuine consultation and cooperation 

with TV program makers both within 

and outside the ABC (including the Fly 

pioneers), and with storytellers from 

beyond the industry working in 

cinema, theatre, fine art, literature, 

music and even computer games. In 

time, I see the ABC’s new digital 

stations as hubs through which a 

diversity of creative communities 

impact on Australia’s mainstream 

culture. 

The digital station also enables the 

ABC to reinvigorate valuable traditions 

beloved by older Australians that 

deserve new audiences. Rather than just 

repeating recent popular shows from 

free-to-air, the ABC should think of the 

opportunities for encore screenings of 

its Australian classics like vintage 

programs that young people would 

enjoy, for example, comedies such as 

The D Generation, Norman Gunston and 

Das Kapital and classic but rarely seen 

Australian films from the ‘70s, ‘80s and 

‘90s like The Man from Hong Kong, The 

Last Wave, Summer City or Goin’ Down. 

Packaged and presented with the 

panache of ABC Kids and Fly, the new 

channel could give the tired American 

repeats of Foxtel real competition from 

some Australian retro. 

That’s the way for ABC management 

to move forward into the digital 

possibilities being offered by Labor – as 

a hothouse and clearinghouse for new 

Australian talent, while keeping alive 

our finest traditions. 

Tony Moore is commissioning editor of 

Pluto Press. He was a program maker at 

ABC-TV from 1988 to 1997 and a 

member of the ABC National Advisory 

Council in the mid 1980s. 

www.fabian.org.au



What to do about casual work 

– an alternative approach 

by Richard Curtain 

FREE THINKERS PAGE 5 

The casual work debate has heated up. 

Do the claims made for the precarious 

position of casual employees stand up? 

Are there alternatives to the awardbased 

changes proposed by the 

Australian Labor Party? 

The debate about casual work has 

witnessed some grand overstatements 

about the nature and extent of 

temporary work. The trouble is that the 

industrial relations definition of ‘casual 

work’ includes a wide spectrum of 

different types of work arrangements. 

These vary from the short term and 

precarious working arrangements for 

some to long term, ongoing work for 

others. Little or no information is 

provided by the critics of casualisation 

about the extent of the numbers in 

precarious work. 

One measure of perceived job 

insecurity suggests that it is much lower 

than widely claimed. The Australian 

Bureau of Statistics asks people what 

they expect in 12 months’ time in 

relation to their job or business. Only 

10 per cent of all employed people in 

November 2003 did not expect to be 

with the same employer or in the same 

business in 12 months. However, when 

asked the reason, only less than 2 per 

cent of all employed people said this 

was likely to be due to factors beyond 

their control. 

Barbara Pocock, in a recent piece for 

On Line Opinion, ‘Only a casual? But 

isn’t casual work highly desirable?’ 

exemplifies this misuse of statistics. 

Barbara reports on her qualitative study 

of 55 people. These people are said to 

be employed as casuals but there is no 

indication of how this employment 

status was defined other than 

subjectively. The sample was not a 

representative one, indeed most in the 

sample self-selected to participate in the 

study. Nevertheless, generalisations are 

made from the study about the extent 

of negativity that casual workers have 

towards their work. A qualitative study 

may be valuable for exploratory 

purposes but it cannot be used to 

generalise to the population as a whole. 

An alternative approach 

What are the alternatives to the ALP’s 

policy to permit those employed as 

casuals to ask their employer to move to 

‘permanent’ status? The starting point 

for good policy is first to identify the 

principles to underpin a proposed 

policy option. 

Underlying principles 

to consider 

In seeking to re-regulate casual work, 

three sets of stakeholders’ needs 

require consideration. The intervention 

proposed needs to encompass as much 

as possible the needs of these three 

main groups of stakeholders. 

The first refers to the needs of 

individuals in terms of access to work, 

their choice about whether to accept a 

particular job or not and working 

conditions they are prepared to accept. 

The second set of needs refer to the 

employers offering the jobs. These refer 

to their requirements for flexible 

deployment to enable the business to 

remain competitive. 

The third set of needs refer to those of 

particular groups such as young people 

and married women who have suffered 

past discrimination in the labour market. 

A more nuanced policy approach 

offers forms of social protection to 

individuals that do not rely on 

particular employers. This approach 

involves first identifying those who are 

the most vulnerable in the labour 

market. It then involves working out 

different ways that government can 

assist individuals to manage risk based 

on a good understanding of their 

vulnerabilities. 

Regulation may be part of this policy 

solution but it needs to be highly 

specific to the situation it is addressing. 

Broad-brush award changes are not 

likely to do this. 

Social protection for individuals 

in the labour market 

The Netherlands offers one approach to 

labour market regulation based on the 

twin principles of flexibility and 

security. The policy has been dubbed 


‘flexicurity’ and is suggested as a new 

approach to labour market reform. 

The ‘flexicurity’ policy is a product of 

strong state intervention to promote 

job growth, undertake welfare reform, 

while retaining industry and company 

level collective bargaining. 

The Dutch model of ‘flexicurity’ 

regulation 

The Netherlands has the largest 

percentage of agency workers in the 

labour force in the European Union. 

Temporary work agency collective 

agreements have been widespread 

since 1999. The so called ‘flexicurity’ 

legislation, through collectively 

bargained agreements, guarantees 

temporary agency workers more secure 

employment, better pay and social 

security entitlements as their duration 

of employment in this type of work 

increases. 

Continued overleaf

PAGE 6 

Continued from page 5 

The new legislation balances the 

flexibility needs of enterprises with the 

security needs of employees. It does this 

through defining four distinct phases of 

employment defined by time periods 

working in temporary agency work. 

After 18 months with a single 

enterprise or 36 months with various 

enterprises, employees of temporary 

hire agencies are entitled to an openended 

contract with the agency. 

A need to offer 

tailored solutions 

Many enterprises now operate with a 

small core workforce. The capacity to 

expand and contract according to the 

FREE THINKERS 

demands of the business cycle is a key 

feature of a competitive strategy in 

world markets. 

This means that enterprises require a 

buffer workforce that sits between its 

core workforce and short-term 

temporary staff for meeting ad hoc or 

seasonal demands. This buffer 

workforce needs to be highly skilled so 

it can work productively with the core 

workforce. It also needs access to the 

same working conditions in terms of 

OH&S training and support. However, 

this buffer workforce in most instances 

cannot be engaged in the same way as 

an enterprise’s core workforce due to 

unpredictable business cycles. 

The Dutch legislation balances the 

principles of employment flexibility for 



the enterprise, employment security for 

the individual and the needs of 

excluded groups. As such, it offers a 

valuable guide to a collectively 

bargained outcome for managing 

temporary work. It shows how 

appropriate regulatory arrangements 

can be put in place to cater specifically 

for the needs of the major stakeholder 

groups involved. 

(A more detailed and footnoted review 

of the Chifley Research Centre Report is 

available from the author’s website at 

www.curtain-consulting.net.au). 

Dr Richard Curtain is a convenor of 

the Australian Public Policy Research 

Network and principal consultant 

of Curtain Consulting. This article was 

first published on Online Option on 

31 August: www.on;ineopinion.com.au 

Madison Avenue leads to the Lodge 

Political advertising doesn’t do 

the Australian public justice, 

argues Sally Young. 

A few days ago, an ad agent who was 

talking on radio about the election 

campaign described the ALP as a 

‘challenger brand’. This infuriates me. 

Political parties are not ‘brands’! 

They are so much more than that 

caricature implies. 

Political parties are supposed to 

educate and inform us about politics, 

formulate policies, create coalitions of 

like-minded people, mobilise voters, act 

as an avenue for political participation, 

communicate with citizens, nurture 

political activism, select candidates 

for office and keep a check on each 

other in opposition. 

Once elected, they hold massive 

power over our way of life by 

implementing policies, creating laws 

and (hopefully) governing in our best 

interests. 

Political parties are the organs that try 

to fulfil that noble aim of government 

‘of the people, by the people, for the 

people’. They are among the most 

important organisations in this country. 

But, sadly, ad agents are not the only 

ones to use such trite language. 

The Labor and Liberal parties see 

themselves in much the same way. 

They are focused on advertising, 

marketing and money-raising. They 

are run like corporations (with lots of 

employees but not many members). 

They use the same Madison Avenue 

sales jargon. They talk less about 

policies and participation and more 

about brands, markets, value segments, 

targets, polls, demographics, 

advertisements and slogans. I’ve even 

heard political leaders describe their 

own party as a ‘brand’. 

So now, when the parties try to fulfil 

their age-old responsibility of 

communicating with voters, they use 

advertising. And advertising is really 

not up to the task – it’s a very 

expensive, low information, and only 

one-way communication form. 

But ads are certainly where the parties 

will be focusing their attention this 

campaign, and they’ll probably spend 

more than $20 million on them over 

the course of the election. If this is how 

they are going to communicate with us 

– by advertising to us – then we need to 

think about what they’re really saying. 

This includes looking carefully at 

each individual ad but also thinking 

more broadly about the whole concept 

of political advertising. 

When a political party uses ads to 

communicate with us, what they’re 

really saying is: 

1. We don’t want to talk to you. TV ads 

don’t give voters the opportunity to 

talk back, to ask questions or to 

disagree. By hitting voters with a 

barrage of them in the last few weeks 

of the campaign, the parties are 

really saying “here’s what we want to 

say to you but we don’t care what 

you have to say back.” 

2. We think you’re stupid. Their internal 

research reveals that the parties 

think voters – especially swinging 

voters – are ‘ignorant and 

indifferent’ (their words, not mine). 

So they rely on 15-30 second TV ads 


to put across ‘impressions’ rather 

than policies. Their ads use vague 

language and emotive images. They 

don’t give detail or specifics. 

3. We think you’re greedy and vulnerable 

to scare campaigns. I’ve examined 

over 1500 political ads from 1949 to 

2004 and the common theme is fear. 

In their ads, the parties threaten 

you with all sorts of disastrous 

consequences if you vote for their 

opponent, but the most common 

threats (either explicit or implicit) 

are about money: you’ll lose your 

job, you’ll lose your house, your 

interest rates will go up or you’ll 

have to pay more taxes. This is 

because they think voters are, in 

Neville Wran’s famous words, 

‘greedy bastards’. 

4. We’re ripping you off. What the ads 

don’t say, but we all need to keep in 

mind, is that Australian taxpayers 

provide public funding for the 

parties to campaign and this is how 

they spend that money. Last election 

we gave the two major parties over 

$32 million, and up to 70 per cent of 

their campaign budgets go on TV 

ads, even though many voters say 

they don’t like political ads. 

Sally Young lectures in media and 

communications at the University 

of Melbourne and is an Executive 

Committee member of the Australian 

Fabian Society. She is the author 

of The Persuaders: The Hidden 

Machine of Political Advertising 

(Pluto Press) due out this month. 

This article was originally published on 

NewMatilda.com on 23 September 2004.



PAGE 7 

Published quarterly by the Australian 

Fabian Society, www.fabian.org.au 

GPO Box 2707X, Melbourne, Vic, 3001 

Editor: Fiona Perry. 

Editorial/media enquiries: 0409 025 289 

Contributions are welcomed and may be 

sent to: ausfabians@hotmail.com 

National Secretary: Race Mathews 

Telephone/Fax: (03) 9826 0104 

email: race@netspace.net.au 

Views expressed by individual contributors 

to Australian Fabian News are not necessarily 

endorsed by the Australian Fabian Society. 

Australian Fabian Society 2003 

President: Gough Whitlam 

Chairman: Faith Fitzgerald 

Secretary: Race Mathews 

Treasurer: Bob Smith 

Assistant secretary: Justin Randle 

Minutes secretary: Jill Anwyl 

Executive Committee Members 

Ben Barnett 

Ryk Bliszczyk 

Gary Jungwirth 

Pamela McLure 

Tony Moore 

Barbara Norman 

Brendan O’Dwyer 

Fiona Perry 

David Taft 

Evan Thornley 

Sally Young 

Branch Committee Contacts 

Victoria: Alistair Harkness, 

5 Casale Court, Frankston, Vic, 3199. 

Phone: (03) 9770 9047 

Mobile: 0439 632 687 

Email:alistair.harkness@alp.org.au 

ACT: Alexa McLaughlin, 

75 Discovery Street, Red Hill, ACT, 2603. 

Phone/Fax: (02) 6260 7722 

Mobile: 0419 431 941 

Email: alexa@pcug.org.au 

Queensland: Cr Terry Hampson, 

Marchant Ward Office, 960 Gympie Road, 

Chermside, Qld, 4032. 

Phone: (07) 3407 0707 

Email: marchant.ward@ecn.net.au 

South Australia: Senator Linda Kirk, 

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believe in achieving social justice and a 

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forefront of research into progressive 

political ideas and public policy reform 

for more than half a century. 

Nearly every ALP leader since Dr Evatt 

– Arthur Calwell, Gough Whitlam 

(current president), Bill Hayden, Bob 

Hawke, Paul Keating, Kim Beasley and 

Simon Crean – has been an AFS member. 

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encouraged through the society’s 

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as well as through the many public 

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throughout the year. 

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important part in determining both 

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feature leading ministers and shadow 

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GPO Box 2707X, Melbourne, Vic, 3001. 

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in human ability to solve the problems 

of human life through the application 

of human reason. It insists on the 

importance of ideas in politics”. 

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PAGE 8 

Opportunities lost 

FREE THINKERS 

Australia is still hopelessly monolinguistic, and it’s holding 

our development back, argues Greg Barns. 



Talented Australians expand their 

horizons by studying in the US and 

the UK. They adore working in cities 

like New York and London, and 

upgrade their skills in public and 

private sector organisations across the 

Anglophone world. 

But what if it were unexceptional for 

Australians to study in Hanover or 

Helsinki, routinely fast-track their 

careers in Budapest and Buenos Aires, 

and participate in peer-to-peer 

exchanges with institutions in Seoul 

and Stockholm? This cannot happen 

unless Australians start looking and 

learning beyond the English language. 

There is only so far you can go in terms 

of understanding potential friends, and 

enemies, without mastering their native 

language and its nuances. 

Most of us agree that all Australians 

should speak fluent English, and that 

this aim is a core component of working 

multiculturalism. Yet we almost 

completely ignore another more than 

200 languages spoken in this country, 

and Australians come from more than 

200 birthplaces. Despite the unusual 

depth and breadth of these linguistic 

resources at our disposal, Australia’s 

cultural, educational, political and 

business experiences are primarily 

conducted through the medium of the 

English language. According to the 

Australian Bureau of Statistics, only 

around 15 per cent of the Australian 

population speaks a language other 

than English at home. Worse, there are 

no signs of up and coming generational 

change. In Victoria, for example, only 

8 percent of Year 12 students study a 

language other than English. 

Other Western nations don’t share 

our blind, dumb spot. Half the 

population of Europe is bilingual. In the 

US, 11 per cent of the population speaks 

Spanish – including George W. Bush, a 

man who proudly boasted he had never 

been to Europe until he became 

President in 2000. British Prime 

Minister Tony Blair famously and 

fluently addresses French President 

Jacques Chirac and the French 

Parliament in their own language. 

The opportunities offered by our 

evolving racial demographics were 

something that Gough Whitlam and 

Malcolm Fraser recognised in their 

pursuit of multicultural policies that 

were more than skin deep. Their open, 

pluralistic approach to these matters 

culminated in the introduction of Paul 

Keating’s Asian Languages program for 

schools in 1995. Keating recognised that 

speaking the languages – and thereby 

accessing the culture – of Asia was vital 

to Australia becoming a genuinely long 

term member of the region in which we 

live. 

John Howard cancelled that program 

in 1999. Was this part of Howard’s 

strategic backlash against ‘political 

correctness’ and Keating’s ‘vision 

thing’? Or was it because multilingualism 

threatens the vision of ‘one 

nation’, where language is used to 

enforce ‘belonging’ in its narrowest 

sense? Current Howard Government 

spending on teaching young 

Australians languages other than 

English is woefully inadequate. It 

announced in the 2003 Federal Budget 

a minute total of $104 million for 

languages education, out of a total 

education budget worth $16 billion. 

It’s not just our politicians who seem 

to care little about the opportunities lost 

to Australians through incompetence in 

other languages. The Business Council 

of Australia, an influential group 

representing the ‘big end of town’ and 

spending millions of dollars on research 

and advocacy each year, failed to 

include language issues in its otherwise 

admirable 2002 ‘Future Directions’ 

project. Yet as Tony Liddicoat, president 

of the Australian Federation of Modern 

Language Teachers Associations told 

The Age on October 20 last year: “You 

do need English plus another language 

to be really competitive in a whole lot 

of jobs’.” 


Let’s stop denying the reality and the 

possibility of what Australia could and 

should be in the 21st century. Let’s do it 

not just to make more money, 

understand art films or enhance the 

intelligence of our spying and 

surveillance. Let’s do it to combat the 

innate conservatism that’s allowed fear 

politics to get such a tight grip on us in 

recent years, and which prevents our 

democracy maturing to embrace 

overdue constitutional reforms such as a 

republic. For the capacity to understand 

other cultures, values and perspectives 

will bring a greater preparedness to 

reform our own society – imaginatively, 

and in ways that will really work for 

Australia. 

Greg Barns is a Hobart based writer 

and lawyer. This is an edited version 

of an article that first appeared on 

25 August 2004 in the new weekly 

online magazine, NewMatilda.com, 

which promotes independent political 

analysis and public policy development. 

Fabian members can subscribe online 

at a 20 per cent discount by quoting 

the promotional code ‘Fabian’ at 

http://www.newmatilda.com

AFN vol 44 No 4 Oct-Dec04 - Australian Fabian Society

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