So little honour

AND so we come to one of those times of the year — New Year’s Day and the Queen’s Birthday — when the “Honours” are announced.

These announcements and the associated subsequent ceremonial activity are the culmination of many months, usually much more than a year, of activity by sundry bureaucrats, worthy citizens, politicians and others.

Remember Billy McMahon? He was the politician described by Sir Paul Hasluck as “… disloyal, devious, dishonest, untrustworthy, petty, cowardly …” and much worse than that by many others. Billy was a Privy Counsellor, Companion of Honour and bearer of the Knight Grand Cross of the Order of St. Michael and St. George. Remember Terry Lewis, the once Queensland Commissioner for Police? He had a Knighthood. He was also gaoled for corruption. Steve Vizard has gained some notoriety in recent times. He has an Order of Australia. This is just the tip of the iceberg. There are many more where this lot came from.

Why does this come about? Why do so many scumbags sift to the top of the heap when Honours are being dispensed? Principally because they work very hard at cracking the respectability ceiling. They donate funds to charity, they oil their way into the top clubs, they duchess the politicians, they engage shrewd media minders to polish their images and elevate their status. Gullible, vote-seeking, party fund-raising politicians fall for this sort of stuff, as do many others.

All of this happens because too many people who are already well rewarded — in terms of money or status or both — want more and the politicians are only too happy to support them. I was approached a couple of years ago, by someone whom I had never met, asking if I would support the nomination for an honour for someone whom I don’t know well, and rarely see and who, to the best of my knowledge, had done nothing to merit an award of any kind. I declined, politely.

South American military officers shoot each other

Two areas which irritate me in relation to the Honours process are the military and the bureaucracy. Each year sundry Generals, Admirals, Air Marshals — along with a smattering of lower officers and others — are singled out for honours of the civilian and/or military variety. The nation has not been involved in a conflict of significant duration or severity for some decades and yet here we are rewarding people for … what? … just being there? And getting well paid for it. South American military officers shoot each other; our military officers put on their ribbons and medals to add a Gilbertian touch to Canberra cocktail parties.

Then there are the public servants — mostly senior ones — who feature prominently in most lists of Honours recipients. These are people who are also well paid for what they do and who mostly enjoy a well-superannuated security of tenure that is not the good fortune of large swathes of workers in the Australian economy. We shall doubtless see many bureaucrats feature in this year’s lists but we wont see the cleaner in the Department of Jockstraps, or wherever, because she is slaving away at night because her husband has cancer and she needs to clothe, feed and educate three children.

I suspect too that a lot of barons of commerce who are awarded Honours may owe their gongs to their handsome donations to political parties. Given the exorbitant salaries and perks most of these business leaders now enjoy one would have thought that they have sufficient as it is but then, ego being what it is, perhaps they never have sufficient.

I have no doubt that the Honours system is structurally and otherwise beyond reproach — except where it may be the subject of very subtle manipulation. The reservation is quite deliberate. The Honours Secretariat is based at Government House in Canberra and the people directly involved are doubtless competent and honest. The same can be said of the members of the committee that manages the selection process — public servants and people from the private sector, including community organisations.

Two-fingered salute

However, let us assume that a Prime Minister of the day wants to rid his cabinet of a time-serving, promiscuous, lying drunk who has long ago outlived his always arguable usefulness. Well then, is it beyond the bounds of possibility that the Prime Minister of the day may indicate, quietly and privately to the senior public servant on the Honours committee that he believes the aforementioned drunken womaniser would be worthy of a high honour? Do you think that Sir Humphrey would give the Prime Minister a two-fingered salute and a burst of pious invective? No, you don’t. And he doesn’t. Sir Humphrey awaits submission of the formal recommendation, with eminent referees, and steers it through the Honours process. The aforementioned lying and promiscuous drunk then resigns from parliament and is appointed ambassador to Athens or Rome or somewhere equally pleasant. It is the way of the world.

My own view is that the Australian honours system is ripe for a massive overhaul and the principal change should be to cease dishing out honours to people who have been well paid for what they do or have done. If they have done their job brilliantly then so be it — that is what they are paid for and why they have been promoted and able to earn more money. It is in this context that public servants and military personnel should disappear from the lists.

All around this nation there are many thousands of citizens who, mostly without any financial gain to themselves, spend all or much of their time helping other people. They are voluntary carers of the old and the ill; they are voluntary fire and ambulance personnel; they teach swimming and life-saving; they coach children at sport; they help with disabled children; they sell raffle tickets door-to-door and at the football on wet and miserable winter days; they deliver wood to pensioners; and they undertake all sorts of other selfless tasks to help their fellow Australians. I recognise that many of these citizens are recognized in the Honours but such people should become the over-whelming focus of the Honours system and feature prominently at the top end of the awards — not at the bottom end. Bureaucrats, military personnel and barons of commerce should be given the boot from the system unless their contribution has been quite exceptional, selfless and wholly unrelated to their day job.

I would like to be surprised by the composition of the imminent New Year’s Day Honours list but I don’t fancy my chances.