The painful tyranny of time

Not so with the editor of Tasmanian Times. I was harmlessly looking at some fine fare in the local deli and mooching about when there was a tap on the shoulder. Pointedly, I was asked when I was going to write another article. I protested that I was tired and wanted rest only to be convinced that the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, or the one. That sounds familiar but I can’t place it. One reason why I had decided not to retire from writing for Tasmanian Times is that I genuinely didn’t want to be bothered – Tasmanian Times already has a formidable line-up of regulars. But HE would not be denied.
With the remorseless march of time, the ticking minutes becoming louder like the clash of jackboots on cobblestones, the next election is on the horizon and coming closer and when you stop to reflect, the politicians have been at it for most of the year. Since the initial Bartlett honeymoon they’ve been acting like ferrets in a sack and at times, what we’ve seen and heard has not been particularly edifying. I’m not pointing fingers in any particular direction but for a considerable period of time I have been able to help reflecting on how some politicians seem to think that you will forget what they have done or more accurately, not done.

Stripped of cheap rhetoric, the series of disasters that has best Labor since the death of Jim Bacon portends a political tsunami for David Bartlett and Labor. And despite what some people have said about the Pembroke by-election, it is impossible to extrapolate or draw too many conclusions from the result. Labor declined to field an official candidate and although there was a Melbourne Cup field, the result was inevitable and Vanessa Goodwin now becomes a member of the upper house with all the privileges that involves, especially ignoring electors. Quite a long time ago, I made the comment that I thought Ms. Goodwin had the potential to be the first Liberal Premier of Tasmania and although she is now in the wrong house, time is on her side. She will find the shoes of Allison Ritchie hard to fill. There are a couple of community organizations that the hard working and popular Ms. Ritchie sponsored quite willingly and for their sake, I hope the new member continues in the tradition.

No one with an IQ larger than his or her collar size can ignore what some would call the bleeding obvious. I must admit I was surprised when, following the most recent EMRS poll ABC News announced that the Bartlett government was “on the nose.” Ideally I wondered whether there had been some divine (or Devine) revelation, before realizing that someone had opened the windows in the building where part of the old central station was and still should be.

On the rails and off, but to where?

In common with another occasional columnist in Tasmanian Times, I have a Welsh friend who has yet to return from the land of the mist and the wild, who foams at the mouth when railways are mentioned. The strange infection has spread to me and in recent years, I’ve become particularly interested in trams and railways and I must say that in Europe, generally speaking, both are magnificent. In the UK, trams have been reintroduced to a number of cities; some railway lines are reopening owing to demand. Tourist railways are something of an institution and although I’ve not traveled on all of them, some that stand out are the Romney, Hyde and Dymchurch Railway, the Bluebell Line and the funny little funicular railway that runs up Mount Snowdon in Wales. (For those interested http://www.hows.org.uk/personal/rail/ and the reference is near the bottom of the page).

On my peregrinations around the globe, which have grown fewer with age and declining bank balances, I thoroughly enjoy the splendid spectacle of a Central station in big cities. London is full of them, New York has some grand edifices and some in Europe are more like artworks of a functional variety than the hub of transport. So if my morning coffee is diluted with salty water, then it’s a fair bet that I have been subject to some Sturges-invoked lachrymose as yet another said excuse for doing nothing about the railways has been aired in the Mercury. I would have enjoyed seeing Hobart’s main station in its heyday and I’ve not really found anyone to tell me about it and so far, I’ve been far too apathetic to go looking for photographs or sketches. Any advice on where I can obtain reproductions, preferably polite and restrained may be passed to me via the Editor of TT.

For me, my new interest is serious fun! And it can be a wonderful diversion from thinking about matters closer to home but before I leave my dreaming, I don’t personally favour a cable car for Mount Wellington but if a funicular route could wind its way up beyond The Springs to the summit, perhaps starting from Fern Tree, it could be fairly discreet and profitable and I was extremely interested to see that a Labor candidate for the next election, Madeleine Ogilvie, apparently seems to share the same views although I draw the line at too much building on the top of the mountain, or at least that which is visible from the city. Ah Madeline, I do not know you but you must be very brave to go public with that little number, even if it was cleared by the heavy mob as kite-flying. They’ll bring out the crucifixion detail for this blooper.

Belching over my soup, I can imagine the opposition especially from the Greens but I don’t want to go back to riding horses or having someone with a flag walk in front of my electric motor vehicle or retreating to a cave to eat nourishing ‘erbs or shoots by firelight, whilst knitting my very own yoghurt. I would defend to the death the rights of such people to follow that lifestyle but not have it forced upon me. Imagine the caves and all the fossil fuel used for heat and cooking or do we have to go further back and have lice as companion creatures in out clothing? I’m damned if I’m going to turn my back on technology – I define myself as 21st century man and no, I don’t have an Apple iPhone or a blackberry, merely a G3 mobile and it’s not used very often. Just my choice!

If by some miracle we retain railways in this state, the Hobart end is doomed to be gloomy and out of the way. It is a sad reflection on the way this country has been run and the economic doctrines that pervaded the minds of treasurers and politicians to the extent that so much public infrastructure was privatized and allowed to decline. It is the logical consequence of privatization that the shareholders must receive a payout and railways around the world are not exactly big money spinners. It all depends on what to believe a railway system should be – for the common good or for private gain.

And now, that opinion poll and the political scene!

Getting back to the main game, I was only mildly surprised at the ABC’s reaction to the latest EMRS opinion poll, and for the life of me, I can’t say that it was unexpected. Acquaintances of mine who have been loyal members of the ALP for years are falling by the wayside but I’m fairly sure in my own mind that this does not necessarily translate into support for Will Hodgman and the Libs. Next March, I expect that we will all be fed up with politicians and the campaigning leading up to the election. Our letterboxes will surely groan under the weight of political advertising material. My custom-built letterbox, built to defy vandals who pulled its predecessors from the ground at the end of the year, doubles as a recycling unit. Snails grow large on junk mails and breed prolifically. We don’t avail ourselves of this culinary delight as we should but a diet of political advertising might have unpleasant side-effects – Harvey Norman and Woollies catalogs are bad enough.

The situation is already dire with all the commercial advertising and a week’s worth around our area is truly horrific and I think I should perhaps weigh and count and even catalog the catalogs for a week. This is a greatly neglected aspect of social science – garbage intelligence. It’s something the military did for years or it least the navies of the major powers – garbage tossed into the sea (Greenpeace readers cover your eyes) and picked up for examination. Apart from giving some idea of what the other side’s diet was like, the material was picked over for messages that had not been shredded or disposed of correctly.

Personally I can’t see any social scientist from UTAS collecting, weighing, and cataloging election material or junk mail in general and certainly not when they could be playing around with antiques and attractive museum curators. And on a serious note, I should make myself very clear here: I do not believe that electoral material constitutes junk mail. Publicity about candidates and policies is a very important democratic right and I believe that it supersedes the ubiquitous “no junk mail” notices on letterboxes. Just because our politicians are on the nose at the moment does not mean that they have no right to distribute their material. It is then up to the reader, who has to vote by law to make up his or her own mind whether they pitch it straight into the trash or read it.

I’m a great believer in the democratic system, especially the Hare/Clark proportional voting system, which I believe to be the most democratic and representative of any in Australia. And I certainly don’t agree with Duncan trying to change its name. (Mind you, there is a certain attraction, temptation or cachet concerning changing the name of the state back to Van Diemen’s Land). If the Hare/Clark system were introduced nationally, by my reckoning we would have a hung parliament. Although I laugh at the old bumper sticker: “Don’t vote for the bastards, it only encourages them,” there is surely a modicum of truth in the statement.

However, just pause and think whether you would like to live in a dictatorship; under a military government or some repressive form of regime. I have met and talked with many people who have experienced these conditions and I confess to being somewhat uneasy about the way Western society is headed, because while terrorism is an evident threat to our way of life, no one dares speak out to make the necessary changes that would promote an Australian identity and make us secure in ourselves. Unless you’ve got a good amount of cash and few debts, I think the majority of us have passed one or two barriers too many to be able to actually enjoy life as a citizen. We have slipped into a state where we either endure or exist and for many people today, the burning question is do we live to work or work to live? I have a few ideas but cannot claim to know the answer. At this stage, I will only cover a few points because there’s just too much for one article but I intend to return to specific problems at a later date. Lets start at the core – democracy.

As a system parliamentary democracy works best when there is an active citizenry, which participates in public life; where we look out for one another, encourage that intangible sense of community and except that while we have rights as citizens, reciprocity is involved and we have a duty of due care to ourselves, our neighbors, the state and the country. If we ever had it, it’s gone and the chances of getting it back are so slender has to be remote. It certainly won’t happen in my lifetime. Friends of mine have written on this subject and it’s rather heartbreaking to see a people taking a strange track or what appears to be a strange track. I think of my elderly neighbors, who never used to lock their doors at night; always greeted passers-by with a cheery greeting “G’day” and occasionally stopping for pleasant conversation. These days, their home is a fortress and I haven’t seen them for months. This is an extremely disturbing trend because it hints at atomization of our society and the only people that benefit from that type of society are demagogues and extremists of left and right. It’s also enough for first principles.

Problems – what problems?

Rather than throw too many stones at politicians, and admittedly many deserve being woken up roughly, I think back over the past few months and some of the things I have seen, which I find disturbing and about which I have lost all hope. I could start anywhere but consider for one moment the carnage on the roads. We have all ready exceeded last year’s fatal road toll but as a social scientist of an empirical persuasion and not given to expert opinion on antiques, I look beyond the figures of road accidents. That most evil of men Josef Stalin allegedly said: “one death is a tragedy; a million is a statistic.”

We know a lot about and probably make more use of statistics now than ever before. If you want to prove a point, get some ABS statistics (if you have money), go to the local library, cruise the Internet and you will surely find sufficient anecdotal evidence to validate or nullify any conceivable argument. With some people, statistics are a way of life more than a tool and for others a method of manipulation. I particularly like the TV program “Numbers” probably because half the time I can follow the maths of the boy genius and their social application. It also causes me great amusement when I realize how they abuse the statistics and other data to cater for today’s fast-moving society, it’s not always possible to stop and disassemble an argument based on statistics, logic or even common sense. In the same way, CSI gets forensic results that in real life would take weeks.

Take a look at a particularly unnerving set of figures, road deaths, which surpassed last year’s figures just over half way through this year. Some of my own studies, conversations with experts and copious references to the work of Charlie Epps from Numbers set me thinking one night when there wasn’t much else to watch on TV. Consider a single motor accident in which only the driver is killed. That adds one to the state and national lists but consider the attendant effects or if you like, the knock-on effects. It’s a dream run for social networking analyses, chaos theory or plodding the streets. Under normal circumstances, emergency services of some description would attend the scene.

Perhaps if the driver were an orphan, with no family and no one to grieve at his or her graveside, would it end there? What of the emergency services personnel and perhaps police and a tow truck driver? If the fatality happened to be a beautiful twenty-something female, looking comparatively peaceful or alternatively like a broken doll, there are still emotional effects on those who essentially clear/clean up after an accident. If the person had a family, someone has to tell them and you can be assured that from personal experience it’s not something you forget; nor despite what they say is it something to which people become inured. And I don’t like funerals much, even when they’ve been re-badged as “celebrations of a life.”

I once knew a copper on the mainland and not long after I had been the one to break the news of death to a family, I asked him how he coped. The response was that the first time was traumatic and successive events were slightly easier. Note the qualification “slightly” because a single death on the road has a ripple effect like a stone thrown into a still pond. The closer you are to the incident or the person, the more immediate the effect but even when you get to the third or fourth ripple, there is still some potency. The only people who feel nothing are the deceased and/or people with mental disorders, be they psychopaths or sociopaths who have no affective relationships and despite what you read, they are not numerous. I could go on but not in this article because I am only talking about a major social problem and not reducing it to the effects on others.

From road accidents to road rage and one small step beyond.

I heard and have read of rising road rage and of course, had the experience of being on the receiving end – why should I be any different? The California farewell or “the finger” is one thing, but being cut off, tailgated, cursed and chased are totally different. I have literally come close to “going spare” on this particular topic. Watch out for tradesmen in white utes – they don’t have to obey the road rules and they don’t! In theory you can dob someone for road rage. At one stage no right-thinking Australian or Tasmanian would think of doing such a thing but our culture has changed and slowly it has become a way of life for some people. I can’t blame John Howard for everything but dobbing in a dole bludger has led to an informant’s culture. In turn, this feeds and is fed by certain TV programs, which pass off harassment as being in the public interest. In some circumstances, it is warranted and I have no real problems with that. But in a democratic country like Australia, at times we appear to be exhibiting without any coercion whatsoever, that type of behavior beloved of the Stasi in East Germany.

It is now a stone cold certainty that I would succumb to the temptation of contacting Tasmania police if I am tailgated by one of those behemoths called log trucks. It’s pretty frightening when they’re that close that all you can see is the vertical radiator grille and not the registration number. I’ve heard truckies on TV almost pleading for “understanding” because they have to meet deadlines and sometimes push the envelope when it comes to time behind the wheel. But do they have to be so bloody menacing? It’s their size and bulk that represents intimidation and that’s before a hairy gorilla and descends from the cab with bulging eyes and in a foul temper. It makes the average idiot on the road appear almost benign by comparison but when you see a group of teenagers with about a dozen teeth between them in a car that has no two panels painted the same color swerving around, then it’s time to pull over and let them get on with it and while it is often the case that they usually manage to kill themselves, they often take the innocent and harmless with them.

I am genuinely puzzled by public manifestations of rage and bad temper. A few years ago, your average yob might get a bit stroppy and play up, start a fight or something similar. But it seems to me that the rage these days is deep-seated, vicious and instinctive. It’s getting to the stage where there are more explanations offered and yet none of them seem to fit. I won’t rehearse my own views as yet because I have been subject to intellectual piracy before and there is no guarantee that anything I say is better informed or more accurate than others.

However, I can’t help hoping that radio stations stop interviewing psychologists who talk about youth having a lack of self-esteem because it’s all downhill from there. If it were easy enough to cry out: “send out for a bucket of self-esteem” and solve the problem, then that would’ve happened some time ago. Without revealing any more about my hand on this issue, I think it is a problem common to Western society and not just Australia because I’ve seen it everywhere I’ve gone and it has become worse at a time when kids are better educated, have more disposable income, more consumer durables and less self-control. I’ve heard people blaming “bogans” and a good friend of mine is determined to conduct research on this phenomenon because it appears that the dear old peaceful Chigwell vies with of that savage and violent suburb of Melbourne, called Frankston.

Furthermore, some newspaper articles make disturbing reading. Far from condemning some of the behaviors, they seem to regard them as a necessary outlet for self-expression. I can just hear old diggers saying: “bring back Nasho; that’ll knock some discipline into them” and perhaps it’s true. I can’t say because to me a lot of military service was quite mindless if it moved, salute it; if it didn’t, paint it and then there were the endless inspections and square-bashing. No wonder the head of the defence forces and influential retired military men consistently argue against this particular type of social engineering. I’m not so sure that it would be a particularly good idea to train 18-year-olds in the use of firearms. As it is, most of them handle lethal weapons in an irresponsible manner most days of the week when they get behind the steering wheel of a car.

A noticeable corollary of road rage is the perceived threat of aggression when walking through town and I apologize for defining town as Hobart, Kingston, Eastlands, Moonah and Glenorchy, areas that I frequent. I have felt the same way in certain areas of Launceston. It’s the type of feeling that I experienced in certain areas of cities abroad. Part of it is not being sure of the environment but the other is the pregnant menace of teenagers loitering in shop doorways or around a bus mall. I happened to pass through the Elizabeth Mall and through to the town hall via the bus station outside the main post office in Hobart about a year ago. I often traverse that route but not at the same hour. It was at that time of day that many people dread, that time when kids from schools and colleges are catching buses. On the day in question the air was still and I caught a whiff of marijuana; nothing new there but I saw a couple having sex against a wall and there was a certain amount of bare flesh in evidence. There was nothing from bystanders or their peers from a particular college to indicate disgust or even prurient interest in public copulation. I passed by on the other side but still marvel at the fact that firstly it happened and secondly, no one was taking any notice whatsoever.

Serve and protect.

On the occasions when I have referred to Tasmania Police in my writings, what I have said is generally based on respect. Your average Tasmanian copper is probably among the finest in Australia but they have changed too. Being a large well-built guy and usually very fit, I stood next to a young female constable at a fast food outlet a year or so ago. She appeared to be about six inches shorter than me at least and was literally weighed down with equipment: radio, handcuffs (I think they prefer to call them restraints) a nightstick and a Glock pistol in a waist holster. Now it may well be that the police holsters have restraining straps but there wasn’t one openly displayed on this holster and as she bumped up against me, quite unintentionally, I could have pulled the gun, had I had motive and intent because I certainly had opportunity. And I dare say the average citizen would no more think of committing such an act than I did at the time. A Tasmanian policeman of my acquaintance told me he hated carrying a gun and left his in the car but I wonder, not having seen him for years, whether that has changed.

My biggest gripe about police on the mainland is one of perception. Some cops forget one fundamental lesson. They are sworn to uphold the law and they are not the law. Queensland and NSW police strut around in jackboots and wear mirrored specs but then again they would, wouldn’t they? I recall seeing a very elderly gentleman in the back of beyond on the way to the far North when a policeman in a tan uniform and gleaming boots approached him. The old chap was terrified and I wondered where he came from and what he’d seen to produce near-terror. I didn’t need to watch “Underbelly” on TV, nor its successors. In some scenes, Victoria Police behaved pretty much as I remember them during my time in Melbourne. In particular, I became absolutely incensed by a scarlet-faced ranking officer who regularly appeared on TV and threatened the public about the consequences of irresponsible driving.

Rather than emphasize the fact that speeding and other acts were illegal, and life-threatening, this Inspector probably did more to lead to the public appreciation of the description of policemen as “pigs,” a term apparently inherited from the U.S. Would I ever like to work in law enforcement? Not on your bloody life. I never envy those in the first ripple of a vehicle fatality mentioned above – those that see the body and tell the relatives. I’m in the wrong age demographic to have a great deal to do with policemen. I feel sorry for them when they are wrenched away from their family to pull special duties at Christmas, New Year and Easter in particular. I’ve had my share of being pulled out of bed in the middle of the night, working at unexpected times and dossing on the office floor. When, where and why is my business but at least I have some empathy for the police and emergency service personnel. But somehow even the police force is changing.

Hobart’s central police station is in Liverpool Street and I would like to know why the malls are not patrolled regularly day and night. At night you have to cope with menacing strangers, people begging and the stench of human waste, liquid and solid. No it’s not very pleasant but foot patrols should be part of the job. When I joined the armed forces many years ago, it was with the expectation that I might be required to go into action. Strange though it may seem to some, I actually volunteered for active service at the time of Konfontasi in the 1960s and even the Vietnam War but by that time I had too many fillings in my teeth, had flat feet (despite being an orienteer – cunning running) I was told by an army brigadier that I did not fit the profile: I was too intelligent. He was right – I wasn’t one of the sheep and had a well-developed sense of the absurd.

So we have road rage, a perceived rate of violence in public places (I gather that police deny an increase in violence) and many more anti-social acts including public drunkenness, fights and idiots who have had one too many trying to break a bottle on someone else’s head. To that we can add drug addiction, domestic violence, excessive gambling (see Andrew Willkie’s car featured in The Mercury, Tasmanian Times and on TV) outside the casino citing the figure of spent on gambling. What a ripper of a demonstration; and what a disgrace and indictment of money wasted chasing illusory gains.

These days, smoking is anti-social and illegal in cars but you wouldn’t know it anymore than the way people blatantly get away with using mobile phones while driving. And to a certain Tasmanian police inspector, driving past Government House in Hobart in uniform, smoking and using a mobile phone, I didn’t drop you in it but you should have known better.

It comes back to what we have become, what we do, why so many houses are fortresses, why there’s no parental control over youngsters (never mention the word discipline) and why society as a whole is increasingly dysfunctional, hyper-individualized (got that one Adrian?) And basically why no matter what I say, we’ve got lousy government and that’s why I feel let down and in some circumstances betrayed by the way that we have changed over the past 30 years.

The basic trouble is that we can’t even define the problems let alone start working on solutions and it was with a sense of incredulity that I listened to the radio news recently to hear that the federal government is proposing to hike up the taxes on cigarettes and alcoholic drinks and control fast food. This has all the overtones of social engineering gone mad and I think it was Jenny Macklin I heard saying that all stakeholders (aargh) would be consulted, especially the medical fraternity and educators and I thought to myself… no I can’t repeat it. But it’s a sure sign that no political party has the answer. I think it’s a little like another conundrum with which I am familiar but decline to bang on about.

However, suppose now that people have such a low opinion of politicians, reject the church and its teachings, despise authority and appear to hate their neighbors, what would happen if, like in the film Independence Day, a bloody great UFO appeared in the skies. I’d love to hear Martin George at the Launceston planetarium trying to explain it away as the planet Venus or mass hallucination. You see to give one tinier hint of where my thinking is leading me, I believe people are frightened and believe existence has become precarious and yet they can no more explain why that I can. I know complexity plays its part in the apprehensive society as I call it but what good is talking about solutions if you don’t know the underlying reasons for social ills.

I saw some of the talking heads strutting their stuff supervised by Mr. Cox of the ABC and I suppose it would be all too easy to say that I wasn’t very impressed. Each of the party leaders had at least one decent moment but to me, it all seemed superficial. Somewhere I have the idea that society is moving faster than humans can keep up with comfortably. The 30-second sound bite is down to about 10 seconds now and I can remember in the last days of my work, being told that a particular minister, whom I came to despise for many reasons, would not accept anything longer than three quarters of a typed page. It says a great deal for some of them that they cannot engage with complex ideas that need careful explanation.

I suppose it was all too predictable that this bag of wind would go on to greater things and waft around the world on wings or perhaps his own private hot air balloon. One of my least distinguished moments was when a senior departmental official asked me to summarize a summary. I began to tell him that you could not reduce a detailed argument to a couple of paragraphs only to be interrupted and I replied: “if you want the short answer, we’re stuffed.“ I don’t think there were any brownie points for that answer but at least it was the truth.

In the next few months I expect to see all manner of strange sights and hear strange noises, as they try to lubricate the wheels of the rusted party machines; except for the Greens whose machines are more basic and pulled by horses. I have been filled with dismay at some of the platitudes; the poncing around and promises made that can never be kept. I think it was 1967 when I was particularly friendly with the son of a veteran Labor politician. He told me that on election night he would be acting as a scrutineer.

I confess to have been rather curious at the time but I know what they do these days. I asked my pal how his evening had gone and he said that things have gone really well until around 9:30, when a grizzled veteran of many campaigns shoved his chair back, announced loudly that it was teatime and then told anybody who would listen that he didn’t know who that bloke fxxk was but he had an absolute majority: enough said I think.

A hung parliament or hang parliament?

When next March comes, I will be examining the list of candidates very carefully. I intend to use my vote wisely to cast a ballot for those people whom I believe are firstly honest, secondly receptive to the electorate irrespective of party affiliation, thirdly have entered politics for the public good and to serve – to give, not take and lastly, to respect individuals if irrespective of race, gender, ability and all other facets of humanity. So mine will be a wild-card ticket and at present, there are only two names on my list. If, as I expect, the outcome next March will be a hung parliament we will be having all the arguments about the failed efforts of the past. Already the political corpses have been exhumed to warn the electorate of the dangers of a hung Parliament.

Okay so, with that most recent disaster we condemn the whole idea of coalitions or minority rule? Across Europe, these have been the norm and they have not brought the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse to the citizenry and there is no reason why such action should. If they can’t work together, call another election and if that’s a hung parliament, insist that the heads be banged together and keep going until a spirit of reasonableness and cooperation returns. We would have to enlarge the house and get different and higher quality candidates but we do have the numbers in the general population to form a government, which would be responsible and representative. And if I may be permitted, to the TCCI, you can butt out, because there have been times when you have been shown as inefficient or deficient. As an organization the TCCI cannot be held up as a paragon of virtue. And I don’t care what the great lawyer says; there are times when government has to govern in the greater interest and not that of business.

Put it down to growing old, associated crankiness or toothache, you can make up your mind about what I say. It is time for Tasmanians to take the state back; to take control and to rip power out of the hands of vested interests, time-servers and the all Tasmanian wannabes who never were or are in anyway responsive to those who elected them! If only the Gunn’s factotum Br M. Aird had to face the electors next march. I hope he enjoys his overseas trip on his master’s behalf. Something of a shame that aircraft hi-jacking is out of vogue – fly that man to Cuba – I say; they need him more than us.