LARA Giddings still is something of an unknown quantity as Tasmanian premier.
Certainly she appears the ultimate pragmatist and, judging by her straight talk of pain ahead and harsh austerity cuts, a realist who is prepared to take tough financial decisions to balance the state’s askew government budget.
But there has been little passion on display from Ms Giddings since she suddenly seized the thankless top job in late January from former premier David Bartlett in a classic Labor “faceless men” bloodless coup.
It has made it hard to gain any hint of what makes the state’s first female premier tick; of what ideals other than the Labor party’s desperation back-to-basics mantra drive a determined Ms Giddings to make the personal sacrifices that being a state’s leader entail.
But on Thursday, unexpectedly, provided a welcome exception.
In the antiseptic atmosphere of the Royal Hobart Hospital, where she was with federal Health Minister Nicola Roxon to welcome yet another commonwealth bailout to Tasmania of $240 million, Ms Giddings suddenly appeared prepared to let the real Lara off her tight rein.
The spark was not more dry hospital funding.
Refreshingly, it was a true philosophical issue that set Ms Giddings ablaze.
More specifically, the heated meeting the previous night at Pontville (On TT, HERE) to discuss the imminent opening of a federal refugee detention centre in the community’s midst, where the very worst of an ugly, hate-filled and racist Tasmania had been on national display.
It was clear Ms Giddings had been appalled by what she had seen, heard and read.
And shocked too at some of comments and reactions expressed at the meeting to the arrival of 400 young male asylum seekers from Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan and Sri Lanka in sleepy Pontville, via Christmas Island.
Ms Giddings made it clear that she sympathised with locals and neighbours who were genuinely affected by having all-night floodlights, high barbed-wire security perimeter fencing and electronic surveillance on the edge of the properties or in direct view of their homes.
She said she understood that many people found new and unknown situations challenging and “scary”.
But for the rest of the vitriolic comments vented at the Pontville meeting varying from vile anti-Muslim propaganda to claims escaping asylum seekers will rape Pontville’s women and harm its kids Ms Giddings’ distaste was plain.
For the first time in the past three months on an issue not directly in her domestic political sphere, she appeared willing to take a strong leadership stand for idealistic and moral reasons alone.
Perhaps it was her own familiarity with the Brighton and Pontville area where Ms Giddings lived as a child when not in New Guinea, where her father worked but the Premier also appeared unflinchingly confident that her call was right and just.
Or perhaps it was because of her own childhood in multi-racial New Guinea, that Ms Giddings made no secret this week of her sympathy for people from other countries less fortunate …
…
But as someone who has reported on wars in faraway places such as Bosnia and Somalia, it was hard to equate my experience of asylum seekers with the fears being voiced so aggressively and angrily on a dark Wednesday night in Pontville.
I couldn’t forget the sad-looking man I’d interviewed, clutching a brown paper bag containing all his worldly possessions, looking over a pale Croatian winter sea. He had fled his Bosnian home after Serbian forces had killed his wife and son. He didn’t know where his daughter was.
He could not see a future any more for himself in Europe and was thinking of fleeing to seek asylum in Australia. He had no papers; he had rushed out as his home was burned and gunshots blazed around him.
He was also a university professor, a quiet and learned man whom fate and war had dealt a tough hand.
If I’d met him in Australia, he could have been my father, my brother or my friend.
If I found him now awaiting “processing” in a high-security detention centre, I’m sure he would seem just the same gentle, educated and lost man.
I certainly doubt he would ever be a threat to my children playing in a park near Pontville.
