Club Troppo

Two Types of Tyrant

Posted by Jacques Chester on Thursday, February 14, 2008

During the last federal election I spent a lot of time writing up my thoughts and experiences on a blog. It got a few thousand visitors during the course of the six weeks and a few people told me that they voted on the strength of it.

One topic I wrote about is what I called the Tyranny of the Faraways — the dominance of the politics of Sydney and Melbourne in the affairs of other parts of the Commonwealth. I had a good old bash of lefties, as one does, but I’ve also come to see that the Tyranny of the Faraways is not restricted to those of a leftish persuasion.

Recently the most radical wing of the young fogies — the Australian Liberal Students Federation — put out this press release. Tim Andrews is a very smart fellow with a bright future, but I think he got it wrong, wrong, wrong on this point.

Predictably enough it’s blown up into a row between those who supported the apology and those who did not. On the contra side a lot of usual suspects have been trotted out — that nobody was really stolen, that it was meaningless symbolism (a variant of the view I have held for some time), that we can’t apologise for past generations, that it was the states at fault etc etc. Which was all quite beside the point that an apology costs nothing, makes many people feel better and lets the debate move forward from light and fury about whether or not to apologise.

In any case, this was the core of my own response to the Faraway Fogies:

Those of you who live in Sydney or Melbourne and suchlike, who have not actually been to those hells on earth out in the bush; with all due respect, you are talking out of your hats. Left and Right, liberal and conservative. Probably you speak out of well-meaning hats, out of very passionate hats, very clever hats, out of hats with lots of highschool & varsity debating experience; but you are talking out of hats nonetheless. Kindly desist.

Not a very tactful remark, I admit, but one born of my years of arguing with people of the sort who talk about aboriginal people a lot but have met very few.

It is a view and attitude I developed when I first came to Sydney in 2000. That was the year that “sorry” really took off. It angered me at the time that the symbol allowed the entire debate to be stalled for years and years. The symbol attracted 250,000 people to a walk across a bridge; the reality of child abuse and violence did not. That rankles.

But of course it’s not all symbolism — people genuinely suffered — yet the denial of the symbolic act has held up the reality. Now that it is a done deal we can try and move on with the third-world conditions of remote aboriginal settlements. We can attack infant mortality, life expectancy, malnutrition, treatable disease, STDs, violence, rape and social dysfunction of every kind. Hair-splitters, talking heads, symbolists and Faraway fiddlers of every persuasion are not welcome. There’s real work to do.

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9 Responses to “Two Types of Tyrant”

Andrew Norton said:
Jacques - I agree with you. Whether or not an apology makes logical sense is beside the point; as yesterday proved it made a big and positive difference to a lot of people. I thought it was conservatives who argued that we should not try to approach things in a purely rational manner.
Posted on 14-Feb-08 at 12:33 pm | Permalink
Spiros said:
How many members of the ALSF have ever seen an aboriginal person in real life (apart from in some sporting arena)? My guess: very few.

How many members of the ALSF have ever spoken to an aboriginal person? My guess: very very few.

How many members of the ALSF have had an aboriginal person in their homes? My guess: none.

They haven’t got a clue, yet they (this Andrews character in particular) pontificate like they are experts. Why anyone should pay them any attention is a complete mystery.
Posted on 14-Feb-08 at 12:55 pm | Permalink
MikeM said:
Jacques,

Surprisingly, a great deal is known about the psychology, dynamics and effect of apologising for negligence and errors although practically none of it is reflected in the debate over the apology to Aborigines, stolen and otherwise.

The most intensively researched field lies in medicine where, like the previous Howard government, doctors have been historically extremely reluctant to admit to mistakes and often paralysed by fear of litigation, well-founded or otherwise.

In the ABC Radio National program The Health Report in July 2002, Norman Swan spoke with Merryl Green, a person who nearly died as an adverse result of a caesarian section. It is worth reading the transcript in full, but here are a few excerpts:

Doctors I think are so keen sometimes to communicate that they are not responsible for an adverse event that it is received by the patient as if the patient was somehow responsible. And I’ve actually spoken to a lot of patients, and I could give you quite a few examples, where patients have been of that view. In fact I often used to say to people if I’d known I was going to be responsible for stuffing up my own caesarean I would have done it myself, that way I wouldn’t have been surprised at the result.

But (my husband, who is a lawyer) was of the view that given that what I wanted was to get an explanation that was satisfactory to me and some expression of regret from the hospital, that pursuing litigation wouldn’t help. He knows from his own experience of people who’ve received very large sums of money and who’ve been happy with the money, but it hasn’t actually helped the pain.

One of the things that I became very interested in was wanting to know what review mechanisms there existed at that hospital to review my adverse event. Funnily enough, the Australian Health Care Study had come out in the June just prior to me having the baby and I remember hearing that 18,000 people were supposed to die due to adverse events, and I remember thinking to myself I’ve never heard anything quite so ridiculous. But after my adverse event, my perspective on that changed somewhat. I’d pursued a range of things to try and come to an understanding of my adverse event, and one of the things that I did was to get in contact with the hospital’s Freedom of Information officer to ask about how my adverse event was reviewed, and also how adverse events in general were reviewed. And she told me that this major Sydney women’s teaching hospital didn’t have anything written down, didn’t have a policy on how they reviewed adverse events, which I found just stunning, I couldn’t believe they could go into a public hospital perfectly healthy and nearly die, and there wouldn’t be some procedure that set out what you had to do.

So there you are. It’s these patients’ own faults, you see; they will all want to sue you if you give an inch; shit happens; people die; that’s just the way things are…

Remind you of anything?

Of course every case is different and anecdotes only take us so far, but people like Charles Vincent, Professor of Psychology at University College, London, whom Swan also talks to during the program, have systematically studied the subject.

And here, as a bonus, is a paper by two Australian lawyers, “Disclosure of Adverse Events: An Integral and Necessary Part of the Treatment”, again referring to adverse medical events.

It is disappointing that there has nonsense talked about the purpose and likely effect of the Aboriginal apology.
Posted on 14-Feb-08 at 1:22 pm | Permalink
Francis Xavier Holden said:
jacques - following your line of argument then most people shouldn’t have an opinion or influence on foreign policy, war, refugees, mandatory sentencing, seperation of powers, investment, childbirth, live sheep exports, woodchip policy in Tassy, blogs - ………………..
Posted on 14-Feb-08 at 2:30 pm | Permalink
Jacques Chester said:
FXH;

The slippery slope argument. A good start but a little cliched. Next logical fallacy please.
Posted on 14-Feb-08 at 2:32 pm | Permalink
Guido said:
That press release has Mirabella’s dirty handprints all over it. What a nasty piece of work she is.
Posted on 14-Feb-08 at 3:18 pm | Permalink
Vee said:
On the Tyranny of the faraways I’m inclined to agree with you and I think that comes from being a rural NSWman.

However I am also guilty of propping up the Tyranny of the Faraways. I think the same as you about the faraways, but the NT to me is my bush. Its just there and don’t really give a stuff. I’d like to change my thinking on that but I’m stubborn and until something goes our way out here, you can keep waiting.
Posted on 15-Feb-08 at 9:48 am | Permalink
Invig said:
Jacques,

I’ve read your piece and find it insightful.

However, I am left wondering what sort of ‘talking head’ I might be. If you have time, please read my latest post. I’d really like to know your (as an intelligent commentator) thoughts on my opinions on this issue…
Posted on 16-Feb-08 at 2:55 pm | Permalink
Adrien said:
Not a very tactful remark, I admit, but one born of my years of arguing with people of the sort who talk about aboriginal people a lot but have met very few.

Hear hear.

FXH -

following your line of argument then most people shouldn’t have an opinion or influence on foreign policy, war, refugees, mandatory sentencing, seperation of powers, investment, childbirth, live sheep exports, woodchip policy in Tassy, blogs

No that’s not his argument. His argument is that people should maybe learn something about the issue they’re discussing before they open their gob. Imagine how political debate would improve if we all made the effort to acknowledge our own limitations and simply tried learning things?
Posted on 16-Feb-08 at 4:34 pm | Permalink

Two Types of Tyrant

Posted by Jacques Chester on Thursday, February 14, 2008

9 Responses to “Two Types of Tyrant”

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