The Sydney Morning Herald
Reith's card is nothing to get hung up about
Date: 14/10/2000
By MIKE CARLTON
Just for fun, imagine for one moment that it was a high official of the
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission who had flicked
the office phone card to his son, eventually to run up a bill of
$50,000.
Shock horror, the righteous hullabaloo from the Howard Government would
be deafening. More in sorrow than anger, the Prime
Minister would rush to appear with a pliant radio host to express his
concern at this grievous, possibly criminal assault on the public
purse: "I've instructed the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs to demand
the money back."
On cue, the dotty Senator Herron would vow to get to the bottom of the
outrage, with much solemn blather about "accountability" and
"full inquiries" and "tightening procedures". Like a rat up a drainpipe,
the Auditor-General would be sooled onto the hapless ATSIC
official with the Federal Police and the Director of Public Prosecutions
hot on his heels.
Further down the food chain, National Party backwoodsmen would queue on
the steps at Parliament House to air their valuable views to
the TV doorstop patrol: "Well, Tracey, this is what I've been saying all
along. We've been throwing taxpayers' money at these people,
letting them waste it, with absolutely no accountability whatsoever."
Etc.
How different it is when a Cabinet grandee is caught rorting the system.
Not much mutual obligation there. When the Reith phone bill hit
the media on Tuesday, the Government's reflex reaction was to shrug it
off. "Not a hanging offence," said John Howard, in an airy
defence of his minister. Reith himself tried to brush it away with a
carefree laugh. "I am not the first person, and I don't think I'll be
the
last person that finds themselves outside the entitlement," he breezed.
The marvellous thing is the horrible hash they have made of it ever
since. A bill of $50,000 might be a trifle in Canberra - Michael
Wooldridge spends almost that much on dinner each year - but it is big
bikkies to the Government's core constituency on Alan Jones's
Struggle Street. With public fury mounting in waves on talkback radio,
Howard's flacks had him in pell-mell retreat for five days.
Heavens, he was just as angry as the rest of us.
Paddy's been into Bill's ear again, by the sound of it. Bill Hayden, a
former governor-general, now Viscount Ipswich, has fired his
blunderbuss at the Aboriginal stolen generations with noises remarkably
similar to the pops and bangs that dear old P.P. McGuinness has
been giving off lately.
The two have been close chums since the roaring days of the Whitlam
government, when Bill was Minister for Social Security and
Paddy was his minder at the birth of Medibank Mk 1. Over the years they
have made the long march from Left to Right of your screen,
a stately climb from the grimy dens of the ALP to the chintz and
circumstance of Yarralumla, arm in arm and never a backward glance.
Recently, Bill was an honoured guest at the well-catered relaunch of
Paddy's Quadrant magazine, along with a gaggle of other louche
ex-lefties and, yes, the Prime Minister.
As reported in the Herald on Thursday, His Excellency's address at the
University of Tasmania, coyly entitled "Core Cultural Values",
was stock standard Quadrant stuff, the white armband view of history. A
quick summary: Sir Ronald Wilson's Bringing Them Home
report has got it wickedly wrong. There were no stolen generations;
benevolent white folks rescued Aboriginal children as an act of
mercy and have been scandalously traduced for doing so. No need for
anyone to say sorry, least of all the Prime Minister. It's time your
Aborigines stopped whingeing, pulled themselves together, showed a bit
of gratitude and got on with it, the idle buggers.
I think that's about it, although my precis hardly conveys the lofty
condescension of the former viceroy, muddled monarchist and
off-and-on admirer of bits of Pauline Hanson. "I don't know who is
advising indigenous Australians on tactics," he began, grandly
dismissing any silly notion that the childlike darkies might have a few
ideas of their own.
And then there is the querulous tone the Viscount has made so much his
own in his sere, autumn years. Professor Henry Reynolds, the
acclaimed historian of the stolen generations, has a "rather tattered"
reputation. Sir Ronald Wilson has given "an extraordinary display of
legal gullibility"; his report is "seriously flawed, a sad headstone" to
his public career.
Not nearly so sad a headstone as one I can think of, Bill.
<Last section deleted - off topic>
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