Friday, 11 September

There seems to be a lot of confusion lately about what women want. Hey, now there's a new problem! Without even suggesting liability on either side, let's just stick to the fact that men don't understand women. All right, I'll even go so far as to suggest that men are at fault over this, but I think we agreed to put liability aside, didn't we? Okay, right, it was my idea. Can we move on? Anyway, thousands of books and films and plays and theses have been written on the subject. Every word derives from the same basic problem. It's a centuries-old conundrum (usually expressed by a woman) that goes something like "If you don't know why I'm angry with you right now, then you're in bigger trouble than you think!"

The relevance of this comes to mind after a few high profile news stories refused to die of natural causes in the last couple of weeks. First, the International Olympic Committee approved women's boxing at the games. There was quite an uproar. Next, the Australian Defence Forces announced it would look into revising the role of women in the military with the possibility they would be used in front line combat. There was quite an uproar. Then, from even further in the outfield (well, closer to outer space really) former Victorian premier Jeff Kennett claimed his AFL club, Hawthorn, should be the first to hire a woman to play among the men. There was…well…quite an uproar.

Where did most of the uproar come from? I refer you to paragraph A. Men. Yep, they jumped right into the deep end and paddled about like two-legged dogs as they tried to defend their holier-than-thou position: women don't belong there because…because…because…

Any bloke with the intelligence to know what he doesn't know will have figured this out: there are plenty of jobs women would happily leave for a man to do, until you tell her that she can't do them. There are also plenty of things a woman will let a man do for her, provided he doesn't tell her he's doing it for her because she's a woman. Holding open doors and paying for dinner are two examples. Even if a woman is old fashioned enough to insist on these things being done on the basis of gender, never assume that is the reason. Are you still with me? Good.

There are some seriously valid arguments that have been put up against the aforementioned proposals and those arguments come from honest, intelligent, well meaning experts but it's pointless even canvassing them because none are relevant when it comes to the issue of gender equality. You see, it's all about opportunity, not performance. We too readily forget the downside of gender equality is having the freedom to do all the stupid things the opposite sex does, as well as all the enjoyable and important things.

So don't try to guess what women want. A) you'll never know and B) it doesn't matter. If only 1% of women feel the need to pick up a gun and shoot somebody on a battlefield, punch the daylights out of somebody in an Olympic boxing ring or collide at 20 kilometres an hour with somebody else on a footy field…just sit back and say "Oh? OK." Let them do it. Whatever happens, it can't be worse than the alternative.  

Friday, 4th September

So the Victorian Minister for Water gets lost in the alpine bush, sparking a couple of days of serious searching and hand-wringing concern before emerging to be called “super dill” by his Upper House opponent Bernie Finn. New South Wales voters who saw Tim Holding’s emotion-packed statement  “I thought I was going to die” had already, with wicked contrivance, begun sending brochures on the rugged, beautiful Blue Mountains bush to their respective MPs.

In case you have just emerged from a week in the bush it is important to note here that, as Mr. Holding was declared missing, the good people of New South Wales had only just been informed that their Health Minister John Della Bosca was resigning after a 26 year old woman revealed their recent affair to a tabloid newspaper.  

Meanwhile, Queensland’s winter-tanned constituents were coming to terms with their Premier, Anna Bligh, appearing as a contestant on Celebrity Master Chef. “Still finalising recipes to showcase Qld produce - what are your ideas about Queensland's best products? Any recipe hints?” she reportedly wrote on Twitter, every trendy MPs new favourite means of communication with voters.   

It is curious that “water” has become a very important issue for Victoria in recent years. The state has been ravaged by drought and at the centre of a bitter national dispute over management of the precious Murray-Darling river system.

Hmmm, curiouser that New South Wales’ health system is so critically ill it would probably be taken off life support if it were a patient in one of its hospitals.

Ahhhh, curiouser still that this time last month Premier Bligh was desperately trying to shore up her credibility in an unpopular government by declaring the release of a green paper called “Integrity and Accountability in Queensland” amid claims political donations, lobbying and  campaign expenditure should be policed. It followed revelations that some key ALP figures had become exceptionally successful lobbyists.

If the floundering Malcolm Turnbull really wants to stake a place in Australian history, set himself apart from his exasperatingly moderate rivals and revive a passion for which he first caught the public eye, he should start declaring that a Coalition government would install a republic and in doing so, abolish state governments. The new Federation would see national control of vitally important issues such as health, education and water supply, leaving state administrators to look after local issues like policing and transport. The alternative is we rock up to any military installation in an old ute, cruise past Security guards, overpower the 15 or so troops whose weapons are locked away in a storeroom, and stage a coup. 

In the short term? Well, New South Wales has thousands of hectares of densely forested National Parks, several of them within an hour of Macquarie Street. Queensland is one of the world’s last bastions of thick virgin rainforest, much of it within an easy drive of George or Alice streets. One can only hope Tim Holding has inspired his interstate peers to get out and breathe some of that fresh, country air.

Friday, August 28

Tony Abbott wrote about it fondly in his recently released book. He attributed the sensible use of it to John Howard, even if Howard lost the handle late in his term as Prime Minister. Brendon Nelson was driven mad and ultimately out of politics in pursuit of it. Malcolm Turnbull has since been cursed by it. That’s because Kevin Rudd pretty much owns it, having won an election with it. Yet for politicians, at least publicly, it’s still a dirty word. Its definition according to the Macquarie dictionary is “character or conduct which emphasises practical values or attention to facts; practicality”. It goes on to explain that “It has been interpreted by some as the doctrine that both truth and conduct are to be judged by practical consequences.” It is, of course, pragmatism.

Politicians use it occasionally but they’re afraid of the word. Someone has told them it’s neither powerful nor persuasive, that it smells of fickleness, even disloyalty to a cause. They’ve been schooled to use more grandiose and profound terms like “ideology”, “platform” and “mantra”. They seem to think it important that a political party needs to secure and hold a piece of doctrinal real estate that stamps their identity, like a property in a desirable suburb. “What do we stand for?” is a commonly asked question of the Liberal Party these days, as if it needs to anchor itself to something to survive the storm of media scrutiny. The Liberals appear to have nowhere to go.

The reason for this predicament is basically the fault of the Labor Party. It has been working to seize the middle ground in Australian politics for some time because someone with half a brain realised that after more than a hundred years the same pattern kept emerging in Federal elections: Labor would arrive in office trumpeting social change and feel-good morality only to see their term dissolve into economic mismanagement and frivolous socialism. The Liberals would arrive to get the financial house in order but stir up the community conscience with hardened attitudes to “soft” politics like the environment, gay rights and aboriginal welfare.

Steered by Kevin Rudd’s carefully constructed populist persona, the ALP has captured a position of compromise, addressing it’s weaknesses by simply adopting the Coalition’s strengths. Behind the scenes, as usual, there is restless conflict, tectonic plates shifting like the San Andreas fault but while the party stays in power and the various chooks are fed enough scraps of parochial policy, there’ll be a reluctance to rock the boat. The recent ALP conference was evidence of that. There were a few bleak, lonely protests but no-one was listening. Even Peter Garrett has been transformed from topless, gyrating left-wing agitator to white-shirted, sanguine appeaser. It’s like watching Jack Nicholson in the last scene of One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest. However, the fact is, Kevin’s done an Obama...or perhaps it’s the other way round. He’s brought both ends together very neatly, with rhetoric, if nothing else.

He’s had to keep the natives in check by reminding them that power without compromise equals a lost election. The problem is that in the search for balance in policy there is a danger of doing nothing. The failure of Fuelwatch and Grocerywatch attest to that, but neither was damaging enough to open a crack for the opposition. In the meantime, where does the Coalition go with any confidence?

There are some who want to see the opposition shift further to the right, to create a distinction. More than a few Nationals would love that but it would be about as sensible as the ALP merging with the communist party. If John Howard had not been too stubborn to take a few clever, painless steps to the left on a couple of harmless moral issues he would have kept the Coalition in power for another decade, inflaming perhaps, the odd fundamentalist in Camden. It’s one thing standing for something but it helps to stand for something that most people will vote for.

In politics it’s not just about building your field of dreams and hoping "they will come" to your “how to vote” distributors. This is another of the delicate ironies of government: give the people what they want, but show them what they need and convince them it’s the same thing. The media rides this relationship by demanding leadership from Government while asking MPs why they don’t listen to the voters who put them there. 

Australian voters don't desire any biblical declarations any more. They don't need to wear a badge that says “left” or “right” wing. They just want liberty, equality and fraternity. They want solutions to problems. They don’t particularly care which package the answers come from or whether it has a designer label. They just want to know how much it costs and whether it works. So have we made any progress here…where do the Liberals go?

They go to answers, not questions. They go to pertinent suggestions, not grand, bland declarations. They abandon the doctrinal game plan and help find the desired solutions, regardless of whether they appear to come from a different side of politics. If it works, it works, doesn’t it? It may not win them government, yet, but it might build credibility until the inevitable moment when Labor slips up. All governments do.

Tony Abbott is right about pragmatism. Whether he has the fortitude to embrace that concept, to fight through layers of religious, institutional and political ideology, will be an important test for his ambition, the Liberal party, and Australia’s future. At least he stamped something on paper. Everyone else is simply floundering in the restless sea, unsure of what to cling to.

Friday 14th August

Everything Old is New Again

Have you noticed? Whether its recruiting for the military, advertising a product or promoting a sport you can bet the agencies signed up to plan the campaign will be using the same strategy: hottest, coolest, youngest. The messages change. The scenes change. The characters change. The products can be diverse but you can rely on the same plan over and over again: it’ll be fresh, bright and bouncing into the faces of teenagers from every direction. They like to call it “tapping into” youth culture. More accurately, it “feeds off” youth culture. Hallelujah brothers and sisters! This is the religion, and its high priests are advertising and marketing execs. Heck, these gurus even have Malcolm Turnbull spruiking climate change policy on YouTube. Hear that whirring sound? It’s Sir Robert Menzies, spinning in his grave. Kevin Rudd is on Twitter. Does anyone care? Will either stunt generate so much as one extra vote at the next election?

The high priests sit like cockatoos around meeting rooms, sipping on take-away tubs of flat white, beaming and wisecracking about whatever they’ve read on pop culture in any one of a hundred celebrity-trash news sources which they trawl through to keep abreast of the times, while they orchestrate the next victim of the same gossip.

“Hey! Great idea dude! Yeah. Let’s use him,” says one, playing with his spiked hair, “He’s hot right now...”

“The next big thing...” says another. “See him on the red carpet at the ARIAs?” 

“The kids love him! He’s a bit wild...how about that nightclub toilet incident...”

“But he’s a hunk...” purrs another. “Besides...nothing wrong with a bit of toilet action...how about you at the staff party last week?” They all laugh raucously and take another sip of coffee. 

Barely pausing to admire each other’s designer labels and $50,000 plus European cars, they spend their careers looking over the horizon for the next big thing and barely after it comes into view it’ll be discarded-for the next big thing. It’s all about tomorrow and yesterday. You’re either one or the other.

Somewhere along the line, a member of the youth culture clergy convinced the NRL it would be useful to tell all the kids out there that they should aspire to be Brett Stewart and Greg Inglis. Did anyone stop to think of the pressure this placed on two blokes who are barely in their 20s? The NRL can count itself desperately unlucky that the marquee players it chose to symbolise the 2009 season have now been in court facing serious charges. It’s neither legal nor appropriate to pass comment on those cases but really, the outcome is not relevant to this argument. Perhaps those young men might not have been in the predicaments in which they found themselves had they not been deified. We’ll never know. The relevance here is in the risk of promoting youth to a youth culture as some kind of moral platform on which to sell a product. Being hot, cool and young has value but that value is not stability, security or credibility.

It seems to be a golden rule of advertising and promotion that a young audience can only connect with young idols. Who says? It might well be that a generation of run-it-up-the-flagpole-and-see-who-salutes-it trendoids deemed it so over a few gallons of latte but that doesn’t make it right or meaningful. What happened to the selling of “today”, the selling of something that has taken some time to establish and has the solidity of experience? Why can’t rugby league and all the other institutions out there start showing our young people some examples of maturity and long-term success...something to aspire to, rather than jive to? What’s wrong with the host of players in their late-20s or early 30s who are already good husbands, fathers and citizens? Believe it or not, there are many of them in the NRL. Sure, they make mistakes too, but it is less likely and if it happens then they are old enough to deserve the consequences. By doing this we also give young talent the chance to be young, to grow into role model status before burdening them with the responsibility of carrying an entire industry on their shoulders.

On the other hand, why the hell do we insist on directing all our marketing at teenagers anyway? Who makes the bloody decisions in Australian households? If its teenagers, then we’re all heading down the plug hole faster than you can say “global warming”. You might well respond (as any good marketer would) by saying that teenagers these days have a huge disposable income that anyone with anything to sell is just itching to get a share of. I ask again, why? Who’s putting so much disposable income in the hands of teenagers, when their material needs are so few and their ability to spend money responsibly so limited?

It’s time we stopped, had a good look at this manic world of commercialism, and decided that it might not be a bad idea to make “old” new again. Sell reliability, credibility, wisdom. Let the kids have their dreams, and let the parents make some decisions.        

Friday, 31st July

Of course! We should have known it all along. The real target of the alleged terrorists this week was Kyle Sandilands, whom they decided had grossly offended fundamentalists by questioning a teenager about her sex life on radio, instead of simply having her publicly flogged. When they saw that tank of a car Kyle was driving around in, coupled with all those menacing security guards, they decided there were easier targets. 

This week has been another kick in the guts for Islamic fundamentalists in Australia. No wonder some of them are going crazy. They’re so concerned they’ve called an unprecedented meeting with Federal Opposition leader Malcolm Turnbull and the NSW Labor Government. They’re not discussing ideologies. They’re discussing legal action after discovering they’ve all been using the same PR company.

 The only “fundamentals” that belong in Australia are the basics of batting technique. Ricky Ponting talks about “fundamentals”, not religious people.

 Anna Bligh may have added a new twist to the Aussie vernacular: “jobs for the girls” but the NSW Government? Amy Winehouse, Lilly Allen and Ryan O’Neal make better decisions. Prohibition and conscription have more popular support. NSW Labor would have more chance of re-election if Malcolm Turnbull slipped out of Federal Politics and challenged Nathan Rees for leadership.   

 Shame about Malcolm. Ambition plays tricks on people. Bumping Brendan Nelson for the Liberal leadership so soon after the Federal Election was like replacing Leonidas to lead the 300 Spartans to Thermopylae. Since then, a prominent public servant has unwittingly become Turnbull’s Ephialtes. In this case, it’s hard to imagine the Liberal Party erecting a memorial if it all ends in glorious defeat. Just be thankful our Coalition pollies don’t strip naked and wrestle each other before going into parliament.

The Shooters Party needs a better PR company too. It seems to be on a hiding every time it pops its head from the trenches. My advice to the party faithful is that they should never have become a political organisation at all. They should have become a gang of criminals. After all, Ned Kelly, Chopper Read and  members of the razor gangs are all heroes but an ordinary citizen who shoots an antelope is an abhorrent weirdo. Only a sicko would want to kill cute, furry animals.  We all know that guns belong in only one place: in the hands of exciting, interesting people like gangs.

 Crime only pays if it’s organised.  It takes our various police forces relatively little time to solve most offences committed by otherwise unknown citizens but it takes months, even years, to prosecute people who are widely known as “colourful identities”, “gang leaders” or “drug lords”. I wonder what fundamentalists think when they hear people openly referred to in this way as they strut through the lanes of public life, wearing dark glasses and smirking. Is it any wonder they deplore western culture? In Australia, the more obvious your criminality, the less likely you are to be caught. If you want to be a successful criminal form a gang, wear some kind of clearly identified uniform like a denim jacket with a big logo on it and parade around the city in fearsome groups intimidating innocent bystanders. Take little care in concealing deadly weapons; bash people; produce and sell drugs; kill your opponents and provided you keep a high enough profile you’ll get away with it for a long time.

 Yep, Democracy can be frustrating... but we’ll keep defending it until we find something better.

Friday, 10th July

ANATOMY OF A LOSS

I'm fascinated by losers. No, really. My favourite fictional characters are Daffy Duck and George Costanza, arguably two of the greatest losers ever written into comedic folklore. They tap into the human weaknesses that sit not far beneath the surface in all of us, ready to reach out and drag us into failure at every opportunity. How you suppress those instincts pretty much defines what we are.

In sport, because participation itself is a justifiable end, there are no real losers. Unfortunately, our education system is so strong in this belief that it’s tried to de-value winning and given children who lack confidence no incentive to compete, but that’s a topic for another day. 

My morbid fascination with the epilogue of great sporting events began many years ago, perhaps aroused by my own fatal inadequacies. In trying to understand why I had so often failed to achieve results worthy of my ability and commitment (one of the most painful things in life is losing a sporting contest to someone you know you can beat) I started paying special attention to the losers of epic contests. So it was again, just before 4AM last Monday morning.

I had been cheering for Roger Federer most of the way through the Wimbledon final, mainly because I wanted to see him break Pete Sampras’ record for grand slam tournament wins but was growing increasingly sympathetic to Andy Roddick. Roddick had obviously worked hard to improve his game and his temperament in the past year or so. He missed a big chance to take a two sets-to-love lead and for a while it upset him but he overcame that. He deserved to get something from this effort.  Late in the match, as I fought to stay awake, I didn't care who won.

It's a tribute to Federer that he doesn't quite pull off the "gracious winner" stuff after he's ruined another courageous opponent's life. If he were all platitudes and carefully spun humility you might find him a little suspicious. He isn't. Instead, he stumbles through his post-match speeches with a series of shy, awkward attempts to balance sportsmanship with meaningful appreciation of where he sits in history. It doesn't always come off, but that only adds to the raw appeal of the moment. To give a polished speech would indicate he practises victory speeches, and who likes people who do that?

When Federer was first interviewed by former player Sue Barker, still sweating after his Wimbledon win over Andy Roddick, he had to follow one of the great impromptu loser's speeches. Roddick, still in disbelief and hurting in every possible way, nailed it with a teary tribute to his long-time nemesis. He made the noble claim that just having the opportunity to play in a Wimbledon final in front of past heroes like Laver, Borg and Sampras was an honour. He threw in a perfectly-timed tension-breaking apology to Sampras for not holding Federer off his grand slam record for a little longer. Many of us in Roddick's position would have calmly walked up to Federer and started to strangle him, such was the devastation of this defeat.

Maybe it's because Americans are brought up with the ability to talk under wet cement, but Roddick left us feeling sorry for him and wishing him well, which is exactly what a great loser should do. Roger followed that speech with a stream of self-consciousness that a bemused Roddick seemed content with, until Roger's attempt to placate his regular whipping boy with a foolishly concocted comparison. He said he knew how Roddick felt, because he had lost that five-setter to Rafael Nadal in last year's Wimbledon final.

This was the only moment when Roddick’s composure looked fragile. A few people told me they thought he was rude when caught on camera mouthing off during Federer's speech. He was simply reminding Roger, with a little dry humour, that while losing to Nadal last year may have been tough, at least he had won 5 Wimbledon finals and 10 other grand slam events. He was no doubt thinking “Roger, I'm the guy you've beaten in 3 Wimbledon finals and one US Open final; a guy who's only grand slam win was in the 2003 US Open; a guy who's just won a record 39 games in a Wimbledon final, breaking your serve twice while holding all my serves until the final, deciding game. Please don't tell me that you know how I feel. You are Roger Federer. You know as much about how mere mortals feel as they know how you feel.”

Even if Federer had started to bemoan his French Open final defeats and a sprinkling of other Rafa-humiliations, Roddick would still have rolled his eyes and visualised ramming the wrong end of his racquet where it just might fit given enough propulsion.   

Still, that's the lot of the loser. You just have to stand there and accept whatever the winner says. You rarely get the chance to put the thing into context, for the crowd, or yourself.

“Wait a minute,” you say. “What was all that guff about participation? Surely Roddick is really a winner. He's still rich, healthy, happily married and blah, blah blah…”

Okay. Enough already. We’re talking PRO sport now. Roddick’s profession is tennis and a great part of what makes him good is his determination to win. Until we start buying tickets to watch people hitting up, there is a thing called a “scoreboard” and that invariably leads to what they politely call the “result”. That’s not only sport. That’s life. Somewhere, sometime, you’re going to be forced to try and beat the next guy at something: a contract, a job, winning a girl’s favour. That means you are dealing with the possibility he will beat you. 

Had Roddick been blown off the court, played with injury or illness or suffered some other circumstance beyond his control, he might have dealt with it a little better. But he played well. He played well in a cruel sport that has a very unusual scoring system. You can win more points, but lose the match. It brings enormous focus on mental as well as physical preparation. Tennis exposes weakness like an ex-girlfriend.

Given anything less than a victory, Andy Roddick would be feeling unhappy and there's nothing wrong with that. Handling dumb questions? Well it’s never quite the same when you’re holding the tray, not the trophy. When asked in a post-match news conference how losing 16-14 in the 5th set compared with his other Wimbledon final defeats, he replied with a blank look "worse." There you go again. It’s the lot of the loser. It was like one of those American cop shows where someone asks the mortally wounded bloke "Are you OK buddy?"

Andy, I'm with ya mate. I’ve been there many, many times, albeit on a smaller scale. The last thing a loser wants is someone else trying to impose meaning on something only a loser understands, or paying insincere and misguided credit on a performance that doesn’t deserve it. The loser does not need to confirm that playing his guts out for four hours and 16 minutes and going closer than ever before to beating a bloke he’s only ever beaten twice was painful to take. “Painful? No...are you kidding? It was great. I loved every minute of it. Now please excuse me. I have to get home to jump in a scalding bath and shove toothpicks under my fingernails while listening to Lamb Of God on full volume.”

Nor does the loser need to hear some clearly inferior flog telling him that he played well when he so obviously didn't. Here’s a tip for all of you weekend hackers: if your opponent is clearly of equal or better ability than you but is having a mistake-riddled day, he would rather you acknowledge that truth by saying “Gee mate, you had a bad day. I can tell you’re a better player than that.”

If you say “Thanks mate. You played great!” that is a gross insult. You are suggesting that this is the best he can do; that if he played “great” you must have been greater. You are officially a wanker.  

Of course, it's how Andy Roddick deals with this defeat and moves on that will evaluate his status as a player but until then, by all means toast Federer’s greatness but spare a thought for the losers. Without us, there'd be no winners.  

Friday, 3rd July

Lawyers, used-car salesmen and journalists can laugh about it. Bankers probably laugh about it too…but they can afford to, in more ways than one. For them, it's often little more than a harmless joke or two.

We're talking about image, reputation, dealing with a negative public perception: stereotypes.

Hazem El Masri, in an exclusive interview with Network Ten to announce his retirement, made a stunning comment. The Sydney Morning Herald obviously thought so because they transcribed it later in the week. 

"Through patience and tolerance," he said, "I was able to stamp myself and show what sort of person I am and finally I guess everyone recognises it and sees the true Hazem and I guess the true Muslim that people don't get to see on TV. They see the barbaric and ignorant Muslim person who is always angry and vicious and I'm hoping that I have played a role in transforming that in society and showing people the true colours of a Muslim; that he can be tolerant and patient and lead a successful life and he can be good and doesn't differentiate between people. I guess that would be my greatest achievement, whether it be on or off the field."

As he prepares to leave the locker room at the end of the season and embark on an ambassadorial role for the NRL, Hazem stares at the base of another mountain.

The boy who came to Australia from Lebanon when he was 12 has had to fight prejudice all the way: Arab. Lebanese. Muslim. Those tags conjure unpleasant images among the ignorant. I wonder if any lawyers, used-car salesmen, journalists and bankers who held those negative thoughts ever stopped to think how they felt when people slapped labels on them? You know? That's right. Lawyers are crooks, used-car salesmen are liars, journalists distort the facts and bankers are greedy mongrels…just like Muslims are aggressive, violent trouble-makers. Oh, and let's not forget the Irish are stupid, the Jews and Scots are tight with money and the aborigines are lazy…etc.

Hazem has been exceptional because not only has he been burdened with prejudice against his race and religion, he is an NRL player. He is probably the only high-profile athlete who has been fighting a propaganda war on two fronts. You'd only have to digest some of the weekly news in Australia to get the impression the NRL is populated with drunken, drug-taking, violent sex-fiends.

The odd thing about the debate over rugby league players' behaviour is that it has polarised the community. You see, it depends on which stereotype you prefer.

"Yeah…hello? Is that you Fred?" says the indignant talkback radio caller.

"Yes Leroy. Go ahead. You're on the air."

"Well I just wanted to say I'm sick of the bloody meedya bashing poor old Mickey Finn mate. It's a bloody disgrace mate. He's just an ordinary bloke who likes a few beers, the girls, you know. He's a true bloody Aussie mate. What's wrong with that? I blame the bloody meedya mate. It's the bloody journos in the meedya who won't leave him alone. Get the meedya off his back I say."

In defence of the journalistic stereotype, you can't conveniently blame the "meedya" for the image of the NRL any more than you can blame all rugby league players for the behaviour of a few boofheads. The publicity and profile that boosts the earnings of top-level athletes is driven by the media. News stories indirectly provide players with millions of dollars worth of free marketing that their managers, in turn, use to generate income. That invariably comes with the responsibility of maintaining a healthy image. It's not too much to ask. If you violate the image publicly and threaten the functioning of your club, you are fair game.

Hazem, however, has never been fair game. On the contrary, "fair" was not even on the radar as he stoically survived a blizzard of hateful publicity during the 2004 Coffs Harbour scandal, which was arguably the most serious test of the NRL's image. He and most of his team-mates were wrongly vilified by a hostile media, sport administrators and various other public institutions from women's rights groups to political parties. All this was brought upon them by the foolish acts of a few stupid young men. Likewise, Hazem and his family were treated like lepers in the wake of the 2001 terrorist attack on New York and the subsequent Bali bombings, which were so far removed from ordinary Muslim life it is stunning to even contemplate the association.

Go back to his quote from the TEN interview and replace the word "Muslim" with "NRL player". In retirement, Hazem El Masri will be as busy as ever, showing the way, building bridges and hopefully educating the few who threaten the image of the many.

In the meantime, we'll have to keep living with stereotypes. It's human nature. We put things in boxes so we can understand them, but in doing so, jeopardise that understanding.

Friday, 26th June

Sometime in the 90s there was a Federal election held around the same time as a footy grand final. I was reporting on sport in those days and I recall chatting to a colleague who worked in the Canberra press gallery. She seemed very excited about the election, saying to me, “Your grand final’s over. This is our grand final.”
I replied “I’d like to think you take your gig more seriously than that. After all, a bunch of blokes kicking a footy around a field is a little less important than voting for people who have the responsibility of sending our citizens to war.”

Yes, I was being a little harsh, but the comment was borne of a general view that our specialist political reporters and commentators often become entangled in the “game” of politics and because those reporters are the conduit between our politicians and most of the population, our analysis of political performance relies on meaningless point scoring on the floor of the house and the semantics of day-to-day doorstop interviews.

The Press Gallery’s favourite word is “gaffe”. It means “social blunder”, so most of the time reporters don’t even use it correctly. In their lingo, it’s come to mean any verbal mistake or slip-up that a politician makes, like getting a number wrong or using incorrect terminology.  The Opposition seized on the Treasurer’s gaffe, reminding him the budget deficit was 70 billion, not 70 million.

If you’re not lucky enough to draw a politician into “gaffe” territory, you can always hit them with the old "death by fire or death by poisoned arrows" approach.
"So Treasurer you're telling us that you won't increase taxes?"

Now, if the Treasurer says he can't guarantee that, the headline will read Treasurer refuses to rule out tax increase! If the Treasurer promises no tax increase, he stands forever tied to the promise, thus risking severe embarrassment sometime in the future. Treasurer breaks promise to keep lid on taxes! 
So far has this word game progressed in recent years that we have bred a generation of pollies who will try their best to commit to nothing other than sledging their opposite numbers in the house. It's a lot safer to react to, rather than drive, policy.

Further, they are now surrounded by swarms of spin doctors hired to carefully word even the most casual of statements so that everything that comes from a politician's mouth sounds like a rehearsed vaudeville one-liner. "This wool excise is a blatant attempt by the Prime Minister to fleece the Australian public."
When politicians cling to a policy they are derided in the media as "inflexible", but if they change their minds they've "broken a promise". 

So they choose to say…nothing. The most outstanding example of this absurdity in recent weeks was the PM and the Treasurer avoiding, at all cost, pronouncing the most widely known number in the nation at the time: the budget deficit. They were so frightened of seeing it appear in a Coalition ad campaign, or in radio and TV sound bites, that they simply pretended it didn't exist. Watching Mr. Swan and Mr. Rudd doing this bizarre circular jig was like stumbling unexpectedly on two of your closest friends engaged in a pagan ritual: bizarre, fascinating and frustrating all at once.

It's easy to blame the pollies and their spinners but until we break the shackles of semantics, the pedantry of the "game" and learn to live with the humanity of politics, we'll keep getting what we deserve: glib, non-committal waffle from uninspiring leaders.

Friday, 12th June

Public servants are like kangaroos. We know that in some parts of the country they are looked on as pests which should be culled, but we never feel comfortable about it. Nurses, fire fighters, ambulance officers, police officers and the like are not included in this group. They generally gain a lot of sympathy for being over-worked and under-paid. It’s the unseen clerical types who sit behind rows of desks in vast, monolithic office buildings who have always been considered dispensable, if they’re considered at all.

My experience of public servants began at university. I attended a campus in Canberra that boasted (if that’s the right word) a huge percentage of public servants who were re-training by taking various courses. They were affectionately known as “pubes” and, like plagues of kangaroos in pastoral areas, they took up vast tracts of otherwise usable space doing little else but grazing on the generosity of the system. It seemed every public servant needed to obtain a degree of some sort to further their qualifications, which of course lead to a pay rise.

They would explain, during tutorials, that they were there on a “flexi-day”, which basically meant they didn’t have to show up for work when nothing needed to be done, rather than fill strict 9 to 5 hours. Of course, this meant most of them didn't have to show up for work at all because in the clerical public service in those days very little was ever done beyond shifting stacks of papers between in and out trays until you submitted a form asking for medical leave for RSI.

 Public Servants that I knew were not exactly proud of this image, but they joked about it a lot and because I wasn’t a taxpayer in those days I joked about it with them. I thought it was such a good lurk that I even sat for an exam to qualify for a public service job, because there was virtually no work for journalists when I graduated. I was rejected. At the time, I thought it was a failure. Now I regard it in the same way as Brett Kimmorley regards being rejected by the Cronulla Sharks.

Making it all frightfully worse is that Australia, with a population of just over 21 million people, has three cumbersome tiers of government, each with its own horde of keypad-pushing desk dwellers. There are cities on this planet with more people, and only a handful of local councils administering them.

If you want to understand more about how the clerical public service works, grab a few episodes of “Yes Minister”, the brilliant BBC documentary series. Some people mistakenly thought “Yes Minister” was a comedy, but it’s no more a comedy than “Front Line” is a comedy about the Australian news media.   

To be fair, Public Servants are just like the rest of us: citizens who need jobs. It’s not their fault. Like my mates at university, they’re simply performing a role that is demanded of them. Someone has to do it, and if you take away these jobs the “pubes” suddenly lose their anonymity. They become a very obvious part of the most high profile statistic of all: the unemployment rate. That’s why, when politicians talk about cutting government expenditure, they talk about cutting projects and departments and paper work, avoiding like swine flu the most politically dangerous word of all. A “job” lost is a vote lost. For a Labor government it’s even worse: it’s a vote lost and an angry trade union. That’s why there is re-evaluating, re-structuring, re-scheduling, re-invigorating, re-investing but there is never, ever, in a politician’s vocabulary the word “re-dundant”.

The Public Service bosses, whose primary motivation is preservation of power, know this. “But Minister,” says Sir Humphrey with that shrewd grin, “if you axe the Commonwealth inquiry into the thickness of recycled paper, that’s a thousand people out of work! Not to mention the office is in a marginal electorate...the honourable Member for Wallabunga isn’t going to be too pleased about that...”

“But Sir Humphrey, the taxpayers are clamouring for responsible, accountable government. Trim the sails I say...tighten the budget...let’s show Australian householders we’re doing it tough too, fighting off this recession...”

“Of course Minister. Of course. But rather than make rash, provocative hatchet blows, let’s take a scalpel to this problem. Not to make too fine a point of it, we can show the good citizens we are a responsible government by announcing that we will indeed trim the sails, as it were, but with no mention of the dreaded “j” word. There is a painless solution for those loyal ALP-voting union-members in the department...”

“Such as?”

“Well, I understand from my colleagues in the Conservation Department that they are terribly under-staffed as they grapple with that horrendous feasibility study into the impact on the black-spotted tree frog of that new public housing development in Melbourne...”

“But that’s a state matter...”

“Well, not quite. There is, I agree, an advisory team of some 250 people enlisted by the Victorian Government, as required by state policy, hard working I’m sure but frightfully under-staffed now that this is an issue that has aroused the attention of the Federal Minister for Conservation. She’s demanding a separate and more far-reaching, broad-based inquiry utilising the full resources of the various Federal ministries. It appears she was quite upset by those protests last week...you saw the news bulletins didn’t you Minister? Those reality TV celebrities dressed as frogs, hopping about Federation Square until one of them was trampled by a mounted policeman? Most unpleasant. Anyway, now that it’s been thrown into the lap of the Federal Government an investigation of this magnitude would require some hundreds, perhaps even a thousand dedicated staff...”

The Minister squeezes his wrinkled chin between sweaty fingers. “I suppose we could arrange for any staff that we might consider redun...er...no longer required...to be transferred...providing they wish to do so, of course. After all, we can’t force people to change jobs. But then, it’s better than having no job at all...and in a recession it’s all about jobs, jobs, jobs...the PM himself said that...”
“Yes Minister.”
   

Friday, 22nd May

There have been many dogs in my life and almost as much tragedy as a result. If you're a cat person, or can't identify with pets, you might not feel like reading on but be patient…this story might be more relevant than you think.

When I was about 10 my dad came back from working on a property on which a Boxer had given birth to a very large litter. The farmer said the father was a German Shepherd, so he couldn't predict how the pups would look when they grew, but he was offering them to just about anyone he saw in the hope he wouldn't have to kill them, as people did in those days.

That's why my soft-hearted old man had been persuaded to stow a little brindle and black bundle into his shirt, hoping my mum would see the heroism of the situation, rather than the impracticality. We lived in a caravan park at the time or, as dad liked to put it "we were in between houses".

Few people can turn down a puppy, except of course, a mean-spirited caravan park owner and we were not game to find out the mood of ours. So we smuggled the bundle into our tiny van and pondered his future. I named him "Tails", after a very popular racehorse at the time.

So Tails, all big paws and wrinkled head, started to grow, and grow. Fortunately, by the time he outgrew the caravan and the park owner's patience we had moved into a house in town.

Tails grew so large and muscular that he looked like he had been forcibly jammed into a smaller dog's skin. When we went fishing he'd tear up and down the sand, diligently collecting our catch, I mean, his catch, and burying them next to our gear. It was a trick he picked up all by himself and such was his vigour and demeanour we were afraid of the consequences should we try to discourage him.     

I was searching for some of the buried fish one day when dad shook his head and said "Son, we have to give him a different name…I mean, look at him…"

I turned to face the panting monster behind me. His sleek coat was so confused he looked like he'd been sleeping under a leaking sump, but his head…well imagine it. Half-boxer, half-German Shepherd. His black muzzle looked like he'd been chasing parked cars but it wasn't entirely squashed. His ears were neither pricked nor folded, so they stuck out at a weird angle and were kinked at the ends. His body, while powerful, looked as though it would never catch up with that enormous cranium. He slurped lovingly at my face. As I wiped away the drool I could see that in naming him I had focussed on the wrong end.

"I've seen better looking heads on racing pigs," said dad, using one of his cryptic metaphors, "so I think we'll call him Skull."    

Skull's exploits became the stuff of legend, at a time when dog laws were not as strict as they are today. He rode the back of Dad's truck like a colossus, driving away with a throaty bark anyone who even glanced in his direction. At times, for greater effect, he would leap onto the roof of the cabin, until the day he slid off while going around a corner. He bounced down the road like a football before leaping up and growling this way and that at the unseen, unfathomable force had just pushed him from his throne. It was a menacing sight.

We decided to keep him at home, for his own sake, but he always seemed to know which watering hole Dad had arrived at each day after work and in a town with four pubs and two clubs that was no easy task. When Dad staggered outside, that grinning expanse of noggin would be there on the steps, ready to escort the old man back to where he should have been hours ago.

They became so close over the years that on Saturdays when Dad walked down the road for a beer and a bet, Skull would go with him. He became a popular figure, reclining like a savannah lion in the corner of the bar. There would have been some regulation against that but no-one seemed to care.

One morning before work, dad and Skull were heading up the main street footpath. A bloke pedalling furiously on a pushbike came spearing off the road and down the path, directly at them. Dad had a bit of age and arthritis on board, so he wavered unsteadily as the bike approached. According to witnesses, the middle-aged rider seemed oblivious and uncaring as he accelerated.   

Dad teetered to his left, almost falling; a fact that hadn't escaped Skull's attention, so he lunged and gave the rider a nip on the thigh for his arrogance. The dog didn't know that even in small country towns in the 70s it was illegal to ride your bike on the footpath but he sensed something was not right.

The rider stopped, apologised, asked Dad if he was okay and, after copping an angry lecture, moved on.

On Monday morning, the rider returned to his job at the local council and, for some reason, issued a formal complaint. Who would question the credibility of a council worker, especially when dog control was the council's jurisdiction? Some time during the following day, while Dad was away at work, Skull was shot dead by the pound-keeper, who was told the matter was simple: put down the vicious dog. There the case rested. Our entire family was crushed.

This is just one of many episodes in life that leave no winners and the circumstances don't allow anyone who is distanced from the detail of events to make an informed judgement. Every day we are confronted by similar stories in the media and despite the best efforts of reporters to give you a complete and balanced story, it is not always wise to eagerly take sides.