A September 21 2022 address at the commemoration to mark 150 years since the Seamens Union was founded
Today I want to talk about five people who represent what the Seamens Union and its successor bodies have stood for.
First, George Sangster. He was the first Labor councillor elected to Port Melbourne Council. He was also the first Labor member of Parliament for the Victorian seat of Port Melbourne.
There is, thankfully, a growing backlash against modern day witch hunts.
The historian Simon Schama, a friend of Salman Rushdie recently asked: “Is nothing sacred? Yes, the right to irreverence. The health of a free, democratic society can be measured by its protection of disrespect, so long as the right to offensiveness does not extend to the threat, much less the enactment, of physical harm.”
Pope Innocent II has a lot to answer for. After his 1130 elevation to the papacy the church was deeply divided and there were actually two Popes one of whom – not Innocent – had been supported by a majority of Cardinals.
In 1139, after his competitor had died, he called the Second Lateran Council to address the divisions. The Council’s 23rd canon declared that: “We condemn and cast out of the church as heretics those who, simulating a kind of religious zeal, reject the sacrament of the body and blood of the Lord, the baptism of infants, the priesthood, and other ecclesiastical orders. As well as matrimony and ordain that they will be restrained by the civil power. For their partisans also we decree the same power.”
It was ever thus with tanks (see earlier blog) according to a friend and former colleague, Peter Hehir.
Peter wrote about the tanks blog: “Researching my father’s army career – 40 years in the Royal Tank Regiment – I discovered some gems. The new British tank they had been demanding in Egypt, when Rommel’s Panzers were able to fire about half a mile further than our British effort, eventually arrived. It was a shocker. Hardened Tankies could not understand basic interior faults, let along fire power weakness.
As the Greens flirt with a serious loss of electoral support over its policy on the Voice to Parliament the puzzling question is why they are doing it.
The easy answer is that once again – as with carbon pricing – they persist in pursuing perfection even after they have demonstrated before that the perfect is the enemy of the good.
What is with politicians and tanks and other armoured vehicles?
In 1988 Michael Dukakis doomed his already slim US presidential hopes by allowing himself to look ridiculous in a 68 tonne Abrams Main Battle Tank. Liz Truss, possibly the next Tory PM, was ridiculed for appearing in full military gig in Estonia. Kim Beazley (Bomber Beazley to colleagues) was often perched on military vehicles.
Australian news media is in a paradoxical situation – news consumption is increasing slightly while at the same time trust falls.
Moreover, the situation might be as good as it gets as younger Australians give up on the mainstream media and distrust levels grow.
The Reuters Institute Digital News Report 2022, according to Sora Park of University of Canberra – one of the Reuters supporting partners – shows the media: “Emerging from one of the worst years in media history, Australia saw signs of recovery in 2021. The advertising market grew, numbers paying for news online increased, and support systems for regional journalism are being developed. At the same time, a new regulatory framework has eased the power imbalance between news publishers and tech giants.”
The blog is taking a break for a couple of weeks.
Greg Norman called the Saudi’s Jamal Khashoggi’s murder and body sawing just a “mistake”.
The Age’s Greg Baum (the only Melbourne sports journalist to regularly expose the Melbourne Grand Prix’s false claims) called it murder.
Now Victoria has shown that, like Greg Norman, we’re not that regretful about linking ourselves with those who have blood on their hands.
Some years ago the prominent head of an Australian PR agency claimed that PR companies were just like barristers – cabs for hire.
It was obvious nonsense as PR firms are free to choose to represent a client or not whereas barristers are much more limited in their choices.
The dilemma is highlighted as the PR industry is involved in a series of choices about what to do with clients and potential clients when their activities make global warming worse. Some of them are no doubt using the cab for hire principle to justify their choices others are taking a more principled stance.