How to Sink Your Integrity (and a warship_
{update: 25th March///after a submission by the Environmental Defenders Office, a judge has put a stay on the scuttling until further notice. Huzzah!}
This Saturday the NSW government are going to sink a decommissioned warship, the 4000 tonne ex-HMAS Adelaide, less than 2 km's off Avoca Beach.
I wrote an article about it for New Matilda here
The warship was given to NSW by the federal government. Peter Garrett, as the Minister for Environmental Protection, was responsible for giving the final sign off on the "sea dumping permit" allowing the ship to be scuttled legally.
It's a disgrace.
I remember the night of the election when John Howard was voted out of office. After 11 stifling years there was a great sense of hope for the future in the house where we celebrated till around 4am.
The thought of Peter Garrett carrying his environmental passion into a ministerial portfolio was inspiring. On that night, it seemed as though someone who stood for us, heard us and understood us, was going to be in power. We thought the same things at the same time and hoped that Garrett could do something about it.
No more putting profit and convenience before the environment. Recognition and energy for closing the gap in life expectancy and living conditions for indigenous Australians. No more invasion and war on false pretenses. No more demonisation of asylum seekers for short term political gain. No more big government or big business fudging proper environmental process to quickly push through questionable projects.
How times have changed.
The scuttling of the ex-HMAS Adelaide is just the kind of issue Peter Garrett used to stand against.
Growing up near Manly, this kind of confrontation was part of my DNA:
a stage set up in Keirle Park, draped in Surfrider Foundation banners. A towering Garrett spinning across the stage with the spiritual fervour of a Sufi, hands pleading with the heavens and the powers that be, backed by a rhythmic fury and every member of the crowd.
In a country like Australia; a country so perplexed by our own national identity - our historical narrative for so long little more than a grotesque paper-mache that ignored 40,000 years of culture prior to invasion (or was it settlement?), failed to face the difficulties of that moment of contact, and chose instead to build a national myth on the overburdened backs of soldiers cruelly sacrificed by an imperial power - Peter Garrett and Midnight Oil stood for something.
They made a career out excavating the past and parts of Australia so many would rather ignore. They offered a way forward. They stirred things up.
I feel sadly that Garrett has abandoned this legacy and foolishly spent the political capital he took into the Labor Party.
I don't doubt his anguish over decisions, nor the good intentions he took into federal politics to make a change from within - few are so committed to even attempt to step into the fray - but to use a hackneyed phrase, 'politics is the art of compromise', which is fine, it's just that I don't know what Peter Garrett stands for anymore.
[if you want to get involved contact the No Ship Action Group - see www.noship.com.au - they are planning a legal challenge to stop the dumping of the ship]
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I reckon Peter Garret's career change has caused more distress than it has eased. I, for example, who pummelled every Midnight Oil album constantly and constructed my whole identity around them - now that Pete turns out to be a phoney, an actor, a puppet - I am left with a yawning gulf in my adolescent identity formation. And I reckon it wouldn't just be me - I reckon that in the background of counselling sessions with 30/40-something males across the nation there would be the question "If Pete was acting all along, then how credible was the value system I adapted from him? What was the me that I was?"
ReplyDeleteOn the other 'hand' (visual pun) maybe what it tells us is that the whole idea that, in political debates, if we situate ourselves at a pole outside the realm of the possible in the hope that the middle will come to meet us, we are being foolishly idealistic, like Nietzche's resentiment, and if we want to effect should situate ourselves at the middle and take people with us towards the poles/polls. Obvioulsy that's what Pete would say now, however I agree that this approach lacks the appearance of a core belief.
Johnno
(PS: how's this thing work - what's this about 'select profile'?)
I can empathise with the feeling of vacant space left but the absence of something you once held dear.
ReplyDeleteI've learnt a little about this from Bob Dylan who was always good at getting rid of people who pinned him to an ideal - "don't follow leaders/watch the parking meters." and maybe there's a hint of discontent in "one country" - "don't call me the tune, I will walk away."
In regards to the political axis; I think Garrett was elected (and helped get Labor elected) because he had a public profile which was inseperable from what he stood for politically. To maintain integrity and the public's trust, whether you're in the middle or on the edges, you've got to consistently stand for well thought out positions and policies. If you crumble on everything, you're simply making up the party numbers. That's where Peter is now.
I think you can make a change politically from inside or outside the process, and from all over the political sprectrum. Martin Luther King wasn't a member of congress for example. That's what makes public discussion and action so interesting.
On another note I was disappointed that the remaining members of the Oil's new band "the Break" censored my comments from their facebook site. I just posted a link to the NSAG site and someone removed it.
(ps you can have a google blog profile or just post as anonymous. no big deal)