Neville and Joh: Compulsory reading

Ascent to Power by Brian Dale Allen & Unwin, $8.95 pb, 148 pp For a reform politician, these three books should be compulsory reading. They are not, for such a reader, heartening. But they do ‘serve in many respects to discover, to confute, to forewarn, and to illustrate’. Brian Dale’s Ascent to Power (Allen & Unwin, $8.95 pb, 148 pp), very much less than fair to Neville Wran, is an unintended exposé of the nature of political journalism in this country and its practitioners. With a few honourable exceptions, political journalists in Australia are uninterested in truth, objectivity, and informing the public. They are interested in headlines, disturbing stories, scandal, and ratings. Moreover, since the proprietors of the newspapers, radio and television stations which employ them are uniformly conservative, they satisfy those employers by stories which impute ill motive and lack of principle or scruple to anyone in public office who appears to be achieving good for the people. As money makers and money manipulators in the private sector, media owners regard ill any notion on the part of the populace that good can come from Government action. A Labor leader who sets out to carry out the policy of the party, knows that inevitably he has problems of communication with the constituency because the organs of communication are firmly in the hands of those who are for the most part opposed to change. He has, therefore, to learn how to use the structure of the press, TV and radio to tell the populace what the Government is doing, why, and what is being achieved. The purpose of that exercise is to keep public support for policy. In this, Neville Wran in opposition, and his first five years in of government, was outstandingly successful. From Brian Dale’s book it is apparent that, working close to Neville Wran as he did, he believed throughout that the means was the end. Mr. Dale reveals in considerable detail. and with candour as to his own occasional fibbing, the way in which Neville Wran was able to use the media to sell his programs and a favourable view of the party and the government. He talks hardly at all of the improvement of the lives of the people and the reforms which were the aim of the government. He does mention the reform of the Legislative Council, to make it a popularly elected chamber, and the ending of the malap&shy;portionment of seats in the Assembly as the most significant reform of the Wran government. But his book ends with the conclusion which the media owners seek to propagate – that politicians are largely irrelevant to the lives of ordinary people. He does not deal in any detail with the outrageous attack on Neville Wran by an ABC Four Corners program and its aftermath. That disgraceful chapter in Australian political journalism is not documented nor fully treated in either of these books on Neville Wran – it should be done. What should also be done is a review of the Bjelke-Petersen methods of dealing with the media. The influence of his press officer on the Queensland premier’s style and modes of operation is not dealt with in the scholarly work edited by Allan Patience; it was important and Mr Calleghan’s contribution to events in Queensland was of greater significance than Mr Dale’s in New South Wales. The Wran Model: Electoral politics in NSW in 1981 and 1984 edited by Ernie Chaples, Helen Nelson, and Ken Turner Oxford University Press, $14.99 pb, 289 pp The Wran Model (Oxford University Press, $14.99 pb, 289 pp) suffers from a problem which is often obvious in books of its type: it is a collection of pieces by authors with a diversity of backgrounds and styles, all treating aspects of the same topic. It is, in consequence, at times repetitive, and the quality of the contributions is uneven. However, it does make clear the course, purpose and achievements of the Wran government until the last election. The Wran government won office at a time inauspicious for Labor victory anywhere in Australia – in 1976. The previous year had seen the problems then affecting the Whitlam government in Canberra nearly wipe out the Labor government of South Australia at a State election and the subsequent debacle for Labor hopes at the federal election in December. The Wran Government of 1976 won 51 % of the vote – and won by a handful of votes in a number of marginal seats. The previous coalition was not popular, but looked much better than the Liberal Party and National Party now do in a number of states. It was not surprising that a win in these circumstances did not lead to a rush of reform legislation. The authors repeatedly suggest, however, that the course then followed by the Wran Government was very much in accord with the motives and outlook of its leader. Ernie Chaples, one of the editors, writes: It has often been. written that Neville Wran is a man of pragmatism and moderation, a politician who has succeeded because he has avoided the class-based programmes and rhetoric that have so often alienated the Australian middle class from Labor politicians… Important in the minds of Wran’s new constituency are the middle class interests of home ownership, continual upward mobility in consumer purchasing, the availability of a hedonistic lifestyle, educational opportunities, and family care and assurances that personal assets will not be unduly ripped off by governments. And he quotes David Marr as saying that in his first two years of office Wran’s pragmatic approach was ‘to avoid flak – flak from the Upper House, flak from business, flak from the press’. The authors and editors repeat this view of the Wran government while the book deals with the Government as an election machine, Wran’s introduction of the most sweeping anti&shy;discrimination legislation in Australia, his use of public resources to secure investment and development, his sincere attempts to enact a just form of Aboriginal land rights, are nowhere recounted or analysed. The book then is admiring of the technique, but less than just to the substance of the Wran model in Government. The Bjelke-Peterson Premiership 1968–1983: Issues in public policy edited by Allan Patience Longman Cheshire, $18.95 pb, 286 pp In contrast, the Bjelke-Petersen Premiership (Longman Cheshire, $18.95 pb, 286 pp) is, as its subtitle explains, about issues of public policy. Its authors’ contributions have been carefully compiled to cover the field, which it does well; the issues which strike at any reformer about the present government of Queensland are dealt with in measured and scholarly terms, even with the occasional note of shocked horror and even less frequent one of admiration. The book does, however, avoid recounting some of the sensational episodes and examples of the Bjelke-Perersen manipulation of public service, the cavalier use of public funds, the bland refusal of public accountability which has allowed unparalleled extravagance in the provision of space, furniture, fittings, and accoutrements for the Parliament while leaving schools ill-equipped and under-provided and it does not record the results of the ‘Floridisation’ policy which has seen the growth of the so-called Gold Coast and Sunshine Coast into areas settled by migration from the South and into the most repelling celebration of the Australian Outrage the country has seen. There is another aspect of Bjelke-Petersen’s achievements which deserves better coverage. In order to ensure economic development in a way which will maintain a high level of employment, it is vital that investing developers are able to obtain decisions from the Government in the short term. The assembling of money for major projects is no easy task, and the economic viability of the projects can be markedly lessened when delays in Government decisions mean heavy holding charges must be met. This is a factor significantly influencing developers’ decisions in the Southern states; overlapping and over&shy;structured public sector organisations with power to delay, question and inhibit decision-making exist in New South Wales, Victoria, and the Commonwealth government areas to a degree to make developers quail. Happily, South Australia, Western Australia, and Tasmania are less seriously affected. Bjelke-Petersen in Queensland has succeeded despite having one of the largest public services, proportionately, in Australia, in cutting through the delays and the negativism inherent in such a service, to get decisions. For all his rhetoric about private initiative and the evils of socialism he has been prepared to use public resources and funds to induce an investment from the private sector producing public facilities and benefits not affordable simply by the use of public funds alone. That at times the decisions thus made have been horrifying is true: the Queensland Government seems currently hell-bent on justifying a popular bumper sticker: ‘See Queensland before Joh sells it.’ But it is also true that other States could, with advantage, study the means by which Queensland can give answers about development proposals with advantageous speed and can assemble resources to support developments. The quality of decisions made in Queensland is a reflection of the quality of the Government, but this should not obscure the fact that Bjelke-&shy;Petersen has obtained, in getting a better balance to the economy of that State, a competitive edge.

Don Dunstan

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