Andrew Leigh

I launched Ian Warden's new book on Canberra tonight. Here's my speech, complete with a newly-uncovered 1977 ACT Anthem by Philip Grundy.

Launching Ian Warden, A Serious House on Serious Earth
Electric Shadows Bookshop, Canberra
4 April 2013

I acknowledge the Ngunnawal people, on whose lands we meet.

It is a pleasure to be here today to launch the book of a great Canberra icon, Ian Warden (also known as the Beige Bombshell).

If you travel today to Dalgety, a town of 75 people and one pub, it strikes you that there might exists a parallel universe to our own in which Australia’s capital is on the banks of the Snowy River, and Canberra is a sleepy town of 1700 people (as it was in 1911).

In that parallel universe, we would likely be standing in a paddock filled with cow dung. From that paddock, we would be able to see across to St John’s Church, built in 1841-1878. It is around this building that Warden tells the tale of Canberra.

His title, ‘A Serious House on Serious Earth’ comes from Philip Larkin, but it undersells the quirkiness of the Canberra story.[1]

Let’s start with the possible sites for Canberra. Warden notes that the search for a federal capital site in the early-C20th was focused on ‘bracing places’: locations such as Albury, Armidale, Bathurst, Bombala, Lake George, Lyndhurst, Orange, Tumut and Dalgety. Believing that cold air was good for one’s health, coastal cities were excluded.

And so the search began.

Senior NSW public servant Alexander Oliver noted in each case ‘the unswerving loyalty of the witnesses to their local climate. No matter what the day temperature might be, the nights were always cool… Where such enclosures as cemeteries existed I was assured that nine tenths of the occupants had been ‘undesirables’… An immense pumpkin… chased me around several sites’.

Canberra-boosters made assurances that the district could readily supply the stone required for building, and all the food the city would need to consume. But the prize for boosterism must go to Mr A Evans, who proposed that the capital be built atop Lake George, saying ‘Here we may create a new Venice, only a perfect one.’

What Ian Warden calls ‘the Battle of the Sites’ also saw plenty of trash-talking. Billy Hughes told Parliament of his visit to Dalgety: ‘When I observed [to the local sergeant] that it was fearfully cold… he informed me ‘This is the warmest winter we’ve had for 17 years. … only one man and myself ventured into the Snowy River and personally, I have never been the same man since, while the other gentleman has retired from parliament’. Fortunately, such negativity would never be tolerated in today’s parliament.

Meanwhile, Warden describes how the Bulletin magazine crusaded against Canberra, describing Dalgety as ‘a paradise of waters’, and Canberra as ‘a dry, waterless, rabbit-ravaged, howling inhospitable wilderness’. Again, we are lucky that strong editorial views do not shape the objective reporting of today’s news outlets.

Ian Warden’s book reminds us how unfair is the naming of Canberra’s suburbs. Victorian Senator James McColl, who switched his vote in the Senate to break a deadlock in favour of choosing Canberra, has no suburb named after him (even McColl street in Ainslie was named after his father). John Gorton, the only Prime Minister to live here in his retirement, has no suburb named after him.

Meanwhile, we have Canberra suburbs named after Western Australian John Forrest (who preferred Dalgety because he thought Canberra too flat) and West Australian Senator George Pearce, who harangued his colleagues in favour of Dalgety, and – Warden argues – fabricated reasons as to why Canberra was unsuitable.

And yet the name of the city itself is fitting – especially alongside alternatives such as Cooeeoomoo, Eros, Federata, Malleyvista, Piscatoria and Shakespeare. Ours is the only Australian capital city named in the language of its traditional owners rather than after a European dignitary.

In his Foreword, Warden thanks ‘that ectoplasmic companion, the amiable ghost who was usually my only company down underneath the Library in its Controlled Access Collection area where I spent so much time researching and writing’.

In the same spirit, I decided to conduct a little dusty research of my own. At a function last year, someone came up to tell me about a competition that Warden had run back in 1977, to coincide with the plebiscite that would choose our national anthem (you know, the one where the rest of Australia chose Advance Australia Fair, and Canberra chose Waltzing Matilda).

The competition asked Canberra Times readers to come up with an ACT anthem. Armed with only the information that ‘it was sometime in 1977’, the blessed researchers at the Parliamentary Library began digging. Eventually, they hit gold. The joint winners had been the great ANU economic historian Noel Butlin, and Fisher resident Philip Grundy (both now sadly deceased). Despite my love of Butlin’s historical economic data, I confess that I preferred Grundy’s anthem.

So here it is. From the archives of Ian Warden’s 1977 Gang Gang column in the Canberra Times, I present to you, ‘Hymn to Canberra, Queen of the Plains and Hills’.

Hymn to Canberra, Queen of the Plains and Hills
Philip Grundy
Published in the Canberra Times on 7 April 1977 (26yrs ago this Sunday)

When God beneath the South Cross created land and sea
The choicest spot His Finger touched was called the ACT.
Our hills bedecked with eucalyptus, our Lake is girt by land.
Within our City’s noble streets imposing buildings stand.
Here mighty statesmen labour for our country’s common weal
And public servants work to show the loyalty they feel.



Chorus:
Brisbane and Sydney and Melbourne and Perth
Hobart and Adelaide – what are they worth?
Villages all of them! Greet them with mirth!
We’ll fight for Canberra, land of our birth.

In glorious homes our people dwell, both humble and aloof.
Their sturdy walls of brick veneer, of solid tiles their roof.
Each suburb here with quiet pride our heroes’ fame proclaims,
While bosky streets preserve for aye the mem’ry of their names.
For where God’s handiwork reveals the beauty of his Plan
The NCDC daily adds the handiwork of man.

Chorus:
Brisbane and Sydney and Melbourne and Perth
Hobart and Adelaide – what are they worth?
Villages all of them! Greet them with mirth!
We’ll fight for Canberra, land of our birth.



Who would our land’s armorial pride in Tidbinbilla view
May there the stalwart emus see, the sturdy kangaroo.
Whilst midst the melaleuca of our native habitat
One may behold the possum and the lissom feral cat.
Nor lacks our Lake the finny tribe that swims there without fuss,
And in our streams float monotremes, the loyal platypus.

Chorus:
Brisbane and Sydney and Melbourne and Perth
Hobart and Adelaide – what are they worth?
Villages all of them! Greet them with mirth!
We’ll fight for Canberra, land of our birth.

O Canberra! O Canberra! Where mighty mountains roll,
Our planners made thee beautiful, Our City with a Soul
Yea Canberra! Thy people are a great and happy band
Of citizens rejoicing that thou hast been fully planned!
Let lesser breeds within the States in envy scoff and sneer;
We know that if they had the chance they would be living here!

Chorus:
Brisbane and Sydney and Melbourne and Perth
Hobart and Adelaide – what are they worth?
Villages all of them! Greet them with mirth!
We’ll fight for Canberra, land of our birth.

---

[1] It also makes me wonder: will Warden’s next book will follow in the same vein, perhaps drawing on the opening line of Larkin’s famous poem ‘This Be the Verse’?

Having recently been appointed as Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister, I'm looking to hire three staff members to work in my Parliament House office. I'm particularly looking for:

• an understanding of government legislation processes (ideally gleaned through time working in the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet); and/or


• economic nous (experience working on a budget in the Commonwealth Treasury would be ideal)

Dry wit, a modicum of wisdom, a yen for hard work, and and an ability to pen sparkling prose to a tight deadline are all desirable qualities.

If you're interested, please send a CV and covering email to andrew.leigh.mp asperand aph.gov.au. I'll be moving fairly quickly - so the earlier, the better.

Update: I've now concluded the selection process. Thanks to the more than 50 people who took the trouble to apply - I'm sorry there were only a limited number of opportunities.

For anyone who hasn't fled Canberra for the long weekend, I'll be holding two of my regular street stalls on Sat 30 March:

• 10am - Hibberson St, Gungahlin (Outside Big W)


• 11.15am- Dickson (outside Woolworths)

Thanks also to everyone who came up to say g'day at yesterday's street stall in Civic.

On ABC702 yesterday, I enjoyed a conversation with host Richard Glover and guests Dick Smith and Malcolm Turnbull, ranging from carbon pricing to urban congestion, parliamentary roles to economic growth, helicopter travel to books that make you cry. Here's a podcast.

MEDIA RELEASE

Andrew Leigh Honoured to be Appointed Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister

Member for Fraser, Andrew Leigh, today said he was honoured to be appointed Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister.

“I am humbled at the chance to contribute further to the Australian Government’s reform agenda,” Dr Leigh said.

"I come from a family that believes a life of community service is a life well-lived. It’s a privilege to serve in the federal parliament, and to work every day for a better, fairer, more prosperous and more just future.

“At street stalls and community events, I am constantly reminded of how important a Labor Government is to improving the lives of my constituents.

“Whether it’s the person with a disability who will finally get the care they deserve, or the child in a disadvantaged neighbourhood whose school has received the investment they need, our Labor Government has helped change lives for the better.

“Over the next six months, I will be fighting alongside the Prime Minister and the Labor team to make sure these achievements endure.”

Andrew Leigh will be sworn in at a ceremony at Government House today, at 3.30pm

On ABC RN Drive yesterday, I spoke with Waleed Aly about the Labor leadership, and the importance of now focusing on Labor's many reforms. Here's a podcast.

I spoke in parliament today about some terrific Canberrans who've spent their time volunteering in developing countries.

International Volunteering, 21 March 2013

On 19 February I held a morning tea for volunteers in my electorate who have worked with various international development programs. They shared their experiences and stories of the rewards, frustrations and challenges of volunteering in a developing country.

Roger Butler worked with the National Narcotics Board in Indonesia and was involved with the health and drug therapeutic community division. An important aspect of the division was to support those undergoing drug rehabilitation programs, including many in and recently released from Indonesian gaols. He worked to reduce the prevalence of HIV and multidrug-resistant tuberculosis with this population.

Tracie Ennis worked as a data manager with Women's Empowerment, an NGO based in Jakarta, in Indonesia.

Tom Tanhchareun was based in Hanoi, Vietnam. He worked with a United Nations agency in tackling human trafficking.

Lisa Brown worked with an organisation that supported children who survived by having to scavenge from the city dump in Phnom Penh, in Cambodia. She told the group stories about the extreme deprivation of those children and how, upon her return to Australia, no smell can any longer assail her nostrils.

Edward Boydell was based in Hanoi in Vietnam. He worked on empowering Vietnamese youth on environmental issues and climate change through an NGO called Live and Learn. The aim of Live and Learn is to help create a space for Vietnamese youth to be vocal in public debate. They support movements created by young people to apply for funding with various NGOs. Edward also helped organise a youth forum discussing environmental issues.

Although each of the volunteers expressed moments that they described as 'wanting to pull your hair out', they all recommended volunteering as a positive experience, making a difference to overseas communities and in their own lives. They spoke about how their experience had broadened their world view and helped to put their own nation into a global context. They felt that the strong commitment of volunteering overseas helped them to better evaluate the views and opinions of others and to develop strong negotiation and problem-solving skills.

Over the last 45 years the Australian government has supported more than 15,000 Australians as volunteers. People intending to volunteer can now go to a single access point through the AVID program—www.ausaid.gov.au/volunteer. The smiles and laughter around the table at my volunteering morning tea were testament to the positive experiences of volunteering and I would encourage any Australian of any age who is thinking about volunteering to seize the opportunity.

To mark 'World Happiness Day', Sky News invited me to talk about the economic evidence on happiness with presenter Stan Grant. We discussed how you measure happiness, where it can be a useful tool, and why new evidence shows that the "Easterlin Paradox" doesn't hold up.http://www.youtube.com/v/FJehDJzIJuE?hl=en_GB&version=3

On ABC666 yesterday, I spoke with host Adam Shirley about the government's investment in early childhood, and why good policy is good politics too. Here's a podcast.

I spoke in parliament about changes in the media, information inequality, and the government's proposed changes to media laws.

Media Law Reform, 20 March 2013

Great journalism really can change the world. Emile Zola's 'J'accuse' letter did not just win Alfred Dreyfus his freedom; it helped to change the political character of modern France. When Woodward and Bernstein reported on Watergate, they brought down a president. In Australia, reporting by the Courier-Mail and Four Corners ended the Bjelke-Petersen government and led to the jailing of three ministers. In 2005, a newspaper article brought down New South Wales opposition leader John Brogden and probably changed the outcome of the 2007 New South Wales election.

Great reporting can shape the world for the better, but it is vital that that reporting keep pace with changes in technology, and there is possibly no industry changing more rapidly than that of the news media. We have seen a huge technological shift through not just cable and digital TV providing more channels—and, soon, digital radio having that effect for most radio listeners—but also the proliferation of new platforms, such as Facebook and Twitter, and other news sources. We are increasingly seeing newspapers change their format and their character.

These technological shifts, like standard technological shifts in other industries, have led to greater inequality in the news. If you are an engaged consumer, there has never been a better time to consume the news media. You can watch press conferences on Sky or ABC 24. You get transcripts straight off the internet. You can quickly get the opinions of thoughtful bloggers and sassy tweeters. But if you are less engaged then things tend to look a bit different. While the most engaged consumers have seen their news media become more abundant, more diverse in terms of outlets and more accessible, taken as a whole we have seen a rise in opinion and, I think, also a rise in nastiness and shallowness.

Those three shifts, which I talked about in a speech at the University of Canberra last year, have implications for media laws. The notion that the media laws should just stand still while the press goes through the largest shift in its history is, to me, a trifle strange. Certainly, if you were to look at the words of the member for Wentworth, you would get that sense—at least, if you looked at his words circa 2011. The member for Wentworth gave what I thought was quite a thoughtful speech on 7 December 2011 to the Advanced Centre of Journalism, noting:

‘The consequence of this decline in journalism is that too many important matters of public interest are either not covered at all or covered superficially. At the local level, there is less attention paid to local councils and even state parliaments.’

He went on to say:

‘Consider the shrinking Canberra Press Gallery—the vast bulk of its coverage of federal politics is now about personalities and the game of politics.

‘Readers seeking a better understanding of how the carbon tax or the mining tax, for example, will operate will often struggle to find much assistance in the output of the gallery—with some very honourable exceptions—compared to the millions of words written about Kevin Rudd vs Julia Gillard let alone Tony Abbott’s budgie smugglers.’

The member for Wentworth also said:

The consequence of all of this has been that what we used to call the 24 hour news cycle has become instead an opinion cycle.

He continued:

‘Over the last few decades we have seen a proliferation of mediums through which news and information can be viewed. In my youth as a reporter we were limited to the newspapers (more then than now), a few television stations, a few more radio stations and a handful of magazines.’

The member for Wentworth also quoted the late US senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan: 'Everyone is entitled to their own opinions, but they are not entitled to their own facts.' He noted one of the changes that I think is of greatest concern to many of us:

‘… the whole edifice of our fifth estate, of our journalism, has been built on a foundation of newspaper journalism and … that foundation is crumbling.’

My largest concern about the changes in the news media is not about slant towards left or right. Media slant will come and go. When I studied media slant with Joshua Gans, looking at the Howard government period 1996 to 2004, we found that most of the outlets adopted centrist positions. But I am concerned that the rise of opinion, the trend that Laura Tingle has described as 'Australia's politics and our public discourse have become noticeably angrier' or that Annabel Crabb describes as 'a hostile, scratchy feel to politics at the moment'. That rise of nastiness and the rise of shallowness with its emphasis on one-liners rather than thoughtful commentary are of concern. The increase in poll-driven journalism—focusing on the horse race rather than the issues of the day—is one to which the member for Wentworth referred in his 2011 speech.

You can get a sense of how unusual the current laws are by simply looking at the regulation of smh.com.au and ninemsn.com.au. They are two of Australia's most popular news websites, but content on the Sydney Morning Herald's website is created by a newspaper and so it operates under a voluntary code of conduct regulated by the Australian Press Council. The ninemsn website is created by a broadcaster and so its content must have complaints directed to the Australian Communications and Media Authority, a statutory authority, and ACMA can consider the suitability of a person who seeks to hold a broadcasting licence. I do not think anyone would argue that, were we starting from scratch today, we ought to regulate the SMH website and the ninemsn website in utterly different ways.

This regulation is outdated and the member for Wentworth acknowledged in 2011 that was a concern. Prominent journalists have themselves also acknowledged that changes in the shape of the media are a significant challenge for good public policy. George Megalogenis argues that the 1970's saw the media emerge as perhaps the only institution that played a constructive role, but he argues that the media is today 'an intrinsic part of the problem'. They are George Megalogenis's words. These changes are happening rapidly. Ray Finkelstein’s review—ably assisted by Matthew Ricketson at the University of Canberra and Rodney Tiffen, who was my original politics and media lecturer when I was a whippersnapper at the University of Sydney, Francesco Papandrea, Denis Muller, Kristen Walker, Christopher Young, Graeme Hill, Jack Bourke and Mansa Chintoh—recognised that it is important to look at how the industry has changed. It noted, for example, the significant change in the number of daily metropolitan newspapers in Australia. If we go back to Federation, Australia had 21 metropolitan or national daily newspapers belonging to 17 owners. The number of newspapers increased to 26 in 1923, but that number has since fallen. In 1985 there were 18 of these newspapers; now we are down to 11.

The Australian newspaper industry is shrinking not only in the number of newspapers, but also in concentration. We have three major owners and that makes our newspaper industry perhaps the most concentrated in the developed world. Other speakers in this debate have noted these facts. Our top newspaper group controls 58 per cent of circulation; our top two control 86 per cent of circulation; our top four control 99 per cent of circulation. All of those numbers exceed the other countries that are surveyed in the International Media Concentration Research Project: Switzerland, Israel, Ireland, Portugal, France, Turkey, South Africa, United Kingdom, Taiwan, the Netherlands, Brazil, China, Sweden, Canada, Finland, Russia, Korea, Germany, India, Mexico, Japan, Spain, Italy, the United States and Poland all have less concentrated newspaper industries than Australia.

Ensuring that we have a healthy newspaper industry is absolutely fundamental. It is fundamental to our democracy and it is fundamental, frankly, to freedom of speech. It is within that framework that the government brings these laws before the House. These laws are nowhere near the extreme imposition that the member for Wentworth would now have you believe. Let us recall that, when the Leveson inquiry began, when allegations of phone hacking were first aired in 2011, there were those in Australia who argued that we should have a 'fit and proper person' test applied, that we should curtail foreign ownership of the press, that we should put in place strict licensing regimes. Instead, what the government has put in place are much more modest and careful reforms that indeed I suspect are entirely in keeping with what the member for Wentworth spoke about in 2011—this great challenge that faces our society in which it is important to ensure that we have a proliferation of thoughtful voices in the media.

It is because newspapers journalists are fundamental to the media that we need to make sure that we have diversity of voices within the newspaper market. And we need to recognise that newspapers are important not only for their readers, who are indeed a declining group in Australian society. The Finkelstein report noted, for example, that in 1977 there were 29 newspapers sold for every 100 Australians; now we are down to 10 newspapers sold for every 100 Australians. But, while newspaper circulation is falling, newspapers retain their influence through agenda setting, their impact on talkback radio and their impact on television. Newspapers have also had a disproportionate influence on breaking news stories and on bringing about in-depth analysis of issues. I am thinking of some of the thoughtful reporting carried out, for example, by Neil Chenoweth of the Australian Financial Review. The degree of scrutiny that comes through high-quality press is enormously important to the strength of our democracy.

I rise to speak on these bills because of my passion for the journalism industry. I believe that we have great journalists in Australia at the moment and that it is important that that situation continue. It is important that the government and the opposition are held to account by the press and by a diversity of views. But we have to recognise in this debate that changes in technology bring with them inequality. It is a mistake to view changes in the media through the lens only of the most engaged news consumers. If you think about the current availability of news sources only from the perspective of being plugged in 24 hours a day, constantly updating yourself with tweets and reading the latest government reports, you have to realise that you are not a typical consumer. We have to recognise that the rise of opinion, of nastiness, of shallowness, does affect the way in which many Australians view the press. It has to be recognised that there are possibly more Australians interested in reading about Lara Bingle than reading Laura Tingle. But it is important that we have a set of news media laws that sustain great journalists like Ms Tingle. Such journalists will continue to keep governments accountable under these laws.