Andrew Leigh

TRANSCRIPT – THE DRUM
Andrew Leigh MP
Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister
Member for Fraser
11 June 2013

TOPICS                                 Accuracy of political punditry and prediction, Who will be PM at the next election



Julia Baird:                           Alright, well let’s move on now because it’s an election year as you might have figured, and Australian television is brimming with political pundits and their wisdom.  Flick from channel to channel and you’ll find plenty of journalists, ex-politicians and former ministerial staffers who are more than happy to voice their opinions. We even have a few on the Drum tonight and on a lot of nights. But just how accurate are these pundits when it comes to predicting political outcomes? A new study, which analysed comments made on Insiders and Meet the Press for a three month period before the 2007 and 2010 election hopes to answer that question. We’re joined now by the co-author of that report, economist and Labor MP, Andrew Leigh. Andrew Leigh, welcome to the Drum.

Andrew Leigh: G’day Julia

Julia Baird:                           Not wearing a blue tie, but a pink one.

Andrew Leigh: Indeed.

Julia Baird:                           Andrew, can you tell us about this study. Do we have reason to be proud? Because I understand that you’ve concluded that Americans have as much chance of being right, the American pundits, as if you toss a coin. Whereas Australian commentators have a sixty five per cent chance of being right.

Andrew Leigh: That’s right Julia, but the other thing Phillip Metaxas (my co-author) and I found, was that Australian pundits are remarkably reluctant to make forecasts that could turn out to be wrong. We watched over thirty hours of Insiders and Meet the Press and out of that we come up with twenty falsifiable predictions, twenty across thirty hours, so they’re making about a prediction every hour and a half. Yes, they do a smidgen better, but you don’t see a great hit rate among these pundits. It does look to us as though certainly many of the ones that are right are predictions that probably were odds on in any case. All credit to Fran Kelly, but suggesting that Tony Crook would support the Coalition for example was a prediction of hers we rated as correct but we also put in the fairly easy category.

Fran Kelly:                           I agree. I don’t think it was rocket science, but I’ll take it!

Julia Baird:                           Take that Fran, yeah, she was right. So, but Andrew, are you saying our commentators are more cautious than those in other countries? And why is that?

Andrew Leigh: They’re extraordinarily timid I think, Julia, and I think one of the things that’s going on is a sense of couching forecasts. So, saying well this will happen if this doesn’t happen. That’s sort of what I think of as faux forecasting; and attempt to look authoritative without willing to put yourself on the line. It’s a bit like saying, “Collingwood will beat the Swans on the weekend unless the Swans play better.” So…

Julia Baird:                           Is that a cultural thing? What is that about?

Fran Kelly:                           I think that is a good thing!

Andrew Leigh: Well I’m just not sure it’s terribly informative. I think that’s the concern that Phillip and I have and so…

Julia Baird:                           But how can it be, but aren’t you talking about guess work? You’re asking pundits to make more guesses and if in American that only means tossing a coin, perhaps it’s better to be more conservative sometimes?

Andrew Leigh: Well, here’s what we’d like to see…

Julia Baird:                           Yes

Andrew Leigh: We’d either like to see a ban on forecasting or if you’re going to engage in punditry, then engaging in punditry where we can judge your track record. As football forecasters do on a Friday, tell us what you really think – don’t couch your forecasts. I’m a little reluctant to give advice to you - but hey, you guys give a lot of advice to us, so here goes: I think at The Drum you ought to try and nail down your pundits to forecasts that could turn out to be wrong under some state of the world. I think that would give you a better ranking of pundits and it might then decide who to invite back and who could be passed over for the next program.

Julia Baird:                           Oh! Now that’s a tough one. A lot of people would be unemployed, particularly in the US if we use that standard. But let me just ask you quickly, the terms that you use are those employed by the philosopher Isaiah Berlin, ‘hedgehogs’ and the ‘foxes’. Can you explain to us the difference between the two and why it is that ‘hedgehogs’ are seen to make better TV?

Andrew Leigh: So it comes from an old philosophical essay which has the notion that the ‘hedgehog’ knows one big thing and the ‘fox’ knows many things. I think of myself as being a ‘fox’, someone who classically thinks about things in very small boxes, but a ‘hedgehog’ makes much better television. A ‘hedgehog’ is somebody who approaches politics or economics or foreign affairs with a single grand idea. Turns out their track record of prognostication is actually worse. But the problem for shows such as yours is that someone with a big compelling narrative about the world is often the most attractive kind of guest to have on even although they turn out to be wrong more often.

Fran Kelly:                           Yes but Andrew, but I mean are you advocating that we just get more and more into the entertainment business as that’s why we’re here? Or, when people are invited on for these sort of discussions are we there, you know, for analysis rather than being tipsters? I mean, I would think you could give analysis that informs issues without necessarily having to predict and if you want to take the Footy Show analysis well yeah, Collingwood will beat the Swans but the Swans will win if Adam Goodes turns on a blinder. Ok, that’s great. You look for Adam Goodes and then you see who’s going to win. I think that’s a sensible and honourable approach to it.

Andrew Leigh: I think the analysis is fine. It’s the pretend prognostication that troubles Phillip and I. The attempt at looking as though you’ve got a crystal ball but when we go back and have a look at your words we realise that in fact you haven’t really got any skin in the game. You haven’t really put down anything that could leave you embarrassed on Monday morning. Either do it well or don’t do it at all.

Julia Baird:                           Now, Peter Reith we’ve been hearing you chuckling down the line. I don’t know if you consider yourself a ‘hedgehog’ or a ‘fox’, would you like to weigh in?

Peter Reith:                        Well, to be honest with you I thought it must have been April Fools’ Day. I mean, fancy actually suggesting that there should be a ban on punditry which Andrew just… I mean, I thought he must have been laughing, but actually I find out that he’s serious! And then he says, oh, and then if you don’t do that then you know, you should have a regulator, basically, to check, you know, to see who got their punditry, you know, more right than others. I mean, seriously, I mean, what planet are you on, Andrew? I mean, I’m a pundit but, you know, I think, you know, Fran’s point is a bit closer to it. There’s nothing wrong with people saying, “oh I think this is going to happen”, I mean, you know, what’s interesting is what their thoughts are leading to that proposition, but seriously, if the voters and the readers and the listeners can’t work out that pundits have no better idea of the future than anybody else, well, bad luck for them!

[Julia Baird:                         Quick response Andrew?]

Andrew Leigh: Would that that were the case, Peter. It turns out that people place great faith in the prognostication of pundits and I think we can do something to improve the quality of punditry or maybe to replace it with deeper analysis that doesn’t pretend to have a crystal ball but discusses the issues of the day.

Julia Baird:                           Andrew I’m so sorry – we’re going to have to go in just one moment. But before we leave, can you make a political prediction for us then, who’s going to lead your party into the next election?

Andrew Leigh: That will be Prime Minister, Julia Gillard

Julia Baird:                           Anyone else? Let’s see how our panel of pundits goes!

Bruce Haigh:                       Yeah it will be Gillard. I wouldn’t call it ‘lead’ though

Julia Baird:                           Gillard, quickly, Fran?

Fran Kelly:                           I like to hedge my bets but ok, I think it will be Julia Gillard.

Julia Baird:                           And Peter Reith?

Peter Reith:                        Gillard, but when she loses it will be Shorten versus Rudd and Shorten will win because of the unions’ support.

Julia Baird:                           Ok, we’re going to have to leave it there. We’re going to come back and check on those pronouncements. Andrew Leigh, thanks for joining us on the Drum and thanks also to our panel, Bruce Haig, Fran Kelly and Peter Reith. You can check out the Drum online at abc.net.au/thedrum. Join us again the same time tomorrow night, we’ll see you then.

On ABC666 yesterday, I spoke with Ross Solly about politics and policy, rumours and reforms. Here's a podcast.

My new book - Battlers and Billionaires: The Story of Inequality in Australia - will be launched in early-July in Canberra, Melbourne and Sydney. Details below.

* Monday 1 July: Canberra launch by Professor Bob Gregory, 6pm at ANU (click here to RSVP)
* Tuesday 2 July: Melbourne launch by Father Bob Maguire, 6pm at 456 Lonsdale St, Melbourne (click here for details and to RSVP)
* Wednesday 3 July: Sydney launch by Annabel Crabb, 5.30pm at 44 Market St, Sydney (click here for details and to RSVP)

I hope you can attend one of the launch events.

You can pre-order your copy now, at the ‘battlers price’ of $16 (hard copy) or $10 (Kindle edition).

My SMH op-ed today is on the importance of increasing the share of honours given to women.

Why we need more female nominees, Sydney Morning Herald, 10 June 2013

One of the great privileges of being a parliamentarian is that you get to meet so many remarkable people. In the past fortnight, I’ve chatted with an Indigenous elder who’s passionate about early childhood education, and a community leader who’s working to boost volunteering rates. I’ve talked with a young entrepreneur building her start-up, and a painter who is creating stunningly beautiful work. In a job like this, it’s impossible not to be an optimist about Australia’s future.

This is why the biannual Order of Australia awards – granted on Australia Day and on the Queen’s Birthday – provides a welcomed opportunity to officially recognise some of the achievements and services we see from extraordinary Australians. The awards are overseen by the Governor-General, and, as part of a nineteen member Council for the Order of Australia, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister represents the Australian Government in the recommendation process.

It was Gough Whitlam who established the Order of Australia in 1975, replacing the imperial honours system. Since then, over 28,000 people have received the awards that, as Governor-General Quentin Bryce said, aim to ‘elevate the concept of giving to others. They heighten our respect for one another, and they encourage Australians to think about the responsibilities of citizenship in our democracy’.

This year’s Queen’s Birthday Honours List sees 584 recipients receive awards in the general division of the Order of Australia, in recognition of a diverse range of contributions and services to people in Australia and internationally. Another 199 persons have received awards for their meritorious or military service.

Their achievements are inspiring, and it is heartening to see the Australian tradition of generosity and high achievement continue.

In the latest batch of awards, around 40 percent have been awarded to women, up from an average of 30 percent in the period since 1975.

It is particularly pleasing that author, educator and business leader Jill Ker Conway has been recognised for her 44 years of outstanding achievement and community contribution by appointment as a Companion of the Order of Australia (AC), our greatest civic honour. Professor Conway has taken on key leadership roles in the United States in fields as diverse as education, science, business and the arts.

In this latest round, female nominees had a slightly higher chance of receiving an award than male nominees. That suggests that the task for all of us in the future is to make sure we nominate as many talented women as men. As a community, we sometimes overlook work in traditionally feminised fields (such as volunteering and the arts) in favour of traditionally male fields (such as leading large organisations).

So here’s my challenge: if you know people who are doing great work in your community, why not nominate them for an award? And if you’re thinking of nominating a talented woman, you can do so in the knowledge that on the current figures, she’s a better-than-average chance of success.

Andrew Leigh is the federal member for Fraser and Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister. To nominate someone for an Australian honour, go to http://www.itsanhonour.gov.au/

On the same theme, this February 2013 piece by Anne Summers AO is well worth reading.

On 7 June 2013, I held a town hall meeting at Ainslie Football Club to answer questions from residents, and hear about the issues they care about.http://www.youtube.com/v/eKcAmgUbGd8?hl=en_US&version=3

My Chronicle column this week looked at the benefits for all Canberra school students from signing up to the national schools agreement.

Funding Allows ACT Schools to Flourish, The Chronicle, 4 June 2013

When surgeons are talking about the path to understanding a new procedure, they use a simple maxim: “see one, do one, teach one”. It sums up the fact that you haven’t really understood a topic deeply until you’re able to teach it to someone else.

Whether it’s bricklaying or algebra, teaching is hard. We remember things best when we’ve done them ourselves , rather the simply being told the answer. And yet until we’ve done a task right, we often don’t know what it feels like. If you’ve ever tried to teach a child to ride a bike, you’ll know the delicate balance between risk and safety.

Our schools today teach some extraordinary stuff. A student who has mastered the Australian Curriculum knows more about maths, chemistry and geography than anyone alive just a few centuries ago.

Canberra’s students are the best-performing in Australia, but that doesn’t mean we can’t do better. I regularly have the pleasure of visiting local schools to see the work they’re doing, and how they’ve been using new resources to improve learning outcomes.

The historic Building the Education Revolution program means that Florey Primary School has new science labs where children can follow in the footsteps of the great Howard Florey, discoverer of penicillin. At Amaroo School, teachers can slide back the dividing walls between classrooms and teach in teams. At the Forde campus of Burgmann Anglican School, the new multipurpose hall has sharply raked seating so all children can see the stage.

We’ve also been helping teachers. At Giralang Primary, I’ve met with the literacy and numeracy coach who is working to make great teachers even better.  These coaches are funded by the government’s national partnerships, and they help make sure that best-practice teaching techniques are deployed in all classrooms.

Last week, we saw an historic school funding announcement that will ensure ACT schools have a strong funding base into the future. As the Gonski Review’s 2011 report on school funding revealed, our current school funding model is broken.  The new school funding agreement will deliver an additional $190 million to ACT schools.  Loadings will provide more resources to children from regional areas, disadvantaged backgrounds, and children with disabilities.

The greatest value of the National Education Reform Agreement is that it puts school funding on a growth trajectory. At present, federal schools funding is indexed to average schools spending across the nation. So when state governments cut education spending, federal spending on Canberra schools automatically drops.

Now, ACT schools will be funded according to a Schooling Resource Standard. No school will lose a dollar of per-child funding. The Gillard Government has committed to grow its school education spending by 4.7 per cent per year from 2014. In return, ACT has agreed to grow its own school budget by 3 per cent per year from 2015 onwards.

Thanks to a partnership between the ACT and federal governments, Canberra’s schools have the funding base they need to prosper into the future.

Andrew Leigh is the federal member for Fraser, and his website is www.andrewleigh.com.

TRANSCRIPT – DOORS
Andrew Leigh MP
Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister
Member for Fraser
6 June 2013

TOPICS:                                100 days to the election, policy vs flim-flam, security assessments, State of Origin.



Andrew Leigh: It’s 100 days to the next election and for Australia that’s a fork in the road: a choice between a Government which has continued to invest to make strategic savings and so we’re able to build a DisabilityCare system, better schools, and invest in aged care, and an Opposition which are going to deliver savage cuts. They have to deliver those savage cuts because of the big tax cuts they’ve promised to big miners and big polluters. And if you want to see what the future for Australia would be if we went down that fork in the road, you just need to look to Queensland where the Newman Government is making savage cuts following their Commission of Cuts – the same model Tony Abbott’s promised, or to the UK where a Conservative Government has delivered savage austerity that’s driven that economy back into recession. So that’s going to be the fork in the road that Australia will face and I’m going to be out every day from now until the election speaking with my constituents and other Australians about that choice. Happy to take questions.

Journalist:                           With a hundred days to go is it helpful that some of your fellow MPs [inaudible]

Andrew Leigh: I’m focused on talking about policy. That’s why I got into this place. I’m far more interested in the ideas, the values, the choices that we face, and on encouraging my Coalition colleagues to be clear with the Australian people about the cuts that they’ll make.

Journalist:                           Isn’t the fact that they’ve packed up their offices a sign that they’re not interested in policy and have given up?

Andrew Leigh: On any given day there’s going to be flotsam and jetsam, and there’s going to be matters of substance. I’m out here today to talk to you about matters of substance. I’m happy to take questions on those all day, all night, and in to tomorrow if you like.

Journalist:                           But these are elected members with constituents and they’ve decided that it’s in their best interests, and they say in the interests of taxpayers, not to come back after the election and pack up their offices because they don’t think they’re likely to be back.

Andrew Leigh: We’ve obviously go a tough hundred days ahead of us. I don’t think anyone would argue with that. But for people like me the choice is between focussing on gossip and flim flam, which have filled too much of the airwaves this week, or on the sort of things that matter to my constituents, like the important reforms passed in the parliament on schools reforms, even like the Australian volunteers going abroad that I spoke to last night. Happy to talk to you about the book on inequality I’ve got coming out next month. All of these things are matters of substance and I think bear a little more reporting than gossip and other stuff that’s floating around this week.

Journalist:                           It’s not gossip; we’ve confirmed it.

Andrew Leigh: There’s serious questions and there’s flim flam. And yesterday, I sat in a Beyond Blue event watching an AFL footballer tell a powerful story about his battle with depression and his near brush with suicide. Part way through that a hoard of camera folk rushed across the room to chase a parliamentarian. If that’s your priorities then I think you’ve got it backwards. I think Australians are far more concerned about the issue of suicide than about the gossip that might be floating around inside this building.

Journalist:                           Should there be a shake-up of the Immigration Department following what we’ve heard over the past week or so about the Egyptian national [inaudible]?

Andrew Leigh: You’ve just heard the Attorney General make the point as the Prime Minister has in the parliament; that the individual in question was always in detention and that, I think, is the key issue here. The Opposition are keen to play politics, a little ham-fistedly; they can’t even work out the gender of the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security. But it’s important to focus on the issue here, that that individual was in detention throughout the period.

Journalist:                           Should there be a parliamentary inquiry? Should that be something that the parliament should consider?

Andrew Leigh: Well here’s the absurdity of the situation. The independent inspector has the legal authority to carry out the inquiry, and the Opposition say no. The parliamentary committee doesn’t have the authority to carry out the inquiry, and the Opposition say yes. Again, they’ve got it backwards because they’re diving in to play politics with national security rather than trying to ensure that the right inspector carries out the process.

Journalist:                           Any thoughts on the State of Origin last night?

Andrew Leigh: I was farewelling the international volunteers otherwise I would have loved to. The best I can do is turn up with a blue tie today and maybe suggest that we can just make this season a one game season. Thanks folks.

Speech at the Farewell of Australian Volunteers for International Development

Old Parliament House

5 June 2013

Thanks very much, Margaret [McKinnon]. It’s a real pleasure to be here tonight farewelling Australian volunteers for, I think, the fourth occasion on which I’ve had to pleasure to be here.

Like Auntie Jeanette Phillips, can I acknowledge that we’re meeting on the traditional land of the Ngunnawal people and pay my respects to their elders, past and present.

I want to acknowledge the Ambassador from Mongolia, Ambassador Bold Ravdan, and to wish particular luck to the six volunteers who are going to be going off to Mongolia.

I want to recognise other members of the diplomatic corps here tonight, and the AVID partner Agencies: Austraining International, the Australian Red Cross, and Australian Volunteering International.

This year there will be 1,800 Australian volunteers going off to work in developing countries. You’re the latest batch of more than 15,000 Australians who have gone to volunteer in developing countries since the AVID program began.

And I want to speak tonight about the man who initiated the Australian Volunteering Program, Herb Feith.

Herb was a family friend of ours. I lived as a little kid in Kuching, Jakarta and Banda Aceh. I remember Herb then, coming to stay with us.

But that was near the end of his life. He was wonderfully eccentric, a campaigner and an academic. And I want to take you right back to the beginning. Because Herb’s life story is an extraordinary story in itself, but it also, I think, says a little about modern Australia.

Herb was born in Vienna in Austria in 1930. His family was Jewish and one of his earliest memories was of his mother holding him up to the windows to watch the synagogues burn.

This was Kristallnacht, and the Nazis were wreaking havoc across Austria and Germany.

Herb’s mother wanted her little seven year old boy to remember this moment, to have this moment seared forever on his memory.

The family got out. They came to Australia and they settled in Melbourne. And in Melbourne, Herb went to high school and settled down to the life of a regular Melbourne lad.

But he wanted to give something back. He wanted to help those who were less fortunate than him.

And so he began collecting for the cause that he thought in the late 1940s was the most important. Guess what cause he chose? He collected for poverty relief for German people, left in poverty after World War II.

This is Herb Feith, the Jewish boy whose family had fled the Holocaust, who began riding the streets of Melbourne, going door to door asking people to contribute to help make sure that people in Germany didn’t starve.

And he continued this work for a number of years, riding his bike from door to door, raising money and sending it to Germany.

And then he got to know a girl at Melbourne University by the name of Betty. Betty was a Methodist, once leading Herb’s mother to say, “Herb, what did I do wrong? How did I not raise you as a good Jewish boy?” And Herb and Betty fell in love and they got interested in our local region.

Now Herb was very much the generation that took the view that Australia’s role in Asia required two things.

Firstly it required that we change our domestic policies. So he and others marched in the streets to get rid of the White Australia Policy; a set of de facto immigration laws which had meant that Australia wasn’t a colour-blind country when it came to who we admitted.

But then Herb did a second thing which was that he decided that Australia was at its best when we played a powerful role in the region.

So he went to Indonesia in the 1950s and worked on an Indonesian public servant salary, working to help this country, which had just won its independence from the Dutch, develop as best it could.

He commuted on bicycle, he ate simply, he did what he could to help in Indonesia. And when he came back to Australia, he had a notion that it might make sense to build a volunteering program.

So he and a few other colleagues went about brainstorming this idea and they went from place to place holding public meetings and giving talks about how a volunteering program might work.

One such talk was reputedly given in Canberra where then Prime Minister Robert Menzies was in the audience. Menzies is reputed to have muttered to Solicitor General Kenneth Bailey ‘How much will it cost?’. Someone made up a figure on the spot and Menzies said, “it sounds like a good idea. I’ll support it.”

And so the Australian Volunteering Program was born.

Herb continued to go back to Indonesia as an academic in Monash, studying Indonesia and remaining engaged with the region.

And near the end of his life, in 1999, he travelled to East Timor as an election observer.

You’ll remember this independence vote, the one in which the Indonesian militia hadn’t thought for a moment that the East Timorese might vote for independence.

But they realised on polling day that that was what the East Timorese were going to do and sections of the militia set about wreaking havoc on Dili; killing, setting houses on fire.

And Herb did what he could to prevent further bloodshed. And there’s a story of Herb famously standing in front of a house defending an East Timorese woman from the militia using only his shock of grey hair and his perfect Indonesian.

And for me, that image, that life, which begins with the awful holocaust of the twentieth century and ends with devastation in East Timor that could have been much worse were it not for people like Herb sums up so much of what Australia does when we’re at our best.

So they’re the footsteps in which you’ll be following.

I’ve made Herb sound like he was a terribly worthy man, and he was. He said things like, “volunteering is symbolic of human equality”.

But Herb was also someone with a delightful sense of humour.

I remember as an eight year old boy, Herb who was a vegetarian looking across at me and saying, “Andrew, are you going to eat those chicken bones?” I said, “no, I wasn’t planning on it.” He said, “Oh good!” and picked one up and began crunching away.

He would ride his bicycle everywhere. He would wear his batik shirts and he would always be one for trying new experiences, to delving into the unknown.

You’ll do much of that in your own travels. You will meet new people, you’ll enjoy new experiences. You may well fall in love with someone in the country that you’ll be visiting.

All of these are great experiences to be had.

And in the end, there are three big benefits that will come from it.

First of all, the countries that you’ll visit will be better for it. They will learn from your skills and your experience, and your ideas and your energy.

Secondly, Australia will be the better for it. We will benefit when you come back to Australia and you bring back those experiences to your workplaces. Some of you I know from experiences will end up at AusAID. But to other agencies, other jobs, other occupations.

But third, you will benefit yourself because life isn’t just about consequences, the things you do. It’s also about character, the person you are. This experience will shape you character.

You will, as novelist Frederick Buechner put it, find a place “where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet”. And in so doing you will become a richer person for your experience overseas.

And when you come back, I hope you’ll stay in contact with one another. That you’ll continue to maintain those friendships with people you’ve met overseas.

I held a gathering in my electorate office recently with a group of newly returned volunteers where one of them, Lisa Brown, told us about her experience with an NGO in Phnom Penh that works with children living in the garbage dumps. Lisa said, “there is no smell in Australia that could possibly bother me any longer”.

And so use that network of alumni and enjoy those friendships.

But most of all, push yourself, stretch yourself, go into experiences, go to places which you know are a little testing.

Herb was of a generation where Australia was mostly white and so he referred to the experience of volunteering overseas as one of experiencing “whitelessness”.

It’s a little archaic for a much more multicultural Australia but it catches some of the sense of what it means to be in a place where you are the one who is a little different.

I felt that myself as a school child in Banda Aceh in Indonesia and I hope you too, get to get some sense of that slightly unsettling feeling. It’s good; it will build your character.

So thank you for having me here tonight and best of luck on your journeys. I look very much to hearing some of your stories upon your return.

On Sky Showdown, I spoke about the strong Australian economy, the risk Tony Abbott poses, and the Coalition's decision to vote against marine parks, including one established by the Howard Government.

I spoke in parliament tonight about the death of Mr Yunupingu.

Mr Yunupingu, 4 June 2013

It is my pleasure to follow the eloquent words of the member for Fremantle. In 2008, 17 years after he first sang of 'hearing about it on the radio and seeing it on the television', Mr Yunupingu reflected on the Hawke government's promise for a treaty for Indigenous Australians. 'I am still waiting for that treaty to come along for my grandsons,' he said. 'Even if it is not there in the days that I am living, it might come in the days that I am not living.'

Mr Yunupingu's optimism rings with particular poignancy in light of his passing this weekend. At only 56, his days on this earth were too few. Pushing Indigenous Australian issues to the forefront of the national psyche in a fashion that blended the political with pop culture was a momentous achievement. His influence extended internationally. He drew global attention to the ongoing mistreatment and inequality within Australia, while always encouraging a positive and inclusive attitude. Few of us could forget Yothu Yindi's performance at the 2000 Sydney Olympics closing ceremony, bracketing, as it did, the role that Cathy Freeman played in the opening ceremony and with her victory in the 400 metres. During a period in Australian history where the government was reluctant to say sorry, thousands of voices sang along to Treaty, showing the world that non-Indigenous Australians wanted a better future with our Indigenous brothers and sisters.

Mr Yunupingu's story is one of extraordinary passion, with the importance of identity and of hope for the future. As a member of the Gumatj clan, his ancestral totem was the saltwater crocodile and his family name, Yunupingu, translates to the 'rock that will stand will against anything'.

In his youth he was known simply by a short, anglicised first name, but he chose to shrug off this anglicisation and in his adulthood adopted his Yolngu first name. This act was an embrace of cultural tradition and served as a gentle reminder that no-one should have to adjust their identity for the convenience of others, least of all for the convenience of non-Indigenous Australians, whose tongues struggle with the unfamiliarity of this country's oldest language—as I confess mine does.

Mr Yunupingu began teaching at the Yirrkala school in his early 20s, and in 1987 he became the first Indigenous Australian from Arnhem Land to gain a university degree with his Bachelor of Education. He then broke another barrier by becoming the first Indigenous Australian appointed as a school principal. The curriculum he developed blended both Western and Aboriginal traditions, and this approach was also one he embraced in his music in the band he was fronting in his personal time. Yothu Yindi translates from Yolngu as 'child and mother', and theirs was a musical project that fused traditional Indigenous music with modern rock and pop.

In 1991 Mr Yunupingu stopped teaching to pursue his musical endeavours with the band. Along with the band's other members, Stuart Kellaway, Cal Williams, Witiyana Marika, Milkayngu Mununggurr and Geoffrey Gurrumul Yunupingu, the song Treaty was released in 1991. It spent 22 weeks at No. 1 on the Australian singles chart, and gained global recognition in 1992. Yothu Yindi toured the US with the Hon. member for Kingsford Smith's band, Midnight Oil, famously performing at the launch of the United Nations International Year of the World's Indigenous People.

Those who knew him personally say that Mr Yunupingu often spoke of his 'both ways' philosophy, and the need for Aboriginal Australians and non-Aboriginal Australians to speak to one another, not just about one another. This notion of balance and harmony was described by his close friend and fellow musician Paul Kelly, who described Yothu Yindi:

'They are not so much a band as a physical philosophy. All great art contains contradictions. And their art has always rested on holding opposites together. The modern and the tribal, the parent and the child, balanda and yolngu, freshwater and saltwater, seriousness and celebration.'

Mr Yunupingu was named Australian of the Year in 1992 for his contribution to building bridges of understanding between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people. Political activism was something of a tradition with the family. His brother, Galarrwuy, had won the award in 1978. Mr Yunupingu was also committed to an extensive array of philanthropic work. He established the Yothu Yindi Foundation as a means to develop Yolngu cultural life, and he built the Yirrnga Music Development Centre, a recording studio for Indigenous artists.

The uniting power of Mr Yunupingu can best be summarised by again drawing on Paul Kelly's words. He paid tribute to Mr Yunupingu by saying:

'You showed me your country, brought me into your family, called me brother. You called the whole country brother.'

Australia has lost a powerful uniting voice. As an educator, a songwriter, a musician and a tireless campaigner, the contribution that Mr Yunupingu made to bridging the cultural and communicatory divide between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians cannot be overstated.