Newsletter Vol 5 Issue 7

Launch of the Pre Election Kit:

A Just Vote - Not just a Vote

Chris Sidoti

Chris we are glad that you are here as a voice. You’ve had a courageous stance for a long time on behalf of justice and particularly as a Human Rights Commissioner and your commitment live on in spite of adversity and sheer determination. It’s a good question that you ask tonight - what have we accomplished? I suppose in my deepest depths of despondency I ask the same question. You’ve accomplished something in that you’ve been recognised as a voice who has spoken out consistently for justice, consistently for Human Rights. We know here in the midst of all there is a voice. We thank you for that and I hope that we will take your message, that we’re driven by love, driven by love to do that thing that phrase, that was talked about a lot in the Jubilee, we’re driven by love to be about the repair of the world and we won’t forget it.

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Marcus had the important job tonight. He had to do the launch and prepare a paper and I had to respond. So I hope you will forgive me if I take you on a ramble, I’ve got no prepared text. During the terrible month which we have just endured

I too, have felt the sense of shame

that Marcus refers to, an enormous sense - the first time in my life I am ashamed to be an Australian. At the time that the Tampa affair was starting I was at the beginning of about four weeks in Indonesia and I was with another Australian, Jonathan Nicolas, running a training seminar on Children’s Rights. The opening ceremony with significant people where I was invited to speak, I thought - how can I get up and talk about children’s rights as an Australia - I felt that I could only speak by referring to what was going on. So I said we come, Jonathan and I, with experience and expertise from our country to exchange with you. We also come to Indonesia, given what’s happening on the Tampa, bringing our shame. I was deeply moved by my words but the audience started giggling. After I was finished I said to the interpreter I was deeply moved why weren’t they? He sort of blushed and he said well I translated what you said but in Java the Indonesian word for shame means penis. When you said you come bringing our shame, I said well, after all what’s wrong with that, I take it everywhere! It’s been a deeply shameful period for us.

Again that same week the deal was Announced that New Zealand would take the people from the Tampa. I was thinking about what it was like being an Australian. I remember the comment, in the famous speech of John Kennedy in Berlin in 1962, when he said Ich bin ein Berlina [I am a Berliner]. I saw last week after the affair in New York the German Chancellor got up and said we are all Americans. Well I thought no, no I’m not. There were a lot of people killed there, it was absolutely tragic, but they were killed as human beings from all over the world, including from this country. Then again I had already decided three weeks beforehand Ich bin ein Neue Zealander! Here was a country that was responding with compassion,

even though it’s Prime Minister faced the same

kinds of opinion polls

as our Prime Minister faced and nonetheless they were prepared to take the people from the Tampa Here was a country that decided fifteen years ago that it really didn’t need to run around on Uncle Sam’s coat tails for the remainder of it’s national life. I think we probably have had one hundred and ten years of a wrongly articulated debate in this part of the world. For one hundred and ten years we have debated whether New Zealand should join Australia, where we should be debating whether Australia should join New Zealand!

As you were coming in tonight I was looking at everyone arriving, and as Jan said, I’ve known and worked with you for a bloody long time. Marg Press and Libby Rogerson going back thirty years to when I was about nineteen. Vin going back twenty-five years, Cyril going back somewhere between twenty-five and thirty and so on and so forth with all of the rest of you. And I think about the last month and I think

what have we accomplished during that time?

What on earth have we accomplished when we look at what’s going on in this country? The story of Moses is a very powerful story of how in the midst of slavery in Egypt the angel passed over the houses of the Israelites and the Israelites, when they thought they were about to get it, passed through the Red Sea. It’s a story that is shared by the Jewishpeople, the Christian people and the people of Islam. A story of hope in the darkest night. It’s the same story that we as Christians particularly associate with the story of Jesus - the despair of the disciples at the time of the crucifixion. A despair so deep that it lasted three centuries - it wasn't till the time of Constantine that Christians even used the cross as their symbol. That’s how despairing the event was. And yet it was a situation from which, still in that darkness of night, there was recovery. In lots of ways I think we are as Christian people in Australia and Jewish people in Marcus’ case and Islamic people, are seeing a very dark night. The last month has been intolerable and the prospect is that it’s going to get to a sphere of unparalleled hysteria, quoting Shakespeare.

Over the last couple of days Principles of schools were saying to girls, we have no trouble with you wearing the scarf in the school, but for your safety, we would suggest that perhaps you don’t. Women are being abused as they drive through car parks, even at Bankstown which is one third Muslim, having the windows banged and slammed, drumming on the bonnets of their cars. An elderly woman being knocked over so harshly that she was hospitalised. It’s always the women that are the problem.

We are going to go through an election in an appalling period. In many ways

the little Kit that you have produced is part of that sign of hope

nonetheless that says in darkness we still hang on to core values and core commitments. It’s not going to do much, I don’t think you think that it will. It will empower some people because it importantly not only says these are what the issues are. It says two other things.First it says there are alternatives. I think people in this country are no longer seeing alternatives. They’re certainly not being presented by the Opposition. Now in this bipartisan orgy of blood, lust and denial the alternatives aren’t being presented by the Opposition. Kim Beazely doesn’t deserve to be Prime Minister, it’s just that Australia doesn’t deserve to have John Howard! You have provided in your kit some alternatives that will give people hope.

You have provided as well some ideas about how to approach politicians and candidates because, although as Marcus says we’re the six dollars democracy, we’re not used to approaching and lobbying MPs and Candidates, in the way many people in the Sates are.

we are an inactively political democracy

and to be able to give people some ideas of how to become actively political is an important thing.

The Kit is part of that task of finding hope and commitment at a difficult time and it will give encouragement to people who get it - those who are looking for genuine alternatives and who want to know what it is that they can do about it. It’s important. If as today seems to be the case, we are heading for an election in five weeks time, it could not be released at a more appropriate time.

The symbolism of doing something hopeful at this stage

can’t be denied

because I don’t think that any of us here are particularly happy, I know I don’t - maybe I’m simply projecting myself on to all of you. I certainly don’t feel particularly happy at all. But it is important that we reaffirm now our core commitments and our sheer determination. The fact that whether it’s five, ten, twenty-five or thirty years that we have all been fighting this fight together, the fact is we are determined to keep on fighting this fight. Because, as proud as I am of being a New Zealander! I have an unequivocal commitment to this country and although I worry about our international reputation

what depresses me most is the damage that we are doing to ourselves.

Even in the simple exercise of producing this little Kit you are saying two things that are immensely important.

First driven by love we continue to believe,

second driven by love we continue to hope.