John Fay (politician)

Transcription

-Ladies and gentlemen on behalf of the Evatt Foundation welcome to this address by distinguished Canadian author John Ralston Saul. My name is Monica Wheeler and I am the secretary of the Evatt Foundation. The Evatt Foundation was established more than thirty years ago, it is a memorial to Doc Evatt. Doc Evatt was a high court judge, a minister in the Curtin and Chifley governments and the only Australian, to this date, to be elected the President of the United Nations General Assembly. Our aim is to advance the highest ideals of the labour movement, such as the equality, participation, social justice and human rights. We seek to do this by promoting ideas through research publications, public discussion and debate. So you can imagine it was to our absolute delight that John Ralston Saul accepted our invitation to return to Australia and share his insights on the world we live in today. John Ralston Saul reminds us that there are alternatives to the individualist and corporatist paradigm. His ideas expose and provoke, but most importantly he inspires. Ladies and gentlemen this event would not have been possible without the support of the Sydney Opera House and in particular Anne Mossop, head of public programs. Would you please welcome Anne Mossop who will introduce Mr Ralston Saul. Thanks. [audience applause] - Hi everyone, thanks Monica. Welcome again. On behalf of the Opera House we're delighted to be presenting this event with the Evatt Foundation, with John Ralston Saul. As you know he's one of Canada's leading public intellectuals, but in an incredibly busy life, he is also President of PEN International, an organisation dedicated to providing literature and freedom of expression. And in recognition of that role we have as you will see on the stage an empty chair, ah, to help us think about Liu Xiaobo. And I'm just going to let you know a little bit about ah in, about him before we get under way. Liu Xiaobo was arrested on the 8th of December 2008 and held under residential surveillance, a form of pre-trial detention at an undisclosed location in Beijing, until he was formally charged on the, 23rd of June 2009 with spreading rumours and defaming the government. Aimed at subversion of the state and over throwing the socialism system in recent years. He was sentenced to 11 years in prison on the 25th December 2009, for his critical writings and his role in launching Charter 08, a declaration calling for political reforms and human rights published on the 9th December 2008, which now has over 10,000 signatories from throughout China. Since the 22nd of October 2010, two weeks after the announcement that he had won the Nobel Prize, his wife Liu Xia, a poet and photographer, has been held incommunicado under strict house arrest at her home in Beijing and is denied any contact with the outside world. At the December 2010 Nobel Peace Prize awards ceremony in Oslo, Liu Xiaobo's medal and diploma where presented to an empty chair. We're here this afternoon to hear from John Ralston Saul, um, the title of his talk as you know, um, ah,is going to allow him to range freely over many topics. I am sure many of you are familiar with his work, particularly his work as a non-fiction writer as he's someone who's come to Australia many times over the years and, ah, and hence we have seen references to Australia incorporated in his work, but his earliest works, writings, were as a novelist and include the bestseller, Birds of Prey in 1977, which was followed by The Field Trilogy. And his first novel in 15 years, Dark Diversions, has been launched to coincide with his visit here. It's just been published. Australian readers and Writers' Festival attendees have come to love John Ralston Saul, particularly through his work as an essayist and the publication of his books of non-fiction: Voltaire's ba- Voltaire's Bastards, The Dictatorship of Reason in the West, The Doubter's Companion, A Dictionary of Aggressive Common Sense and The Unconscious Civilisation which was published in 1995. These books where followed in 2001 by On Equilibrium: Six Qualities on the New Humanism, which is again- talks about some of those same kinds of issues. These are all books that range across a broad spectrum of social, political and philosophical issues and in an incisive and illuminating way. His work is notable for is refusal to succumb in this era of hyper-specialisation to the separation of politics and economics from the realities of human lives and from history. His most trenchant social critiques put current problems into the historical and philosophical perspective, showing that we are not the only peoples who have had to confront debt, poverty, injustice and, ah, a decaying political system. He's also the author of two very important books about Canada. Reflections of a Siamese Twin: Canada at the End of the 20th Century and A Fair Country: Telling Truths about Canada. What's very interesting, and I hope that we'll get to talk to him about this a bit later on, is what these books have to tell us about Canada but also about the ways in which Canada and Australia are both similar and different, in that they have the common legacy of aboriginal peoples, um, from that to our commodity-based present. In 2005, he published A Collapse of Globalism and the Reinvention of the World, which predicted in some ways the- what, what we apparently only in Australia call the Global Financial Crisis and it was updated in 2009, following the start of that process of, of economic chaos. So this is a work that looks at how those ties of Globalisation and Nationalism and their interaction ah, ah led to the fatally flawed financial system, which umm, sees us and many countries in such severe difficulties today. Um, as I said, John is currently the President of PEN International and in this work, ah, in this role works across the globe on issues relating to freedom of speech. His talk today “It's Broke. How Can We Fix It?” I'm sure is going to tell us a lot about his, ah, his many ideas and passions and it's my great pleasure to welcome him today. John Ralston Saul. [applause] -Hi Good Afternoon. It's, ah, wonderful to be here, and I have to tell you I just, I came from Toronto and it's warmer in Toronto than it is in Sydney. It's very- I have to say that as a Canadian- and we don't often get a chance to say anything like that so I'm just going to, not rub it in, but say it. And, um, it's fantastic to be back in Sydney. I love being in Australia. I love being in Sydney. It's such a fantastic city, and it's not the first time that the Evatt Foundation has had me here. I, ah, I gave, I think I gave a speech in -was it 1999- where I was sponsored by Evatt Foundation? It's a very, I think, important and interesting organisation, doing the kind of work that needs to be done. And it's also always very moving for me to see an empty chair. I was at the Nobel Prize ceremony as president of PEN and um, the kind of courage that someone like Liu Xiaobo has, is an example, obviously, to all of us. And, you know, he got his Nobel Prize, he's in jail so he can't defend himself so it's really important to keep remembering… …that he and his wife, and of course many others, are um, locked up, ah, out of human, out of- hidden away from the possibility of making themselves heard. So um, here we are ah, in one of the world's great cities, there is no question about that in my mind. If I had to leave Canada, this would be my next choice, and I don't just say that. It would be. Um, and everything looks great, I've been wandering around the streets since Friday afternoon, everything looks- Friday morning- Everything looks fabulous. It's all, you know, nice and oiled and shiny and buffed and ah, everybody looks great. And, ah, um…I'm going to Hobart, ah, tomorrow. And from there to Melbourne, which is like Toronto and Montréal. I'm can say- I'm a courageous person so I, I'll say Melbourne will also look wonderful. Um, and um, but the interesting thing is, a couple of months ago or six weeks ago, I was in Barcelona and as you- and in Madrid- and as you probably know, Spain is bankrupt, um, and ah Barcelona and Madrid looked just as shiny and buffed and happy and prosperous as Sydney. Very peculiar. 50% youth unemployment. And you walk down the streets of these great cities and it looks like everybody's employed, everybody's having a good time. The cafes are full, and, and I checked, I asked everybody. Everybody agrees. It is true. 50% youth unemployment. They say that it's 25% unemployment overall, and maybe 5%- so 20% really unemployed, and 5% are on the black market- But, of course, that's worse. Because that means 5% are working without any pension payments, without any security- at below survival levels of ah, employment. So it, it, it's actually worse than 25% unemployment. It all, it's very odd. This is a very peculiar time. Um, prosperous countries, like Australia and Canada, ah, countries which are bankrupt, like Spain, countries which are bankrupt but know how to pretend that they're not, like France, um, countries which are prosperous, but feeling awful about it, like Germany, um, they all, everybody is looking more or less the same in the developed economies, I mean, United Sates probably shows the poverty more but it's always been a class-based society so it's rich/poor divisions have always been more obvious, in spite of the rhetoric. But still, New York is just sort of gleaming, in spite of the reality. Then the interesting thing is, you sit down and you chat with people, and if I could take you aside and chat with any of you, and I've been doing it since I came here, and you just start asking questions, which is my annoying habit, and, um, after a little while, you get passed the, you know, “We're great” in any country, and then there's a sort of sense of loss that starts to appear. Ah, a loss of direction, a sense that there isn't a direction. Ah, ah, you scratch not very far with people under 25 and you find a real level of pessimism, even if they're not quite sure how to express that pessimism because, it's such a complicated time, and there are all sorts of distractions which make it, you know, there are traditional forms of pessimism and they don't quite work anymore because of the complexity of the situation. But you can see that they're pretty pessimistic really, even here. An incredible level of contempt for politicians, Which, of course, is usually considered to be the stage just before your fascist or communist revolution, you know? When you have levels, that level of contempt for your elected officials then there's not really much reason to continue to be a democracy. So, it doesn't mean it will happen in the old way… …but it means that there's a sort discounting of the possibility of the importance of elected governments. And not just here, I mean you may think that you're special in having contempt for your politicians, but it's pretty generally felt. I mean, there's a little bit of optimism in France at the moment, um, the government in England is sort of skating on a classic proto-fascist idea which is you get people into arenas playing sports and if they cheer, it's good for the government, It's a sort of brave, you know, it's a 1984 theory of how to run a country. And I know it's in bad to say anything bad about the Olympics here, but there you are. Um, I mean, I'm for the Olympics. It's just, it shouldn't replace democracy. [audience laughter and applause] Of course, I'm particularly for the Winter Olympics, but that's a whole other discussion. Um, and what's interesting is this, this really rather aggressive contempt for elected politicians, often justified, but I mean, that's beside the point, um, is completely out of whack, with what people feel about civil servants, or private sector managers, or, you know, CEOs of large joint stock companies, who are private sector managers, you can always say, they're, they're ah, managers in drag, because they're pretending to be capitalists, um, universities, university presidents, university professors, bank- even bankers aren't held in as much contempt as politicians. Consultants, my God, consultants are almost admired. You know? People actually pay them, to come in and do a quick look around, and figure out what you already think, and then go away and tell you it. Um, we do periodically blame a few CEO's. So, right at the moment, I think you're blaming three Heads of mining companies here. You know, and it's nice to have scapegoats. It's an old western, Judeo-Christian tradition. You pick out a couple of people, sometimes it's a race, sometimes it's a couple of individuals, and you feel a lot better, because you've got somebody personal to blame. Of course, the fact that if you replaced those three people, they'd be replaced by identical people and nothing would have changed, but you'd feel better about it. You know? It's a pretty important factor. Ah, but that's scapegoating, ah, is also a very dangerous sign about ‘where is democracy going.' And I think what it's really about, is that we gave in, with the beginning of globalisation, to the idea that most things were going to be inevitable from now on, through economics. That economics was going to set the direction for better or worse, left or right. And all the parties bought into it. I mean labour as much as liberals as much as neoconservatives obviously. Everybody basically bought into it. Universities restructured their thought patterns in order to, ah, accept the idea that in an era of specialism, speciality and managerialism, either there was no need for great choices, or great choices weren't possible anymore because things had become far too complicated. And so, we sort of slipped out of this era of choice, and once you slip out of an era of choice, then you really have to start asking yourself, “What's the purpose of an elite?” You know? All countries have elites. I mean, you can't, it, it doesn't matter what your political position is. Even if you're an anarchist, an anarchist, as soon as they get to power, agree with everybody else. You know, somebody has to run stuff. Soon as you're in a company, somebody has to run it. If you're an NGO, somebody has to run it. They run it in different ways… with- against- whatever… but there always are elites. They may not last long. They may last a long time. But, you know, what's the purpose of an elite if there's no possibility of choice? If you can't actually change direction, if you can't actually use the single, probably most interesting thing about human beings is that we can change our mind and actually do something different, if that's gone and things are essentially inevitable because it's all about the specialists, and it's all about the methodology, and it's all about managing things. Well then, of course, a certain level of anger starts to build up, whether things are going well or badly. And eventually, one ends up with contempt for the people who are supposed to be in charge because they keep saying, “There's nothing really much that I can change.” Because they're simply voicing the, the, the theme, the theory, what backs up the era which is: you, know, just keep going, no big waves, any big change is a sign of failure. Don't admit failure. There must be no admission of failure. You see the financial collapse, nobody's gone to jail, nobody's been fired, the people who failed are in charge of fixing things up, just keep on…. It's the worst of Confucianism. You know? The, the professional smooth surface; there will be no waves… …which of course the worst of Confucianism is. The best of Confucianism is like western democracy. The worst of Confucianism is like the Harvard Business School. It's all about the impossibility of citizens taking responsibility. So, this is, in a way, you know, I've often been in Australia, but I realise that this is the third time I've given what, for me, I can't speak for you, but for me, is a really important speech. The one I gave in 99 was absolutely the first time I ever said that I thought globalism was over. And I remember saying, and it was, I think, going out that night on national television, and I thought to myself as I said it “This is the end of my career.” Ah, because it was so bizarre to say it at the time. And then, in 2010, again in Sydney, um my interpretation of the financial collapse and what that meant. And then today. And if you actually look at the last 2 speeches and this one, it's almost like three chapters of a book, because it's, it's sort of looking at this era as we move out of globalism into whatever it is that we're moving into tomorrow. So in 1999 I talked about the end of globalism which now, I mean, people are starting to understand what I meant by that. Um, about how impossible it was to run the civilisation, which we tried to do for several decades, from the point of view of the economics. It just simply can't be done because economics isn't interesting enough. You know, it's not profound enough. It doesn't have any social meaning. It doesn't- it is a nice, third level, speculative domain which is important for running things. But you don't actually put your civilisation together on the basis of economics. So, it was obviously going to fail, and it began failing. And um- but one of the things that was really frightening about that assumption it started in the 1970's, of running everything from the point of view of economics was that, ah, it meant you had to change what you were. You had to cease being what you'd spent a couple hundred years becoming, which is citizens of- the guarantors of legitimacy in your society, and you had to become consumers, you had to become employees, you had to become people who were more self-interested than interested in the other, which was interesting, because it meant that there had to be a deep refusal of the idea of all philosophy, from anywhere, because all philosophy from everywhere is about the other, and globalism is about selling something to the other. In other words, the other is not a person they're just another consumer. So, it was a rejection of thousands of years of western and eastern philosophy. You don't realise how important, the, the, the ideology was as a change in direction, and, of course, therefore destined to fail. And it ended up meaning that we were really painting ourselves into this corner of being the servants of greed. Of course, we'd like to say that the CEOs, and the managers, and the bankers, and the corrupt politicians were the servants of greed, but since, you know, we're the majority, I mean, we're just the smaller servants of greed. And that's what's supposed to make us happy; is that we're consuming and we're thinking about ourselves and about money. But we lost in that process a real sense of what power could be, because if, if, if everything's about self-interest, then power becomes cynical, power becomes uninteresting. And, of course, that gives good reason to be cynical about elected leadership, Um, if that's all that power is. And, you know, for a whole bunch of reasons in the 70s and 80s, as a result of that, as, as, as political leaders, and people in universities, and journalists were saying, “Well, with globalism, nations states are losing all their power, and you really can't make any decisions anymore at a national level, because we're all integrated at an international level” without ever thinking to themselves, seriously, that what this actually meant was they were declaring the end of democracy. Because democracy entirely functions on the basis of… … where people live. Their responsibility in the place they live, over their village, over their streets, over their state, over their country. And that's how people, as individuals, as responsible individuals, get to express what they think and their desire for change. Once you accept the theory that it's all global and it's all happening in markets, then you've actually accepted that democracy is over, that it's finished. And so, of course, we went on voting, and we went on electing people but we'd actually accepted that we were wasting our time. And so, generation after generation of people started coming up and hearing this and feeling this, and didn't join political parties. Just look at the membership in political parties, how it has shrunk over the last 50 years, and they didn't join political parties and they went out, um, to become the enemies of selfishness if you like, the enemies of globalism and they started NGOs, you know PEN was actually really the first NGO, although it is not an NGO in the modern sense, because it's grassroots, in 1921. But, you know, up until the 80s there were just a few thousand NGOs around the world. There are millions of them now. There are tens of millions of people who are four or five generations now, who've gone into NGOS, started NGOs. They went viral. The whole NGO concept, that, “Why would I? Why would I dirty my hands by going into politics when I can stand for the environment by belonging to…?” And you name them, alright? There are thousands and thousands of environmental NGOS- when I can do this, and I can do that. And it's pointless to be in parliament, parliament has no power. Actually, a single back bench MP in Canberra has more power than the head of Greenpeace. Period. That is true, because a single back bench MP can drive a minister and a deputy minister crazy. Which Greenpeace can't do. And I'm not attacking Greenpeace. I'm not saying don't join Greenpeace. I'm not saying that. I'm saying power is power. Democracy is about ideas, and using those ideas to get power to do things. But once you give up on the idea of, of democracy actually functioning at the local, state, and national level as a primary importance, then, of course, and it says, in that case, “Well why don't I try to do influence instead of power?” and NGOs are all about influence. And youth went off and became lobbyist. Lobbyists for good causes, right? As opposed to, you know, Washington lobbyists. A different kind, but still, it's the same sector if you like. And, of course, that in turn fed contempt for political power because, as the decades have gone by, we've seen that, even though there are millions and millions and millions of people in NGOs, they haven't been able to get the people who have power to do what they want. So, as it doesn't work, as influencing doesn't work, people become more and more angry and therefore more and more bitter about the politicians. So I'm saying something that may not be popular, um, I'm used to that, ah, and I, I said this last time in the second speech, and I, I quoted TS Elliot, who was an old cynic -a great poet, old cynic- and his quote: “Humankind cannot bear very much reality.” Now I actually am not a cynic, I'm what you'd call a, an optimistic pessimist, which I think is like, you know, optimists are very dangerous and pessimists are really horrible, and, um, so you either have to be a pessimistic optimist or an optimistic pessimist. And I think optimistic pessimists are the people who are waiting for the worst, but working like hell for the best. And it's a good position. Anyway, so I don't actually agree with him, but I think that we've been acting for several decades as if he were right. And that's the problem. And so, you know there are all these examples of that and, and, and um, you know, as, as we've been incapable of maintaining, for example, our production through our manufacturing sector, all the developed economies have increasingly turned towards the, the dream world, to produce these fabulous city-states, ah, with a fabulous life in them. And one of them has been to say, “Well we don't dirty our hands anymore. We don't make things. We leave that to…” you know, whoever it is over there. We imagine things, as consultants. Um, we trade in things that other people make, and then we trade in that most illusory of things, which is money. So, you know, in the 1970's there was six times more currency traded than real goods. Which is a fairly standard historical, it's a little above the historical level. But in the 1980s, it was 25 times more currency being traded than real goods. By 1995, it was 50 times more. And now, nobody really knows, I think it's something like a 150 times more. That's pure inflation. It's pure delusional activity. It has nothing to do with society, real growth, ah, new kinds of growth, ah, civilization. It's delusional. And we've seen a couple of examples of what happens when somebody says, “The soufflé's falling” …which is what happened a couple of years ago. Um, so… I think that one of the things that we have to do to find our way out of that kind of delusional behaviour is: first, we have to stop using the word globalism, globalisation, and talk about internationalism, just to free ourselves of that theory as an approach, and use other words. And we have to admit what I've said, that which is not admitted by our economics department, which is that, whether you are a socialist, social democrat, conservative, liberal , ah, private-sector, public sector, the interesting thing is that the developed economies over a two hundred and something year period, since the late 18th Century, succeeded through a whole series of things, governmental and private, in moving from, ah, ah, ah economies which were permanently in ah, in shortages, which causes competition and keeps prices up. ah, we moved into surpluses. We used the technology, we invented the technology. We've been living in surplus, surplus economies, in the- in most of the world. In the, in the developed economies. And, once you get into surplus, prices start falling. And, once the prices started falling, ah, you can no longer maintain a middle-class society, as a theory for the whole society. You can no longer run factories, because you can't pay people enough, because the prices are falling ‘cause you have too many goods. And so we use as an excuse, “We'll get the Chinese to do it for us, ‘cause they can do it cheap.” It's always presented that the Chinese drove us out, or the Indians drove us out. It isn't that. We drove ourselves out, through our success. And didn't, actually, because we didn't stop and think about it, because we only believed to be continuity, not actually new ideas, we didn't actually stop and say, “Hey! We're no longer lacking goods. We have a surplus of goods so we have to change our theory.” “We have to redo everything.” Which is not a bad idea every hundred years or so. To just re-examine what you believe, about how you're doing things. We refused to do that. So we ended up with a kind of unconscious ‘Walmartisation' of society which is based on the idea that it's good for the workers, as their wages drop, to give them cheaper goods. As opposed to understanding that you're not actually doing anything for the workers. You're actually passively giving into a spiral downwards, caused by the surplus, which was a success, and is caused by a refusal to say, “Let's do it differently.” “Let's think about it differently.” The move towards a service-based economy which, you know, means people with MAs work in restaurants, um, you know, or, or, without any really solid income, or sitting staring at IT machines. Um, rise, return of unstable employment. I've been told, yesterday I was sitting with a whole bunch of, of Labour leaders, and they tell me that it is accepted that, a number, that 40% of Australians have precarious employment. And I think that's probably pretty standard around the developed economies. I mean that's an amazing rollback of the progress that we made, without there being any serious discussion about… …what is the theory? What has happened? What could we do about it? Where are we really going? Could we go in another direction? And that's because we accepted this idea that economics would drive it, that the managers would manage it, that the politicians can't make major choices, that the specialists would make all the decisions, and therefore…there's not much that we can do. We just sort of float along. The, this is, of course, odd because, you know, Australia's doing pretty well at the moment, and so is Canada as a matter of fact. But just, I would point out to you that, that 40 years ago, when globalisation really got going, the message was, that um... we would stop having dirty hands, that we would become more sophisticated, that we would let other people do the ugly stuff, and we would have more complex economies in places like Australia and Canada. And yet today, your country and mine, are more dependent on mining, and oil, and gas than we were before globalisation. In other words, we've gone backwards, in spite of how nice our cities look. We've actually gone backwards. And we haven't talked about: why, how. How could it possibly be? With so many computers, and so many people sending so many emails, that actually if you remove the mining sector from the Australian economy, you'd be a third world economy. How is it possible? Why are we not talking about this? As opposed to simply disliking a few mining companies, or in Canada, a few oil and gas companies. Um, so it's fine for us to be fine because, you know, we were so brilliant that our forbearers, who either came, or were sent, and had absolutely no idea where they were going, or what was going to happen when they got there, but somehow in their bones they knew that one day we'd be- they'd be really rich, because stuff would be found under the ground. There'd be-we're so smart, we're so sophisticated, that we figured this out. That's a joke right? It's, it's a very unpleasant joke, but it's a joke. I said that in Alberta the other day and there was- which is the oil, you know? Alberta is the principal supplier of oil and gas to the United States, of the world. Not Saudi Arabia. There was a terrible silence in the audience when I said that. But, you know. So brilliant to have come as dirt poor farmers, knowing full well that in a hundred years, oil would be found under the ground. I mean, so sophisticated, so smart. Anyway, um, the problem with commodities, even if it's fine for the moment, I mean, I'm not suggesting that you give it up and become poor, you know? The problem with commodities is: that we know we've got thousands of years of it, since we know that, with commodities, quite naturally, the profit goes to very few corporations, and very few people. It's always been that way. We know the commodities um, mining, timber, oil and gas, that kinda stuff, is profoundly anti-egalitarian, profoundly anti-democratic. It's that, that kind of industry. It always has been. There's a long, long history of it. It is very destabilizing for societies. It's very top down, because if can be controlled by small numbers of people. And the wealth is usually pretty temporary. Umm, it only works in the long run if governments, therefore citizens, actually decide that they are going to be incredibly strict about deforming the economy created by commodities, in order to make it work for a citizen-based democracy. You actually have to consciously deform it, in order to make it not destructive. Now, I was here about the time that, ah, um, one of your previous governments brought in a, a new tax, announced a new tax on mining, and I'm not an expert on that, and I know there's been another one since. um, so I can't comment on that actual original tax, but what's really interesting about it, if you're kind of looking at Brazil, or Argentina, or the Belgian Congo, okay… is…how easily, how quickly, it was possible, to destroy the legislation, destroy the government, destroy the Prime Minister, and stop it. Now you may say, “Well, this isn't Argentina.” I mean, there's no troops in the streets, there wasn't a Peronist coup d'etat or anything. But what happened was absolutely classic commodity- dependent economy stuff. That's the way it works when you're dependent on commodities. And I could give you examples of that sort from Canada as well. It's classic nineteenth-century, anti-democratic. Whether you were for or against the bill is secondary. I'm talking about the way it was done. What actually happened. As if it was really easy. The other thing is commodity-dependent economies are dependent on other economies in a particular way. And so, when things go wrong, they go wrong really fast because, you just, you know, you can't turn anywhere else. This is, you know, this is, ah, big stuff… fills ships… and you can't just turn around and say, “Does anybody want all this stuff?” It's not like the shoe market. There's no flexibility really in it um... So… in a sense, here we are doing wonderfully in Sydney and Toronto, and yet, in many ways, philosophical ways, the philosophy of democracy and economics, we're back in the 19th Century. Ah, these cities, these wonderful cities, our technology allows us to pretend that we're in the 21st Century, um, and that we have some virtual, post-modern, future. The reality is: big blocks of stuff coming out of the ground. The way it always has. And that's part, I think, of what young people feel, which is they can't figure out the relationship between what causes the wealth, and what they're supposed to be, ah, doing. And, of course, then they have these lives, staring at screens, sitting down, um, you know, it's, it is a fairly inactive life. I mean, it's a very odd life to have lost all our physical activity, so that we, if we live in cities, and we don't want to become big balls of fat, ah, we have to turn off the screens and go to a gym where they have air conditioning. It's very odd. I mean, Sydney's a bit better. You can go to the, the, the pools, and the outdoor pools, and I went on Friday to Red Leaf Bay, and Saturday, and it's really fabulous. But you know, nevertheless, it's an odd life. And there's a kind of pessimism coming out of that odd life, particularly, when you don't know what kind of career you could possibly have. For most young people, you don't know where it's going to lead. You don't know what relationship it's going to have to society. And there's a kind of loss of that sense of the relationship between belonging somewhere, and the possibility of action. Which is central to, um, an examined life. A life of some satisfaction, for you, and perhaps your family. So this is an Australian-Canadian special case, but it's only, you know, there are lots special cases. Ah, Greece is a special case. Spain is a special case. And, and, and and- I'll just the, the last kind of negative thing really is his, that, um... last night I came in quite late and turned on television and there was a very fancy ad on television, advertising food banks. Giving money to food banks, because one in ten Australians are somehow going to food banks. Odd. Curious. But what's interesting about it is, the normalisation of our incredibly sophisticated societies, in a… in a 30 year period that we've accepted that we could go back to mid-19th Century Judeo-Christian charity, for 10% of the population, and we would treat that as normal. That we would not be actually horrified, that we would not be in the streets in the millions, in order to prevent there being food banks. Exactly the same thing throughout Europe and Canada and the United States. So, in other places the problem looks a bit different. You know, the financial crisis, is also- the reason you don't have a financial crisis and Canada doesn't have a financial crisis is: a) the commodities and b) that we have a really dozy banking, ah, industry... ah, which is heavily regulated and that's what deposit banking should be. Fairly mediocre ah, not adventurous, not exciting, because as soon as banking, deposit banking gets exciting, you're on the edge of a total collapse. You leave that to the merchant bankers. You don't want to mix those two things up. So we were really smart by being mediocre. If you see what I mean? And people are upset about this idea, that, you know: no, deposit banks are not supposed to be fun, and they're not supposed to be intellectual. They're just supposed to be places you can put your money and take it out, and they can lend it in the safest possible ways. Anyway, so we, we came out of that quite well. The other places were not as careful as us. They got into this terrible financial crisis. Nobody's being punished. The same people are still in charge. The economics departments continued to teach exactly what they taught before, as if nothing had happened. Really the slowest people in the world are probably the economists, with a few exceptions. They just don't learn. They think we're so dumb, because we haven't learned to do what they tell us to do, which is a theory and therefore true? [audience laughter] Um… But, the, the, you know, I just ask myself questions. When did saving a bank, out of this crisis, when did saving a bank become more important than saving a country or its citizens? When did, when did social scientists, tenured professors begin to believe that the source of legitimacy in a democracy wasn't you citizens but was administration and commercial contracts? Um, why are personal debts and state debts wrapped up in cheap, romantic Christian moralizing while private-sector debt is just utilitarian stuff? What is that differentiation? Why does a healthy society mean a society which is stimulated to consume? Which is a very uninteresting idea of civilization, to be polite. Ah, so we're in an era, when power, as a result of things I've been talking about, and thinking are not equated. There's almost no relationship in the developed economies, soc- democracies- between power and thought. It's an era when managers and most politicians don't read. Ah, the most they can read is maybe a two or three page briefing paper, which isn't written in any known language except for managerialism. So it's not something that could have any effect because it's meant to be dead language. And the result of that is that we slip into this sort of passive idea of stability and continuity, and we lose this idea of choice. The fundamental choice, central to democracy. So you have this debt crisis and I wrote, I went back to Voltaire's Bastards and read the chapter on debt called the, “The Miracle of the Loaves”, and there is, I'm thrilled there isn't a word to change, I mean, it's as bad now as it was then, but it's got worse in fact. And, I just would remind you one thing I talked about in there, which is how smart people deal with debt. And it was the first time, modern time, which was Athen's Solon, whatever that, how many thousand years ago that is. I always get it wrong. And he was brought in, a great poet, and he was brought in, to be for one year, the head of government. Because they were so deeply in debt that a large number of the citizens had lost their rights to citizenship because they owed money to the bankers who were the aristocracy. And they had the Draconian Code which meant that it was very, very ferocious, what happened, when you're in debt. So he came to power, and basically on the first day, he returned all the forfeited land, let's call it houses with mortgages. He freed all of the citizens who had lost the rights to citizenship through debt, and he then very quickly replaced the Draconian Code, legal code, with a new legal code which is the basis of what we all have today. Fair laws for just societies. And, in, in one year he created the basis of what we claim is western civilization. And he did it through choices, imagination and, ripping up the debts. So, today the United States or Europe could quite easily have said, “Here's what we're going to do. Everybody who…” ah “…has a mortgage,” everybody, we're not gonna pick and choose, up to a certain amount, so, I don't know what you want to make it, let's say $300,000, ah… “We're gonna pay them off.” “We're paying off all the mortgages.” With one stroke of the pen, they're, we're printing the money anyway right? We spent far more than that. Well, I mean, we spent far more than that giving the money to the banks, so it's not that this- this is the cheap solution. And you would have, one stroke, you would have, ah, removed debt from a large percentage of the population, including the ones who were in trouble like me, you know, and I would've been very happy. And then suddenly, ‘cause I wasn't in debt with my mortgage, I would've been free to borrow and spend. And, of course, the money that you gave me, would've gone to the banks, you would have saved the banks at the same time. Easy. It took me 30 seconds to say it to you. It's really easy. It's not complicated. But you have to agree that there is something called thought and choice. Another tougher way of doing it would've been for the government to simply cancel all the mortgages. That would've been a more, um, Solen-esque way. So, that would've done the same thing for the citizens: freedom of all debt. Put them in a position to spend and borrow. It would've cleaned out the banking community, but as I pointed out to you a little while ago, we're at 150 times, you know, trading in currency compared to where we were in the 1970s, so, if we lost, you know, they would say, “Oh, we're desperate, we got to have the banks or we'll have a depression.” It's not true at all. We could clear out half of the banks of the European and American banks, easily clear out half of them, and we'd be far better off. It's only because they believe, that a post-manufacturing society, that has to waste this time with all this playing with paper, virtual paper, that they're terrified to hurt the banks. Also, they're friends of the bankers, but that's a sort of secondary thing. Or, you could've done it kind of half and half, you know? You print half the money and you rip up half the debt. Anyway, the point is, there are real choices. There are real ideas out there, if you accept the idea of choice. Um, the problem for, I think, the young, last four or five generations is, as I said in the beginning, fell into this trap. They believed what they were told, which was there was no power in politics, there was no purpose in politics, that it had all gone elsewhere. And so they left it, and so, in good part- and I feel sorry for politicians in many ways ‘cause it's a really horrible life- but, to a great extent, it's a bit like after the First World War when they were missing, you know, a whole generation of young men. And they, we're just discovering that there were women, ah, but men are very slow about these things ah… but, you know, they, they were missing these millions and millions of men. Well, in effect, the last 30 years, we've been missing probably several hundred million young people, from the real rough- and-tumble world of power. Of taking power, passing laws, and changing things. And that has been a disaster for our democracies, because it has, in fact, made real what isn't true. It has made real the idea that governments are relatively, ah, powerless. And it's a very embittering experience after a while, you know? When you've been working to save this or do that in an NGO and it just doesn't happen. It just- it's actually, and I- no one's done a real study of this, it could be the precursor to a lot of people getting into their forties and becoming so bitter about both the NGOs and politics, that they give up on the idea of public society completely, it could be a precursor to something extremely dangerous and unpleasant from the point of view of our society. The fact is, influence is just influence, and power is just power, unless you have real ideas, in which case it's democracy, and it has a direction, and it has a purpose, and it has ethics. Um, it takes a lot of courage to go into politics and to make real choices. Ah, you have- you can't do it alone, you can't do it just out of ego. I mean, you have to have ego, it's like being a writer. If you don't have ego, you're dead. But, but you have to have a thick skin, you have to be insulted on a daily basis, you have to have your husband or wife come to detest you, and accept that, your children absolutely loath you, that's a part of being in politics. Um, but, you know, look at the environmental movement. You know, this is the biggest NGO movement. 50 years. I'm, I worked, when I was in my twenties, for Maurice Strong, who's one of the three founders of the modern international environmental movement. The sort of St Paul of the environmental movement if you like, And, ah, a really amazing guy. He's still alive, and I see him quite regularly. There are millions of us who've worked in the environmental movement, and we've made a few victories, you know? We saved some whales, and we've saved some forests, and, ah, we've gotten rid of some plastic bags and, um… you know, you can make a nice list, and feel good about, and particularly middle-class people, I mean, you know? We can really feel pretty good, because of what we eat, and what we drink and don't drink, and where we buy stuff, yeah? But if you actually ste- stand back and look at the environmental movement over a fifty-year period, we have failed. Lobbying has failed. It is a 100% failure. Millions and millions of people have given hundreds of millions of hours, and in all the important areas are blocked. In fact, we're going backwards, in spite of our tiny victories. And all the major things are tied up in bureaucracy, they're tied up in, you know, old fashioned ideas of growth and of self-interest, and the lowest level of politics. Um, and change seems impossible. It's seems impossible for us to move this forward, even though it'll probably destroy us. I mean that's a sign of a degenerate civilization, that knows that it's doing something that will destroy it, and can't bring itself to do anything about it. But, of course, the fact is, that parliaments can pass laws. If, if those millions of people in the environmental movement had, of course created the NGOs, but, in addition, had started, not just the Green Party, but had actually gone into all the parties. Look at the women's movement- you have to go into all the parties. And had taken over the parties, Yet- you know, the new conservatives took power by coup d'états inside conservative parties. Often quite left-of-centre conservative parties. And small groups, sort of Bolshevik groups of new conservatives went in and took over these parties, and made them go off in this direction. They proved, the people who said that democracy was dead, and the globalism was what mattered, those people took over the political parties. Those people changed the direction society using power, while people who are in the centre-left said, “Oh my goodness. There's no point in going into politics. I'm going to save…” whatever… “through influence.” And then, there's millions of really, really smart people in the environmental movement, trying desperately to convince the people they detest, who were in power, to do the opposite of what they're going to do. Are you surprised it hasn't worked? So it isn't an attack on Greenpeace or anything, I mean, it's just a Canadian organisation in the beginning, it's not that. I'm talking about how democracy works and the mistake that's been made. And we also made a terrible mistake at the intellectual level, because we didn't really think, “Well if this era is so different, is the philosophy coming out of Europe… “…western Europe that's been built up over several thousand years… does it really deal with what's happening to us now?” And I think for Australians this is particularly interesting, and for Canadians, um, and, you know, if you look at the environmental question and say, “Well ok, well…” ‘cause, ‘cause, you know, you may not think philosophy is ma-ah, it matters, but, of course, philosophy is at the roots of how we come at almost everything. You know, Socrates and Plato, they're there. You can't get rid of them. They're there, in the most mediocre moment of the most uninteresting deal, they're there. Because they helped define the idea that human beings are above the place, or above nature. The rational idea of the, you know, the triangular structure of society and all the rest of it. So, we never went back and said, “Well wait a minute, we need to restructure the philosophy departments.” “We actually need to blow them up…” “…actually blow them up.” I mean you can ask the people who are hired there to leave first, and they'd come back after it's blown up and you put it back together in a completely different way. Because, otherwise, you're left with this thing of this philosophy which, you know, you've been in Australia a couple hundred years, ah, if I go to a philosophy course, it is absolutely clear, in any philosophy course, that you haven't had an idea, in your heads, for 200 years. That's what's taught in philosophy. And Canadians? We haven't had an idea either. You can't even get Marshall McLuhen into philosophy because you can't fit him in properly into European philosophy. So the fact that the whole of, you know, the modern concepts of communication came out of Harold Innis and Marshall McLuhen and stuff out of Canada. It's nowhere in the philosophy departments ‘cause it is all about, you know, Socrates and Plato and Athens and Rome and Rome again and the enlightenment and England and France and Germany, and then we get this sort of, way down the colonial line, we get to learn this stuff, and the best we can hope for is some professors who are experts in Immanuel Kant. [audience laughter] You know, we can interpret what they have told us is the truth. So, in environmental terms, what you end up having is, is… is that the roots of environmental theory are people like Rousseau, you know? For whom the nature was having lunch with his mistress, Madame de Warens somewhere in the pre Alps, and then leaving the lovely little chateau after lunch, and walking through the park with all the trees planted in the rows with a servant behind carrying, um, his drink. That's nature. You know, he doesn't know anything about, ah, brown snakes or, you know, or mosquitoes or things that bite you and kill you. Or, um, you know, in Canada it's: he doesn't know anything about black flies which is our- and mosquitoes, our national birds. And, um… [audience laughter] And, ah, so we haven't actually looked… And, you know, one of the interesting things about Australia and Canada is, that if you just step outside of all the discussions about what happened with aboriginal people, the native people, what went wrong, what might be going a bit better now, just step outside it, and have a look at it and you'd say, “Well who is there out there that has some alternate philosophies…” “…which actually don't put human beings in a superior position?” Well actually, interestingly enough, you find it here in Australia. You'll find in Canada. These are really interesting post-modern philosophies. If you listen carefully to them, And you say, “Well, that's [mumbling]” and start shrugging and, “Can you do a PHD on that?” and, “What about the footnotes?” and “their oral” and all that sort of stuff. I'm terribly sorry, that isn't what truth is about. Truth is not about footnotes. It's not about references to Immanuel Kant and, it's, it's about here's an idea which is not linear, and not coming out of rationality. Here are ideas which are actually circular, they're conceptual. They're very, very interesting. And they actually link you back to some of the most interesting things about Socrates and so on. But, you have it here. We have it in Canada. Other places, where these ideas exist. But they have to be put into the centre of what we teach in our departments of philosophy. So, um, what I'm really getting at, in all of this, is that, um… we haven't… you know, we've made all these different kinds of progress. We're better on things like minorities, even though they're still major problems, Were better on questions of how to deal with the outsiders- although they're, you know, problems- things keep coming back, fear keeps raising its head, you know? What are gonna do with these people? Um, ah, in spite of the fact that, you know, anybody who's willing to risk their life to come to a place like Canada or Australia, has already proved that they're courageous, and they're conscious, and they're determined. Those are three pretty good characteristics for a citizen if you ask me. You know? [audience applause] The rest… …you know? That's very different from saying this person's willing to invest a hundred thousand dollars, so they must be a good immigrant. It's a compl- they haven't proved that they actually believe in the place. They've just proved they got money. So, um, you know, we have made progress in some ways, But, I think, one of the interesting little details is that, coming out of all of this theory which dominates today, is an idea of linearity, and an idea of speed. That brains is speed. Everything is about: the faster you get it done, the better it is, as long as you're not changing anything. And we're completely missing the point that, there is nothing in history, in any society, which indicates that speed is a sign of intelligence, apart from the, apart from the Olympics and, um… and short moments in military activities, and takeovers. So it's like, um, you know, it's like ah, the young man's idea of making love. You know? Quite fast, you know? And, um, ah… I mean, I'm just making a joke. Ah… and ah, it, it, it- speed is not the essence of civilization. The essence of civilization's consideration. And, I think, one of most interesting things that we've been doing, really quite well, is we've been moving toward- away from an idea that people who have disabilities, are to be, somehow, put to the side and we're gradually understanding, those of us who pretend we don't have disabilities, are gradually understanding that they have major contributions to make. And they're not major contributions to be made apart. They're actually major contributions to be made. And I, I'm very involved with a lot of people, and we, who, and we all say, you know, “The best thing we can do is to bring people” with whatever their disabilities are, “is to bring them into the absolute centre of what we're doing.” “Because, for one thing, they'll slow us down,” because of whatever their disability is, “and they'll be thinking about it all the time” because they're thinking consciously a lot harder, than the, you know, the business school people are thinking. And they're considering a lot more what the difficulties of society are, and they understand those difficulties better than most us, in a myriad of ways. And I, I mean, I'm- the reason I'm saying this to you is, you know, the, the solutions to our problems do not lie in a continuation of the approaches that we're taking. I think you would find our universities and our schools would be much more interesting, if we actually found ways- we're doing it- but much more, to build in, all the variety of people with disabilities, so that there would be a whole other way of thinking and acting, which would be very important to us. So the point of all these things that I'm saying to you is that, we have to stop going down this utilitarian, pseudo-rational road, this managerial road. We have to go back to the idea that power is about choice, and that it comes from the ideas arising out of the citizenry, out of responsible individualism. That it doesn't come from specialization, even though we need specialization, it doesn't come from managerialism, that's the last place ideas come from. We need managerialism, but it should not be dominant. Managerialism is not leadership; it's methodology. That's all it is. Ah, and it certainly shouldn't be coming from ideology. We need to be looking at our education systems, just at the moment when we're making our education systems more and more utilitarian. You know, our kids gotta get jobs and so we're training them to do stuff that's probably already obsolete. Um, we- this is the moment to be actually rethinking education to make it much more humanist, much less linear, much more about doubt, much more interdisciplinary. It's the moment to be actually saying that, “Humanism is the most powerful tool we've got.” Thinking. Learning what a risk is, because if you don't understand what real risk is, you can't understand what changes are. And that language is all about communication, not about avoiding discussion, which is what most of them lack, formal public languages today. Ministers give speeches written for them by people, most of them haven't even read them in advance. I'm used to seeing this. You can always tell whether they've even opened it in advance by the way they start, the little look of startlement on their face. They say, “Oh, oh. I'm going to say that!” And then try to figure out how to say it. And, oh, probably 70% of the speeches given by ministers, they haven't read before they give them. I would say 70% wouldn't you? I think it's probably about 70%. I've actually seen two ministers waiting, three ministers waiting to give a speech, and they're all written by the same person. Ah, he's a friend of mine. And when the first speech was given, he rushed over and grabbed the other two speeches and inverted them. Because he thought it would sound better. You know? So, I mean, we have to move away from that kind of managerial specialist sound, to where people take real risks, in, in public. And, you know, something like dealing with the debt crisis would've shown what we're actually capable of doing. Dealing- getting rid of the idea of speed would be important. Convincing people that NGOs are fine but actually, the filth of power, the horribleness of politics, is much more important. We could have done almost every, we want everything we wanted to do in the environmental area by now, if those people had gone into politics, at the local, state, national level, with all the effects that that has at the international level. So is it vague what I am saying? Is it romantic? I don't think it is at all. I mean, is this, you know? For example, here you are, you're prosperous, for the reasons that we know, um, and yet your government and your opposition are both talking about the need for austerity. Why are they talking about austerity? Because all sensible governments are talking about austerity. ‘Cause austerity is the way out of the crisis. Can you give me a single example, in two thousand five hundred years, of a program of austerity producing prosperity? One example. That's all, and I'll change my mind. There is no example of austerity producing prosperity. Sometimes you can use it to stabilize things. You know, when you're in a crisis. But as soon as it's stabilized, you have to move out of austerity, ‘cause otherwise, it just drags everything to a halt. So… this kind of way of thinking I'm talking about requires a level consciousness, a level of imagination, of risk-taking, of ethics, of courage, of thinking about budgets as, ah, moments for imagination. Ah, and intelligence. Of, ah, jettisoning ideas like the GDP, which is a nineteenth century idea, which hasn't made sense for at least 50 years. It doesn't measure anything that's useful to us at all. It doesn't tell us where we're going, or where we've been. They're not even measuring the right stuff, and they're not measuring it right. That's why they can't handle things like being in surplus and so on, or what to do with too many educated people, from the point of view of the GDP approach. So we need to invent new ideas of how societies are going to work, new ideas of what wellbeing looks like, back to the idea that citizenship is the ultimate wealth, ah, that the basics of internationalism is that people come from somewhere, and they live somewhere, and they belong somewhere. That's not cheap nationalism, it's the reality. If you don't believe that people live somewhere, you can't have democracy. “Yeah? So everybody's moving around.” Yeah, one half of a percent of the population is moving around, on a regular basis. Most people are not moving around. They live somewhere. They might change states, or cities, but they don't have that kind of mobility. So, you have to go back to the idea of belonging. That's the basis of democracy. We belong somewhere, even if we're going to change that. That's a big decision as well. So by pretending otherwise, we lose that idea, that you're from somewhere and therefore you have the power to choose to change things, to put laws in place, to tax people, not tax people, whatever. If you accept this, ah, go on accepting this idea, that everything's moving around and therefore we don't have choices. Then we will continue to disenfranchise new generations, and they will become more and more angry. What's going to happen next, I think, if it's good, will happen through very specific engagements: the taking of power, a comfort with the reality that risks in public office, and choices which change direction are a sign of intelligence, not a sign of instability, of mental instability, which is basically what we believe now. And if we do that, then, I think, we'll be in a very interesting direction, and there are places where that's happening, you look at India. Most of India accepted the international idea of industrial agriculture with catastrophic results, ah, Kerala decided they would move towards a co-op system for the dairy industry and as a result, it's become one of the most successful exporting areas of India. um, we have to be thinking about things like guaranteed annual incomes as a way of reducing costs, and getting rid of concepts of charity. We have to be thinking seriously about value-added, not just in wine and food but value-added in all sorts of areas, as opposed to cheaper goods, actually more complex and perhaps more expensive goods. In other words, its understanding that if you have real costs of production, you can pay people real amounts of money, and you can actually have a middle-class society. Which is what you should do when you're in a surplus situation. We have to think about careers in a non- linear way. We have to stop thinking about, “Oh you're taking a year off,” or “You started at what year- age,” or “You're being promoted by…” or what… This no longer makes sense. These are very old-fashioned ideas for careers, when we've doubled life expectancy, in a hundred years. It simply doesn't make any sense, and it doesn't give people real choices about how to live their careers. We have to start laughing out loud every time were told that something's inevitable, apart from death and sex. The only two things taxes are not inevitable, but death and sex are inevitable, to some extent. Well one of them is inevitable, the other, to some extent. [audience laughter] And…but everything else, involves choices, and is not inevitable. So, everyday we're being told by people with power that something‘s inevitable. You just have to laugh in their face and treat them like fools and get rid of them, unless they're willing to make choices. [audience applause] And there's no reason to be afraid of that. Choices are fun once you get used to it. Living by the seat of your pants is sort of fun once you get used to it, and once you realize it's a characteristic of the citizenry, it's a characteristic of stability, taking risks and changing direction. Then you think about it, very …difficult. So, they can be upsetting choices. It's not smooth. It's not managerial, but it's not in the ether. Choices are made here. They're made by you, and while you do need to go on trying to influence power, you also need to get your hands as dirty as possible by trying to take power. Thank you very much. [audience applause] Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you. -Thank you very much to John for that. Um, I don't know that we will be rushing out to get our hands dirty in the filth of power, but I'm sure we were inspired to give a good try. We have come to the end of our official time, but I know that there are some of you, who would have pressing questions for John, so that we will be able to take a couple of questions. Um, if anybody does need to leave, obviously feel free to do that now, but if you do have a question, ah, that is, ah, a, a burning question, we have two microphones here down the front. Ah, and while we're finding out if we have people in that case, I want to change topic slightly, because I know we'll come back to what you've just talked about, but, it's very interesting to me, at a time where you've had a sequence of very significant non-fiction books, where we're living in a ferment of the ideas that you've written about, that you have returned to writing fiction. Um, and written a book that, ah, brings to life a whole lot of ideas, but why was it important for you to do that in the fictional form with, with Dark Diversions? - I have no rational explanation. It's ah, I mean, I, I've wanted to go back to fiction for a long time, and I think I'm going to write an essay after this, and then another big novel. And this is a really fun little thing. It's a picaresque novel, ah, with a fairly unpleasant narrator, who wanders around meeting rich people. It's a, you know, picaresque novels, and instead of being on a horse, or a donkey, he's on an airplane. So he starts in the most expensive hotel in Italy, and then he goes to…a, a -I'm thinking George Clooney -Yes, he'd be pretty good actually. And he sort of doesn't want to get involved with all these really incredibly rich people, as they destroy each other, and, ah, act badly and so on. And, in his spare time, he goes, he has a hobby, which is going around and interviewing dictators, and, ah, so, he goes and interviews Baby Doc and, um, Ian Paisley and, and so on, and, um, Gianfranco Fini and stuff, and it's quite fun, because, of course, I've met a lot of dictators, and they have absolutely no conversation at all. I mean, if you're a dictator, you don't need any conversation, you know? -No, you just need an entourage. -Yeah and that they sort of nod. And, um, so it's really fun to write about that because, in a way, you're writing about their shoes, and, um, their socks and, ah, you know, what, what kind of curtains, and, um, what are their gestures, and, ah, how do they walk. And, um… - All the things that you have to put aside, if, I guess, if you're talking about what they mean in terms of ideas, or in terms of geopolitical policies. - Yeah except you kinda realise by- it's, you know, it's the novelist's trick, the, you actually, through all this irrelevance, you actually realize what's really going on. Whereas, if you actually try to go straight at it, there's nothing to be said. I mean, you know, one, two or three gestures of Baby Doc, nothing he said, but gestures were enough to tell you exactly how it functioned, and the way people were around him in his palace. So, you… this is fiction, but all fiction is true. I mean, and, and, you know, the truth of fiction usually lasts longer than non-fiction so… ah... it's much more solid than fact. And, um… so, anyway, all of these dictators are people I've met, and, um, Baby Doc was amazing in his sort of pretend ‘Petit Trianon' palace. um... with the thick white wool carpet and enormous… everything was white, cream, or just amazingly expensive silk, and, um, and he was so fat that when he, he was one of those men that when he walked his legs separated at his knees? You know what I mean? That kind of…? And he couldn't make the intercom work in his office, and, and he was surrounded by these Tonton Macoute and soldiers, in this palace which looked like this sort of frozen idea of, of glamour, but he was surrounded by all these people with big pot bellies and pistols in their pockets, and men with guns not quite sure where to put the guns, ‘cause they were bumping into each other . And, and actually, ah, it's in the story ah... ah... he, he asks the narrator, asks to go and see some destruction from the hurricane, and, ah, is lent a helicopter by the president, and when the president leaves, one of the advisors to the president, a Tonton Macoute, goes up to a guy sitting outside the office, behind an old typewriter, pulls out his pistol and points his pistol at the guy at the typewriters and says, “Get it. Get a helicopter for him.” Now the point about that is, you don't have to explain it, but the point about it is, it wasn't that he was going to shoot the guy, it was that all power in Haiti was done on the basis of violence. So, even though this poor sod sitting behind the desk, was going to do whatever he was told, the only way you could give an order, was by pointing a gun somebody. You know? It's very interesting… very interesting. And the last one is a conversation, it's called, ah, “Conversation with the Assassin of a Dictator” and that was the last surviving member of the Black Hand, which was the terrorist group that assassinated the Archduke Ferdinand in Sarajevo in 1914. And, um, I met him when he was ninety years old, and it was the most astonishing, astonishing conversation, where I wanted to talk about his role in bringing western civilization to an end, and he wanted to talk about computers. It was… [audience laughter] but, but the book is, it's, it's, it's a sort of view of money out of control in the 80s and 90s, and it's fun. The idea is a very black comedy that, as you're vomiting, you're laughing, you know? And there's absolutely no hint of moral redemption. None. No moral redemption. - Well that's something to look forward to I think… -I think, I think that tradition of, of black comedy is very, very important. -Mm. -Actually in, my last novel before that, The, um, Paradise Eater was also a comedy in that sort of tradition and, um, people are, there used to be more of them but a… a kind of severe comedy. -Yeah. -You know? Not baroque comedy, I mean. -No… something very, with a very- very serious at its heart. Well, I think, in the age of ASAT [?] finding out far too much, far more than we want to know about the Assad [?] shopping habits, or Saddam Husain's decorations, I think we'll, ah… would, ah, would, would see those dictators with great interest. Um, we might ah, close… -Are there no questions? -No questions? -I can't believe this. You, we've talked them into, we've talked them into submission. -There is? Yes. -But, we're going to need you to come to a microphone, if you have a question. -But, what I'll, I'll tell you what we'll do, if there are four people, we'll take four questions, altogether really quick. And then I'll, I'll make something of it. -It's called a mashup. -There's two. Are there two over there? Anybody else? There's one. Somebody else? There's another one. Good. Ok, it's suddenly, we've got a crowd. Anyway we'll do four and then we'll, we'll see if we've got time for another group. Go. -Me? -Yep. -Is democracy better served by compulsory or voluntary voting? I am just thinking about, with compulsory voting, which we have here, you mobilise a lot of relatively unthinking people, who are easily scared by sloganisms, and things like that? -Okay. Great. -Um, but, compared, say, with yours [?], where you get charges about apathy etc. -Yep great, I love that question. -Do you want to just pass it to the next person? Yeah, great. -In appreciation of all that you say about flexibility, and creativity when it comes to decision making, Um, the behaviourists and, and we can observe, that there's this phenomena now, where, once people have made up their minds, maybe two or three years ago when there's a debate about an issue, they're absolutely reluctant to change their mind. Now, I'd like to hear what you have to say about this. -Ok. - Um, without claiming causality, we did get to this point in time by putting half the population in charge. Would it have been any different if we'd put the other half? And, can we get out of where we are, by putting the other half in charge? - Ok. This is great. I love this. - Congrat… -Haiku, it's a wonderful thing. -Congratulations on your great talk. Really enjoyed it Um, my question is what you think about Julian Assange and the way he's been treated by the west? Ah, Australia, United Kingdom, Sweden, and, um, United States? Do these countries use the wooden and fake language, that you were talking about, of avoiding communication, ah, in order to justify their, um... breaking of international law, and also of hiding their true intentions? - Well… [audience applause] So first, um, ah... actually uh... on compulsory voting… I'm in favour of it. Ah, and David Malouf and I have had conversations about it in public here and in Canada. I think it's an interesting idea because it's not that it's the most important citizen's responsibility, it's actually the easiest citizen's responsibility. The important responsibility is thinking. [audience applause and laughter] And speaking out loud. That's the important stuff. But, you know, at a certain point, you gotta vote. And, and voting is one of the inexact ways that we have of figuring out how to go in one direction or another. Um, and, of course, the fact that you're forced to vote, doesn't stop you from spoiling your ballot. - No. - And, I think, actually, spoiling your ballot is a very important statement, if citizens want to make that statement. If you find in a, in your system that 25% of people are spoiling their ballot, if I were a politician, I'd say, “Gosh, there's a real problem with what we're doing.” So, I think it's a very interesting mechanism, that's just not like an opinion poll. And I've, I've said this in Canada and it causes an enormous silence, And, I mean, saying it in the United States, combined with their gun laws, would be very dangerous. [audience laughter] Um, ah, but I think it's an interesting idea because, and what David's always said, um, Malouf has always said, is that, is that, because it's obligatory people come in families and they sit around and they talk, and, of course, that happens anyway, with, you know, in other countries, but, if everybody's going, then it really becomes, um, a citizens' gathering. It's a little bit like, it's different, but it's a little bit like, I've noticed that new citizens, or people who are going to become citizens, tend to go to places which are very, very well known, like Niagara Falls, or last time I was in the Blue Mountains during-there's a very famous gorge? Um, I'm trying to remember what it's called now. But you have millions of people go, and they, and they, and, on summer days, they'll come, and they'll sort of, they'll have big picnics on the ground, of whatever food is from their place. And, and what they're actually doing is saying, “I'm here now” and, “I'm Australian.” “But, even though I'm Australian, I'm eating this really great food” and, “'cause I'm sort of different and being different is good.” Because this is the kind of place this is. And, and I find that very moving. And I think voting is sort of related to that sense of a public display of belonging. If you see what I mean? Um, so I, I think that's really great. Um, I think, I, I personally, ah, was very much in favour of the, I didn't see anything wrong with the WikiLeaks's leaking, And PEN actually took a very clear position on that. Um, um...I had some more problems with the later leakings when there was no editing done. Even though, I think it was alright in the end, but, you know, there- one of the things that we always say is that, the thing about- we…believe in unlimited freedom of expression. On the other hand, unlimited freedom of expression brings real responsibilities. So, you always have to think, otherwise you get into, say, slander or whatever. And, and so you, if you're leaking a lot of stuff, you have to spend a little bit of time making sure that you're not destroying somebody, getting someone killed, for example, by mistake. So, as long as they were leaking it after some people went through it, to do their best, I think it was really great. And, and, and, and one of the most important things about that is that, you know, I talked a lot of ambassadors afterwards, and they said, “Oh, you know, our whole life is sending telegrams. It's been ruined.” And, and actually, the telegram system is a very good way for governments to collect information. That is one of the jobs of the ambassadors. -Yeah. -But, I didn't have any sympathy. And the reason there isn't any sympathy is because, for the last 25 years at least, we've been in an era of increased secrecy. And we've been creating secrets by the millions every year. I mean, the United States in the 90s, they're, they're the most honest country on this subject by the way, because they actually announce every year, how many secrets of which level they've created. Whereas, everybody out of the, you know, the other traditions, we're much more hypocritical, so we don't actually like to talk about how many secrets. The Americans don't talk about what the secrets are, but they actually have an accounting system, you know, so many of this… anyway, in the 90s they were producing, I don't know, two-and-a-half million secrets a year? It's in Voltaire's Bastards I think? I think it was two and a half million secrets a year. What in God's name they were? I mean, there, you know, there are hardly any secrets of any value at all. -Well, we obviously know from the WikiLeaks cables that they were things like the colour of the tie of the ambassador and how tanned [?] he was. -Exactly, exactly And so, so I think now the United States is creating fifty million secrets a year, which means Australia, on a per capita basis, would be, whatever it is, you know? Ah, we're all the same. - One… - So, if you do that… -…million. -Yeah, you're going to have explosions, and this was a perfectly logical explosion, and I think it was quite healthy. And, funnily enough, the foreign services didn't look too badly out of it, you know, interestingly enough. -Yeah -So, I mean, the, the person I worry about the most is obviously the corporal. Um, I think he knew, ah, what was going to happen to him, so he showed great courage by doing it. And, ah, you know, people who are, what do you call it? Um, what's that called, being a… [audience member: ‘whistleblower'] Whistleblower! Sorry, that's the jet lag. Ah, whistleblowers are very interesting people, because they know their careers are going to be ruined. And, in his case, I mean, who knows what the last line could be? And then, finally, um, I think that, you know, that the, the reason people won't change their mind, is the reasons that I was saying, um… ah, was giving in the speech, which is that, there is no admiration in our society for changes of direction, or changes of mind. Professionals are supposed to tell you the truth. And they're supposed to stick to it, even if they're lying. And that's how you get something like the mad cow disease, or, you know, and that, that's how you get something like this financial crisis. They simply can't stand up and say, “You know, I'm terribly sorry, I was wrong.” “I was absolutely wrong.” “Now you can fire me. Here's my ideas for what we should do instead.” But, you know, that- and, and I, I'm not being romantic about the past, because the past had many flaws; democracy. But it was much more common for ministers to stand up, and actually try to change direction, and fight like mad to change direction. And, finally, in terms of the, ah, other half being in charge? I mean, ah, there's no question that when you see an organization where the majority is women, it's run differently. Ah, that's really interesting Um, ah… there's no question that the law, and very related to it, politics, were, were structured entirely for men. Men's clubs, you know? Entirely for men's clubs. And so, most women hate being in politics, and hate being in big law firms, because they force you to keep hours, to act in a way which is suitable for middle-aged men trying to get over the loss of their youth, and all the rest of it. And, and we have not reached the stage where women have been able to fundamentally change how those institutions function. I mean, um, you know, um, you look at the big law firms, I was just talking to a young woman here the other day. Big law firms can't keep young women. Why? Because the only way you can be in a big law firm and do well is to become a young man, and young women don't want to become young men. So they leave. And then the men say, “You see?” As opposed to saying, “Maybe there's something wrong with our law firm.” [audience applause] Um… …on the other hand, I mean, I think there are courts now where there are quite a few women on the high court, supreme court. Head of Supreme Court of Canada, for quite a long time now, has been a woman. Beverley McLachlin, she's been here quite often. There's usually, three out of nine are women, usually. Um… …and she- it's very interesting because she's run a court where there's very little disagreement. And, I think that's maybe because she's a woman, acting like a woman. As opposed to, you know, Mrs Thatcher? -Yeah. -You know? Which isn't an insult, but, you know? She's the model of the, you know, the woman who, if you survive in politics, you either have to be like, like Mrs Gandhi, an aristocrat, and they, they obey you because you're an aristocrat, or, you have to be a woman who acts like a man, ah, and I can't make judgments about your Prime Minister, I don't know, or, you have to be in a, in a class-based society, like Britain, where Mrs Thatcher figured out this very interesting, um, psycho-sexual nanny role, which, which, men could not handle. [audience laughter and applause] You know? And it was brilliant. I mean, you know, I'm not trying to give you ideas, but she was brilliant, because what are you going to do? It's a men's club. She had to do something. You know? So, anyway, I don't know if that's an answer or not, but, um, but..? [audience applause] -I, I think here we always like an answer that pokes light fun at, ah, the British in some way, so perhaps a good point to end. Thank you so much for your time. Thank you to you all for coming. I did forget to tell you, ah, the twitter hash tag for this event. So, but, it's not too late if you want to say something, it's um, the hash tag is ralstonsaul, not surprisingly. In light of what John has said, please do come to The Festival of Dangerous Ideas and listen to Tim Harford talking about why we need to make more mistakes, because I think that may well turn out to be a continuation of this conversation in a very interesting way. If you can't bear to go home, pop upstairs and listen to Simon Callow at 7 o'clock. Otherwise, I hope to see you soon, and thank you again to John Ralston Saul. - Can we say, I'm going to sign books outside? -Yes, and John… -And also, PEN has a table outside. -John will be signing books outside. PEN has a table outside, and I'd just like to thank the Evatt Foundation very much for putting, helping us put on this event and, in particular, Fay Gervasoni and Christopher Sheil. Thanks and good night. [audience applause]