The Network singles out special ones from the Australia Day Honours List

To-day, January 26, is Australia Day - Australia's national day of celebration (that's the settler attitude) or the day to mark survival (that's the Aboriginal point of view).  The Governor-General publishes a list of Australian honours.  It is my Australia Day ritual to peruse the lists nodding in agreement with some (not a lot) and making snarky remarks to myself about others (quite a few).  The snarky remarks go along the lines of  - well, he/she has got it for a job in which they were well remunerated; so-and-so got this level of honour while so-and-so did similar activities and only got a lower level of honour.  

One thing is always clear to me, though, and that is that Honours Lists are status-ridden.  The highest level honours are few, seldom given to women or at least not more than one woman per list, and it is clear that one has to have reached a certain position - usually based on economic position - to be in the running.  Although it is possible to work your way up from one level to another.  This is noted in the lists with the biographies clearly delineating what the recipient has done since his/her last and lower honour.  

For you, dear Networkers, I have singled out a few which are a great fit for the ethos of The Network.  I have excerpted their listings and have placed them in the document below so you can read them in greater detail.  Those that capture my attention are as follows:

• David Rhett BUTLER - Firstly, don't you love the name, Rhett Butler. At least one parent must have loved Gone with the Wind.  And, did he marry someone called Vivian and have a daughter called Scarlett?  That's not why he made The Network Honours List.  No.  It is because he is the chair and founder of Skyjuice Foundation. As Networkers realise, water is a major priority on The Network and so I regard this not only as a gong  for David Butler but for water as well.
• Bryan Andrew KEON-COHEN QC.  Networkers will realise that the First Nations have the highest priority on The Network.  This blog is concerned for recognition and relationships with the First Peoples of all parts of the globe.  This, however, is an Australian blog and The Network's primary concern is with the First Nations of Australia.  Bryan Keon-Cohen's work for which he is honoured makes it perfectly clear that his priority is the same as The Network's priority.
• Jon Stephenson - like myself an old Townvillean - has gone from the midst of us.  Please note, Networkers.  If you wish to nominate someone, please don't wait until they are on their last legs.  Jon's achievements are amazing.  For my money this man should have been nominated years before and received no less than our highest honour.  Neither of these things have occurred.  This man's achievements are many and unique.  We ought to be reading about him in schools and libraries across the country.  Is there a Hall of Fame somewhere for Jon Stephenson?
• Lyn Pengilly of Parkes and Helen Poulos of Bondi Junction touch my heart strings.  The Network emphasises and tries to live and breathe community and communitarianism.  Lyn and Helen display this in their daily lives and have been honoured for it - one in regional Australia, the other in the very centre of Australia's major city.  They are unpaid.  They have done the most basic of volunteer jobs.  Without Lyn and Helen and people like them across this nation and across the world our human community would be poverty stricken in mind, body, and spirit.  They have turned their hands to what needs doing.  They have provided the grease for the wheels of their communities.  

Read more about these wonderful people here:

Julia Gillard and her government - an ill-founded expedition : @julia gillard #ausgov #politics #expeditions

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Picture from here

Shaun Carney in The Age to-day has our political malaise and mix-up well assessed

Networkers, I cast about looking for a picture to illustrate Julia Gillard tied up in knots. Couldn't find one and no time to fiddle with collaging one together.  And then I found this.  Omit the references to NBN Broadband and look at the meta-narrative, Burke and Wills.  As far as I am concerned that says it all.

  Picture from here

Melbourne loves Burke and Wills.  Melbourne loved them 150 years ago and loves them still to-day.  There is a painting in the gallery of the State Library of Victoria.  It is huge, celebratory, jubilant and triumphant. It is Melbourne farewelling Burke and Wills - and the populace is there in their thousands.

I'm from Queensland where our adulation of Burke and Wills is pretty much non-existent.  We think they were rather silly people. We believe they did a perish which should, in all likelihood, never have happened. Not that explorers haven't disappeared before.  We have no idea where Ludwig Leichhardt finished up - and he seemed to have a lot more sense than B&W. 

I find this extract from the Burke & Wills Research Gateway to be particularly apt when looking at the Gillard Government: 

The south-north leg was successfully completed (except they were stopped by swampland 5 kilometres (3 miles) from the northern coastline) but owing to poor leadership and bad luck, both of the expedition's leaders died on the return journey. 

Back in Queensland there is an opinion abroad that these were men who were foolhardy, who did not understand local conditions, were foreigners in a strange land, and did not care to take advice from the native born.

If you follow up on the links, Networkers, you will find that B&W had the backing of some very important and influential people.  Very handy in beating up the farewell crowd, I'm sure.  Not necessarily people vital to personal survival in a harsh and unfamiliar landscape.  Much recording in the media and art world of the time.  Again, no help to personal survival there. 

I referred above to "did a perish".  I should explain that to "do a perish" is a fearful thing in the Australian bush.  Australians who have read the famous We of the Never Never by Mrs Aeneas Gunn will remember the mailmain, The Fizzer.  It is said that The Fizzer - who for years had delivered the mail across the Barkly Tableland on the eastern side of the Northern Territory - changed his route and took to delivering the mail on the VRD side (Victoria River Downs).  

He opted to take another route because the previous mailman had done a perish and was found with the skin on his hands worn away from scratching at the unforgiving earth.  The Fizzer wanted to avoid the risk of this happening to him. He switched to the VRD side with the mighty Victoria River - and drowned.

And so was the fate of the mighty Burke and Wills expedition.  With poor leadership and failure to take on the wisdom of the bush and the native born, the expedition did a perish.  

Back to Julia Gillard.  There is little evidence to convict Julia Gillard of listening to the wisdom of those who know the lie of the land.  She gives every appearance of listening to those who shout the loudest and take uncompromising positions - and, of course, we must not forget the unrepresentative, small in number focus groups.  

Intelligent, principled leadership appears absent - at least in our Federal government and governance.  It does not appear that choosing another party will provide a solution.  Carney so rightly points out:

...the leadership continues to apply a false dichotomy to the society - one where the populace is split between bogans and eggheads, with no one in between - and attempts to placate both elements simultaneously.

Burke and Will had a dichotomy in operation.  The support of Melbourne bigwigs who purported to know everything and, as it turned out, knew nothing. The knowledge of people who had traversed this land for forty milennia and knew how to survive, and who were deemed not to be capable of making a contribution. 

There are a great number of Australians, more than likely the majority, who cannot be slotted into the false political dichotomy which appears to be abroad.  This "deeming not to know" process has been analysed by the British philosopher, Miranda Fricker, and I have written about it before here. 

It is called epistemic injustice. Fricker's book is a bit expensive for ordinary mortals.  It is readable. It is in some Australian academic libraries. I read my copy courtesy of inter-library loan.  You can also go to The Philosopher's Zone and listen to a podcast or read the transcript where Fricker talks about power, prejudice, and the death of Stephen Lawrence due to epistemic discrimination.

In the current circumstances, leaders do need to listen to the people.  And then the crunch comes. Leaders have to lead.  They have to make decisions. They have to be decisive and confident in their decision-making.  

If a leader is not of firm conviction or principle, does this affect the decision-making process? I believe it does.  Rightly or wrongly, we need a guiding star or principle by which to direct our thoughts and arrive at our decisions. Just as Captain Cook carried the experimental chronometer of John Harrison on his voyages to the South Pacific,  a leader needs principle to steer the ship of state on its political course.  Else sound government is beset and becalmed in the political doldrums.

We see the Gillard Government in this way.  It is a government that doesn't speak its mind or take the nation into its confidence.  It is a government which hangs in the breeze to be blown this way and that by every strong and baying voice.  This is a sure way to be hung out to dry.  It is a sure way to find the electorate isn't listening to you and just holding out for the next election to express its view.  It has to wait...because the government isn't listening to the sensible and practical voices who do not do obeisance to commercial radio's talk-back jockeys. 

Further reading:

Burke and Wills Environment Expedition 2010

Burke and Wills expedition

Related articles

• Gillard's loose words, tough talk come back to haunt her (theage.com.au)

Burke and Wills remembered

To-day a memorial plaque will be officially launched to commemorate the departure, 150 years ago, of Robert O'Hara Burke and William John Wills on a journey of exploration.  The Burke and Wills saga is well embedded in the Australian consciousness - not least because it was an unmitigated disaster and an example of how not to conduct exploration in Australia.

I live in Melbourne and Burke and Wills are big here.  I sort of knew that before I came to live here.  However, I am frequently confronted by the mass adulation of the B&W pre-expedition and their memorialisation post-disaster.  There are statues here and there but I was really gobsmacked by a very, very large artwork at the State Library of Victoria which portrayed the adulation of the crowds of Melbourne as they farewelled these yet to be heroic men.

I hate to be a party-pooper but I am a North Australian living in exile in Melbourne and where I come from Burke and Wills are regarded as prize dills.  We don't think they knew very much.  We don't think they needed to perish.  We think they were amazingly arrogant and ignorant.  While they were doing a perish not too far away Aboriginal groups were thriving.

If any memorials are being built to Burke and Wills to-day they should be done in the context of the ignorance and arrogance of the post-1788 white settlers.

The State Library of Victoria is entering into the commemorations with an ongoing exhibition which began in  May and will run through to October this year under the title of Burke and Wills: Terra Incognita.  To-morrow and Friday there are workshops related to the exhibition from the Curator's viewpoint. Gerard Hayes will discuss items on display including contemporary portraits of Burke and Wills, their last notes and firearms used on the expedition.  Bookings for the workshops are essential.

And for everything you ever wanted to know on the B&W 150th, please go here.