CHARLES WOOLEY

They’re decent, private, modest and thoughtful, but all too often the silent majority are just too quiet

The news lately, especially if you are a parent or grandparent, is so depressing. The Cambria Green shenanigans at Swansea seem to make Beijing’s nastiness in Hong Kong somehow more relevant in Tasmania.

No one is an island these days. And the Amazon forest aflame reminds us not just of the local legacy of the late John Gay, but of the fact that we all breathe the same oxygen on this small planet.

It should chasten us too. We have little right to criticise Brazil’s president Jair Bolsonaro when a succession of Tasmanian leaders have been doing the same thing in our forests since the early 1970s.

If we can’t get it right in an affluent first world nation where free speech is the cornerstone of discourse — or should be — what’s the chance in less democratic places?

Not that Tasmanians are always fearless critics of our often misguided but generally benign and bumbling regime. People, even here, are often afraid to express their opinions.

Perhaps it’s because we are so small and interconnected that we don’t want to rock our tiny tinnie.

Hence, this is the second time I sit down to write this column. The first draft was based on a letter from a reader expressing concern about the directions in which our state was going.

It was the usual stuff a lot of you worry about: selling Tasmania to Chinese interests which inevitably lead back to the Communist Party of China; the privatising of our national parks; our over-enthusiastic embrace of tourism to the exclusion of everything else; and observations on hospitals, town planning and traffic.

As I said, just the usual stuff. But in a week of gloomy news it was also strangely uplifting.

What struck me in that intelligent, temperate and well-written letter was the writer’s unease that most government initiatives don’t seem to be making life better for ordinary Tasmanians like himself. Quite the contrary.

The letter was a passionate cry from the heartland of what you might call “quiet Tasmania”.

This bloke was never a member of any political party; he was neither a marcher nor a joiner, and certainly not from Senator Jonathon Duniam’s much-derided “antieverything brigade”.

My bloke had never raised his voice before, and was just writing to thank this column and this paper for raising many issues about which he is now deeply uneasy.

I told my correspondent his letter was so moving, so passionate and heartfelt, I wanted to publish it here. He freaked out. It was never for publication. He feared it would affect his employment and, maybe worse, everyone would know his mind.

He was a decent, private, modest, thoughtful man, but perhaps not overly heroic.

I told him we could publish anonymously and redact anything that might provide even the slightest clue to his identity; where he lived, whether he had kids, his job and even his sex. Eventually my correspondent reluctantly agreed to go public, but deeply incognito. And so I got his story. He made the bullets and I would fire them for him.

To make him feel better, I explained that I’m not brave, but if there is any flak I would be copping it on his behalf.

The truth is, over the years, the only thing that really scares an old journo whose been around as long as I have is economy travel and an assignment in a “dry” country. And maybe Afghanistan; which is really scary and dry.

Every journalist has experienced the person with a good story to tell but reluctant to tell it. They are often the biggest stories.

Sometimes they get the innocent out of jail, sometimes they bring down governments. This was never to be one of those. But it might’ve made us all think.

And if you are a private and thoughtful contemplator, like my correspondent, it might even have made you feel you were not alone in the world.

I often think that in our fractious and lonely society, a sense of inclusion is one of the most useful services that journalism can provide. This only comes from presenting a wide range of dissenting viewpoints.

Sadly, in the case of my correspondent (whose identity I will take to the crematorium), discretion became the better part of valour.

After a sleepless night the poor bloke backed out. To publicly declare his private fears was a step that this “quiet Tasmanian” was not prepared to take.

Of course, ScoMo’s surprise victory one year ago provides a game-changer in the study of dissent. Journalists and politicians — and indeed all of us — should more attentively listen out for the inchoate whispers of the “quiet Australians”.

Until they get to the privacy of the ballot box, clearly, we don’t have any idea what these people are thinking.

I liked my “quiet Tasmanian” and I’m sorry I couldn’t get him over the finish line for you.

As I said; decent, private, modest and insightful. A good bloke. Pity he was so bloody quiet.