CHARLES WOOLEY
The greatest requiem ever written for a fallen leader was expressed by Shakespeare in the words he gave to Mark Antony on the death of Julius Caesar. “Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me
your ears,
I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him.
The evil that men do lives after them; The good is oft interred with their bones;
So let it be with Caesar.”
That might be said of almost every political leader. None are wholly good nor wholly bad but with their passing it is too often the good they failed to do that defines their legacy.
This week Tasmania’s new Premier recognised the shortcomings of the old, in health and housing and climate change, with a three-word catch cry. “We must do more,” Peter Gutwein declared.
If he makes that call the guiding principle of his premiership then some good might indeed live on after him.
Our Government must do more. No one would disagree. But how can the new bloke do more with the same old team? There are about 40 ministries to be filled and only 13 government members in the Lower House and even that depends on which way the wind blows. Some responsibilities have been flicked upstairs to liberals in the Legislative Council but still many ministers are struggling under the weight of far too many portfolios.
Take Elise Archer for instance; AttorneyGeneral, Minister for Justice and for Corrections. That should be enough, but somehow she also makes time for Building and Constructions. And then for a bit of light relief she is also the Minister for the Arts. (The Art of juggling.)
If she ever has time for day out and wants to kick up her heels and wear a fancy hat, Elise is also Minister for Racing. (Minister for racing from one department to the next.)
No one likes politicians so it is hard to argue there should be more of them. But there should be. Our parliament is ten bums on seats short of what it was before 1998 when the major parties stupidly reduced the Lower House by ten. It was done to keep out the Greens but the Laborials actually shot themselves in the foot and now you would be hard pressed to form a half-decent scratch team from both sides of parliament and certainly not without including the Green’s Cassy O’Connor who is probably the smartest person in the chamber.
She must be so lonely.
Across the portfolios the workload is ridiculous with thin talent spread even more thinly. Decisions can actually be made by unelected public servants and advisers with the so-called minister a rubber-stamp who only wears responsibility when things inevitably go wrong.
Our egregious health system is a portfolio carried like an albatross around the hapless neck of the last pollie out of the room. The incumbent is doomed to failure and it blights their future career, as we have seen.
All of which is why no one wants the job and why we are left with the longest hospital queues in the nation and the worst outcomes in all categories.
If I were health minister and you got crook and needed an op, I would honestly advise you to fly to Melbourne. That way your chances of survival would be greatly increased and if anything went wrong, I would be able to shift the blame to the Victorian government.
Admittedly, outsourcing our sick might not be a complete panacea but as the man said, “We must do better.” Another way to improve government underperformance in so many areas must be to think creatively and outside of the Salamanca square. As a rule the Tasmanian parliament is not crowded with clever people and when there is one, generally they don’t succeed because they are totally alone.
Way back, there was an annoyingly clever bloke called Neil Batt, who led the Labor opposition in the mid-1980s. He was so smart nobody liked him, not even his own party, but he was certainly an outsidethe-square thinker. Interviewing him once about Tasmania’s chronic high unemployment he told me, “Unemployment. I could fix that tomorrow.”
“But Mr Batt, how would you do that,” young Wooley asked.
“Simple,” he replied. “I would give every out of work Tasmanian $200 and a oneway ticket to the mainland.”
Oddly, he was never elected premier. Probably just ahead of his time.
I suspect Will Hodgman chucked it in because it all got too depressing and there were too many duds in his team who kept letting him down so badly. You know who they are, I’ve made enough enemies already this week.
I reckon his wife Nicky saw it was all getting too much and going nowhere and she called, “Time”.
It was the right decision from a woman who has more brains than the collective
Liberal cabinet. Actually, that is far too faint praise for Nicky who deserves much more. But the point is, in this week of supposed dramatic change, in reality nothing has changed. It’s still the same old team minus Will.
So, for her own peace of mind Mrs Gutwein should move early to encourage her husband to gather about him smarter people. One way would be to cast far and wide (the further and wider the better) for some bright advisers. Not the usual party hacks and indifferent public servants but some creative and unencumbered freethinkers, preferably not from here.
I doubt Neil Batt would come back from Melbourne and I am too much of a local.
Besides I am flat-out busy right now down Dodge City way studying the tide. Like political leadership I am finding it is monotonously regular. It comes in for a while and then it goes out.
On that subject Shakespeare has some advice for Peter Gutwein.
“There is a tide in the affairs of men, Which taken at the flood leads on
to fortune. Omitted, all the voyage of their lives is bound in shallows and in miseries.
On such a sea are we now afloat.”
Call the mobile phone of 27-year-old Young Tasmanian of the Year, Will Smith, and you’ll be greeted by a one-of-a-kind voicemail message, personally recorded by a Hollywood superstar of the same name. The Tasmanian police officer and youth mentor has been lucky enough to meet and work with actor Will Smith on multiple occasions since 2017 and says he’s a “really cool guy”. So cool, in fact, that when they last met up in Sydney, the award-winning actor and singer recorded a personalised voicemail for his namesake.
“Hey, the real Will Smith can’t come to the phone right now,’’ the message begins, with the unmistakeable voice of the 51year-old who began his career rapping as The Fresh Prince in the late 80s. “He’s bringing some orcs [characters in Smith’s fantasy/crime film Bright] to the police station. So this is the other Will Smith filling in. So leave a message and I’ll let him know you called.”
Our awestruck Tassie Will Smith confesses it’s a great party trick — he’s been known to pull out his phone at the pub, after a couple of drinks with mates, and recount the remarkable story about his brush with fame to gobsmacked onlookers.
But despite the laughs, Smith admits the celebrity encounter had a profound impact on his future, opening his eyes to new experiences and ultimately changing the direction of his life.
In the past year, Smith has rented out his Shearwater home, sold his beloved ute, put all his belongings in storage and has been living out of a single bag as he embarks on a mission to live more simply and have a positive impact on the lives of others.
As well as starting his own youth mentoring business to help transform the lives of at-risk young Tasmanians, Smith has travelled to an active war zone in the Middle East to work with some of the most vulnerable youth in the world, risking his own personal safety to steer teens away from Islamic State recruitment.
Ultimately this shift to a new way of living began with a single Facebook post from celebrity namesake Will Smith.
The Hollywood heavyweight couldn’t be in all parts of the world at once to promote his Netflix film Bright in 2017, so he called on Will Smiths across the globe to come forward and help represent him. “I woke up one day and I had been tagged in this post about 23 times,’’ Smith grins. “So I put my name in and sent off a video entry.’’
More than 130 Will Smiths from Australia responded to the call out. Ten of these, including our Tassie representative, were chosen to fly to Sydney and film a trailer for the movie.
This clip was then sent to Hollywood, to Will Smith and his team, who selected Tasmania’s Will Smith as the best of the Aussie Will Smiths and invited him to fly to the US.
But there was a problem. The Tassie cop had never been overseas and didn’t have a passport. And the trip was only a few days away. Fortunately staff at the passport office in Hobart were excited by his story and were able to help facilitate an express passport application for Smith and his younger brother Oliver, who went as his plus one.
“We picked up our passports in the morning and flew out in the afternoon,’’ Smith recalls of the tight turnaround.
But it was worth the effort. They arrived at a hotel in Beverly Hills and “were treated like kings for the night’’.
There were 50 Will Smiths from around the world at the hotel but it turned out that the police officer from Tassie had
captured the attention of actor Will Smith. He was chosen as #1 from all the Will Smiths from across the globe to walk the red carpet alongside actor Will Smith and his Australian co-star Joel Edgerton at the film’s premiere in Los Angeles.
“I got to spend a good amount of time with Will and Joel on the red carpet,’’ Smith tells TasWeekend.
I was interviewed on IGN (one of the biggest entertainment channels in the world), I met Will Smith’s son Jaden, as well as [US rapper and actor] Machine Gun Kelly and [hip hop group] Migos … it was pretty unbelievable,’’ Smith says. “I went to the after-party with the cast and crew and stayed in the US for a week in a hotel in Beverly Hills.
“We went to Universal Studios and got driven around in a big black SUV. It was a really cool experience.’’
Perhaps the coolest part of the experience was getting the chance to chat to the Hollywood star, who offered some solid words of advice for his namesake.
“He’s all about positively influencing people,’’ Smith explains. “To try and be the best person in the room, to be the best version of yourself and have a positive impact on people.’’
“And that’s something that has really stuck with me.’’ He caught up again with the Hollywood star in Sydney eight weeks later, filming a segment on Sunrise. It was during this trip that Smith’s voicemail message was recorded.
Smith has since done some paid work to promote the celebrity’s JUST Water brand. “That Will Smith trip really opened it up for me,’’ he admits of his time in LA.
Positively influencing people is one of the things he loves most about being a police officer, making a difference is what drew him to the force as a 20-year-old after a previous career selling real estate.
Twelve months ago he was preparing for a regular police shift when the background noise of the television grabbed his attention. It was a report about a 20-year-old man who had been arrested for the murder of 21-year-old student Aiia Maasarwe near a Melbourne tram station.
“I saw the young man’s name appear on the screen and my heart sank,’’ Smith explains. “I stopped, sat on the couch and watched the story with a sickening feeling in my stomach. This moment became a tipping point for me.’’
In addition to his work with Tasmania Police, Smith has held voluntary positions with groups over the years, trying to contribute positively to the lives of young people through coaching and mentor roles.
“I always believed my ‘legacy’ to the world would be the impact I was having on vulnerable young people,’’ he explains.
“I have spent 10 years doing various youth programs and committing a lot of time and energy to every one of them.’’
But when Smith discovered the murderer was Codey Herrmann, a young man he had previously worked with, he realised his work wasn’t having the lasting impact he initially thought it was. “When I saw the young man on the TV that morning, I knew I wasn’t leaving the legacy I wanted. I wasn’t creating change, I was wrong. He was a young boy I personally worked with for three programs over a two-year period. I finished those programs many years ago and genuinely thought I made an impact on him. I thought that he was on the right track.”
He began reflecting on all the work he’d done with young people and started seeking out some of his so-called success stories on social media.
“I searched many platforms for young people who I thought I have had the biggest impact on over the years,’’ Smith explains. “One boy I found is now a recidivist offender and member of an outlaw motorcycle gang, another boy is in prison for a lengthy time period and another, who I had completed over nine programs with, is disengaged from society and has a zero per cent attendance rate at school. For me, it was a big personal hit.
“Having that preconceived idea of that person in your head and thinking so highly of them … thinking of them settling down with a partner and in some type of job and then looking on Facebook and seeing from their profile pic that they’re part of an outlaw motorcycle gang and the first words you see are ‘f … law enforcement’ … it was insane.”
So he decided 2019 was going to be a year of lasting impact and, inspired by the Netflix documentary Minimalism, Smith simplified his life and struck a deal with Tasmania Police that enabled him to continue to work as a police officer while also pursuing other interests.
“I gave up every bit of routine and comfort in my life and set out to live as an ordinary person, who would attempt to do extraordinary things in order to positively impact the world around me,’’ he says.
He created mentoring organisation, JCP Empowering Youth, developing programs he felt could create real change in young people. In the past 10 months the organisation has delivered motivational programs to about 600 Tasmanian students, with a further 78 young people helped by the organisation’s BEAST program. The three-month intensive mentorship program was created to help at-risk youths including street kids, youth offenders, young people identified by schools and children’s services, and others aged between 10-16 that Smith considers “aren’t going to transition into adulthood successfully’’.
Over three months the participants attend three camps, which aim to positively influence an individual’s educational attendance rates and motivation levels as well as building selfworth and giving them an opportunity to have fun, connect with mentors and find ways to make a difference in their local community. Rather than adults telling the kids what to do, the camps are led by teens who have already successfully completed the program.
Smith felt the problem with previous programs he’d worked on was that kids were taken briefly out of their environment and then put back in to that environment and expected to know how to implement everything they’d learnt.
He says by running three camps over three months, the participants can return home in between each camp and slowly implement what they learn with the help of mentors who look at all relevant aspects of the participant’s home and school life.
Smith says that could mean going in to a teen’s bedroom, opening it up with some new curtains so it’s light and bright, or perhaps providing some new linen or putting motivational posters on the wall.
It also involves meeting family members and teachers, and getting participants actively involved in sporting clubs and student leadership roles.
Smith achieves this with the help of generous donations from businesses – like Health and Leisure in Hobart which donated $20,000 worth of sports shoes.
Sport is also what helped Smith make a difference in the Middle East, where he spent almost six weeks in an active red zone near the border of Northern Lebanon and Syria, creating eight soccer teams for young Syrian refugees in a bid to have a positive impact on their lives and deter them from Islamic State recruitment.
Smith had been following Syria in the news and decided he didn’t want to look back in 20 years, wishing he’d done something to help. So he flew to Beirut, armed with a huge haul of sporting gear. The trip was not without risk. Smith was held at gunpoint multiple times in order to pass numerous security checkpoints along the way, with his car filled with 50 soccer balls, guernseys, shorts, socks and a couple of hundred pairs of boots to gift to local kids.
The interpreter he hired during the trip sends him regular progress updates — one of the teams he created recently won a tournament and Smith proudly shows off a video of the cheering kids with their medals on his phone. Smith continues to pay the $20 weekly hire fee for the ground the soccer teams use and is looking forward to receiving future updates on how the program is progressing.
“I’ve never played soccer in my life,’’ Smith laughs, adding that he’s more of an Aussie rules fan.
But he says sport, in any form, is a great way to connect kids with their communities.
Smith’s efforts, both in Tasmania and overseas, helped earn him the title of 2020 Young Tasmanian of the Year.
He will now represent the state at the national awards in Canberra this weekend, where he’ll have dinner with the GovernorGeneral and lunch with the Prime Minister. He’s excited to meet the “awesome” bunch of finalists he’s been nominated alongside, particularly those who do similar community work.
Smith, who is taking his father Daryl as his guest, says he’s proud of all he has achieved but it was still a “massive shock” to win the Tasmanian award.
In fact he was so certain he wouldn’t win, that he almost didn’t go to the Tasmanian awards ceremony in October.
“I actually had an argument with my mum that morning because I wasn’t going to go,’’ Smith recalls. “I’d had a hectic night at work and I got up and I was just wrecked. I said ‘I’ve got a massive headache and I don’t think I want to go, I don’t think [the organisers] are going to mind’.’’
But he decided to go, after all the schoolteacher who nominated him, who he hadn’t seen for 15 years, was going to be at the Government House ceremony.
“When they called my name out I was quite shocked,’’ Smith recalls. “Luckily I’m quite good at impromptu speaking so I did reel off a good speech. I was very humbled … it’s nice to be recognised in what I do.’’
Smith spends half his week in Devonport and the other half in Hobart.
He has no permanent base, staying with various friends and family members in each destination, assisting them with anything they may need help with as a token of his appreciation.
“I love it,’’ he says of his simplified lifestyle. “I don’t waste any time mowing lawns, I don’t pay an electricity bill.”
He admits it’s probably not a lifestyle he can uphold forever, but for now he’s planning to make the most of every day as it comes.
“I don't have a partner at the moment, and I don’t have kids,” he says. “Some day I would like to have those things. But at the moment I’m just taking things day by day. I have so much respect for Tasmania Police and them allowing me to do what I do. It’s such a supportive workplace and I love going to work every day. I love policing and I can’t see a time in the future that I would leave Tasmania Police because it’s a role that allows me to positively impact young people in different ways.”
He says he's excited to see what opportunities 2020 presents, saying he’s “determined, passionate and full of energy”. And he’s encouraging other Tasmanians to follow his lead.
“I committed every day of 2019 to making a profound impact on the world around me. I committed to not wasting one day,” Smith says. “I can tell you that I have now seen real impact. I have now seen direct change. My social life, routine and at times, my health, have been the sacrifice, but a worthy one.
“Don’t be complacent and do not fall into the routine of life. There is so much inspiration you can impart on the people around you. You never know where your passion will lead you.”
Winners of the 2020 Australian of the Year Awards will be selected from 32 finalists from across Australia and will be announced at a ceremony at the National Arboretum in Canberra tonight. Tasmanian representatives include Tasmania Australian of the Year Dr Jess Melbourne-Thomas, Tasmania Senior Australian of the Year Dr Graeme Stevenson, Tasmania Local Hero Tom Windsor and Tasmania Young Australian of the Year Will Smith.