Our Will, Our Way –
Australia's Future
I am a proud Australian, born in Australia to parents born in Australia.
All four of my grandparents, by contrast, were born British subjects in the colony of Victoria. They would not become ‘Australians’ until Federation in 1901. And then not citizens of their own country until 1949. It would have taken even longer to be recognised as citizens had they been indigenous people – despite tens of thousands of years of connection to the land. For the non-indigenous amongst us, our identity with this land as Australians remains young and malleable. It has in the past, and continues to be, profoundly guided by the leadership of those we choose to govern us, for better or worse.
For my grandparents, their lives were influenced by one Henry Parkes, a man they never knew, though probably knew of, when he added his weight to shift the murmurings about federation into concerted but considered action. After a critical ‘oration' in Tenterfield in 1889 a member of the audience observed that for the first time the voice of an authoritative statesman gave soul and utterance
One people, one destiny. On the 1st January 1901, those four words were up in lights on the Sydney Town Hall.
to the aspirations of a people.
Imagine.
In all that followed, neither Parkes nor his colleagues assumed that federation was so obviously beneficial that they did not have to make their case. They anticipated there would be opposition, and there was.
They knew that there were implications for trade, for immigration, for taxation, things that are easy to speculate about in newspapers but not necessarily easy to understand or explain.
So they set out to make the case: Parkes in more than a dozen speeches in the nine or so months between Tenterfield and the Federation Conference in Melbourne in 1890. And a lot more thereafter.
He said many things, and many things often – in the knowledge that every speech in every town might count.
Amongst the many, there are four words that should be etched in our Australian souls – in Sydney in 1891, Parkes spoke to: one people, one destiny.
2 On the 1st January 1901, those four words were up in lights on the Sydney Town Hall. They meant something then. Today we would probably call it a mantra, although it is a little long for our
impatient times. And quite different in tenor from the divisive sloganeering – such as ‘lifters and leaners' – that is the political appetite of the hour.
In his speech, Parkes also said that our Federation should “embrace the power which is conferred by bringing science as a harnessed steed into our service and by bringing to bear upon our fortunes all the abundance of an advanced civilisation”.
It happened. Our country voted itself into existence.
We got our Federation by peaceful means after a popular vote – possibly the only country ever to have done so.
We got there because we were led by people who argued principles, who were consistent and coherent, who used evidence, logic, patience and commitment. They took care to articulate a case for their cause to the people and they were smart: these were leaders who ultimately crafted and delivered the Constitution and our way of governance – people like Deakin, Barton, Griffith – all persuaders and masters of detail. Not perfect – they were human beings – but they were experts in their craft. People with vision who knew how to construct and use a narrative to paint the picture as they made their case. Imagine.
My grandparents heard the words and set about doing their bit to build the Commonwealth of Australia.
What did they see, when they looked to the future, and imagined their legacy?
Of course, I can't really say. But I think it's significant that our forebears settled on that ancient word: Commonwealth – derived from the common weal or the common good.
‘Commonwealth' would have been a word in their minds, because it appeared in a popular song of the time – the song that became our national anthem, after we tidied it up a bit.
We don't often notice, but we kept two verses.
The first talks about golden soil, girt by sea, nature's gifts: space to grow, minerals, beaches and koalas.
The second talks about a Commonwealth renowned of all the lands. Toil with hearts and hands. Boundless plains to share with those who‘ve come across the seas; with courage let us combine.
You see the difference? Wealth is what we happened to find. A Commonwealth is what we chose to be.
We chose to be one people with one shared destiny.
We chose to be more than lucky – we chose to be ambitious, courageous, generous and fair. And we chose to aspire to something significant – renowned of all the lands.
And I think those sentiments ought to mean something still.
We haven't got everything right in our 119 years. Yes, our needs have
We chose to be more than lucky – we chose to be ambitious, courageous, generous and fair. And we chose to aspire to something significant – renowned of all the lands.
We need leadership of the calibre the federationists provided: courageous, articulate, persuasive, principles-based; experts in their craft.
changed and so have those of the world. Above all, we have a better understanding of our relationship with Indigenous Australians, their culture and their relationship with the land that began long before Europeans arrived.
Unhappily, it continues to be a work in progress even after all this time. I hope that a contemporary Henry Parkes (if we had one!) would still toast one people, one destiny and that we would make it real – for all of us and in all dimensions.
The harnessed steed
To make our country better than it is, maybe better even than the federationists imagined, we will need expertise and we will need leadership.
Whatever our differences, most of us would agree that we want our country to be unaccepting of intolerance, hostile to inequality, fair in our use and distribution of our resources, civil and civilised and dignified, and proud of what we do together, not only as Australians but as citizens of the world.
But just what is that world? Why should we not just look after ourselves and our patch?
Because we share a planet and our individual actions matter. That is crystal clear.
In 1977, a spacecraft set off from Cape Canaveral in the United States; its name was Voyager.
As the world looked on, it lifted from the launchpad, burst through the
atmosphere, and travelled on for 13 years.
Through the Cold War. Through the birth of the internet and the fall of the Berlin Wall.
Through famines, and recessions, and prime ministers, and presidents.
By Valentine's Day, 1990, it had come to the edge of the solar system, six billion kilometres from home; and the world's population had grown by more than 1 billion people since it left.
NASA commanded it to turn its cameras back towards Earth – and take our picture.
The image the Voyager captured became known as the Pale Blue Dot. And the great scientist Carl Sagan wrote the only words that needed to be said:
Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering... the [entire] history of our species lived there – on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam. Our posturings, our imagined selfimportance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves. … Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand. … There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known.
I think of those words when I turn on the television, and people are shouting across the Parliament – the people we employ to lead us, the ones we actually choose to represent us, behaving in a way we would not tolerate in our own small children.
At a critical time in world affairs, we need leadership of the calibre the federationists provided: courageous, articulate, persuasive, principles-based; experts in their craft and intent on building an enduring legacy to secure the nation for the coming generations.
We need people with vision and principles who can construct and use a narrative, leaders who can describe the sort of Australia they are intent on building and how their policies get us there; instead we get theatre underpinned by populism and dominated by self-interest masquerading as leadership.
Imagine how much better we could be.
A Manifesto for the future
I turn off the television and the shouting people behaving poorly. And I think about our planet, our home.
And I think of our small fraction of a fraction of one pixel in the images captured by Voyager, the bit we call Australia, the bit that we pledge to make renowned of all the lands. What do I see? What do we do?
FIRST, I see that we are a continent unlike any other. The driest inhabited continent with species and ecosystems that are unique. If we don't study them, treasure and sustain them, who will?
SECOND, I see that the planet is heating and so are we. The costs of global warming will be counted in things that matter to us: the Great Barrier Reef, agriculture, rural communities, coastal cities, water and energy supplies, health – and our ecosystem … to name just a few. I also see that we forever speak of the cost of doing something and rarely, if ever, the cost of doing nothing.
It is in our direct interest for the peoples of the world to change their behaviour and so it is in our interest to see the world led to the right place. As an American colleague once wrote: we have to avoid the unmanageable as we manage the unavoidable.
It is not the work of one country in isolation, but it does require strong leadership to yield a suitable collective and effective global response. We have a role – and it's not as the brake.
Given our vulnerable position, we should play a leading role in getting all nations to lift their game. It's in our direct – even selfish – national interest to do so. If we don't, or if governments around the world are not led to the wise decisions that need to be made, we had better prepare ourselves for the consequences of their inadequate responses; if we don't, who will?
THIRD, I see that our economy is heavily reliant on what we dig up and sell. There will come a time when the world won't want to buy what we've got, and if we don't create new jobs in new industries to carry us, then who will?
FOURTH, I see that the spread of artificial intelligence and automation is changing the world of work, and if we don't prepare our children and our communities to adapt, then who will?
FIFTH, I see that governments at all levels will be confronted by increasingly complex challenges requiring an understanding of ever more sophisticated scientific data, and if we don't bother to collect our data and manage it and use it for our benefit, then who will?
SIXTH, I see that all of us will be asked to grapple with almost unfathomable technologies rushing fast from the world of research into our lives.
Technologies that might allow us to edit the genetic profiles of our children, put cars with no drivers on the roads, passenger aircraft with no pilots, wipe whole species off the earth in the space of years. Technologies that will let us do more but won't tell us whether doing more is good or bad, right or wrong.
And if we don't take an interest and think in advance about how we harness chosen technologies for the common good (and not simply corporate profits) then who will?
SEVENTH, I see that many of the problems we now face aren't visible if we simply rely on what radio or television pundits tell us is “common sense”, or if we think that the only thing that matters is what I want, me, right now.
If we don't cast our minds forward a bit, to the way our words and choices might or might not build the Australia we would be pleased to bequeath to the coming generations, who will?
EIGHTH, I see that the world is facing many great challenges in health care that only collective action can solve – challenges like epidemics, pandemics, and complications from the spread of antibiotic resistant bacteria.
Think about all the people who have
We forever speak of the cost of doing something and rarely, if ever, the cost of doing nothing.
not died because antibiotics provided a vital line of defence. Think about the fact that the World Health Organisation is warning of a “global emergency” and that 700,000 people now die every year from drug-resistant infections – infections that a short time ago were readily treatable.
Think about all the times you didn't die – because you went to the doctor and you got the treatment.
And if our country doesn't rally, harnessing science to make our contribution, how can we expect others to do our share as well as their own?
And finally NINTH, I see that all of these things will generate concern, confusion, but also creativity, optimism, and appetite for change in the nations where people come together and decide that their dreams, and not their destiny, will define them.
Science for everyone
Science is a critical capability for our chosen future, a steed to be harnessed indeed, for the benefit of our Commonwealth and for its place in the world – as a constructive and respected global citizen that readily plays its part as we work to preserve and cherish that mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.
In our Commonwealth, science should always be part of everything we do.
Our defence. Our agriculture. Our mining. Our manufacturing. Our cities and regions and infrastructure. Our literature and culture and media.
But science is more than just smart people being smart. Science is ambitious, because it points us to the future, and gives us hope. Science is cooperative, because everyone might be trying to be the best, but the wise amongst us know that you only get to be the best with the help of others.
And science is patient, because scientists know that every great leap for humanity is really many tiny, stumbling steps, that only add up to something important with time.
We need to do our utmost to ensure that our science and our scientific expertise is ready to serve Australians, and the world, as we require it: constantly.
Would I rely on the market to pull
Every great leap for humanity is really many tiny, stumbling steps.
Science should always be part of everything we do. Our defence. Our agriculture. Our mining. Our manufacturing. Our cities and regions and infrastructure. Our literature and culture and media.
through all the skills we need, across all the scientific disciplines, and pay for the critical research, in the national interest?
No – because I would look at the data – and see that it doesn't.
Both performance and participation in science and advanced mathematics in schools have been in decline – notwithstanding sporadic calls for more from ‘the market'.
How can it be that students who were born after the internet, who grew up in a world of laptops and mobiles, healthy food, clean water, medicines and (relatively) painless dentistry are less likely than their parents to study science? And one people, one destiny?
There is a gap in educational attainment between children in the highest and the lowest income bracket; a gap between Indigenous and nonIndigenous students; between country kids and city kids. Intelligence isn't allocated by postcode, but it would appear that opportunity is.
How has it come to this?
The answer is simple: it happens because we let it happen. Our ‘leaders' have let it happen and we watch, or we turn our backs.
The Hard Choices of Future-building
We have to prepare our Commonwealth for the path ahead – what we want won't just happen along because we wish it. We have to build consciously, then nurture, expertise. We have to do it strategically, and at scale. We have to invest in ourselves: in education and in science.
We have to demand that of our governments, just as we demand that they keep the lights on and collect the bins. As a community we have to engage.
We have to make clear that in our representative democracy we expect real representation that gives soul and utterance to the aspirations of a people. Elections have to become a mean
ingful contest of ideas rather than cliché-ridden ritualistic smoochings based on negativism, vested interests and kissing babies. When they are, all
of us might vote and not just the ~88% who care to vote validly in a federal election. When they are, we might grow respect for the polity, perhaps even trust.
Imagine.
It is important that all of us leave school equipped to engage. And that means having at least a basic understanding of science.
Science is so fundamental to our prospects that we should all leave school with at least enough knowledge of science to know what it is, how it works and be able to distinguish it from snake oil. We should all know enough to take an interest in the way that science, mathematics and subsequent technologies will shape our lives for the better. Some of us should leave school with the preparation and the aspiration to study science at a higher level, across all the disciplines.
If we were engaged we would be alert to debates about what the future of our country could be or should be, and then expect an economy to be built to support that future; we would work backwards to the messages we need to send to our children. Other countries manage it, including western liberal democracies with which we are otherwise happy to compare ourselves: planned, strategic, determined.
When we look to the horizon, we would recognise that we need people who understand science to be starting companies, planning cities, working on farms, and teaching in schools.
We would support those students who have the drive to be practising scientists, because every modern nation needs experts. We would do them the courtesy of a strategic and forwardlooking national science policy, with bipartisan support, so that they could plan good careers in science in Australia.
They would be joined by smart people, from across the seas, who would look to Australia as everything we promise in the national anthem.
And we would welcome those people. We would honour them for choosing to be Australian.
We might even elect them to Parliament, if they get their paperwork sorted.
But if nothing else, we would strive to be better; to get better.
We would never accept that success simply means doing something.
We would rise to the challenge and develop a serious vision for the future of our country, with appropriately demanding policies to meet the complex challenges ahead. We would be inclined to vote for the best, not just ‘us' because we aren't ‘them'.
Expertise and leadership would combine, because that's how the world changes – by people willing to stand up and say what they believe, use their expertise and develop their evidence, build support and enact. People more concerned with what they do while they are in their job, rather than simply how to keep it.
As Carl Sagan wrote: If we continue to accumulate only power and not wisdom, we will surely destroy ourselves…if we become even slightly more violent, short sighted, ignorant, and selfish than we are now, almost certainly we will have no future.” That was in 1994!
When there is only political cunning and a pocketful of clichés, there is not much to fall back on when the challenges get complex. Power without wisdom.
Presuming that we want a future to enjoy, we need truly smart leaders who use their power wisely and for the common good.
One people. One destiny. Indeed.
One planet. One home. Imagine.