MICHAEL MULLINS’ TINY LETTER

A Bird on my Shoulder by Lucy Palmer (Allen & Unwin 2016) $29.99

Now she has recorded her own story. It is a gift not only for her own family but for anybody who has grieved – or is grieving – a loved one, which is effectively all of us. Its focus is meeting and marrying and – after only five years of marriage – grieving her partner Julian Thirlwall. 

To understand A Bird on my Shoulder, it's worth noting the difference between autobiography and memoir. Autobiography is a chronology of our life in a manner as objective as we can manage. A memoir, on the other hand, is a poignant and often humorous interpretation of an event or sequence of events that made us the person we are. It is the meaning we have found in our own lives through making sense of what has happened to us.

It's not surprising that Lucy has enjoyed a professional and personal friendship with Caroline Jones since working alongside her at the ABC nearly 30 years ago during the heyday of Caroline's radio program The Search for Meaning. Recently Caroline attended Lucy's book launch and wrote a review of the book in which she observed that 'like its author, the book has become [her] good friend'. That is testimony to the fact that – like our children – our story begins with us, but has a life of its own.

There is a depth – and indeed a sacred quality – to stories that come from the heart and have not been created merely for a commercial purpose. But that does not take away from the entertainment value of our stories that can use devices such as self-deprecation to offer insights into who we are. Lucy relates advice given to her by her best friend Mary-Louise during the early of her courtship with Julian in Port Moresby: 'You've got to get rid of that dress... It makes you look like a sofa.'

Lucy's story is at once grounded in the school of hard knocks and an openness to surprise. We get an insight into this when her superficially hard hearted father visits from England and unexpectedly bonds with Julian, even though their personalities could not be more different. Lucy observes later in the book: 'The people I have loved who have left this physical life have become a part of me; I carry them, embody them.'

Lucy has a certain self-awareness of these assets bequeathed to her, and is determined to use them to help her and her loved ones get ahead and work through life's adversities. The most difficult of these is the subject of the book. That is Julian's terminal cancer diagnosis just five years into their marriage, and the challenge to their young family of his slow physical and mental decline.

Always in command of the moment, Lucy is not one to be intimidated, even when she visits the 'unnatural scene' at the funeral home to see Julian's body. She senses 'life moving slowly in the presence of death', but also a certain quirkiness. Julian is lying in his coffin. adorned with clothes and accessories with his characteristic fastidiousness. Lucy gets it into her head that it's not quite right that they have him lying there with his shoes on. Mary-Louise is by her side and squeezes her arm. Lucy is 'transfixed by the absurdity of it all; the quietness, the awful piped music, the contrived stillness'.

It is as if the funeral directors' gaudy sideshow is actually a careful orchestration of deliberate inadequacy on their part that is meant to give strength to the grieving family. The effect is to put us in charge of the main game, to challenge us to find a determined peace in a space that for most people is beyond words. A Bird on my Shoulder is testimony to the fact that Lucy has a rare ability to match that peace with words.

- first published in Dialogue, print publication of W.N. Bull funeral directors

Last week I foreshadowed further discussion of the 'journalism of empathy', which Eureka Street has aimed to practise during my ten years as editor. I thought it was a term I'd invented, but it turns out that it's used in journalism schools, particularly in the US.  

Journalism academics recognise that many of the best fiction and non-fiction stories eschew hard facts and egocentricity in favour of imagining the world through other people's eyes.

Objectivity is really not what they're about. Journalists get paid for accurate reporting of events, and indeed there has been a number of journalistic fact checking initiatives in recent years. But that's not where it ends.

The news is produced for consumption in a human context by readers who often care deeply for the wellbeing of other people. Media consumers will turn off or react negatively when there is insensitive reporting. For some media it's a commercial decision, but for us it's a matter of mission.

We learned a lesson in our early days online when we were feeling our way and insensitively used the death of 'Crocodile Hunter' Steve Irwin to implicate him in the exploitation of animals for the entertainment of humans.

Over the years we have received many quality articles analysing the dynamics of national and international politics that have overlooked the human dimension. We've often declined or sent them back to the writers for revision. Our main interest in Australia's taking part in bombing missions in Syria, for example, is not whether we're likely to contribute to the 'taking out' of ISIS, but in how our actions affect civilians on the ground.

Obviously our approach has been affirmed by Pope Francis' resolute adoption of mercy as his modus operandi, which involves less emphasis on teaching doctrine in isolation from human need. It underlies our decision to give so much space to addressing the situation facing asylum seekers and how they are received by the countries that they hope will welcome them.  

I was also prompted to think about empathy by some recent political events, including the Abbott Government's decision to take 12,000 Syrian refugees in addition to the regular quota. Whether or not the motivation was political, it's actions that count. Which was indeed the case with the Immigration Minister's display of negative empathy in his joke about the precarious climate plight of Australia's friends who live in Pacific Island nations.

I won't be part of the future of Eureka Street but I know there will be continuity in its carrying out of its mission, largely because its direction over the past decade has been a function of our team as much as it has been from me as an individual. I like to think that the secret of our success is that we all like each other and our personal ambitions are modest. We are only to happy to share this with politicians from the parties that struggle to maintain unity.

The current members of our team are myself (editor 2006-15), Tim Kroenert (assistant editor 2007- and acting editor from Monday 21 September), Andrew Hamilton (consulting editor, 1991-), Fatima Measham (consulting editor 2015-). Past Eureka Street online team members are James Massola (2006-07) and Ray Cassin (2013-14).

After almost ten years, I'm into my final week as editor of Eureka Street. It's pleasing that we were successful in the Australasian Catholic Press Association 'industry' awards announced in Broome on Thursday evening, where we were named Best Online Publication and Publication of the Year for 2015. The images in the slide show on this page tell their own story.

But industry awards provide one judgment, and positive and negative reader reaction through article comments and direct communication can give more sobering feedback. Our readers rightly expect a lot of us and are often surprised to learn that our magazine staff currently adds up to roughly the equivalent of one full-time person.

These new pathways have encouraged readers to consume individual articles on the basis of merit and recommendations, rather than taking the magazine as a package. We are lucky to have writers such as Frank Brennan and Andrew Hamilton, whose names draw readers to our magazine. Increasingly this is also the case for some of our younger writers such as Ellena Savage, who started with us as an intern.

Today there is generally less loyalty to media mastheads than there used to be, although the enthusiastic and generous response to our Winter and Christmas raffles would seem to belie that reality. Our readers did not take to our early attempt to erect a paywall but, in addition to the raffles, have shown their willingness to support us through donations.

Finally it is our own judgment of our work that is perhaps the most important, certainly in light of Pope Francis' signature utterance 'Who am I to judge [others]?' Self-reflection that incorporates a process of 'discernment' of deeper and more fruitful realities is also an important part of the Ignatian or Jesuit tradition to which Eureka Street belongs.

Next week I will have some thoughts on the particular genre of people-centred journalism that we have arrived at after making a few mis-steps. I've come to see what we do as a departure from the Anglo-Saxon tradition of journalistic objectivity and have settled on the label 'journalism of empathy'.

The Norwegian Parliament has just ordered its $A1.15 trillion Sovereign Wealth Fund to divest from coal. This represents the largest single divestment from fossil fuels in human history, and our biggest sign yet that the age of coal is over and the financial case for investing in fossil fuels is likely to disintegrate.

'Investing in coal companies poses both a climate-related and economic risk,' said Svein Flaatten, a Conservative member of the parliamentary finance committee.

350.org Australia believes Norway’s decision sets a groundbreaking precedent that is likely to drive a major new wave of fossil fuel divestment. 'With coal prices at an all time low and renewables increasingly bullish, it’s no surprise that major investors like Norway are getting their money out of this damaging sector.'

Over 220 institutions, including the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, Stanford University and French Insurance megalith Axa, who’ve committed to divest from fossil fuels in the past 12 months.

In the past week, 350.org and the Australian Religious Response to Climate Change (ARCC) have both questioned why Australia is apparently blind to the rejection of coal elsewhere. They say that it makes no sense for Australia to double down on it and open up massive new coal mines, like those in the Galilee Basin.

The ARCC adds moral argument to the economics that triggered Norway’s decision. 'It is shameful for a relatively wealthy country to be putting forward targets below the offerings of other nations with comparable economies.'

The moral cost of inaction is clear from numerous studies such as the Australian Government Department of the Environment'sClimate Variability, Extremes and Change in the Western Tropical Pacific 2014 report, which details why the small island developing nations in our vicinity are among the most vulnerable to climate change.

The ARCC points out that coal and natural gas make up an unacceptably large proportion of our exports and that 95% of our energy consumption comes from fossil fuel sources when the OECD average is 81%. This, it says, should spur us on to more rapidly decarbonise our economy.

In a letter to the PM and the leader of the Opposition signed by religious leaders including the Anglican Primate and Uniting Church National Assembly President, ARCC described setting a reduction target comparable with that of other wealthy developed nations as a ‘moral imperative’. It specified that this should be 30% below 2000 levels by 2025, in line with the draft report issued by the Australian Government Climate Change Authority on 22 April.

Elsewhere in Eureka Street, John Warhurst characterises Australia as a once socially progressive nation that is now a laggard. For several decades around the time of Federation in 1901, Australia had an international reputation as a leader on issues such as votes for women, as well as other democratic reforms such as the secret ballot, and a living wage.

In this century, it is other countries such as Norway that are exercising decisive leadership. Nevertheless we will crash and burn economically and morally if we do not take take similar action.

During the week, Tony Abbott warned voters that Bill Shorten has his eye on their retirement savings: 'He regards your super as his piggy bank to break open whenever he needs money’.

For his part, the Labor leader claims to have his eye on superannuation concessions for the wealthy, which will soon cost the government more than the aged pension.

The truth is that funding required for both the aged pension for the poor and middle income earners, and super concessions for the wealthy, is ballooning, and each side of politics has a different plan to do something about it.

The Government revealed its aspirations in the 2014 Budget, when it unveiled a plan to increase the pension age to 70 and link increases to prices rather than wages, while declining to look for savings in superannuation concessions. These cost almost as much as the aged pension but are growing more rapidly and will overtake the cost of the pension within two years.

While the Government has freshly ruled out super tax changes beyond next year’s election, Labor has just announced it would bite the super concessions bullet and make two significant changes to the rules. Under a Labor Government, more people would be required to pay a higher tax rate on contributions, and the tax-free treatment of earnings would end.

This follows a consistent and blunt message from multiple sources: the financial system Inquiry, the tax discussion paper, Treasury secretary John Fraser, and respected economists. They all agree that the current concessions are unsustainable because they have become more like tax minimisation schemes than the savings incentives they were meant to be. In short, they are doing little to help ease reliance on the aged pension.

While it is always good for voters to be given a real choice in what the major parties are offering, the options need to be linked to solid policy thinking, and not merely so-called thought bubbles or captain’s calls, or even political imperatives. A comment from Liberal Senator Arthur Sinodinos seems to suggest that is exactly what the PM’s pledge to protect people’s piggy banks is about. He told Sky News: ‘It’s a strategic decision … I think it's really something that has come from the leadership.’

The Sinodinos comment is consistent with Shadow Treasurer Chris Bowen’s criticism that the Government too easily makes promises it can’t keep that are lacking solid policy foundation. 'They don't have the courage or ability to make and win cases for their policies during an election. Their preferred playbook is to spring surprises on the public after an election.'

If it had come from Government’s considerable policy making resources mentioned above, including its own financial system Inquiry, the PM’s message and rhetoric would be very different. Tony Abbott once praised the Nationals’ Barnaby Joyce as a 'uniquely gifted retail politician’, as if governing the country is about selling and not much more. More attention to wholesaling would help to get both pensions and super concessions on to a more sustainable footing.

Foreign aid is never popular, and it wasn’t going to come out on top in a federal budget that appears to have beendesigned to revive the Government’s political fortunes.

But we were not counting on Treasurer Joe Hockey announcing the largest ever cuts to aid in our history, given the aid budget had already been savaged in last year’s May budget and then in the mid-year (MYEFO) statement in December.

Last week's Budget stipulates an immediate $1 billion cut from the aid allocation, with a total of $3.7 billion being stripped over the next three years. The cuts will take Australia’s aid to the lowest levels in our nation’s history.

Some of our neighbours including Indonesia, Vietnam and Laos had their aid programs slashed by 40 per cent. But those with which we have refugee resettlement deals - PNG, Nauru and Cambodia – escaped with little or no reduction to their programs.

As a nation, we have demonstrated to the world that we have no shame when it comes to the treatment of asylum seekers. Now it’s as if the aid cuts are being worn as a badge of honour.

Joe Hockey talks about the ’targeted outcomes’ philosophy of the cuts, ‘build[iing] the prosperity and assist[ing] with poverty alleviation in our region’, in order to get ‘better bang for our buck in foreign aid'. But leading aid economist Stephen Howse arguesthe opposite: ‘The only way that you could get a 40 per cent cut in one year, is basically to kill off projects mid-stream. And, you know, that will be very damaging to the relationships, and it will also involve a huge waste of money.'

The emerging picture is that the cuts are profoundly inept and counter-productive, intended only for short-term political gain. Cambodia, one of the least successful aid programs survives, while others where the experts say there is ‘better bang’ are terminated. As Howes says of keeping the Cambodia allocation, 'it's clearly a political decision, rather than one based on performance'.

Others working in aid and development are equally bewildered. Micah Challenge head Ben Thurley points out that Australia 'has a growing economy worth $1.6 trillion and the sixth lowest debt in the world’ and therefore the cuts represent a ‘deeply ungenerous and short-sighted act’ that Caritas Australia CEO Paul O’Callaghan says will ‘weaken our global leadership role'.

If the foreign aid cuts are consistent with anything, it’s with the short-term political fix nature of the rest of the Budget. The needs of real people do not figure beyond what is necessary to secure their vote. At least big business is very disappointed at the lack of credibility of the Budget, and the incredulity they share with those in the aid and development sector might be enough to hold the government to account for a Budget that does not stand up to proper scrutiny.

Commentators suggest the Greens’ leadership transition from Christine Milne to Richard Di Natale (pictured) is a switch from hard-line ideology to political pragmatism.

Whatever the truth of this characterisation, both extremes miss the common good. One embraces principle that cannot be put into practice, while the other overlooks good public policy in order to get legislation through parliament.

The Greens have a chequered history in relation to the Catholic Church. Their social justice positions are very close to those of the Catholic Bishops, especially when compared with other parties. These include workplace relations and welcoming asylum seekers. Yet other policies such as education funding, religious freedom and euthansia, have often prompted bishops to warn Catholics against voting for the party.

If you look at the troubles of the Greens in recent years, they are not entirely dissimilar to those of the Catholic Church, in that fundamental values have been sacrificed at the altar of doctrinal purity and many supporters have felt let down.

The Greens’ foundational commitment was to protecting the environment, yet they have consistently sided with those they regard as environmental vandals in order to reject ‘green’ legislation they regarded as compromised. In 2009, they voted down the Rudd Government’s first emissions trading scheme. Then last year they declined to support the Abbott Government’s Budget bid to increase fuel excise because the extra revenue would not be directed towards public transport improvements.

In a similar vein, there is a self-defeating disregard for the hallmark Christian commandment to ‘love one another’ in the actions of Catholics who equate tolerance of fellow Catholics who are ‘unfaithful to the magisterium’ (i.e. the teaching authority of the Church). Those whom the ‘faithful’ Catholics want excluded include divorced and remarried, and GLBTI Catholics. These doctrinal hard-liners used to take solace from some of the statements of Pope Francis’ predecessors.    

But Francis has turned out to be the master politician, who has so far refused to change Church teaching but, at the same time, shown profound human acceptance of those whose lives do not outwardly conform to it, notably through his ‘Who am I to judge?’ mantra.  

The new Greens leader Di Natale has been pro-active in announcing that he is in the business of politics rather than doctrinal purity. He has said he will sit down with Tony Abbott and discuss the proposed fuel excise, with a view to striking a deal that is in the interest of the common good.

Previous Greens leaders have been fond of using judgmental rhetoric. They have somewhat foolishly referred to those in the high-level carbon emitting legacy industries as ‘polluters’. Perhaps Di Natale will give such counter-productive personal abuse a rest and even adopt Francis’ ‘Who am I to judge?’ attitude. This may give rise to some surprising turnarounds as we’ve witnessed on several fronts recently in moves of the ‘polluter’ AGL to switch from coal to solar energy.

In recent years I have judged the exuberance of the Anzac commemoration against the nonchalant attitude of the last Anzac Alec Campbell (pictured), who was quoted in the New York Times at the time of his death in 2002 at the age of 103:

I joined for adventure. There was not a great feeling of defending the Empire. I lived through it, somehow. I enjoyed some of it. I am not a philosopher. Gallipoli was Gallipoli.

In other words, it's what you make of it. Whatever!

Alec Campbell didn't make much of it. John Howard did, possibly because he saw it as helping to bond the nation in the wake of 9-11 and Tampa. Paul Keating didn't. He saw it as part of Howard's 'populist manipulation of Australia's best interests'. For Keating, Kokoda was more significant.

Entrepreneurs have been even more lyrical about our failure at Gallipoli, with Alan Bond calling the 1983 America's Cup win 'the greatest Australian victory since Gallipoli'. Such mis-statements have helped to build an emotional resonance in young Australians that has allowed Anzac Day to supplant Australia Day as the national day in the popular imagination.

To be fair to John Howard, he did acknowledge that Anzac, as we know it, is something that was made up. Or at least had little to do with the experience of the troops in 1915, whether they were stoic-in-adversity, or happy-go-lucky like Alec Campbell. Howard said in 2005: 'The original Anzacs could not have known at the time that their service would leave all Australians with another enduring legacy - our sense of self'. Arguably he was admitting that Alec Campbell's quest for nothing more than adventure was appropriated for an entirely different (conservative ideological) purpose.

In context, the New York Times' Campbell obituary had a slightly bemused tone in its explanation of Anzac: 'Gallipoli has been defined by writers and politicians in Australia and elsewhere as the moment that defined the national identity and character, even though it ended in withdrawal rather than victory.'

If it comes down to selecting an event or series of events that are worthy of commemoration because they define the nation, we need to pay more attention to historians than politicians.

Historians including the former Principal Historian at the Australian War Memorial Dr Peter Stanley argue that the frontier warsbetween black and white Australians during the first century of European settlement have more to say about the Australian nation than the Gallipoli landing. Politicians shun talk of this because they paint a picture of white Australians as violent and racist rather than heroic and virtuous.

Stanley is now the president of the non-profit association Honest History, where his colleague David Stephens uses the termAnzackery to encompass the destructive and even abusive effects of the jingoism associated with Anzac Day. Stephens argues that 'much Anzackery targets children, to the extent that their psychic health is at risk from a sentimental, misleading portrayal of war'.

As Anzac Day comes around every year, politicians and other promoters of Anzackery cite what are supposed to be our national characteristics, including mateship, courage, loyalty and fairness. In this context you do not hear mention of that other renowned identifier of the Australian character the bullshit detector. Something Alec Campbell appears not to have lacked.