MICHAEL MULLINS’ TINY LETTER

One of Kevin Rudd's key points of difference with Julia Gillard lies in his determination to project a business-friendly image for himself and the ALP, which may have something to do with his decision to dump former parliamentary secretary Andrew Leigh from the front bench. Although Leigh was a Gillard backer, he is a former ANU economist who is regarded as Australia's leading inequality expert and unsympathetic to the demands of big business on government.

Coincidentally he has just published a book targeting income inequality, Battlers and Billionaires: The Story of Inequality in Australia. In media interviews during the week, he pointed out that since the 1970s, 'we've seen the top 1 per cent double, we've seen about $400 billion shifted from the bottom 99 per cent to the top 1 per cent. CEO salaries have gone from an average of $1 million to $3 million in the top hundred firms, and we've seen stratospheric increase in consumption in the things the super-rich enjoy, like waterfront homes, Porches, Maseratis, even cocaine.'

When John Howard introduced WorkChoices in 2005, he argued that a prosperous business sector would produce more jobs and benefits for ordinary Australians. Leigh says that while inequality does boost economic growth and the nation's GDP, the increased wealth does not trickle down to those at the bottom to any significant extent. His view is that inequality is socially divisive and demands serious policy attention. 

Increasingly it is recognised as a public health issue, and that it demands a political response. Epidemiologist Robert Douglas ponders the political implications of our comparatively high levels of mental disorder, suicide, lack of trust, mortality, communal violence and teenage pregnancy. 'Could the preoccupation of the Coalition with deregulation of labour markets and market solutions make matters worse? And could the Australian Labor Party, with its traditional concern for equity and redistribution, make things better?'

Other epidemiologists have contributed to the debate, most notably Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett in their controversial 2009 popular academic work The Spirit Level: Why More Equal Societies Almost Always Do Better, which was based on a study of the top and bottom 20 per cent of income earners in 21 rich developed market economies. They found that 'bigger income differences lead to bigger social distances up and down the status hierarchy, increasing feelings of superiority and inferiority and adding to status competition and insecurity. Some of the causal links are known: the effects of chronic stress on the immune and cardiovascular system.'

While Leigh has some doubts about such arguments, he is certain 'we need a government that has means-tested social security, that invests disproportionately in improving the education of the most disadvantaged, and which rigorously tests social programs ... using randomised trials, rather than just say-so and ideology'.

Possibly inconvenient advice for a business-friendly prime minister.

When he was first prime minister, Kevin Rudd lost the support of the people when he put off legislation for a carbon emissions trading scheme. He'd shirked what he had identified as the 'greatest moral challenge of our time'. Facing that challenge was part of the mandate given to him by electors, who had also embraced Rudd's wider moral project, which included the apology to the Stolen Generations, the wind back of inhumane asylum seeker policies and the repeal of WorkChoices.

As we know, he was spooked by the Coalition's sudden populist change in direction on climate change, and lost his nerve. But three years later, he's back. Moral purpose has once again become part of the agenda, at least in the sense that he said in his statement on Thursday that he is 'resuming' with 'humility and honour' the task given to him by the Australian people in 2007. 

Commentary in the past week from Rudd supporter Maxine McKew suggests as much. She argues that, with regard to charting the course for the nation's future prosperity, Australians could well be ready for Rudd's 'moral dimension', and the burden-sharing and self-sacrifice that involves. 'The recent ready acceptance of a mandated levy to pay for the country's National Disability Insurance program suggests Australians are perfectly capable of signing on to sensible proposals that are seen to benefit the wider community.'

That is certainly consistent with the moral goodwill that was in evidence when the Australian people elected the Rudd Government in 2007. But it also belies the wisdom accepted by many political leaders that they must demonstrate a harsh attitude to asylum seekers or face an electoral rout in Western Sydney and elsewhere. 

This is reflected in an early clear signal of Rudd's new policy intentions. He told colleagues during the week that he would not 'lurch to the left' on asylum seekers. Subsequently, foreign minister Bob Carr was on message when he said on Lateline on Thursday that the situation has changed and most boat arrivals are now economic migrants rather than genuine asylum seekers. 

No doubt that is just what the voters of Western Sydney need to hear before deciding to give their Labor local members another chance. 

Significantly the 'change' has occurred in the interregnum between the two Rudd prime ministerships. Therefore it is possible to morally justify Rudd's 'lurch to the right on asylum seekers' now in a way that such a shift could not be sanctioned when Rudd criticised Gillard's apparent resolve to move in that direction on the night he lost office to her in June 2010.

Rudd skeptics such as the ABC's Scott Stephens regard the Rudd moral purpose narrative as a furphy. Time will tell whether he is right and Maxine McKew is wrong. 

There's a view, expressed byacademics and Mark Lathamalike, that Kevin Rudd's years in public life have been driven by a desire to create his own media celebrity.

His rise from backbencher to the ALP leadership in the five years to 2006 was facilitated by his sustained weekly presence on the high-rating 'Big Guns of Politics' segment on Channel 7's Sunrise. 

It was here that he was able to create 'a persona seen as ordinary, trustworthy and familiar to the point of intimacy'. But he lacked the ability to work with people behind the scenes to get things done for the ordinary Australians who regarded him as their 'mate'.

In the modern age of celebrity, public esteem has more to do with media construction than ability. It's questionable whether the winners of MasterChef and The Voice are as talented as we're led to believe. They are part of a long line of TV contests that gave us the rigged quiz shows of the 1950s.

Indeed there have been questions surrounding the legitimacy of Harrison Craig's victory in The Voice last week after the humble 18-year-old had overcome his stutter through singing and won over fans.

For example, on Thursday a desperate 2DayFM used a technicality to apply to the Federal Court for an order to restrain the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) from continuing its investigations into the 'royal prank' phone call that led to the suicide of nurse Jacintha Saldanha.

ACMA's preliminary findings suggest the radio station is in serious danger of losing its broadcast licence over the incident, but 2DayFM is claiming that ACMA is going beyond its remit. It seems the station considers it deserves its licence as long as ratings hold up, and listeners remained loyal to the station after the royal prank call.

Possibly Facebook's greatest disservice to the online community has been its 'like' button, which has become so ubiquitous that it has sanctioned superficial evaluation of individuals and their performances everywhere. I can 'like' or not 'like' a person or what they've produced without having to give a reason, let alone make an argument to justify my support or lack of support.

Collective likes or dislikes can and do have consequences for peoples lives, and they are often based on prejudice rather than rationality.

On Wednesday, ABC managing director Mark Scott (pictured) warned Senate Estimates that content diversity would suffer if the ABC was privatised. This follows the Victorian Liberal Party's recent revival of public discussion of selling the ABC and SBS to help retire public debt.

Diversity of content refers to program material that caters for those who might be called the 'media poor'. That includes audiences in rural and regional Australia, or with specialised cultural or educational interests that commercial media deem unprofitable.

The ABC has a charter obligation to serve these 'unloved' audiences, and to 'take account of the broadcasting services provided by the commercial and community sectors' by not duplicating what they offer.

Scott said accepting advertising 'fundamentally changes the nature of the content you create, the content you purchase and deliver and fundamentally it dilutes the impact and the quality of the broadcaster'.

But it's more than that. Maintaining the distinction between ABC and commercial content is just as fundamental, because the ABC's own efforts to compete with commercial media can undermine the diversity of its content. 

Yet ratings are a significant influence in ABC programming decisions, and their increasing prominence in the news affects the public's perception of whether the ABC is successful and should be maintained. Currently there is no comparably robust and prominent measure of the diversity of the content. 

If ABC and commercial media management use the same tool to measure the performance of their content, it follows that the programs are likely to become similar. A good case will emerge for selling the ABC because it is not focused on offering alternative non-commercial content.

Critics of the ABC have a point when they urge the removal of 'a government-funded goliath that is interfering with the market in the media landscape'. The ABC, they argue, 'has overstepped its raison d'être'.

In its early decades, it was usual to refer to the ABC as 'the National Service', with the implication that its programs were broadcast in the national interest. 'National' distinguished the ABC not from local broadcasters, but from the commercial stations whose legitimate business it was to maximise audiences and make a profit.

The future of media in Australia will be much different to what we know today, and if the ABC has a future, it will be about serving the common good rather than competing for audience share. 

Sorry Day has been on the calendar since 26 May 1998's first anniversary of the tabling in Federal Parliament of the Bringing them Home report. The report documented the forced removal of many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children from their families for much of the 20th century. The children who were removed have come to be known as the Stolen Generations.

There are a number of commemorative days that focus attention on the needs and rights of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians, such as National Close the Gap Day in March and Mabo Day on 3 June. Paradoxically Sorry Day is not one of them.

It is instead a day for non-indigenous Australians to dwell on themselves and their failures. To think about such important issues as how we can improve Indigenous health in this country is always a good thing. But actually it defeats the purpose of Sorry Day, which, if we are non-indigenous Australians, is all about us.

As an exercise in secular soul-searching, former Prime Minister Paul Keating's 1992 Redfern Speech does exactly what Sorry Day encourages all non-indigenous Australians to do. Its most memorable lines are not about Indigenous Australians at all, but the Europeans who stole their land, their children and their dignity.

We committed the murders.
We took the children from their mothers.
We practised discrimination and exclusion.
It was our ignorance and our prejudice.
And our failure to imagine these things being done to us. 

Keating says 'the plight of Aboriginal Australians affects us all'. By 'affects', he means that it penetrates not only our minds, but our hearts as well. So our action to improve the lives of Indigenous Australians is not based in ideology or something we think we should do to pay our dues. It's much deeper, something we want to do for the fulfilment of our own lives as well as those of Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders.

Importantly Keating implores non-indigenous Australians to acknowledge their guilt and then to quickly move on and 'see the things which must be done — the practical things'. Guilt on its own, he says 'is not a very constructive emotion' because 'what we need to do is open our hearts a bit'.

It is significant that Sorry Day comes at the beginning of Reconciliation Week, not the end. Timing and sequence are important. Those familiar with the Spiritual Exercises of St Ignatius will know that the First Week's dwelling on sinfulness is only a means to the end of making the person on retreat ready to be of service to others.

It's similar for National Reconciliation Week — Sorry Day is getting us ready to take whole-hearted constructive action that will help close the gap between Indigenous and non-indigenous Australians.

The week's news of actor Angelina Jolie's pre-emptive double mastectomy has shown that science can improve human wellbeing with the use of highly specialised surgical techniques. Jolie went through the operation in order to reduce her chances of contracting breast cancer from around 87 per cent to 5 per cent.

In recent days, we also heard that scientists have provedit is possible to increase our wellbeing by turning skin cells into embryos that can be used to create tissue cells for transplant operations. This act of human cloning would lead to the cure of a range of debilitating afflictions including Parkinson's disease, multiple sclerosis, heart disease and spinal cord injuries.

We can marvel at Jolie's short-term pain for long-term gain, and hope that we would have the courage to do likewise in comparable circumstances. But while hers was an entirely rational choice towards saving her life, there are instances where we would baulk at making a rational choice to save our life. 

An example might be eating human flesh in the absence of other food sources, which is considered taboo. The same can be said for human cloning. We could create a super race of human beings if we cloned intelligent people and sterilised imbeciles. But we wouldn't. There are certain actions that are considered uncivilised because to do them is to undermine civilisation and our collective human rights. 

Many would contend that it hardly undermines civilisation to simply reprogram human skin cells to become embryonic stem cells to produce tissue for transplants — especially if the rest of the embryo is is be destroyed — if the intention is to save human life or eliminate chronic suffering. It's said that the risks can be managed.

Others would argue that this is a form of NIMBYism that threatens what we all share in order to satisfy our own private needs, even if it is the ultimate need to save a life.

the cloning of human beings ... [for] tissue transplantation or for any other purpose whatsoever, cannot under any circumstances be justified or tolerated by any society, because it is a serious violation of fundamental human rights and is contrary to the principle of equality of human beings as it permits a eugenic and racist selection of the human race, it offends against human dignity and it requires experimentation on humans.

There is nothing wrong with the aspiration of eugenics to ensure desirable qualities in human beings, but not at the cost of our humanity. Angelina Jolie's use of science in such a courageous manner enhanced her dignity and inspired others to do likewise. But even judicious use of a cloning technique would threaten to undermine it.

Victims of church sexual abuse have suffered a setback, with reports that the NSW Victims Rights and Support Bill proposes a statute of limitations for people claiming compensation for violence including child abuse or sexual assault. Under the legislation, applications must be made within ten years of the act or, if the victim was a child when it occurred, within ten years after they turn 18.

The Catholic Church's Truth Justice and Healing Council issued a media release on Thursday urging the NSW Government to reconsider the change because of the special circumstances of sexual abuse victims.

The Council's CEO Francis Sullivan said that for many reasons, victims of childhood sexual abuse often do not report the crimes for many years, and that to place any time limit on disclosure 'seems like an inappropriate way to encourage victims to come forward'.

To come to terms with such a traumatic experience as sexual abuse — and to resolve to act — is a delicate process that is likely to be undermined if there is a clock ticking.

The victim may lack the psychological strength to meet the deadline for reporting the crime, and end up feeling worse as a result. Sometimes a church culture intimidates victims into remaining silent, and this has often led to adult victims waiting until their parents have died before reporting the crime. 

Pat Walsh, who worked with East Timor's Commission for Reception, Truth and Reconciliation (CAVR), wrotein Eureka Street last year that the CAVR was faced with similar challenges but opted to take a victim-friendly approach that 'informed every aspect of the CAVR's design, structure, operation and reporting'.

'Its enabling legislation required the Commission "to assist in restoring the dignity of victims" and it employed a number of strategies to achieve this. ... The centrepiece of this victim-friendly approach was listening to victims.'

Listening to victims involves waiting until they are able to speak. If they are forced to speak before they are ready, they may undermine the justice system by speaking half-truths or declining the opportunity to report the crime. It's often said justice delayed is justice denied. It can also be true that justice hastened is justice denied.

'Never see a need without doing something about it.' That is the principle which famously guided Australia's first saint Mary MacKillop. The 'seeing', and the resolve to act, are the primary drivers. Then comes the secondary task of working out where the necessary funding and resources will come from. 

The order and the timing are crucial, and it appears that is how the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) is evolving, ahead of this month's Federal Budget and the final legislative session of the current Parliament. The public is on board, and the politicians are acting while they can. 

It appears most Australians see the need for disability care and are prepared to accept the 0.5 per cent levy as the best way to commence the scheme as soon as possible. Whatever the politics, there has been decisive bipartisan recognition of the need, and commitment to act.

As a result, the quality of life for Australians living with disability is likely to improve substantially and without further delay.

Conceivably Labor has learned the lesson of what happens if we see a need and don't do something about it. We lose an opportunity to secure something that matters, and often the faith and trust of the team that supports us.

Politicians these days believe they can only act if and while the public sees the need. If this is the case, it is up to them to recognise the difference between real and spurious needs, and convince the public accordingly.

For example, we can view the 'need' to 'stop the boats' as a false need that obscures a deeper 'real' need to help refugees in situations of desperation. The politicians manipulate perceptions of need by politically expedient fear mongering instead of promoting public virtue that is linked to real need. Decades ago we were able to see and act on real need when boat people were arriving from Vietnam. 

It's regrettable that perceptions of need change over time, and sometimes quite quickly. This is often on the basis of fatigue or fashion, rather than any objective criteria such as new information. Scientists maintain that the real need to do something about climate change is more acute now than it was five years ago, yet it is effectively regarded as unnecessary and therefore off the political agenda.

A political agenda tied to real need is the only way to ensure a better society. Unfortunately it is difficult to find leaders that can see real need and successfully legislate to do something about it.

The Federal Government's $1.2 billion plan to lift the wages of aged care workers from July is in danger of collapsing. This is due to employer dissatisfaction with an increased role for unions, and frustration that the package falls short of the Productivity Commission's recommendations for aged care reform.

The ageing of the population will require the size of the notoriously underpaid workforce to treble by 2050, and the Labor Government is offering to contribute towards pay rises above the award wage. But the industry is unhappy with the condition that employers sign up to enterprise bargaining agreements, which is deemed necessary to ensure that employers do not pocket the funds. 

An industry body argues that the plan discriminates against the 65 per cent of the aged-care sector that are small and standalone providers, with nearly half the large Catholic component of the sector unlikely to sign up. But inaction that leads to failure to reach an agreement to secure the earmarked funds amounts to discrimination against one of the most vulnerable groups of the population.

What is often regarded as 'basic' nursing care is actually a demanding and complex role, dependent upon both an often unrecognised level of skill and discretion on the part of the worker. As Sydney University health educator Professor Mary Chiarella argues, these workers are invariably the ones who make or break the dignity of a person in aged care, by how sensitively they choose to perform their role.

Despite what those who don't do this work might think, it is not basic — it is extremely psychologically complex. Cleaning patients who are soiled with excreta, blood, or vomitus, who feel ashamed of themselves for being 'dirty' or for 'losing control, and restoring both their hygiene and their sense of self worth in the process, requires the highest order of skill.

Chiarella describes much of what nurses do as 'invisible', performing the most private of functions for a patient, such as washing genitalia. Nurses do things which have the potential to strip patients of their dignity, but most of the time they choose to enhance it. Managing sensitive issues to do with the body is not given the same status as a psychiatrist handling sensitive issues of the mind, because it is considered 'dirty' menial or domestic work.

It's time to step up negotiations. Wage increases for aged care workers should not be allowed to become yet another laudable but failed Gillard Government initiative that an incoming Coalition government refuses to countenance because of its stated commitment to fiscal responsibility.

The dignity of older Australians is not expendable. 

In a week of racist and xenophobic reaction to the Boston Marathon bombings, 2GB broadcaster Alan Jones said he believed foreign students were responsible.

In the US, there was a series of racist smears on innocent dark skinned individuals sighted close to the finish line. There was no factual basis to any of the imputations, but certain media commentators and editors simply exploited the hysteria of the moment to make a facile link between dark skin and foreignness, and terrorism.

For Australians who abhor racism, this was another example of other people's prejudice. We're not racist.But this week, John Oliver, host designate of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart in the US, begged to differ. Hetalked about the easy racism he observed during a recent visit to this country.

'Australia turns out to be a sensational place, albeit one of the most comfortably racist places I've ever been in. They've really settled into their intolerance like an old resentful slipper.'

The point he was making is that while signs of racism are a source of shame in the US, they're part of the culture in Australia. The difference between attitudes to racism in the two countries was highlighted in 2009 when the infamous 'Black Faces' skit on Australian television shocked visiting US crooner Harry Connick Jr. Australians simply did not understand what the fuss was about. 

Racism was embodied in the Australian Constitution in 1901, and it was officially mandated by the White Australia Policy. The policy was finally dismantled in 1973 but it remains in our psyche. This analysis may be simplistic but it does provide one explanation for why 'stopping the boats' has become a political imperative. Politicians know their electorate like Alan Jones knows his audience.

We asked a US friend of Eureka Street who frequently visits Australia what he made of John Oliver's comment on Australia's 'comfortable' racism. He said that he does see racism in the political discourse here.

'The language that both parties use to talk about immigration is simply stunning to me. We certainly have those elements in the US, too, but to have both major parties speaking in such similarly hostile, dog whistle terms ... I'm just not sure that could happen in the US.'

If we consider ourselves a society rather than a country of individuals, we need to own this racism. Moreover most Australians are racist or xenophobic without realising it. If ethnic jokes amuse us, it's because we ourselves are agents of racism and xenophobia.