Paul Kelly Question and Answer Discussion

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Q1: Nationalism versus multiculturalism – what approach should Australia take?

A1: I think one of John Howard’s great insights has been to recognise the rise of nationalism and patriotism; this has changed in my lifetime. There’s a much stronger sense now of Australian nationalism and national pride and we live in a part of the world where nationalism will be more important. Our tremendous achievement over the last 50 years has been to grow our country so that we are generally a diverse and multicultural society.

The way we proceed in the future is to integrate these two features. John Howard and Kevin Rudd both have the same policies on this - to continue with a strong immigration program on the basis of mutual obligation, rights and responsibilities. That is different to what other countries produce and a very good formula. I’m quite optimistic about our capacity to succeed.


Q2: What do you think of the role of the media as providing context and analysis?

A2: The media struggles with the new technology environment. There’s tremendous change and turbulence happening. “Short termism” is all important in today’s news, which is a distortion of life and the way we operate as human beings and the media does contribute to this. Fickleness is one of the problems.

The media is absolutely obsessed by tactics and doesn’t provide enough balance. It takes sides and accentuates the trends, which I think is not a good thing. It is also becoming more polemical and has more opinion than ever before. For example, in the case of global warming, which is an important issue, the job of the media is to be cool and enlightened and help the public understand the issues, that is, take a balanced and measured approach, rather than trying to compete with Al Gore. The media struggles with the new technology environment, just as the politicians struggle with it.


Q3: If you were sorting out Australian democracy, would you look more closely at the American system of democracy?

A3: No. I think there are a lot of problems and difficulties in our system and I don’t pretend to have the answer, but one thing I do know is that the answer is not America. For one thing, they don’t have compulsory voting, so only 25 to 50 per cent of the electorate ever votes.)

A second problem is their executive system. There’s no cabinet government in the US, it just doesn’t exist. Iraq demonstrates that the American executive arm is a shambles.
Thirdly, Congress is explicitly and implicitly corrupt. It’s one great deal-making operation. That is not a good way to run a country and it invites a lot of corruption.