Today’s events will inevitably be coloured by what happens tomorrow, especially the future of the bi-partisan commission on Indigenous Affairs touted by the PM and accepted by the Opposition Leader, but by any standards it was an historic day. And a day to reflect on history.
As a nation, if you don’t take responsibility for the dark eras and mistakes of the past, you can’t take pride in the achievements. Any operation on the body of history is fatal, and leaves only sordid, lifeless propagand behind.
I thought Kevin Rudd’s speech was a little lifeless itself, dipping liberally into cliche (and I think a sly reference to Barack Obama’s book The Audacity of Hope with his remark on the audacity of faith) and I found his manner a little off-putting. But, saying that, I don’t think we should vote for people based on their public-speaking ability alone. If we did, I’d have been lucky to get a 10th of the votes I did at the election.
Brendan Nelson surprised me with his speech, which seemed much more heartfelt and touching. Until he ran aground on his party’s recent policies. In trying to reconcile the spirit of today with the disgraceful actions of the Coalition over the last ten years, Nelson hit several sour notes. I think, and hope, that he did this out of some misguided belief that he had to unite the varying attitudes in his party and supporters, rather than cutting adrift a failed, bigoted and divisive party line that did a lot of harm and magnified further some pains that were already unimaginable.
Both the PM and the Opposition Leader managed to squeeze in a few ill-considered barbs across the table, that didn’t bode well for the future non-partisan commission.Despite this, at the end of the session, I had a lot more respect for Brendan Nelson than at the start, and more hope for Rudd. And I’m starting to hope that the more ridiculous vituperative and pointlessly adversarial style of parliamentary ‘debate’ we’ve been blighted with recently might lift, at least a bit. But that could just be a remnant of the day’s optimism. We’ll see what tomorrow brings.
I think the Speaker of the House was in tears at the end of the debate. There were a couple of audible sobs, and later he could be seen wiping his eyes. In spite of the occasional naff phrase; the odd piece of partisan taunting; and a small handful of backbenchers who seemed to participate with little grace, I was right there with the Speaker. And I hope this is the first step.
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