Correspondence

A Maritime Identity

Sir: Michael Evans (November 2013) addressed the concept of an Australian maritime identity. He succinctly outlined the historical factors leading to where we now stand as a maritime nation but, I would suggest, the premise of the paper, that Australia might or should develop a maritime identity, is not viable.

It is not hard to develop a holistic national maritime strategy that addresses sovereignty, regional and trade security, alliances, changing spheres of influence and so on, after observing the strictures of Tsung Tzu, Clausewitz, Mahan, et al and incorporating relevant national psyches, predictions of global change and other factors of relevance. Whether such a strategy would be realistic or implementable would depend on those preparing it and the body politic. But that strategy certainly is not even a vague image of a maritime identity. At a micro level there have been a few “maritime identities” in Australia among the Torres Strait communities and some Aboriginal communities, but this is not translatable to the Australia of today.

A maritime identity must evolve from the whole Australian community—its history, activities, attitudes and its responses to external influences, encouraged by the polity that is generated by it. But I see today’s Australia as a highly urbanised, selfish, self-indulgent community with few ties to our past colonial development or harsh continental interior; living on a coastal fringe but not in tune with the marine environment. It has no coherent perspective on external or imported influences, perhaps due to our multiculturalism. Its principal preoccupation seems to be “What does the government owe me?” rather than “What can I give to my country?” and it seems pointedly to ignore economic issues such as affordability. The facile debate on political, economic or social issues well deserves giving our community the labels “Latte drinking” or “Chardonnay sipping” as some commentators have done. A marvellous example of our evolving society is the government-funded ABC, which is prepared to bite the hand that feeds it and ignore the public and national interest in its broadcasts so that its highly paid presenters and executives, without accountability, can play pseudo-intellectual games that satisfy their own biased ideologies.

A society such as this and the government it elects can never generate a maritime or any other type of identity of substance. I trust that I might be proven wrong.

Thomas R. de Voil
Nicholson, Vic

Robe River

Sir: Bruce Collier’s rather strange letter (December 2013) concerning Charles Copeman and the Robe River affair requires some corrections.

Charles Copeman, following the takeover of the Robe River Company by Peko-Wallsend early in 1986, found himself, as Managing Director of Peko, responsible for an iron ore operation which was losing money, losing customers, and facing inevitable closure. The operation was run by the unions, in close collaboration with the management of the day, without any interest in its profitability. After spending a couple of months uncovering the facts of the situation, Charles moved swiftly in sacking the entire Robe management and replacing it with experienced mining people from other Peko operations.

He found that a significant proportion of the existing staff at Robe were delighted at this long-delayed decision to end union control, and when the unions took all their members out on strike in retaliation, the remaining staff were able to maintain production at about 80 per cent of the rated output of the mine.

The IR club was incensed. Prime Minister Bob Hawke sought to persuade the Japanese customers to declare force majeure on deliveries but he was checkmated by the former West Australian premier Sir Charles Court, who used his extensive network of senior Japanese industry leaders to lobby successfully on behalf of Charles Copeman.

Although West Australian Premier Brian Burke used all his authority to try to bring Copeman down, he was thwarted by his inability to control the Legislative Council, and so he could not change the statute which gave Copeman some protection in his attempts to save Robe from closure.

The Robe River story is told in considerable detail by Charles Copeman and others in articles available on the H.R. Nicholls Society website.

Ray Evans
Newport, Vic

Same-Sex Marriage

Sir: Geoffrey Luck and John de Meyrick (December 2013) have shone valuable light into the mess various legislatures are making of the same-sex marriage campaigns around the world. What astonishes me is that a pseudo-government—properly a municipality—in the ACT should be posturing in the way it does.

For me, the whole argument raises one basic question: What value is added to Australian society by governments attempting to regulate marriage? I can understand governments seeking to register births and deaths for statistical purposes, but when a very large proportion of children are now born outside marriage, regulating marriage seems to be pointless as a function of government. It is legitimate for religious organisations to regulate marriage for their adherents according to their teachings; indeed strict adherence to those teachings might well strengthen the social role of religious practice. On the other hand, it is difficult to understand why other familial arrangements, de facto, same-sex or any other, cannot be managed by an ordinary common law contract.

As a footnote, from many years ago, traditional marriage in Papua New Guinea over many centuries prior to colonial rule saw marriage as a fundamentally natural function as we in the West used to—a commitment for life between a man and a woman for the begetting and raising of children. Of course, there were hiccups but not as many as we clever people in the West now take for granted.

Michael O’Connor
Gisborne, Vic

Sir: Is the Christian mindset in danger of becoming one pertaining to a victimised minority whose collective psyche elicits in the individual a propensity to be stridently self-righteous and given to fulminate against anyone and anything at variance with their belief system? Is this about Christian values? Judge not, that ye be not judged? Mind not the mote in the other’s eye, but see the beam in thine own? The Bible is full of sayings that Christians are in the habit of disregarding, even as they fulminate about the behaviour of others who do not, obviously, believe in the Bible.

Christians do not have a good track record of minding their own business. It appears that they still wish to have an influence on the political affairs of the nation, and impose their chosen morality and principles, such as they are, upon others of different faiths.

Jacob Jonker
Hobart, Tas

Sir: In Geoffrey Luck’s article he includes “cryptographer Alan Turing” in a list of people who were “accorded special treatment in their excision from the homosexual taboo”.

Turing was a mathematical and philosophical genius who broke the German Enigma code machine and, with his Bletchley Park colleagues, enabled the effective counter to the U-boat campaign which otherwise would have starved Britain.

In 1952 his residence was raided by police and he was arrested for homosexuality. He was forced to undergo chemical castration. In 1954 he committed suicide. Some special treatment!

Rawdon Dalrymple
via e-mail