Heroes , Mates and Family How Tragedy Teaches Us About Being Australian

In his 2006 Australia Day address to the National Press Club in Canberra, the then prime minister, John Howard, told journalists that ‘people come to this country because they want to be Australians’. However, as Howard himself admitted, ‘The irony is that no institution or code lays down a test of Australianness’. So how can we know what it is to be Australian? One way is to look at the public statements the Howard made in the wake of tragedy and disaster during his decade as prime minister. These statements reinforce the key values of the Howard government: the role of family, the place of heroes and the importance of mateship. This article analyses the public reaction of the Howard during media coverage of events such as the Port Arthur shootings, the Bali bombings, the 2004 tsunami and the Beaconsfield mine rescue. It argues that Howard’s public responses to these tragedies reflect a move on hi part to recapture the cultural debate and define what it is to be an ‘Australian’.


television:theyfollowedhimtoralliesandmemorialsandrelayedhiswordstothe
Australian public.This intense media focus enhanced the role of the then prime ministerasthe'principalnationalopinionleaderandmobiliser'. 1 Coverage of 'media events' such as disasters disrupt the normal flow of news, particularly in broadcast media.Regular programs are suspended as media outletscross'live'tothesceneofthetragedy.Printmediawithaccesstoaudiences viaweb-pagesupdatenewsasitbreaks.Framingofthestoryacrossalloutletstends tobehomogenous.Reportingisrespectfulandreverential.Eyewitnessesarefound to tell the audience what happened and 'experts' quickly organised to explain the eventandgiveitcontext.These'experts'includepoliticalleaders.Failuretoprovide comment can be politically damaging, as former Opposition leader Mark Latham discoveredwhenhedelayedpubliclyreactingtothe2004BoxingDaytsunamiand was widely criticised despite later releasing a statement that revealed he had suffered from pancreatitis.At the same time, dissenting or 'deviant' voices are sidelined,asboxerAnthonyMundinediscoveredwhenheclaimedthatAmericawas partiallytoblamefortheattackontheWorldTradeCenteron11September2001. 2 In the immediate, spontaneous coverage of disasters, the media operates within what Hallin calls the sphere of consensus. 3Opinions are sought which promote reconciliation in an attempt to restore order and even though the media itself advocates for consensus, the coverage appears objective because of the very fact that it falls within the consensus sphere.Commentators such as the prime ministerwhospeakfromthecentreofthespherehavethehighestcredibility;those whospeakfromoutsidethespherehaveless.
Crossing'live'toJohnHowardduring'mediaevents'thatoccurredwhenhe was prime minister provided him with a platform to convey essentially unedited, unmediated messages to audiences who were trying to make sense of what happened.AnanalysisofHoward'sreactionsandpublicstatementstodisasterand tragedy over his time in office shows he used the platform to emphasise the conceptsoffamily,matesandheroes,orwhathedescribedasthe'basicsoflife'. 4 It showsthatheusedanddefinedthesetermstoportraythemaskeyfundamentalsof 'Australianess', entwining them and linking them to meta-narratives of national identity to construct a framework that helped him direct the news agenda and influence the public debate about Australian values.In doing so, his references to family, mates and heroes, and national identity at times of crisis teleologically propelled Australian society through more than a decade of marked social and politicalchange.Forty-eightdayslater,MartinBryantshotdeadthirty-fivepeopleatPortArthur,in Tasmania.It was, as the new prime minster said, a shocking and tragic event.

JohnHowardwaswidelyknowntoadlib
Parliament was convened and in a speech to the House of Representatives, the Prime Minister sought to have members extend their deepest sympathy to the families and friends of those killed and injured and the Speaker convey this resolutionandsincerewishestothosefamiliesaffectedbytheenormoustragedy: There can be few things in life more innocent than a pleasant Sunday afternooninaremote,isolatedareaofthiscountry.Tothinkthatviolence ofthismagnitudecouldbevisiteduponsuchinnocentbehaviourandinso many instances on people who were living in the older and twilight periodsoftheirlivesissomethingquiteshockinginitsdimension. 7anewsconferencethedayaftertheshooting,Howardannouncedhisintentionto tighten gun laws to prevent Australia going 'willy-nilly down the American path of The family is our society's moral and social anchor, providing us with strength and hope.Those who might be tempted to take for granted the comfort and joy provided by our families cannot help but reflect upon whatistrulyimportantinourlivesasaresultofPortArthur. 9 ThisfocusonfamilyasacoreAustralianvaluereflectedHoward'sownstrongfamily ties.Photos of his own children and his wife, Janette, were featured on his ministerial website and when he first came to office he refused to relocate to CanberraonthebasisthathischildrenwerefinishingschoolinSydneyandhiswife had close friends and family there.Indeed, Howard didn't move out of his own childhood home until he was in his thirties, living with his mother who had raised himandhisbrothersaloneafterhisfatherdiedwhenHowardwasateenager.Inthe 1950s,ayoungJohnHowardappearedontheHaveaGoradioquiz.Archivalaudio revealshimtellingthehostJackDaveythathehascomewithhisbrotherandsisterin-law, who are in the audience, with the aim of winning his mother a washing machine to make her life easier.(He eventually leaves with 100 bars of soap.) 10 Howard is in demographic terms a traditionalist, and his attitude to family is symptomaticofgrowingupinthepostwarMenziesyears.Itwas,asGeoffreyBolton notes, a period of modernity and familism, when 'material security for home and family was accepted in mainstream political debate as the great goal of Australian society'. 11It was a time when family provided the basis of social organisation for many Australians, revolving as it did around both the immediate household and widerkinship,andencouragingupwardsocialmobility.But we're still wary of politicians making mileage of such events … his speech at the memorial service in Parliament's Great Hall after the Bali Bombingwas…magnificant.Unscripted,simple,powerful. 20 his book The Power of Speech: Australian Prime Ministers Defining the National Image,JamesCurrannotesthearticulationofAustralianidentitythroughideasand languageisnothaphazardoradhocbut'anattempttousealanguagethatleaders feel best helps them connect to the hearts and minds of the people they seek to represent'. 21As mentioned earlier, Howard eschewed speech writers to position himself as speaking authentically to middle Australia, or 'ordinary' Australians or battlers like himself, and offering practical, no nonsense reactions to disaster and tragedy.But as Catherine Lumby noted at the time, while 'some of our most powerful conservative politicians including the prime minister have moved onto plain English, they are using it as a Trojan horse, as a device for manipulating and dividingpublicdebate'. 22he hallmark of this political 'plain speaking' is a claim to be speaking common sense.The act of communicating (and, implicitly, running a country) is framed as a simple and transparent process where there's no roomfordisagreementaboutwhatkeytermslike'Australian'or'normal' mightmean. 23mby adds that anyone who tries to challenge these terms is marginalised and labelled as being 'out of touch with the real world'. 24John Howard's use of plainly spokenreferencesintimesofcrisistofamily,matesandheroeshelpedconstructan Australian identity which he described as common sense and without debate.His approach was aided by the media framing of his reactions.Consequently, anyone whotried'tounnecessarilycomplicatetheobvious[such]asintellectuals,elites,or special interest groups' 25 was seen to speak from outside the sphere of consensus and to lack credibility.This allowed John Howard to construct a contemporary Australian national identity and, as Nairn asserts, nations that share a sense of nationalismcanpushforwardtowardacommongoal. 26ringtheHowardGovernment'sterminoffice,Australiaunderwentquite radical economic, political, social and cultural change.As David McKnight told the SydneyInstituteinaspeechmarkingtenyearsoftheHowardGovernment,itwasa decade during which the government sought to address all kinds of economic and social issues through a combination of individualism, competition and free markets. 27It was a period, as Brian Loughnane, the federal director of the Liberal Party,toldtheHudsonInstituteinWashington,markedbyanextensiveandcritical shiftinsocialpolicyandlabourreform. 28mily,matesandheroesmayseemlikecommonsense,plain-Englishterms, buthowtheyareunderstood,howtheyareusedandwhotheyareappliedtoisat theheartofunderstandinghowJohnHowardcontrolledthedebateaboutAustralian valuesandnationalidentityandhowheusedthemtopropelthecountrythrougha decadeofsocial,politicalandeconomicchange.Whilethetermsfamily,matesand heroes, as defined by Howard, applied, for example, to the victims of disaster and tragedy, to their families and friends and the individuals and groups who were involvedinoperationssuchasrescuesandcommemorationservices,theywerenot applicable to other situations.They could not, for example, be ascribed to young menfromthewesternsuburbsofSydneywhowenttohelpbrothersandfriendson the beaches of the Sutherland Shire during the 2005 Cronulla riots, or to migrants whoarrivedillegallyandweresentwiththeiryoungchildrentodetentioncentres, or to provocative religious leaders who looked outside Australia for inspiration.
-SarahGillmanisaPhDCandidateintheSchoolofCommunicationattheUniversity ofSouthAustralia.Herthesisexplorestheimpactofcelebrityonnewscoverageof traumatic events.Her previous published work researched talkback radio, and changes to news values and reporting.She is currently working in mainstream media after teaching in tertiary media and journalism programs.<gilsj006@students.unisa.edu.au> ,tospeakoffthecuffandfromdot pointsand,unlikehispredecessorssuchasPaulKeating,heminimisedrelianceon professionally written speeches.In her article, 'In the Beginning was the Word', journalistMargaretSimonswrotethat'JohnHoward'sofficesaysnobodywriteshis speechesforhim.Hetalkstohisadviserstogatherfactsbuteitherspeakswithouta script or writes his speeches himself.' 5 It is something that the former prime minister regarded as a positive trait.In an interview with political correspondent MichelleGrattanhesaid,'Idon'thavetodevotethesehugechunksoftimetogoing throughspeechesthatpeoplehavepreparedforme'. 6Thisapproach,practicallyand strategically, helped to convey the impression that Howard's reactions during 'mediaevents'werespontaneousandpersonal.JohnWinstonHowardtookofficeasPrimeMinisterofAustraliaon11March 1996, after winning a landslide election against a Labor Party led by Paul Keating.
gunuseandviolence'. 8Thiswasnot,hesaid,somethingthatbelongedinAustralian culture.It was during the gun-control campaign that John Howard got to know pharmacist Walter Mikac, who had lost his wife and two daughters at Port Arthur.Mikac became the human face of the gun debate and Howard was subsequently involvedintheformationoftheAlannahandMadeleineFoundation,establishedin memoryofthetwoyoungMikacgirls.JohnHowarddescribedWalterMikac'slossas a metaphor for the shootings and symbolic of the attack on ordinary Australians enjoying family life.He wrote the forward to Mikac's book To Have and To Hold, pointingtotheimportanceoffamilyinAustraliansociety: described as the simple pleasures of Australian life.In response to the 2002 Bali bombings, for example, he told Parliament that it would 'be counted as a day on whichevilstruckwithindiscriminateandindescribablesavagery,youngAustralians whowereengaginginanunderstandableperiodofrelaxation'.12Manyofuswillfeelapoignancyofthisattackcoincidingwiththeendof thefootballseasoninAustralia.Somanyoftheyoungpeopleinthatclub that night were members of Australian rules teams, rugby league teams andrugbyunionteams.Theywerehavingabitoffunattheendofahard season.13At a commemorative service the following year in Bali Howard told journalists he was moved to tears when he met families of victims of the bombings.Photos and television footage show him making an impromptu visit to Kuta Beach to join a surfersmemorialservice,'walkingbarefootinslacksandanopenneckedshirtwith asprigofwattlepinnedtohispocket,speakingwithmembersofthecrowd'.14 John Howard also referred to this loss of family in most of the public responses he made during the Beaconsfield Mine Rescue in April and May 2006.When news came through that miner Larry Knight had been found dead, Howard told the media the weight of the loss on his family must be unbearable.A public receptionatParliamentHouseinCanberrawasheldforrescuedminersBrantWebb andToddRussell,theirfamiliesandothersinvolvedintherescue,andinhisspeech Howardtoldtheaudiencethathewasstruckbythetwominers'remarksabouttheir families,aboutplayingfootballwiththeirchildrenandwritingmessagestothemon theirarms.Heconcluded,'inthesimplewordsIthinkthosetwomenresonatedwith theparents,andinparticularthefathersofAustralia,inawaythatIdon'tthinktwo menhaveeverquitebeenabletodo'.15JohnHoward isa fourth-generationAustralian of Anglo-Celtic ancestry.His grandfather and father fought in World War I. His family ran a small business in suburbanSydneywhereateenageHowardworked.Asnoted,hisfatherdiedwhen Howardwasinhisteens.VariousbiographicalnotesshowthatHowardwaskeenon football,cricketanddebatingatschoolandwasamemberoftheAirTrainingCorps atCanterburyBoysHighSchoolduringthe1950s.HewonascholarshiptoSydney University to study law and later became a solicitor before entering Federal ParliamentasthememberforBennelongin1974.Heismarriedwiththreechildren.Howard's repeated references to family at times of crisis and his emphasis onspecificfeaturessuchassportandhardworkrevealedhowdeeplyhisideology and discourse about what it was to be Australian were anchored in his own biography.HisownexperiencesofgrowingupinAustraliaandbeinganAustralianwere echoed in his reactions to disasters and tragedies, and were conveyed to viewers, listeners and readers during homogenous and consensual coverage of 'media events'.Via a process of interpellation, Howard hailed an 'Australian' audience which mirrored himself, from a stage where there were few if any dissentingvoicestochallengethereflection.Interestingly,hedidnotrefertospecific historicalorcontemporaryheroicindividualswhocouldbeheldupasrolemodels toevokenationalsentiment;instead,hisdiscoursewasdominatedbyreferencesto 'ordinary'Australians.AsDuncanS.A.Bellstates: questions of personal and collective identity are fundamental in any attempt to grasp the dynamics of nationalism.To recognise oneself as a member of a particular nation-indeed to feel a powerful sense of belonging-andtoberecognisedbyothersassuch,isaperquisiteforthe formation of the inside/outside, self/other, us/them boundaries that definethetopographyofnationalistsentimentandrhetoric.16John Howard's use, as prime minister, of collective nouns (fathers, parents, young people,sons,daughters,sisters,brothers)drewhisaudienceintothetextthrougha processofidentification.Hisrepeatedreferencestosport,celebrationsandfunafter hardseasonsandhardwork,pleasantSundayafternoonsintwilightyears,parents sendingtheirchildrenoffintotheworldandsoonworkedtoconstructapictureof an innocent Australia into which evil and indiscriminate savagery trespassed, threateningapurerwayoflife.Thisevilcouldbebothpersonifiedandabstract,but it underpinned a divide between 'us' as Australians reflected in John Howard's image and 'them' who were not.Over the Howard decade the term 'un-Australian' wasattachedtoanyonewhowasnot'us'andwhotriedtodebatethevaluesofJohn Howard'sAustralia.Theanalysisofhispublicreactiontodisasterandtragedyshows that he evoked these 'values', which include fairness, egalitarianism, honesty and hard-work, defining them as common sense and self-evident.His message was reinforced by the nature of his delivery (apparently spontaneous and spoken in plain English) and by the media's framing (homogenous, reverential and without contest).OftheBeaconsfieldminerescue,forexample,hesaid: Wesawguts,wesawresilience,wesawcourage,wesawstrengthandwe sawenormousendurance…everythingthatisgoodabouttheAustraliawe loveandtheAustraliawewanttopreserveandtheAustraliawewantto make better because these dramatic events remind us of the basics of life. 17 During rescue efforts, members of the Australian family were called on to work togetherasmates,where,accordingtoHoward,theydefinedthemselvesasheroes: ordinaryAustraliansgoingabouttheirdailyliveswhowerecalledtoassistintimes of crisis and respond with courage and professionalism, working together with differences of occupation and background, religion and political background put aside.AshesaidoftheThredbolandsliderescueworkers,theyworkedtogether'as friends, mates and comrades under great adversity hoping to assist Australians in desperatecircumstances'.18    I believe Australia's emergency services are the best in the world … and those marvellous orange uniforms are now becoming part and parcel of the Australian psyche.They are part of Australian folklore.You see them everywhere whether it's fires, the Thredbo disaster … wherever it may be.19This articulation of 'mates' and 'heroes' reinforced hegemonic discourses of Australian identity through the identification and promotion of virtues such as braveryandsacrificeasintrinsicnationalcharacteristics.ItreflectedHoward'sown understandingofthesetraitsbecausetheywereapplied(andwithmediaassistance shown to apply) to predominantly white men whose uniforms disguised their respectivebackgroundsandtransformedthemfromindividualsintotheanonymous grouporteamastheywentaboutperformingpotentiallydangerousphysicalwork.This discourse provided Howard with an enduring rhetorical link to historical events such as Anzac Day, which he used to shape particular narratives of what it wastobe'Australian'.OvertheperiodoftheHowardGovernmentthesenarrativeswerereinforced in acts of commemoration and acts of public mourning, such as those held for the victimsofPortArthur,theBaliandLondonbombingsandthe2004tsunami.Private and individual experiences thus became collective experiences as the unifying ritualsweremadeavailabletomuchwideraudiencesviamediacoverage.Justasa familycomestogetheratafuneral,sotheAustralianfamilywasseentobeunitedin a shared moment of grieving; 'media events' emerged from earlier 'media events' and once again the framing contributed to consensual social cognition.Features of the media coverage often included the national anthem and the Australian flag, which visually reinforced Howard's statements as he was shown, patriarch-like, with other mourners.Close-up media shots of grieving people, including Howard and his wife, blurred the boundary between public and private.Audiences were invited to become part of narratives that tapped into the commonly perpetuated mythsofwhowewereandwhatwevaluedasanation.AccordingtoBarthes,such myths are conveyed to an audience via the systematic organisation of signifiers around a set of connotations or meanings.John Howard's Australian audience decodedthesemythswithinitsownculturallylearnedunderstandingtoconstructa formof'Australian'nationalismwhichwasreflectedbacktotheminwhattheywere watching or reading.According to journalist Misha Schubert, Howard's success in touchingtherightnoteatthesetimeslayinrestraint: Peoplewanttheirleaderstospeaktothemandforthem,indifficulttimes.