COUNCIL OF AUSTRALIAN
HUMANIST SOCIETIES

Affiliated with the
International Humanist and Ethical Union, London

I don't believe in God because I don't believe in Mother Goose - Clarence Darrow

Presidential Addresses
Speech by the Hon. Bill Hayden (Governor-General of Australia 1989-96)
Australian Humanist of the Year Awards
Voluntary Euthanasia

Section 116 of the Australian Constitution:
The Commonwealth shall not make any law for establishing any religion, or for imposing any religious observance, or for prohibiting the free exercise of any religion, and no religious test shall be required as a qualification for any office or public trust under the Commonwealth.

My country is the world, and my religion is to do good - Thomas Paine

The Role of the Council of Australian Humanist Societies (CAHS) includes:

Member Societies

How did your MP vote on Voluntary Euthanasia?

This was a conscience vote on a Private Member's Bill introduced by Kevin Andrews, the Liberal member for Menzies, without the usual pattern of voting on party lines. The Bill was designed to override the recent unique Northern Territory legislation which permits voluntary euthanasia subject to certain safeguards - the Rights of the Terminally Ill Act 1995. A number of seriously ill people have demonstrated their sincere wish to die faster by travelling long distances in order to avail themselves of the opportunity to legally get medical assistance to terminate their lives peacefully.

Read further details of the campaign.

As shown below, the vote was carried, with those rather cruelly supporting the measure (and thus opposing voluntary euthanasia) generally doing so for religious reasons.

The highly vocal independent member, Pauline Hanson, chose not to vote on this issue.

The Bill was then sent to the Senate. It was eventually passed by that chamber late on 24 March 1997 (see Hansard, page 2077). The voting on the crucial Third Reading was as follows:

Humanists and others who believe in free choice may want to note the voting record of each parliamentarians as set out above. They may wish to take it into account when casting their votes in future Federal elections.

In the meantime supporters of voluntary euthanasia can work for the repeal of the Andrews Bill. They can call for a referendum on the subject. They can also lobby the six State Parliaments to pass legislation similar to that enacted in the Northern Territory - the Federal Parliament cannot override State legislation in the way it can override Territory legislation. Even if only one State moved in this way then this would be a great step forward.

Another possibility might be to get one of the smaller Pacific nations to legislate. After all, places such as the Cook Islands do not seem adverse to defeating the wishes of other countries by acting as tax havens. How about creating a "voluntary euthanasia haven" as well?

Just for the Record - Extracts from Addresses to past Australian Humanists Conventions

A recent television program featured an angry young girl, a student in an American primary school, saying with all the fervour of a typical religious zealot: "God hates homosexuals and I hate what God hates."

This simplistic statement was made with great conviction, but its naivety is mind-boggling. It begged many questions of which she seemed totally oblivious: Is there a god? If there is, then how do we know that there is? How could we possibly know what he or she really hates? If a god is all powerful, then why did that god create people which he or she hates? And, in any case, why should we assume that we have to share such an irrational hate?

At another level, what should we think of the ethics of parents who brainwash a child in this way?

Little wonder that extremists who believe that "abortion is killing" see nothing wrong in themselves murdering in cold blood not only public-spirited doctors who perform such medical services but also other persons who happen to be in the vicinity.

However, nothing should surprise us in a country which turns a murder trial involving a sporting figure into a virtual industry and in which even a liberal President forces out of office a Surgeon-General for daring suggest that masturbation might be mentioned in schools.

Of course, the primitive fundamentalist Christian beliefs prevalent in middle America, while surprising in a modern Western country and astonishing in a scientific age, are relatively harmless when compared to happenings elsewhere.

Of considerably greater concern must be the rise of Islamic fundamentalism, which probably poses a much greater threat to civilisation than fascism and communism ever did.

Consider the recent terrorist incident over Paris. What hope is there when extremists who, when they are about to blow up an aircraft full of innocent people as a political gesture, actually go to the trouble of handing out scarves to the female passengers so that these can cover their heads as they die?

Even more disturbing was the case in Pakistan in which a 13-year-old illiterate boy from a Christian village was ordered to be hanged for blasphemy. When this verdict and sentence were reversed on appeal a hostile crowd of 5000 chanted an intention to kill the accused person anyway - as well as a proposal to kill the judges, the defence lawyers and even Christians in general.

Fanatics of all types are always dangerous. Religious zealots seem doubly dangerous. If this is what they wish to do to fellow believers in a god then the lives of non-believers must be at even greater risk.

Freedom of speech, freedom of expression and freedom of religion should be regarded as fundamental human rights. It is absurd in this day and age to treat blasphemy as a crime at all, let alone as a capital crime.

At the most the alleged offender in this case should have received a small fine for writing graffiti on a wall - although even that seems rather inappropriate for an accused who cannot read or write.

The international community cannot afford to let outrageous incidents of this type go unchallenged. If a country insists on having Draconian laws on its books and if it chooses not to control its citizens from inciting hatred and promising the murder of innocent persons then that country needs to be treated as a pariah and effectively denied the benefits of being part of the civilised world.

PRESIDENTIAL MESSAGE - EASTER 1994

The aim of making Australia a "clever country" seems to have universal acceptance, yet the education system has many weaknesses.

Students can leave school without the ability to produce understandable written material, without knowledge of how the Australian political system works, and even without the skills necessary to become intelligent consumers or investors. They graduate into the workforce ignorant of even the basic elements of the legal system and the taxation system.

It is little wonder then that the teaching of comparative religion has been given a low priority in Australia. The general public is probably unaware that such a subject could even be taught in schools.

Perhaps Humanists should give a much greater priority to getting that concept widely accepted by parents and teachers than to producing their own specific teaching materials for students.

Most people seem quite happy to follow the religious beliefs of their fathers unquestioningly. Blind faith and dogma are much more comfortable than having to think for oneself and make logical choices. Giving high-sounding labels to things helps to disguise ignorance. Meaningless concepts such as "saving souls", a "life hereafter", "forgiveness of sins" and "the day of resurrection" abound. Black magic items - for example, the virgin birth and transubstantiation - obviously has some appeal. There are even people in this country who feel that creationism is a sounder scientific theory than evolution.

It is said that the Holy Roman Empire was neither "holy" nor "Roman" nor an "empire". The oft-used phrase "Christian education" is a similar contradiction of terms.

To any rational thinker, the scientific attitude has great appeal. Under such an approach it is quite impossible to ever prove anything; the best that one can do is to put forward a plausible hypothesis and then test it as thoroughly as possible. If the particular theory is disproved then one has to start again with a better hypothesis, and thus slowly advance human knowledge in small, gradual stages.

It is really quite astonishing that in a modern society such as Australia superstition still prevails - buildings without a 13th floor and magazine columns featuring astrological guidance abound. In a massive irony there are even computer programs - science at its best - to allow the preparation of horoscopes! People still get conned into losing large sums of money by mystics who offer to "bless" them.

Having a scientific attitude - as distinct from relying on authority from up high - would allow people to think rationally about many contemporary issues, such as the right to free speech or discrimination against homosexuality. It might even allow some tidying up of the statute book - for example, in regard to "crimes" such as blasphemy. Perhaps our mistake as a nation has been to leave education to the educationalists.

PRESIDENTIAL MESSAGE - EASTER 1993

One of the sad features of blind faith and in particular of the beliefs of the various fundamentalist sects is the propensity to slaughter.

The frequent killing and maiming even of innocent children seems a worrying part of these excesses being committed in the name of organised religion.

Contemporary examples include the bloody battles between Serbs, Croats and Muslims in Yugoslavia and the bombing activities of the Irish Republican Army in the United Kingdom.

On a smaller scale are the burning of temples by religious fanatics in India and the exploding of an incendiary device in a major New York building by Muslim terrorists.

The religious leaders in Iran are actively inciting the murder of an internationally-acclaimed author by offering a large monetary reward.

The battles between Jews and Arabs and between the Iraqi authorities and the Kurdish minority in their own country can give no joy to any rational thinker.

In another strange incident in the United States at the time of writing the leader of one of many odd religious cults in that country is prejudicing the lives of his followers and others in the course of a lengthy siege.

Often a curious double standard prevails, as when an enthusiast for the so-called "right to life" of unborn babies sees nothing wrong with himself assassinating an American doctor who supports the termination of his patients' pregnancies within the law.

Fortunately Australia has so far been relatively free from such disturbing problems. Some religious zealots have managed to get themselves elected to the Upper House of the biggest State and there are some anti-libertarian political moves in other places, such as the current pressure to ban x-rated videos in Canberra.

However, by international standards Australia is indeed the lucky country. Notwithstanding this, eternal vigilance by all believers in a scientific attitude is as necessary as ever in this part of the world.

PRESIDENTIAL MESSAGE - EASTER 1992

Sadly, Australia is currently in the midst of a severe recession.

Unemployment is at a quite unacceptable level, bringing with it financial hardship and emotional trauma.

Yet the politicians who collectively caused this mess, far from seeking to rectify the problem or even to discuss it meaningfully, focus instead on relatively minor issues, such as the design of the Australian flag.

They try to divert the attention of the electorate by raising cosmetic questions, such as: "Should Australia become a republic?"

The correct answer may well be "yes", but the priorities of those who raise it leave a lot to be desired. Even in the context of constitutional reform generally, other topics - such as the abolition of the States - are much more worthy of early detailed attention.

This said, it is pleasing to note that the Republican Party of Australia starts its "Statement of Principles and Values" as follows:

"We are committed to the application of reason and science to the understanding of the universe and to the solving of human problems."

Less impressive are the actions of the religious bigots who protest against the ordination of women - a minor issue - but not against the major outrages being conducted in the name of religion - for example, the IRA bombing of innocent women and children in London, or even the incitement to the murder of a well-known author by Islamic fundamentalists.

The "ordination of women" question also raises another matter of concern. The tying up of Australian courts in attempts to solve the internal problems of what is really a private club constitutes a crass waste of scarce resources. The queues of people wanting justice from the courts in cases involving much more important issues are already tragically long.

Another case which involves the rights of women and which has religious overtones surfaced recently. An unsuccessful attempt was made to force a municipality to introduce in its public baths sessions confined exclusively to women - partly for the benefit of Islamic women who wanted this exclusivity for reasons connected with their superstitious beliefs.

It seemed quite illogical that some of those who had fought hard for the adoption of anti-discrimination legislation in earlier times should then agitate for a specific act of discrimination affecting a community-owned resource.

They might have been better off working for the repeal of the whole expensive legislation, which is just one more example of how the nation's resources are being devoted to cosmetic trivia instead of to significant real issues.

PRESIDENTIAL MESSAGE - EASTER 1991

The struggle to get Humanist ideals across to the community is ever with us. Census figures and our own practical experiences both show us that in this age of reason Australia is no longer a Christian country - but the myth that it is goes on.

One illustration for this is in the use of language. Biblical expressions abound - for example, the wisdom of Solomon, the writing on the wall, manna from heaven, a fly in the ointment, or the salt of the earth. Every day references are made to separating the sheep from the goats, killing the fatted calf, turning the other cheek, raising Cain, being on the road to Damascus or being a doubting Thomas.

The tradition of linking morality to religion has its price - a decline in faith leads to a fall in ethical standards. In Tasmania a company director has been sent to gaol for attempting to bribe a politician. In Victoria we have the hypocrisy of a bankrupt who diverted millions of dollars of public shareholders' funds into his private companies still going around giving, for a huge fee, lectures on how to manage a business.

Another appalling phenomenon of these modern times should be mentioned - the astonishing decline in business ethics. For example, an old-established major bank has recently been revealed as taking margins to which, according to its own legal advisers, it had no legal or moral entitlement.

Worse still, that bank engaged in "deal-switching", a practice by which it juggled each day's transaction results in relation to a particular product, placing its clients' profits in its own account and its own losses in its clients' accounts!

The bank's board is showing no contrition whatsoever for these acts. Its only interest to date has been in hushing them up. If customers can no longer trust their bank, can they really trust anybody?

On a different issue, our education system has failed to deliver in many ways. Students are emerging with little skills in basic issues which they will encounter in adult life - issues such as writing good English, coping with credit cards, exercising their rights as consumers, using the Ombudsman or planning for retirement.

An example of the lack of sophistication resulting from this is the typical inquiry by investors to a financial institution in which they hold money, "Are you all right? Is our money still safe?" It should be obvious that no organisation can possibly give an independent assessment of itself.

Furthermore, organisations which have failed in recent times - whether through dishonesty or inefficiency - usually kept on taking new money right up to the moment of closing their doors for the last time. The least likely thing which they would have done would have been to precipitate their own demise by replying "No!" to such naive queries.

Of course, expecting an impartial assessment from a business competitor would be equally unrealistic. For one thing, the necessary inside knowledge would clearly be lacking. But even if it were not then for understandable commercial reasons the standard reaction would normally be to the effect that the inquirer's money would probably be safer with the institution being consulted - whether that was so or not.

Turning to a different subject, the courts are now awarding - albeit in a limited number of cases - costs to persons acquitted of criminal charges. It would seem axiomatic to any rational thinker that a person found not guilty should not be out of pocket just because the community erroneously suspected him or her of committing some offence. If that person was held in gaol pending a hearing then the argument in favour of some monetary adjustment is even stronger.

Yet the Victoria Police is on record as holding the view that costs should be awarded only in cases where the court is satisfied that the prosecution was brought in bad faith. One would have thought that such cases should entitle the unfortunate victim to substantial damages, rather than mere costs.

Even more worthy of substantial compensation are persons wrongly jailed for long periods - such as the Birmingham Six in England. Money alone hardly seems appropriate in such cases. Perhaps the British authorities should use some lateral thinking and also give them life peerages. This would then automatically give them speaking rights in the House of Lords. Their experiences would undoubtedly enhance parliamentary debates.

Another area where lateral thinking seems called for is the Middle East. For example, perhaps Iraq could now be divided into five parts - one being the area around Baghdad, another (in the North) an area for the Kurds to have an independent nation and another (in the South) an area for the Shi'ites to have an independent nation. A fourth area, with oil wells, could be ceded to Kuwait as reparations for the damage in that country. The fifth area could be given to the Palestinians as a homeland and in order to resolve their long-standing dispute with Israel.

The point being made is not whether such an approach would or would not be the ideal solution to a complex problem, but rather that it is time for some new ideas to be put into the ring.

As always, reason rather than emotion should be allowed to prevail.

PRESIDENTIAL MESSAGE - EASTER 1990

If the recent Federal election campaign demonstrated anything it was the poor level of debate on both sides.

All Humanists should be encouraged to involve themselves more actively in politics, not by forming a separate party, but rather through the existing organisations, by working from the inside of the party of their choice.

Only in this way will the fundamentalist nonsense of the Queensland Nationalists be overcome and the obscenity of Liberal preferences being directed to the Fred Nile extremists exposed.

Pressure to stop policy on major issues being made "on the run" in the middle of a campaign should also be stepped up. To enunciate, Peacock-like, a firm decision on something as important as the Multi Function Polis by way of a throw-away line is quite absurd.

Furthermore, the subsequent defeat of any political party opposing policies in such a way is to confer a mandate in favour of them to the other party - an outcome which is also rather dangerous.

These comments, of course, refer to the decision-making process at large, not to the specific merits of this or any other particular issue.

No doubt many current political topics will be of particular interest to Humanists - ranging from environmental questions to the use of scarce court resources (and also large sums of public money) in prosecuting persons for alleged war crimes committed 50 years ago in places far from Australia. Issues such as censorship and all aspects of migration are also worthy of attention.

Perhaps the Humanist movement should also strike while the iron is hot on two other subjects. Firstly, all Governments need more taxation revenue, but are reluctant to increase tax rates - an ideal time to work for the removal of the various tax exemptions extended to religious bodies. Secondly, the television industry is in chaos and is rapidly going broke - an ideal time to urge the repeal of legislation requiring stations to provide free time for religious broadcasts.

SPEECH BY THE HON. BILL HAYDEN AC ON RECEIVING THE AUSTRALIAN HUMANIST OF THE YEAR AWARD AT THE COUNCIL OF AUSTRALIAN HUMANIST SOCIETIES CONVENTION IN BRISBANE ON 30 MARCH 1996

I regard this honour as a significant experience for me in thirty-five years in public life, where my actions have been guided by deeply held Humanist values. Certainly, as a young backbencher more than three decades ago when I was first elected to Parliament and had a public platform from which I could be heard, I expressed myself according to the outlook of a Humanist. I believed, in short, that society should become a more compassionate, supportive, fairer and secure one for its citizens.

From each according to his means, to each according to his needs was, I found, a handy touchstone for this social navigation, and, I think, it still is. But today with the influences of globalisation increasingly hemming nation states' exercise of sovereignty, that sort of navigation has its problems. I will come back to that.

Humanism is, however, about more than the fair and just society I have described in broad principle.

To be a Humanist, one has to exercise free will. Thus, to reason, to be rational, to avoid being the slave of some defunct ideology or the disciple of received wisdom in whatever its form, living according to revelatory messages mediated by an anointed interpreter.

In short, a true Humanist must stand on his or her own two feet, think for him- or herself in the pursuit of truth, and have the courage to announce truth, even where it will provoke hostile responses from those who cling to threadbare but popular prejudices.

Being an atheist - as I am - is not a necessary pre-condition for being a Humanist, although my atheism is the product of reasoning which has led me to a rational conclusion.

I recall that a former colleague of mine - Bob Hawke - used to forthrightly declare he was an atheist when he led the ACTU. On his way to Parliament I noted that there had been a delicate but undeclared shift. He would murmur, when asked on the topic, that he was an agnostic.

Now, for me, that shift from atheism to agnosticism was like moving from a confident straight out first-place bet to an each-way punt - or as someone once put it, describing a politician: "He confidently sits on the fence with an ear firmly clamped to the ground on either side." But I digress too much.

I was saying that one does not have to be an atheist to be a Humanist.

The reformation was about many things, including the condition of the holy roman church reflected in the corrupt practice of indulgences.

It was, however, much more than that; a very big struggle over an important philosophical truth: the principle of free will and personal choice versus pre-destination.

Erasmus for the catholic church was the intellectual leader, propounding the cause of free will, choice and accountability for individuals' actions.

He was, for his pain, vigorously assailed by Luther, who allowed no such roles as those of reason, free will, personal choice and personal responsibility for one's actions in guiding our destiny. The Catholic Church, of course, over the years, has greatly modified its position in respect to teachings propounded by Erasmus.

That is a shame really, for only through such principles can one become a truly independent and free individual.

But to return to my own experiences.

There were a number of notable issues where Humanist principles were paramount in guiding my actions. Opposition to Australian - and other outside - involvement in the Vietnam war was one. It was a war that started out as a very popular one, giving the coalition government of the time a spectacular victory in 1966.

It ended up deeply unpopular, dividing the nation, eventually exposing the moral and intellectual bankruptcy of its initiators and willing accomplices, and leading to the first Labor government in twenty-three years.

There were those who opposed it on grounds of moral principle - not just because war is an undesirable process for resolving human differences, but also because of more recondite principles; there was no genuine government in place in South Vietnam, the Geneva accords had been violated provoking the conflict between North and South. A war of national independence with outside intervention had assumed certain imperialistic qualities.

Now a Humanist chooses to defend certain principles, as in this case. That does not mean that, having done this, a Humanist approves of all other actions by the person or on behalf of the cause defended.

I found as foreign minister, and more recently as governor-general, I expressed strong condemnation of the violations of human rights and the denial of due processes by the government of Vietnam - a government whose right to govern I had earlier supported.

I did note that some business people who I know had been vigorous opponents of the earlier Hanoi government were more recently chasing after commercial toeholds in the new government of Vietnam, and privately and quietly suggested I be careful handling human rights issues, as there were Australian commercial ones to be considered and stressed, too. (A view I agree with incidentally, but not to the point of going as quiet on human rights issues as they were hoping.)

Humanists cannot remain faithful to their creed and at the same time play favourites, expressing condemnation of some who violate fundamental rights but going soft pedal on others, as guilty of the same sort of violations, out of a misplaced sentimentality or a wrongly conceived notion that the favoured cause has a special destiny to fulfil on behalf of humankind. Both - but the last in particular - are a travesty of how a Humanist should respond on issues.

I noted that here there are many whom I immediately recognised, on entering this centre tonight, as veterans of those days of opposition, as Humanists, to western intervention into the war in Vietnam. In the early years of that opposition and for some time after, that took courage. For some it involved physical violence at the hands of police and even spells in prison.

That was sad and disconcerting. But the big victory was truth. By that opposition, truth won out - logical, reasoned argument prevailed as a community suddenly confronted with the brutality and, regrettably, finality for some, of war, commenced to question the basis of our involvement and the use of conscription.

The worst aspect of this period was that the then US defence secretary, Mr McNamara, had confessed that he became aware the war was unwinnable, that he had lost his confidence in it. But he persevered and the body bags and the limbless continued to be returned home - the price of political cowardice.

There are two other matters I would like to mention. I am sometimes asked what was the major achievement in my life in public office. Those of my generation, I am sure, expect me to say the introduction of Medibank in 1975, the prototype of today's Medicare universal health cover.

Certainly it was the culmination of a long trying battle against entrenched interests, elements of the medical profession, certain private hospitals and the then powerful private health insurance funds in particular. It was an important success, yet to tell you the truth, I would rather have had a different system for delivery and payment for health resources: self-governing community health centres with interaction between the doctors, back-up paramedics and community welfare workers, the centres funded by per capita subscriptions by volunteer members and by government subsidy, the funds pooled to meet operational costs and to pay salaries - not fee for service - to the various professionals working in them.

That sort of change takes time and in any case we were already too committed to a more efficient rearrangement of the funding of the existing system of practice and fee for service payment.

Rather than Medibank, either my initiating funding for homeless people or the payment of single mothers' allowance would be my choice of the policy initiative for which I was responsible and about which I felt, and continue to feel, greatest pride.

There were no votes in attending to the needs of the derelicts in our society and there was a great deal of hostility to the idea of welfare support for mothers who were alone because they were single, deserted or driven from their homes by violence and so on. But, in either case, a Humanist objective was met and that was fulfilling.

But we move on to our times. Humanist values are highly relevant today, for the big "isms" of our age seem to be defunct. Communism, democratic socialism, social democracy have either been demolished by recent historical movements or their credibility scarcely stands.

The notion of universal remedies which we are promised will usher in a new millennium worry people, for the popular ones have been associated with abuse of power in the worst cases, and to costly inefficiencies and questionable political dealing in the least offensive instances.

The trend towards globalisation has had many important effects in influencing this opposition to notions of highly centralised, interventionist governments.

At one level it tends to restrict the sovereign power of national governments and this tendency will develop much more over time.

Domestic tax regimes, for instance, personal and corporate, already are influencing whether talented people and profitable international industries stay where they are or move on to another national base where they find these regimes more congenial.

Australia is already a competitor in that field of providing more appealing tax regimes to attract enterprise and jobs to our door, having made adjustments to its taxing policies to accommodate foreign banks. It was proposing to make adjustments to these policies to attract Cathay Pacific Airlines to Australia, but Hong Kong outbid us.

The sort of industries we are considering, as is the case with the more efficient industries of our time, have high capital and relatively low labour requirements. At a time of high unemployment and much lessened viability for more traditional labour intensive manufacturing industries in high income countries, this trend has worrying implications.

For instance, they are associated with profound socio-economic changes taking place within Australia, North America, and probably other western industrialised countries, too. The phenomenon is dubbed "the disappearing middle class". There is evidence that while the proportion of top income earners is growing mildly and low income earners a lot, those in the middle are contracting.

Growth in part-time work and lower pay levels for some categories of employment appear to have been associated with this trend. It is speculated that as jobs contract relatively in the middle group, people who would have once been employed at this level crowd into the lower status labour market, pushing out less well qualified people into permanent unemployment.

There are at least two effects of this development, if it has been correctly identified. People who formerly would have been employed in middle range jobs, overqualified for the lower status employment for which they have to settle, will undoubtedly suffer frustrations and resentments of various kinds at this experience.

Similarly, by concentrating on economic efficiency - which means more capital and fewer human hands relatively, and lower labour costs achieved in various ways, a large, seemingly permanent unemployed class emerge. This is true of most industrialised countries, not just Australia.

Australia has been enjoying what has been described as the longest sustained period of unbroken economic growth in the post-war period.

In spite of this, unemployment stubbornly remains around 8% of the workforce. Attempts to bring that level down by accelerating the economic growth rate led to overheating in the economy, forcing government to retreat to lower economic growth rates and causing a return to sustained high unemployment levels.

No longer do we hear the mantra of certain market force enthusiasts that there should be no job creation programs by government, that these are artificial and too expensive and that only real economic growth will fix the social and economic malady by creating real jobs.

So we have at a time of mounting more confusion and uncertainty, more discontent with established political processes by another group in society, and not just the unemployed but members of their families and their friends, too, who watch with anxiety about their own futures.

Perhaps these were some of the elements which influenced recent election trends. The battlers revolt - and most people feel they are battlers in contemporary conditions. Some who believe they are battlers seem, to my generational experiences, to be well housed, and so on, but according to their generational experience and expectations, this is not accepted.

A consequence of this sense of losing out in the social system, of being disadvantaged - even feeling powerless can be the creation of scapegoats. I will come back to this.

On the point I was making: the remarkable thing is that many who see themselves as battlers, people in Labor's traditional heartland who deserted it in great numbers at the last election, have been the beneficiaries of the greatest improvement in the social wage for much more than a decade.

This had been brought about by commendable measures which ensured equity and processes of progressive redistribution. When you speak to these people you will find few - I find none - who will accept this matter of fact. They are firmly convinced that they are much worse off now than a decade ago. There has been a failure in political communication here. In political processes the communication of what is being done is as important as the action.

Small deeds important to ordinary people provide the stable political foundation from which statesmanlike posturing on the global scene can take place. Another way of putting it is if you neglect your domestic constituency for the seductive glitter of the global stage your domestic constituency will abandon you.

These disaffected people of whom I speak feel they are neglected and shunned while some other groups have been pandered to. No one listens to them, they believe.

The experiences associated with these trends abound with paradoxes. For instance, we are generally shattered by the perseverance of high levels of unemployment. Yet concomitant with these sustained high levels of unemployment has been the highest proportion of people of workforce age engaged in the workforce in the postwar history of the country.

If workforce participation rates were back at the level they were in the fifties and early sixties then the unemployment rate would be quite modest today. Within the structure of the workforce there have been profound changes, adding further to the confusion and uncertainty of ordinary people.

Relationships here, as in so many social spheres today, are vastly different from what they used to be. More jobs are being created for women than men. There are more part-time jobs than full-time ones. Older men rather than young men are having the worst experiences with long term unemployment. Early school leavers are almost unemployable, even at low wages, in a more technically demanding age.

This, I believe, requires us to acknowledge that being unemployed should not attract the stigma it has so far in a work ethic dominated society.

We should be prepared to pay the unemployed in a different form and to provide more training opportunities for them, in acknowledgment of the fact that we are unable to eliminate it with either strong economic growth or through the artificial creation of job programs.

If I could use a case of some recent notoriety manufactured by the media:

If the now "notorious" Paxtons had cut their hair and taken the jobs offered to them in North Queensland then the people who eventually did get those jobs would have remained unemployed and there would have been no overall effect on the unemployment level to what did occur in this case.

More sadly, if the Paxtons had cut their hair, the business which offered the jobs would have missed out on a week or so of free national media attention, a national TV program of popular tabloid dimensions would have been denied a ratings boost, the media generally would have been denied the opportunity of clicking its collective tongue in a disapproving fashion, and certain elements of the community would not have enjoyed the surge of moral disapproval which they obviously savoured, if letters to the editors are any guide in such things.

In any case, in a free, liberal society like ours, how can punishment for wearing long hair, for being different (but in the case of males with long hair, not different by much these days) be justified? And the job offer was for unskilled employment.

If society wishes to get tough with the unemployed the time to do so is in a sustained period of employment growth, with low unemployment levels and a genuine need for more hands to be employed in the workforce. We are further away from that desirable goal of low unemployment with strong labour demand, than at any time in our post-war experience.

Now I said a few minutes ago that we needed to regard the unemployed - and pay them - in a different way. I do not wish to discuss that further tonight as my views on this will become apparent at another venue next Tuesday.

What I would mention is that funding welfare programs will - I suspect - become increasingly difficult because of the globalisation effects which I mentioned earlier, on the fiscal autonomy of national governments.

If I am correct this spells the end of notions of comprehensive solutions to welfare aspirations available to all - or most anyway. In short, the ideal of the comprehensive welfare state is in a rather sickly condition nowadays.

In other words, our welfare objectives will have to be carefully targeted according to real need and funded on the principle of capacity to pay. This has political risks, of course, for no group is more jealously defensive of its privileges than the middle class.

I mentioned before the matter of scapegoats. The Paxtons were scapegoats, of course, but that was a manufactured and brief diversion. A sort of media created burlesque offered as early evening entertainment for jaded minds.

There is looming the prospect of a more substantial basis for scapegoating. The matter of race is exercising a lot of minds following certain results in the recent national election.

My home town of Ipswich, the heart of my old electorate of Oxley, which had been the safest Labor electorate in Queensland and one of the safest in Australia, is now in the hands of an expelled Liberal, Pauline Hanson, who represents the electorate as an Independent. Her main - and as far as I can see her only - campaign impact was to carpingly question welfare programs available for Aborigines. She is wrong - and I would say unfair to have simplified the complex issue of Aboriginal welfare need in the way in which she did. I won't go into the reasons for this critical view with such a well informed audience as this one.

My immediate response to public criticism to the effect that this candidate had won the electorate by appealing to racist impulses in Oxley - implying that the people of Ipswich were largely racist - was that this was wrong. The people of Oxley, in my experience, were neither more nor less racist than any other region in Australia. The reasons for Labor's setback in Oxley, as in most other parts of Australia, were more varied and complex than that.

I had returned to live in Ipswich just before the election, after several years of confinement on the fringes of Lake Burley Griffin, as you know. I still hold my views about the plurality of causes for this huge swing against Labor - a loss of some 23 points - in Oxley, and about the incidence of racism there.

I confess, however, by discreetly shopping about for views in a way in which any experienced political representative is practised, I have discerned a surprising level of support for the views of the new member for Oxley. I am starting to suspect that this factor and a more general discontent with Labor may make the recapture of Oxley a more difficult task than many might have thought.

Certainly this will be true if the new member commences promoting a number of simplified, popularist measures in these uncertain times, and she seems to be embarking on that task with some skill.

Now the people of Oxley (and elsewhere where it is claimed these trends were evident) are not antagonistically racist and to reduce the election result to this crude, abusive description will be counterproductive. Consider these points: the candidate has been informed by many sources, including sections of the respectable media, that she won Oxley - and won it relatively handsomely, remember - by making racist comments and appealing to racist attitudes in the community. These criticisms of her and those who voted for her have been expressed rather shrilly and, for many at the receiving end of these comments, rather offensively.

So what is the effect of this commentary, especially coming from experienced political commentators whose views are influential?

First, the new member for Oxley who won the unwinnable seat from Labor, becomes convinced these were the tactics which brought her success. Why should she change from a proven success formula? And that is exactly what she has concluded, I suspect, for last weekend she unapologetically restated her views on this issue and declared her intention to persist with them.

The people who were responsive to her views feel slighted by media censure and become determined to demonstrate intensified support for the new member for Oxley. They are offended because they feel there are aspects of unfairness in the welfare treatment of Aborigines, they have demonstrated this concern with their vote, yet no one of importance will listen to them, only abuse them. This is a very worrying situation.

We Humanists would not respond in this way; at least I hope that I can speak generally for you on this. We are concerned at this serious breakdown in community political communication but our response is to try to communicate. Remember the old slogan: "agitate, communicate, educate"?

We believe in using reason, in being rational, in pursuing the facts and establishing the truth of an issue. Which brings me to a larger issue.

I suspect that this feeling detected in Oxley and some other Queensland centres was quite widespread in the last election. The defeat of the Aboriginal affairs minister, Robert Tickner, with a substantial swing against him, had, I suspect, much to do with some of the contentious issues he had to handle in recent times and how people saw those issues unfolding and his responses to them.

This public reaction covers more than concern about Aboriginal welfare. And there are more than the working class of Ipswich who are insulted that they are not being listened to within the political processes.

Over the past several years I have detected a feeling of welling resentment, being quietly and widely expressed especially by well educated and successful middle class people - that the political processes have been hijacked by energetic, articulate, narrowly-based pressure groups. Their concern can be summarised as: "They listen to them, why won't they listen to us?"

Politics for these people has become too exclusive. They want it to come back to being inclusive. They are pained by accusations of guilt, of attempts to shame them, of various "phobics", "isms," and "ists". Too many taboos, often backed by legal penalties, have been erected to protect certain group interests and seem to be designed to stifle the public's right to question. If we do not hear their questions we can miss a groundswell of discontent.

Neither of the major parties was listening to the people of Oxley before and during the last election. That is why they both missed the murmurs of discontent.

As Humanists we should welcome discussion, we should encourage the candid expression of views, especially critical ones based on prejudice or ignorance. We cannot legislate away these qualities and we should not want to, for we believe in reason and rationality. What we would want to do is confront them with reasoned and factual argument, with rational exposition designed to convert them to more humane attitudes towards their more vulnerable fellow citizens.

We need to think about a program of action designed to work in defence of human decency and personal rights.

Thank you for having Dallas and me as your guests of honour tonight. I scarcely expected this experience and honour when I made a speech to the College of Physicians at the Gold Coast last year, a speech in which I championed voluntary euthanasia and various rights of gay people.

You know, elements of the reaction to that speech were surprising. We had our biggest mail to Government House following this address, in the seven years I was there. Almost completely, the correspondents were responding to one or the other of the main topics I commented on. Almost all were hostile to my views.

Those concerned about my comments on voluntary euthanasia were upset, but generally put a reasoned argument as to why they opposed those views. Those who objected to my views on homosexual rights were of a quite different temperament - loud and angry, abusive and often threatening, regularly using references, in respect of gay people, to gas ovens, various forms of physical mutilation and other types of cruel treatment. Most quoted the Bible to bolster their views and a notable number came from this, my home state of Queensland.

Well, I raised the issues because I had thought about them a lot. I had arrived at what I regarded as certain truths and felt I should share them. If you look back over my period as Governor-General you will note a number of instances where I said what I believed was correct, confronting popular causes sometimes. I felt it a duty to do - but not overdo - such things.

Thank you again for this great honour you extend to me tonight. I trust your conference is outstandingly successful.

I can believe anything provided it is incredible - Oscar Wilde

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