Mr Kirby, it’s a great delight to be speaking with you
about the Defining moments project, which of course you are the patron of.
Can you tell me a little about those early days
when you were considering this project with Michael Ball -
I think that was the early background to the project, wasn’t it?
He put forward this idea that there should be 100 defining moments
that we could talk about and dispute about and contest about.
And because I was a frustrated professor of history
rather than a lawyer, I thought that that sounds a really good idea.
So I thought Michael was on to a good idea here,
and especially that we should not be ashamed of disagreeing
- that we are a free people, we are a democratic people
and we can have a lot of disagreement about what are the events that have defined Australia as it is today.
Did you feel that Australians have had a lack of sense for their past -
or sentiment even for their past - that they’ve been more consumed
with the histories of other lands rather than their own?
I think that’s part of the problem
that we were encouraged really to think of ourselves as a displaced people
who had been sent down to the South Seas to house the convicts
and that home was over the waves and a long way away.
We thought Asia - this vibrant, diverse, amazing continent -
was just something to fly over on your way to London or Paris.
I think the fact that many young people,
because they live in the world of infotainment and the digital world,
they sort of think of us now not as an offshoot of the British Empire
but the offshoot of the megalopolis of the American empire
and that our culture is just a sort of a pale shadow of the Americans.
One advantage of the Defining moments project, I think,
is that it’s going to encourage us to see the whole chronicle -
some of which are not noble, some of which are noble.
So one of the things that obviously attracts you about this project
is the idea of the range that they describe these moments.
It’s the range; it’s the totality;
and it’s also the controversy.
I wasn’t called the great dissenter in the High Court of Australia for nothing.
I believe dissent, disagreement, controversy
is the very essence of a democratic people.
When you think about the moments indeed that we described in the initial list
or other moments beyond that list that occur to you,
what are moments that you think have been important in the history of the nation?
Sitting there in the magnificent building of the High Court of Australia,
I often thought now what was the most important decision in this place?
And of course there are many important decisions - the Mabo decision,
the early decision in the engineers case, which really led to the growth of federal power,
and in the middle, in between those two great pillars,
was the decision in the Communist Party case.
That was the decision where the government, the Menzies government,
had an authority from the electors to ban the Communist Party,
and they enacted the law in 1950,
and then the High Court of Australia said,
‘You can’t ban a political party. You can’t prevent them.
‘You can deal with anything wrong that they do,
‘but what they think and what they urge others to think,
‘the law cannot intrude into that space.’
I think that’s a marvellous story of what it is to be an Australian
and to protect that space - to disagree.
Actually when Mr Howard went to China, he told me
that he informed the Chinese that this decision was made that you can be a Communist.
You can hold those views. You can seek to persuade others to those views.
If you move into the area of violence or activity of that kind,
the law can deal with you.
I was about to ask you if you thought that the nation had a character or a kind of a style to it?
I think that the character of the Australian nation
is continuing to evolve - quite rapidly actually.
The way in which we have dealt with the white Australia policy,
the way in which we have welcomed very large proportions of people
from different countries, different races, different cultures, different religions -
this is a very, very special quality.
I think we are one of the most multicultural communities on earth.
And that means that, if we can get it right in Australia,
we can give hope to the rest of the planet
that people of different backgrounds and traditions -
people of different races, religions, of different sexuality -
can live together in peace, in relative harmony - except on the sporting field -
and that this can make a real difference to the world.
Well, we’re allowed to have continuing disagreements on the sporting field
at the very least, are we not? Especially if we live in Melbourne.
Well, it’s almost a right of passage of living in Melbourne
to have those sorts of disagreements about your football teams.
Perhaps if I finish by asking you what you hope for this project.
I hope it encourages young people to think deeply about the history of Australia,
about these big movements that preceded the advent of the British people here,
about the institutions that were built during the time of the British colonial period,
the federal story, the wars, the preservation of freedom in the country
and ultimately the acknowledgment of the Indigenous people,
of the rights of women, of the rights of gays and of other minorities.
I think all of this is a good story.
It’s a story you can be proud of.
Most people don’t know it and they don’t see the totality of it.
I hope this enterprise will go into the classrooms
or go into the bedrooms - that young people will think about this
and be encouraged to consider how we can make the future defining moments
even more memorable, and even more honourable and noble.
Mr Kirby, I hope we can do justice to that hope,
and thank you again for your great advocacy for this project. Thank you.