\% STER IS
FOURTH ' S'UMMEER SCHOOL OF P? CF-ESSIONA( L ~ 8 FEB 1968
JOURNALISM N
Held in the Haydon-Allen Building, Australian
Na~ tional University, Canboerra 2ND FEBRUA. RY, 1968
Theme: " COMMUINICATION KEY TO. GOOD GOVERNMENT
O-pening Speech by the Prime Minister, the Hon. John Gorton
Mr Chairman and Ladies-and Gentlemen:
There are -Perhaps three things I'o ught to say to you befcre I
really get launched into opening this Conference,
The first one is that I have spent a great deal of time over the
last two or three years in openin~ g things like science blocks and things like
technical schools and things of that kind generally, and It has been an experience
of mine that at the end of having delivered the address that always goes along
with these activities, one is so delighted to have got through, one is so relieved
at having finished, that one tends to forget entirely to open whatever it is that
one came to open. If this should happen on this occasion, would you please
remember that at the very beginning I indicated that the object of this was to
open the conference, and just take It as read If I forget, which I hope I won't.
The second thing that I would say to you is that I understood
that tonight this was not a " heavy" night, this was not a night of real work for
you such as will occur when people read you the carefully-prepared papers on
various aspects of communications which you will then, in the course of the
seminar, discuss and dissect and agree with or disagree with. This was, as
far as I was concerned, more an opportunity to come along to speak for perhaps
twenty minutes or so, not deeply, but as a mark of respect for the work which
you do I won't say for each one of you but for the work you do, and perhaps
to put forward some few views of my own on its importance.
The keyn ote of this, I gather, is " Communication the Key to
Good Government"; this is what the seminar is about. I don't know that this
is a sufficiently accurate title because of things which I will now endeavour to
develop. It is possible to have good government without communication,
but it Is far less likely that there will be good government without communication,
but of course it Is possible to have very bad government with very efficient
communication. You will remember that one of the first things which any
totalitarian government seeks to do, whether it be of the right or of the left,
is to control communications, and having controlled communications, having
controlled the media of the press and television and broadcasting, then the
most lavish technical facilities can be poured Into communications so that they
will permeate the whole of a society and will allow only those views and only
those arguments which a government in power wishes to allow, and that they
will suppress all dissident opinion and prevent views which the government in
power does not wish to have presented.
Well, then, you can have and have had examples of communication,
but they haven't been the key to good government because they haven't been
uncontrolled communications. So I would define a little bit the theme of this
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conference and say and I may even be a little wrong in this perhaps we
should say " Free Communications: The Best Insurance Policy to See that
Good Government Continues", and with that I would have no quarrel whatsoever,
an insurance policy to see that it continues.
I did query a little the suggestion uncontrolled communications
because there Is a tendency, or it seems to me that there is occasionally
a tendency for a certain lack of control In communications, just as It seems to
some of those who don't agree with me politically on occasions, that there is
a certain lack of control. I am not speaking now of the reporting of political
matters, but there are some papers which, of course, one wouldn't dare to
name, but there are some papers who occasionally tend to be verging on the
uncontrolled, particularly wihen they make the best af both worlds by taking
a high moral line on how extemely bad vice and violence and things of that kind
are and in order to drive home the point of how bad they are, they fill half
their pages with careful reporting of the particular things. This of course, I
am sure, on the behalf of the owners is designed to attain a moral end!
But occasionally it might seem to be verging just a little on the uncontrolled,
so that Is why I chose the word " free".
Well, how are we going to get free communications, and
how ought those free communications to be used by you, because there is a
responsibility on government to see that information is supplied to enable
free communication properly to function, and there is a responsiblity on
Journalists and on the owners of newspapers and on the editors of newspapers,
and, not particularly, but also on those who write the headlines for stories
and cut out the middle of the story from the people who wrote them, there is
a responsibility on them to see that that information is properly presented In
a balanced way. Well what is the responsibility on government? I think it is
pretty heavy. I believe that governments ought never to seek to suppress
news or Information, whether those governments feel it is for the moment
to their advantage to do it or not to their advantage to do it. I not only
believe that this is useful to enable free communication to functlon but I
believe it is a sensible policy and one which Is to the advantage of the government
which uses it. Now, I remember my present Press Officer joining me when
I was first In the Navy and we put this to the test. It's a long while ago now
and -you won't remember, but we had two naval ships steaming along, one of
which was firing at the other with such good effect that it hit it, and a shell
went through it fortunately, it was a non-explosive one just above the
water line. Well this is an unusual occurrence in a well-run Navy, and tie
question arose of what one should do about it so of course what one did
about it was immediately call a pre-ss conference and tell everybody and send
them down there and they could interview everybody and they could see the
hole and they could take pictures. After they decided that there it was and
there was nothing to hide, okay, the story was there and there was no more
speculation. And similarly we did it in other things that happened.
This Is not only In my view a prop~ er way but a payable way
for a government to behave, and therefore there is not only a rspnsbility,
but if it has got any sense, a government behaves In accordance with that
responsibility. Now there must be some limitations, to this. There are some
fields of information which are tied up possibly with national security. There
are some areas of information which it Is not desired to make public for ./ 3
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perhaps another week or so for various reasons because negotiations are
going on and haven't reached a point of complete fruition. These kinds of
things, where there is a particular reason, I think one Is justified In not
announcing, and In fencing if one Is asked about them. But those are, roughly,
the only reservations that I would have.
It is therefore, In my view, the purpose of a Government Information
Officer attached to a Minister or to a Department, not to protect his Minister
or his Department In the sense of protecting him by stopping the dissemination
of Information for which his Minister or his Department can be criticised, but
rather to protect him his Minister or his Department by going along and
saying, " This has happened" or " Some r-eospaper Is interested In this"....
" These are the facts. These facts ought to be made publc and so
protect him in that way. Then It is up to the Minister, and if he has got any
sense, he will make those facts public.
Before I leave this area of where I think Government responsibility
lies,, where it should be used I would like to touch on something which has
been a matter of discussion from time to time, and that Is the dissemination
of Information by public servants as opposed to the dissemination of Information
by governments, by Ministers, by people working as journalists In Departments
or for Ministers. You have all seen It suggested that, really, public servants ought
to be able to make pronouncements on policy, ought to be able to make
announcements as to fact.* I find this Impossible to accept, You have public
servants who are there to carry out a policy decided on by a government or
decided on by their Minister. Quite often, before that policy Is decided upon,
If tt Is a properly-run Department, the Head of It, or the second In charge
of It or third Is~ charge of It will be talking to the Minister, and he will say,
" Look, I don't think you ought to do that. I think you are quite wrong. I
think you are an absolute clot If you do this. You shouldn't do It. Sometimes
he writes it on a piece of paper and sends It in. Then, again, If It Is a
properly-run Department, most of the time they are right. But not always,
and so a Minister will say, " Well, all right. I have taken into account what
you have put to me. I have thought about It carefully. I think you are wrong.
I don't accept your advice, and this is the policy I want you to carry out.
And in a properly-run Department, then a public servant accepts that and carries
It out. If you had a situation arising out of those sort of circumstances
where that public servant would immediately rush away and say publicly, " I
think the Government or the Minister is quite wrong. I told him he was wrong
at the time, and these are the reasons I put forward to him," well, It would
be a very good news story, but It wouldn't be very conducive to good government,
and It wouldn't be very conducive to the stanfflng of public servants. One of
the safeties that public servants have Is that they do carry out a policy, either
devised or accepted by their political government, and if mistakes are made In
policy or In practice, It is their political government and their political head
who takes the blame, even though they may not necessarily directly be
responsible, and that they, themselves, as public servants are not to be
subject to criticism, because If they are, then they must have a right to
answer and It Is better that they should follow the course of not entering Irto
public controversy and therefore na bcig teto beheld responsible and
attacked in public. For those reasons, although I know there are arguments on the
other side, I do feel that in the discharge of a responsibility to provide e 6 / 4
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information by a government, that It Is the government and not its servants
who must accept that responsibility.,
Well, what about the responsibility that then devolves on those
who work for the communications media, those who take that Information
either freely offered or ferreted out and then disseminated through the
country? This is of vital Importance, of just as much Importance, of just
as much responsibility as lies upon a government to make the Information
available. I don't speak only of Information as to fact. That Is fairly
simple. Almost any course that Is adopted In a country such as ours Is
a course which Is arrived at as a matter of choice. There are a number of
things a government can do, and there are quite valid arguments in favour
of all those things. If you walked up on to a hill here in Ca~ nberra, and you
looked down from Red Hill, and yoi saw spread below you the myriad
twinkling lights of this city, and you said to yourself, " Each one of those
lights, or nearly ev~ ry cm of those lights is a light In the window of a house
where an Australian family lives. What do they want? You would have
to answer yourself in this way. They would want to have a perfect system
of education; they would want to have a system of defence which would make
this country so strong that not even a major power would attack It; they
would want to have development proceeding apace not only in the country
but In the city; they would want to have x per cent of GNP spent on providing
scientific advancement; they would want the States and the Commonwealth
each to be able to do all that they feel that they would like to do; they would
want taxation to be reduced. They would not want a deficit because with a
deficit there tends to be too much Inflation. In fact they want everything
which is quite reasonable because as individuals we would all like to have all
these things we would want to have too. But you can't have it all and ne ither
can a country so in spite of the fact that valid arguments can be made for
every one of these and a myriad other things, you come down to making a
choice priority which Is the most Important, which of things that are needed
shall we take. Then It Is necessary to explain, for a government to explain why
they regard these things as the ones of most Importance. What arguments
have led them to say, " Well, we'll take this field rather than that at the
moment. Vie will defer this until some other time". There will always be
arguments for and arguments against, and It Is essential for a well-informed
community, a community that can make a proper judgment on whether to
retain or dismiss the government, that these arguments should be presented
first by a government and then presented In a balanced way by the communications
media throughout Australia. If they do that, if they don't make a
snap judgment, If they don't make a biased judgnent criticise of course
but present the arguments for and against say " These i-re the arguments
which are advanced for It; these are the arguments which are advanced against
It", then whether we are Individuals writing a column or whether we are a
newspaper or whether we are broadcasters, we say we don't agree with what
Is being done for these reasons, at least the debate has become public, and
become public in a way which enables a democracy to form an Informed
Judgment. This Is the ultimate test of whether you gentlemen and ladies are
doing your work properly: That an Informed judgment can be formed by
the public. Well, I know the immense difficulties that you are under In
doing this, particularly those who work for newspapers. You have a deadline
for one thing. I have always believed, I have been told it Is true, I don't 9 e 9 9
know; you can Inform me if it Isnt; that one of the cries of the editors of
all major newspapers Is " You've got to get It on by a certain time; you've
got to get It Into to us by five o'clock. If you car;, get It right, but if you
can't get It right, at least get It written". That, I think, shows up, neces arily
shows up because there isn't time. This is a difficulty which one understands.
It seems to me there are also difficulties some times with those who happen
to own newspapers because they happen to have particular beliefs In one ' W'ay
or In another and they may be prepared to publish matter which supports the
particular beliefs or policies which their paper Is at the moment advancing,
and not report anything which Isn't supporting that or at least slant itono-way
or another. This is, I think, a bad thing. I am not saying this Is on any,
one particular side of politics. It Isn't. It Is on both sides, but I do think
It is not a proper use of communications.
I am not so disturbed about it really, because If It goes on
long enough, then people say, " All right, -that paper, X, we know what it Is
like, what line it is going to take on any particular matter. That paper, Y,
we know what line It is going to take on any particular matter" and It doesn't
have a very great effect on forming public opinion. But that Is another
difficulty that you, as working Journalists, have to overcome. You can
overcome it, even when the unforgiving minute doesn't allow you to devote all
the time and all the arguments that are necessary on a particular matter.
There are always special articles that can be written If your editor can provide
you with the space. There are special talks which can be made over
broadcasting networks, There are a number of smaller publications In which
these things can be discussed in a more leisurely way, weekly publications and
things of that kind. And so the way Is there though It may be difficult.
However difficult it may be, It is necessary If we are
properly to use the media of communications, for a government to do what
I have said it ought to do, and for those who then take that information to use
it or to attempt to use it In the way that I have suggested to you I think It
ought to be used. There is only one other thing, I think, that I wish to say,
and that Is that though It seems to me it is occasionally being lost sight of
today, there Is also a need In using the media, particularly the written
media properly, for some consideration to be paid to the use of good English.
It is not always apparent that this Is happening.
I do remember reading In a newspaper I am not making this
up a story that was written that so-and-so saw Mr Smith " standing there
being sick in his underpants". Now, they didn't mean he was being sick in
his underpants any more than he was being sick In his hat. What they meant
was he was wearing smalls while he was being sick. This may seem a small
point, and it is In that particular context! But that lack of complete precision
can lead to quite serious misunderstandings from time to time.
The stories in military history where tbis kind of bad writing
has led to disasters are legion. There was the Charge of the Light Brigade,
for example. It was a complete mistake and came about because the general
at the time used bad English when he wrote the order which was carried down
to the Light Brigade. I could go through many other military despatches which
were written with such conciseness that they were quite unable to be understood
and therefore everybody did the wrong thing. I am not suggesting that you should
do that, but I am saying the English langunge can be a method of expression so / 6
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which probably embodies the greatest precision of any le~ nguage since Latin,
and I include French. Or it can be a really sloppy sort of language which
doesn't really mean anything from which Smith can draw one inference
and Jones can draw another.
I really ought to apologise for talking to you so long about
this, but It does seem to me that allied with what I said to you and It is
not often I get a chance to tell the Press what they ought to do; it Is nearly
always the other way round allied with what I have said to you of the
proper use of the media Is the really proper use of English. It probably
means going back to learning parsing in the schools, but I don't want to get
into trouble with the Education Department at the present moment.
Sir, I told you that this address was not one that was going
to go deeply into matters, and It doesn't. It was an address designed to
indicate the importance which I attach to your deliberations and more
particularly to your work anid the way in which you carry it out. If I have
touched upon some feelings. of my own about how a government ought to
provide information, how those charged with disseminating It ought to use
the information that Is used, I have done It because I feel it is of vital
Importance to the proper running of a democracy4 It Is easy enough for a
political party and indeed we all tend to do It In the House to argue to a
brief, to put forward only the good points In favouir of some course, and to
ignore the bad, not mention them or try and pretend they don~ t exist. I hope
that thic will not grow In the political field. I hope it won't take root at all
in those who disseminate it, because It is essential when cases are put, all
the good points in favour of it should be put and all the bad points against It
should be put If a balanced Judgment Is to be made.
You are the people who will enable a balanced Judment to
be made by the community. It is a heavy responsibility and I am sure you
will discharge it well. I declare this open,: