The Curious Scorn For Brendan's Inner Obama

SAY, if only for purposes of descriptive expediency, we were to call it the Obama Factor: Opposition Leader Brendan Nelson's widely known tendency to speak from the heart, to bring emotion to the subject at hand - his disquisitions invariably enlivened with anecdotes of true grit, taken straight from the lesser read passages of the book of life. He's ridiculed for it by the government benches and, I suspect, the press gallery. But it's precisely this kind of noble warmth that Peggy Noonan - amongst many others - welcomes in Senator Obama's recent speech on race relations and grouchy grandmas in America. That and the fact that it supposedly conveyed hard truths while determinedly avoiding the old tawdriness of "applause lines." Much of the praise for Obama's oration was, of course, insincere nonsense. Yet its hastily contrived glorification is incongruous when compared to the hostility that greeted Dr Nelson's speech on the "stolen generation."

Like Obama, he would not condemn outright those of earlier times - including churchmen - for the things they believed in, according to norms of conscience and practicality then prevailing. There was, after all, a context to the mindset of yesteryear. Like Obama, he expressed a desire to ameliorate the crises of today rather than be dragged into recriminations about the past. The reality was, he said, Aborigines were living lives of "existential aimlessness" in "seemingly intractable and disgraceful circumstances." Hard truths to voice, especially in the circumstances. But there were certainly no applause lines - the very mention of ongoing social chaos and personal tragedy in Aboriginal communities led to vilification and back-turning histrionics. It could be said - as Governor Bill Richardson has said of Obama's speech - that "he spoke to us as adults." But Dr Nelson was not praised.

The reason? Many simply didn't want to be addressed as adults. They were led to believe a magic word and a hastily arranged ritual could make a haunting spectre disappear from the National Dreaming and, mirabile dictu, Kevin Rudd was at their bedside to make it happen. Dr Nelson's insistence on a balanced calibration of responsibility and a preferential option for working on the realities of today constituted a superior synthesis. This is not to say the Opposition Leader should emotionalise every speech and passing soundbite. Australians could only tolerate Bob Hawke's tears because they sensed they were mere manifestations of his fair dinkum Aussie ego. That said, Dr Nelson is right to think the book-keeper automaton in The Lodge is vulnerable against a true believer. If he avoids being a cut-price Cameron and a cut-price Obama, his empathy won't hurt and it may even tell.