Defending our celebrities and good causes

by John Warhurst
The Canberra Times, 27 September 2002

(c) 2002 The Canberra Times

A celebrity is defined in dictionaries as a "famous or well-known person". As such it is a harmless descriptive term. But it has come to be used commonly in public life as an insult.

To be called a celebrity is often a back-hander. It has come to imply that the person concerned is famous in a shallow way, or well-known in an undeserving way. So it is widely used to describe "media celebrities" or "social celebrities". It is almost used in the same way as "notorious".

Last week Labor front-bench MP Lindsay Tanner exploited the negative side of the term celebrity in a speech in the House of Representatives that was mostly an attack on Malcolm Turnbull. He accused the Australian Republican Movement of being "celebrity-driven".

According to Tanner, the ARM "has been a plaything of the rich and famous, suffocating under a stampede of self-indulgent celebrities anxious to identify with a fashionable cause". He went on to condemn the ARM's 1999 Yes campaign strategy for being "built on a strategy that resembled celebrities marketing dog food".

Tanner's attack should generate some reflection on celebrities in public life. Let's begin by setting the record straight about well-known persons and the republican debate.

Well-known persons were important in getting both sides of the republican debate going in the early 1990s. Both the ARM and Australians for Constitutional Monarchy began life as committees made up largely of well-known people. As a consequence both ARM and ACM achieved a kick-start with plenty of publicity in the media.

The connection between the cause and the well-known people was an attractive combination. Well-known persons have the public recognition, the social skills and the financial resources to generate momentum for a campaign. They did so for both these fledgling organisations. The ARM included Thomas Keneally, Neville Wran, and Turnbull, while the ACM included Lloyd Waddy, Michael Kirby, Sir Harry Gibbs and Dame Leonie Kramer.

In 1993 Paul Keating chose Turnbull (chair), Susan Ryan, Lowitja O'Donoghue, George Winterton and Mary Kostakidis to make up his Government's nominees on the Republic Advisory Committee, which wrote an important report advising him on options for a republic.

Later, in 1997, when the Howard Government set up the Constitutional Convention the same thing occurred. John Howard appointed mostly well-known people to the places at the convention reserved for the PM's nominees.

Howard's choices included O'Donoghue, Kramer, Waddy, Bill Hayden, George Pell and Peter Hollingworth. Most of Howard's list were well known, because of their personal achievements or because of the representative positions they held.

Later, in the process of electing the remaining Constitutional Convention delegates, the organisations like ARM and ACM which were vying for the people's vote tended also to select well-known candidates. Name recognition is an advantage in an election when the party label means next to nothing. The ARM had Turnbull, Eddie McGuire, and Janet Holmes a'Court among others leading its teams in various states, and ACM pre-selected Don Chipp, Doug Sutherland, Sir James Killen and Kym Bonython for the same purpose. On both sides there were many former politicians and others who had become well known for their contribution in different fields.

Two years later at the time of the 1999 referendum debate the Yes and No cases both fell back on using well-known people to argue their case in television and radio advertisements. That's just an accepted way of communicating, regrettable as it may seem to those who would prefer the message to stand on its own.

The Yes case, for instance, used the old political adversaries, Gough Whitlam and Malcolm Fraser, to make the point that support for the republic was bipartisan.

Tanner argues that the republican cause "doesn't need celebrities and should not be the plaything of particular individuals. It should be a popularly based, democratic movement driven by people who are known primarily for their commitment to the republican cause, not because they are sports stars, politicians, church leaders, writers, media celebrities or fabulously wealthy".

Tanner actually describes the ARM perfectly, though apparently unwittingly.

It is a popularly based, democratic movement with 3500 fee-paying members.

Many of the ARM's present leadership are less well known.

What unites its members, who are divided on many other things including party politics, is their commitment to the republican cause.

That has always been the case whatever its members' other achievements. It is primarily what Turnbull, the then long-serving ARM chairman, is known for in the wider community, rather than his commitment to the Liberal Party.

Many of the ARM's present leadership are less well known to the wider community, but the ARM national committee does include well-known people such as the two deputy chairs, Susan Ryan and Jason Li.

Tanner is misguided and totally out of touch in his general comments about so-called celebrities. The ARM welcomes the participation and support of people in the categories he mentions, like politicians and church leaders. Many of them already give us that support at national, state and ordinary local member level. But we could do with even more as well as many more ordinary members.

The ARM is not alone in seeking that productive balance. Every other community organisation hoping to be successful is in the same boat. It has long been common for social movements like the green movement, the anti-war movement, and the women's movement, to mention just a few, to rely on the support of famous people as well as many others. But let's banish that ugly term "celebrity".

Professor Warhurst is chair of the Australian Republican Movement.

John.Warhurst@anu.edu.au