Like a bird, on a wire

Saturday – 4am. It’s a big week. 

On Thursday I delivered the Hal Wootten Lecture at the University of NSW*. I’ve got this column due today. 

On Sunday I’m speaking at the Bob Brown gig, and then on Monday I have been anointed with one of the coveted tickets to the NSW Drug Summit. It will be my 14th enquiry on drugs. It is hard to see what the Lismore forum will actually achieve given that the premier has ruled so much out, and this ground has been covered so well by other enquiries, and postponing it so long as they have means that the electoral cycle conspires against change. 

I fear it is just another talkfest in a long line of bullshit tick-a-box window-dressing talkfests. 

It is difficult to imagine that little old me speaking out about old growth forests for the 300th time is going to improve things, given that the Koala National Park is likely to have the guts logged out of it before it is proclaimed. 

The ALP seems captivated by the F in the CFMEU, and people I trusted who have looked me in the eye and sworn to protect habitat have betrayed the furry, feathered, winged, legged, leaved and barked. 

And all of us. I mean what can I say – ‘FFS stop it’?

And for the lecture in Sydney, probably the biggest deal talk of my career, I waxed lyrical about over-representation of Aboriginal people in prison, victims’ rights in a post-Lehrmann world, mushroom law reform and (yes, you guessed it) drug driving. 

With a dash of Palestinian rights too. The nodding and clapping was pleasant, I guess. I’m pretty certain that in ten years’ time, no matter what I do or say, First Nations people will still be the most imprisoned race in the world, reporting sexual assault will decrease in the face of the erosion of victims’ rights nursed by Murdoch-style blind justice and medicinal cannabis drivers will still be persecuted. I see no bright lights in the Palestinian journey either. Does anyone?

So why do it? Why do any of us do it? What’s the point? I ask this in the face of a friend’s recent diagnosis of advanced cancer, and her rapid propulsion toward death. 

Her imminent and eminent passing reinforces viscerally the fantasy of immortality, the transient nature of life itself and the echo chamber of ego and outspokenness. 

Why not just retire to silence and tick a few things off the bucket list, I ask myself as I hug a loved one, gasp at sculptures by the sea and gawk at a whale. 

For me, and I judge not others, that alternative just won’t wash. 

What is a travel bucket list but a set of dollar bucks flash spending external stimulatory experiences based around selfishness and carbon-hungry flights? 

Death voids lists anyway, mate. 

What is retiring into silence, but a forlorn hope that the woes of the world can be blanked out by curtains, spy novels, anaesthetic drug use and the off button on the iPad? And then you die. What is hopelessness but an acceptance of bland? Gratefulness does not excuse inaction. 

Hal Wootten address 

I wrote in the Hal Wootten address that the inability to rest easy in the face of inequity is a blessing and a curse. 

And that it hurts, physically and mentally. Sometimes I look on at those who detach themselves from the cares of others with envy and wonder. How do they do it? Can I drink from that tap?

Previous deliverers of the Hal Wootten lecture have included my heroes Albie Sachs and Jennifer Robinson. Cushioned between the old warrior, and the young blood, I know that continue I must.

I was asked at a leadership forum if there was something I wish I had known earlier in my career. 

Vulnerably pessimistic 

I said that there was – that exposing vulnerability was a sign of strength, not weakness, and that it brought out the best in others. 

Well, I’m feeling vulnerably pessimistic about just about everything from climate change to the Middle East. And please don’t say the word Trump. 

But, nevertheless, I will keep on keeping on, frantically hoping that my efforts will result in something other than just salving my melancholic searing burn. It is exhausting and a rollercoaster but there are lots of laughs on the way, and I share the stage with awesome conspirators and receive more fan mail than hate mail. Actually, that is probably untrue. 

So, metaphorically I hold the hand of my dying friend, herself a battler, spiritual warrior and healer. I imagine her shooing me out the door: ‘Go forth and spew truth as best you can. For on your death bed at least you can say to yourself and your god that you tried, in your own way, to be free’. 

*David’s Hal Wootten Lecture 2024 is available at www.unsw.edu.au/law-justice/news-events/events/annual-hal-wootten-lecture.

Professor David Heilpern is a former magistrate and is now Dean of Law at SCU.