Because I was not a socialist.
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out:
Because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out:
Because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me – and there was no-one left to speak for me.
In 1946 the Lutheran pastor Martin Niemoller wrote this about Nazi Germany from 1933-45, almost as a belated apology for sins committed by so many and tacitly allowed by too many, including himself.
The Holocaust may not be the next stop in the Australian narrative but like it or not the fourth estate, the journalists, are the only ones who can speak for you.
Every dictatorship or ultra-conservative government in history, and in the world today, targets journalists to shut down public debate; to hide their mismanagement, their wrongdoing – and their evil.
The substitute becomes state-owned media that tells you only what those in charge want you to hear.
Don’t think for a minute there is an Australian government – Labor or Coalition – that would not muzzle a free media at the first available opportunity.
Tighter controls have been increasingly kicked around political circles in recent years.
Now the Australian Federal Police – an instrument of government – is raiding journalists who have had the professional temerity to flip over a few rocks and expose some seriously murky stories.
For the AFP to stand up and suggest they were only following orders smacks of the excuses lamely served up by Nazi leaders of all ranks once the war was lost.
For the Prime Minister to stand up and deny any awareness, or any desire to limit or remove a free media, just doesn’t pass muster.
The Coalition — and others — have made no secret of their intense dislike of, for example, the ABC’s position as a perceived leftist media juggernaut funded by the taxpayers. So suddenly, once the Coalition has won government in its own right, the ABC is raided.
This is either the worst case of timing or it is the very public thin edge of the political edge.
Mr Morrison cannot raise his hands and claim the AFP is its own master. It works for the government and in the final analysis, if the AFP does anything it is the PM where the buck stops.
If journalist shield laws become rubbery because governments can legislate whatever they want; and have a police force to deliver the bad news, you, more than me, have a problem.
Because you, Joe and Jill Average, will have no recourse, no-one to hold people to account, no-one.
It might seem a naïve juxtaposition, but if you want to see a local example of the media speaking for you, then just look back a few months to a media driven campaign getting the Echuca Specialist School the money to relocate.
That was the power of the press representing the vulnerable and voiceless – and succeeding.
In my 47 years as a journalist I have known movers and shakers, in politics and industry, and most have dreamed of a world where they control the news flow. They have told me, with all sincerity. Two Prime Ministers confirmed it to me, face to face (but only after they retired).
Yes, the media will get it wrong. Often. We all make mistakes.
But right now our biggest mistake; your biggest mistake, a fatal mistake, would be to treat the events of the past week with indifference, or even delight.
Because next time you have a problem with government (local to federal), with a shop, with a lack of services, with the threat of lost income, or you want to promote fundraisers, charities, sporting clubs or community groups, who will go into bat for you?
When a government that has got rid of the media turns its full attention on then restricting your rights, who will stand up and reveal the potential evil?
Technology has given people incredible power, like nothing history has seen. In the wrong hands it will make a future that hasn’t been considered except in fiction and Hollywood.
So when they come for you, for your job, for your rights, who will speak for you?
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