|
It has been twenty-five years since Joh
Bjelke-Petersen was forced out as Queensland Premier. For
young people the age of my own children, his name may be
vaguely associated with controversy – it might even draw a
blank stare. Who? they ask. Even those who took to the streets
decades ago in opposition are now likely to smile, wryly, and
admit that the world has moved on. So it has. That era is
already fodder for historians who like to assess events
dispassionately, looking for trends and outcomes and
the machinations of party politics.
A
novelist’s job, though, is different. We might be looking for
the big picture as well, but we do it through a focus on the
lives of individuals and their deeply personal response to
events that others remember only as headlines. That is the
role I have taken with The Tower Mill. The truth of it is,
when the Springboks Rugby Team came to Brisbane in 1971 I was
a school boy devotee of the game and I resented the intrusion
of demonstrators into my enjoyment of the game. Only later did
I realise another game was being played. That drama was only
beginning; in fact, it was to run for the next fifteen years
until matters of far greater importance to individual
Queenslanders than racism in South Africa were at stake. That
is why my novel is about individual lives and the relationship
between Susan Kinnane, protester, journalist, mother and, Tom,
the son she chooses not to raise herself. Her choices are
intertwined with the politics of the day, which sits as
backdrop and context for the personal drama of these
two.
This story had been in my head for twenty years. In
fact, parts of the novel published only now were written in
1999, but I lost my way, or perhaps it is more truthful to say
I lost confidence in my ability to tell the story as well as
it deserved. In 2010 a novel by Penelope Lively seemed to show
how I could go about the telling, so I sat down to the story
once more. I had no idea at the time that only months before
eventual publication, the political successors of Bjelke
Petersen would return to power, effectively for the first time
since his demise.
I need to make it clear
that I don’t quibble for a moment with the 2012 State election
result and readers should not see this book as ‘party
political’. However, some of the earliest decisions made by
the Newman government seem to indicate that the party has not
regenerated itself or moved its thinking forward in the
intervening years and this makes The Tower Mill timely in
a way I had not anticipated. Through the 1970s and 1980s, the
government of Queensland did not govern for all of its people.
It made no bones about it. People with ideas it didn’t like,
or those seeking basic personal freedoms it did not approve of
were victimized. Most worrying of all, it began to treat
genuine dissent as though it was no longer a necessary part of
a healthy democracy. When many of the dissenters felt
compelled to leave, as Susan does in this story, it crowed
with delight. This was poor governance and I fervently
hope the Newman administration does not follow up its early
announcements with a return to the days when public agencies
like the police were used against individuals and political
opponents with the tacit agreement of a complacent
public.
The Tower Mill is about what
can happen when this attitude takes
root.
|