Doug PollardTranscript - Digging Deeper with Gregory Storer
GREGORY STORER’S MUSIC CHOICES WERE:
1. Animal Song - Savage Garden
2. Viva la Vida - Coldplay
3. The Radicals - You've got the music in you
4. Tommy Emmanuel - Classical Gas
5. Louis Armstrong – Wonderful World
DOUG: This hour as always we’re digging deeper with one special guest for the whole hour and my guest is Gregory Storer who stood in the recent federal election for the Secular Party which is a new beast on the block, I think. Why did you choose that particular piece of music?
GREGORY: Of all the questions you’re going to ask me that’s the hardest one.
DOUG: [laughs] Well, let’s get it out of the way then.
GREGORY: Well – you know, I don’t mind music but when you ask me to pick my favourites – m’mm, it’s up there. I like Savage Garden, they’re Australian. I’ve always liked them, there’s no particular reason. I think I like the drum beat in that one, I like the introduction and the drum beat. But I don’t have any deep and meaningful reasons to pick any music at all.
DOUG: Yeah, yeah - - -
GREGORY: In fact, when you said that: pick five tracks – I thought ‘I don’t know if I want to do this - - -’
[laughs]
DOUG: It’s usually the talk bit that puts people off.
GREGORY: Yeah? No, I’ll talk all day - - -
DOUG: Talk all day, all right.
GREGORY: - - - ask me to talk about music and nup(sic).
DOUG: I confess this quietly, I’m a bit the same. You ask me what my five favourite tracks are the answer would be different on different days - - -
GREGORY: Yes, that’s right.
DOUG: Now, let’s begin back at the beginning; you were born and raised in Hamilton - - -
GREGORY: That’s right.
DOUG: - - - in Victoria. What’s Hamilton?
GREGORY: Hamilton is a small, rural city. Out in the western district, near the South Australian border. It’s a nice enough place, really. I lived there for 35-years - - -
DOUG: Agricultural?
GREGORY: Look, it’s on the back of the sheep - - -
DOUG: M’mm.
GREGORY: - - - the wool industry is Hamilton, it’s known locally but certainly not internationally as the wool capital of the world - - -
DOUG: M’mm, m’mm?
GREGORY: Because it has more sheep per capita than anywhere else and I’ve had a lot of sheep jokes over the - - -
DOUG: Even New Zealand?
GREGORY: Even – yeah, even than New Zealand.
DOUG: [laughs]
GREGORY: So, there you go. I don’t know where that stands now, that was back in the ‘80s but I think they still - - -
DOUG: Yeah, yeah - - -
GREGORY: - - - claim that title. So, a lot of sheep - - -
DOUG: - - - so, sheep country.
GREGORY: Sheep country but I’m an urban lad so I grew-up in town.
DOUG: Right. You grew-up in town. What sort of size of town was it then?
GREGORY: It’s about 10,000 people - - -
DOUG: M’mm.
GREGORY: - - - and so it’s - - -
DOUG: Not a huge place?
GREGORY: - - - not a huge place. It’s not huge but it’s big enough that you can be sort of anonymous.
DOUG: Yeah. But also lots of networks too, where - - -
GREGORY: Lots and lots - - -
DOUG: - - - people are related and know each other, who they are - - -
GREGORY: Yeah, I grew-up with my 90 cousins. My family’s quite large, there’s 11 children in my family and we’re obviously, Catholic. I was Catholic - - -
DOUG: I wasn’t going to say. It’s kind of evident.
GREGORY: You’ve got your church community and you have your school communities and the scout community and your hockey clubs - - -
DOUG: M’mm, m’mm.
GREGORY: - - - I played hockey for a while, very badly. So, you know – there’s a lot of local networks - - -
DOUG: So, where in the 11 do you come?
GREGORY: I’m number eight. I suffer from 8th-child syndrome - - -
[laughs]
DOUG: Now what the hell is 8th-child syndrome?
GREGORY: I don’t know. It’s not at the top and not at the bottom so you miss out a lot of stuff in the middle.
DOUG: Lots of hand-me-downs?
GREGORY: Just constant hand-me-downs, yes.
DOUG: Yeah.
GREGORY: Always.
DOUG: So, what did your parents do for a living? Well, your mother was obviously bringing up - - -
GREGORY: Yes.
DOUG: - - - children – let me re-phrase that one: what else did your father do?
GREGORY: Well – yeah [laughs] what else did my father do?
DOUG: [laughs]
GREGORY: That’s right; this is always a bit of fun, my father worked for V-Line – or VicRail, the railways - - -
DOUG: Ah, ha.
GREGORY: - - - way back then and he was a train driver and I once said to my father when we were talking about how many children he had and I said: You’re job is your child raising, you’ve always just pulled-out too late - - -
[laughs]
GREGORY: It took him a while to work that out, he was very upset with me - - -
DOUG: Good Catholic boy – a good Catholic joke there.
GREGORY: [laughs] That’s right, that’s right; so - - -
DOUG: Couldn’t get his rhythm right.
GREGORY: Couldn’t get his rhythm right, that’s right. An interesting thing about my folks I suppose from our point of view, is they struggled – I mean, if you ever wanted to see Aussie battlers here are a couple of people that struggled - - -
DOUG: Sure.
GREGORY: - - - they struggled to buy a house. When I - - -
DOUG: Well, 11 children and - - -
GREGORY: Yeah, 11 children - - -
DOUG: - - - and the railways don’t pay that well - - -
GREGORY: Yeah. They don’t pay that well and – you know, when we started out we were in a housing commission out in the – one of the housing commission areas in Hamilton and they’re 11 of us in a three bedroom house - - -
DOUG: M’mm.
GREGORY: - - - and it was tight. They finally bought their own place and years later, 1984, they won Tatts Lotto and that set them up for retirement so it was brilliant.
DOUG: That was lucky.
GREGORY: So it was really, really good. Yeah. So, good luck to mum and dad for – they’re in retirement now. They’re still alive, still live in Hamilton – you know, their retirement now is very comfortable.
DOUG: A bit of space and comfort at last.
[laughs]
GREGORY: Yeah, that’s right. No children. They actually moved to Queensland, they went to Queensland for eight years and I’m sure it was to get away from the children and the grandchildren.
DOUG: Yeah because if you’ve got ten brothers and sisters at least some of them must of(sic) produced children of their own and I presume some of them have remained Catholics?
GREGORY: No. No Catholics.
DOUG: Not one?
GREGORY: Not one Catholic and there’s only one brother left in Hamilton. But there’s about 30 offspring, overall.
DOUG: Right - - -
GREGORY: Yeah.
DOUG: - - - but none Catholic including you - - -
GREGORY: None - - -
DOUG: - - - and you’ve swung a long way away because you’ve been standing for a non-religious party.
GREGORY: I rather suspect judging by the support I’ve had from my family that a lot of them are on my side of the fence.
DOUG: [laughs]
GREGORY: Just don’t tell mum and dad.
DOUG: Well, they do say that there’s no enthusiast like a convert but normally they’re talking about someone who becomes a Catholic - - -
GREGORY: Yes.
DOUG: - - - as someone once said to me: you can always tell the converts, they genuflect before they cross the road.
GREGORY: Yes.
DOUG: M’mm - - -
GREGORY: Yeah, that’s right.
DOUG: - - - but it seems in your family to have worked the other way around.
GREGORY: I think a lot of the ‘70s and the ‘80s was about moving away from organised religion and I don’t think it was intentional, it happens.
DOUG: You were involved with the church weren’t you?
GREGORY: For a long time, yeah.
DOUG: Were you just a member of the congregation or did you take - - -
GREGORY: No, I was actively involved.
DOUG: - - - in the parish?
GREGORY: (and)For a long time for me, the church was the keystone of my being – m’mm, I firmly believed in God and all the Catholic stuff that goes with that. Which when you come to deal with sexuality to start with, is an issue.
DOUG: M’mm.
GREGORY: Especially if you’re Catholic.
DOUG: M’mm.
GREGORY: But more than that, the thing that really changed my mind about believing in God was the tsunami. That was 100,000 people that were wiped off the face of the Earth in one, big wave and to me that’s just – you know, I can’t understand or accept that that’s any divine person looking out for us. It’s hideous.
DOUG: It’s a very challenging concept isn’t it?
GREGORY: It is. So, that was the moment, it’d been teetering for a long time but that was the moment where I thought: that’s it. If this sort of thing’s going on there’s nobody looking out for us. Time to look out for myself.
DOUG: You say you were teetering for a very long time but you were fairly thoroughly indoctrinated weren’t you, because you went to Catholic schools, you’re from a Catholic family - - -
GREGORY: [laughs] Yes.
DOUG: - - - were active in the Catholic church – I mean, you were pretty well saturated?
GREGORY: Indoctrination’s a really interesting concept. It’s not really that you get indoctrinated, you don’t feel indoctrinated. It’s when you step outside and look back that you wonder whether or not it’s indoctrination. Because it’s not insidious – perhaps it is insidious but it’s not deliberate – you know, it’s not someone sitting down saying that you will believe this. It is about going to church and listening to the word of God and reading stuff - - -
DOUG: M’mm, m’mm.
GREGORY: - - - but it’s not actually about someone sitting down and telling you what to believe. I don’t think Catholics do that very well. But it is indoctrination, in a form.
DOUG: I use the word “saturation - - -”
GREGORY: Saturation’s good.
DOUG: - - - which I think it’s – I was brought up in a Methodist / Anglican background and it’s not so much that stuff is drilled into you particularly. It’s just – you know, there isn’t anything else, it’s there.
GREGORY: That’s right.
DOUG: It fills up all the available space and you don’t know what else there is until you move outside it.
GREGORY: That’s right.
DOUG: (and)Then you suddenly go: things look a little bit different out here.
GREGORY: (and)The realisation that you don’t actually need it.
DOUG: This hour we are digging deeper with Secular Party candidate, a fairly thoroughly lapsed Catholic - - -
[laughs]
DOUG: - - - Gregory Storer. We were talking about the reason you fell off the Catholic wagon so to speak, which was the tsunami - - -
GREGORY: Yes.
DOUG: (and)You – that destroyed whatever remaining faith you had in a deity. There’s a quote I’d love to read it’s one of my favourites. It says – in regards to removing evil from the world: “If God is willing but not able then he’s not omnipotent. If he’s able but not willing then he’s malicious and if he’s neither willing nor able then he’s not a God”.
GREGORY: That’s right. I like that quote very much.
DOUG: That sums it up for me - - -
GREGORY: Yes.
DOUG: - - - pretty much. Obviously for you, too – but let’s go back to while you were still in the machinery, caught up in the machinery. You went to Catholic schools - - -
GREGORY: Yes.
DOUG: You were involved in church life - - -
GREGORY: Yeah.
DOUG: - - - you were also involved with the scouts?
GREGORY: Absolutely. It’s one of the things you do in country towns; it’s either the footy club or the cricket club and sometimes both – and scouts - - -
DOUG: Yeah.
GREGORY: - - - is what you do. We had a Catholic scout group, it was attached to the church as well.
DOUG: Yes, gets into every corner of - - -
GREGORY: Absolutely, that’s right. It was fun, you know? Scouting - and I stayed in scouting way up until I moved to the city. To Melbourne. Which was 1995 so, I had about 30-years in the movement and finally as a leader and it was great. Really good. The scouting movement does a lot for young people and it’s something that’s there in the background for a lot of Australians. A very white Anglo Saxon thing and it’s got touches of religion in it so, it’s good. It’s about helping kids grow up and become responsible citizens and I like that concept.
DOUG: The scouts have got into a lot of trouble in the US because they’ve refused to have gay people - - -
GREGORY: Yeah.
DOUG: - - - in leadership positions. What’s the attitude here, in Australia?
GREGORY: Well, I can’t speak now. I’ve been out of it now for 15-years but it certainly has never presented itself as an issue – m’mm, I know of gay scout leaders and they’re well known.
DOUG: M’mm, m’mm.
GREGORY: About the sexuality-side, I don’t think it’s such a big issue.
DOUG: Good. You got married in 1990?
GREGORY: I did.
DOUG: Mistake?
GREGORY: M’mm, foolish mistake – look, interesting – interesting area in my life, I’d been trying to reconcile my religion with my sexuality. My 20s was really difficult and at some stage I made a decision that if I wanted to be Catholic then I couldn’t be gay because the two are incompatible. So, I made a clear decision – that was the foolish decision, getting married wasn’t foolish – you know, Jenny my wife at the time – my first and only wife and my last – is – m’mm, you know – she’s a wonderful person. We had a really good relationship and we still do. A mistake maybe, yes.
DOUG: How did she take it when you came out?
GREGORY: I wondered where that was going there - - -
[laughs]
GREGORY: Look, m’mm - - -
DOUG: It’s not that sort of show. This is day time.
GREGORY: This is – okay, I believe [indistinct] - - -
[laughs]
GREGORY: M’mm, it’s a really awkward time and there were lots of other things going on in our lives at the time, as well. We’d had two children and she wasn’t well so there were a lot of things happening for us and – you know, essentially I was trying to deal with my anger. Which is quite often one of the first signs that there’s something deeply wrong. That you’re angry; so, I went to find out why I was angry. I knew why I was angry - - -
DOUG: M’mm.
GREGORY: I just - - -
DOUG: You just wanted someone else to tell you, yeah?
GREGORY: Well, nobody told me. Had to work it out for myself. It took a lot of work and then of course, I’ve always been completely honest. It’s one of my more – one of my more questionable traits is my honesty. Brutal honesty, when asked questions and I like to be honest so, I’ve always been completely honest with Jenny. She understood before we got married that I’d had sex with men - - -
DOUG: M’mm, m’mm.
GREGORY: - - - and – m’mm, it was always there in the background - - -
DOUG: You began on an honest basis.
GREGORY: Of course and – you know, it wasn’t a struggle while I was married. It was a struggle later on - - -
DOUG: M’mm.
GREGORY: It was great to be in that relationship but it wasn’t what I wanted. It was okay but it’s not what I preferred and for happiness you’ve actually got to be in situations where you’re happy. Otherwise, you’re not happy and that’s just crap. I don’t want to be not happy. For the both of us and for our children it was important that I was honest about it and we tried to work out a way to sort that out and we did.
DOUG: A lot of people in your situation make that decision I think, partly because they have a strong wish to be a father.
GREGORY: Yeah.
DOUG: Did that play in to your decision making at all?
GREGORY: Not at all. I’ve got two children and I love my children. It’s a tough call to say if I could do it again would I have children – look, I don’t think you could say if you did it again that I wouldn’t have them. Because I’ve had them now and they’re brilliant. Great having kids but I think – I think if I was to do this again, I wouldn’t get married.
DOUG: M’mm, m’mm.
GREGORY: Children, then, becomes a different issue - - -
DOUG: Yes.
GREGORY: - - - and I’m not sure that that’s the path I’d take.
DOUG: I just wondered because I know a lot of men, a lot of gay men who in very similar positions to yours have said to themselves: yes, I know I’m gay but if I’m gay that means I can’t have children that means I’ve got to try and be straight and get married because I want to have children, I want to be a father - - -
GREGORY: Yeah. M’mm, not – not like that at all for me. The reason I got married is really clear in my mind – is that, I was gay - - -
DOUG: M’mm?
GREGORY: - - - that’s incompatible with the Catholic faith, the Catholic tradition. That means I’m going to hell, don’t want to go to hell. Got to get in good with God, get married.
DOUG: Right. Did you expect it to “cure” you?
GREGORY: Absolutely. It’s what I’d prayed for – you know, I prayed for years. To take this thing away from me. Because I didn’t want to be gay - - -
DOUG: M’mm.
GREGORY: - - - growing up in a small, country town is hard enough without being gay and – you know, people know or they assume things about you and growing up through school. There was a lot of bullying, there was a lot of “poofta(s)” and things like that - - -
DOUG: Yeah.
GREGORY: - - - as I was growing up. You know? That really stung. I didn’t want to be that person who’d been cast aside. So, in the end I’ve said: well, I’ll get married and that’s what I did.
DOUG: Did you get bullied at school?
GREGORY: Absolutely.
DOUG: For what reason?
GREGORY: Ah - - -
DOUG: Because people suspected something different about you?
GREGORY: I think that they suspected something different and I’ve never been one to be – and when you’re growing up in a small country town whose heart and soul is in sport and you don’t play sport, you don’t like football, you don’t like cricket – you know, you’d sooner look at the flowers - - -
DOUG: [laughs]
GREGORY: - - - then there’s(sic) lots of reasons - - -
DOUG: Join the school drama group - - -
GREGORY: - - - that’s right. All that stuff – all that stuff, that’s not associated with being a good, Aussie bloke.
DOUG: Yeah.
GREGORY: You know, if you can’t be a good, Aussie bloke they’re going to call you a poof. I didn’t even know at the time which is always interesting. When I look back at it I think I didn’t even know until I was about 14 or 15 - - -
DOUG: M’mm?
GREGORY: - - - no idea. So, it was always interesting that other people picked it up before I did.
DOUG: M’mm, I think other people do. I didn’t know either ‘til other people told me.
[laughs]
DOUG: ‘Ah, so – that’s what it is’.
GREGORY: That’s right.
DOUG: I think it was the time when they were casting the school play one year when I was about 14 or 15 as you mention - - -
GREGORY: Yeah?
DOUG: - - - and they came to me and they said: it’s only a very small part but we want you for it because we want someone really camp.
GREGORY: Yes.
DOUG: (and)I went: what?
[laughs]
DOUG: (and)I think that was the point I realised there’s something a wee bit different about me and maybe it’s not just that I don’t like sport. It’s because we don’t have a context - - -
GREGORY: Yes.
DOUG: - - - now-days we do have a context - - -
GREGORY: That’s right.
DOUG: In good schools, anyway. But in those days we did not.
GREGORY: M’mm.
DOUG: So, marriage actually worked for you quite well for a while?
GREGORY: It did. Yeah.
DOUG: For quite a long while - - -
GREGORY: Yes, it did. Indeed.
DOUG: How old are your children now?
GREGORY: 18 and 16.
DOUG: So they’re pretty grown up.
GREGORY: Yes. Time to move out guys, get out.
[laughs]
DOUG: Do they live with your wife?
GREGORY: No, they live with me. They’ve always lived with me.
DOUG: They live with you.
GREGORY: Yes, yeah.
DOUG: (and)Obviously, you get on fine with them?
GREGORY: I do – and again, it’s about honesty – you know, I’ve never shielded them from what’s been happening in my life. They understand my sexuality and they’ve been there as I’ve gone through all of this with Jenny – and I, my ex-wife - - -
DOUG: M’mm.
GREGORY: They’ve been fully aware, been kept fully informed so for them this is just part of life for them, it’s nothing odd.
DOUG: Honestly, obviously, is a very good policy.
GREGORY: [indistinct]
DOUG: Takes a bit of strength to go through with that, though; I mean, you must have been afraid you’d encounter rejection?
GREGORY: Well, yes and I did encounter a lot of rejection and that always smarts. Yes. So, it’s not a pleasant place to be.
DOUG: But you went through with it anyway?
GREGORY: You have to because it is about happiness in the end and when you embark on this quite deliberately you know there are people who are going to reject you. I fully understood that and sometimes it all comes out okay in the end. But finally, those people who rejected me – you know, okay, that’s fine. It questions the value of the relationship, anyway.
DOUG: I’m tempted to say that it strikes me that there’s at least one little bit of Catholic teaching that has stuck with you very firmly which is to be honest and be yourself and true.
GREGORY: Not quite, Doug - - -
DOUG: [laughs]
GREGORY: - - - because when you’re Catholic you don’t have to be honest. You can go and confess it and have it forgiven so you can tell as many lies as you like and then you can be forgiven.
DOUG: [laughs] M’mm. You didn’t like that [indistinct] - - -
GREGORY: Not particularly, no.
DOUG: Okay. Let’s get away from the more personal stuff - - -
GREGORY: Yep.
DOUG: - - - you’ve said that you were deeply involved in this whole Catholic thing for a long, long time and the tsunami came along and tipped you out as it were, that was the last straw. It’s a long way from leaving the church and all that background to standing up for a political party that wants to get religion out of public life altogether.
GREGORY: Yep.
DOUG: (and)To actually stand as a candidate for such a party - - -
GREGORY: Yeah.
DOUG: - - - not just become a member or support it but to actually become a candidate for such a party. Explain your journey there?
GREGORY: I need to be really clear about this; it’s not for me about getting rid of religion, I’m not interested in doing that. I guess I want to say to people there is an alternative to the way we run things here, in Australia and that’s what drives me to stand up and say: I’ve got a point of view, I have an understanding of the world around me and I actually want people to know that. I want to stand by my convictions – I think, in Australia way too much is defined by the religious right who have way too much say in what’s happening in the country and I don’t like that. The other thing and this is where we are in politics now, the other thing is that we have a really good situation now where there’s nobody clearly in control and I’d like to mix it up a bit. A lot of the politics that goes on is decided by big, Labor Party machines – party machines, not necessarily Labor - - -
DOUG: M’mm.
GREGORY: But big party machines, they decide what the legislation is and it gets rammed through parliament; so, parliament’s not about helping people. Parliament’s about enacting the policies of the Labor Party or the Liberal Party and I think it’s time we threw that up a bit and said parliament should be about us discussing what we want.
DOUG: Well, we can talk about that in a moment. I think you’re right, there’s been a drift in power towards the Executive in every democratic country.
GREGORY: M’mm.
DOUG: Because big people generally – businesses, unions and so on and so forth, don’t like the unruliness and un-governableness(sic) as it were of - - -
GREGORY: M’mm.
DOUG: - - - where you actually have to go and argue your case with a lot of other people and convince them. We’re Digging Deeper with the Secular Party candidate Gregory Storer. I keep calling him: Secular Party candidate Gregory Storer ‘cause that’s why I wanted to talk to him - - -
GREGORY: Unsuccessful - - -
DOUG: [laughs]
GREGORY: - - - candidate.
DOUG: Well, the Secular Party’s actually quiet new, isn’t it?
GREGORY: It is, it is. Yes.
DOUG: Were you involved in founding it?
GREGORY: No, no. I’m a newcomer to the Party, I - - -
DOUG: M’mm?
GREGORY: - - - joined just after the Atheist Conference in Melbourne which was – m’mm, back in – earlier in the year. I can’t remember exactly - - -
DOUG: M’mm, m’mm.
GREGORY: Yeah, brand new to the Party. It’s been around for a number of years but this is the first time that we’ve stood as a party. We’ve only just been registered as a political party, this year. Just before the election in fact.
DOUG: Right. Why particularly did the Party want to stand this time out when they haven’t done it before?
GREGORY: M’mm, it takes a lot to become a political party; you’ve got to have at least 500 members in, when you’re a small party that’s a lot of people. Not only do you have to have them but as you go through the registration process the Australian Electoral Commission, the AEC actually rings people to find out if they belong to the party so it took a long time to get to a point where they had over 500 people that could be verified – m’mm, to form the party. So, we were going to stand people but we would’ve stood as independents in the election - - -
DOUG: Right.
GREGORY: - - - it’s good that the party registration came through so then we were able to stand and put Secular Party of Australia on the ballot papers.
DOUG: Right - - -
GREGORY: M’mm.
DOUG: - - - it’s a bit of a single issue thing to be standing on though, isn’t it?
GREGORY: Well, it’s more than just a single issue. The crux of it seems to be single issue but of course, we have policies in lots of other areas as well – I mean, it is about the, you know, the catchcry is: separation of church and state – or ‘religion’ and state but you know there is an issue about gay rights, there’s issues about the environment, the mining tax – m’mm, you know, there’s a whole range of policies that we have. On the surface it might look like it’s a single-issue party but there’s actually a whole lot more involved than that.
DOUG: You’ve had a lot of criticism obviously from people who are religious and do want religion to play a part in public life. In particular, your partner Michael Barnett pointed me toward the diatribe that turned up on one of the Jewish websites, I - - -
GREGORY: Yes.
DOUG: - - - think it was the: Sensible Jew. If I remember rightly. You were accused of wanting to put religion into perida (exile) if I can put it that way; if you had your way people would only be allowed to practise their religion behind closed doors and never refer to it in public. A bit like homosexuality, really.
GREGORY: Yeah. That’s right. Furtherest(sic) thing from the truth, you’d have to be foolish to think that you could remove religion from the world and I think, there’s a clear separation here for me, in my mind, between my own person atheism which I don’t force on people and the need to keep the government secular. So, what I’m on about is keeping religion out of politics. What you do in your private space, what you do as a congregation is entirely up to you. But don’t expect the government to fund it.
DOUG: Where does this leave organisations like – for example, Catholic run hospitals?
GREGORY: Again, if there’s a charity that the Catholics are running then sure, there’s no reason why they shouldn’t enjoy the benefits of tax concessions and so on which is really what this boils down to. We’re not talking about ripping money out of Catholic hospitals provided that they’re accountable just like every other charity in Australia; they should have their books properly audited, they should be able to account for the money that’s been spent and the money’s not to be spent and used for religious purposes. You’ve got a hospital – here are your tax concessions, now, run the hospital.
DOUG: I presume a similar kind of argument with regard to schools?
GREGORY: Absolutely. We were talking about indoctrination before and that indoctrination starts really early - - -
DOUG: M’mm.
GREGORY: - - - and it starts in schools. Especially Catholic although there’s nothing overt about it is about packing the kids off to mass and doing confessions and a whole range of things and that has no place in our education system - - -
DOUG: Looking forward to your first communion and - - -
GREGORY: - - - that’s right. That has no place in our government-funded schools.
DOUG: I think that’s the key issue there, isn’t it? M’mm, if these things are privately funded, if people want to set-up a religious school of their own and they want to pay for it - - -
GREGORY: Yeah.
DOUG: - - - then I don’t think anybody has any kind of an objection.
GREGORY: Not at all.
DOUG: It’s when they and this is something that’s started to creep in under John Howard, when he was playing at building Isengard in Canberra in imitation of George Bush’s - - -
GREGORY: Yes.
DOUG: - - - over in Washington - - -
GREGORY: Yeah [laughs] .
DOUG: He increasingly put government business the way of religious agencies; so, the Salvation Army for example, got involved in providing jobs. Job search agencies - - -
GREGORY: Yeah.
DOUG: - - - and various other examples of public services being provided by religious agencies - - -
GREGORY: M’mm, m’mm.
DOUG: Would you like to see that continue, would you like to see that particular tap turned off?
GREGORY: There’s no harm in doing them but one of the big fears that people often raise is: if the churches don’t do it who is going to do it? You know, the notion that nobody else in the whole-wide-world will do it is just not right – you know, there are lots of secular organisations that do lots of good work and religion can still – they can still do the things because that’s part of their ethos, if you like; but, we need to be really clear about why they’re being funded and they need to provide that funding and they need to provide it on a non-discriminatory basis. So that everybody’s entitled to it – they can’t pick and choose who they want to fund.
DOUG: What about the argument that John Michael Howsen threw up when he was in this studio, when he said: show me a hospital that was founded by an atheist movement?
GREGORY: Yeah.
DOUG: [laughs]
GREGORY: Which is really interesting but that whole notion, that is such a religious point of view – is that there has to be some sort of organisation to do it. Well, that’s not the case, you know? There is no atheist movement. We’re not some great, big, global domination company out there. But there are hospitals that are run by private industry that isn’t connected to churches.
DOUG: Yeah, I’m trying to think of one off hand. Is the Epworth connected to a church?
GREGORY: I don’t know. I couldn’t tell you specifically.
DOUG: That’s a charitable organisation - - -
GREGORY: Yes.
DOUG: - - - a not-for-profit - - -
GREGORY: No.
DOUG: But it doesn’t have a saint’s name stuck over the door - - -
GREGORY: [laughs] It’s a profit business. It’s a business. The Epworth Hospital is a business - - -
DOUG: Yes.
GREGORY: - - - and I don’t think they’ve got – they could have religious connections but it’s certainly not overt.
DOUG: No. Definitely not.
GREGORY: M’mm.
DOUG: I think it’s actually run as a not-for-profit - - -
GREGORY: Okay.
DOUG: - - - business – charitable trust.
GREGORY: We’ll look that one up - - -
DOUG: We can look that up and if anyone knows - - -
GREGORY: - - - yes - - -
DOUG: - - - you can let me know and you know how to do it. Give us an SMS: 0427 JOY 949 or even, email: onair@joy.org.au if you can think of any other hospitals, too, beside the Epworth that are not religious foundations?
GREGORY: Of course, there’s government hospitals all over the place as well.
DOUG: Well, yeah – state education - - -
GREGORY: Yes.
DOUG: - - - you have state hospitals - - -
GREGORY: Yes, absolutely.
DOUG: M’mm, we have a lot of state provision. I’d look back to the UK where obviously, a lot of the names of the hospitals are still religious. There’s saint-this-and-saint-the-other but of course, they were all taken over when the National Health Service came into being. (and)They still continue to function they’re just not religious organisations.
GREGORY: Well, that’s right you can call them whatever you like it’s actually about where the funding comes from - - -
DOUG: Yes.
GREGORY: - - - we have places in Australia that we call ‘royal’ so what? It doesn’t make them royal - - -
DOUG: [laughs] Yeah. I find it quite strange coming to this country from the UK, the extent to which the Catholic Church in particular is entwined with public provision with one sort or another - - -
GREGORY: Yes.
DOUG: - - - education and health and so-on-and-so-forth, this is not the case as I say, back in the UK. We’ve moved on beyond that.
GREGORY: Yeah.
DOUG: We should of course mention there are Jewish religious organisations, Muslim - - -
GREGORY: M’mm.
DOUG: - - - religious organisations that also run hospitals, schools - - -
GREGORY: Absolutely – and this isn’t about, this isn’t about stopping them from doing that. They can do that, that’s fine. It’s about the way they’re funded - - -
DOUG: M’mm, m’mm.
GREGORY: - - - and whether or not the funding is being used for religious purposes or it’s being used for the purpose it was intended.
DOUG: Ah – thank you, Ben. He’s just brought up the Epworth website: “Epworth healthcare is a private, not for profit hospital group ... operates under its own Act of Parliament. The Epworth Foundation Act (1980)” – “ ... all surplus generated is re-invested in improving patient care” – “ ... started as a community hospital in Richmond”. So, there you are. It’s not religious.
GREGORY: There you go, it’s not religious and that’s(sic) the sorts of hospitals we need – you know, they’re making money for their own benefit to re-invest. Private industry’s great like that.
DOUG: Now, a little bit about you being involved in community radio - - -
GREGORY: Yeah.
DOUG: - - - obviously we’re a community radio station, which community radio station were you involved with?
GREGORY: I was at Southern FM in Moorabbin for a long time.
DOUG: Yeah?
GREGORY: Yeah. I was on the Board, Programme Committee and – m’mm, on the radio in fact, I used to do the drive programme which was an interview-based programme - - -
DOUG: M’mm, m’mm.
GREGORY: - - - similar sort of format to this one and it was great fun. You know? I really enjoyed it, I love talking to people especially on the radio - - -
DOUG: M’mm.
GREGORY: You get to talk to all sorts of people as you I’m sure, discovered. People will come and talk to you because you’re on the radio so over the years I’ve spoken to lots of politicians, lots of famous people – don’t ask me to name them now because it’s a while ago, now.
DOUG: All too much of a blur.
GREGORY: It becomes a blur but it was good fun but the trouble with community radio is that it’s voluntary and at some stage I had to go back to work - - -
DOUG: [laughs]
GREGORY: - - - and that’s when it bites the dust – so, yeah.
DOUG: Do you think community radio serves a valuable purpose?
GREGORY: Absolutely – look, I think that we are so fed on mainstream media these days with commercial radio that its single focus is – apart from the ABC, but its single focus is about getting you to listen so that they can play you adverts(sic). Community radio’s actually really good about getting people on the radio who have got something to say or got some music they want to play that don’t have access anywhere else. I think that’s really important.
DOUG: Well, it’s taken over a lot of the functions of what used to be local radio - - -
GREGORY: Yeah. Absolutely and that’s exactly what it’s like; I remember, back in Hamilton listening to the radio, there. It was a very community-based radio station. It was a commercial radio station but over the years it gets formatted and it gets sanitised and now it’s just – m’mm, it’s a relay station from Melbourne.
DOUG: I was interested – we were talking about this a little, off air. I was interested in what you said about there’s always people at community radio stations who think they want to be on commercial radio - - -
GREGORY: Absolutely.
DOUG: There’s(sic) also people on community radio stations who think they ought to be on the ABC – hello there, I’m available - - -
GREGORY: [laughs] That’s right. ‘I was here first’ - - -
DOUG: [laughs] Does it act as a nursery for people moving into mainstream radio, much?
GREGORY: Look, I know that there are some people who used Southern FM as a training ground, to get in commercial radio.
DOUG: M’mm.
GREGORY: So, yes. I think so and I think it’s good to hone those skills. Some people do go off and do the radio courses and then they look for a placement if you like, a community radio where they can really get their skills, down-pat – and that’s brilliant, a good training ground and it should be encouraged.
DOUG: Well, we certainly encourage it. You can always come and do a Taste of Radio course here if you fancy yourself on air. Who knows, Hamish and Andy are going down to only one day a week, there’s an opening there for somebody.
GREGORY: Yes,
DOUG: I’m sure Andy and Adrian are already queuing at the door for that one - - -
[laughs]
GREGORY: You might get the call yet, Doug?
DOUG: Well, you never know. You never know. Unfortunately, it’d probably be a nightshift - - -
GREGORY: [laughs]
DOUG: - - - Wodonga - - -
GREGORY: Yes, that’s right - - -
DOUG: - - - in my case. Gregory, thank you very much for joining us today.
GREGORY: Doug, thank you very much. It’s been great.
