Doug PollardTranscript - Washington correspondent Harley Dennett on DADT & the Oz election
Harley
DOUG: Now, we’ve been hearing a lot about our election and my next guest (although he’s now based in Washington DC), was for a long time lead writer on the Sydney Star Observer, with very good political connections. So, it’ll be interesting to get his views on how our election’s panned out. But before we do that I want to ask him how things are going with being a same-sex military spouse in the midst of the rather ham-fisted attempts to repeal “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”, over there and joining us on the line, now, we have Harley Dennett. Good morning, Harley.
HARLEY: Hey, Doug.
DOUG: How are you?
HARLEY: M’mm, it’s heating up over here.
DOUG: Ah, ha? Well, that’s good – I think - - -
HARLEY: We’ve had a couple of surveys recently, ranging from the usual well, not so much the usual. The military asking its members how they thing the Service is going and they added a couple more, recently. One was asking about “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” how that’s impacted our lives and then two days ago we got an even more unusual one which was asking spouses of active service members what they think of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” and how if it’s repealed, it would change their life.
DOUG: Yeah, I saw a very peculiar interview with, I think, it was the Commander of the Marines the other day, saying that didn’t think the Marines would go for serving alongside actively homosexual members because they were a special type of extra-patriotic American or some type of thing - - -
HARLEY: Yeah. No, General James Conway is an unusual character. I’m told very typical of the Marines. In that his world view is very narrow, there’s not a lot of scope for observing any other part of public life that could be considered “normal” or “a valuable contribution to society”, so – m’mm, he’s determined that because the people that he speaks to in the Marines are a fairly religious bunch that therefore, all of them will reject as he calls them “homosexual marines” if they ever are allowed to serve.
DOUG: Yeah because room by twos - - -
HARLEY: Yes. The notion marines – he will not force any marines to bunk with a homosexual marine in case they are morally offended by the prospect.
DOUG: [laughs] He’s going to have – and then on the other hand he says: “But we’ll do our damndest to implement it if the President says we’ve got to rid of ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’” m’mm - - -
HARLEY: Yes. Yeah, they still have to follow orders but it doesn’t mean they have to like it.
DOUG: - - - yeah. [laughs] So what have they been asking – I saw some of these questionnaires that were going out to serving military members and I’ve also had a quick glimpse of some of the things they’re asking spouses and that. Some of those questions seem a bit insensitive, to say the least of it? Kind of, very leading questions - - -
HARLEY: They are. If you boil it all down though, they’re essentially asking two different questions, 44 different ways - - -
DOUG: [laughs]
HARLEY: One, would you ask your service member husband or wife to leave the military if gays are allowed to serve - which is a kind of an important one because recruitment is how the military lives and dies - - -
DOUG: M’mm.
HARLEY: In terms of it’s funding. Then the second question would be – is the softer question: would you still enjoy military social functions if gay couples were permitted to attend – and that’s the one that I find the most hilarious. A little bit insulting, m’mm – because I attend these functions now.
DOUG: [laughs]
HARLEY: It’s not as if we hid in the corner, I don’t put on a blonde wig or something when I go along to these things. We’re already there - - -
DOUG: Yes.
HARLEY: - - - m’mm, some of the questions phrase it in ways, it makes a lot more sense if you live in American suburbia but really doesn’t make any sense anywhere else - - -
DOUG: [laughs]
HARLEY: Like: “If a gay or lesbian service member lived in your neighbourhood with their partner would you stay on-Base or would you try and move out - - -” I don’t know any Australian that has ever moved out because a gay has moved into the area. If anything, it rises(sic) up property prices. Makes the area more valuable – but m’mm, in the US Military, that’s considered quite a controversial position.
DOUG: Yeah, it really reminds you that it is actually a foreign country.
HARLEY: It is. That ‘only-in-America’ thing is pervasive, everywhere is ‘only-in-America’, inside America - - -
DOUG: Yeah.
HARLEY: - - - but the thing is, with the military culture it’s everyone has a level [indistinct] attitude anyway so while General Conway may say they’ll be upset about it the reality is that everyone will just move on and live their lives. Certainly, no-one that I’ve come across, even those people when I go away to the Defense Functions, even those people who are openly saying they don’t want “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” repealed, don’t have a problem when they actually meet my partner and I.
DOUG: No and at the end of the day, because they are military you’re going to get back into the situation where it’s an order and in the military you follow orders. So, end of story whether you like it or not and they will. I assume.
HARLEY: Joy News just mentioned earlier about the West Point Honour’s Roll student who resigned from the Academy - - -
DOUG: Yes.
HARLEY: - - - taking a swipe at the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy through the New York Times - - -
DOUG: M’mm, m’mm.
HARLEY: She couldn’t follow the orders so she left.
DOUG: Yeah.
HARLEY: (and)That’s exactly what I think, everyone is expecting will happen after “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” is repealed and I think we’re talking possibly some time next year. If anyone can’t handle it they’ll probably leave. But they don’t expect it to be any more than a number of people who are already leaving because they’re gay.
DOUG: Yeah. Okay, having got that out of the way, you’ve been observing this bizarre election from a distance. How do you read the outcome?
HARLEY: Two key things, the meteoric rise of the Greens I think is something to watch in terms of whether or not it’s a permanent shift toward or sorry, should I say away from the two-party model that has run Australia since – for as long as we’ve been a democracy, with the minor exception of the DLP years. M’mm, the other major thing is that I think that the gay and lesbian community and perhaps even the transgender and intersex community as well are probably going to be better off, regardless of how this plays out. Because of the people who are making these determinations will decide who forms the government - - -
DOUG: Yeah, because - - -
HARLEY: - - - will be allowing the process of all that policy making decision to be thrown open to the public a little bit more and we already know that the public is on our side - - -
DOUG: - - - yeah.
HARLEY: Regardless of what the back-room men have to say about it.
DOUG: Yeah, there seems to be an attitude on the part of all these independents that in effect, they want virtually every vote to be a conscience vote or nearly a conscience vote. They want to go back to the old days of Parliament where you didn’t have rigid Party discipline. They want things discussed on the floor of the House and not in the Party rooms. That’s - - -
HARLEY: That’s going to hurt Labor more than the Coalition if they do try and force that through – m’mm, but we already know that there are plenty within Labor who desperately want that, themselves. So, there is(sic) so many issues that people have an issue with the way Labor has behaved in the last term - - -
DOUG: Yeah.
HARLEY: - - - that allowing more voices would be popular.
DOUG: I think it would. I don’t think the world will fall in if we do, do that – though The Australian of course, thinks if we don’t have strong government it will be a disaster. But I don’t think we need worry about what Rupert Murdoch thinks.
HARLEY: I think that his papers in the editorials for the last week – and I have been reading them all, have pretty clearly shown that they’re pushing for an Abbott government - - -
DOUG: Indeed.
HARLEY: - - - and they’re pushing for a kind of government that plays firmly to the suburban suburbs of – like, Western Sydney and Western Melbourne and they’re not particularly interested in what the inner-city or the rural areas have to say. So, I think they’re going to find themselves increasingly on the outer no matter which way the government ends up being formed.
DOUG: (and)I’m looking forward to their back flip when it comes because it will come.
HARLEY: Absolutely.
DOUG: All right. Thanks for that, Harley and - - -
HARLEY: A pleasure.
DOUG: - - - continue to enjoy your military functions along with the officers’ wives. A – sort of, Wisteria Lane on the Base - - -
HARLEY: It is very much like that at times I have to say, it’s somewhat freaky and I just don’t think I look like Terry Hatcher, to be honest?
DOUG: You’ll just have to work on it, remember you can always re-invent yourself. You’re in America now. That was - - -
HARLEY: That’s true.
DOUG: - - - Harley Dennett there, over in Washington DC.
