PUBLIC LECTURE: 2006 Dorothy Green Lecture - �The Reading Sickness�

Abstract: At an early age, I was infected with what Patrick White called “the reading sickness”. Like White, and others who have caught the bug, I was “soon in a fever – while not understanding half of what I read - but reading and reading.” Like many avid readers, I justify my obsession, not just because it gives me pleasure and information, but because, like Dorothy Green, I believe that literature forces us “to examine our hidden motives for doing things, to analyse our prejudices and convictions, to clean up the undergrowth which always threatens to suffocate human institutions and practices”. I value literature for its subversive character; its capacity to upend our comfortable mental habits and to suggest other possibilities for living our lives.

While it is true that Australians – particularly our leaders – have never been much enthused by the subversive quality of good literature, there are signs of increasing resistance to the very idea that there is more than one way of understanding the way things are. Ad hominem attacks on writers and other critics of the status quo are commonplace and the abusive epithet “unAustralian’ is often substituted for argument with those why try through their writing to make us aware that the world can be re-imagined and remade. Coupled with the absence of appropriate public recognition for the achievements of our writers and the apparent decline in readership for literature, these trends threaten to perpetuate an increasingly stagnant and stifling orthodoxy.

Biographical note: Dr Carmen Lawrence’s parliamentary career began in State politics in 1986 when she won for the Australian Labor Party the Western Australian Legislative Assembly seat of Subiaco, held by the Liberal Party for the previous 27 years.

She was promoted to the State Government Ministry in 1988, as Minister for Education.

She was re-elected to Parliament in 1989, representing the seat of Glendalough. Following the State Labor government’s re-election her responsibilities were increased with the addition of the Aboriginal Affairs portfolio.

In a leadership change on 12 February 1990, Dr Lawrence made history by becoming Premier of Western Australia and Australia’s first woman Premier.

Following Labor’s narrow defeat at the 6 February 1993 State election, Dr Lawrence became Western Australia’s first woman Opposition Leader. She also held the positions of Shadow Treasurer and Shadow Minister for Employment and Federal Affairs.

Dr Lawrence entered Federal politics by winning the Federal seat of Fremantle in a by-election on 12 March 1994. She was appointed Minister for Human Services and Health and Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for the Status of Women on Friday 25 March 1994.

Following the defeat of the Keating Government in the March 1996 general election, Dr Lawrence was appointed Shadow Minister for the Environment; the Arts; and Assistant to the Leader of the Opposition on the Status of Women, posts she held until April 1997. In September 2000 Dr Lawrence was appointed as the Shadow Minister for Industry, Innovation and Technology, and Shadow Minister for the Status of Women.

Dr Lawrence also held the Reconciliation, Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Affairs; the Arts, and Status of Women Portfolios until December 2002.

On November 14, 2003, Dr Lawrence was elected by the first popular ballot of ALP members as President of the Australian Labor Party. Her one year term ended on January 29, 2005.

Since her return to the backbench, Dr Lawrence has been an active and vocal peace campaigner, speaking at rallies and forums around the country.

Dr Lawrence also speaks and writes regularly about refugee policy and democratic reform.

Many of her articles are regularly published on the Sydney Morning Herald Web-Dairy, and she continues to speak out in Parliament on these and other important issues.

This event forms part of the 28th Annual Conference of the Association for Australian Literature (ASAL) taking place at the University of Western Australia on 3-5 July 2006.

ALL WELCOME.NO RESERVATION REQUIRED.