Ultimatum

'It must be satisfying.'

'Hm?'

'Knowing that your work creates... this kind of thing you can see out the window down there. What do you newspapermen call it? ‘Mobilisation,’ isn’t it? Almost like you are building an army. It’s quite effective, you’d agree.'

'Quite.'

'From your perspective, anyway.'

'I don’t quite understand what you’re driving at, mate.'

'Well. They can gather and walk and chant and make a mess all they like. It isn’t going to change anything. All it is doing is selling papers.'

'But that doesn’t make sense. If this... mess... is all I was after, because I wanted to sell papers, it’s a very easy, cheap shot. It would be far more satisfying to create this kind of reaction out of something very mundane. Like garbage bins. Wouldn’t you agree?'

'Satisfying or not, you can’t deny that you have been behind these people, cracking your whip, ever since the jury’s decision was handed down. Haven’t you.'

'Ha! Haha! Yes. Hahaha. Yes, absolutely. Ohhh this couch is so comfortable. Anyway, you miss the critical point in this, Bolte. The critical point is that I didn’t even have to do anything. An article here, an editorial there. It’s not exactly what you’d call ‘cracking a whip’. It’s more like breathing gently on the embers that were already there. It grew into a flame, and then into a campfire, and it has become a raging inferno that has captured the attention of people around the world. And in the middle of this fiery apocalypse is you. The very fact that you haven’t understood this mechanism is why your government is on its last legs. You can’t see the Man on the Street, Bolte! You might only be this far away from them, but you are in an ivory tower and you think you know best. It’s all going to backfire on you and you can’t even see it.'

'Oh for Christ’s sake Perkin! This is all bullshit: The flowery words of an intellectual wanker having a good old pull in front of a bloody mirror.'

'Is that what you’d call more than 100,000 people in protest against this case?'

'They wouldn’t do it if the newspapers in this town did their bloody jobs properly!'

'Is wanking off in public what you’d call the hundreds of letters we get every day? Is it papers like the Canberra Times speaking out against barbaric practices that, as a society, we are past now? Is it ignoring the very people that elect you into office? Is that wanking, Bolte? For a man who plays the media so well, you seem to have forgotten just how important is our relationship to the vitality of your political party in this state. We have the greatest circulation, the biggest reach. More people take us seriously than those other rubbish papers, which wouldn’t know good journalism if it jumped up and bit them on the arse!'

'Get to the point, Perkin. Do you need a light for that smoke?'

'Ah, thank you. Look, I came here today because I wanted to offer you a deal, Bolte.'

'A deal, you say. What kind of deal?'

'If you exercise mercy and let Ronald Ryan live, then the Age will support you throughout this year’s, and all future, elections.'

'Hm. I have to think about this. Do you want an answer today, Perkin?'

'My word I do. You don’t seriously think I would leave without one?'

* * * 

'You’re a smart man, Perkin. I imagine you have considered every possible outcome of what you just offered.'

'I’ve taken a considerable risk, you know, chap. I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for the right reasons. Look, while you think, ponder this: Your party has had a good run, but it’s failing the very people who need good leadership through the changes going on in the world. You can’t read the people in the street. You don’t know what they’re thinking any more. The voter of 1967 isn’t the voter of 1955. It’s different now, chap! The culture is changing. By hanging Ryan you are just walking into your own noose and you can’t even bloody well see it. Your own bullshit argument about beating up public dissent proves that.'

'Are you talking about these time wasters who don’t have jobs and would rather rant and rave in public to get attention? Is that the voter you are talking about here, Perkin? The very fact that they have nothing better to do except feel sorry for themselves and try to get some reflected glory by being out in public with a few signs isn’t an indication that the party is failing. It’s an indication that there is a whole lot of people without meaningful work to do.'

'Haha! Did your father say things like that to you? In any case, I extend to you my thanks because you proved your blindness by making a completely ignorant comment. The change isn’t just what you see under your nose. It’s social shift. It’s not just happening in Melbourne; it’s worldwide. If it wasn’t, why would the international papers be watching our little city so damned closely? The change is everywhere. It’s in the support for the Little Desert and the increasing value of our environmental heritage. I would bet my favourite boots that if Australia ends up in Vietnam it will cause an absolute bloody shitfight - much bigger than what’s out there for Ryan. 

You can’t stand there and tell me that hanging a man for killing a man makes any sense in this day and age, surely!'

'Perkin, they are students, mostly. And unionists. Don’t let your own passion distract you from what’s going on here. This kind of student thing is new here but Australia’s still a young country. Student unions have been around since the 1930s; it’s their job to start thinking differently. That’s why they’re studying!'

'Are you really such an old man?'

'I don’t know what you mean.'

'You sound like you have no idea about life as a 20-year-old. I bet you remember it though. Eh? Eh? Ha! Anyway this change can’t be explained away as students finding themselves in a brave new world, Bolte. If that was just the case, nobody else would care. But they do. Everyone is out on the street making this fact known. It’s men and women, students and employees, manufacturers and priests. Mums and kids. It is a snapshot of Victoria’s population, and from that perspective I urge you to consider what you’re doing - or not doing, as the case may be. It’s this population that I have in my palm, Bolte. I have proved, over and over again that a paper like The Age can make meaningful change in society. I can ‘crack the whip’ as you so eloquently put it, and suddenly we have the entire population turning out in support of a petty burglar that none of them actually knows. It isn’t because they don’t think he’s guilty, man, it’s because they don’t think that he deserves to be killed!'

'It would take so much more than what I could possibly achieve to change the legislation, Perkin!'

'You’re such a politician, Henry. My point is that you are facing an election. The whole world knows that you are the man who will take the credit, or be vilified, for killing this man. That’s what I was trying to say to you earlier. That’s the only thing that the world will remember if you continue on this way. Besides, these death threats you're getting: It makes you just like the folk out there. Just like Ryan. Just like anyone else. Mortal. Kill-able. You'll do whatever you can to protect your life, right?'

'Bahahahahahaha! Aaaahhhhhh hahahahahahaha! Haha! Ha! Oh, I can't breathe, it's too funny! The hypocrisy, Perkin! It’s all a load of bullshit hypocrisy! Ahhh hahaha, give me a moment will you? Ahh, you believe your own tripe. What kind of bullshit idiot protests against the death penalty, while also threatening to kill someone? I’m not in any danger. Nobody is going to kill me. This is all a gigantic pain in the arse that is going to take me away from my job. That’s all it is. It’s going to stop Edith from gardening and volunteering; it’s going to interfere with how we live on the farm; it’s going to stop my daily press conferences. That’s what it’s going to do. Blah blah you’re just like them, Bolte. I know what you mean. I think it’s stupid. If someone is pro-life but is sending death threats to *anyone* then that person clearly doesn’t know what they stand for. They are in a moment of hatred or intense dislike. They are so goddamned reactive that they would commit the very crime they are protesting against. Your winds of change, Perkin, are nothing but people caught up in a whirlwind that’s taken over the city, and this is the kind of ridiculous thing that comes out of it. These little slugs prove to me that we need tough sentencing for people found guilty of felonies like Ronald Ryan. If we made a mockery, they would think twice about threatening to kill someone else just because something isn’t going their way. They make a blasted mockery of what is a serious case. Come to that, So does all of your blasted, bleeding heart journalism.'

* * * 

'Come here. Look out this window. Tell me what you see.'

'Eh? I see some beautiful gardens and a lovely city.'

'Right. Who is responsible for it?'

'I’m not sure what you mean, Bolte.'

'When it comes down to it, who of all people in this state is responsible for it? That's right - I am! All of it, I am responsible for at some point. All of it. The gardens, the roads, education, the jobs. Like a mini Prime Minister. Like every other mini Prime Minister in this country. Yes? Do you agree?'

'I guess so.'

'Then look at me when I am speaking! I’m going to tell you something about your offer. You told me that if I exercise mercy and let Ronald Ryan live, that your paper will support me and my government into the future. Correct?'

'Oof, chap, you didn't have to turn me! Yes, that’s correct.'

'In doing so, you are arguing that you have the ability to change the hearts and minds of the people, to turn them to your will no matter what. Correct?'

'Er. I guess so? Gosh. Yes.'

'Ok. Then this changes the question.'

'I don’t follow.'

'The question, Perkin! The question is not Do I, or do I not, allow Ronald Ryan to live. The question is, do you run the state, or does the government run the state?'

'Heh heh. Uhh - '

'Your arguments, man are trivial. You’ve come in here today to argue the flimsy argument that I’m out of touch with idiots who will pick up whatever is in the press. They were terrified when Ryan was out on the run. That was mere weeks ago. They want Ryan to live, that’s today. What will they want tomorrow? Notoriety because their photographs were in the paper while they were marching for a criminal they don’t even know? You say it’s an election issue; I say that in three months’ time, nobody will give a flying fuck about this when they’re wondering who’s going to keep their jobs steady - me or the other bloke. They’re not going to shift their votes because someone was hanged; they’re going to shift their votes because their kids can’t get an education. And you say that the Liberal Party is failing, when we are the most dynamic, forward-thinking party this state has ever seen - and that will be proved by the leaders who come up after me. In short, Perkin, you just want your way. You want to be able to stand on a pedestal at the top of your career and say, I am the man who allowed a man to live. And you have the balls to come in here with an ego the size of Jupiter and suggest that you’d be doing me a favour! What you’re doing, Perkin, is sowing the seeds of corruption. Those poor bastards out there trust that everything you write is the gospel bloody truth, and yet here you are offering to cut a deal just so you can tell the story that suits you. Well I won’t have it! I’m not the corruptible type like you newspaper fellows. I uphold the rule of the law, because that is my job. Laws are in place for good bloody reason, and if we make up the rules as we go, we may as well not have any bloody rules. Which means: You can shove your deal up your egotistical arsehole!'

* * * 

'In all of this there is one thing that you haven’t seen, Perkin.'

'Sigh - Oh yes? What’s that then, chap?'

'You and I aren’t so different.'

'Hahaha! Oh, come now. Don't be ridiculous.'

'You have forgotten, sir, that Ronald Ryan is scheduled to hang tomorrow morning.'

'No, I hadn’t forgotten.'

'Well, then. Maybe you misunderstand. There’s nothing that you or I can do right now.'

'Of course there is! Don’t be absurd!'

'No, Perkin, there isn’t. Let go of your bully-boy journalist bullshit a moment will you? Try and see this clearly. You are the man who has changed journalism - and The Age - forever. You tell incredible stories, you make people care about bullshit things like dogs getting heart transplants. You are a prodigy of the Australian media, there’s no denying. In the role that you have created for yourself, you absolutely must make me a deal - and/or write about ‘oh the humanity‘ of the hanging. That's the role that you've established for yourself. And I am the man that people know will uphold the law no matter what. That’s the role that I have. That’s the image that the public has. And them? Those time-wasters out there? They understand us like a devil and an angel. But the truth is that you and I are the same man. Nobody knows why you’re here. You’re at the top of your chain. I’m at the top of mine. We have some public personas that we have created. If I wanted to change my role in this, then I have much more at stake than my pride, Perkin. It’s the position in the Party as a floppy leader without a spine; it’s a husband without a moral; it’s a Premier who thinks the law is his plaything...'

'Bolte, philosophy doesn’t suit you. Oh look, your cigar ash -'

'The point is, my good man, that no matter what we agree today, nothing can possibly change. Even if we both agree that killing a man is abhorrent - which we do. Even if we both agree that it’s ridiculous to kill a man for killing a man - which we do. Even if we agree that Ronald Ryan’s case has some misgivings that are unfortunate for absolutely everybody concerned - which we do - it does not change what I have to do and it does not change what you have to do. And that means that you are going to walk out of that door today without a deal, and Ronald Ryan is still going to hang at 8 am tomorrow. I’ve been in this role for a long time, Perkin. I know what works. I know what are my strengths and weaknesses. I know that there is one young chap coming up behind me who will be a better leader of the Party than me, and in not very long. But he’s not ready yet. People trust me to do the right thing, Perkin. I can’t shift that even if I wanted to. And I will not call my own integrity into question by making a change just because a sharp chap like you makes a nice argument that I ought to, not even when a man’s life is on the line. The truth is neither of us have any control over the matter. The judicial process gave us an outcome, one without any leeway. All the appeals fell flat, so the law says that Ryan will hang. The poor bastard would’ve been better off being called insane like that Tait prick. But probably he has integrity, too. Even looking at his behaviours during the case you can see that, Perkin!'

'Ah, can't deny that. It’s true. He tried to save a complete dickhead because he couldn’t stand to see him beaten.'

'My point exactly. He’s not going to stand in a court and plead insanity when he’s not. They’d take his family away, and then he would be better off dead anyway. He’s a boomerang, the only place he ever runs off to is his family.'

'For all that, Bolte, we’re not the same. You can still exercise mercy.'

'Oh I could exercise mercy, can I? Or I could trust the system that you and I both live in, and support it the way it is. Are you going to introduce a bill to have hanging abolished?'

'Er - '

'I didn’t think so! If I did, would it change tomorrow’s outcome?'

'No.'

'No. Of course it wouldn’t. You don’t have control over this. I don’t have control over this. It is what it is. And even if it wasn’t, giving a newspaper the power to say what goes on in society is the fastest road to social hell that either of us would face.'