AUTHORS TAKE SWIPE AT SYDNEY BARRIERS·
This report from The Age today:
FRANK Moorhouse says he is not an alarmist writer foaming at the mouth. But he was staggered when he saw the 2.8-metre fence being erected in Sydney to protect this week's APEC meetings from demonstrators.
"Politicians and big business are fenced off from the people, and I thought how symbolic," he said. "It symbolises the mindset of this Government — there's them and us."
The increasing restraint on information and freedom of expression that Moorhouse has identified in Australia galvanised him to write The Writer in a Time of Terror, for which he last night won the $15,000 Victorian Premier's literary award for an essay advancing public debate.
The $30,000 fiction prize went to Alexis Wright for Carpentaria, which has already won this year's Miles Franklin. The $30,000 non-fiction prize went to Danielle Clode for Voyages to the South Seas, about French scientific expeditions to Australia in the late 18th century, and Judy Johnson won the $15,000 poetry prize for Jack.
Moorhouse said major newspaper organisations were lobbying about the freedom of information and expression being suppressed in Australia. Some government agencies had even voiced concern at the limitation of freedom of expression under new security legislation.
"What they are saying is that it's the information we are not getting, the court hearings we're not hearing, the whistleblowers who are being intimidated," he said. "It's a whole pattern of suppression. It's cultural control."
Wright, whose epic novel is set among the indigenous population on the Gulf of Carpentaria, has already won four awards, and is shortlisted for next week's Queensland premier's award.
She said it had enabled her to speak out on issues such as the Government's policies in the Northern Territory.
"What I know is that what works for indigenous people across the world is that you have to have legitimacy," she said. "And you have to have resources, justice and accountability. But we're being asked to be accountable for things we never had. Until we have them in a good spirit so we can work together you can't dictate to people."
Victorian Premier's literary prizes:
FICTION ($30,000) Carpentaria (pictured, left), Alexis Wright
NON-FICTION ($30,000) Voyages to the South Seas: In Search of Terres Australes , Danielle Clode
POETRY Jack, Judy Johnson
DRAMA A Single Act, Jane Bodie
YOUNG ADULT FICTION, Notes from the Teenage Underground, Simmone Howell
SCIENCE WRITING The Silent Deep, Tony Koslow
ESSAY ADVANCING PUBLIC DEBATE The Writer in a Time of Terror, Frank Moorhouse
SCREEN WRITING The Tumbler, Chris Thompson
UNPUBLISHED MANUSCRIPT The Ghost Writer, Nick Gadd
UNPUBLISHED MANUSCRIPT The Ghost Writer, Nick Gadd
WRITING ABOUT ITALIANS IN AUSTRALIA Madonna of the Eucalypts, Karen Sparnon
JOURNALISM Muslim Leader Blames Women for Sex Attacks, Richard Kerbaj
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