In 2010 as CEO of World Vision my advocacy work took me to the G20 in South Korea. We realised that the big economic issues that affected the poor and our work, like tax evasion, corruption, fair and free trade, were being decided there. We were just a ginger group on the sidelines of the discussion at the international level and not formally included in the process. But in 2013 I was privileged to be part of the first civil society outreach group that was formalised as part of the actual G20. The G20, which represents 80 per cent of the world’s population and trade, was formed to deal with global economic issues, and Australia is a member. The G7 deals with humanitarian and foreign policy issues, while the G20 began as a meeting of finance ministers and had its finest moments in the Global Financial Crisis. I was once again following in the steps of my brother, as he was an architect of Australia’s inclusion in this body.
‘Civil society’ is a loose term for actors who are neither government nor business, but are just citizens who organise and connect with each other through voluntary movements. They may be charitable or environmental and represent the heavy lifting done by non-state, non-business participants keen to build a better world. At the St Petersburg G20 in 2013, civil society finally got a seat at the table, alongside business and labour. I found it ironic that President Putin was the first leader to provide such resources and space for civil society.
Putin gave the G20 civil society representatives an hour of his time in his own dacha near Moscow in the lead-up to St Petersburg. (When I say ‘his’ dacha, my Russian hosts looked surprised when I asked whether it was owned by the state or his personal dacha. I could not get an answer. Silly nitpicking me.) It was two hours’ drive out of Moscow surrounded by acres of forest, and was a magnificent castle-like structure. I was to discover it was just one of many that Putin used and where he would go horse riding. The small group of five of us representing civil society from different nations had been briefed about his strongman treatment of Russian charities, so I knew I wanted to confront him as to why charities were being beaten up under the ‘foreign agents’ law in Russia. If they received a dollar from outside Russia, they were classified as a foreign agent and closed down.
Our meeting was not exactly intimate: the five civil society representatives were faced with more than ten cameras and members of the media, plus Putin, his security detail and the translators. We were fitted with earpieces for instant translation. I was surprised at how short he was and how tall his security detail were. One was nearly seven feet tall. Through a translator I said, ‘You are confusing two words, “policy” and “politics”, as it is the same word in Russian.’ I noticed that he seemed to understand English but only responded in Russian. I argued with him, ‘Civil society will always speak up on policy, but that does not mean we are playing politics on behalf of foreign interests.’ The cameras started clicking when he agreed to ask the Duma to repeal the ‘foreign agents’ law, and my comments were reported widely in the media. For a short time I was a hero of Russian civil society, but Putin later claimed the Duma would not agree so nothing changed. (Yes, apparently the Duma rejected the wishes of an all-powerful potentate.)
We discussed the war in Syria and the role of religion, because he was intrigued that I was a reverend. In Russian society the orthodox church was at the centre of the culture and this former KGB agent was keen for young Russians to go back to church. He said they needed meaning, and maybe he rightly sensed a hollowness at the heart of the culture. But it was all too convenient for me. The patriarch of the church was hand in glove with Putin; he received millions of roubles from the state and proclaimed that Putin is God’s man for Russia, and his war in Syria was a holy war. The Church had become a department of the state. Putin also seemed nonplussed when I asked him why the church would not just forgive the members of Pussy Riot for performing and protesting at St Saviour’s in Moscow. He wondered why I would expect a church to forgive? Sigh.
The main agenda of civil society at the G20 was to fix up the leaking international tax system. Tax havens and the lack of reporting of tax transfers between nations were some of the holes in the buckets. These were draining any sense of fairness and equality and making it optional for the rich to pay tax. Tax avoidance was leaving governments around the world broke and with few options but to privatise public assets. Civil society protests at the London G20 about the lack of payment of tax by Google, Starbucks and Facebook grabbed these leaders’ attention. Until then the issue of tax leakage and avoidance was only ever a matter of corrupt African leaders. But with such a light shining on Western nations, the effect was electrifying. Suddenly it became the mainstream issue in Western democracies, with the G20 commissioned to act. Governments had too cosy a relationship with those rorting the rules, and it took civil society marching in the streets to bring it to attention.
When Australia had presidency of the G20 (a time mainly remembered for Prime Minister Tony Abbott failing on his promise to shirtfront President Putin over the thirty-eight Australians who died with the shooting down of flight MH17 over Ukraine), I also got to speak to G20 finance ministers and central bank governors at the invitation of Australian Treasurer Joe Hockey. Janet Yellen from the Federal Reserve and Christine Lagarde from the IMF were present. My message was simple and direct, as I was the least economically literate person in the room. They had the wrong Costello! We urged the G20 to not just aim for 2 per cent global growth, which was the mantra after the GFC. Yes, growth is important to avoid the conditions of 1930s Germany, where people lose hope and turn to fascism or authoritarianism. But if the growth still goes to just the top 10 per cent, or, worse, the 1 per cent of the world’s elite, we will have achieved nothing. It will need to be inclusive growth. That means policies of redistribution and closing tax havens, given that wages have been flattened and the spoils of globalisation uneven. I have been suspicious of the mantra ‘bigger growth’. Why not better growth? Better growth can then include the environment and the poor that ‘bigger growth’ ignores. Then it is truly inclusive.
I remember trying to insist on inclusive growth to the G20 finance ministers, but it was like pulling teeth. Our own treasurer, Joe Hockey, and most of those around him, believed it was simply a case of kickstarting the global economy and the rest would follow with economic growth. So it was a little bit ironic that a few years later I was in Paris at the OECD to speak. The theme now was inclusive growth. I reminded them that they, along with central bankers and finance ministers, had been resistant to the adjective ‘inclusive’. Now they applauded it. Why? Because the world had witnessed the backlash against free trade. Donald Trump, Brexit and a host of authoritarian governments in Eastern Europe and around the world had sprung up. It was driven by a fear of immigrants, but also an economic turning inwards, with tariffs being erected and profound distrust of global free trade and global rules.
None of us can predict when this turning inwards, this re-tribalisation as those left behind by globalisation are seduced by nationalists and authoritarians, will end. These ‘beggar my neighbour’ policies will destabilise growth and prevent global cooperation, which is the only way to solve global problems like refugees, trade, climate change and terror. But for now, we are watching human rights and democracy roll back. Politics has become tribal – much more so than football, where tribalism should belong.
Development must balance ‘sameness’ or equal rights with ‘difference’ or freedom to celebrate the culture of the tribe. Dealing with inequality for me is built on the dignity of difference my faith’s built on – in Christ there is ‘neither male nor female, slave nor free’ is how St Paul put it. It is a spiritual and transnational identity, but it doesn’t satisfy the psychological need for an identity based on history, tradition, race, language or religion that undergirds the values that come from the tribe. It leaves a vacuum still in our lives. Humans do not want to be only acknowledged as equal copies of the same species. That does not meet our need to belong. And belonging is the ground of caring and all ethics.
Identity politics (of both the left and right) is the tendency for people of a particular race, religion or social background to form exclusive political alliances and move away from broad-based party politics. It is the paradox of equal peoples now magnifying their differences for pseudo-psychological solidarity. It results in the claiming of victimhood in the name of that identity. The fight is now for separate identities on the cultural front. Identity politics brings the left together in the name of equality to protect minority differences. Within the right, identity politics coalesces around conservative values and freedom of speech for the individual, even when such speech disparages other minorities. As our former attorney general George Brandis put it, ‘the right to be a bigot’. But can we hold both sameness and difference together?
This fuels debate over the identity of a nation and feeds hyper nationalism. But militant nationalism is dangerous. It is based on competitive prestige and the need to keep winning. It over-celebrates triumphs and feels despair and humiliation at losses. In President Trump we hear an appeal to this when he says ‘the world is laughing at us’ for America’s trade deficits with China, or Mexicans coming across their borders. Humiliation leads to harshness and rashness. Maybe the blackest historical illustration of this was the humiliation of Germany and her people at Versailles in 1919. They lost colonies and German national territory and were saddled with economically impossible war reparations. This humiliation eventually led to the triumph of Hitler and the Nazi Party, who played the national humiliation card at every step. Economist John Maynard Keynes’s plea at Versailles to not humiliate Germany fell on deaf ears and that humiliation gave rise to a second world war.
My faith is internationalist, not nationalist, because I believe God’s love is indiscriminate, taking no account of ethnicity, gender or passport. The bedrock of my faith is built on the simple idea that every child carries the image of God. So accepting extreme inequality is sinful and mocks God. In a wealthy world it is a scar on human dignity to accept hunger and the death of children from preventable diseases like malaria or diarrhoea simply because they lack access to medicine. It is stupid poverty, because we have enough food and know-how to provide clean water and treat preventable diseases. That we don’t is an affront to my faith and makes me angry. Global growth will not just ‘trickle down’ to the poor. The rich always need more, and the poor are still waiting.
In my advocacy work the Christian notion of salvation is fundamental. It is more than just a spiritual notion. Salvation is about giving people the chance to fulfil their potential, and they can only do so with access to clean water, food and medicine. I advocate but use biblical language, as most of the world is religious. So does World Vision, whose global mission statement is ‘for every child – life in all its fullness’ and whose prayer is ‘and the will to make it so’.
I believe in a God who celebrates diversity of culture and difference. I try to hold that middle ground.
Sometimes my profile affords me incredible opportunities. I was asked to be on the television program MasterChef as a judge, joining the Dalai Lama, who was to be in Melbourne at that time. I had never met His Holiness before. But several of my friends had spoken of the impact on them of hearing him speak, so I was pleased to accept the invite – even though I honestly told them I am no foodie. And certainly no chef.
The day came and I went to the MasterChef studio. We had to film it in the morning, as Buddhist monks fast from midday on. There were about five very nervous contestants cooking a meal that would be served to us judges. Then the filming commenced. Each course was brought in – and the contestants responsible stood nervously while we all tasted and formed our opinions.
One of the contestants was so nervous to be in the presence of the Dalai Lama she burst into tears. He said, ‘Give me your hand’, held it and comforted her, saying, ‘This doesn’t matter.’ I loved the way he comforted her as if to say ‘this is just a nonsense for television’. A word of sanity on a surreal television set. I was interested to see that the Dalai Lama happily ate the meat – in fact, he ate all that was placed before him.
Finally, food critic Matt Preston turned to the Dalai Lama and said, ‘Your Holiness, what did you like most?’ His eyes darted around and he said, ‘The bread.’
‘The bread?’ Preston repeated. ‘I meant which plate did you prefer?’ There was a nervous laugh. They asked him if he liked this meal more than the last and he said, laughing, ‘I liked them just the same – both are good.’
After an awkward pause I hopped in and said, ‘Your Holiness, as a Buddhist monk you are not used to judging or comparing meals, are you?’ He looked intently at me and nodded. ‘In fact,’ I went on, ‘as a monk you are not able to judge one thing as being better than another, are you?’
With relief he said, ‘That is right. Whatever we are given when we go house to house with our food bowls we eat with thanksgiving. We do not judge.’
I could see the main comperes looking at each other with slight panic. I could sense their show going down the gurgler and their scoop of landing the Dalai Lama as their headline celebrity disappearing very quickly down the tube. The hosts looked panicked and threw to me. In jest, to alleviate the tension, I said, ‘As a Christian I am into judgement. Now, this is what I liked . . .’