Ursula Stephens (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I know it is late, but this evening I would like to pay tribute to three people who each, in their own way, have profoundly influenced the way we think about the world. The first, Elinor Ostrom, is the only woman to win the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences, an achievement all the more remarkable because she was not actually an economist. Elinor died recently in Bloomington, Indiana, at the age of 78.

Professor Ostrom's work examined how people collaborate and organise themselves to manage common resources like forests or fisheries, even when governments are not involved. Her research overturned the conventional wisdom about the need for government regulation of public resources. She rebutted fundamental economic beliefs, and, according to a tribute piece in the New York Times:

… to say she was a dark horse for the 2009 economics Nobel is an understatement. Not because she was a woman — although women in the field are still rare — but because she was trained in political science.

…   …   …

“The announcement of her prize caused amazement to several economists, including some prominent colleagues, who had never even heard of her,” Avinash Dixit, a Princeton economics professor, said when introducing Professor Ostrom’s work at a luncheon in 2011. Usually, he noted, Nobel laureates need no introduction.

Professor Ostrom shared her honour with Oliver E Williamson. She brought an outsider perspective to her work, which was groundbreaking in itself but, because she worked across a range of disciplines, she found it difficult to carve an academic niche—so much so that in 1973 she and her husband, Vincent, who survives her, founded the Workshop in Political Theory and Policy Analysis at Indiana University. This would become the first of several interdisciplinary institutions she helped shape, and with it a focus on the emerging discipline of collaboration theory, which has been the basis of much academic work, including my own doctoral thesis. Her seminal works underpin the principles behind COAG, whole-of-government approaches and public sector theory. Traditionally, economics taught that common ownership of resources results in excessive exploitation, such as when fishermen overfish a common pond. This is the so-called 'tragedy of the commons', and it suggests that common resources must be managed either through privatisation or government regulation—in the form of taxes, say, or limits on use. But Professor Ostrom studied cases around the world in which communities successfully regulate resources through cooperation. She championed the idea of systems thinking, and the concept of the creative commons has applications across a range of policies today. We see it in the whole issue of copyright but more so in climate change, environmental management and whole-of-life care, just to name a few. Professor Ostrom's research and Mr Williamson's related work on corporate oversight are part of a field known as institutional economics.

Elinor was notable for conducting fieldwork, an unusual method that is admired by some economists but scorned by others as being the province of anthropologists, not of real academics trying to answer economic questions. Again I quote:

"She would go and actually talk to Indonesian fishermen, or Maine lobstermen, and ask, 'How did you come to establish this limit on the fish catch? How did you deal with the fact that people might try to get around it?'" said Nancy Folbre, an economics professor at the University of Massachusetts … and a contributor to The New York Times's Economix blog.

Professor Folbre also said: 'In economics, every successive cohort of economists is trained to put greater emphasis on the arsenal of mathematical and econometric expertise, but this is just not what Elinor's work was all about.' On behalf of all senators I pay tribute to Elinor Ostrom's wonderful contribution, her wit and her wisdom.

Tonight I would also like to acknowledge the passing of Steve Lawrence, referred to by his many friends and admirers as the grandfather of social enterprise in Australia. Steve died last month after a long battle with cancer. He was a mentor, an inspiration and a guide to many involved in social enterprise and social innovation in Australia, as the founding Chief Executive of WorkVentures for 29 years and more recently the Chief Executive of the Australian Social Innovation Exchange.

Steve knew he was dying. He had been diagnosed with bowel cancer in 2007 and, as an example of his amazing heart, he took part in a special interview with the Centre for Social Impact's online Yakety Yak video series. In it Steve shared much of his learning and experiences, and it was lovely that he was supported throughout the filming by close family and friends. In January 2010, Steve was appointed an Officer of the Order of Australia for service to the community through leadership roles in the development and implementation of not-for-profit ventures to create social change particularly for youth and the long-term unemployed. We laughed at the time and he told me he was going to make the most of his AO and make the most of his cancer diagnosis. It gave him a great impetus to follow through on his many dreams. Steve used to say to me, 'Well, they can't deny a dying man his last wish.' He was a man on a mission.

He grew up in Windang, south of Wollongong. He studied social work and spent his early career in a number of community organisations. WorkVentures, which he established in 1979, now has an annual revenue of around $16 million and employs 150 staff. It places hundreds of unemployed Australians in jobs each year. Steve was a great incubator of ideas. He was involved in creating 13 new not-for-profit organisations, including Job Futures, United Way Sydney, Jobs Australia and Social Ventures Australia. He was a founding partner of the Australian School for Social Entrepreneurs. He never lost his community focus and he will be sadly missed by the whole not-for-profit sector.

Finally, I would like to speak about Graeme Bell, the father of Australian jazz. We cannot forget him. He was born in 1914 and died at the ripe old age of 97. The obituaries in the major newspapers all tell the story of his early life as an insurance agent, how he made a name for himself as a musician and travelled overseas with his Australian Jazz Band, and the honours he received for his music, including an MBE, an AO and admission into the Aria Hall of Fame. What they do not say much about is Bell's political activism and his commitment to what are quintessentially Australian values—that we are all equal, we all deserve a fair go and there is no reason to stick to old ways if we can come up with a way of making life better, especially if we can enjoy ourselves in the process.

His attitude showed in his music. As a young man he led the band of the Eureka Youth League, formerly the Communist Youth League. This was before the disillusionment caused by Stalinism, at a time when young communists were idealistic about equality. He would play for any progressive cause—at trade union dances or rallies for equal pay for women. In Melbourne during and after the war he played with black American musicians, even though they still had segregation rules. We have to remember that in the 1940s, jazz, with its emphasis on improvisation and authenticity, appealed to the young almost as much as it horrified the establishment.

In 1947 Bell took the band to the World Youth Festival in Czechoslovakia, where they proved so popular they stayed for over four months and then went on to tour Europe and England. I have it on first-hand authority that when Bell started the Leicester Square Jazz Club in London in 1948 he changed the face of jazz music. He chose songs outside the standard jazz repertoire and encouraged the patrons to get up and dance. According to the Age, his band's music had a distinctive Australian edge which he described as 'nice larrikinism' and 'a happy Aussie outdoor feel'.

That larrikin streak stayed with him, as did his willingness to help young artists and support progressive causes. He continued touring internationally, breaking new ground socially as well as with his music. He was the first Australian to perform with a black blues artist, Big Bill Broonzy, in Dusseldorf in the early 1950s. He performed at the Sydney Town Hall in support of the anti-Vietnam War movement, and you can see him in the clip of the It's Time anthem during the Whitlam election campaign.

Summing up his life like this, it sounds like an impressive achievement. But it leaves out the extent to which he was so widely loved—this familiar smiling figure in his straw boater and red striped shirt, always ready to lend his support to what he saw as a just cause and going out of his way to help young artists to do their bit to make the world a better place. It is a memory many Australians cherish, and that must certainly be a comfort to his wife, Dorothy, his children and granddaughters. So tonight we say farewell to Elinor Ostrom, to Steve Lawrence and to Graeme Bell.