Following Friday's news that Nathan Rees is the new premier of NSW, media reports highlighted his background as a garbage collector for Parramatta Council. But they neglected to mention the more significant aspect that he was doing this to fund his honours degree in English Literature at Sydney University.
The qualifications of Rees' deputy Carmel Tebbutt fit the political mould more easily. She has a bachelor's degree in economics and industrial relations. But it's likely that Rees' studies of the humanities prepared him for the creative thinking required to have a go at fixing the state's neglected infrastructure with few funds at his disposal.
His abilities in this direction impressed some who worked closely with him while he was Water Utilities Minister in the Iemma Government. University of NSW water expert Professor Richard Kingsford said he has the ability to 'listen for a long time and to come in with politically incisive and technically incisive questions'.
Meanwhile study of the humanities received another rare boost last week in the form of a National Press Club address by Federal Minister for Innovation, Industry, Science and Research Kim Carr. This was prompted by the Review of the National Innovation System, which he received last month.
Carr argued: 'The creative arts — and the humanities and the social
sciences — make a terrible mistake when they claim support on the basis
of their commercial value.'
He was reflecting what could be an important change in the official attitude to support for study of the humanities. This follows years of official shunning of arts and other non career specific degrees. Funding policies were inspired by economic rationalism, the view that 'commercial activity ... represents a sphere of activity in which moral considerations, beyond the rule of business probity dictated by enlightened self-interest, have no role to play'.
The minister suggested that many 'real-world' challenges facing Australia are so complex that they require us to harness insights and methods of a variety of disciplines.
'We can't improve indigenous health without understanding the social and cultural circumstances of the people involved.'
He said that the humanities, arts and social sciences 'give a voice to people who might otherwise be silent [and] defend the rights of people whose rights might otherwise be denied'.
He cited his own recent consumption of cultural materials, including Peter Temple's novel The Broken Shore, and the Bell Shakespeare Company's production of Hamlet.
'The first showed me a world similar enough to my