When Tony Abbott said of the Aboriginal Tent Embassy that 'a lot has changed since [its establishment in 1972] ... it is probably time to move on from that', he wouldn't have expected the violent repercussions, nor would he have been aware — it seems safe to say — of their Australian provenance. The phrase 'moving on' is fraught with ambiguities and distracting baggage.
On 19 March 2003, President George W. Bush launched 'Operation Iraqi Freedom', an attack justified by the conviction that Iraq under Saddam Hussein was a repository of a vast cache of what came to be known as 'Weapons of Mass Destruction', or WMD. Later, when the idea of the existence of large scale WMD became untenable, the rationale for the war subtly altered to 'regime change'.
In the US and Britain opposition to the war was fierce. Amid widespread protests and demonstrations, British Ministry of Defence biological warfare expert, David Kelly, cast doubt on the government's 'sexed up' WMD dossier in interviews with BBC journalist Andrew Gilligan. He attracted vigorous official and unofficial objections, the strain and ignominy of which, it seems, drove him to suicide.
Meanwhile, in the US opposition to the war was widespread, vocal and occasionally violent.
From Australians, however, Prime Minister Howard encountered no such reaction. In London, a British journalist asked Howard to explain how Australia had escaped pretty well unscathed by the tumult and outrage that had erupted in America and Britain about non-existent WMDs, when he was as deeply engaged in and totally supportive of the views of his northern hemisphere colleagues.
Howard's answer was: 'Because Australians have moved on.'
I remember the journalist's bewilderment — and my own. What did 'move on' mean? When you moved on were you simply ducking the issue, leaving it behind unresolved? On what ethical or philosophical grounds could one move on from a question as serious and as deadly (remember poor David Kelly for one thing) as WMD without having come to any resolution one way or the other?
I didn't feel as if I'd moved on, nor did many other Australians. What signs was Howard detecting that told him about our moving on?
Yet the phrase is ubiquitous. When Teresa Gambaro, the Coalition citizenship spokeswoman, recently urged that immigrants should be taught to wear deodorant, learn how to queue and be brought into line with 'what is an acceptable [hygienic] norm in this country', Warren Truss, standing in for holidaying Tony Abbott, said Gambaro's views were 'out of step with modern Australian attitudes'.
Gambaro claimed she had been taken out of context, though God knows what contemporary context would provide a happy home for such views. But Truss wrapped it up: she should 'move on' he said.
About the same time as all that was making news, Australian Test cricket wicketkeeper Brad Haddin taunted the Indian opposition in a press conference, saying that Australia had broken their spirit. Indian captain M. S. Dhoni, invited to respond, said the Indian team would 'move on'. He didn't mean they'd pack up and go home, but he didn't mean they would play better either. They didn't.
After his tangle with a cyclist became news, Shane Warne advised the cyclist to 'move on', and when Thomas Berdych's on-court snubbing of Nicolas Almagro in the Australian Open tennis championships grew into headline material Berdych, without taking a step back, suggested Almagro should move on.
He didn't mean Almagro should go away, any more than Warne meant the cyclist should: he meant the problem should go away, disappear into some limbo of the unresolved and unfaced-up-to.
I'm not one of Abbott's fans, but I don't think for one minute that he meant the Tent Embassy should be ripped down. He meant let's just forget it, stop thinking about it, and somehow it will all just fade away and be replaced by other problems.
The riot that ensued occurred because, even if not misinterpreted, 'moving on' is an imponderable phrase, a synonym for sticking one's head in the sand and hoping that up in the real world, everything will somehow blow over.
Brian Matthews is the award winning author of A Fine and Private Place and The Temple Down the Road. He was awarded the 2010 National Biography Award for Manning Clark — A Life.