Whoever the successful candidate is, he or she at least will be expected to advocate for all Australians. In a blunt message earlier this year, Attorney-General Christian Porter said Soutphommasane’s replacement would be someone who has “an understanding and empathy not merely for minority groups but for middle Australian values.”
He should also have added that life experience would be part of the criteria. Soutphommasane, who was an entry-level academic, was only 31 when appointed by a Labor government. An ALP member since he was 15, he had worked as a political staffer for former NSW premier Bob Carr and former prime minister Kevin Rudd. He was also an author and a freelance writer. Intelligent, yes, but at best an ambitious young man who still had much to learn.
A self-described social democrat, he reserved a student politics-like rancour for conservatives. They “frequently endorse a form of destructive radicalism towards public institutions and civil society,” wrote Soutphommasane just months before his appointment. “They lust for a new round in the culture war, for eradicating the supposed evils of elite political correctness (starting with the ABC and the Australian Human Rights Commission),” he added.
Well into his term, the activist remains. Last year he denounced with customary sneering the critics of “so-called political correctness” and those who attempted to “re-open ideological culture wars”. He warned of “far-right populist movements,” and claimed they were a factor in the Brexit vote. “In the US, the first year of the Trump presidency spawned the racial violence of Charlottesville,” he wrote last year. Soutphommasane resigned his ALP membership before assuming his position, but he makes no attempt to hide his politics.
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