Bob Carr is in professor mode. Tall and trim with focused eyes above the obligatory mask, he walks over with three books: two of them earmarked with passages underlined, a third for me. Pen and paper are close to hand, but for more than two hours, it will be me taking notes as the journalist turned career politician ruminates on philosophy, history, literature and the varied attributes of today’s leaders.
After the awkward dance that first encounters bring in a post-handshake world, we settle into District Brasserie in central Sydney. Carr seems stiff as his left arm is only recently out of a sling after a rotator cuff injury, but it is an inconvenience rather than a pain. He warms quickly to conversation. He admits the previous night’s attempt at a podcast about James Joyce’s Ulysses had been abandoned because of iPad failure and approves of my choice of gnocchi before quizzing the waiter about the market fish.
Fully booked: Former foreign minister and NSW premier Bob Carr talks about philosophy, literature and the various attributes and shortcomings of today’s politicians.Credit:Louie Douvis
Carr is due later this month to speak at the inaugural Stoicon-X conference in Melbourne, lured because his favourite book is emperor and philosopher Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations. Describing it as a Roman popularisation of the Greek stoics, the long-serving former NSW premier and Gillard-era foreign minister says it spoke to him as a politician “in a way nothing else did”.
“One of the appeals of accepting the invitation was being exposed to philosophy because I am completely illiterate,” Carr says. “I’ve never studied it and I’ve always been impatient with it. It doesn’t adhere to the inside of my cranium the way history or literature would adhere. I think they’re trying, and their spirit really impresses me, to get philosophy up and running in our lives.”
History and literature are easier to grasp. Carr punctuates a series of facts about the Nazi invasion of Russia. “There’s a joy in the diamond-hard objectivity of historical data.”
Gnocchi, at District Brasserie.Credit:Louie Douvis
Literature, too, offers realities to grapple with, and he invokes the Pequod racing through the southern Atlantic in Moby-Dick, with Ahab “walking on the quarterdeck with his ivory leg sounding like a quote coffin tap unquote” along with a description of Tolstoy’s War and Peace and a passage from Joyce. Three works by Thomas Mann have been “devoured in this pandemic time”.
“Philosophy has got to pedal hard to overtake the appeal of the concrete universes served up to us by great writers of fiction and the excavation of the human experience delivered by the best historians.”
Meditations, however, has clearly stuck.
“It begins with the implication that we humans are here on our own … he’s not offering the comfort of an afterlife nor the notion of a single controlling intelligence behind the universe. I liked that sobriety.”
Market fish at District Brasserie.Credit:Louie Douvis
Carr took from Aurelius that the role of the wise man is to be serene and simple, a state he acknowledges he did not always achieve in office when worn down by lack of sleep or bad news. “That’s a very high standard, but if you can sometimes reach it, with that quote coming to your mind when you are stressed, then it’s better than the alternative.”
They are traits he sees in federal Labor leader Anthony Albanese, whom Carr expects will bring cool-headed judgment to the prime ministership “if, as I assume, he wins the election”.
“There are reasons to think that, temperamentally, he could bring sound management of a government’s business and politics. And that will be precisely because he’s not flashy. We could have found the leader for the times.
“I don’t think you’d find him risk intolerant, escaping for a holiday in the middle of climate fires. Or departing from the script on diplomatic challenges. Or just flinging money in all directions, as if every $10,000 bought you a family’s five votes.
“Maybe I’ll send him a copy of Meditations with the best passages highlighted.”
Carr seems pleased to be meeting in person, but his body language tenses about halfway through the meal when an acquaintance arrives unannounced and declares we are living in interesting times, politically. “Yes, I was just saying I think we’re headed for a change of government,” Carr answers, pulling his mask back on. The disgruntled Liberal supporter and “oldest agent in captivity” makes some furious remarks about Prime Minister Scott Morrison; Carr suggests the party faithful are more indignant than most people.
Bob Carr: “I would hate to think we were providing a laboratory for right-wing billionaires and Sky blowhards to strut their stuff.”Credit:Louie Douvis
Carr introduces me. “Michael’s a reporter for the Herald, interviewing me about having lunch.” The interloper is undeterred in his invective against Morrison, and Carr is happy to share some information. “There are Canberra public servants getting excited about the prospect of [Peter] Dutton challenging him successfully before the election,” Carr says.
The bill.Credit:Louie Douvis
A few days later, Carr made headlines for claiming on Twitter that Dutton leaked a text message in which Morrison was called a “complete psycho” and followed up by asking who else had the most to gain from undermining the Prime Minister. Dutton called the allegation baseless and Treasurer Josh Frydenberg suggested Carr was suffering relevance deprivation syndrome.
But over lunch, the internal woes of the federal government are consigned to the periphery. The need for international action on climate change, the push to become a republic, Carr’s horror at seeing reports of children starving in Afghanistan, his enthusiasm for putting books in the hands of students and his astonishment at the lack of interest in seeking a pardon for Julian Assange all get more attention. Asked if he had any advice for the incumbent in his old job as foreign minister, he promises to keep it to one sentence.
“Just remember Australia’s a sovereign country – yes, an ally of the United States – but not an American territory like Puerto Rico or Guam because that’s certainly our international personality right now.”
Becoming a republic would change international perceptions, and Carr has long been a proponent of a minimalist model where the prime minister’s choice of head of state was endorsed by Parliament instead of the monarch. The hybrid model proffered by the Australian Republic Movement, in which voters would choose from candidates selected by state and federal legislatures, concerns Carr, and he made his reservations clear to ARM chair Peter FitzSimons in a debate on Radio National.
“I expressed my reservations about his concept of a nationwide beauty pageant in an era of rampant right-wing populism,” he says, pointing to the rise of ethno-nationalism in European politics. “I would hate to think we were providing a laboratory for right-wing billionaires and Sky blowhards to strut their stuff.”
Carr’s gravitation towards the concrete over the philosophical is shown in his work, in which he has been mentoring young women keen to enter politics, continues to advocate for conservation and other policies he believes in, and his willingness to grapple with global challenges.
“Make a contribution, I think, is the best advice. It is a privilege to be in Australia.
“I got up in the early hours of the morning a few nights ago and flicked on the BBC, saw an account of a hospital in Afghanistan where children were dying of infection and malnutrition. In a decent universe, every foreign minister in the developed world would push aside the files on their desk and say, ‘today is devoted to getting food and medicine to the kids of Afghanistan, nothing for the moment rivals this’.”
As the industry professor for business and climate change at the University of Technology Sydney, he is missing the free interaction enjoyed before the pandemic but is encouraged by the private sector’s desire for decarbonisation. He wishes governments would do more.
“The happiest event for the world would be unrestrained, madcap, thrashing competition between the world’s great powers to bring forward decarbonisation. Hydrogen, electric vehicles, new solar, nuclear fusion all thrown into the mix. A brave new world, that would be fantastic.
“That’s the competition we want. A peaceful competition. Whose system is best at taking the heat-trapping gases out of the upper atmosphere and allow our old planet to continue to host ice and glaciers and species diversity.”
Carr tackles heavier topics too, and after reflecting on the imprisonment of Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi and likely torture of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, he appears a bit deflated while wrapped up in thought. But this is the exception. He is warm, engaging, has a wry sense of humour, and his eyes light up when he finds passages of great works in the books he brought. Sometimes he reads them to illustrate a point, sometimes for the pure joy of the words.
And for someone who claims philosophical illiteracy, he pounces on David Hume’s influence on one question, is conversant in aspects of karma, and is open to tackling “the big challenge, why does the world exist?” Not that the two of us can solve it over ceviche.
“When I go out for a walk around home and see the sunlight on the waves, and the purity of the water – reflecting the achievements of the Carr government in cleaning up stormwater in particular – and happy people, listening to a gripping work of literature on Audible. What’s heaven going to offer that’s better than this?
“I think death is a very bad concept. I don’t want to be told that our achievements live after us, I want to live forever. If Noah could live to be 900, and Abraham, that’s a fair thing. Just a few hundred extra years would see me out. Enjoying the colour, the conviviality and the culture, that’s how I put it. I don’t think it’s a big ask.
“Unfortunately there’s no one you can appeal to, there’s no appeal tribunal where you can argue the case,” he chuckles. “Termination comes too early, just as you’re getting warmed up.”
Bob Carr will talk at the inaugural Stoicon-x Melbourne, at the Greek Centre for Contemporary Culture in Melbourne, Saturday, February 26. www.stoiconxmelbourne.com.au
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District Brasserie, 2 Chifley Square, Sydney. (02) 9230 0900. Mon 6.30am-5pm; Tues-Fri 6.30am-11pm.
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