Vew from the chair: Speeches of Richard WL Austin

Introduction In recent years we have been inundated with books and utterances from those who have been democratically-or otherwise-removed from public life. Many of the recently departed now wish to share with us what they really thought at the time, seeking absolution for public artifice through belated public disclosure. Ultimately one finds it impossible to reconcile such contradictory accounts. On the one hand, we have the application of decisions in real life and, onthe other,the professionally posthumous explanations of why things were done, apparently with conviction, yet were really never believed. This was not a fate which befell Dick Austin and, indeed, the timing of his departure was of his own choosing. To those who know Dick, these speeches reveal that his private utterances about the role of the Gallery and his public advocacy were not at variance. This is not to suggest that Dick personally liked everything that ever appeared in the Gallery, but on those rare occasions he was happy and honest enough to tell you-and that's not to say he would oppose it. He had a profound understanding of why and for whom the Gallery exists and this is expressed with great clarity and vision in his earliest speeches. This was a very distinctive advocacy and frequently imbued with personal perspectives to express the Gallery's position in a manner best suited to engaging the attention and support of expanding interests. Whether it was in a Tokyo boardroom or a Minister's office, or at a public event in the Gallery, his pitch was impeccable yet paternalism or sycophancy were nonexistent. Dick Austin is probably best known as a conservative-but such descriptions, with their fixed connotations, are inadequate to the task of describing the complexities of a temperament with which I am familiar-or perhaps think I know; a man who readily acknowledges tradition and conventions, yet paradoxically-if not Zen-like--can see situations in refreshing and, at times, utterly original ways. Perhaps the seventeenth– century haiku master, Basho, provides the best description of how we might see his view of things: 'Do not seek to follow in the footsteps of the men of old; seek what they sought'. Dick can't stand waffle, intellectual clutter or those who won't get to the point. With Dick, anything which was decided should happen, did happen. He was unfazed by commitment but troubled by those who made the obvious complex. For Dick, clarity and simplicity coupled with excellence and intelligence were never uncomfortable bedfellows. Perhaps that's why the only tie he wears is that familiar black, knotted woolen thing; as he explained to me, 'it's one less decision I need to make when I get up each morning'. 10