Before We Become Strangers

Only five short hours before the events in Wangaratta, I was sitting with an extraordinary colleague, friend and mentor, discussing the cultural landscape and where our energies might best be placed.

We spoke about division. Locally and internationally. In our homes, workplaces, gender, politics and culture. About the widening spaces between us, and the institutions, ideas and experiences that might help bring us closer.

As we now confront the abhorrent attack on Dr Helen Haines MP, and the profound trauma inflicted upon her, her family, friends and community, those conversations feel particularly urgent.

The humanities are not a luxury to be revisited when times are easier. They are among the very things we need most when the world feels fractured. They help us understand one another, challenge our assumptions, recognise our shared humanity and imagine a future beyond the immediate present.

While polls, analytics and statistics measure the divisions within our society, cultural celebrations and occasions of national civic unity offer something those measurements cannot: the opportunity to experience our common ground.

I wonder whether Brisbane 2032 will arrive six years too late for us to remember what Sydney 2000 helped us feel. That, despite our differences, we are fortunate to share this country. That we can gather on a common stage, recognise ourselves in one another and understand that we are stronger together.

I look forward to the opening of Powerhouse Parramatta in the coming weeks, and to the opportunities this significant cultural infrastructure will create across science, culture, the arts and identity.

But what of the other corners of this sunburnt country?

From Wangaratta to Gunnedah to Broome and back again, are we investing sufficiently in the cultural life of our communities? Are we creating enough opportunities for people to participate, to belong, to be challenged and to feel part of something larger than themselves?

Culture cannot prevent every act of violence. Nor should we pretend that an arts programme is a substitute for addressing extremism, inequality or the conditions in which hostility takes root.

But we should ask what we are building around people, long before division becomes dangerous.

What does it mean to invest in a community if we do not also invest in its capacity to imagine, to question, to connect and to understand?

National celebrations matter. Major cultural institutions matter. But so do the smaller, local and often unseen opportunities that give people a reason to gather, a place to contribute and a sense that their lives are part of a shared story.

Perhaps the question is not simply what culture costs us.

Perhaps it is what it costs us when we fail to make room for it.