Forgiveness, rehabilitation and second chances
All of these come up with the appointment of new NSW Director-General of Education, Michael Coutts-Trotter. There has been some objection to his appointment, given that he served nearly 3 years in jail at one time for drug offences.
The opposition Liberal Party education spokesman, Brad Hazzard questioned the appointment, thus:
“The question really is, how is it, that someone who had a nine-year jail sentence for drug importation and who has no educational qualifications ends up as the director-general of public eduction in NSW? And the answer might well be that he’s a Labor mate,”
Coutts-Trotter was convicted in the mid 1980’s for drug possession and selling offences. He says of this:
“I need to explain the facts of my life and I’m quite prepared to.
“Twenty three years ago I was convicted of a very serious drug offence. I was a drug user and a drug seller and luckily and remarkably in life I’ve been given a second chance.
“For every job I’ve applied for, I’ve indicated the facts of my life. I’ve told people about who I am, what I’ve done. And I’ve gone for those jobs on merit.
“I’ve got 12 years experience in the public sector, much of it at a very senior level and I’ve been judged on performance, not on what happened 23 years ago.”
Fair enough, isn’t this a great example of someone turning his life around. Why should this be criticised? Should he bear the stigma of his crimes as a youth forever? Hardly Christian or forgiving of his critics to use his dark distant past to beat him up over!
However, his rise through the public service ranks almost certainly does owe something to his political connections with the ALP. He started in 1996 as press secretary to former NSW Treasurer, Michael Egan, and subsequently has been chief of staff, Director-General of the Department of Commerce among other things. I’m sure he’s quite capable, but wonder how much opportunity he has been given because of his connections, that he wouldn’t have got otherwise?
His other ALP connection is that he is married to federal Labor MP, Tanya Plibersek. (What is it with the ALP in NSW, seems they’re all fucking each other? Better be careful or they’ll eventually get to the point of, as well as being full of hacks with no real world business experience, they’ll be packed full of inbreds).
Other critics of his appointment have been more concerned with his lack of background in education. Fair enough, although personally I don’t see this as a showstopper … he is there to lead and manage the education system, and a key part of this is to ensure he has the right people around him to make sensible decisions and execute plans successfully. He doesn’t need to be an expert himself … indeed it is often a good thing to bring someone in who doesn’t have prior investment in the system to take an unbiased view of it and shake things up where a shakeup is needed.
April 13th, 2007 at 3:48 am
Hum… very interesting, and yes, and yes again… How can we really trust anybody in politics today? But giving people second chances, absolutely. What do they say about casting the first stone????