Australian
Screen

Teacher’s notes

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This clip is from a black-and-white ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) program featuring an interview with the senior public servant Dr H C ‘Nugget’ Coombs on the possibility of a politically neutral public service. The first shot is of the interviewer, Robert Moore, questioning Dr Coombs. The second shot shows Dr Coombs stating his view that a public servant can achieve ‘a kind of objectivity’ if he recognises his own prejudices and believes in the system in which he works.

Educational value points

• This clip features Dr H C ‘Nugget’ Coombs (1906–97), an economist and senior public servant who held many appointments across different areas of Australian life as he worked to develop Australia as a distinctive social, cultural and economic place for all Australians. During the Second World War he was director of rationing (1942) and then director-general of post-war reconstruction (1942–48).

• Dr Herbert Cole ‘Nugget’ Coombs had diverse capabilities and interests that enabled him to become one of Australia’s most powerful public servants. His many and varied positions included being governor of the Commonwealth Bank (1949–76), governor of the Reserve Bank (1960–68), chairman of the Australian Council for the Arts (1968–74), chairman of the Australian Council for Aboriginal Affairs (1968–76) and chancellor of the Australian National University (1968–76), which he had helped found in 1946.

• Coombs was one of Australia’s most influential public servants, committed to serving the government of the day with equal parts of honesty, competence and loyalty. From 1941 to 1975 he was a personal adviser to seven Australian prime ministers – four conservative (Liberal) prime ministers, Robert Menzies, Harold Holt, John Gorton and William McMahon, and three Labor prime ministers, John Curtin, Ben Chifley and Gough Whitlam.

• Coombs believed that the purpose of the economic system and of society’s institutions was to serve that society. He believed that the economic system was there to enable people to reach their potential and have a civilised and dignified existence. He did not believe that the purpose of economics and institutions was to enable individuals to become wealthy. He formed these views as a result of observing the human misery caused by the economic collapse of the Great Depression (1929–35).

• Coombs’s use of the personal pronoun ‘he’ in this clip to cover all public servants whether male or female was typical of the period. The second-wave feminist movement, which started in the mid- to late 1960s, would later highlight and criticise this type of sexist language and in 1984 the ABC’s Standing Committee on Spoken English issued guidelines to journalists and program makers on the use of non-sexist language.

• As chairman of the Australian Council for Aboriginal Affairs, Coombs worked tirelessly for the rights of Indigenous Australians. When he died his ashes were laid to rest alongside Yolngu warriors at Yirrakala in East Arnhem Land. In a traditional ceremony, Coombs was honoured for his friendship with Yolngu people and his contribution to the advancement of Indigenous rights for more than 40 years.

• The camera techniques used in this clip are simple, consisting of one shot of the interviewer asking a question followed by a lengthy second shot of the interviewee responding. This interview, which was part of the 1970 television series Profiles of Power, was shot in black and white as colour television would not be introduced into Australia until 1975.

• Robert Moore (1932–79) was a reporter and political interviewer on the ABC who devised the television series Profiles of Power from which this clip is taken. Born in Adelaide, he attended Oxford University and trained with the BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation). He was host and moderator of Monday Conference (1971–78), which featured a panel discussion and a live studio audience and became one of the ABC’s top-rating shows.