The eradication of rehabilitation

The appointment of Michael Coutts-Trotter as the new Director-General of the New South Wales Education Department on the recommendation of NSW Education Minister, John Della Bosca, has embroiled the Iemma Government in political controversy because of a criminal conviction and prison sentence Coutts-Trotter received 23 years ago.

Opponents to the Coutts-Trotter appointment argue that his criminal record should prevent his elevation to one of the state’s highest paid jobs while others contend he is an inexperienced public servant ill-equipped to overseer the complex education department.

The Opposition Liberal-National coalition are using the Coutts-Trotter appointment as ammunition to target and potshot the Iemma Government in a political point-scoring exercise.

Somewhere the real Michael Coutts-Trotter and his achievements have been buried beneath mud-slinging innuendo and a knuckle dragging neanderthal attitude that belongs to an era when they burnt witches at the stake or judged people by the pigmentation or colour of their skin.

It is an attitude that has no place in current society. And it is an attitude that belies the traditional Australian concept of “giving a bloke a fair go”.

Michael Coutts-Trotter became a slave to the heroin plague, and like so many other teenagers, was addicted to the drug during the 1980s. To support his habit, the 19-year-old Coutts-Trotter became involved in a conspiracy to import narcotics. He was arrested, charged and convicted for the offence. Coutts-Trotter served three-years imprisonment. During that one and only term of imprisonment an amazing transformation took place.

Coutts-Trotter went cold turkey in a period of pain to beat his habit. He succeeded. Then he not only had to cope with a brutal and uncaring incarceration process but he also had to resist succumbing to the omnipresent temptation of the prison heroin trade that was rife during his period of incarceration. His prison sentence became a daily physical and mental endurance test to defeat the lure of “chasing the dragon”.

Coutts-Trotter was released from prison and continued his self-imposed transformation. He graduated from NSW’s University of Crime with a determined resolve never to return.

He not only turned his life around but also defeated the heroin addiction that created his criminality. While on the road to recovery, Coutts-Trotter studied hard and earned a journalism degree at the Sydney University of Technology. He had successfully turned his back on drugs and criminality - an accomplishment not achieved lightly.

In 1996 Coutts-Trotter entered the NSW Public Service to become a press secretary, and later rose to Chief-of-Staff, to NSW Treasurer Michael Egan. He was then promoted to Director-General for the NSW Department of Commerce, a position he held until his present promotion.

Coutts-Trotter has not only exhibited a determination to turn away from crime and drugs for 23 years but he has also exhibited an expertise within the NSW Public Service that surely must make him one of the most versatile and efficiency equipped Director-Generals the NSW Education Department has ever had.

Still his critics, both inside and outside the NSW Education Department, offer his criminal conviction and imprisonment 23 years ago as sufficient reason to overshadow his subsequent rehabilitation. It is an intense magnification of the widely held belief that ex-prisoners are incapable of rehabilitation or offering worthwhile contributions to society. It is a belief that is completely out of sync with reality.

If this belief is to prevail then it must be time to delete rehabilitation from the dictionary when applied to prisons. And while we’re at it, let’s re-write the history books too! Then there will be no further need for hypocrisy or double standards when labelling ex-prisoners.

First, let’s strip Alexander Solzhenitsyn of his 1970 Nobel Prize for Literature. After all, Solzhenitsyn is an ex-prisoner who did time in the Russian gulags and most of his awarding winning books describe that incarceration process. And let’s not forget Oscar Wilde who did time too. Let’s ban and pulp all his writings. They cannot possibly be worthwhile contributions to society if he is an ex-prisoner.

The teachings of Mahatma Gandhi also come under the hammer. Unfortunately this man of peace did time, and as an ex-prisoner his teachings of peace can no longer be validated. The same applies to internationally respected South African statesman, Nelson Mandela, who served time 27-years in similar prison cells to those that housed Coutts-Trotter 23 years ago.

Then there is George “Happy George” Howe who came unstuck for an armed robbery that earned him a death sentence. His sentence was commuted to transportation for life and he was bundled off to Australia where he printed and published Australia’s first newspaper The Sydney Gazette. His role as Australia’s first newspaper editor eventually earned him a pardon. It is ironical that the same media used to castigate and criticise Coutts-Trotter was started by a lowly convict over 200 years ago.

Finally, let’s not forget Henry Lawson. We cannot have an ex-prisoner’s face adorning our currency. Let’s remove all reference to Henry Lawson from the pre-plastic decimal $10 notes. Then the eradication of rehabilitation will be finally complete.

Coutts-Trotter has become a role model to those still behind the walls and razor wire of state prisons who aspire to another life when they leave prison. His story offers inspiration and hope to those who too often fall onto a treadmill that leads back to the revolving-door prison system.

It is an example of how one man, one of the very few, whose sheer guts and determination successfully defeated the vicious cycle of prison-parole-and-more-prison. His courage should be applauded. It should remain a shining beacon to illuminate a point where punishment ends and rehabilitation begins.

The Coutts-Trotter case is also a commendable yardstick for the NSW Iemma Government. NSW will go down in history as the only Australian state government that re-birthed the traditional “fair go” principle and applied it to an ex-prisoner who had successfully rehabilitated.

Now the ball is in Coutts-Trotter’s hands. He has to run with it. Hopefully he will score a successful touchdown in his new role as Director-General of the Education Department - a touchdown that will force all his detractors choke on the uncompromising harshness of their own criticism.