The import of knowing what you don’t know

Consider the example of the late, unlamented Shared Responsibility Agreements, or the teetering edifice that is the 99-year community lease. Ponder the wisdom of prescribing housing mortgages for remote communities where the vast majority of residents live on welfare.

These are just some of the rotten apples from the most recent basket of “act before you think” policy failures.

And for these failures, ministers must carry the can. To be brutally honest, I was never a great fan of Mal Brough. But unlike many, I believe that he genuinely wanted a better life for Aboriginal people in Australia.

The tragedy was that he not only lacked the expertise, he lacked an awareness of this fact. Consequently he spent too much of his ministerial career galloping gung-ho down dead-end streets.

As old Socrates might have put it “he didn’t know that he didn’t know”. Had he been in the vastly more advanced position of recognising that he didn’t know, he could have started his search for answers by talking to the folk most likely to be able to provide some thoughtful advice - the Aboriginal people themselves.

Perhaps policy-makers in Indigenous affairs should begin their days by contemplating the staggering amount of public money that is squandered in this sector, and then solemnly intone Socrates’ wise words: “I know that I do not know.”

They could do a lot worse.