If a tree falls in your front yard, who comes to clean it up?
One small limb from the giant branch that came down, cleared from the driveway by the SES crew.
The other night, just as we were sitting down to a quiet chat after the kids were asleep, my husband and I heard an almighty crash.
We rushed outside, torches reflecting off the pouring rain, to find what looked like half a tree strewn across our front garden, blocking our driveway. Thankfully there was no major damage to property, power lines or people; but we’d be trapped at home until we could get help to clear it all away.
The rains had been non-stop (in the coming days thousands would be evacuated). Gum trees are notorious for soaking up too much water, becoming top-heavy and dropping big branches with no warning (earlier generations called them ‘widow-makers’). The giant blue gum that borders our front yard was simply doing what trees like that are prone to do.
Within minutes, two sets of neighbours joined us outside – feeble umbrellas offering little protection from the elements, much less the risk of further branches falling.
‘Everyone okay?’
‘Any damage?’
‘If you need us to give your daughter a lift to school in the morning, just walk her on over...’
I thanked them, went inside and rang the NSW State Emergency Services (SES). I felt sheepish, embarrassed almost for needing to call for help. The SES are almost exclusively volunteer-run, and if headlines were anything to go by, they were being inundated.
It was around 9:45pm, and after a few attempts at getting through I spoke to a friendly woman who took all my information and made sure that no one was in imminent danger. She couldn’t give me a timeline for receiving assistance, but she assured me my details had been passed on to the local branch and I’d hear from someone just as soon as they could help.
Planning to be stuck at home, we went about making contingency plans for the next day and got ready for bed. Then, a mere 20 minutes later, we heard a car pull up followed by a knock at the door. In the (still) pouring rain, three young men from our local SES volunteer crew had responded. It felt like the cavalry had arrived, complete with torches, helmets and chainsaws. I just stood there for a few moments in my pyjamas, staring at them, stunned.
‘Are you sure you don’t want to come back in the morning when it’s at least lighter?’ I asked.
‘Nah,’ grinned the man on my doorstep. ‘We’re here, let’s get it done.’
A wave of gratitude washed over me – not just for them, but for the society that produced them, the people who raised them, the communities and country that supported them. I wanted to call their mothers and high-five their friends. I just couldn’t believe these young men, who could have been at home safe and dry, were instead out in the pouring rain late at night in order to help strangers for free.
I was struck by their friendliness, good cheer and sheer competence as they got to work, quickly slicing through branches and hauling them off to the side.
I started doing a mental stocktake of our home’s contents in search of something, anything, we could offer them to say thank you...whisky, coffee, Easter chocolate?! But they finished quickly, and before we could even run outside again to express our thanks, they were back in their vehicle and probably off to the next job.
‘What kind of society produces a culture where it’s a badge of honour to give up your time and put your own safety on the line to help others, and it’s not even your paying job?’ I wondered.
Covid has humbled us; reminded us that life is unpredictable, that no one is immune to vulnerability and that we all, ultimately, need each other. We’ve become more attuned to risk, to uncertainty, to things beyond our control. But in my experience, it’s events in our personal lives that make the truth of our exquisite vulnerability even more real… followed, if we're lucky, by the overwhelming sense of gratitude when others step in to help. That’s us at our best, after all.
Only it’s not just luck. It’s what we might boldly call radical love, operationalised. The help that showed up the other night, the help that’s come to me before in other moments of need (childbirth, sickness, fears for a loved one’s safety or my own), are the products of many things: time, money, education, care, training. But most of all, they're a choice. And choices come from values.
We sometimes feel a bit mealy-mouthed talking about values, but values shape who we become and the kind of society we create. Whether we believe that money and markets should come first, or people and planet. Whether we believe in a politics of universalism, or carving people up into categories of deserving and undeserving.
At Australia reMADE we think a lot about core values such as cooperation, community, care, unity and the equal worth of all people. We think about responsibility, as well as rights. We think about the ‘we’ as well as the ‘me’. These aren’t exclusively Australian values. They aren’t exclusively conservative or progressive values, masculine or feminine values, religious or secular values. They’re human values.
They’re the values that produce an attitude of ‘how can I help’ rather than ‘what’s in it for me?’. And both when we’re at our best, as well as when we’re going through our worst, they’re the values that matter most.
Australia has a proud tradition of volunteer emergency services support, something our firefighters gained worldwide acclaim for during the devastating 2019-2020 fire season. These volunteers are not exclusively men, of course, but the other night’s events also got me thinking about our public discourse around masculinity, especially at the moment. In a month when sexual assault, abuse of power and ‘toxic masculinity’ have dominated our domestic news relentlessly, it felt like a tonic to be reminded of masculinity at its best: masculinity as helping, serving, strong, brave, selfless and kind. I thought about our vision for ‘A New Dawn for Women,’ where we talk about what the country of our dreams would look and feel like for everyone:
“[V]iolence of any kind, towards any person is no longer a sign of strength. We treat each other with respect and human decency... Men commit equally to women’s safety, equality and wellbeing; limiting definitions of masculinity fall away. Regardless of gender or sexuality, there is freedom to love, care, live, work and belong. We are whole.” - Pillar 7, Vision for an Australia reMADE.
As we rightfully seek to tear down toxic masculinity, I believe we also need to proudly hold up its alternative.
This ‘tonic-masculinity’ of bravery, service, safety and strength is also all around us, and it deserves the spotlight. Let’s sing about it, recognise it, and show our boys that we don’t expect them to grow up to become predators any more than we expect our girls to grow up to become prey. There’s still a place for them, a need for them, for all of us. We need boys to become heroes, just like girls.
Looking at the guys from the SES reminded me fondly of the men I grew up around. I came from a family of loud, boisterous, larger-than-life men; the kind of guys who are brawny as well as brilliant. Men who climbed into helicopters and submarines, built houses, rode horses, dived into the deep blue sea to disarm explosives. Men who raised strong sons as well as strong daughters. They are also, without exception, men who cooked, cleaned and cared for their families with devotion. They never saw it as beneath them or as an infringement on their masculinity to do so; there was never any conflict between the two.
I didn’t grow up finding any of this particularly remarkable. It just was. Like the competence on display that night, it was gloriously easy to take for granted because it was simply there. It was only later, as an adult, that I began to realise that not everyone had grown up with fathers, uncles and grandfathers they admired; much less men who valued and respected them in return.
We talk a lot at Australia reMADE about reMAKING – about things like vision, ambition and transformation.
The other night reminded me to celebrate sheer competence: the joy of things working as they’re designed to, and all that must go right in order for that to happen.
It reminded me that focusing on what needs fixing is important, but so is studying our strengths and successes. ‘The best version of us’ already exists in pockets and places, in stories and communities giving it their best. Transformation doesn’t mean burn it all down. It means hone in on what’s serving us well, and use our strengths to heal, reimagine and elevate the rest.
Finally, it reminded me that government and its associated entities aren’t some blob of amorphous ‘them’. What every person who actually works in, or closely with, government understands is that for better and for worse, government is us. It’s thousands and thousands of us in our jobs, and sometimes, simply volunteering – with a level of responsibility, duty of care and (unless corrupted) zero profit motive. That doesn’t make government inherently good, but it makes it a powerful potential force for good when we understand it, participate in it, hold it to high standards and engage it well.
We were the lucky ones indeed. The rains would go on and on for days, taking so much from so many. That night, we didn’t know that homes and bridges near us would soon be washed away. All we knew was we could go back to bed. There was no insurance bill to worry about. No paperwork or credit cards required. No further information was asked of us. The SES guys hadn’t turned up for a profit or even a paycheque, but merely to help. And they’re still out there, helping.
Best version of us? You bet. I hope they get all the chocolate.
More information about the floods and how to get or give help:
NSW floods: How those affected can access support and what everyone else can do to help
LILIAN SPENCER
Lilian Spencer is the Communications Lead for Australia reMADE. She believes that the secret to change is to, ‘focus your energy not on fighting the old, but on building the new.’
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