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Alexandra Fisher discusses politics with World Vision Australia CEO T...

Tim Costello answering some tough questions

Lecturer Shawn Burns films the interview.

Political journalism student interviews World Vision Australia CEO Tim Costello

World Vision Australia CEO Tim Costello made a quick stop at the University yesterday during a visit to Wollongong, to take part in an interview for the Journalism School’s political journalism class.

Political journalism students have been allocated rounds, ranging from community through to federal politics, and have been asked to line up an interview be recorded and podcast as part of the talkingPOLITICS@UOW website.

Mr Costello is one of Australia’s leading voices on social justice issues and has taken a prominent role in national debates on issues such as gambling, urban poverty, homelessness, reconciliation and substance abuse.

He was invited and interviewed by second-year student Alexandra Fisher, who spoke to Mr Costello about World Vision’s role in the government’s Strategic Indigenous Housing and Infrastructure Program, and about his views on the Northern Territory intervention.

When asked about buck passing regarding indigenous affairs, Mr Costello said there has been a lot of money spent but no houses built in the Northern Territory, but he is confident that this will improve.

“Anything thing to do with indigenous affairs is institutionally complex… and whenever you get that complexity, you get buck passing,” he said. “I think the SIHIP program must do better, and I’m confident it will do better.”

Alexandra also asked Mr Costello how he thought the government could work together with indigenous leaders to improve the situation for indigenous Australians.

“That’s the key question, you know, if you’d asked me this five years ago I would have been really smart with great answers. I don’t really know, this is really, really complex. I say we need to back indigenous leaders as they have these debates about what’s going to work.”

“If the intervention hadn’t been on the basis of race, but had been on the basis of remoteness, on the basis of poverty, that would make sense, but because we suspended the racial discrimination act and intervened saying look at the paedophiles, look at the drunkenness, Aboriginal men do feel - even lots and lots of good men – humiliated.”

Journalism lecturer Shawn Burns said doing interviews like this meant students could learn from people involved in politics.

"The students are learning political journalism in theory and practice," Mr Burns said.

"Political journalism is not just about politicians, we live in a world of political activism. Student journalists can better appreciate the multiple layers of political activity by speaking to and interviewing the people at the coal face."