“Jim asks his acolytes to swap their livery for Nick Cave T-shirts and their rung on the ladder to be shared by those with fewer opportunities.” writes Kindness columnist ANTONIO DI DIO.

I clearly remember Saverio the smug bloke in year 4 for: (a) terrible breath and (b) inheriting his dad’s job as the town bus driver.

His mate was also going to inherit his dad’s job as a janitor at the hospital. I heard they did. 

I love organised labour as much as the next guy but it always seemed sad to me they would work for the same people their dads worked for, and Chimp would slave away for the same hospital.

Their dads, saved from 61 per cent unemployment, nevertheless slaved for the same folk without any thought of doing better. Exploit me like your ancestors exploited mine. Voluntary assisted feudalism.

My mate Jim Betts, glories in a surname that is a verb, thus making his full name a sentence.

Like thousands of other Poms, he was indeed sentenced for something (I’m assuming they were fashion crimes) and transported to NSW where he has thrived.

He uses his position to lead (as Secretary of the Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development, Communications and the Arts), but in his spare time cuts like a machete through a Thing. The Thing being, how CALD (culturally and linguistically diverse) people do in this new world. And how that affects us all. 

The public service is a wonderful institution I’ve come to love like few others. Jim stands like a tower where mandarins in days of yore dispensed indulgences such as medieval popes (yes, you may inherit your father’s job On The Buses or Carry On, Janitor. Very English).

He asks his acolytes to swap their livery for Nick Cave T-shirts and their rung on the ladder to be shared by those with fewer opportunities. Like St Francis of Assisi with a marginally better haircut he started a little revolution in terms of how CALD public servants get on. 

Why? Try these Big Stats. There are 200,000 Commonwealth public servants, maybe half in this town. At the junior ranks 30 per cent of them at CALD, yet at my level I’m one of only 8 per cent ( with my teeny little advantage of being a fat, privileged, white, old man from Deakin).

If you’re from Sub Saharan Africa or northeast Asia, you’ve a 30 per cent less chance of promotion into middle ranks and worse into senior ranks. 

Jim sometimes gets brickbats for his efforts because he’s Earnest and Makes The World Better, and many Australians are too cool and postmodern for that. 

Remember that Big Stats are only aggregations of Little Stats, so we can all make a difference. In my time running an organisation I love in the ACT, I started as president with one of nine of us being women. By the time I left, it was six of 11, one of whom took my job.

I was replaced by someone from the subcontinent, who was in turn replaced by a woman, who is now replaced by someone we identified as a talent years ago, who is both.

Does that make me a good guy? I’m pretty sure it was accidental but please – I’ll take any credit that’s going. God knows, every day the brilliance of those who replaced me sharply puts my own mediocrity into focus. 

But it’s wonderful that it happened and it usually needs to be made – planned and organised by supporting good people. Mentorship is not patronage. Kindness is not corruption. Leaders like Jim and his migrant mate who’s not called Gordon note that stewardship is leaving places better than you found them.

When a huge fraction of our workforce is CALD, let not their hybrid vigour lead to some of their children doing well, but let them not have to wait – let them do well, too.

And more – let’s not just leave the workforce better – how about leaving society better? Because for Saverio’s grandkids, they need chances, too. 

My parents accepted that they would never be what they could not in this new world – and they were grateful and happy. But we can do better in 2026. 

We have maybe 29 liberal democracies left – ask Daron Acemoglu. Whether you want to save society for the benefit of others or for your own selfish hands the path is just the same – jump on the same Sam Mostyn Kindness Train and get a ticket for the whole trip.

Our institutions are beautiful but like democracy, universal suffrage, the rule of law, the dignity of humankind and Saverio’s dental hygiene – they are fragile.

If you want to bolster the foundations of society then give opportunity to the invisible. None of us can never be truly fulfilled unless we all are.

Antonio Di Dio is a local GP, medical leader and nerd. There are many more of his Kindness columns at citynews.com.au

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