The Way Forward

Here is the hard part. I think our main problem in this country is how quickly that ideas from people that we disagree with get shot down. I hate it.

I’m not on Twitter or Facebook or anything like that but I guarantee you that if I say anything at all and I could make it up, that the first 50 responses would be, 'Who is this f*cking idiot? What the fck are you saying?'

There is so much negativity. Everybody feels that they have personally got the right idea about how the problems are solved and I’m telling you it’s a complicated thing.

Even we disagree about the best way of going forward we have to listen to each other. There is too much shutting down and there is too much tribalism in terms of going forward.

There is no one way forward and if there was one way forward, someone would have found it. All thoughts are very, very constructive even if they are not right.

It’s a very passionate game. We have very passionate supporters and we have very passionate administrators, we have very passionate players so it’s pretty much everywhere.

When people here robust discussion on sports panels they feel my opinion is just as valid as Fozz’s (Craig Foster) or Robbie Slater’s or Bozza’s (Mark Bosnich) or whoever so I’ll be just as forthcoming.

They are quite right to do that. Everybody has got a right to an opinion but I don’t think everybody has got a right to shoot down another person’s opinion just because it overlaps.

I know it sounds like I’m saying there should be peace in the world. It’s easy to say that, but it’s how you go about it.

Over the last 10 or 20 years I like to listen to everybody’s point of view and I don’t like to hear people say, ‘No, that’s f*cked, that’s not good.’

Because I feel, ‘Hang on, that idea might be good, it might not be good now or just one part of it is good.’ That’s my big bugbear. I don’t like the way people get shot down no matter what their thoughts are.

I don’t like compartmentalising people’s theories and then throwing them out because you may think, ‘I know him, he thinks this way and therefore everything he says is useless.’

It happens everywhere, in journalism, politics.

You could go to AAMI Park and listen to Melbourne Victory fans talk about problems with the Australian team and I guarantee you even with a bunch of mates they are disagreeing.

Which is fine we like that healthy debate, that is good, but unhealthy discarding of anybody’s views is not helpful, especially if it’s a complex problem.