Perspectives on Prime Minister & Liberal MP for Cook's one-word change to the 36 year-old* Australian national anthem

Luke Person writing at Indigenous X on 1 January 2021:

Last night the Morrison government announced that they were changing the national anthem, to be more inclusive of Indigenous peoples and of migrants (the not white ones anyways), by changing a single word, ‘young’. It’s now ‘one’.

We are one and free.

We are One Nation.

Pauline must be stoked.

This, from the same political party who every Invasion Day assure us that Indigenous peoples aren’t interested in meaningless symbolic gestures like Australia no longer throwing a party on the anniversary of invasion, are now confident that Indigenous peoples will be so excited about this meaningless symbolic change that presumably we will no longer refuse to sing it at national sporting events.

Changing the anthem from ‘young’ to ‘one’ is not only problematic because it’s symbolic tokenism aimed at silencing dissent that completely misses the nature of the dissent in the first place, but it’s also problematic because it’s the same wrongly labelled ‘one’ as the one made famous by ‘One Nation’.

The original version of ‘we are one’ was a view of multiculturalism which tried to encourage white Australia away from its traditional view of a fair go meaning ‘if your skin ain’t fair, you gots to go’ and to accept instead the notion that we could be ‘one nation with many cultures’.

This was quickly co-opted by racist ideologues who replaced that sentiment with the assimilationist idea that one nation meant ‘one culture with many races’ and that was quickly cemented into the national consciousness by Pauline Hanson who seized the moment and took the name for her political party ‘One Nation’.

Despite One Nation tainting the concept of ‘one nation,’ both meanings have persisted in Australia without much national discourse or reflection on which one we should have, but it’s been pretty clear from a Liberal Party standpoint since the days of John Howard that they aren’t huge fans of the multiculturalism actually meaning multiple cultures.

They are generally more on the side of white/western supremacy, which many liberals have hinted at, and which Tony Abbott flat out stated on multiple occasions when he was PM.

Their views on Indigenous assimilation are much the same.

This can be seen by their political insistence that reconciliation can only be achieved by ‘closing the gap’ rather than by recognising Indigenous Rights as defined by the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

Having an ambiguous working definition of multiculturalism began as a contest between the two, which the nation should have chosen between by now. Instead, both definitions have been left unchallenged to ensure that politicians can conveniently dog whistle to both sides whenever they talk about us being the ‘most successful multicultural country on Earth’.

This change plays right into that blurring of the lines between the two definitions.

We are one. And we are free. And from all the lands on earth we come.

You’d have thought they would have just straight up changed the anthem to ‘I am Australian’ by the Seekers, but I guess it has too much brand association with QANTAS these days, and because you don’t want to be seen as caving in to the politically correct demands of the slightly left of centrists who were presumably campaigning for this change.

Yesterday, on the last day of 2020, IndigenousX published a powerful piece from Gregory Phillips called ‘Can We Breathe?’ talking staunchly about truth telling, and about Indigenous empowerment.

Today, on the first day of 2021, we are talking about the anthem, or at least we are meant to be.

Instead of continuing to explain why the new anthem is just as shit as the old one though, I’m going to remind people of what some of our Indigenous Rights are:

Article 3: Indigenous peoples have the right to self-determination. By virtue of that right they freely determine their political status and freely pursue their economic, social and cultural development.

Article 4: Indigenous peoples, in exercising their right to self-determination, have the right to autonomy or self-government in matters relating to their internal and local affairs, as well as ways and means for financing their autonomous functions.

Article 5: Indigenous peoples have the right to maintain and strengthen their distinct political, legal, economic, social and cultural institutions, while retaining their right to participate fully, if they so choose, in the political, economic, social and cultural life of the State.

Article 8.1: Indigenous peoples and individuals have the right not to be subjected to forced assimilation or destruction of their culture.

That’s only four of them, there are 46.  Read them. There will be a test.

This is the test, and Australia is failing at it.

These are what needs to be informing our discussions around change.

Australia has worked hard for decades now to poison the well of Indigenous Rights discourse by reframing any such discussion as ‘Indigenous people want special treatment and free handouts’.

We need to move beyond the fear of being shown in this light and embrace the reality that being the Indigenous peoples of these lands and waters is special, and it brings with it special rights and responsibilities.

This is not us wanting something for nothing. This is us demanding our rights, and we have already paid far more than we should ever have had to for them.

You can sing that anthem backwards for all I care, it’ll still be shit.

— 2020 Hater (@pauldutton1968) January 1, 2021

Adjunct associate professor at the School of Psychology, University of Queensland, and proud Wiradjuri man, Joe Williams, writing in The Guardian on 1 January 2021:

I was made aware on Thursday by a friend of the incoming changes to the national anthem. My reply was an “eye roll” emoji with the words: “But we aren’t all one, we certainly aren’t treated as one; and many, sure as hell, aren’t free”.

I put out a tweet on Friday with my thoughts:

For we are one and free, is like a present from yr nerd uncle, who tries to be cool, but fails hard. I mean, is that line trying to convince us, or you? Cos’ we definitely aren’t treated as one, & many sure as hell aren’t free”

Prime minister Scott Morrison was quoted as saying the change “takes away nothing … but adds much”.

'We are one and free': Australia's national anthem to change in attempt to recognise Indigenous history

Is it supposed to hit the “warm and fuzzies”, taking away the notion of “us and them” by pretending that all people who live on this continent are one big happy family?

Let’s be brutally honest, we aren’t.

You all know the rates of incarceration when it comes to First Nations v non-Indigenous Australians, deaths in custody, the drastic health disparity and the difference in life expectancy between First Nations and non-Indigenous Australians. You know of the negative profiling when it comes to mainstream media between the two (if you don’t, it’s not hard to Google). Why on earth would anyone think that the changing of just one word would encourage First Nations people to feel as “ONE” with any Australian?

To me, changing just one word with the view of inclusion does very little for actual inclusion, and does next to nothing for the hope of uniting a nation......

The song I believe is a beautiful representation of a united, multicultural Australia is the one written by Judith Durham, Uncle Kutcha Edwards, Lou Bennett, Camilla Chance and Bill Hauritz. It’s time for a fresh start and to get a new song. And if we are genuine about this word “reconciliation”, we need to start a relationship before we try to heal one that never existed. 

Me in ⁦@canberratimes⁩

“Please excuse us if we don't view the anthem change as a "good start". Aus is further down the road to substantive change than that. We are in the middle of a very serious, complex reform agenda, entering its second decade”. https://t.co/L9GU7qWniH

— Prof Dr M Davis (@mdavisqlder) January 1, 2021

Well said, #JessicaSavage keeps her eye on the dodgy colonial ball ...

I like her page. Thanks for sharing this 👏🏽https://t.co/DkZ4LFrvY3

— Girrali 😎 (@Girrali) January 2, 2021

NOTE:

* Advance Australia Fair became the national anthem on 19 April 1984.

A Short Explanation Of 'The Dismissal': Queen Elizabeth II and her lawful representative in Australia knowingly betrayed the people of this nation

The Age, 14 July 2020:

The Palace letters have proved to be every bit the bombshell they promised to be, and neither the Queen nor Sir John Kerr emerge unscathed. In his vast, increasingly frequent letters and telegrams to the Queen, the governor-general provides the most extraordinary vice-regal commentary on the decisions and actions of a prime minister and elected government imaginable. They provide a remarkable window onto Kerr’s views of Gough Whitlam, his planning, his options, his fears, and his eventual decision to dismiss the government. 

Letter by letter, particularly from late August 1975, months before supply had even been blocked in the Senate, Kerr draws the Queen into his planning regarding the crisis unfolding in the Senate, including the possible use of the reserve powers. Kerr details options and strategies, which are then discussed with the Queen through her private secretary, Sir Martin Charteris.

These include Kerr’s concern that prime minister Whitlam might recall him as governor-general, which he discussed with Prince Charles in September 1975 in a profound breach of political and constitutional practice. Charteris writes: "Prince Charles told me a good deal of his conversation with you and in particular that you had spoken of the possibility of the Prime Minister advising The Queen to terminate your Commission with the object, presumably, of replacing you with someone more amenable to his wishes. If such an approach was made you may be sure that The Queen would take most unkindly to it." 

It is a defining feature of a constitutional monarchy that the monarch "has to remain strictly neutral with respect to political matters", that the Queen must remain above politics at all times. Hundreds of pages challenge that claimed political disinterest, as Kerr relays conversations, meetings, and events to Buckingham Palace in the context of the most intensely political situation unfolding in Australia.

On September 30, "I had an interesting conversation yesterday with the Prime Minister about the current political and constitutional problems"; on September 20, "The Prime Minister and I had a detailed and important talk … and he has told me privately that he has another tactic in mind." What is pivotal throughout these letters is that the Queen, through her private secretary, engages with Kerr on these inherently political matters, even advising him on the powers of the Senate and, critically, the existence and potential use of the contentious and contested reserve powers to dismiss the government. 

Let’s take just one example, from the first glimpse at the letters, Charteris’ letter to Kerr of November 4, 1975, on the reserve powers: "Those powers do exist … but to use them is a heavy responsibility … I think you are playing the 'Vice-Regal' hand with skill and wisdom. Your interest in the situation has been demonstrated, and so has your impartiality. The fact that you have the powers is recognised, but it is also clear that you will only use them in the last resort and then only for constitutional and not for political reasons."

Charteris followed this up the next day with the clearest suggestion that the reserve powers may need to be used which, Charteris wrote, "places you in what is, perhaps, an unenviable, but is certainly a very honourable position. If you do, as you will, what the constitution dictates, you cannot possible [sic] do the Monarchy any avoidable harm. The chances are you will do it good". He ends with a reference to the "discretion left to a governor-general". These critical letters provided Kerr with the advice and comfort he needed to feel secure that the Palace accepted the existence and potential use of the reserve powers as he moved towards dismissing the Whitlam government......

Read the full article by inaugural Distinguished Whitlam Fellow with the Whitlam Institute at Western Sydney University, Emeritus Professor at Monash University, and former Director of the National Centre for Australian Studies at Monash University, Jenny Hocking.

Read all the 'Palace Letters' at https://www.naa.gov.au/explore-collection/kerr-palace-letters.

Dismissal of the Whitlam Labor Government (11 November 1975): full range of Buckingham Palace correspondence with then Australian Governor-General Sir John Kerr will be available for online viewing from 11am on Tuesday, 14th July 2020

National Archives of Australia, 9 July 2020:

The National Archives of Australia will release the Kerr Palace Letters on Tuesday 14 July. 

National Archives Director-General David Fricker said all the letters will be released without exemption. 

‘In line with the High Court ruling of 29 May, the National Archives has examined the records for public release under the provisions of the Archives Act 1983 and I have determined all items will be released in full,’ Mr Fricker said. 

The records cover the period of Sir John Kerr’s term as Governor-General (1974–77). 

There are six files, which include more than 1000 pages. 

There are 212 letters, many with attachments such as newspaper clippings, reports, and copies of letters related to meetings and events attended by Sir John Kerr during his tenure as Governor-General. 

Applicants that have sought access to the Kerr Palace Letters will be advised of the release date. Mr Fricker said, ‘The National Archives is proud to function as the memory and evidence of the nation, to preserve and provide historical Commonwealth records to the public.’ 

Digital copies of the Kerr Palace Letters will be made publicly available on the National Archives’ website from 11.00am on Tuesday 14 July.

Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison denies slavery ever existed in Australia *WARNING this post contains the names of people who are no longer living*

This was Scott Morrison boldly asserting yesterday that “there was no slavery in Australia”.

The Sydney Morning Herald, 11 June 2020:

"Australia when it was founded as a settlement, as New South Wales, was on the basis that there'd be no slavery," the Prime Minister told Ben Fordham on 2GB. "And while slave ships continued to travel around the world, when Australia was established yes, sure, it was a pretty brutal settlement."

"My forefathers and foremothers were on the First and Second Fleets. It was a pretty brutal place, but there was no slavery in Australia," he said.

Why did Morrison chose to brazenly lie like this? Probably because he knew his statement would go to print without being immediately challenged by either News Corp, Nine, or Canberra Press Gallery journalists - and once in print with online amplification more than a few people would accept his lie as truth.

Thankfully Justice Garry Downes (President), Deputy President Stephen Estcourt and QC Deputy President Don Muller in an Administrative Appeals Tribunal of Australia decision on 18 October 2002 entered this into the record:

“Nelly Wanda is said to be a Queensland Aboriginal who was born in 1883 and died in 1903…. It is said that Nelly Wanda was brought to Tasmania from Queensland when she was 9 years old by a ship's captain named Lucas who, it is said, dealt in 'human trade'. Nelly was sold as a house servant and died at the age of 19 in childbirth.”

Newspaper reports found at Trove also mention slavery.

"Aboriginal Slave. Recaptured and Flogged. 
Ill-treatment of an Alleged Slave. 

 Under yesterday's date a telegram was received by the Colonial Secretaryfrom Mr. P. Keiley, lightkeeper at Karomba, at the mouth of the Norman River. Mr. Keiley states that a fugitive female slave (presumably an an aboriginal) who had run away from her master or masters had been recaptured and flogged at that place yesterday. In Mr. Keiley's opinion the case is one which warrants the interference of the Colonial Secretary. A similar telegram has been received from the same source by the Aborigines Protection Society of Queensland. Immediately upon receipt of the telegram the Colonial Secretary wired instructions to the police-magistrate at Normanton to make a thorough and searching inquiry into the matter, and to report to him as soon as possible."

The Telegraph, 18 October 1890

"The Government at least cannot plead ignorance of the iniquities which are openly perpertrated, for an official of its own, Dr. W. E. Both, Northern Protector of Aborigines; testifies to certain abuses which exist in the the treatment of the unfortunate Northern black helots. He tells in his official report of absolute kidnapping, of evasion of the labour regulations, and of the selling of young aborigine to traders. He says he has reported absolute proof that such has been the case, and as no departmental action has resulted the secretary of the Protection Society has good grounds for appealing to a higher power."

The Worker, 8 December 1900

"As regards the capturing of natives on the Descal, this has frequently been done by the notorious Hodgson, who chained men, women and children together and marched them under a broiling sun to the station, where they were detained as shepherds. It seems incredible that the people in the neighborhood of Pilbarra that this man was allowed to leave the country without any investigation being held as to his systematic cruelties. He was universally abhorred, both by blacks and white people. Hicks' black financial statement will have attention yet."

West Australian Sunday Times, 1 September 1901

"Astounding revelations have been made regarding the kidnapping of an aboriginal boy from Port Hedland four years ago The District Magistrate at Karachi, India, has forwarded statements from several people alleging that Jourack, a brother of Dust Mahomet, who was killed at Port Hedland I8 months ago, had taken a black boy named Pidgy, then six years old, to his (Jourack's) 'home near Karachi, where this lad is now held as a working slave."

The Register, 30 January 1911

"MINISTER ADMITS SLAVE TRADING 
 AN ABORIGINE SOLD 

 PART OF A STATION 
The sale of an aborigine as a servant at a station property in northern Australia was admitted by the Minister for Home and Territories, Mr. Marr, yesterday."

The Labor Daily, 18 October 1927

How the Clarence Valley handled the Spanish Influenza pandemic in 1919 - with discipline it only took around 14 weeks to eradicate that health menace

25- 26 March 2019

The Daily Examiner, 9 May 2020, p.5:

After scouring old newspaper clippings, a Yamba researcher has some interesting insight into the similarities between two pandemics separated by more than a century. 

Using historical records accessed from the comfort of his home, John McNamara – research officer at the Port of Yamba Historical Society – has been busy piecing together the Clarence Valley response to the Spanish flu pandemic in 1919. 

“What stood out was mainly the similarities between what happened then and how it has been dealt with now,” he said. 

“Closing the borders and restricting travel, it is pretty similar to what they have done now.” Using the articles from The Daily Examiner and The Clarence River Advocate, Mr McNamara was able to get a picture of how it affected different parts of the region. 

“The first case was a prisoner that came up on the ships from Sydney – then when the first case was reported in Grafton and they stopped travel,” he said. 

At the beginning of the outbreak Grafton City Council requested the Health Minister place restrictions on people coming from Sydney to Grafton by rail or steamer. 

The council wanted to prevent anyone travelling at all unless they had a “clean health certificate”. 

By the end of the outbreak Grafton Base Hospital had been “absolutely handed over” for the treatment of influenza patients, with 500 cases treated there. 

The Lower Clarence fared better, with Mr McNamara unable to find a single confirmed case in Yamba, though there were isolated outbreaks elsewhere. 

The response in the Lower Clarence began with a public meeting on February 3, 1919, where a central committee was formed and “arrangements were immediately made to combat the scourge”. 

“An isolation ward was then established at Maclean Showground and the first patient was admitted on May 20, and up to the end of that month eight patients were admitted.” He said when the quarantine centre closed in mid-August, they had treated 46 patients.“The Lower Clarence managed to escape the worst effects of the virus thanks to the swift quarantine response by the government and by the end of August 1919 was declared virus-free,” Mr McNamara said.

Australian-led team proves that as a species we are older than we thought

The Guardian, 3 April 2020:

Homo erectus cranium outline. The earliest known skull of Homo erectus has been unearthed by an Australian-led team in South Africa. 
Photograph: Supplied by La Trobe University

The earliest known skull of Homo erectus has been unearthed by an Australian-led team of researchers who have dated the fossil at two million years old, showing the first of our ancestors existed up to 200,000 years earlier than previously thought.

The lead researcher Prof Andy Herries said the skull was pieced together from more than 150 fragments uncovered at the Drimolen Main Quarry, located about 40km north of Johannesburg in South Africa. It was likely aged between two and three years old when it died.

Herries, a geochronologist and head of archaeology at Melbourne’s La Trobe University, said he “could not stress how rare it is” to find find enough fragments to piece together an intact brain case, especially given juvenile skulls are thin and fragile.

“At this age they are so susceptible to damage,” he said. “It’s so exciting, because our fascination with human evolution is because it’s the story of us, and when we go back this far with a discovery like this, it’s the story of every person living on the planet.

“The group this two or three-year-old was a part of could have been the origin of everyone alive today.”

He said while there was a lot of disagreement of opinion in the field of archaeology and human evolution, one of the reasons Homo erectus is significant is because everyone agreed: “This is the beginning of us, this is the beginning of our genus.”...... 

Herries said the finding was particularly special because in 1924 the Australian anatomist Raymond Dart identified the the first fossil ever found of Australopithecus africanus, an extinct hominin closely related to humans and discovered in South Africa. 

“Nobody believed him at the time because they thought the origin of humans would be in Europe,” Herries said. “And now, 100 years later, DMH 134 will go sit in the same room as that child he identified, further proving what he found. It’s a testament to the work of Australians on human evolution.”.....

IMPEACHMENT OF A U.S. PRESIDENT: Dear Madam Speaker, Sincerely yours, Donald J. Trump

Nineteen politicians/public officials were impeached by the U.S. House of Representatives before Donald J. Trump became the twentieth individual and the third president to be referred to the Senate.

All but one of these nineteen had a Senate trial. Seven were acquitted, eight found guilty, with another four jumping ship through pre-emptive resignation and jurisdiction lapsing in the matter of another.

Of the two presidents in this list, Andrew Johnson and William Jefferson "Bill" Clinton - both were acquitted.

Richard Milhous Nixon is not on this list as he was the only U.S. president to resign in order to avoid a formal Senate trial.

Impeachment charges ranged from: conspiring to assist in Great Britain’s attempt to seize Spanish-controlled territories; waging war against the U.S. Government; sexual assault, obstructing and impeding an official proceeding; making false and misleading statements; criminal disregard for the office and accepting payments in exchange for making official appointments; income tax evasion; abuse of contempt power and other misuses of office; and of remaining on the bench following criminal conviction; through to charges of intoxication on the bench.

On 19 December 2019 the House of Representatives impeached Trump for "high crimes and misdemeanors" on a 230 to 197 vote regarding "abuse of power" and a 229 to 198 vote regarding "obstruction of Congress".

One Democrat and two Republicans did not participate in either vote and one Democrat declared neutrality with a Present declaration.

The day before the vote Trump wrote to Speaker Nancy Pelosi.......

President Donald Trump’s le... by Digital Desk on Scribd

https://www.scribd.com/document/440211861/President-Donald-Trump-s-letter-to-Speaker-of-the-House-Nancy-Pelosi

After the impeachment vote Trump tweeted:

pic.twitter.com/DutxclyZw9

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 19, 2019

When going straight to source documents when doing research applies to critics as well as authors

This article below demonstrates the advisability of going straight to source documents when doing research on a particular subject.

Not what an author 'quoted' or 'attributed' but to the actual extant documents.

Then go to other reliable contemporary accounts from the era in question, before deciding if the modern historian, amatuer historian, journalist, commentator or blogger has accurately conveyed facts.

Something Andrew Bolt appears not to have done.

When it comes to ancestry a good many people do not know the real whens and wheres of their family history, some know part of their family story and a very lucky few can count their line back by name across many generations.

In Australia finding out about your ancestry is as complicated by missing documents, unexplained name changes, unregistered births, unrecorded burials, adoption or removal by the state, divorce and family silences, as anywhere else in the world.

It is not uncommon to only find out some facts about your family once you are an adult.

If Bruce Pascoe says that on doing family research he discovered he has a forebear or forebears who were traditional owners/custodians of land in Australia why would I not take him at his word?

The Saturday Paper, 30 November 2019:

There is one particular question Andrew Bolt does not wish to answer.

In correspondence with The Saturday Paper, the News Corp columnist was asked three times whether he has read Bruce Pascoe’s best-selling history of Aboriginal Australia, Dark Emu. Each time, he evaded the question.

It is useful, then, to start an examination of his attacks on the author with this in mind.

A more inconvenient truth is that Bolt’s dislike of Pascoe began at least two years before the publication of the book, which has now become the focus of a minor culture war led by Bolt and others.

Bolt’s efforts to “fact-check” Pascoe’s book are based largely around a website called Dark Emu Exposed.

The site’s contributors cast doubt on Pascoe’s account of an Indigenous history different from the one allowed by colonial interpretation. They also doubt his Aboriginal heritage.

As one prominent Indigenous leader tells The Saturday Paper, on the condition of anonymity, the argument against Pascoe’s work is an extension of “19th-century race theory”, which once espoused the view that race is the major indicator of a person’s character and behaviour.

“Any suggestion that Aborigines are anything other than furtive rock apes has to be destroyed by these people,” the leader says.

“WHEN THEY INSIST ON THIS INQUIRY, DO THEY WONDER IF THIS PERSON HAD FAMILY MEMBERS STOLEN FROM THE MISSIONS? DO THEY WONDER IF THEY WERE HIDING TRUTHS BECAUSE OF A CONCERTED EFFORT TO SHAME OR HUMILIATE ABORIGINAL ANCESTRY?”

Pascoe’s book is based on close reading of the original journals of Australia’s explorers. In these journals, he has found new evidence of Indigenous agriculture and development. As the Indigenous leader notes: “He’s gone to the records and said, ‘Hang on, what does this really mean?’ While some historians with their PhDs have gone to the same original documents and came to the conclusion that we were all backward.”

In Dark Emu, which has sold more than 100,000 copies, Pascoe mounts a convincing argument that Aboriginal people actively managed and cultivated the landscape, harvested seeds for milling into cakes at an astonishing scale, took part in complex aquaculture and built “towns” of up to 1000 people.

That word, by the way – “town” – is not Pascoe’s. That is how one such settlement was referred to by a man in the exploration party of Thomas Mitchell in the mid-1800s.

What some have found so astonishing about Pascoe’s claimed developments is not that they happened – they are right there in Charles Sturt’s and Mitchell’s journals, among many others – but that we, as a nation, could have been so ignorant to their existence.

As Pascoe wrote last year in Meanjin: “Almost no Australians know anything about the Aboriginal civilisation because our educators, emboldened by historians, politicians and the clergy, have refused to mention it for 230 years.

“Think for a moment about the extent of that fraud. Imagine the excellence of the advocacy required to get our most intelligent people today to believe it.”

It is Pascoe’s attempt to shout down this conspiracy of silence that has primed the culture war machine. But why should a successful race of First Nations peoples be such a threat to modern Australians?

The most compelling answer to this question is that it removes a psychological shunt in the mind of European settlers and their descendants that this occupation, this invasion of land unceded, was to save Indigenous people from themselves, to bring civilisation to them.

Of course, it is uncomfortable to later ask: What if this race of First Australians were civilised all along? Maybe we were the barbarians?

Pascoe achieves this questioning with a somewhat controversial manoeuvre. He takes the European ideal of farming and architecture, and thoroughly white notions of success, and applies them, through the primary evidence, to Indigenous Australians.

Asked why he is offended by Pascoe’s assertion of complex farming and settlements built by First Nations peoples, Bolt said he is not.

“So, to answer your insult: I am not ‘offended’ by the thought of Aborigines being ‘well-adapted’ or ‘sophisticated’. How on earth would that be offensive to me? I in fact am determined to change policies and thinking that hold back so many Aboriginal communities that are now in poverty,” he said in a lengthy correspondence with The Saturday Paper.

“I am simply interested in the truth, and opposed to falsehoods … If I’m ‘offended’ by anything it is frauds......

The agitation surrounding Dark Emu, renewed by the announcement of an ABC documentary, has quickly driven a stake through the recently formed advisory group on the co-design for an Indigenous Voice to Parliament. The group is chaired by Indigenous academic Marcia Langton, a defender of Pascoe’s, and counts Chris Kenny as a member.

Last week, Ken Wyatt, who established the group as minister for Indigenous Australians, backed Pascoe against the conservative onslaught and noted that Australians tend to “question if you are Indigenous”.

“If Bruce tells me he’s Indigenous, then I know that he’s Indigenous,” Wyatt told Kenny on Sky News.

This week, Wyatt told ABC’s Radio National that his office has been receiving calls where staff have been threatened and called “cunts” because he dared defend Pascoe.

“I’ve had one of my staff resign because she can’t cope with being abused over the issue,” he said.

Another of the co-design group’s members, Indigenous lawyer Josephine Cashman, has publicly questioned Pascoe’s ancestry. On Twitter, she stated that her former partner is a Yuin man who says he has never heard of Pascoe. Other Yuin people responded on Twitter, cautioning Cashman for relying on a single man’s testimony.

A week ago, Kenny wrote in The Australian: “Many claims in Dark Emu have been debunked by forensic reference to primary sources.”

But this week The Saturday Paper spent two days at the National Library of Australia reviewing the original documents and explorer accounts in question. They are – at every instance – quoted verbatim and cited accordingly in an extensive bibliography at the end of Pascoe’s book.

Bolt alleges: “They even overlooked the fact that his big hit – Dark Emu – included incredible misquotations of its sources.

“How else could Pascoe have argued that the historians had been wrong. Aborigines had not been hunter-gatherers but sophisticated farmers, living in ‘towns’ of up to 1000 people, in ‘houses’ with ‘pens’ for animals. (Koalas, perhaps?)”

It would take many thousands of words to address all of Bolt’s claims, but it is useful to highlight a few of them. The Saturday Paper put these claims to Bolt.

For example, he says that Pascoe tells the story of Sturt stumbling onto a town of 1000 people on the edge of the Cooper Creek. Dark Emu does not claim this; it instead quotes Sturt correctly on this front, when his party is taken in by “3 or 400 natives” in the area. Bolt says he was referring to a speech Pascoe made where he said there were 1000 people in the town.

Thomas Mitchell also noted a town of 1000 people in his journals, and the quote is attributed to Mitchell in Dark Emu at the bottom of page 15.

Bolt, when he does reference Mitchell, gets the date of that quotation wrong, too. He says it is from Mitchell’s 1848 journal when, in fact, the quote is from his 1839 journal. This, too, is recorded faithfully in Dark Emu.

Bolt has twice scoffed at the idea of animal yards being found by these explorers.

But Dark Emu records the firsthand account of David Lindsay on his 1883 survey of Arnhem Land, where he says he “came on the site of a large native encampment, quite a quarter of a mile across. Framework of several large humpies, one having been 12ft high: small enclosures as if some small game had been yarded and kept alive … This camp must have contained quite 500 natives.”

In reply, Bolt says: “Maybe they were animal pens, who knows?

“Arnhem Land has, after all, more game than Cooper Creek that might at a stretch be kept in a pen, although it is difficult to imagine what animals might have been kept. Wallabies?”

Again, Bolt says he is not so much quoting from Pascoe’s book as from his lectures, of which the author has done hundreds since Dark Emu’s 2014 release.

However, Bolt frequently conflates the two.

While Bolt mocks Pascoe for speaking at a lecture about a well that was made by Indigenous people and was “70 feet deep”, there are, in fact, a litany of accounts of incredibly sophisticated wells in the journals. Of one, Sturt writes: “… we arrived at a native well of unusual dimensions. It was about eight feet wide at the top and 22ft deep, and it was a work that must have taken the joint strength of a powerful tribe to perform.”

In his rebuttal, the Herald Sun columnist has been forced to accept there were incredibly sophisticated settlements and seed-milling operations, and that Aboriginal people really did give cake and honey and roast ducks to Sturt and his party. The debate has now been reduced to minutiae – questioning how many mills were going and the different depth of various wells.

Bolt responds: “Trust you to attempt to make this about me and not his incredible claims.”

But Pascoe is not alone in his assessments.

Writing in Inside Story this week, Australian National University professor of history Tom Griffiths lauded the book and its addition to a long trajectory of scholarly work.

“My point is that the blindnesses and complacencies that Pascoe rails against are the same silences and lies that Australian historians have been collaboratively challenging for decades now,” he says.

“It’s a job that will never finish. Pascoe is primarily bridling at an older form of history, the history he learnt at school and university 50 years ago.”

Edie Wright, the chair of Magabala Books, which published Dark Emu, told The Saturday Paper: “We unequivocally support our outstanding author Bruce Pascoe, and celebrate the contribution that Dark Emu has made to bringing a fuller understanding of our history to so many Australians of all ages.”

On Wednesday, Marcia Langton replied to Josephine Cashman on Twitter. The two were previously close.

“The critique of Dark Emu is a job for actual historians not Andrew Bolt & others who benefit financially from tearing apart the lives of people looking for family,” she said.

Looking for family has taken on a mournful quality this week, as Pascoe’s kin went to libraries around the country to find the name of their Aboriginal ancestor. But how to proceed, one must ask, when so much of their story and the story of a people has been destroyed to protect the last excuse for colonisation?

Read the full article here.

This article was first published in the print edition of The Saturday Paper on Nov 30, 2019 as "Bolt, Pascoe and the culture wars". Subscribe to The Saturday Paper here.

Note: 

The website Dark Emu Exposed appears to be hosted by tucows.com, was created on 2019-06-01 and registered to Contact Privacy Inc. Customer 0154877432 as the creator/owner/administrator of the website apparently wishes to remain anonymous. However Roger Karge is reportedly the person who initiallly floated the idea for the site.

One has to wonder if the website is also the work of aquaintances of Keith Windshuttle, Chris Kenny, Peter O'Brien or even Andrew Bolt himself.