Quarterly Essay 65 The White Queen: One Nation and the Politics of Race by David Marr

Author:David Marr [Marr, David]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Political Ideologies, Political Parties, Political Science, Political Process, World, Australian & Oceanian, Writing, Conservatism & Liberalism, Politics
ISBN: 9781925435498
Google: YcoLEAAAQBAJ
Goodreads: 34696319
Publisher: Black Inc.
Published: 2017-03-27T00:00:00+00:00

SURFING THE MUSLIM BREAK

Tony Abbott has never shown much enthusiasm for free speech. He hadn’t worried about censorship and secrecy in the Howard years. He’s always denounced the idea of Australia having a Bill of Rights. He never worked for the reform of Australia’s notorious defamation laws. But as leader of the Opposition he became an enthusiastic campaigner to save Australia from section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act. He wasn’t disturbed by laws that protected the old, the queer or the disabled from abuse. But he wanted 18C gutted so the law set no effective brake on racial vilification in public discourse. There was more to this than vindicating his old supporter Andrew Bolt. This was about persuading a chunk of the electorate that once in power Abbott would lead a government after their own hearts: one that understands what they feel about Aborigines, immigrants, boat people and Muslims; a government that would let them vent. Hanson was one of those people. She once told Andrew Denton:

What annoys me so much is the Australian people are being suppressed in their views and their opinions by policies and legislation set down by our so-called parliamentarians. Why the hell did they bring in a racial and religious vilification law that shuts Australians down from having an opinion? I have a right to have an opinion. But I’m being shut down.

Denton observed dryly: “I would suggest you’re one of the least shutdown people I’ve ever seen.” That was always the problems for critics of 18C: proving it stifled debate. Where were the martyrs? Who was being punished for speech that might, in the words of the Act, “offend, insult, humiliate or intimidate” people because of their “race, colour or national or ethnic origin”?

Then along came Andrew Bolt and the columns he wrote in the Herald Sun in 2009 attacking “professional” Aborigines who could pass for white but choose to identify as black for personal or for political gain, to win prizes and take what belonged to real, black Aborigines. Here’s Bolt on the academic Larissa Behrendt:

She’s won many positions and honours as an Aborigine, including the David Unaipon Award for Indigenous Writers, and is often interviewed demanding special rights for “my people.” But which people are “yours,” exactly, mein liebchen? And isn’t it bizarre to demand laws to give you more rights as a white Aborigine than your own white dad?

Meaty stuff. But Bolt had his facts hopelessly wrong. At least nine of the “White Aborigines” he ridiculed in his columns hadn’t switched race to get ahead. Like Behrendt, they were raised black. Her father was not a German but a black Australian. She had identified as black from before she could remember. The nine he abused chose not to sue Bolt. They did not want damages, but a correction and a promise he would not print such rubbish again. So they brought an action under the Racial Discrimination Act. Even before it went to court, Bolt had to admit he was wrong about the lot of them.

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