There are 2 issues here, one that Andrew Bolt got some facts wrong, and secondly that the topical issue that he raised caused some offence.

While Bolt clearly should have had his facts checked, the point of the article was not to cause offence, but draw attention to his opinion that the benefits of aboriginal heritage were being rorted by those who aboriginal links were at best tenuous.

As Dilan has pointed out, the law is similar to the defamation law, but what he failed to mention, is that in the event of offence being caused, defamation law is capable of redressing the issue.

The issue with regards freedom of speech is whether a political commentator can comment on a current political / social issue without facing criminal charges, and whether the strict interpretation of the judge exceeds the intention of the laws as written.

Shadow Minister, when offensive speech is found section 18D offers a limitation on liability, just like with the defamation law. The law in Bolt is not a criminal law. Bolt was sued under a civil law cause of action.

The bottom line is that it is just One persons OPINION versus another - bearing the qualification of "Judge" does not mean that his opinion is correct. In fact based on recent "judgements" I feel the opposite is much more likely. And "yes" the judiciary is on trial as they have been portraying themselves as INFALLIBLE which they are most definitely NOT!

David,

There are criminal sanctions in all states except Tasmania and NT.

The terminology used is that he was found guilty, not common in civil cases.

Print the truth and you would never of heard about it.

Shadow Minister, nowhere in the judgment does Justice Bromberg use the word "guilty" in relation to Bolt's and the RDA.

The crim provisions in the state laws are for very serious, violence-related acts. Bolts articles dont even come near that.

The term Aboriginal means anyone born of the land (the country) they reside in. The original inhabitants before white settlers are Origine Aboringinals.
I for one am concerned when we no longer are permitted freedom of speech.
Our Australian Constitution Act 1900 guarantees us the people (regardless of whether origine aborigine, white aborigine or immigrant, the right to dree speech, and the right to trial by jury.

Interesting points, Gypsy.

This is a very thoughtful and valuable article. But I get worried when the author writes:

"..... racial vilification is not confined to racial hatred. If you consider that one of the primary purposes of speech is to persuade, then a compelling message that might do significant damage to the reputation of a group or an individual might be conveyed in a manner other than that which is hateful."

The application of this 'principle' could open a Pandora's box of mischief, not to mention its effect to severely limit what people feel they can say. So we can't make any comments on anybody's behaviour, for fear of being accused of vilifying their 'group' ? In fact, could I be pinged for using quote marks around 'group' ?

On the matter of Larissa Behrendt's father's father: perhaps it's splitting hairs, but my understanding is that Paul Behrendt lost his Aboriginal mother when he was only five and did not discover that he had Aboriginal ancestry until he was well into adulthood, when his daughter was at least approaching adolescence.

Yes, it was a mistake for Bolt to describe Larissa Behrendt's father as German, but given Paul's late arrival at knowledge of his ancestry, until then he may not have been any the wiser about Aboriginality than his own German-Australian father, perhaps a lot less. After all, he didn't inherit any knowledge from his mother (am I allowed to say that ?) and would have had to pick it up from conversations and books, like so many of the rest of us.

Joe

"Bolt got some facts wrong".

Correction.

Bolt deliberately omitted those facts that did not support his biassed opinion and has a long history of doing this.

There is a significant difference and it has nothing to do with "free speech" but everything to do with deliberately spreading malicious propaganda and shoddy journalism.

David,

Fair enough, I read the news articles.

When is an Aborigine an Aborigine in the commonly accepted Australian sense of the word?

There’s this little Jewish boy, Hymie Leibowitz. His parents are strictly orthodox Jews. They live in a little village populated mainly by other orthodox Jews. Little Hymie is raised as a pious Jew.

At age 18 Hymie leaves the village for the big city. He wins a scholarship to attend the most prestigious law school in the country. He graduates top of his class. He changes his name to Henry Leland and gets a job with one of the nation’s great corporate law firms. Within 10 years Hymie is made partner.

Hymie becomes wealthy. He is nominated for and accepted as a member of the city’s most prestigious club, the yacht club. He takes to wearing nautical style attire during his leisure time. We’ve all seen the type, blue blazer with meaningless gold braid, white trousers, nautical style cap, etc. He looks like a fake captain.

One day the now middle-aged Hymie decides it is time to visit his aged parents back in the little village. He left by train (second class) but returns in a chauffeur drive limo.

Hymie’s parents are dumbstruck when they see this apparition in nautical gear appear on their humble doorstep.

Finally Hymie’s Yiddische mama breaks the silence. “Hymie, darling,” she says, “to me you’re a captain. To papa you’re a captain. But to a captain are you are captain?”

And you may make of this allegory what you will.

Dilan Thampapillai

“Now that Bolt has lost is the law itself on trial?”

A ‘Law’ is the product of legal entities, men or women and, ultimately, the responsibility of one, the one who has the power to enforce it.

Our system of governance is based on the belief that political power is divisible, belief that closes our eyes to the evidence that however we divide the tasks in a Democracy, the pivotal power remains the legislative one, the executive and judicial being dependent to the legislative.

Needless to say that we have a Justice Minister and the armed Forces of order kill according to the Law.

Your arguments, fine as they are, do not bother the ones that hold the whip by the handle.

Sir it takes more than arguments, however fine, to vacate thrones.

If we are all made in God's image then race is meaningless. If we evolved from monkeys one lot are more evolved than others. Inconvenient truth to those who truely believe evolution myth.

Well 'runner' if we are all made in God's image, then explain to me how we can be of different races, scientifically peer reviewed and proven. What a stupid statement you make.

I guess that your blind faith serves you well in all cases.

runner

I suggest that whether different races are, well, different, is not the issue.

What is important is equal treatment before the law.

For the record, I abhor Bromberg's judgment and I hope the Herald Sun and Bolt appeal and that the High Court overturns it.

No.

Geoff of Perth

Science actually points to us coming from common ancestors. Evolution teachers that different races of people evolved at different times. I suggest it is your faith that serves your cause whatever that may be.

runner,

ROFLMAO. Kindly spare me any future elucidations on the subject of biology, as I'm already having sufficient difficulty holding my sides in.

already having sufficient difficulty holding my sides in
The Acolyte Rizla,
loosening the grip on yourself might help.

Dilan,

Your accusations against the media miss the mark. You may think of indigeneous affairs as the 'stomping ground' of left and right but for those of us who live in remote indigeneous communites it is very much real. Bolt had no problem with positive discrimination for aboriginal people but felt it should be awarded to genuinely disadvantaged aboriginals like in remote areas.

You correctly say that speech does not have to be hateful to qualify under the act but merely has to damage someone's standing in the community. That is exactly what Bolt wanted to do. Why should people who have encountered no discrimination and are not disavdantaged take money and awards from the most desperately impoverished people in the country?

But hiding behind hateful speech or diminished community standing is to miss the point. These people were defending their piece of the pie. A piece that takes from those who need it most.

You say the law is only aware of the big picture but not guided by it. Can I say that for those of us who live in the real world we are very much aware of the big picture. Can I say that the children I teach every day and who come to school with no shoes and scabies have a much better grasp of the big picture than judges and academics in expensive suits, gowns and wigs. Andrew Bolt and other 'conservative commentators' are defending these people.

Seriously, 40 years of abject failure in indigenous policy and we still have academics defending the status quo. What is wrong with you people?

Thank you Dilan for an excellent article. Freedom of speech is grossly exploited by the likes of Bolt who earn megabucks with their "dog whistle" tirades.

Thank you for putting it in a nutshell, Dane.

Best wishes,

Joe

Dane,

Great post. Thanks.

The Acolyte Rizla,

Before reading the outpourings of certain posters here I find it helpful to don a corset. :-)

Well said Dane.

What do people in the aboriginal communities think of this whole thing?

Of course they are not a homogeneous group of thinkers, but were they offended by Bolt's articles?

The people offended, as you say, had something to lose (or gain) by the rest of the community realizing this is going on, so wanted the veil reinstated.

The intention I believe, was to silence any criticism, and any discussion of the issue - as aka put it immediately her opening line on another thread "Bolt is racist", and actually, he is no such thing, but observe it is the first response for many who worry they might have a gain or loss if they don't react with such vigor

Calling someone a racist because you don't agree with them was Keating's tool to deal with anyone who criticized, or even asked what's going on, with his foreign policy. he institutionalized it with the left of the ALP's followers, empowerment .. outrage as a tool.

It's a lazy accusation to be used, when you want to shut someone down .. finding really racist people is rare, they exist or we would be a poorer society for it.

Trying to regulate for every instance of human behavior though is just a recipe for failure and it pushes lumps around the bell curve, so the liberals would have nothing at all to the right of center.

We need all extremes and everything in between, but we don't need to regulate just for one or another precious self obsessed group.

You sum things up very well Dane. Many who work in communities who orginally had different ideologies now agree with you 100%

amicus,

To be honest I don't think most indigenous people in remote NT, where I work, follow mainstream media debates that much. If they are aware of a debate they will tend not to comment too much. When everyone lives so close together you really try to get on with people and avoid unnecessary controversy - there is enough conflict as it is.

I just think today's academia and media are out of control. Look at one of the plaintiff's, Geoff Clarke. He was found guilty of rape in a civil case and it was his nepotism and mismanagement which in large part led to Howard abolishing ASTIC. And academics and the media defend him over someone trying to ensure a 'hand up' goes to the people who really need it?

I mean really, am I even allowed to say that now? Clarke must be having a good laugh thanks to that myopic judge sitting in silk and horse hair.

Dane if you live and work in a remote community then how is your world any more of a real world than academia or any other city-based profession? Being poor might be a reality for some people. But, that does not mean that the lives led by the middle and upper middle classes are any less real. Poverty does not give you any special insight or credibility.

How can you say that academia is out of control? There hasn't been an intervention into a university as yet. But, there had to be an intervention into some of the remote communities. I saw the Bolt decision as being more about the law which is their for all Australians. It wasn't about Indigenous politics. That is a different matter altogether.

There might well be an issue about people getting the benefits of affirmative action when they really shouldn't. But you don't need to racially vilify them or defame them to fix that problem. Every point that Bolt wanted to make could have been made in a more moderate manner. Had he done that he then would not have been sued. Whether Bolt is a racist or not is neither here nor there. The issue was whether what he wrote amounted to racial vilification. There is a big difference.

david,

You missed my point. I'll spell it out.

1. Bolt criticised carpet baggers for accepting benefits allocated for disadvanted people

2. Carpet baggers see this as a threat to their income stream and want to shut Bolt down.

3. All of society sees this practical implication except myopic jugde and useful idiots in academia and middle classes.

4. Myopic judge applies letter of the law. Feels good about himself. Upstanding citizens like Geoff Clark (alledged gang rape leader, bankrupt, former leader of ATSIC) win.

5. Bolt and anyone critical of hangers-on taking money from people who really need it are shut down permanently.

6. Hangers-on get to keep on riding the gravy train while impoverished get to keep on living in poverty.

7. Myopic judge and useful idiots get to keep feeling good about themselves.

8. Rest of society thinks judges spend too much time in horse hair and that academics got their PhDs in the same way that kylie Minogue did.

9. David misunderstands whole point. It is not about law or vilification. It is about money and vested interests.

David misunderstands whole point.
dane,
yep, along with thousands of others.

The recent court decision re Andrew Bolt is just one of the externalities of our state sponsored multiculturalism.

It is not by any means an isolated happening and needs to be seen alongside revelations like this, from a previous OLO article:

"I have seen such differences, however, when police are asked to intervene in domestic violence cases where ethnic groups such as South Asian or Middle Eastern couples are involved. Police often keep greater distance in such cases, some believing that cultural factors are at play and the families and communities should be left to their own devices. We do not officially have parallel laws for other groups, but variable enforcement can have the same effect."
http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=12700

And, the push by some for special laws (Sharia & others).

And, the willingness of most on the left to accommodate anything just so long as it is seen to dent the prospects of their ideological opponents.

Dane, have you actually read the judgment? It is all about the law of racial vilification. It is pretty much straight-forward statutory interpretation.

Whilst the Civil War reference to "carpet baggers" is interesting it breaks down somewhat when you consider that the Bolt plaintiffs live in the city and not in rural communities. After the US Civil War, carpet baggers were people who went to the South to get wealthy. I don't quite see how urban Australia could be compared to the South!

Also, I'm not sure how you can talk about "all of society" and then exclude the middle class. Australia is a middle class country.

I assume you also don't have a PhD. It requires a lot of work. Whether you like it or not the legal profession, the universities, middle Australia etc all work very hard and our lives are very real. We get that there are issues with Indigenous affairs. We are sorry about that. But, the Bolt decision was only tangential to those issues. The Bolt case only happened because Andrew Bolt wrote things that could be construed as racial vilification. Andrew Bolt is a grown man of some intelligence. He was definitely capable of expressing all the points that he wanted to make without engaging in racial vilification. He didn't and the judge just did his job.

You said earlier that you teach Indigenous kids. It actually worries me that somebody who has your attitudes to universities is teaching severely disadvantaged children. I wonder what atitudes and resentments they are developing. Bad attitudes can hold people back.

David, if you ever moved out of the latte set, you would realise most of the public place academics just a little lower than car sales men.

Just a little further & you will equal the judiciary, & journalists at the ABC.

If you ever get out for a breath of air, come & look me up. I'm quite prepared to show you what hard work really is, just for your reference.

Abuse isn't a substitute for reason.

If people don't value academia then why do so many people try so hard to get into university? Education opens the door to the middle and upper middle classes.

Those of us who aren't blue collar or who don't live in remote communities also work hard. If you can't accept that, then thats your problem. Not mine.

david,

My understanding is that the phrase 'carpet baggers' is used in modern American political parlance to mean someone who is an outsider pushing themselves in on another group. It's usually used when someone is foistered on an unwilling constituency like Hillary Clinton was in NY (for her senate seat). Happily, things have worked out for Hillary.

But thankyou for the etiology of the phrase anyway. It is much appreciated, even if a little dated. After all the American civil war was some time ago. Maybe you should get out more?

Can I suggest consulting a fellow PhD Kylie Minogue. She does just swimmingly in the 'getting out' stakes.

Thankyou for also pointing out the phrase is tangential to Bolt's loss and the likes of Clarke winning. Can't put anything past you academics.

hasbeen,

david is obviously used to publishing in peer reviewed journals. You know the type: the ones where everyone agrees with everyone else (I know - I read Henderson's MWD).
Academics aren't used to people acutually disagreeing with them. You'll have to be gentle.

With respect Dane, you used the phrase without understanding its historical context. I just assumed that you understood it.

You can make snide remarks about PhDs, academics and about whether I should get out more (how would you know?) but it doesn't add anything to your arguments. If anything, it just reduces your credibility.

My point was that the 'politics' of Indigenous affairs was tangential at best to the legal issue in the Bolt case.

Again, it does worry me that somebody who does not respect academics or universities is teaching Indigenous children. Can I ask how many of your students make it through to university? Let me remind you that if you do indeed 'teach' children in remote communities then your salary is paid for by the taxpayer and we have a right to expect results.

David Jennings doesn't miss any points. He appears to be the only person commenting who has read Eatock v. Bolt and understands what it is about.

No Runner there is no need for the High Court of Australia to overturn the case. The need is for the likes of Andrew Bolt to ascertain the veracity of facts before publishing them and to write what he writes in non "dog whistle" diatribes.

Is that a restriction on freedom of speech or the exercise of common courtesy by a person who influences the views of many people?

David,

Wow, so many non sequiturs.

When you refer to urban Australia, are you lumping all urban Indigenous people, the great majority of the Indigenous population, together ?

I'm sure you would be aware that within the urban population, there are elites, who circulate from one organisation to another, and the mass of 'ordinary' Indigenous people, who rarely ever get put on committees, offered plum jobs or get to go to annual conferences in Hawai'i or Geneva - those privileges are reserved for a carefully-selected elite. And everybody knows who they are - most 'community' people steer as clear as possible of them.

Indigenous affairs is a political field, in one sense which is overlooked: it requires middle-men, mediators, entrepreneurs, compradors, brokers, to negotiate the strategic goals of the non-Indigenous powers, and so to liaise with the non-Indigenous brokers, and make their goals palatable to the subordinated Indigenous masses. In this sense, the Indigenous elites are the clients of the non-Aboriginal powers who so often control Indigenous organisations and their funding bodies, and at the same time they are the patrons of 'friends' and relatives below them in their particular organisational hierarchy.

Make no mistake: non-Indigenous apparatchiks and academics have never stopped trying to control Indigenous organisations and units, and they seek to do so by propping up 'their' clients. So those 'clients' get appointed not by any mass Indigenous mechanism, and not necessarily for their expertise either, but because they are manipulable. Simultaneously, they have to know how to talk the talk, of course, the more radical-sounding the better.

Forty-odd years ago, my wife and I put together a five-metre banner in the Flag colours, reading "Black Control of All Black Affairs !" We took for granted that this would mean control by people who genuinely represented the masses of ordinary Indigenous people, not johnny-come-latelies, not people vetted and appointed by non-Indigenous power-brokers.

We certainly didn't expect the dreary circulation of the same elites as twenty and thirty years ago, over and over, around and around, carefully augmented with Blackfellas acceptable to the non-Indigenous powers-that-be. Little did we know.

david,

It's hard to believe you are being straight forward with me. Surely I am the victim of a spoof?

...well done. I salute you. It was the part about respecting academics which gave the game away. In any case, I have seen the error of my ways. I shall go directly and play 'I should be so lucky' 15 times as penance.

David, respect is something that must be earned. That goes for blue collar workers, academics or aboriginals.

Unfortunately everything I have seen recently of our citadels of higher education has shown a dramatic decline in standards since I was there, quite a few years ago.

I suppose you have to expect that a sector which experiences such rapid expansion as our universities have must out grow the talent pool on which it depends. The mining industry has that problem.

However every contact I have had with higher education in recent years has left an increasingly bad taste in my mouth.

May I suggest you get the knot out of your knickers, & try to do some house work on your sector.

If you don't see the need for house cleaning in your sector, then you, mate, are part of the problem.

I respectfully disagree with both Dane and Hasbeen, to a small extent, in that there are many academics, Indigenous and non-Indigenous, working in Indigenous student support, who struggle to ensure that the eleven or twelve thousand Indigenous university students are getting the assistance that they need.

Often they work in an unfriendly enviroment, with antagonism from their 'colleagues' in Indigenous units and departments who regard the teaching of Indigenous culture to non-Indigenous students as far more important than the mere enrolment and graduation of Indigenous students.

Although DEEWR funds universities specifically for Indigenous student support, it appears that much of these funds and the efforts of nominally support staff are being diverted to cater for non-indigenous students.

Teaching Indigenous Culture to non-Indigenous students is important, but in my view, Indigenous support funds should be going exclusively to fund Indigenous student support, not to tutoring and marking the work of non-Indigenous students. The lives and careers of thousands are more important than the careers of a few dozen academics.

Indigenous commencements since 2006 have been on a 9.9 % trend-line. I am sure that the up-coming Review will find ways to down-play that. But the truth is that university education has been a mass enterprise for Indigenous people for some time, with twelve thousand enrolling in degree courses alone since 2006.

In 2010, more than three thousand Indigenous people commenced university studies in degree courses, the equivalent of more than a third of the median age-group.

While the handlers of the Indigenous academic elite can manage a few dozen carefully-selected Glorious Exceptions, it's not so easy to manage three thousand more each year. So, for the vast majority of Indigenous students, contest mobility overrides the sponsored mobility reserved for the Few.

And that's how it's going to be in the lead-up to 2020: many tens of thousands of Indigenous people at universities, rapidly increasing graduate numbers and the development of a mass professional work-force. The days of relying on the promotion of a small elite will soon be well and truly over, and I for one can hardly wait.

Joe Lane

To get back to the issue of identification: Maria and I often used to talk idly about a sort of apprenticeship period for 'late-comers': that someone who 'discovered' they had an Indigenous great-grandparent when they were twenty or thirty or forty, should have a 'no-claim' period for, say, five, ten or fifteen years, before they hopped in for any of the benefits. And that, in the meantime, they cultivated a few Aboriginal friends and maybe even relations.

I remember one person who wanted to enrol as an Aboriginal student in the full-degree course which followed an associate diploma which she had finished before I arrived. I asked a lecturer in the degree course about it and he urged me to ignore her request, given that when she was doing the diploma course, he said, she was stridently anti-Aboriginal. In the meantime, she had 'discovered' an Aboriginal great-grandmother and wanted some support to enrol. I lost her request somewhere. Later, she took on an important role in Aboriginal education, as did her son, as AEWs (Aboriginal Education Workers), who traditionally have more clout than qualified teachers and are better looked after by the Ed Dept here.

But it is quite revealing that so many of the Johnny-come-latelies do not have any Aboriginal friends prior to becoming Aboriginal: again and again, they do not know a single Aboriginal person before they 'discover' their new identity.

Incidentally, for all you would-bes out there: don't say that you have just discovered that your grandfather was a 'native': this was standard for Australian-born whites in the late ninetenth century - it differentiated them from those Pommy b@stards, upper-class layabouts, who came out and - prior to Federation - lorded it over the native-born whites. Hence 'natives'. Hence the Australian Natives' Association. All the early Prime Ministers were members.

And if you want to fabricate, say 'grandmother': it is far more believable. And for God's sake, don't say 'part-Aboriginal', that's a dead giveaway.

Joe

Thanks Seneca.

Joe (Loudmouth), you make some great points and I find myself agreeing with you on a few things. I'm not Indigenous and I don't work in Indigenous affairs. I have some (white) friends who have done some work there and they tell me that the politics is pretty bitter.

These are good people who want to help. They're not motivated by the thought of getting rich at somebody else's expense. But, they didn't like the nastiness that they saw. Can you blame them? If you look at the bitterness and resentment in Dane's comments, it literally leaps off the screen, you can see why people don't want to get involved.

No doubt there are people who are trying to use benefits intended for disadvantaged Indigenous Australians for their own ends. Thats sad and it shouldn't happen. But, getting rid of that shouldn't mean tolerating racial vilification.

I don't think thats a sufficient response to do justice to the very considered points that you make. I respect where you're coming from but I don't know how to help. I'd love to see more Indigenous kids at university but they are getting lost along the way. I think now that perhaps they are being poorly taught. It would be disappointing to think that they might grow up being taught to resent the law, universities and the rest of the country.

Hasbeen, you don't know me or the work I do. So what you're saying is pretty much irrelevant. I never said academia was perfect and I can't answer for everybody and every university. So like I said; your comments are irrelevant.

Dane, I assume you don't have a PhD and have never worked in a university. But you'd like to right? Your comments on PhDs are way too pointed for my money.

Thanks David, yes, there are, or have been, some wonderful people working in Indigenous student support, and it doesn't matter whether they are Indigenous or not, dedication seems to know no colour. One non-Indigenous staff member worked for 26 years at the same Study Centre in a SA town, graduating some fifty people (one in every eight adults), never being promoted from Lecturer A but being named one year as the town's Citizen of the Year.

Of course, she had to be moved on by the Aboriginal alpha male boss (when it suits, they can trumpet about 'Indigenisation', and at other times, 'balance'), who put a relation in her place: I believe that there is now not one student enrolled, but that relation is still employed. Probably with a car supplied. And petrol.

In fact, I have never worked for an Aboriginal boss who wasn't an alpha male: usually they were incompetent, bullying to the point of being psychotic, concerned only with their own career, and shallowly 'radical' but really quite racist (for example, pushing theories of 'different learning styles', and/or trying to restrict Aboriginal students to 'Black' uni courses). Conversely, my wife Maria was renowned as a well-loved and respected manager in student support, someone who stood up to the 'superior' Ab Studies/Aust Studies teaching staff and protected her staff and budget as much as she could. So of course, she had to go, Aboriginal or not, permanent or not, after 28 years at the uni.

Meanwhile, others gain Aboriginal professorships after five or ten years, thanks to their handlers. Aboriginal academics walk a tight-rope: fall out with the handlers and you're gone. So you have to a keen ability to read signs, never mind your job description: to them that hath, shall it be given.

Yes, Aboriginal politics at universities is often filthy dirty. It's amazing, in the face of all manner of organisational racism, that so many Indigenous students still get through, a tribute to the courage and dedication of student support staff, Indigenous and non-Indigenous.

Joe

David,

It hard to debate with you. You vacillate between spoofing and arrogance. If I comment will you reply with a civil war reference or will you arrogantly dismiss comments you don't like as irrelevant?

It was nice to see you admit that there are people who misuse benefits. Must have been hard. But at least you made amends with a proclamation about not tolerating racial vilification. I bet that made you feel better.

You may never have said academia was perfect, but you have defended an indefensible ruling. You have focused on a myopic point of law that the majority of people regard as illegitimate, rather than looking at the outcome for society and indigenous people. That is evidence of an out of touch academic par exellence. To then insist that this is about vilification ad nauseam, when it is nothing of the sort, goes well beyond just out of touch. You are now treating ordinary people as fools. The smugness about PhD's, academics and all that just adds contempt into bargain.

Thank you for your assertions about me wanting a PhD though. As you might have said, how would you know? (sorry - you did say that, didn't you). But seriously, you know me better than I know myself. I'm thinking of writing my dissertation on the impact of climate change on racial vilification in schools. What do think - would I get funding?

Dane,

re your last post.

Hear! Hear!

Joe you really should write up your experiences as a longer piece. I think it'd strike a chord with a lot of people. Obviously Indigenous affairs has some serious issues but there are good people trying hard. Unfortunately, a lot of people with dubious motives and intentions probably push themselves ahead there. Its true in most organisations and corporations so there is no reason for Indigenous affairs to be greatly different. The point about professorships might be true in some cases. Its just that talking about specific people is tricky where defamation is concerned. But, don't think its escaped anybody's attention that there are some very unqualified people in high appointments. Thats what happens when political croneyisms gets into statutory organisations. Its not a problems thats confined to Indigenous affairs.

Dane, you used the term 'carpet baggers'. I just assumed that you knew what it meant. You brought up PhDs. I didn't. The way you've gone on about it is very pointed. Thats just my observations of your behaviour. You insisted on talking about Indigenous affairs. I pointed out that the case was about racial vilification. You've suggested that its a 'myopic point of law' and that the ruling is indefensible. The whole case was about racial vilification. Every single paragraph.

It definitely wasn't hard to suggest that some people might be misusing benefits.

David, you're right, Indigenous affairs is not much different from any other sphere, in that corruption, psychotics in suits, incompetence and opportunism are rife. Yes, there are (or certainly used to be) wonderful, courageous people dedicating their lives and careers to the defence of Indigenous people. And sooner or later, they will win through, I'm convinced of that.

What inspires me about thousands of Indigenous graduates is the certainty that only a handful can be co-opted into the patronage system - the great majority must find their way through standard career pathways into the work-force. There are many obstacles in their way and non-Indigenous powers still prefer 'their' Indigenous people to be unqualified and pliable. Non-Indigenous control is still the game. As the first Indigenous conservation manager joked once with me, there is a hierarchy in states' parks and wildlife services in relation to Indigenous employment (and probably in many other fields as well):

* Qualified non-Indigenous staff, managers, who can work anywhere in their state;

* Unqualified non-Indigenous staff, parj rangers, who can work anywhere in their state;

* Unqualified Indigenous staff, who can work in their traditional areas;

* Qualified indigenous staff, who can work in their traditional areas, if vacancies can be found.

In other words, most Indigenous people get penalised for graduating. Only a handful of the elite are entitled to that privilege, those who know best how to work with non-Indigenous powers.

But more and more are doing so, in the thousands. The days of the elite on one side, and the unqualified Jackys on the other, are coming to an end, I fervently hope. Sooner or later, Indigenous people will be rewarded for their genuine skills, not for sucking up, not for their assumed ability to keep their peeeople in line, on behalf of white professionals. Sooner or later, people will be allowed to work fully and freely to their expertise. That's when we might start to see some genuine self-determination.

Joe Lane

David,

I feel you're becoming a bit defensive now. But at the risk of making things worse, I'll have to ask you to stop saying I don't know what carpetbagger means. I've always known what it means. It is you who have misunderstood one of the term's current usages. The third definition is particularly pertinent:

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=carpetbagger

The term has also been good enough for the NY Times to use in their letters:

http://www.nytimes.com/1999/07/09/opinion/l-is-hillary-clinton-a-carpetbagger-531790.html

I think your comment, 'The whole case was about racial vilification. Every single paragraph.' apart from obstinately ignoring everything I've said, betrays a personality weakness in many academics. Us commoners call that weakness 'not seeing the wood for the trees'.

Joe, yes I hope that qualified Indigenous candidates will edge out less worthy candidates as well. I think that this will happen over time and especially with a community-wide commitment to education. All the best and I'll chat to you on another thread.

Dane, 'urban dictionary' and the letters page of the New York Times? Please. I'm embarrassed for you. You might as well have cited Wikipedia. Oh wait, that wouldn't support you. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carpetbagger

I can see why you never made the grade at university level. Ciao.

Dave,

'Ciao'

Are you going? Don't want to talk any more? Those big bad people on the internet not agreeing with you again, hey? Naughty.

But I am sorry to see you go. There was so much still to say. You never told me if you really were an academic or if you did have a PhD?

I suspect not. PhDs do original work and I haven't seen an original idea from you yet - just parroting second rate left wing undergrad stuff. Your writing style is more caricature than serious. You obviously have no background in linguistics.

But then again... you are ideological and unoriginal so you could be a senior academic. It's all too hard. I do hope you return and let us know one day.

The term "Carpetbagger" came from General Ulysses S Grant.
During the war and reconstruction he accused Jewish "merchants" from the North of taking advantage of the impoverishment of Southern Whites and of corruption.
Grant issued and order banning Jews from traveling south and tried to purge the War Department of Jewish "racketeers", he was over ruled by Lincoln and the order was rescinded.
There's a longer story here relating to Lincoln's re-issuance of treasury notes as currency and his attempts to deal with usury and corruption but it's outside the scope of this discussion.

http://www.rense.com/general63/waron.htm
HDQRS. THIRTEENTH A. C., Dept. of the TENN,.

Oxford, Miss., December 17, 1862

Hon. C. P. WOLCOTT,

Assistant Secretary of War, Washington, D. C..:

I have long since believed that in spite of all the vigilance that can be infused into post commanders, the speice regulations of the Treasury Department have been violated, and that mostly by the Jews and other unprincipled traders. So well satisfied have I been of this that I instructed the commanding officer at Columbus to refuse all permits to Jews to come South, and I have frequently had them expelled from the Department, but they come in with their carpet-sacks in spite of all that can be done to prevent it. The Jews seem to be privileged class that can travel everywhere. They will land at any wood-yard on the river and make their way through the country. If not permitted to buy cotton themselves they will act as agents for some one else, who will be at a military post with a Treasury permit to receive cotton and pay for it in gold.

There is but one way that I know of to reach this case; that is, for Government to buy all the cotton at a fixed rate and send it to Cairo, Saint Louis, or some other point to be sold. Then all traders (they

are a curse to the army) might be expelled.

U. S. GRANT,

Major-General