Hello Cohenite,

Re: “That contradiction is: Bolt gets prosecuted, not sued, under the RDA for saying aboriginals of white appearance do not need government assistance … while nothing happens to 'Blacksteamtrain' …”

There is no contradiction. You reveal several continuing misunderstandings.

Bolt wasn't prosecuted by the state. Pat Eatock “brought this proceeding on her own behalf and on behalf of people like her”

Please read the judgment.

Bolt was pinged for disseminating lies about a racial minority – NOT for expressing an opinion about them.

Anyone can hold and express any opinion freely in Australia.

But we can't say Graham Atkinson’s “right to call himself Aboriginal rests on little more than the fact that his Indian great-grandfather married a part-Aboriginal woman” when we know that both parents, all four grandparents and all great grandparents were Aboriginal, bar one who was Indian.

That is a plain fabrication – “grossly incorrect” as the judge observed.

That is the difference: Bolt wrote 20-plus malicious lies. Blacksteamtrain wrote none.

I know Murdoch’s paid apologists want you to think Bolt went down for expressing opinions. It just ain’t so.

Re: “Defamation, in which such action they would have failed …”

No. The same judgment would have been reached. For the same reasons.

Re: “In respect of AA's increasingly strident comments about the almost infinite number of factual errors …”

No. I’ve said “at least 20” or “20-plus” fabrications. No higher than that. But for just two articles, has to be a world record.

Re: “I would ask AA to name one of Bolt's many errors which is not to do with the upbringing of the litigants.”

Bolt wrote that Anita Heiss “won plum jobs reserved for Aborigines at Koori Radio, the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Arts Board and Macquarie University’s Warawara Department of Indigenous Studies.”

The Koori Radio job was a voluntary unpaid position. The Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Arts Board job was not reserved for Indigenous applicants. Neither was the Macquarie University job reserved for Indigenous applicants.

Three lies there. Just in one sentence. None refers to skin colour or upbringing.

@Alan Austin
You asked about relevance of being a lawyer. It means I can read the judgment with at least the skill of a journalist. And on this point, Bolt was not condemned as a racist.
Elizabeth Warren's relevance is that Bolt's article suggested that the minority card is a good one to claim preferential treatment. Elizabeth Warren claimed Native American ancestry and Harvard hired her, then boasted that they were promoting minorities and indigenous ones at that. Then the balloon burst, her claim was nothing more than a family legend unsupported by anything. Before it burst however she was scrutinised by the media with no Blomberg to impede. She is now popularly known as Fauxcahontas.

Just let AA spew his bile, he's a good caricature; he'll throw up McCarthy, Gobbles and genocide next.

Cohenite says: "And Bolt made one error of fact, not presenting the aboriginal upbringing of the litigants, not the number you claim, all of which are variations of that." I agree. In fact I can't understand why that omission was classified as an error, since Bolt wasn't talking about their upbringing, he was talking about their mixed ancestry and white colour which gave them a choice as to how they classified themselves racially. Now some of them might argue that it was because of their upbringing that they identified themselves as Aboriginal, but I can't see how that makes Bolt's points erroneous. I read them as an opinion that, at worst, might lead to erroneous conclusion. An opinion that should be argued against, not silenced. In any case, Bolt was not convicted of making errors, he was convicted of giving offence, that's what 18C of the act is about.

Hello again Divergence,

Re: “why the laws on defamation aren't enough to protect individuals or groups who are the victims of malicious lies”?

They probably are. This is not just about the RDA. It’s about large corporations using their power to hurt other people.

“We wouldn't even be discussing this if those "pale-skinned Aboriginals" had simply sued Bolt for defamation.”

Perhaps. Would that be a good or bad thing?

It’s now on the record internationally that Bolt is a racist and the H&WT disseminates racial vilification. That’s according to technical legal definitions of racist as well as common usage.

Having lost comprehensively, and shown no interest in an appeal, they have to cop that label until such time as they retract and apologise.

If this causes others to desist from publishing similar fabrications, then that would seem a good thing.

“Why do people also need to be prosecuted by the State unless there is incitement to violence or the like?”

This action was brought by the applicants, not the State. Did you really read the judgment, Divergence?

When you say “violence or the like”, this seems the Aussie RDA’s whole point. “The like” can be significant damage even if not physical violence.

“I have taken into account the possible degree of harm that I regard the conduct involved may have caused. Beyond the hurt and insult involved, I have also found that the conduct was reasonably likely to have an intimidatory effect on some fair-skinned Aboriginal people and in particular young Aboriginal persons or others with vulnerability in relation to their identity.” (Bromberg)

Hello Belfast,

Yes, lawyers can read judgments with skill. But do they? And in this instance, have you?

For example, you claim Warren “was scrutinised by the media with no Blomberg to impede.” That suggests you think Bromberg impedes media scrutiny.

He just doesn’t, Belfast. He impedes wholesale media distortion and fabrication. That’s all.

Please read paragraphs 351 through to the end. But please try to read what the judge actually said – not what Murdoch’s lying lawyers want you to think he said.

Cheers, AA

AA: "But the question is, Raycom, and Belfast: Whose side are you on?"

I am not on the side of the anti-development, anti-population, amoral, and science-and-economics-illiterate Greens, formerly led by Bob Brown.

Bob had a very charmed life in parliament as he got far more media coverage than he ever deserved. He seemed to mesmerise the media into asking him non-probing questions. It was not until The Australian started asking probing questions that ruffled his feathers, that Bob reacted by calling it the "hate media" -- sorry AA if this again has triggered your hate of the Murdoch press

AA; so you would agree with Blacksteamtrain's opinion of the Fauxaboriginal named in his article; that opinion is he falsely claims to be an aboriginal by using tricks to gain financial advantage?

That was Bolt's point; so, is the difference between Bolt and Blacksteamtrain is that the latter picked the right 'white' aboriginals to criticise and Bolt didn't; but that there are Fauxaboriginals out there scamming the system?

You have given the example of a non-upbringing error of fact made by Bolt that Heiss did not get employment in jobs reserved for aboriginals; she in fact got jobs under the following circumstances:

"Paragraph 381:The other two positions were not reserved for Aboriginal people but were positions for which Aboriginal people were encouraged to apply."

I concede there is a difference between a job reserved for a particular category of candidate and a job where preference will be given, as the implication is plain, to that particular type of candidate; but the difference is a scintilla, a legal fiction which is not discernible in reality.

Given Bromberg's judgement it is hard to imagine where the manifest faults and inequalities of aboriginal entitlement can start to be dealt with. Like real life the more savy members of the aboriginal culture will benefit at the expense of the less asserive and organised.

This still remains a inequitable Judgement which will hinder rather than assist rectification of those inequalities