JO'N: Jayb, you really ought to consult the law of libel.

Hmmm, Drawing a long Bow here, must have hit a raw nerve. "Is that a threat, is that a threat!"

I see that the Law profession is 39/50 on the "Most or Least Trusted List." I would have thought it would have been further down along with Politicians & Car Salesmen at 48/49. Still.

JO'N: It's quite possible that some of the people I have represented were potential terrorists.

You said that you have been representing Boat People, then obviously you have at some point. Have any you represented returned to help out in the ME? I assume, it's more than likely. Will you be representing them when they are refused re-entry to Australia too?

As I said, representing Boat People would have been a lucrative easy pastime. Pity it'll dry up soon. I suppose you'll go back to University to study some more Philosophy. Oh! wait a minute, You might have to pay for it now. Damm! Still, with all that easy money you've been earning, you should have plenty.

James,

As a lawyer of fifty years' experience, you would know that the so-called White Australia Policy had little directly to do with Aboriginal people, and was in fact never even called that, but something like a Restricted Immigration policy, aimed at non-British, non-Whites, especially Chinese.

I recall, in Darwin as a schoolkid, that it was already being 'relaxed' in the late fifties, when it was announced that any Australian-born Chinese could apply for citizenship which might be granted if they waited fifteen years. One of my first funerals was for a Darwin-born Chinese man, born in about 1894, who had died still not ever being an Australian, quite appalling really, especially considering the enormous contribution that Chinese people made to the development and prosperity across all of northern Australia and elsewhere.

And before somebody jumps in, yes, I have to agree that it was the Menzies government, with Opperman as Minister for Immigration, which began the process of dismantling that iniquitous policy, against the opposition of the Labor Party's Caldwell.

Roughly contemporaneous, Aboriginal policy was in the hands of the states until the 1967 Referendum when 90 % of Australians agreed that the Federal parliament could make laws in relation to Aboriginal people. But the struggle there was - and still is - how to get control of Aboriginal affairs out of the hands of the states and into federal hands.

Joe

Joe, thanks for your civil response. I have been a lawyer for "only" 30 years, but in the paid labour force for 55. I agree with your summary, including the Aboriginal issues. There is a deep seated racism in this country and the White Australia policy, obviously beloved of some commenters on this site, is but one manifestation of that.

Can I respectfully recommend a book "The Seven Daughters of Eve". No-one can read that book with an open mind in my opinion and still harbour any illusions about the merits of whites or any other colour that our gene history bequeathed us.

Brothers (and sister O'Neill) redemption is at hand at today's highly intelligent, Friday, Iraq article - at http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=16422

OK :)

Pete

Gee, that's funny, James O'Neill. Just in case you have not noticed, there is a "Black Australia Policy" operating in every 'Aboriginal" apartheid area in Australia. This is to "protect" black culture from white culture. Of course, this does not operate the other way around. Aboriginal people can leave their "dry" reservations and make a complete nuisance of themselves getting sheet faced drunk in white areas, in the name of "equality."

If aboriginal people were not granted equality with whites prior to 1967, did it ever enter your tiny mind that it was for a good reason? If aboriginal people had had the right to drink alcohol prior to 1967, then the present appalling situation of aboriginal drunken dysfunction would have occurred a lot earlier.

Women in Australia were not equal with men either. A woman received less pay than a man for doing the same job, and women could not obtain credit without a male guarantor. Certain occupations were unavailable to females, and women could not even frequent bars. You don't hear women today complaining about that. But people like yourself never tire of complaining about how beastly white people are towards the poor black victims of white oppression.

If aboriginal people can protect their own stone age culture by discriminating against whites, why is it wrong for Australian white people to do exactly the same thing with foreign cultures? To say that blacks can do it but not whites, is racist and discriminatory.

LEGO: To say that blacks can do it but not whites, is racist and discriminatory.

Reverse discrimination has been around for a long time. Especially in Courts. If it your word against an Officer of the Law, Member of the Clergy or even a CEO of some description then your word counts for nothing. I know JO'N, you'll say that we are all equal in the eyes of the Law (on paper) but in the real world, this is not so. Men are often discriminated against in favour of women.

A good friend of mine in Townsville, a chief Magistrate, told me once that the higher up the Legal Profession the more distant you get from real people & the real world. because they are afraid that it will compromise them in a Court Scenario some day. Their only friends are other members of the Law Profession. He was the Patron of the Vietnam Veterans Association.