TODAY, in the Federal Court, well-known columnist and political commentator Andrew Bolt was found guilty of racial discrimination. In particular he was found guilty of mocking people who do not look aboriginal, but call themselves aboriginal. He was condemned on the basis of comment in two columns one entitled ‘It’s so hip to be black’ and ‘White fellas in the black’.
The Judge found that, “the two newspaper articles, were reasonably likely to offend, insult, humiliate or intimidate the people in question (or some of them), and that those articles were written or published by Mr Bolt and HWT including because of the race, colour or ethnic origin of those people.”
Reading the relevant section of the Racial Discrimination Act (Sect 18C) it seems the Judge would have had no choice but to find Bolt guilty because the articles were indeed intended to offend and the attack was made on the basis of colour and race. But surely the Racial Discrimination Act was intended to protect people likely to be discriminated against on the basis of their colour and ethnicity, NOT to protect people unlikely to be discriminated against because they just aren’t black.
Indeed it is perhaps important that people like Andrew Bolt are allowed to comment on what appears disingenuous, that is white people calling themselves aborigines?
Various commentators have suggested that the judgment has broad implications for freedom of speech in Australia. But might it not be just an anomalous judgment forced by the apparent absurdity of the situation?
****************
Judgment:
Eatock versus Bolt, September 28, 2011
http://www.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/sinodisp/au/cases/cth/FCA/2011/1103.html
Background:
Michael Connor on Andrew Bolt on Trial
http://www.quadrant.org.au/magazine/issue/2011/5/andrew-bolt-on-trial
*****
This blog is normally limited to discussion of issues concerning the natural environment, but given the claimed implication of the judgment on freedom of speech and the right to offend… I am posting.
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD is a critical thinker with expertise in the scientific method.
I don’t understand this at all. Mr. Bolt (who I enjoy reading) and HWT have the absolute right as private entities to offend whomever, as long as they are truthful.
Mr. Eatock has the right to ignore them, boycott their product, protest march their store.
The gov has no standing. The Racial Discrimination Act is an abomination.
The problem with this is ‘what is the legal definition of belonging to a particular race?’
Can you discriminate against your own race?
For instance if 10% of my genetic background is with a particular race, can I say bad things about that race and then claim that it’s okay because I’m actually a member of that race?
I just think that in a increasingly multiracial world making laws/passing judgement based on race is a recipe for disaster.
Can you legally vilify a white person?….. I think that is something that should be tested in court.
I am a very literal, perhaps slightly autistic, and my whole life people have read all sorts of meanings into my words. Words which I intend as plain statements of fact, either right or wrong, are seen as all sorts of bizarre (to me) hints and implications.
Women in Australia especially do this to me, but all Australians to some extent, and most English, which is interesting isn’t it? But not Americans, Scots or Irish. I think Andrew Bolt is very similar to me. I have found that living in foreign cultures where people do not assume a priori, is preferable. Then I get a chance to talk, rather than have all sorts of other people’s words put in my mouth. Bolt also is not sure he belongs here, as he says.
I saw no villification Bolt’s articles, including the ‘offending’ ones.
Perhaps people like me and Andrew just don’t belong here.
Thanks Jen, this needs to be made very public.
This argument against free speech, as Bolt says, is being won by fear, not reason and hopefully the defendants of the coming govt enquiry into the print media will be primed and ready for the mindless onslaught that is to come.
We need as many Mark Steyns and Andrew Bolts as we can muster to hilite the world’s current madness.
For years I’ve lived in the midst of aborigines, and still do. There are points on which I would not agree with Andrew Bolt, but raising the matter he raised does have some value.
Above all, this needs to be said:
I am not descended from any white settler who displaced aboriginal people. My aboriginal neighbours, descendants of those who were displaced, are also descendants of those who did the displacing. They carry the names, the features and blood-lines of early white settlers.
I don’t doubt that aboriginal people in my region were oppressed and marginalised. Many are still oppressed and marginalised, though nowadays it is not at the hands of the white community. (I won’t elaborate.)
People of white appearance really are raised “black”. I don’t think Andrew Bolt fully understands the extent to which this occurs, and how such people self-identify. On the other hand, he is guilty of nothing but clumsily raising an issue that needed to be raised eventually.
For most aboriginal people to go on resenting white intrusion and settlement is to resent, in a very direct way, their own blood. It’s the big, never-spoken fact.
I’ll understand perfectly if Jennifer wants to ditch this comment.
Robert, I’m sure Jen would not want to ditch that comment. That’s exactly what the argument is about; the right to discuss the truth regardless of PC.
Bolt’s comments on the ” stolen generations” stepped on a lot of “white aboriginal’s” toes but he was absolutely right. 50 years ago my experiences with living with aboriginals was occasionally looking for abandoned babies of very young part aboriginal mothers who had no capacity to raise a child. These babies, if found, were “stolen” by institutions to be raised by them as best they could and adopted out.
It had nothing to do with racism [or stealing], as Lowitja O’Donoghue finally admitted.
Bolt’s challenge for anyone to come up with 10 “stolen” children rankled with many acamademics.
But the “white nine” with the right judicial interpretations were always a good chance to make an example of him.
So, is the “native title expert, ” Mr Atkinson, the same man involved in the failed Yorta Yorta claim along the Murray ? The failure of this claim was partly due to the Bangerang people disputing Yorta Yorta ownership.
Most of the claim area has now been turned into National Parks. ( NSW and Vic )
Who funded all this and who benefited ?
The racial discrimination laws have been jiggled in Vic , to allow for only Yorta Yorta people to be employed in said parks. Bangerang people are excluded unless they sign up to being a subtribe of the Yorta Yorta.
The rest of us are simply discriminated against completely.
Some people are more equal than others. Please don’t throw too many rocks in your glass house Mr Atkinson.
Robert – I agree with your remarks – I have also lived with Aboriginals and many are as white as you and me BUT they were raised Aboriginal, usually by a black mother.
Andrew was accusing these people of deceit, of using their Aboriginal background to deceive their way into employment.
When we gained Troy Cassar Daley an Aboriginal grant to finance his first album (for which he received an ARIA award) I suppose he was performing a similar action and would have received the same treatment from Andrew Bolt because Troy is not distinctly Aboriginal looking. He has gone on to marry a white girl and has white children. Yet his father was Sicilian and his mother pure Aboriginal. His parents separated when he was a child and he grew up with his mother and the mob at Grafton, he plays didgeridoo and performed his traditional songs on his album. His totum is the Turtle. He’s as Aboriginal as any other.
I don’t believe Andrew Bolt was racist, I just believe he is ignorant of Aboriginals and his articles were slanderous and inferred that people were trying to cheat the system. I don’t believe Troy was cheating the system and I’m sure the people accused by Andrew weren’t either and were highly offended by his remarks and accusations.
” Mr. Bolt (who I enjoy reading) and HWT have the absolute right as private entities to offend whomever, as long as they are truthful.”
That’s the point – the judge found that Andrew Bolt’s articles were poorly researched, and contained various factual errors and incorrect or unjustified slander. He was found guillty in a similar process to a defamation hearing. Its hard to use one of the exemptions to the Act if you are just slandering.
This is a good read on the subject, from someone who also dislikes the Racial Discrimination Act:
http://clubtroppo.com.au/2011/09/28/the-bolt-case-racial-defamation-done-cheap/
Steve, that link is definitely revealing. In more ways than one.
“People of white appearance really are raised “black”.”
Robert and John,
Nobody is raised “black” anymore. Just “white” in varying degrees.
Since 1967 it became advantageous to ID as aboriginal for obvious [and other] reasons and even Australians who had no aboriginal connections boasted to me that they were now officially aboriginal.
This issue is being discussed widely on the blogosphere and its a robust debate we need to have.
Good link Steve.
SD, I have grave unease about things that go on as a matter of course in aboriginal communities. What we get to know is a fraction of what should be known, because of a code of “omerta”. You can guess the things that I’m referring to. But there is a clear sense of being raised black, and, in the case of my local communities, a fairly defined geography within townships.
The big rorts and scandals – there’s one going on here now, of which I can say nothing – aren’t about using faked aboriginality to get jobs. Certainly, PC and the corrupt race industry are doing great damage and paralysing practical efforts to improve the life of these people, but I have to insist that there are many freckly, pale-skinned types who are raised “black” and feel themselves to be aboriginal not by opportunism but because that is how their life has unfolded. It’s obvious that there are now material advantages in being aboriginal. Quite clearly, many whiter aborigines get more of the goodies, and the Whitlamesque approach of grants and privileges is fraught with nepotism and corruption.
But you can’t blame people for wanting to belong somewhere when that “somewhere” is what they’ve known through early life.
That’s the only point I wanted to make. I’m not defending the race industry, that’s for sure. (I’m not a barrister or a Toyota dealer.) I thought the Intervention made a lot of sense, and I share many doubts about “stolen” claims. Overall, I share the frustration of people like Andrew Bolt when, after millions of dollars in cash and programs are flushed through these “communities”, aboriginal children still head off to school with empty bellies and infected ears.
Robert, Dead right !
The Coalition is toying with the idea of amending the Racial Discrimination Act.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/media/coalition-signals-bid-to-change-race-laws-breached-by-columnist-andrew-bolt/story-e6frg996-1226151936970
What a disturbing and Alice-in-wonderland approach to speech.
A free people should have no tolerance for speech courts.
The only way to deal with the issues of ethnic tensions is by frank and open discussion. the effort to misuse the power of the state to impose specch codes only makes things much worse in the long run.
Don’t you folks have a constitutional guarantee of free speech?
In the US, the law applied against Bolt would be declared null and void, in an instant.
Saying that someone was ‘raised black’ is cultural, nothing to do with race.
I was ‘raised rural’ does that mean I can launch legal proceedings against people who
use terms like ‘redneck’ or ‘hick’.
Troy is an excellent example (didn’t know he is part aboriginal – don’t care) but what if he wasn’t? An equally talented young musician from an underprivileged background, only this time with no ability to get a leg up.
This is what happens when you start to legally classified people by race
If the people in question felt that Bolt defamed them. Then the necessary legal avenues already exist, no need for race to be brought into it.
I have huge issues with this whole idea of Laws and government departments placed around race. Being aboriginal doesn’t automatically mean you are underprivileged and you can be underprivileged without being aboriginal.
The Department of aboriginal affairs should be rebadged as the Department of socially disadvantaged (or something like that) the majority of people that it helped would probably still be aboriginal, but it wouldn’t be exclusively aboriginal (with the attendant problem of deciding exactly who is aboriginal).
Andrew Bolt is considered to be a dangerous man by people like Geoff Clark and must be silenced. He knows that if Australians generally were as aware, his taxpayer-funded way of life would be in jeopardy.
With a bit of luck he has only turned up the wick:
http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/why_clark_wanted_to_gag_me/
Mark Steyn’s magnificently comprehensive thoughts on the stupidity of the judgement:
Sorry, that should be “charge”, not judgement.
Rose Pullen has some rational words to say on this subject, which I support. She normally writes theatre reviews but like many others….. feels the urge to say something on this issue.
http://lipmag.com/opinion/identity-and-andrew-bolt/
This is the first time in a long while that I have been struck down with cognitive dissonance.
EG, thanks for that.
Here are a few bon mots from Wes Aird on the same subject. He is an aboriginal who is proud of his country, serves it well and believes in accountability, assimilation etc:
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/opinion/more-transparency-less-hypocrisy/story-e6frgd0x-1226156373200
I seem to recall him once referring to ATSIC as “Aboriginals Talking Shit In Canberra”.
If you google Wesley Aird you will find a lot of good articles written by him on this subject.
Recent observation about judge Mordecai Blomberg:
“No one apparently had alerted him to the fact you could choose your religion or your nationality but not your race…”
There are those who for reasons known to them you have a personal wish to not understand what Andrew Bolt is saying. I have read his blog as have a couple of 100000 others have also and found him to be fair and honest. He tries to address social inequities and finds much in the system for aboriginals that produces this. My personal experience is that our aboriginal adopted daughter can obtain assistance for many things that gives her a distinct advantage over my white brother in law. Having neglected his teeth for many years he ended up in a serious situation and because he was on the dole we had to pay several thousand dollars for dental work. Our distinctly aboriginal married daughter also had some serious dental problems but all free for her. She has had opportunity thrown at her whole life yet she was raised entirely in white society and socially is not different from white society. The law that Bolt ran foul of prevents free speech about as the aboriginals call them “Phoney” aboriginals. I have had a life with advantage better than most I do not think I should have been able to claim extra privilege if I had found something in my heritage which meant I can claim aboriginality. I suggest reading http://www.quadrant.org.au/blogs/qed/2011/10/the-question-of-aboriginality and https://www.quadrant.org.au/magazine/issue/2010/12/the-trial-of-andrew-bolt-ii-real-aborigines-versus-phoneys. There are in Australia 75000 aboriginals who live in remote areas and in dire need of special provisions. The government spends $100000 each on them with little financial control. The sensitivities built up by the aboriginal industry to question where the money goes is beyond belief. An edifice has been built which absorbs billions of dollars for aboriginal welfare that cannot be questioned and does little to support those in need. That is what is being supported shame on them.
Alot of fools think its an advantage being Aboriginal, well ignorance is bliss, Is it an advantage to get abused, an advantage to die early, an advantage to have our birth right stolen, an advantage to get overlooked for jobs because of your skin colour, an avantage to be attacked in the media, an advantage to have our history denied, I lived in a red neck town and couldnt even get a job at a super market or even at macdonalds, the whole town was owned by 8 familys, this is a town of 20,000 people, I got out and moved to melbourne and now earn 57,000 a year because the ignorance is minimal, and wasnt racially exempt, that town is a micro example of what Australias like, please do your own research because it shows most trust the likes of andy bolt, a proven liar. we all know his racist misinformed views of Aboriginal people and his attacks on the stolen generations and thats why its a racial issue, people were stolen from england also to build the nation, this is nothing new to the english, they lied saying they were going to get education and set people up as thiefs, those are your founders and they did the same here, to belive the stolen generations was in good faith is to lie. maybe your people could design a half decent policy or something half intelligent because the only one who benefit from these programs and all the millions are white people. when I think of Australia’s ability to write smart policy or anything that helps anyone but themselfs I think FAIL FAIL FAIL. You still hav’nt shown any humain traits, if thats civilisation you can keep it. One drop of blood makes you part of the Australian race, Australia is a nationality, only Aboriginal blood is Australian
(screen shot for media review) its fair and relevant, show me professionalism