Br Dr George Venturini  

Can we do more than highlight, year after year, the lack of representation afforded to people of colour in parliament, in business, in the media? More than that recent spate of Aboriginal and Arab and South-Asian women who have somehow overcome unimaginable odds to get elected to parliament? Or more than women of colour journalists such as Bhakthi Puvanenthiran and Sarah Malik, who have found a way into the white-dominated editorial spaces in important and influential mastheads like Crikey and SBS? Just when it seems women and men of colour are levelling the playing field, not just in visible positions but in decision-making positions, along comes another ‘aberration’ to take us right back to the debate over whether or not it’s actually okay to be racist. Progress is so slow, yet regression happens in an instant.

It’s frightening rhetoric but it’s also a distraction. Racism is not just these eruptions; racism is the entire system that makes every facet of life easier for a white person – not necessarily always easy, but easier than not being a white person.

White supremacy – by which I do not mean the Ku Klux Klan or indeed neo-Nazis, but simply the system we live in, constructed on the attempted destruction of the First Nations, which “privileges white people at every conceivable opportunity”, as comedian Aamer Rahman notes in his famous stand-up routine – needs these extremists to keep functioning. It needs these supposed outliers, the truly unconscionable voices to press those limits of what can be and what is said, so that the others may look reasonable by comparison.

Anning may have been elected to the senate with just 19 votes, but the political system our country built has a habit of elevating these allegedly marginal figures to positions of unearned power.

Steve Fielding, anyone?

It’s hard to see all of this as anything other than a game – a way of shifting the centre, edging it ever towards the right until anything short of an actual “final solution” is up for debate.

And so, even as the ghosts of all the horror of the past 230 years silently haunt us, taunting us to reckon with them, we choose instead to fabricate the easiest test for deciding what makes a “good” and non-racist person: do you condemn Anning’s words? Very well then, you pass.

And, suddenly, racism becomes a white people’s issue again; something to be solved by merely denouncing the most genocidal of racist intentions, without having to actually do anything about the societal conditions that create space for such statements and policies. And so, we are treated to the spectacle of political figures such as Hanson and Malcolm Turnbull assuming the role of Good Cop in contrast with Anning and Katter’s Bad Cop.

It is an absurd state of affairs that Hanson – herself castigated by George “people have a right to be bigots” Brandis – now gets to occupy a moral high ground by denouncing Anning’s “appalling” comments. Likewise Turnbull, who still presides over those refugee torture camps where children are wasting away even as I write this, and who himself not so long ago scolded the Muslim population of western Sydney for its high “No” votes in the laughable postal survey that his government foisted on us after years of dragging its feet on marriage equality, but who now gets to claim pride in Australia’s “successful” multiculturalism.”

What a sight to behold as these politicians fall over themselves to pass the most basic of moral tests. In these endless culture wars, race is a cherished weapon, each side playing to its base, trading barbs in parliament and in the media, each presenting themselves as the real benefactor of the baffled “coloureds” consigned to the sidelines. But here is the thing about the good cop/bad cop trope – at the end of the day, they are all cops.” (R. Hamad, Fraser Anning and racist politics, The Saturday Paper; This article was first published in the print edition of The Saturday Paper on Aug 18, 2018 as “Racism is not a moment, it’s who we are”).

In the politics of racism the ‘target’ varies with the times. Some years before Hanson appeared in the stage the victims of generic smear were ‘Asians’. That was the dark work of Prime Minister John Howard – an experienced intriguer – in 1988.

More recently the designated target would become the Melbourne South Sudanese, portrayed as ‘African crime gangs’. The smear was in aid of the Victorian Liberals who feared a large loss at the elections of November 2018 and a return of the Andrews Labor Government. It happened.

“It began with former Prime Minister Abbott who characterised the difficult “big question” … and went on “why do we store up trouble for ourselves by letting in people who are going to be difficult, difficult to integrate.” [Emphasis added]

Abbott’s comments took the issue into darker territory than any other, but not by much. Numbers of his Coalition colleagues, both federal and Victorian, aided and abetted by the radio shock jocks, tabloid TV and the Murdoch media, have long been working to beat up fears of “African crime gangs” rampaging across Melbourne.

However, at the beginning of 2018, Peter Dutton, who was still Minister for Immigration and Border Protection, famously took the scare campaign to a new rhetorical level, claiming Melburnians were “scared to go out to restaurants” because of “African gang violence.”

He sheeted home blame to the Andrews Labor  government, alleging a lack of deterrence, claiming the state’s bail laws were too lax, that the Labor government had installed “civil libertarians” as magistrates, who imposed “jokes of sentences” due to “political correctness that’s taken hold.”

Dutton did not quote any source and much of what he claimed is questionable, if not outright false. But what does that matter?

He sheeted home blame to the Labor state government of Daniel Andrews, alleging a lack of deterrence, claiming the state’s bail laws were too lax, that the Labor government had installed “civil libertarians” as magistrates, who imposed “jokes of sentences” due to “political correctness that’s taken hold.”

Dutton even exploited the murder of 19-year-old African–Australian woman Laa Chol, echoing tabloid media claims that it was gang related.

Her grieving family were appalled by the suggestion that the sporty, law-abiding teenager was involved in gang activity. Equally damningly, investigating police have categorically denied the tragedy was gang related.

Dutton, however, was insistent her death was evidence of “a major law and order problem in Victoria.” He said “more people are going to be hurt until the rule of law is enforced by the Victorian government.”

“We don’t have these problems with Sudanese gangs in New South Wales or Queensland,” he said.

The political point had been scored! Such despicable things do not happen in Coalition-governed states, or in Queensland – Dutton state of origin!

Back in March 2018, in a speech to the Liberal-aligned Menzies Research Centre in Canberra, Alan Tudge – since 28 August 2018 the Minister for Cities, Urban Infrastructure and Population – spoke of what he called the “integration challenge” to Australian multiculturalism.

He said there was “emerging evidence that we are not integrating as well as what we have done in the past.”

He focused in particular on two threats to “social cohesion” – greater concentrations of particular ethnic groups in certain areas, and declining English language skills among immigrants.

“The 2016 census,” said Tudge, “shows that 24 per cent of the people who arrived between January and August 2016 reported that they did not speak English well or at all. This compared with 18 and 19 per cent respectively in the 2006 and 2011 census.”

Tudge did not mention particular ethnicities. Had he done so, he would have had to acknowledge that Chinese migrants were the group shown by the data to be the stand-out group in both categories.

“In Sydney,” he said, “there are 67 suburbs with more than 50 per cent born overseas. Of these, 28 suburbs have 60 per cent or more born overseas.”

But he cited only one place specifically. No, it wasn’t Sydney’s Haymarket, where 90 per cent of the population was born overseas. Nor was it one of the scores of other suburbs in Australia’s two largest cities where migrants make up more than three-quarters of residents.

It was Dandenong in Melbourne, where “of the population of 152,000, 61.7 per cent were born overseas with almost 17 per cent speaking no English or speaking English ‘not well’. ”

It just happens that, among Victorian local government areas, Dandenong ranked first in 2006 for Sudanese-born residents, and second in 2011.

Coincidence, perhaps? Whatever, Tudge went on to outline five measures to address the “challenges” to integration.

These were: to place greater emphasis on English language skills, although he offered no policy ideas to assist in this; to “actively encourage new arrivals to take positive steps to integrate”, although he did not suggest how; to place greater emphasis on commitment to “Australian values” via “a stronger values statement which a person agrees to upon entry”; and, to improve security vetting of people before they come.” (M. Seccombe, ‘The politics of racism’, The Saturday Paper, 4 August 2018).

Pointedly Dr. Kampmark observed: “Dutton’s untutored meddling in the Victorian policing scene is spectacular, claiming that he is on to something others in Victoria are not. “Andrews can’t even admit Sudanese gangs exist so how can he hope to fix the problem. He is out of touch and more people will get hurt or worse until the problem is fixed.”

For a Home Affairs minister to be using the rule of law as a point of execration for Victoria must be another one of life’s curious ironies, given the utter incapacity on the part of the minister to comprehend the term. Under Dutton laws suggest weapons rather than shields. During his troublesome reign, liberties have been clipped, scraped and accordingly eroded in what is becoming an amateurish police state.

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, who has convincingly dispelled any notions of being moderate during his tenure, seconded his minister on July 17 during a visit to Melbourne, claiming that “there is a gang issue here and you are not going to make it go away by pretending it doesn’t exist.” You can sense the acrid smell of elections around the corner.”(B. Kampmark, ‘Embellishing Crime: Melbourne’s “African Gang” Problem,’ theaimn.com, 28 July 2018)

It did not matter much to Crown Minister Dutton that the Victorian Crime Statistics Agency says crime has actually been dropping in the southern state, and that the Sudanese make up only one per cent of the ‘unique offender population.’ Melburnians are much more likely to be a victim of an ordinary ‘Anglo’ Aussie’s criminal activity than that of a Sudanese or Somali-ancestry offender. Even the tragic killing of 19-year-old African-Australian Laa Chol last Saturday was unrelated to gang activity, according to police who specifically dismissed Dutton’s suggestion of a Sudanese gang problem.

What mattered, in that it was useful for electoral purposes, is that stigmatising a minority community may gain votes. Race-baiting and dog-whistling are where Australian politics comes from. It has been so for a long time. Whether it was the original invaders treating Indigenous People like value-less fauna, and later on like ‘savages’; the enactment of the Influx of Chinese Restriction Act enacted in New South Wales in 1881, followed in time by other jurisdictions, because of ‘moral panic’ over Chinese miners; the discrimination against Irish because of the ignorant assumption that they were all Catholics and thus potential fifth-columnists; the internment of Germans as ‘enemy aliens’ during the first world war, and of German, Italian and Japanese ‘enemy aliens’ during the second world war; the mind-twisting obsession with ‘Asian crime gangs’ in the 1980s; or the anti-Lebanese and anti-Muslim sentiment which fuelled the Cronulla riots in late 2005, and the present Islamophobia fuelled by another ignorant, Pauline Hanson and her followers and imitators, Australia has wasted most of its historical efforts demonising one group or another.

But there is no improvement on the horizon, and not for want of trying.

Continued Wednesday – Comedy without art (part 7)

Previous instalment – Comedy without art (part 5)

By Dr George Venturini  

Racial harmony is more than anything else an aspiration, given the present condition of minorities in Australia.

Ghali Hassan has frequently written about the difficulty encountered by Australian of the Muslim faith, often demonised despite or perhaps because they form a small community: 2.6 per cent. Muslim identity, of course, is not only the expression of a religious faith, but it carries along a specific way of life.

A recent Essential Research poll had found 49 per cent of Australians support a ban on Muslim immigration, including 60 per cent of Liberal-National Coalition voters, 40 per cent of Labor voters and 34 per cent of Greens voters agreed with the proposition that Muslim Australians were not integrating (assimilating) into ‘Australian culture’ and pose a threat to Australia. It is the result of a steady diet of fear, and xenophobia fed to Australians by openly racist politicians and the mass media.

Australian politicians and the media are demonising an already marginalised small Muslim Community (2.6 per cent of the total Australian population) to score point and win votes. It is true that Muslims have a strong Muslim identity, because Islam is not just a religion, Islam is a way of life. However, when compared with other minorities, Muslim Australians are the most integrated Australians in every field of life. They have succumbed to a repressive society that imposed its beliefs and values on them. It is nothing more than force assimilation justify by exaggerated fears of a fabricated threat.

According to a study by the already mentioned Professor Kevin Dunn, of Western Sydney University, which revealed ‘the ordinariness of the Muslims in Australia’, despite the daily racism and extreme hostility they face, nearly 86 per cent of Muslim Australians felt that relations between them and non-Muslims were friendly and were not strained as some politicians and the media allege.

Contrary to baseless claims otherwise, Muslims are not demanding that Australia become an Islamic state, or that sharia be enforced. They are not demanding to be outside the law or judged by another set of laws.

They are simply asking to be left alone to practice their faith; that their beliefs and values not be interfered with by the state; that if some Muslim does the wrong thing he be dealt like any other person, without the entire community being tainted and Islam demonised; that they be able to participate in debates about the law, morality and government policy without being considered a fifth column.

How can a small minority of ordinary Australian Muslims pose a threat to ‘Australian culture’?

They do not even question the real meaning of ‘Australian culture’, although like many others, of different or no faith at all, they may wonder what is the ‘Australia culture’.

Some of them seem to ask what is ‘Australian culture’? And they may not be alone in wondering what is such a unique white Australian culture.

Australia is not known for a vibrant culture. Others could very well say that Australia is a pretentious society, addicted to punching far above its weight. In Australia there is an old Indigenous culture with unique languages and cultural adaptations about which most non-Indigenous Australians know close to nothing. Many know how brutally Indigenous People are treated, how they are despised by non-Indigenous Australians. Most non-Indigenous Australians choose the privilege of turning a blind eye. Outside Indigenous culture, much of everything else is imported – largely from Hollywood – and repackaged. Australia has remained a colonial outpost, dominated by white Anglo-American culture. Much of what passes for ‘multiculturalism’ is quite often no more than a convenient source of support for the governing party, rather cleverly but not always successfully manipulated by the governing party to cultivate the ‘ethnic vote’. It is a racially-promoted ghettoisation designed to support that party, its mostly white privilege and white supremacy.

Altogether, it rather resembles a type of popular Japanese drama, evolved from the older Noh theatre, in which elaborately costumed performers – and nowadays those who matter are exclusively men – act. They use stylised movements, dances, and songs in order to enact tragedies and comedies. More than instances of the ‘value’ of parliamentary democracy, those Australian performances are acts of a theatre which is called Kabuki.

Most people like to bring back an anti-Muslim attitude, and active behaviour, to the work of a profoundly ignorant woman who was once elected to the House of Representatives and now sits on the Senate.

In fact Australian racism and violence on minorities go way far back to the invasion of the place. In a perverted sense it is selective racism – camouflaged with the language of ‘tolerance’ which assists the pretence at ‘multiculturalism’ and is solidly controlled by the white dominant class. All levers of society, beginning with the early ‘education’, and followed by the poverty of the media, the careful selection of sport, the use of the police to protect ‘the Queen’s peace’, the structure of the justice system and organisation of political representation, are structurally discriminatory, and in some cases patently racist. It is a structural form of racism which has a far large impact on people’s lives: where religious, cultural or ethnic minorities are made to feel they do not belong in Australia unless they subscribe to some broad and undefined ‘value’ of ‘Judeo-Christian civilisation’ which is supposed to be at the foundation of the entire society.

One wonders what would happen if an Andalusian-born, conscious of her/his native ‘allegiance’, were to be asked to renounce it in order to become a ‘real Australian’. Would s/he be allowed successfully to object to ‘renouncing any previous allegiance’ – as one was asked as a condition to becoming a ‘naturalised’ Australian no more than thirty years ago?

Would s/he be allowed to present an objection to such a demand on the ground that s/he was coming from a land at the gateway to the Mediterranean and the vast sea across – the Atlantic, and a bridge between Africa and Europe. Would the celebrant in charge know that Andalusia is a land rich in history, going back thousands of years?

Phoenicians, Greeks, Romans, Visigoths, Celts, Moors, Jews and Gypsies all settled in Andalusia at different times – producing a uniquely diverse melting pot of lineages and cultures.

The resulting Andalusian character is therefore difficult to pin down, with such a mix of features coming from so many peoples over the centuries. A certain pride may be expressed on remembering its orators, philosophers and poets (such as Seneca, Maimónides and Lorca); the artistic brilliance of its Arab and Moorish taifa (an independent Muslim-ruled principality) kingdoms; the colours of its landscape or the rhythms of Flamenco.

Would the officer in charge, under the supreme supervision of the Honourable Peter Dutton, M.P., former Minister for Immigration and Border Protection, and only recently Minister for Home Affairs, seek from a newcomer a profession of loyalty to the ‘Judeo-Christian civilisation’ as understood by the Minister? Would either one of those two ‘real Australians’ know the difference between ‘flamenco’ and ‘flamingo’ and when appropriately to use those words?

Racism reveals itself in its crudest form when one comes to asylum seeking people – and no matter how; and no matter whether the supplicant has obtained the United Nations High Commission for Refugees recognition of the relevant status.

Most Australians are aware that the Government’s refugee policy is cruel and  they might even have more than a suspicion that it is in flagrant violation of international law, but the majority of them support the Government policy of harsh treatment of refugees and urge the Government to ‘increase the severity’ of the policy. As Professor Henry Giroux, who holds the chair of English and Cultural Studies at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, put it: “Shallow consumerisms coupled with an indifference to the needs and suffering of others has produce a politics of disengagement and a culture of moral irresponsibility” in the Australian society. Any society in which politicians and the media appeal to bigotry, promoting hatred and promising to terrorise refugees to win elections is a sick society. (Ghali Hassan, ‘What It’s Like To Be A Muslim Australian’, countercurrents.org, 30 September 2016).

Speaking for the first time in the Senate on 14 August 2018, Senator Fraser Anning  called for a return to a “European Christian” immigration system and a ban on Muslims migrating to Australia.

Key points of the speech were:

1. that migrants should embrace the English language and Australian ‘values’, because cultural diversity undermines social cohesion. “Ethnocultural diversity … has been allowed to rise to dangerous levels in many suburbs.” he said. “In direct response, self-segregation, including white flight from poorer inner-urban areas, has become the norm.” and “Those who come here need to assimilate and integrate.”
2. that the “final solution” to the immigration issue was a popular vote. He probably had not thought, perhaps because too ignorant to know, that the term “final solution” was used in Nazi Germany to describe the mass killing of Jewish people and other ‘undesirable.’

“We as a nation are entitled to insist that those who are allowed to come here predominantly reflect the historic European-Christian composition of Australian society,” he told the Senate.

He said that the Muslim community had “consistently shown itself to be the least able to assimilate and integrate.” “I believe that the reasons for ending all further Muslim immigration are both compelling and self-evident,” Sen. Anning said.

“The record of Muslims who have already come to this country in terms of rates of crime, welfare dependency, and terrorism are the worst of any migrant [group] and vastly exceed any other immigrant group.”

“[56 per cent, he said] The majority of Muslims in Australia of working age do not work and live on welfare.” (Senator Anning is wrong. Fact Check analysed data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics, that economics Professor John Quiggin, of the University of Queensland, then verified. The analysis showed that 43 per cent of working-age Muslims were not in the labour force – significantly less than the figure of 56 per cent cited by Senator Anning. It also revealed that the high Muslim non-participation rate is almost entirely due to the large number of Muslim women who are not working. (‘Fact check: Are more than half of Australia’s working-age Muslims not in the workfprce?, abc.net.au, 4 June 2018, up-dated 6 September 2018).

“While all Muslims are not terrorists, certainly all terrorists these days are Muslims, so why would anyone want to bring more of them here?”

Senator Anning said that “the final solution to the immigration problem of course is a popular vote.”  “We need a plebiscite to allow the Australian people to decide whether they want wholesale non-English speaking immigrants from the third world, and particularly whether they want any Muslims. Or whether they want to return to the predominantly European immigration policy of the pre-Whitlam [Government] consensus.”

Later Senator Anning dismissed the criticism of his use of the expression “final solution.” The Katter’s Australian Party senator’s praise for the ‘White Australia policy’ was swiftly condemned by government, opposition and crossbench members.

Senator Anning’s speech was reminiscent of Ms. Pauline Hanson’s first speech as a member of Parliament  in 1996. Then the One Nation founder called for multiculturalism “to be abolished”, saying Australia was in “danger of being swamped by Asians.” (D. Conifer, ‘Senator Fraser Anning gives controversial maiden speech calling for Muslim immigration ban,’ abc.net.au, 14 August 2018).

It is all terrifying stuff, as Ms. Ruby Hamad, writing in The Saturday Paper of 18-24 August 2018, quipped.

“Except… we were already primed for this. Cast your mind back to just two weeks ago, when a certain syndicated columnist, lamenting the “colonisation” of Australia, by which he meant plain old immigration, decided one of the problem invaders was Melbourne’s Jewish community. So much for Australia’s ‘Judaeo–Christian values.’

Openly seducing the burgeoning neo-Nazi movement seemed a bold move even for Andrew Bolt, but his column provided the first gentle nudge towards this new public discourse, a discourse that uncritically catapulted a neo-Nazi – whose hitherto greatest achievement was a remarkable skill for self-owns on Twitter – onto television screens and that created the space for Anning’s carefully selected words to unravel one of the most sacred social contracts of the modern world: Never again.

There were other hints, of course. Television host Sonia Kruger defending her call in 2016 for an end to Muslim immigration. The letter to the editor of The Australian, suggesting that perhaps – and the writer was only asking a question mind you, just putting it out there – the answer (to what, exactly?) was to round up all Muslims and put them in internment camps.

You could argue those last examples are not quite the same thing; that a television personality and a letter to the editor, though published in the national broadsheet, is not the same as a member of parliament channelling his inner Adolf Eichmann.

But hold on, was it only a year ago that Hanson bravely announced her intention to never let a burqa be worn on the floor of parliament … by being the first person to wear a burqa into parliament? Was it only 22 years ago she made her own explosive and roundly condemned maiden speech, shortly after being bundled out of the Liberal Party, before being bundled out of politics altogether, only to cha-cha-cha and foxtrot her way onto our television screens and back into our national consciousness like a grotesque parody of a national sweetheart.

We discuss Anning as if he emerged suddenly, a fully formed aberration, untouched by the society that produced him.

Or perhaps it was John Howard who set us on this course, with his infamously false provocation, “I don’t want in Australia people who would throw their own children into the sea.” Or it could be his protégé Peter Dutton, and his infamous speech in late 2016, proclaiming Lebanese immigration to be a mistake. That could have been a teachable moment, if only we could have found the gumption to decide, “No, this is not who we are.”

Except, of course, this is who we are.

And this is the underlying issue Australia refuses to address. We claim to reject racism even as we reject any notion of Indigenous sovereignty. The only settler-colonial nation in the world to refuse Treaty with the land’s Indigenous population, we incarcerate Indigenous children at the world’s highest rates. While we jealously debate our own freedom of speech, in the background, hidden from view, are those other children – detained and bloodstained in indefinite detention, so traumatised they are refusing food and water, preparing themselves to die before they have even begun to fully live.

This, Australia, is exactly who we are.

We discuss Anning as if he emerged suddenly, a fully formed aberration, untouched by the society that produced him. But these moments are no surprise to Indigenous and PoC writers, artists and activists.

If anything, there is a palpable deja vu with each one of these racist eruptions, which have a knack for exploding every time it seems we are getting somewhere in our advocacy. How often we may be poised on the precipice of a breakthrough – where Australia seems capable of finally acknowledging the deeply embedded racial structures that ensure the Indigenous wealth and health gap, that discriminate against Arab and Chinese jobseekers, relegating their résumé to the pile of instant rejection, and that allow columnists and politicians to fearmonger about non-existent African criminal gangs terrorising Melbourne diners – and then along comes a political speech or a column or a cartoon, and before you know it we are, once again, debating the merits of being nice to Nazis.

Of all the debates we had thought to be settled, you’d think it would be that one.

Of all the conceits afforded to that portion of the population that qualifies as white in a Western society, perhaps the most peculiar and most dangerous is the one that lets them believe that the concept of race can be separated from the rest of everyday life. That racism is just another inconvenient event or unpleasant obstacle, like a late-running bus or a swooping magpie, that once caught or swatted can be forgotten and life resumed as normal. If we, as a country, are ever to get somewhere, this is a nonsense of which we must divest ourselves.

There is no separating racism from the rest of Australian society. Exasperated as white people may be to hear about race, again, your frustration pales next to those forced to live it and fight it. As Labor MP Anne Aly tearfully admitted this week, “We are tired of fighting. Tired of claiming our humanity. Tired of waiting for white people to change. Tired of reminding you of our worth. Tired of wondering what is wrong with you and why you still make excuses for this on your watch.”

What more can people of colour do? More than unionist and writer Celeste Liddle, who drew 50,000 Melburnians to an Invasion Day rally two years ago, attracting a bigger turnout than the official ‘Australia Day’ celebrations? More than journalists such as Amy McQuire? More than Louise Taylor, who has just been appointed the ACT’s first Indigenous judicial officer?

Continued Saturday – Comedy without art (part 6)

Previous instalment – Comedy without art (part 4)

By Al Ross  

This article was written to challenge anyone who has ever made an absolute statement on any issue.

(Oh, the irony).

Preface One: I concede that there is an element of “me too” and even “what about me” in this article.

Preface Two: In writing this article I feel that I am betraying the confidences of my siblings and my parents. This is in spite of the fact that my parents are dead and the majority of my living siblings are OK with me writing whatever I want.

Note: Do not assume that these concessions represent the lifting of my drawbridge with suicidal intent. They have not been made with the objective of inviting a barrage of personal attacks.

Preface Three: I know that my writing style is often inconsistent. One of my mother’s doctors once said that I hid my emotions behind an intellectual artifice. He was wrong: it is behind an intellectual artifice and a smile. The capacity to detach and critically analyse may be an asset, but it is something that might best be limited in time and by circumstance. It is a capacity that the culture I have lived in generally spurns.

Let’s begin the story proper with a visit to the aforementioned doctor to hear a partial explanation as to why I had been kept mostly apart from my mother. Did you know that phrases such as “when I found myself pregnant with you I took a long needle and tried to abort you” and “after you were born I took a pillow and was sure I had smothered you” could be healing. I tell you they can be: they can give context to a lot that is otherwise inexplicable. Of course “healing” is a relativistic concept.

Now I ask you to examine how you have interpreted my phrase “they can give context to …”

Have you implied that the phrase refers to ‘total’ context or ‘some’ context? Your interpretation will affect what you read into the sentence and also the article as a whole.

These two things that my mother said provide “some” context for some of my childhood. They do nothing to explain the times I can remember bouncing on her foot, hours spent reading stories together, working on spelling and other homework, or playing both structured and unstructured games. Yet those other things do nothing to explain prolonged periods of robotic responses; an obviously highly intelligent person’s aversion to reason; nor times of sudden inability to perform tasks previously easily accomplished. To have any grasp on them we would need to reference my mother’s childhood, her background and her own painful experiences.

So where was my father?

Dead, mostly. Around somewhere, to begin with. Then dead, gone and disparaged.

Here is what I was told by my Aunts about my father: nothing, nothing, nothing and that he had learned Morse code as a boy scout.

Here is what I was told by my mother about my father: the person in the family most like him is JB (a quiet, private and unassuming man); he had few, maybe one she could name, friends; he punched her once (it was after I was born, but no other context was given); I was the result of a “marital rape;” he had once tried to commit suicide by drinking a caustic liquid.

He died when I was five. He had two death certificates issued; the second of which was issued after a Coronial investigation and gives his cause of death as a pontine haemorrhage. This is a condition associated with long-standing and poorly controlled hypertension.

My own limited memory of him is of a very quiet man who gave limited affection, but also caused me no fear. He had a herb garden, sawed wood and fixed his kids’ toys. I have limited memories of sometimes going to work with him and of him performing domestic chores during one of my mother’s hospital stays. I recall him visiting my mother in hospital. He also drove his car through steep, curved roads at very high speeds: something that terrified my mother.

Family research indicates that he was probably never as heavy as 8 or 9 stone (51 – 57 kg); that he was sickly as a child; that he failed the medical requirements for overseas military service in WW2 (he was squeezed into the Signals Corps on the basis of his pre-existing knowledge of Morse code but he spent as much time unfit for duty as he did serving); and that his workmates often covered for him while he was dozing in the shed, too sick to work.

My mother was, by contrast, probably 14-15 stone, (88-95 kg) and sometimes heavier, for most of my childhood. She had been athletically gifted as a child and there are records of her physically intimidating other girls. In her 30s she played club tennis against men because of her serving power; and at 70, while moving furniture, she could lift as much weight as her fit 36 year old, 80 kg son.

Still, men are the cause of all violence in our culture and women are only ever victims. And my mother could not have hit me hard enough in the head to result in some brain damage. Besides, I provoked it.

Of course there are both State and non-State institutions created to provide temporary and permanent care for children in need. They cannot cater to the specific needs of any particular child or family. Some are merely sterile without being cruel: clean clothes and linen, reasonable food and strong routines but without space for creative activity. Some assume the worst of anyone in their care and arrange their days accordingly. Some try to strike a balance between providing creative outlets and the routine required to efficiently manage large numbers. None are totally averse to splitting families.

And of course the day to day administration, as well as much of the professional oversight is undertaken by women… So there can be no risk of abuse, can there?

And, again of course, State institutions are going to be properly resourced and run according to strict protocols. Carers will be caring, naturally, while the domestic staff will stick to their rolls. So why is it that my memory is of a Matron who was harsh; Social Workers who were dishonest, judgemental and ever ready for a dirty dig; and the other carers who were aloof, while the cooks and cleaners were wonderful people who were pleasant to be with? Hey, those domestic staff might even have delighted in opportunities for snubbing their noses at authority.

Being told that one is a bad person and that the incontrovertible evidence was the fact that one was a state ward was a tad confusing. I was pretty sure that my mum was in hospital and my dad dead and that having no adults at home had something to do with the mess.

I had no idea what a kaffir was, but was pretty sure that the label was way off the mark.

As I take another tangent, perhaps I should say that mum and I became good friends, eventually. At her very worst she was sick, never evil.

Can you picture an eight year old who loves school arriving late for class every day because he had to finish drying the dishes? Can you imagine the same eight year old walking the two miles to school with the mumps, because his carer had made other arrangements for that day? Can you imagine the same boy limping into class with a bruise from buttock to ankle? Can you imagine being the teacher, rendered powerless to intervene because the boy is already a State ward, and supposedly so for his own protection? Can you concede that some of the more brutally expressed refusals by police to act might have stemmed from their own frustrations over feeling disempowered? How might an eight year old process this?

I suppose that fifty or sixty years ago the use of the belt was already becoming rare as a method of punishment; or discipline for those who love to mislabel things so as to diminish their own responsibilities. I suppose that it was even rarer to use a strop against bare skin. I suppose the use of the brass ring end was rarer still. Still, if one can’t get a boy to cry one can always aim for a scream.

If the killjoy social worker suggests that the use of a strop might be excessive, and that a fly swat with a removable head might be safer, one can always insist that the boy bends further so that one can connect with his testicles. It is hard to walk with bruised testicles.

As you read this, are you imagining any particular monster? If so, what kind of monster are you envisioning? Are you imagining a semi-frail woman? A semi-frail woman who applies passive aggressive behaviours, as well as outright physical violence, against small children? A person the neighbourhood children refer to as the witch? A person who might shine a torch directly into the eyes of a sleeping child?

Why would anyone come in to a child’s room at night, shining torchlight into their eyes? Apparently to check whether the child is really asleep. Who would believe that anyone could be punished into sleeping? Besides, why would anyone be so concerned about whether you are resting, dozing or deeply asleep? Could it be concern over someone potentially hearing, or even seeing, serious assaults occurring elsewhere in the house? Well, yes.

There had been other foster children. The most recent before us was by then a regular hospital visitor. She had heard it said once too often that she might as well bash her head against the patio wall.

You may have noticed that this article makes little temporal sense. We do not store or recover memories according to their place on a timeline. Because of the way our brains store and categorise memories, there are things that might reflect events of thirty, forty or sixty years in the past but are effective in the present. This is an article about extant affect. Some pain is immeasurable.

By Dr George Venturini  

At its heart, Australia is a system of representative government. More specifically, Australian parliamentary democracy is a variation of the Westminster system, the system which is characterised by responsible government.

The question is: responsible to whom? Both Her Majesty’s Australian Government and Her Majesty Loyal Opposition in Australia are responsible to the Queen – not to the people of Australia.

Now, the legislation enacted by the Parliament, the relative regulations, and also the international agreements and/or conventions freely acceded to and ratified by Australia must be regarded as the body of laws which is called, briefly, ‘the rule of law’. There is quite frequent reference to that in the statement. See, for instance, pp. 4 and 9 thereof.

It seems that there should be a kind of reciprocity between the government and the people: the government respects the law that Parliament has enacted or received as much and as long as the subjects do the same. It could be a condition for the protection of the people by and from the government.

The government commands and enforces respect for the ‘rule of law’ and at the same time protects the people within ‘strong borders’ and guarantees ‘strong national security.’ It is the statement proclaiming that much on p. 11, where the statement adds: “This helps to ensure that Australia remains an open, inclusive, free and safe society.” [Emphasis added]

The Australian Government of the time largely contributed to the wording of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (adopted in 1948), where Article 14 (1) reads: ‘Everyone has the right to seek and to enjoy in other countries asylum from persecution.’ (Thank you Dr. Herbert Vere Evatt). Nowadays that means absolutely nothing in Canberra.

Successive Australian governments have acceded to, ratified and made the law of the land what is largely referred to as the International Bill of Human Rights, which is the name given to United Nations General Assembly Resolution 217 A (III) and two international treaties established by the Organisation. The Bill consists of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966) with its two Optional Protocols and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1966). The two covenants entered into force in 1976, after a sufficient number of countries had ratified them. Australia was one such country.

Australian governments have entered into other treaties and conventions. To the extent that those instruments relate to the condition of asylum seekers and refugees in Australia, every single one of those treaties has been violated by the Australian governments of the last twenty five years, including the present.

As Christos Tsiolkas wrote on 25 March 2017 in an extract from his foreword to They cannot take the sky – Stories of detention (Sydney 2017), apropos the “destructive national debate about asylum seekers”, “In all the screaming across the parliament floor or on social media, we forget that the asylum seeker and the refugee is a real person, with a real body and a real consciousness, that they are as human as we are.”

And he went on:

“For nearly two decades now, Australian politics has been corrupted by a toxic and destructive national debate about asylum seekers and refugees. Unfortunately, fought out as much across media – traditional and digital – as it has in our parliament, the issue of asylum has become inexorably entwined with our security and existential fears arising from the threats of international terrorism.

Our leaders, across the political spectrum, have failed in the democratic imperative to ensure a cogent and humane approach to the issue. In fanning the hysteria of partisanship they have betrayed our trust. That great leveller, history, will ultimately judge us on what kind of country we created for ourselves at the beginning of the 21st century. This isn’t the place for political analysis.”

“We know that the detention centres we have built on our continent, on Nauru and on Manus Island, are not places we would ever countenance imprisoning Australians. We know what we have done. We don’t need history to instruct us on that.”

As Primo Levi had been reduce to number 174517 at Auschwitz, so we have turned all ‘undesirables’ into numbers at Nauru and Manus Island.

Such is the respect for ‘the rule of law’ by Australian governments since 1992.

One concluding observation: the 20 March Turnbull Statement on Multiculturalism boasts of Australia as “the most successful in the world.” Well, it depends on whom you are reading and to whom you are talking.

If one is talking about multiculturalism as expressing cultural diversity and/or ethnic diversity, then one could hear different voices.

A recent work by the respectable Pew Research Center presented the study of cultural diversity and economic development by researcher Erkan Gören of the University of Oldenberg in Germany.

In his paper, Gören measured the amount of cultural diversity in each of more than 180 countries. To arrive at his estimates, he combined data on ethnicity and race with a measure based on the similarity of languages spoken by major ethnic or racial groups. “The hypothesis is that groups speaking the same or highly related languages should also have similar cultural values,” affirmed Gören. He used his language and ethnicity measures to compute a cultural diversity score for each country which ranged from 0 to 1, with larger scores indicating more diversity and smaller values representing less.

Not unusually, the list of culturally diverse countries is headed by Chad, with Cameroon, Nigeria, Togo and the Democratic Republic of the Congo following. (In Chad in north-central Africa 8.6 million residents belong to more than 100 ethnic groups). These and other African countries typically rank high on any diversity index because of their multitude of tribal groups and languages. According to Gören, the only ‘western’ country to break into the top 20 most diverse is, again, Canada.

Such data should be observed with considerable caution: cultural diversity is a different concept from ethnic diversity. As a result, a map of the world reflecting ethnic diversity looks somewhat different from the one based on Gören’s cultural diversity measure which combines language and ethnicity profiles of a country.

The Harvard Institute of Economic Research developed a map similar to the one offered by Gören’s findings.

Still, a comparison of the Harvard and Goren maps shows that the most diverse countries in the world are found in Africa. Such conclusion could have been a source of worry for Mr. Turnbull, permanently concerned as he was about his difficult relations with the troglodytes at his right and with most of the ‘Nationals’.

The cave-men, and probably some of their women, would feel more comfortable with the dreams of Menzies and his “British to the bootstraps”, or the menaces of Howard and his “we will decide who comes to this country and the circumstances in which they come.” than with looking, if they ever look at such things, for a real multicultural experience and finding it in … Chad. The comparison with Toronto comes back here: in Toronto there live 53 per cent ‘Whites’, 7 per cent Blacks, and 40 per cent ‘Others’. Every member of the Melbournian bene society would be entitled to worry. What? Some 250,000 Blacks going about in Melbourne? There is enough to hear about ‘being swamped’ by them!

And how would Mr. Turnbull have reacted if faced with a motion similar to the one passed by 201 votes to 91 on 24 March 2017 by the Canadian Parliament? On that day, the Parliament adopted a landmark anti-Islamophobia and religious discrimination motion which calls on politicians to condemn anti-Islamic behaviour and rhetoric. It called on the Canadian Government to recognise the need to “quell the public climate of fear and hate.”

It is worth reproducing that motion verbatim:

“Whereas: “Islam is a religion of over 1.5 billion people worldwide. Since its founding more than 1400 years ago, Muslims have contributed, and continue to contribute, to the positive development of human civilization. This encompasses all areas of human endeavors including the arts, culture, science, medicine, literature, and much more;

Recently an infinitesimally small number of extremist individuals have conducted terrorist activities while claiming to speak for the religion of Islam. Their actions have been used as a pretext for a notable rise of anti-Muslim sentiments in Canada; and

These violent individuals do not reflect in any way the values or the teachings of the religion of Islam. In fact, they misrepresent the religion. We categorically reject all their activities. They in no way represent the religion, the beliefs and the desire of Muslims to co-exist in peace with all peoples of the world.

We, the undersigned, Citizens and residents of Canada, call upon the House of Commons to join us in recognizing that extremist individuals do not represent the religion of Islam, and in condemning all forms of Islamophobia.”

How can one even imagine such a thing happening in Canberra?

Try.

Beyond the words which decorate the composition of a multiethnic society such as Australia, and coming to the real substance of life – and in Australia that is money – it remains a reality that in multicultural Australia as described, the levers of command in the corporate boardrooms are still overwhelmingly in the so-called ‘Anglo-Saxon’ hands.

“Anyone that sounds different, behaves different, or has somewhat different views  –  which is the point of diversity and the strength of diversity – it can be a little hard to get into the club.” the chairwoman of the Asian Australian Foundation, Cheri Ong, told the A.B.C.

A look at the statistics bears out Ms. Ong’s point.

In the past few decades Australia has become a very different country.

Only 58 per cent of Australians still have British roots; 18 per cent are European; 21 per cent non-European; and 3 per cent of Australians are Indigenous.

By contrast, in the big end of town, three quarters of C.E.O.s are from British heritage and 18 per cent from Europe, meaning a total of 93 per cent are white.

And in the boardroom, 70 per cent of directors come from a British background.

A detailed breakdown of the other 30 per cent is not available, but they include directors from other white, first-world, countries.”’

And there is more.

“But as tough as it is for people like Ms. Long [chairwoman of A.M.P. Capital Funds Management] and Ms. Ong to become directors, there’s one group that’s completely shut out, and that’s Indigenous Australians.

I think it probably stems from the generations of exclusion of Indigenous Australians from mainstream Australi,” said Ms. Laura Berry, who is the C.E.O. of Supply Nation, a company which links Indigenous businesses with the big end of town.

As an Indigenous person making her way in the business world, Ms. Berry has no doubt there are many Aboriginal people more than capable of being company directors.

Ms. Ong had one more interesting comment: “With company boards so un-reflective of Australian society, inevitably the issue of targets, or even quotas, gets raised in discussions about how to fix the problem.

Targets and quotas actually force boards to actually explore the option, and I think that’s where as a mechanism, in a tool-kit for change, that progresses the cause, if you like,” Ms. Ong said.

Targets and quotas have been shown to work in boosting the percentage of women on company boards, but as in the gender-diversity debate, there is one issue that’s also very important on dealing with cultural diversity.

“And that is it’s not what you know but who[m] you know that can determine your board prospects.

“If you didn’t go to that private school and you didn’t meet at university, or play in the rugby club together, then it’s really hard to have that network in place to be able to be considered in the first place,” Ms. Berry lamented. (A. Robertson, ‘In multicultural Australia, corporate boardrooms are still overwhelmingly white Anglo-Saxon,’ abc.net.au, 2 October 2018).

Despite the claim to multiculturalism prejudice remain. It is not possible to dismiss that as recently in October 2018 a question was seriously being asked such as: “How much prejudice is there against Australians of Greek and Italian descent in Australia?”

Interestingly one of the respondents noted: “Growing up as Greek Australian I did face some prejudice and discrimination, especially during my early school years where I had an ethnic name and could’t speak English properly. I did change my name to an Anglo name when I moved to a different school, but I still got some racial hate. The high school I went to, there was a clear distinction between the ‘skips/Aussies’ (Australians of Anglo and Celtic descent) and the ‘wogs’ (Australians of southern Europe, Balkan and Middle Eastern descent). There were constant racial fuelled fights during lunch breaks and even after school hours w[h]ere the groups would meet at certain locations and fight. I did repeatedly get told to ‘go back to my country you wog’, have been spat on, was called s ‘greasy hair wog’ and stuff like that. Even some teachers had obvious biases too. But I never paid much attention to it.

…

We have integrated into society quite well and, in fact, some Greeks and Italians now don’t acknowledge their own heritage. [Emphasis added]

There are still isolated incidences [sic] that do come up every now and then. But for the most part, it is limited to really backward thinking Bogans (Australia’s equivalent to a redneck). Most of us live our lives in peace and the prejudice and discrimination we once faced is a thing of the past.”

Xian Zhao, a postdoctoral fellow at the Department of Management at University of Toronto at Mississauga, in a study appearing in Social psychological and personality science has observed that “We do not suggest immigrants to Anglicise their ethnic names in order to avoid discrimination” and “This certainly puts the onus on immigrants to promote equity and our previous studies also suggest that Anglicising names may have  negative implications for one’s self-concept.” (‘Biases Against Immigrants With Non-Anglicized Names’, eurasiareview.com, 27 December 2018).

There being no question as to existence of prejudice against minorities in Australia, one may well ask: is Australia racist? The question has disturbed and is returning from time to time amongst persons seriously concerned.

One of the biggest ever survey conducted on racism and prejudice in Australia was commissioned early in 2018 by Special Broadcasting Service with the Western Sydney University.

Professor Kevin Dunn, from Western Sydney University, led the survey of just over 6,000 respondents and examined issues including attitudes to cultural differences, tolerance of specific groups and racial hierarchy.

The conclusion was that one in five Australians had experienced racism in the previous twelve months.

More specifically:

1. 31.6 per cent of respondents claimed to have ‘negative’ feelings towards Muslim Australians, 22.4 per cent claimed to have ‘negative’ feelings towards Middle-­‐Eastern Australians while only 9 per cent had negative feelings towards Aboriginal Australians.
2. 36.4 per cent believe the number of immigrants accepted into Australia is too high or much too high.
3. 41.1 per cent believe Australia is weakened by people of different ethnicities sticking to their old ways.
4. 20.5 per cent believe that African refugees increase crime in Australia. Men and older participants were more likely to believe that African refugees increase crime.
5. 32 per cent of respondents reported having experienced racism within their workplace. 32 per cent of respondents reported having experience racism within an educational facility.
6. Those who belong to a Language Other Than English, LOTE background reported the highest rates of workplace racism (54.1 per cent) and racism within various educational institutions (55.8 per cent).
7. The experience of racism on public transport or in the street was the highest at 34.1 per cent, followed by at a shop or shopping centre at 32.2 per cent. Online experiences of racism were also quite high at 28.2 per cent.
8. Those of LOTE background experienced the highest rates of discrimination in shops/shopping centres (56.9 per cent), on public transport or in the street (58.2 per cent), and online (49.1 per cent).
9. 48.6 per cent believe people from racial, ethnic, cultural and religious minorities groups should behave more like mainstream Australians.
10. 54.4 per cent of respondents agreed that Australia should help refugees fleeing persecution in their homeland.43 per cent believe that all boats carrying asylum seekers should be turned back. (M. Acharya, ‘Is Australia racist? Here are 10 stunning stats?’, sbs.com.au, 8 April 2018).

When Dr. Tim Southphommasane, Australia’s Race Discrimination Commissioner, gave his final speech ahead of stepping down on 20 August 2018, his message struck a sombre tone. Racial disharmony is on the rise, he lamented.

Dr. Soutphommasane warned that Australia’s success as a multicultural society is under threat. This threat is not from extreme factional groups or mask-wearing fascists, it is from the mainstream of Australian public life. So wrote Professor Carl Rhodes, of the University of Technology, Sydney

The real danger, Dr. Southphommasane argued, comes from “dog-whistling politicians” and “race-baiting commentators” eager to harness populist attention through the careless “mixing of race and politics”. Just about a week later, Senator Fraser Anning proved how devastatingly true that was when he called for a “final solution” to “ethnocultural diversity” in Australia in his first speech to Parliament.

“There is much more to the resurgence of cultural and gender politics in Australia than that.” wrote Professor Rhodes.” More than the playing out democratic differences, this is the acting out of white male privilege in a democracy fast turning to tyranny.

It is an absolute affront to democracy, at least insofar as democracy is understood in terms of a way of life that values equality over elite privilege.”

“Nowhere is the reality of [white male] privilege more blatantly obvious than in the workplace – a location where the intersection of whiteness and masculinity dominate top leadership,” wrote Professor Rhodes. And he confirmed that “Recent research reveals that 95 per cent of corporate executives have Anglo-Celtic or European heritage. Despite comprising almost half the workforce, only 5 per cent of C.E.O.s are women. A third of those companies have no women at all in executive roles.”

For the past two decades, the gender pay gap has favoured men by between 15 and 19 per cent. Of women, 28 per cent report having been sexually harassed at work.

Clearly, the comfort and spoils of the Australian workplace are disproportionally skewed towards white men on a vast scale. Only staunch advocates of patriarchal white supremacy would have the audacity to suggest Australia is an equal society when it comes to gender and cultural difference at work.

The brute facts of white male dominance in the workplace – and politics – demonstrate that the promise of equality that is built into the very idea of democracy is not being kept. (C. Rhodes, ‘Anning and Latham fight for a white male privilege ‘final solution’, independentaustralia.net, 17 August 2018).

As Dr. Soutphommasane intimated, “If there is now political unity against racism let’s start seeing that unity and leadership every day. No more racial hysteria about “African gangs”. No more false alarms about multicultural “separatism”. No more assaults on racial equality and the Racial Discrimination Act.”

Continued Wednesday – Comedy without art (part 5)

Previous instalment – Comedy without art (part 3)

Media Release

As fires continue to burn across Australia, damage estimates are now in the billions. More than 8.4 million hectares have been burnt, almost 2000 homes have been destroyed, and 26 people have lost their lives.

Such immense devastation means policymakers are under pressure to identify strategies that will future-proof communities before they start rebuilding beyond the 2020 bushfires.

UniSA sustainability expert, Dr Sukhbir Sandhu says Australia should consider the establishment of a ‘fire-line’ – a bushfire demarcation line – to identify high-risk areas not recommended for human habitation.

In the same vein as Goyder’s Line of rainfall (created in South Australia 1865 to map areas liable to drought and therefore unsuitable for planting crops), Dr Sandhu says a fire-line would help people clearly recognise areas that are suitable, or not suitable, for living.

“The frequency and intensity of bushfires in Australia have changed dramatically over the past decade – our fire season is longer, the fires are more brutal, and the fallout is extensive,” Dr Sandhu says. “Accordingly, Australia’s responses to the fires must change too.

“As people look to rebuild their homes, schools and communities, we need to be asking the question – is it really safe to do so in these areas?

“The current bushfires have destroyed the livelihoods of far too many people to be remedied by standard recovery and rebuilding strategies. And, as fires continue to burn into residential areas, governments must consider something more ground-breaking in recovery.

“It’s time for policymakers to take a strong stand where it is safe for communities to rebuild, and a fire demarcation line could help achieve this.”

Dr Sandhu says that policymakers have the basic tools to start such an initiative which, in conjunction with CFS aerial footage, satellite imagery, and well-developed insurance company models (that not only identify areas susceptible to bushfires, but coastal flooding as a result of rising sea levels) would provide clear information for a new fire-line.

She says that areas adjacent to fire-lines should also be built to compulsory bushfire-resilient construction guidelines.

“We have the technology to create homes with bushfire resistant materials, and to enable houses with certain structural properties to serve as fire bunkers. But to date, there are no clear policies that support or promote these technologies for use in vulnerable areas,” Dr Sandhu says.

“This is not about quick fixes; we need long-term, sustainable strategies to address the undeniable effects of climate change.”

By Dr George Venturini  

Australia has no official language, but its version of English has always been entrenched as the de facto national language. Australian English is a major variety of the language with a distinctive accent and lexicon, and differs slightly from other varieties of English in grammar and spelling. General Australian serves as the standard dialect.

Incidentally, having destroyed some two million Indigenous People since 1788, Australians have been destroying 600 out of 750 distinct native groups and with them associated languages and dialects. Of the remaining 150 all but 20 are endangered. This qualitatively represents the worst genocide in human history. (‘Australian Aboriginal Genocide’ – Google, as at 2015; G. Polya, ‘Ongoing Aboriginal genocide and Aboriginal ethnocide by politically correct racist apartheid Australia’, Countercurrents, 16 February 2014).

According to the 2016 census, English is the only language spoken in the home for close to 72.7 per cent of the non-Indigenous population. There was a considerable drop if compared to 76.8 per cent in 2011. Otherwise, the next most common languages spoken at home are: Mandarin – by 2.5 per cent, Arabic – by 1.4 per cent, Cantonese – by 1.2 per cent, Vietnamese by 1.2 per cent, and Italian – by 1.2 per cent. English is still the main language for three quarters of Australians, but there are 301 other different languages spoken in homes across the country. A considerable proportion of first- and second-generation migrants is bilingual.

At the time of the 2006 census, 52,000 Indigenous People, representing 12 per cent of the Indigenous population, reported that they spoke an Indigenous language at home.

When one comes to literacy and numeracy, it is difficult to speak about a truly open, informed, participatory society, in the presence of figures provided by the Australian Bureau of Statistics which show that 44 per cent of Australian adults do not have the literacy, numeracy and dexterity for problem solving in technology-rich environment, and even less skills they need to cope with the demand of everyday life and work.

At Census 2011, approximately 7.3 million (44 per cent) non-Indigenous persons in Australia aged 15 to 74 years had literacy skills at Levels 1 or 2, a further 6.4 million (39 per cent) at Level 3,  and 2.7 million (17 per cent) at Level 4/5. For the numeracy scale, approximately 8.9 million (55 per cent) Australians were assessed at Level 1 or 2, 5.3 million (32 per cent) at Level 3 and 2.1 million (13 per cent) at Level 4/5. The statistics are much worse for Indigenous and Torres Strait Islanders. Census data show just how badly Australia fares at ‘closing inequality gaps’. (‘Census data shows just how bad we’ve been at closing inequality gaps, N. Biddle and F. Markham, 25 October 2017, theconversation.com).

Multiculturalism, as presented in Australia, can only be viewed as a farce – a display of flags, foods and folklore – and all under the grand umbrella of ‘fair go’. To be precise, it is a comic dramatic work using buffoonery and horseplay and typically including crude characterisation and ludicrously improbable situations.

It is something near a vaudeville, a travesty, a buffoonery, or a pasquinade, from the name Pasquino, used by the Romans of fifteenth century to describe a mutilated Hellenistic statue dating back to the third century b.c.e. which was traditionally used as the place to which attach anonymous criticisms of public persons.

It befits present day Australia.

On 20 March 2017 then-Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull released the Australian Government’s new multicultural statement Multicultural Australia: United, Strong, Successful. The statement ‘reaffirms the Government’s commitment to a culturally diverse and harmonious society’.

Australia’s previous multicultural policy, The People of Australia – Australia’s Multicultural Policy, was launched in 2011 by the Gillard Government. It reaffirmed the importance of Australians’ shared values and cultural traditions and recognised that Australia’s multicultural character gives the country a comprehensive edge in an increased globalised world.

The new statement outlines the strategic direction and priorities for multicultural policy in Australia. It sets out the Australian Government’s vision for embracing diversity while emphasising the country’s “unique national identity and the importance of being an integrated and united people.”

The statement acknowledges that “the mix of different cultures makes Australia more interesting and stronger.” Sharing a country’s cultural heritage “is part of celebrating what it means to be Australian, and helps everyone feel included.” The statement upholds the centrality of Australia’s “democratic institutions and the rule of law, it highlights the importance of citizenship in [the country’s] national identity, and it makes clear the responsibility … all have to respect [their] fellow Australians.”

This is in a nutshell the presentation by the Australian Government.

The statement opens with a foreword by the Prime Minister:

“Australia is the most successful multicultural society in the world.

We are as old as our First Australians, the oldest continuing human culture on earth, who have cared for this country for more than 50,000 years.

And we are as young as the baby in the arms of her migrant mother who could have come from any nation, any faith, any race in the world.

Australia is an immigration nation. Almost half of our current population was either born overseas or has at least one parent born overseas.

And we come from every culture, every race, every faith, every nation.

We are defined not by race, religion or culture, but by shared values of freedom, democracy, the rule of law and equality of opportunity – a “fair go”.

The glue that holds us together is mutual respect – a deep recognition that each of us is entitled to the same respect, the same dignity, the same opportunities.

And national security – a resolute determination to defend our nation, our people and our values – is the foundation on which our freedoms have been built and maintained.

At a time of growing global tensions and rising uncertainty, Australia remains a steadfast example of a harmonious, egalitarian and enterprising nation, embracing its diversity.

Multicultural Australia: United, Strong, Successful renews and reaffirms the Government’s commitment to a multicultural Australia, in which racism and discrimination have no place.”

Some comments seem appropriate.

That very first sentence is incorrect. Once the definition of multiculturalism is reached, and by whatever conventional measure, Australia is not “the most successful multicultural society in the world.”

Canada is.

Canada understands by multiculturalism the sense of an equal celebration of racial, religious and cultural backgrounds.

The multiculturalism policy was officially adopted by Pierre Trudeau’s government during the 1970s and further developed in the 1980s. The Canadian federal government has been described as the instigator of multiculturalism as an ideology because of its public emphasis on the social importance of immigration. The 1960s Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism is often referred to as the origin of modern political awareness of multiculturalism.

Canadians have used the term “multiculturalism” both descriptively (as a sociological fact) and prescriptively (as a political ideology). In the first sense “multiculturalism” is a description of the many different religious traditions and cultural influences which in their unity and coexistence in Canada make up Canadian culture. The nation consists of people from a multitude of racial, religious and cultural backgrounds and is open to cultural pluralism. By the early twenty-first century, people from outside British and French heritage composed the majority of the population, with an increasing percentage of individuals who identify themselves as “visible minorities”.

Multiculturalism is reflected in the law through the Canadian Multiculturalism Act of 1988 and section 27 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and is administered by the Department of Canadian Heritage.

Incidentally, no similar Act or Charter appears on Australian statute books. By the shysterish lucubrations of some prime ministers and their ‘first law officers’ Australia remains the sole Anglospheric country immune from such contagion.

Putting it at the very favourable to the Prime Ministerial statement, Australia was estimated in a serious study of 2010, admittedly seven years ago, to be the ‘second most multicultural country.’ (A.B.C., AM – ‘Australia nearly most multicultural nation in world,’ by Dr. R. Miranti, Canberra University, abc.net.au. 17 November 2010).

The second sentence of the Prime Ministerial foreword: “We are as old as our First Australians, the oldest continuing human culture on earth, who have cared for this country for more than 50,000 years.” glosses over the past and present condition of the First Australians, certainly a gratuitous identification of the peoples the British invaders of 1778 very early, abused and continued to do so until that questionable activity was taken up by derivative Australians. This is not the place to retrace the history of that abuse, superbly documented by Professor Henry Reynolds, the eminent Australian historian whose primary work has focused on the frontier conflict between the invaders and the subsequent Australians, on one side, and the Indigenous Australians, on the other.

That second Prime Ministerial sentence is no more than a rhetorical and self-glorifying camouflage of the continuous indifference to the condition of the Indigenous Peoples.

Most of the substantial recommendations contained in the ‘Indigenous Deaths in Custody, 1989 to 1996’, a Report prepared by the Office of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner for the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission, and published in 1997, remain un-implemented to date. Four words sum up the most recent tragedy: the Don Dale children.

The multicultural statement abounds with words such as ‘establishment of British institutions’, ‘democratic institutions’, ‘rule of law’, ‘citizenship’, and’ national identity’ (statement, p. 4). Those words/concepts reappear with some variations further on: ‘nations’, ‘British and Irish settlement’, ‘establishment of our parliamentary democracy’, ‘shared values, rights and responsibilities’ (statement, p. 7), ‘rule of law and allegiance to Australia’, ‘parliamentary democracy’, ‘liberal-democratic tradition’, ‘fundamental rights of very individual’, ‘democratic process’(statement, p. 9).

It is extraordinarily presumptuous, nay arrogant of Australian governments and their prime or ordinary ministers to assume that all migrants do not know the difference between ‘parliamentary democracy’ Canberra style and ‘representative democracy’.

The latter means very simply one head, one vote and one weight, regardless of the personal qualifications of the elector, whether s/he is barely able to write her/his name and read her/his ballot or s/he is an astrophysics scientist. And it is the duty of the governments to provide the elevation of those less fortunate, and to set up conditions whereby who counts is not the occasional Ph.D. (P in Head Dressing – or similar profanity as conferred by the ‘new schools’ which “spark innovation, creativity and vitality”) – as the statement proclaims at p.13. The last words seem to have come from the pen of Mr. Turnbull. Waffle one would say, while others could have a choice of: rattle, chatter, babble, ramble, jabber, gibber.

So here is a suggestion: why not send the competent ministers to find out how such countries as Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Liechtenstein, Luxemburg, the Netherlands, Sweden and Switzerland manage their elections? Better still, ample information could be obtained from the relative embassies in Canberra. None of those countries enjoys the high privilege of British birth, but they seem to be getting along fairly well, and no one would question their democratic practice. They are eight of the some forty countries governed with proportional representation.

Their citizens would be horrified at the result of the most recent Australian elections, where the anti-Labor Coalition of Liberal, Liberal National and Nationals received 5,661,209 votes, Labor gained 4,702,314 and the Greens: 1,153,736.

After the chien-en-lit which is compulsory preference distribution, the Coalition obtained 76 seats, Labor 69, while the Greens could occupy only one seat – having obtained roughly one/fifth of the Coalition and one/fourth of Labor votes. Four other seats made up to the 150 Representatives. That could be ‘parliamentary democracy Southern-Westminster-Style’; representative democracy it is not.

Disregarding for some un-reason both the experience of Dublin and Reykjavík, why not look at Helsinki? There they had the most recent election of 2015. Here are the results of representative democracy – not Westminster blessing, but one head, one vote and one weight, distributed by party, percentage of votes and number of seats.

Centre Party, 21.10 per cent, 49 seats; Finns Party 17.65 per cent, 38 seats; National Coalition Party, 18.20 per cent, 37 seats; Social Democratic Party, 16.51 per cent, 34 seats; Green League, 8.53 per cent, 15 seats; Left Alliance, 7.13 per cent, 12 seats; Swedish People’s Party of Finland, 4.88 per cent, 9 seats; Christian Democrats, 3.54 per cent, 5 seats; and Åland Coalition, 0.37 per cent, 1 seat. (from a letter by Outsider, Multicultural Australia: Malcolm Turnbull’s camouflage, theaimn.com, 30 March 2017).

One final comment about ‘loose language’: on ‘naturalisation’ a new Australian becomes a ‘subject’. ‘Citizens’ belong to a republic – and vice versa. Particularly in Trumpian times one should not look to the United States of America for identification and comparisons. But one could try: Iceland (established, @ 800 b.c.e., a republic since 1944), Finland (a republic since 1917), the Czech Republic (a republic since 1993), why – even Ireland (established between 1919 and 1949).

There is more:

“Citizenship is a privilege and, as part of the Australian Citizenship Ceremony, new citizens pledge and affirm ‘loyalty to Australia and its people, whose democratic beliefs I share, whose rights and liberties I respect, and whose laws I will uphold and obey.’ ”

‘Shared values’ reappear thrice, along with ‘democratic institutions’ and a ‘shared vision for the future’ on p.11.

In the statement, “the Government continues promoting the principle of mutual respect and denouncing racial hatred and discrimination as incompatible with Australian society.” (For good measure, the point is made again at p. 15 of the statement).

Further:

“The Government places the highest priority on the safety and security of all Australians. Recent terrorist attacks around the world have justifiably caused concern in the Australian community.

The Government respond to these threats by continuing to invest in counter-terrorism, strong borders and strong national security. This helps to ensure that Australia remains an open, inclusive, free and safe society.” (p. 11). [Emphasis added]

Assumptions made in the previous Prime Ministerial paragraph, and repeated by the ministers, should be carefully examined – and challenged.

There is no question that, according to English law, the first soldier to land on Australia in 1788 was carrying ‘British law’ and ‘establishing British institutions’ in his rucksack.

The two ministers might be forgiven for a wobbly knowledge of the law, in which they both graduated, and for branching together ‘British and Irish settlement’. The Irish arrived as convicts – some of them for minor offences and quite a few of them for seditious activities – no better than scum in the view of the ‘better’ British society.

This could be forgiven if coming from mediocre students of history, but would certainly not have been tolerated from Malcolm Bligh Turnbull, of Sydney Grammar School, B.A., B. of Laws from the University of Sydney, Rhodes Scholar at, and Bachelor of Civil Law from, Brasenose College, Oxford, rendered famous by his defence at the Spycatcher trial, author and once a well-known republican reformer. “Tout passe, tout lasse, tout casse et tout se remplace.”

If anything Ireland should be thanked for by old residents as well as newcomers it should be for its republican traditions, grown stronger in time despite and against British domination and Catholic oppression.

One is entitled to assume that such a scholar as Mr. Turnbull would have a more precise notion of that variable-with-time statement of ‘allegiance to Australia’ that every person who wishes to become a subject of the law in Australia is asked to swear/affirm.

Of course, Mr. Turnbull knows better; and he was the Prime Minister.

Proceeding in order: the Governor-Generalate of Australia is headed by a person nominate by the Prime Minister, appointed by Queen Elizabeth the Second, by the Grace of God Queen of this Realm and of Her other Realms and Territories, Head of the Commonwealth, Defender of the Faith. Oops! And if the swearer/affirmer happens to be atheist, or perhaps not Anglican – which is the faith Queen Elizabeth is called to defend? Problem? What problem?

Second step in the investiture: the appointed Governor-General swear – maybe even affirms? – allegiance to the Queen. And then, and only then, s/he swears/affirms allegiance to the people of Australia and its constitution.

Now, a would-be-subject would have more of a little problem with the omissions and commissions of that act of the British Imperial Parliament. Much about this has been said before by many, and very learned in the field. Let us be satisfied for the moment that the Constitution of Australia was inspired by the principle laid down by Lord Palmerston (1784-1865): “Nations have no permanent friends or allies, they only have permanent interests.” The descriptor for a colony, residual though it may be, fits perfectly the present status of Australia as far as the law is concerned – not to mention ‘who really owns the joint’.

Moving on to the notion of ‘parliamentary democracy’, that is very far from ‘representative democracy’.

Some definitions would help. It is accepted that by parliamentary democracy one means that the resulting political system is based on the principle that Parliament is supreme, or sovereign.

In such a system the people choose representatives at regular elections. These representatives are responsible for a number of functions: 1) the formation of the government. This is achieved by majority vote in the lower house, in Australia’s case, the House of Representatives; 2) the passage of legislation – the laws of the nation – by majority vote of the Parliament. In Australia’s bicameral Parliament, this requires the support of both the House of Representatives and the Senate; 3) the scrutiny and monitoring of the executive government, the public service and other authorities and institutions set up by Parliament. Most importantly, this scrutiny extends to monitoring the expenditure of taxpayers’ money.

Australia’s status as a parliamentary democracy does not preclude the use of other terms which also define the political system.

Continued Saturday – Comedy without art (part 4)

Previous instalment – Comedy without art (part 2)

By Bob Rafto  

Claim:

Unspecified damages arising from the catastrophic fires that caused loss of life and property.

Your Honour, I submit the following.

1. 23 former fire chiefs with decades of expertise and experience submitted to the PM a plan with recommendations to meet the challenges of catastrophic fire conditions that were expected in the fire season.
2. The PM rejected the plan.
3. It can only be concluded the plan was rejected because of the cost and the impact it would have on the government’s projected budget surplus and also of climate change recommendations.
4. The fire chiefs warnings were deadly accurate.
5. From the start of the fire season offers of help were extended from the US, UK, and Canada, however the PM rejected the calls and saying Australia was adequately resourced.
6. The 23 former fire chiefs plan showed a deficiency in resources and called for an expansion of aerial aircraft specifically large water bombers.
7. It wasn’t till the death toll started rising that the government committed to water bombers and deploying the army and accepting assistance from other countries.
8. On an unknown date, the department of Home Affairs produced a report and a plan on climate change.
9. This report warned the government that Australia faced more frequent and severe heatwaves and bushfires and that livelihoods would be affected without effective action on climate change.
10. This report was also deadly accurate.
11. The Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton has been accused of burying this plan.
12. One can only conclude this report was buried because of the cost involved and also on the impact on the budget surplus.
13. The government has been criminally negligent in rejecting fire plans from experts and also from the Department of Home Affairs, plans designed to mitigate loss of life and property from catastrophes.
14. It can be said even after expert advice the government gambled on people’s lives and properties to protect a budget surplus.
15. The result of this gamble was the cost of human lives, property, fauna and flora.
16. Failing to implement plans is the biggest dereliction of duty the government has committed and also one of criminal negligence.
17. The government has wilfully failed to keep its citizens safe and ask your honour to find against the government.

By Dr George Venturini  

Apartheid, anyone?

Choices are open to the 40 per cent who complete secondary schooling in the private sector. It means, though, that state high schools are left to cater for a less affluent 60 per cent. Despite excellent exceptions, these schools achieve significantly lower rates of entry into university. This leads to a further discrimination: the richest 25 per cent of schools release almost two in five students in the top quartile of achievement; the poorest 25 per cent have one in five.

And that is not the end: students from wealthy family can secure a university place by paying full fees. And what is a student who just missed out on a publicly funded place to make of the entry of full-fee-paying students who scored say up to 10 points lower, in the case of some law degrees, and up to 20 points for less lucrative arts qualifications?

Public-private disparities in education are the most critical perpetrators of disadvantage through the generations, but are not the only ones.

Of course, no one can reasonably expect that people will not use the advantages that money brings to benefit themselves and their children. Australia is a market-based society. Money is everything and is responsible for ‘natural’ divisions. No exception to such iron rules may be even thought of.

At the same time, it is rarely considered that when wide-ranging disadvantage is  reinforced from one generation to the next, the notion of a ‘fair go’ begins to look pretty tenuous, self-serving for those on the right side of the tracks, and in the end totally hypocritical.

One enters into the realm of political rhetoric on social justice. The latter is a concept difficult to grasp and organise into a programme of action. Here comes the game played by the two parties of ‘the system’, muddling though the difficulties of gaining the confidence of a part of the electorate without offending the other, which could very well be more powerful. It is not hard to understand why so many ‘ordinary’ Australians are disenchanted with politics and regard the two major parties as ‘out of touch’ – ‘all the same’ perhaps?

The projection of a future which looks an awful lot like a country of two classes goes unremarked. The plebs prefer the illusion of comforting myths, easy slogans, simple – often non sequitur – expressions of profound ignorance. Better still, the two classes may settle down for a sickened and sickening atmosphere better expressed in a famous quote by Amos Bronson Alcott: “To be ignorant of one’s ignorance is the malady of the ignorant.” Alcott was an American teacher, writer, philosopher, reformer and educator. He was a transcendentalist, friend of Ralph Waldo Emerson and, perhaps more famously, the father of Louisa May, the author of the  novel Little Women in 1868.

It may be hard to accept that the vaunted spirit of ‘fair go’ is nothing but a myth.

And if one accepts that, nothing can be out of reach. Most tools of public life in Australia are designed to proceed with myths, tales, common places.

Another common insidious ‘value’ necessary to become ‘a real Australian’ is the acceptance that there is freedom of religion.

That freedom is predicated on the assumption that Australia is a secular society  –  another myth in everyday’s life. Not only is Australia a secular society, but the common ethic which united Australians is founded on the tradition of the ‘Judeo-Christian civilisation’. This cold ‘value’ has the result of excluding almost half of the Australian population, as noted. One who does not live by that tradition is not a good Australian.

In fact, the situation is more complex.

Australia is a religiously diverse country and, although it has no official religion, the frequent reference to the so-called ‘Judeo-Christian tradition’ is considered an omnibus blanket to cover all sorts of things, and not always welcome. In public life in particular one observes frequently a ‘special kind of hypocrisy’, for instance: the various governments of Australia refer to the Christian God in their ceremonies, as do the various Australian Courts. And on the same line, Christian symbols appear on public buildings, such as universities, not to mention publicly-paid-for hospitals bearing the name of persons connected with the Christian religion and/or the name of this or that ‘royal’ celebutante.

On taking her/his chair every day in Parliament the Speaker of the House and the President of the Senate deliver the following Christian prayer:

“Almighty God, we humbly beseech Thee to vouchsafe Thy special blessing upon this Parliament, and that Thou wouldst be pleased to direct and prosper the work of Thy servants to the advancement of Thy glory, and to the true welfare of the people of Australia.

Our Father, which art in Heaven, Hallowed be Thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in Heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive them that trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation; but deliver us from evil; for thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever and ever. Amen.”

So much, one would comment, for the ‘values’ of ‘respect for the freedom and dignity of the individual’ and ‘freedom of religion’.

Most interesting, the text would conform with Catholic tradition, but rather with the Anglican liturgy.

A big parenthesis may go well at this point: in 2016 there were 3,101.200 Anglicans in Australia = 13.3 per cent of the population. Anglicans were a minority within a rather slim majority of Christians: Catholics, 5,291.800 (22.6 per cent) and Other Christians 3,808.600 (16.3 per cent).

Christianity remains the predominant practice in Australia, though this is diminishing, changing and diversifying. At the Census 2016, 52.1 per cent of the Australian population acknowledged to some variety of Christianity. Over the fifty years since 1966 the proportion of the population who self-identify as Christian, combining all Christian denominations, has fallen from 88.2 per cent. In 2016, 30.1 per cent of Australians declared “no religion”; a further 9.6 per cent chose not to answer the question. The remaining population is a diverse group which includes Muslims – 2.6 per cent, Buddhists – 2.4 per cent, Hindus – 1.9 per cent, Sikhs – 0.5 per cent, and Jews – 0.4. Result: Christians 52.1 per cent, Others 47.9 per cent.

Apart from all that, there are in Parliament persons clearly of the Jewish faith and several of the Muslim, in addition to those who cannot be classified because, among other reasons, they believe that what faith they may have, if any, is nobody’s business. Correct, but not sufficient; there have been several attempts, mainly by the Greens ‘to scrap’, The Sydney Morning Herald, 14 January 2014, to ‘letting go of the Lord’s prayer’, A.B.C., 17 January 2014, with renewed attempts in the federal Parliament as well as in state Parliaments – but all in vain. As an on line entry put it: “The Lord’s prayer in Parliament – what the hell?”, propertychat.com.au, 4 March 2016. Precisely.

But there are more serious aspects of Australia’s dependency on foreign symbols.

Consider for instance the flag. On the top corner of the Australian flag there is a Union Jack. Now, that symbol combines aspects of three older national flags: the red cross of St George for the Kingdom of England, the white saltire of St. Andrew for Scotland, and the red saltire of St. Patrick to represent Ireland. Ireland is now an independent republic and it is only a source of sorrow that six counties be occupied by Britain, and conveniently called Northern Ireland.

The last thing Australia should do is interfere with that problem. Trouble is that the present Australian flag suits the Englanders and their fantasies. The original union of England and Scotland goes back to 1606, and the addition of the Irish saltire goes back to 1801, both dates largely preceding the formation of Australia in 1901.

None of such moral ruins has (should have anyway) anything to do with Australia.

Symbolism it is, yes, but a matter which could be of painful concern to sentient ‘new Australians’, those who may prefer to be participants than lazily settle down as spectators.

Symbolism surrounds the opening of every session of the federal Parliament. Thus, a publication of the Parliament of Australia provides the history of the mace.

And that goes back a long time.

As a symbol, the mace is purely a monarchical one. It was back in medieval times that the Royal Serjeants-at-Arms were distinguished by their power of arrest without a warrant. To an increasing extent, their maces – originally ordinary weapons of war, similar to a club – became their emblems of authority. Authority?

Maces were stamped with the Royal Arms; and in an age in which few men could read or write, the Serjeants effected their arrests by showing their maces and not by producing any form of written warrant.

The evolution of maces from weapons of war to symbolic representations has seen the flanged head decrease in size into an ornamental bracket, while the butt end, which carried the Royal Arms, has expanded to accommodate larger and more ornate Royal Arms and an arched crown surmounted by an orb and cross. As a result of the expansion of the butt end, maces began to be carried upside down with the crown uppermost.

The mace of the Australian House of Representatives is the symbol not only of the Royal authority but of the authority of the House. Because it is held that “the authority of the Speaker and of the House are indivisible”, the mace also symbolises the authority of the Speaker.

When the Speaker is in the Chair, the mace lies on the Table, with the orb and cross surmounting it pointing to the government side, that is, to the Speaker’s right.

The Serjeant-At-Arms is custodian of the mace. Bearing the mace upon the right shoulder, the Serjeant-at-Arms precedes the Speaker when the Speaker enters and leaves the Chamber at the beginning and the end of a day’s sitting.

The fable surrounding the mace is so old that there is a view – taken seriously by the monarchists – that the House of Representatives may not be properly constituted unless the mace is present on the prescribed brackets in the Chamber!

The magic surrounding the mace is enhanced by the practice of travelling with the Speaker on formal occasions – such as when s/he appears to the presence of the Governor-General after election, when the House goes to the Senate to hear the Governor-General’s opening speech, and on the presentation to the Governor-General of the Address in Reply to the opening speech. On these occasions, the mace is covered with a cloth or left in an antechamber before entering the Governor-General’s presence.

The symbolism reaches a paroxysmal, divine point of loyalty of the subjects: being the symbol of the Royal authority, the mace becomes unnecessary in the presence of the authority itself. How un-free can monarchists be?

Beyond the theatricality which seems to enchant the plebs there is a more insidious way of ‘moving forward’ – as the jargon dictates – by looking backward.

Preserved for veneration much as a religious relic, there is in Parliament House in Canberra a copy of the 1297 version of the Magna Carta preserved in a lightbox style window.

The Magna Carta, or ‘Great Charter’, dates back to 1215. It is seen by some, mainly persons with eyes on the back of their head, as an important step in the development of democracy and the British Parliament, and has influenced the creation of founding documents such as the 1689 British Bill of Rights and the 1901 Australian Constitution.

The first version of the Magna Carta, written in 1215, was a peace treaty between King John of England and his barons. It was a ‘deal’; in modern jargon one could regarded it as establishing a ‘principle’: that all people, including the king, had rights and responsibilities under the law. This anyway is the favourite interpretation, convenient to people in power- without-responsibility in Australia.

Prior to the Magna Carta, King John had absolute power as a feudal monarch. He gave the barons their titles and estates (the land, boys!) in return for their loyalty. King John was an untrustworthy partner and a cruel tyrant, who expected the barons to give him money and troops to fight a long and pointless war with France. The barons had to tax their people harshly to pay for the war and force men from their estates to fight in the ongoing conflict.

By 1215 the barons were fed up with the king’s behaviour and many rebelled against him. They seized the Tower-Of-London and demanded the king listen to them. In June, in a meadow at Runnymede, the king and the barons met and agreed on the terms of the Magna Carta. As was common practice, the document was copied out, fixed with the king’s seal and sent to all parts of the kingdom to be read out to the people, many of whom were illiterate.

In return for the barons pledging loyalty to King John, the Magna Carta limited the king’s power, with most of the document detailing the rights of the barons under the feudal system. However, it also described what is commonly referred to as ‘the rule of law’, including the important point that the king was subject to the law, like all others. Individual rights and liberties were defined, with one of the most notable sections reading:

“No free man shall be seized or imprisoned, or stripped of his rights or possessions, or outlawed or exiled, or deprived of his standing in any other way, nor will we proceed with force against him, or send others to do so, except by the lawful judgement of his equals or by the law of the land.

To no one will we sell, to no one deny or delay right or justice.”

No historian, no constitutionalist, no political scientist and most certainly no professional politicians in the Westminster System, no one who was not paid for her/his opinion would dare to interpret without blushing that document as a charter of rights for everybody – a foundation of the Australian ‘values’.

In fact, almost immediately after signing it, King John ignored the Magna Carta and broke his agreement with the barons. King John tried to butcher the authors of Magna Carta. (‘King John Tried to Butcher the Authors of Magna Carta,’ free.org, 15 June 2015).

He died in 1216 and his nine-year-old son, Henry lll, became the king. As he grew, his guardians made three more editions of the Magna Carta, in an attempt to win back the support of the barons. Some changes were made, but many of the original ideas stayed the same, perhaps just simply ‘ideas’.

In 1225 King Henry lll, at the old age of eighteen, issued the fourth, and heavily revised, version of the Magna Carta, in return for a kingdom-wide grant of tax. As his father had before him, the king fought with the barons. In 1264 Simon de Montford, a baron, overthrew the king and became the ruler. De Montford believed that the king’s power should be limited. He called together knights and some non-noble representatives from across the kingdom to meet in a parliament. Although it would be many years before parliament met regularly and included commoners in its ranks, the idea of the modern English parliament might have germinated then.

In 1265 de Montford was killed on the battlefield by King Henry’s son, Edward, who succeeded his father as king in 1272. Throughout the 1200s, the Magna Carta was increasingly quoted as laws were made and petitions were prepared against the unfair use of power.

Edward l ordered that an Inspeximus – from Latin, and to mean: “we have inspected”. It was the first word of ancient English charters confirming a grant made by a previous king. The word opens the edition of the Magna Carta reissued in 1297. In that edition King Edward declared that the Magna Carta would from then on be a part of common law and that any court judgements which went against it would be “undone and holden for naught.” This is the official Australian view, and from it the preceding information is taken.

Preserved at Parliament House, Canberra is a copy of the 1297 version.

Some comments seem appropriate.

As recently observed by Professor Tom Ginsburg, who teaches international law and political science at the University of Chicago, the Carta’s “fame rests on several myths.”

”First, it wasn’t effective. In fact, it was a failure. John was a weak king who had squandered the royal fortune on a fruitless war with France. Continually raising taxes to pay for his European adventures, he provoked a revolt by his barons, who forced him to sign the charter. But John repudiated the document immediately, and the barons sought to replace him. John avoided that fate by dying.”

His young son reissued the Magna Carta, without some of the clauses. It was reissued several times more in the thirteenth century. But the original version hardly constrained the monarch.

A second myth is that it was the first document of its type. Writing in 1908, Woodrow Wilson called it the beginning of constitutional government. But in fact, it was only one of many documents from the period, in England and elsewhere, codifying limitations on government power.

Consider, for instance, the history of Iceland. There, in 930 c.e. the ruling chiefs established an assembly called the Alþingi – correspondent to the classic Norwegian Althing. It was a parliament, convened each summer at Þingvellir – an early form of Senate, where representative chieftains – Goðorðsmenn or Goðar – made and amended laws, settled disputes and appointed juries to judge lawsuits. Laws were not written down but were instead memorised by an elected lǫgsǫgumaðr – ‘Lawspeaker’. The Alþingi is viewed by many as the world’s oldest existing parliament. Importantly, there being no central executive power, laws were enforced only by the people.

Iceland enjoyed a mostly uninterrupted period of growth in its so-called commonwealth years, between 874 and 1262 c.e.

A third myth is that the document was a ringing endorsement of liberty. Even a cursory reading of the translation into understandable English reveals a number of oddities. One clause prevents Jews from charging interest on a debt held by an underage heir. Another limits women’s ability to bear witness to certain homicides. A third requires the removal of fish traps from the Thames.

In fact, Magna Carta was the result of an intra-élite struggle – class war? – in which the nobles were chiefly concerned with their own privileges. When they referred to the judgment of one’s peers, for example, they were not thinking about a jury trial. Indeed, in 1215, the jury trial – as it is known at present – did not exist; guilt was often determined by seeing how suspects reacted to physical ordeal. The reference to one’s peers meant that nobles could not be tried by commoners, who might include judges appointed by the king.

Why then all the fuss about the Carta? Well, the veneration of the relic  began  in the early seventeenth century, when members of the English Parliament and the famous jurist Sir Edward Coke revived the document in their struggle with the Stuart monarchs. They argued that free Englishmen had enjoyed a set of rights and privileges until they were disrupted by the Norman Conquest of 1066. In their view, Magna Carta embodied these rights, so it was held up as a model of a glorious past and part of an ancient constitution. Consistency and objectivity did not seem to enjoy great popularity.

Throughout the tumultuous seventeenth century, Magna Carta was invoked by opponents of whoever was in power, leading Oliver Cromwell famously to refer to the document as “Magna Farta.” In the eighteenth century, parliamentary sovereignty replaced monarchical absolutism, but Magna Carta continued to be invoked by reformers, now focused on Parliament rather than the king. (T. Ginsburg, ‘Stop Revering Magna Carta’, The New York Times, 15 June 2015).

On both sides of the Atlantic the Carta is venerated by a kind of priesthood – and understandably so; why, it is old, it is English and, because no one other than philologists has read the original, which by modern standards in incomprehensible English, it is easy to invoke to fit contemporary needs.

George Henry Brandis, Q.C., since May 2018 His Excellency The Honourable George Brandis Q.C., the Australian High Commissioner to the United Kingdom, was very fond of referring to it, and in the process of  ridiculing, while Attorney-General of the Abbott and Turnbull governments, any attempt at providing Australia with a Charter of Human Rights because Australia has had the good fortune of ‘inheriting from mother England’ the Magna Carta. Even admitting that George Brandis might have never read the Carta in its original version, such ‘good fortune’ leaves Australia as the only country of English language without any form of Bill of Rights. The common law, said Brandis is sufficient to uphold and protect human rights. It is the classical case of ipsedixitism – an unsupported dogmatic assertion.

Many Americans – and some of their vassals – are not alone in revering Magna Carta. Mohandas K. Gandhi cited it in arguing for racial equality in South Africa. Nelson Mandela invoked it at the trial that sent him to prison for 27 years. Americans, and Australians for that matter, are not the only ones, it seems, willing to stretch old legal texts beyond their original meaning. Like the Holy Grail, the myth of Magna Carta seems to matter more than the reality.

Continued Wednesday – Comedy without art (part 3)

Previous instalment – Comedy without art (part 1)

The Climate Change sceptics have been quite excited about the publicity attached to the passing of Clive James, who has been celebrated as a sceptic in the IPA publication Climate Change: The Facts 2017, but at the same time the sceptics have been angered by the ABC which has not made Clive’s scepticism widely enough known.

In 2016 Clive wrote a poem, Imminent Catastrophe, expressing Climate Change scepticism, published in The Times, London.

In his essay in the IPA publication, Mass Death Dies Hard, 2017, Clive tells us that he does not know anything about the mathematics of “modelling of non-linear systems,” but he does know, he says, about the mass media and ‘the abuse of language’.

He later goes on to say that when the Attorney General of the USA proposed that Climate Change sceptics be suppressed by law, he decided he would be a ‘dissenter’. So dissenting became his thing.

Where would he find sceptic dissent? From other dissenters/sceptics? By adding some dissent/scepticism of his own?

And would he also be very knowledgeable about the IPCC science about which he is so sceptical so that he could oppose the claims of the IPCC?

Looking at the opening lines of the poem Imminent Catastrophe we see:

“The imminent catastrophe goes on,

Not showing many signs of happening.

The ice the North Pole that should have gone

By now, is awkwardly still lingering.”

In his essay Mass Deaths Die Hard, he elaborates by claiming that the melting Arctic has the “miraculous capacity to go on producing ice in spite of the instructions of Al Gore.”

The sceptics deride Al Gore in particular because he made some high-profile statements about ice melting in the Arctic. Wikipedia, discussing predictions made by non-scientists, tells us about Al Gore:

Former US Vice President, when speaking at the UN’s COP 15 meeting in December 2009 said “Some models suggest that there is a 75% chance that the entire North Pole ice cap during some of the summer months will be completely ice-free with-in the next 5-7 years.” Dr Wieslav Maslowski, of the Naval Postgraduate School of Monterey, California, whom Gore used to source, disagreed with Gore’s forecast and told The Times: “It’s unclear to me how this figure was arrived at”, and clarified his forecast calling for “a six year projection for the melting of 80% of the ice,” but he said he expects some ice to remain beyond 2020.

So, is Gore the right person to listen to about melting Arctic ice? He was a non-scientific politician – and we know that politicians are not always to be believed, entrapped by ideology as they so often are. Why criticise Gore when so many real scientists expect Arctic sea to clear by 2040. Does that not concern sceptics as much as Gore’s mistaken prediction?

And are sceptics also entrapped by ideology? See for example, these claims by Watt’s Up With That: ‘The polar ice melt myth’, May 2019:

“…a more accurate view* of sea ice can be had from satellite images taken every day at the poles since 1981.These images show that between summer and winter, regardless of the degree of summer melting, the sea ice completely recovers to its original size the winter before for almost every year since the pictures were taken. The sea ice has been stubbornly resistant to Al Gore’s predictions. In fact the annual average of sea ice has been essentially the same since satellite observations began in 1981.”

Is this the kind of place where Clive James found his melting ice claim for the poem?

NASA tells us this:

“Arctic ice meets its minimum each September. September Arctic sea ice is now declining at a rate of 12.85% per decade, relative to the 1981 to 2010 average … The 2012 sea ice extent is the lowest in the satellite record.”

How can there be this kind of discrepancy in the reporting of observable events?

The same WUWT site mentions Professor Chris Turney. It claims that Turney was sailing in 2013 in an expedition to prove that Antarctic sea ice was undergoing catastrophic melting only to have his ship trapped in sea ice such that he could not be rescued by modern ice breakers!

Another site, (blog.heartland/2014/Antarctic-trip-too-far-chris-turney) features James H Rust, professor of nuclear engineering and policy advisor to The Heartland Institute.

Rust refers to an interview by Emma Alberici where Turney explains he was “…trying to answer questions about how climate change in the frozen continent might already be shifting weather patterns in Australia”. And Turney says windswept sea ice trapped the ship.

But Rust claims:

“Nowhere in Turney’s article [of explanation later] was it mentioned that global warming in the Antarctic was to be studied. No one seemed to pay attention to how Mawson sailed to shore at Commonwealth Bay in 1911, while sea ice prevented Turney from sailing closer than 65 kms off Commonwealth Bay shore in 2013. Is this a proof of increased atmospheric carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels causing global warming?”

What is this proof Rust is asking about? See how it is fixed in the heads of sceptics/deniers that if there is global warming then there cannot be ice in the Antarctic. Yet they are also happy to claim that there is no melting of sea ice in the Artic, when there is.

Joanna Nova, Australian sceptic/denier, makes an appearance in this same site, criticising the ABC – and Turney:

“The ABC PR machine covers for their embarrassment [over the ship stuck in ice] – lest anyone think that climate scientists might be clueless. In the ABC’s world an “Australian Research Team” with “60 scientists” left because “scientists believe there is evidence of climate change”. After they got stuck in ice they didn’t predict, and looked like partying fools on an ill-prepared junket, the magic wand of the ABC-apologia stopped using the term “climate” and underwent a magical transformation to become a “Russian Passenger Ship”.

See the ridicule and obfuscation employed by Nova. Oh yes. It was just a Ship of Fools! ‘Ill-prepared’! And the article goes on to add more distraction with examples of people who made long journeys and failed. Totally irrelevant.

Elsewhere Turney explains what happened to the Australian Mawson Centenary Expedition of 2013-14.

He says:

“…huge gaps in knowledge remain across the region investigated by the original [Mawson] expedition. To tackle these questions we spent the last two years building a team of experts keen to work with individuals outside their area of expertise. Meetings were held and questions honed. We decided, for instance, that among many other things we would investigate the circulation of the Southern Ocean and its impact on the global carbon cycle and the potential for records of past climate change using tree ring and peat sequences on the subantarctic islands…

“Today Mawson’s Huts lie behind 65 kms of sea ice, the result of a 2010 collision between an enormous berg known as B09B and the Mertz Glacier Tongue. As a result of this clash, B09B lodged itself on the seabed of Commonwealth Bay, changing the circulation dramatically.

“Climate Change was part of our programme, but the Australasian Antarctic Expedition is much more…

“Unluckily for us, there appears to have been a mass of thick, multiyear sea ice on the other side of the Mertz Glacier; years after the loss of the Mertz Glacier Tongue. There was nothing to suggest this event was imminent…

“(It seems) we had inadvertently followed the footsteps of the Edwardian Antarctic explorer Ernest Shackleton, whose ship had become caught in pack ice in 1915.”

Turney also tells us that they did find a way to get to Mawson’s Huts and that earlier in the season the research ship Aurora Australis was also stuck in ice.

We see how ideologically twisted the sceptic/ denier version is, so lacking in relevant details and intent only on ridiculing Turney and his expedition, trying to muddle the so-called “debate”.

Tony Eggleton, in his book on climate change (CUP, 2013) writes about loss of ice.

“From the satellite data alone, by the end of the summer of 2011 the Arctic sea ice cover had declined by 40% from its 1979-89 average.” (page 99)

And about the Antarctic: re several teams of researchers –

“All found an overall mass loss, though the annual amounts estimated ranged from 30 to 250 cubic kilometres.

“Another analysis of ice loss in just the Amundsen Sea catchment estimated about 40 cubic kilometres of ice was lost in 2009. From the perspective of ‘that’s not much’, using the larger figure (250 cubic kilometres a year) it would take 120 000 years before all the Antarctic ice melted. From ‘that’s a lot’ perspective, enough ice melted in 2009 to make an ice block one kilometre wide and one kilometre high, stretching the distance between Canberra and Sydney.” (page 101)

We see how far from understanding the sceptics/deniers are, with their woolly thinking, their ideological confusion and their irrationality. There is no coherent denier science.

Clive James was mistaken to try to borrow from the sceptic/deniers and to use them for his dissenting. Their way of thinking is at a far remove from the kind of thinking we would expect of Clive James. We might be forgiven if we thought Clive James’s writing is a satire/parody of sceptic denial.

What would Clive have made of the present catastrophe, the burning of his beloved Australia?

And all that discussion arising here in this post after looking at just four lines of his poem. There could have been more! We could look at more details of Clive James’s writing in his essay and then at some of the statements made by individual denier/sceptics elsewhere in the IPA publication.

By Dr George Venturini 

6. Comedy without art

“Commedia dell’arte, (Italian: “comedy of the profession[als]”) Italian theatrical form that flourished throughout Europe from the 16th through the 18th century. Outside Italy, the form had its greatest success in France, where it became the Comédie–Italienne. In England, elements from it were naturalized in the harlequinade in pantomime and in the Punch-and-Judy show, a puppet play involving the commedia dell’arte character Punch. The comical Hanswurst, of German folklore, was also a commedia dell’arte character.

The commedia dell’arte was a form of popular theatre that emphasized ensemble acting; its improvisations were set in a firm framework of masks and stock situations, and its plots were frequently borrowed from the classical literary tradition of the commedia erudita, or literary drama. Professional players who specialized in one role developed an unmatched comic acting technique, which contributed to the popularity of the itinerant commedia troupes that travelled throughout Europe. Despite contemporary depictions of scenarios and masks and descriptions of particular presentations, impressions today of what the commedia dell’arte was like are second hand. The art is a lost one, its mood and style irrecoverable.” (‘Written by the Editors of the Encyclopaedia Britannica, commedia dell’arte’, www.britannica.com).

Australia is quite a different place from what was put together by Englanders in 1901.

Australia has grown from a population of estimated 750,000 Indigenous People in 1788, to one of 3,765.000 non-Indigenous in 1901, to one of 23,401,892 people – of whom 649,171 Indigenous and Torres Strait Islanders – on census night, 9 August 2016, and estimated 25 million late in the evening of 7 August 2018.

At the 2016 census, 26 per cent of the Australian resident population, or 6,163,667 people, were born overseas. The distribution by place of birth is as follows, and only countries with 50,000 or more are listed hereafter:

Due to several waves of immigration, the European component of the population is declining as a percentage.

The Australian population hit 23,401,892 on census night 2016.

Until the second world war, the vast majority of immigrants came from the British Isles, and a majority of Australians have some British or Irish ancestry. These Australians form an ethnic group known as Anglo-Celtic Australians – an absolutely bloody mis-nomer. Anglo-Celtic may serve the lazy Englanders, but has nothing to do with the truth.

The number of overseas-born Australians coming from England has steadily declined over the years, while one has seen increasing arrivals from China and India, particularly since 2006. In the 2016 Australian census, the most commonly nominated ancestries were: English, 36.1 per cent; Australian, 33.5 per cent; Irish, 11.0 per cent; Scottish, 9.3 per cent; Chinese, 5.6 per cent; Italian, 4.6 per cent; German,  4.5 per cent; Indian, 2.8 per cent; Greek, 1.8 per cent, and Dutch, 1.6 per cent.

At the 2016 census 47.3 per cent of people had both parents born in Australia and 34.4 per cent of people had both parents born overseas. And on this subject one should not dismiss the effect of the recent ‘bleedings’ of parliamentarians, due to their dual subject-ship – citizenship in some, rare cases – and the other which will undoubtedly developed from that insipid, mouldy, thread-bare, moth-eaten piece of paper which is the Constitution of 1901. Consider the little problem that present members of Parliament, who so often mouth about multiculturalism – of which they know little-to-nothing – may have from the ‘new reading’ of sections 42 in relation to section 44.

Now, by s. 42 “Every senator and every member of the House of Representatives shall before taking his seat make and subscribe before the Governor-General, or some person authorised by him, an oath or affirmation of allegiance in the form set forth in the schedule to this Constitution.” And the Schedule offers: “I, A.B., do swear that I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to Her Majesty Queen [Elisabeth II], Her heirs and successors according to law. So help me God!” or “I, A.B., do solemnly and sincerely affirm and declare that I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to Her Majesty Queen [Elisabeth II], Her heirs and successors according to law.” Any republican around?

Section 44 (i) provides that any person who: “is under any acknowledgment of allegiance, obedience, or adherence to a foreign power, or is a subject or a citizen or entitled to the rights or privileges of a subject or a citizen of a foreign power;

… shall be incapable of being chosen or of sitting as a senator or a member of the House of Representatives.”

Every consideration about a candidate’s personal faith, political or religious, could cause some problem. Perjury comes to mind. Perhaps, just perhaps, these two provisions are clashing. Queen Elisabeth II – yes, of course, also ‘Queen of Australia’ – could be regarded as a ‘foreign power’ no matter how much the soi-disant ‘Mountbatten’ (actually Battenberg, from the town of Battenberg, Hesse) (Windsors) crowd may try to put as much distance as possible between themselves and the Haus Sachsen-Coburg und Gotha, which is an effluent of the Haus Wettin, itself a lair of German counts, dukes, prince-electors and kings who once ruled territories in the present-day German states of Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt and Thuringia.

And the more one reads about Buckingham Palace’s interest in Cayman Islands and other tax havens the more one sees the alien.

It seems fair to presume that people who have experienced the questionable ‘blessings’ of imperial or colonial domination – whether of a political or socio-economic nature – would welcome the final liberation from the condition of subject and the opportunity to belong to a republic. There is no magic in that; there are only guarantees which are contained in a truly modern constitution. Anyone heard of Finland, younger than Australia?

The experience of people coming from overseas may be different, but there is no reason to suspect that, in a truly open, informed, participatory society, people born in countries such as China, India, the Philippines, Vietnam, Italy, South Africa, Malaysia, Sri Lanka, Germany, South Korea, Greece, Hong Kong, United States, Lebanon, Ireland, Indonesia, the Netherlands, Iraq, Thailand, Pakistan, Fiji, Ian, Singapore, Nepal would not appreciate the advantage of a modern, democratic, secular and peaceful republic.

There is still hope that the opportunity could attract even people from Australia, England, New Zealand and Scotland. It would make, at present, a balance of about seven million new-arrivals to seventeen million of mother-country-subjects.

First things first

The title is deliberately offensive, but not of the First Nations – as they later came to be known.

When the English invaders arrived on 26 January 1788 the estimated 750,000 Indigenous People did not exist – official. They were later mistaken as fauna, disposed of with the gun, poisoned with unwanted foreign food, killed when possible, massacred repeatedly, or chained up, rounded up in lagers to be Christianised, catalogued, classified with reference to their colour, blood, size and appearance, registered as objects – and always with the design and hope that they would die out, and when that seemed not the case that they be ‘improved’ in missions, ‘civilised’ so as to appease the succeeding waves of other occupiers, and more recently ‘advised’, consulted – up to a point and to the extent, convenience and comfort of the occupiers, introduced to ‘responsible government’, and in May 2017 once again deceived by the latest manager of the post-colonial show. The ignorant rustic clowns, and some learned but morally deaf leader said that, “No, that was not the way.” The Indigenous People should try again and, for the time being, improve their show. When they debased themselves to propose a double sovereignty – one to the Old Culture and the other to the modern representative of the original invaders – they were not even told thank you for that. What they were told is that their proposed “ ‘voice to Parliament’ was impractical and offensive” to the ‘establish order’; the Westminster System as transplanted in Australia in 1788!

Making the subjects

So, how does that 25-plus per cent of newcomers become Australian? By acquiring ‘Australian values’, that is how. More insidiously, how would a person – an intending visitor or a new resident – go about to apply for a ‘selected visa’?

And what are those ‘values’? Well, the Australian Government decides.

To begin with, “Applicants for a permanent or provisional visa must:

read the Life in Australia book, then sign or accept the Australian values statement.” (Australian Values Statement, immi.homeaffairs.gov.au).

And those ‘values’ include:

• respect for the freedom and dignity of the individual
• equality of men and women
• freedom of religion
• commitment to the rule of law
• parliamentary democracy
• a spirit of egalitarianism that embraces mutual respect, tolerance, fair play, compassion for those in need and pursuit of the public good
• equality of opportunity for individuals, regardless of their race, religion or ethnic background.

These ‘values’ may be expressed in different ways by different people while still maintaining the same meaning. They are not unique to Australia, but have broad community agreement and underpin Australian society and culture. So, anyway, says the Australian Government.

The ‘values’ statement is included with most visa application forms either as a question or as part of the declaration.

So, on the appointed day a newcomer may join a multitude of others – some of them holding a little Australian flag, as a visual symbol of patriotic fervour – and take an oath or make an affirmation similar to the one previously indicated.

Does that include an oath to the Constitution, that horse-and-buggy piece of paper approved by the Imperial Parliament in London and designed to satisfy the interests of the former colonials, skilfully divided from each other in repetitive states and theoretically united in what would better serve a confederal system, born-old and now over one hundred years of age?

As already seen, the text of that document is such that no sentient person would take it seriously as a foundation-pact even for a theatrical troupe.

It is doubtful if a newcomer would fully comprehend the consequences of accepting ‘parliamentary democracy’ as a defining ‘value’, particularly if s/he erroneously were to understand by that ‘one head, one vote, one weight’ in the electoral process purported to set up, arrange and sustain that form of democracy.

Most of those ‘values’, collectively and separately considered, are not worth the time.

The truth telling, it is almost impossible to disagree with Donald Horne, when he wrote: “A large part of Australians’ values are measured in money. Describe our economic life and you describe a large part of our culture.” (Death of the lucky country, Penguin Books, Ringwood, Vic. 1976, at 62-63).

It is hard to believe that in Australia there is ‘freedom of religion’ with or without ‘equality of opportunity for individuals, regardless of their race  (that word, again!), religion or ethnic background’ in the light of a clear prejudice   from the leaders up-there  to the populace out-there – against people of the Muslim faith, for instance, as cultivated by the very Australian Government.

The national identity projected by the government is wrapped up in an egalitarianism which clashes with a growing sense of inequality and the patent danger of a permanent division of the country into two classes.

‘The average Australian’, the ‘mainstream’, ‘middle Australia’ and the over-used ‘fair go for all’ are expressions of a collective illusion cultivated and propagated by public persons and commentators to persuade the plebs that the Australian is a classless society.

The fundamental distinction and chasm between two groups of Australians begins with education. And by that one should understand the liberating force which may draw one out of the lowliest circumstances. So the value of a good start at school is almost incalculable. While most children attend state primary schools, students from high-income families are often already ahead of those whose parents can afford only to send them to a single, subsidised preschool year. By secondary school the natural desire of higher-income families to pay for the-best-schooling-money-can-buy has resulted in a drift to private schools with superior resources and facilities and better teaching conditions. Learning? that is a different, often incidental matter.

It does not matter that the pupil is totally indifferent to the advantage guaranteed by possession of money. Nor does the paying family care, usually because the only distinction of it is the possession of that money.

What matters are the externalities, sublimated in the uniform preferably completed by the boater. Nowadays boaters are rarely seen except at sailing or rowing events, and what average Australian family can afford that luxury? The boater is more suitable for  period theatrical and musical performances – barbershop music, for instance – or as part of old-fashioned school uniforms, particularly popular in the late 19th century and early 20th century and still a nostalgic re-evocation of ‘home’ for incurable Englanders.

The wearing of the boater class-ifies a pupil and gives him (mostly it is for boys) a sense of belonging to an exclusive club – the Anglosphere? – with components such as Harrow ‘at home’, or Shore and  Knox in Australia, or Maritzburg, Parktown and Wynberg in South Africa. The boater signifies separation and commands respect from the plebs.

Continued Saturday – Comedy without art (part 2)

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