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Andrew Bolt isn't a racist, but ...

The Drum
By Chelsea Bond

Posted March 25, 2014 16:01:47

Andrew Bolt's views are reminiscent of a by-gone era. Photo: Andrew Bolt's views are reminiscent of a by-gone era. (One Plus One)

The Coalition's push to make changes to the Racial Discrimination Act was in part a response to a court ruling that Andrew Bolt had breached the Act over his comments about Aboriginal Australians. Here, Chelsea Bond revisits the newspaper columnist's treatment of Aboriginality, explaining that race is more than skin deep.

"Andrew Bolt is not racist," George Brandis assured us just a few weeks back on ABC's Q&A. Bolt too has insisted that he is not a racist. And much to Bolt's delight, Professor Marcia Langton has also confirmed that he is not a racist in a recent radio interview, the transcript of which was posted on Bolt's blog - a public apology also followed soon after on Q&A for broadcasting the discussion that apparently implied he was racist.  

So there we have it: Andrew Bolt is not racist. But he does subscribe to some interesting ideas about race...

Bolt's insistence that we abandon talking about 'race' (specifically, it seems, when we talk about Aboriginal people) is informed by a logic that Aboriginal people are starting to look 'whiter' in appearance. Indeed, 'race' as a biological construct was debunked long ago, with scientists finding more genetic variations within particular 'races' of people than between them. But race as a biological construct is useless, whether Aboriginal people all have black skin or white skin.

Differences between 'races' are not explained by genes, biology or physical traits but instead through social, cultural, historical and economic differences. Race is real, because we have acted as though it is real. Racist ideology informed colonial relationships and legislative interventions imposed upon Aboriginal people for over 200 years. To suggest to a group of people that race doesn't matter, when for generations they've been oppressed on this very basis, is either extremely naïve or extremely offensive.

Andrew Bolt is not racist ... but he has been "at worst, dishonest and misleading and at best, grossly careless", in the words of the Court of Appeal in their judgement in Popovic v Herald & Weekly Times & Anor in 2002.

Bolt insists that he has been silenced from commenting about Aboriginal people's identity, when he knows this to be untrue. In the case of Eatock v Bolt, Justice Bromberg assured Andrew that "nothing in the orders I make should suggest that it is unlawful for a publication to deal with racial identification, including by challenging the genuineness of the identification of a group of people". He can interrogate the identity of Aboriginal people who have fair skin but he has to be truthful. Bolt told fibs about Aboriginal people's lineage, in the same way that colonial blood quantum discourses do about ancestry, and lived experiences of identity.

Since this ruling, Bolt has been far from silent on this agenda. An additional 25 Aboriginal people have had their images published on his blog, often accompanying his comment of 'no comment'. The tactic of 'no comment' is cleverly deployed to cast the same aspersions about these people that he did toward the original 18 individuals who featured in the articles at the heart of the aforementioned court case. 'No comment' is also a useful device to masquerade himself as the "muzzled" victim who has allegedly been silenced by the powerful Left or the powerful Blacks. Though the fact that now even school children are the target of his attention makes clear that he has exercised no restraint, and knows no boundaries in his Aboriginality crusade.

Andrew Bolt is not racist ... but his views are reminiscent of a by-gone era. Bolt invited his readers to "meet the white face of a new black race"; however, 'white-faced Aboriginies' have been around for some time, Andrew, as has the white moral panic surrounding their existence.

A Report of the Protector of Aborigines in South Australia in 1910 expressed concern that, "in many parts of the State may be seen practically white males and females squatting in blacks' camps". This growing "half-caste" population was a 'menace' and problem that had to be fixed through their absorption into the general population, while the 'full-blood' was destined to die out.

The aspirational goal of a white Australia demanded the erasure of the 'Aborigine' from the Australian landscape. Yet it wasn't that easy. The Advertiser in 1934 reported Tindale's observations of a young girl "whose blood was fifteen-sixteenths white" but whose parents were still associating with "full blood aborigines". The article noted that it would be most unfortunate if that girl "were trained to tend toward the native rather than to European customs, because all though in every sense white to look at, she would in time, through her association with the blacks become to all intents and purposes a true aborigine".

In 1951, anthropologist M Reay remarked that "even the women of light caste are capable of tracing their own descent and that of other light-caste aborigines in their community back to their aboriginal ancestors". While Aboriginal blood may have been 'diluted' according to colonial blood quantum discourses, the identity of Aboriginal people and communities persisted - and well before it was "fashionable", Andrew. Reay notes that the half-caste's absorption into the general population was "retarded" because white men risked a "diminished status" if marrying an Aboriginal women (half-caste or otherwise), and prosecution for consorting with an Aborigine. She noted that "mixed blood" Aboriginal men were more likely to support illegitimate children than white men; so while "black velvet" may have been a highly sought after commodity by white men on the frontier, the products of these liaisons simply weren't.

But this conversation about Aboriginality runs more than skin deep. Defining and controlling Aboriginal people was a necessary project of the coloniser and remains a popular past-time of many non-Indigenous Australians. Chesterman and Douglas noted that protectionist legislation in all states demanded a legal definition of who was Aboriginal and who was not as there was a need to distinguish between the coloniser and the colonised.

And this speaks to the very core of Bolt's crusade. It is not simply skin colour that confounds Bolt, but in my view it is the possibility that the 'colonised' could simultaneously be Aboriginal and powerful in their life and in narrating their own identity. In one of his rare comments in recent times, Bolt bemused that an Aboriginal professor "speaks the colonisers' language very well". This remark tells us very little about Aboriginal identity and instead reveals his own anxiety toward the dilution of the 'coloniser's' identity, power and privilege.

Andrew Bolt may not be racist ... but his obsession with, and expectations of Aboriginal bodies and minds is ... well, no comment ...

Dr Chelsea Bond is an Aboriginal (Munanjahli) and South Sea Islander Australian and a senior lecturer with the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies Unit at the University of Queensland. View her full profile here.

Topics: aboriginal, indigenous-aboriginal-and-torres-strait-islander, media, journalism

Comments (367)

Comments for this story are closed.

  • robert:

    25 Mar 2014 4:17:07pm

    Chelsea, if race is so inconsequensial as you say why do you go on at length about it?
    What happened to Andrew Bolt is outragous in a supposed free country and this change by the government should correct that.

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    • Mark James:

      25 Mar 2014 6:02:08pm

      You're saying it's "outrageous" that the fair-skinned Bolt was found guilty of having used "significant distortions of fact" to ?offend" "humiliate" and "intimidate" 9 people?

      And do you think it's "outrageous" that Bolt's fair-skinned colleagues have attempted to silence Julie Posetti for an accurate tweet, and the Chaser for causing offence through satire?

      No doubt, this Coalition government will "correct" one instance of censorship but not the others.

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      • Who Cares:

        25 Mar 2014 7:29:23pm

        This is not about censorship, it is about confirming that Australia is a racist country in the eyes of the world.

        Its a drum that the global press, including our own local press, have been beating for the last year or so. And its a drum beat that the world is more than happy to play along with.

        If the world wants to think that Australia is a racist country full of racists then there is little we can do about it. We don't have a global section 18C to challenge people global with.

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        • Mitor the Bold:

          25 Mar 2014 8:37:10pm

          If you remember how South Africa was regarded internationally in the 1980s - Australia is seen as a slightly dilute version of that. These days if you go to a hotel or a bank or a school in Joburg you will encounter many black people leading, managing and teaching. Not so much in Sydney. If you don't think the world's noticed then you're not being very perceptive.

          For a powerful white man in the media to claim that our impoverished, debased, depressed indigenous people are chortling under their collective breath because they've pretended to be something they're not for a few hundred bucks is no different than the old ruling Afrikaners claiming that blacks were not fit to vote.

          It's a clever way to wriggle out of being called a racist by simply claiming there's no such thing as race.

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        • APM:

          26 Mar 2014 6:58:37am

          'impoverished, debased, depressed indigenous people'.

          This description does not fit the people Bolt offended. They live in cities, according to Western ways, and seem financially secure. It is far from obvious what makes them different. I can't see how they can suffer from discrimination. I think reasonable people would conclude that they are Aboriginal in their imagination, which is fine, but the rest of society should not have to pay for this pointlessly divisive fantasy they they have constructed, that also diverts funds from more obvious victims.

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        • Rae:

          26 Mar 2014 8:17:18am

          So it seems okay to 'imagine' yourself Greek, Italian, Hebrew, Chinese etc Australian but not Aboriginal Australian.

          I totally disagree.

          I'm fifth generation Irish, Scottish, Aboriginal Australian if I had to tack on a descriptive before Australian identity.

          I don't identify as anything other than Australian although the tribe my great great grandmother belonged to has accepted me and shared Women's business and sites with me during a visit made several years ago back to my grandmother's country.

          I see the problem is a lack of respect for simple Australian identity.. It seems we have decided it isn't alright to be just Australian but you need to identify roots.

          It is divisive in the extreme and of great concern with over a million new Australians who may never identify as simply Australian.

          I do agree with your comment about the money though. It seems e toss money at a problem hoping that will fix it up and it isn't working.

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        • Leon:

          26 Mar 2014 10:14:49am

          Simple seems to be the appropriate word Rae.

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        • dubious the third:

          26 Mar 2014 9:13:07am

          Perhaps it's your imaginings about what you think an Aboriginal Person should be that is the problem APM.

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        • Onion peeler:

          26 Mar 2014 10:11:37am

          Dubious, can you tell us your idea of an Aboriginal person? For you do is it mean anyone who has some Aboriginal ancestor no matter how distant?

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        • dubious the third:

          26 Mar 2014 11:06:30am

          Although the term Aboriginal is problematic ( a term ascribed by the illegal invaders ) it is not for me to decide who falls into such a category. Indigenous Peoples the world over have a right to determine who is and who isn't indigenous.

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        • APM:

          26 Mar 2014 11:57:52am

          When there are special rights and privileges involved, I say that the rest of society also has a role 'to determine who is and who isn't indigenous', especially when it is increasingly failing the pub test.

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        • lazarus:

          26 Mar 2014 10:32:25am

          Of course you grew up in country Queensland where white skin didn't stop you from being called a black bastard didn't you?

          You have no idea and obviously haven't met many aboriginal people. Can you enlighten us on exactly how "white" you have to be to not be aboriginal?

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        • robert:

          26 Mar 2014 11:19:25am

          Not even close. South Africa is completely different,no comparison whatsoever!

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        • The Realist:

          26 Mar 2014 3:59:43pm

          Mitor the Goose.
          Another supporter of the multi billion dollar Aboriginal industry and all its over paid apologists sitting on their white backsides in Cantberra telling everyone what the indigenous people need without ever having met one of us.
          I'll tell you what we need - less manufactured excuses to hide behind and less incentive to sit on our black behinds and be dictated to by the likes of you.

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        • I Care Huckleberry:

          26 Mar 2014 12:16:17am

          Who Cares
          "If the world wants to think that Australia is a racist country full of racists then there is little we can do about it"

          Perhaps being a little less racist might help. Pretty outrageous idea I know.

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      • Michael Dixon:

        25 Mar 2014 8:55:34pm

        It's outrageous that the entirely subjective concepts of offence and humiliation should form the basis of a criminal offence. Second-rate republics and tin-pot monarchies, for example, have offences such as "insulting Turkishness" or " offending the nation".

        On the other hand, we have 18C, so we're on the slippery slope.

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        • Umberto:

          26 Mar 2014 8:15:41am

          Michael, s18c contains a reasonableness - and hence objective - standard, like so much Australian legislation and common law. That and s18D contain ample protections, so long as the commentator makes his or her points reasonably and accurately. Bolt did neither of those things.

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        • Mark James:

          26 Mar 2014 10:07:49am

          MD, firstly breaching the RDA is not a "criminal offence".

          Secondly, the RDA has a free-speech provision which would have protected the fair-skinned Bolt had he not relied on "significant distortions of fact" to attack his chosen targets.

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        • Peter the Lawyer:

          26 Mar 2014 12:12:06pm

          But Mark you are begging the question. Is this law necessary? Should the giving of mere offence be unlawful.

          We aren't talking about villification or incitement here, just offence. Can you exoplain to me why certain classes of people should be allowed to get recompense for being offended and other can't.

          The test in 18C is not as objective as all that because it relates to offence. and the reasonable person is not all of us but a memeber of the class in question.

          Then in interpreting the defence, the Judge made up the rules about accuracy and and tone. it is quite clear that another judge could have come to a different conclusion.

          So as you can see the law here is a very blunt instrument that is being used for a very dubious purpose.

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        • Mark James:

          26 Mar 2014 12:48:34pm

          PtL, the giving of offence is not of itself unlawful as it is balanced by the free-speech provision of 18D

          We could argue as to whether it is balanced too much one way or another, but the fact is it offers protection to the offender providing the offender does not use "significant distortions of fact" on which to base his or her offending.

          As for the judge "making up the rules about accuracy", that is a nonsense. Even the fair-skinned Bolt agreed with Bromberg that at least two of the things he'd written were inaccurate.

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      • Tristan:

        25 Mar 2014 10:24:44pm

        "This is not about censorship, it is about confirming that Australia is a racist country in the eyes of the world."

        To Who Cares,

        The Cronulla beach riots certainly helped cement that reputation overseas.

        I didn't even know where Cronulla was located before the protest, but the riots put it in on the map and garnered international attention.

        Now the first word many people associate with Cronulla is riot, not beach, not Sharks.



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        • Rae:

          26 Mar 2014 8:20:17am

          That riot was not about race but about culture.

          Try going into any Surfing community anywhere in Australia and taunting the girls about their bikinis, dress and morals and watch what the surfer boys do.

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        • APM:

          26 Mar 2014 8:23:29am

          If politicians and the police had paid attention to the middle Eastern group that was terrorising the people of Cronulla on racial grounds, then there wouldn't have been a backlash. The revenge attacks by the middle eastern group was also far more violent than anything that happened at the only part of the riots that conveniently interests the Left. It's pretty shallow and dishonest to reinvent history just because there wasn't tv footage of most of the violence, and pretend only whites are racist. I might add that because of their actions the people of Cronulla are no longer subject to racial attacks by non-whites.

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        • astro free press:

          26 Mar 2014 9:42:23am

          Those commenting about the delicate flowers of Cronulla being "terrorised" by Middle Eastern youths with gentlemanly white chaps coming to the rescue on their noble steeds obviously don't know much about Cronulla. Didn't you chaps ever read "Puberty blues"? (sigh) hasn't changed that much actually.

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        • Dani:

          26 Mar 2014 11:50:13am

          You are the one who obviously has no idea. Puberty Blues highlighted the worst elements of Anglo culture in the 70's. To blame white people for anyting that happens to then subsequently is bigoted and racist. You try being sexually assualted, assualted or bullied. Even middle aged women enjoying the parks in the area weren't safe from initimidation. I hope your "delicate little flower" gets a shake-up.

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        • Nell:

          26 Mar 2014 2:35:11pm

          "Worst aspect of Anglo culture in the 70's." Are you suggesting those elements have somehow disappeared, they haven't!

          Women of any kind are still harassed in public places (not to mention workplaces) and until very, very recently police were not willing to intervene.

          It has taken a great deal for women to institute these changes in our lives and progress has been excruciatingly slow.

          There are grounds for believing that we are now going backwards.

          Oh, BTW, I think you mean Anglo-Celtic culture. You see there's a hellova lotta people of Irish and Scot background who are not necessarily comfortable with this assertive Imperialistic "Anglo" thing.

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        • APM:

          26 Mar 2014 12:01:08pm

          You just mocked victims of racism on the basis on their race.

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        • Amarok:

          26 Mar 2014 9:27:16am

          Have you done a global survey to support your statement? I think that if you mentioned the word Cronulla to people of other nations, they would say - what's a "cronulla"?

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      • John1:

        25 Mar 2014 11:06:56pm

        Mark James

        Perhaps you should read your own post and realise you are guilty of the very thing you admonish Bolt for.

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        • Mark James:

          26 Mar 2014 10:11:44am

          John1, what exactly am I "guilty" of? I used no "significant distortions of fact" in my post.

          Perhaps you could say what the charge is or apologise?

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      • Jimiatrix:

        26 Mar 2014 3:45:56am

        "You're saying it's "outrageous" that the fair-skinned Bolt was found guilty of having used "significant distortions of fact" to ?offend" "humiliate" and "intimidate" 9 people? "

        No, Robert is not saying the words you attribute to him. He is saying it is outrageous that Bolt's civil right to freely express his opinions was trampled on by insecure lefties and insecure individuals who identify culturally and socially as Aboriginal but look indistinguishable from anglo-saxon whites and have very little Aboriginal blood in them.

        "And do you think it's "outrageous" that Bolt's fair-skinned colleagues have attempted to silence Julie Posetti for an accurate tweet, and the Chaser for causing offence through satire?"

        No, Robert did not say anything to indicate he thinks what you attribute to him. Robert did not even mention Julie Posetti or those Chaser clowns.

        Please stop putting words into people's mouths.

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        • Tristan:

          26 Mar 2014 7:45:06am

          "He is saying it is outrageous that Bolt's civil right to freely express his opinions was trampled on."

          Jimiatrix,

          Bolt freely expressed his opinion under the exemption to section 18c - which is section 18d.

          Bolt made at least 19 factual errors and was neither fair nor accurate.

          That's why Bolt lost the court case.

          Last night on Lateline, George "okay to be a bigot" Brandis gave his blessing for people to also "spread mistruths".

          So that covers Andrew Bolt.

          Bet you the number of people who read the correction to the mistruths is vastly outnumbered by people who read the original mistruths.

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      • APM:

        26 Mar 2014 7:12:42am

        How was the Kenny depiction 'satire'? What was the clever and hilarious point being made? That obscene taxpayer funded vilification did not make a political point, whereas Bolt calmly and rationally made a simple observation on an issue that troubles millions of us and deserves some sort of public discussion. Tell me Mark, where is a more polite discussion about Aboriginal identity to be had? because I can't think of a publically legal way to debate this under the old rules, or are there topics banned in a free society?

        Don't worry Mark, the ABC will ignore the new discrimination rules, and continue to apply its own censorship wherever it pleases, as the ABC thinks its standards are superior to community standards. Why bothering debating people on a medium that censors their contributions, and you support censorship yourself?

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        • Mark James:

          26 Mar 2014 10:28:06am

          APM, you seem to be suggesting that satirists should not be free to speak if you don't find their satire funny, or if you don't consider their satire to be making a political point?

          Are you not aware that, if you support free-speech, you also have to support speech which you do not approve of, or that you find objectionable?

          As for the ABC's moderating guidelines, let me tell you that the ABC are far less censorious of your opinionsthan News Corp are of mine.

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        • APM:

          26 Mar 2014 2:55:44pm

          I amend my last comment. An article about the limits of free speech has been shut down by lunch of the first day. Too many 'unacceptable' comments one suspects. I'd laugh if it wasn't so outrageous.

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        • lazarus:

          26 Mar 2014 10:47:25am

          You could actually have facts to back up your claims and you could go the old eugenics way which is what you and Bolt seem to want to be able to declare a person white at what? 1/4, 1/8, 1/16 Aboriginal as it used to be described.

          Tell us why if you live on country allocated to you by the Government, you are accepted in the community as aboriginal because of your family ties, you are abused by those nice white people because you are a black bastard why you should be deemed white by yourself or Andrew Bolt.

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        • godbothered:

          26 Mar 2014 11:31:30am

          Lazarus,

          your 2nd paragraph, "Tell us why if you live on country...." is brilliant. You truly nailed the key point that is lost on the ignorant and the deliberately malicious.

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    • lazarus:

      25 Mar 2014 6:20:54pm

      Why, because he could not be bothered to do any basic fact checking before publishing his story. If you are that stupid you deserve to be held to account for it.

      I know facts are an anaethema to those on the right but they are supposed to be the basic foundations of a journalists story. Giving credit to Bolt for being any thing other than a biased commentator is a vey long bow to draw.

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      • Paul:

        25 Mar 2014 8:40:48pm

        Lazarus, journalists produce "stories" and they never let the facts get in the way. That is why they get along so well with politicians.

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        • AndrewB:

          26 Mar 2014 12:01:10pm

          You mean "journalists". Don't discredit actual hard working journalists who produce actual news stories based on fact day in and day out (across all media outlets) by lumping them in with the biased social commentators of both the right and left who liberally omit certain truths in order to swing public opinion.

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    • Tristan:

      25 Mar 2014 6:28:40pm

      Robert,

      Andrew Bolt deservedly lost the court case because he failed to fulfil the exemption to section 18c - section 18d.

      Bolt was neither fair nor accurate.

      That's why he lost

      Bolt is also one to accuse others on trading on their identity.

      When Bolt did just that to argue why he should be parachuted into a plum hosting role on the ABC ahead of better qualified and more experienced journalists with decades of experience.

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      • robert:

        25 Mar 2014 7:51:53pm

        Tristan and the rest of you, Andrew Bolt lost because of a political regulation which will now be removed.

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        • James:

          25 Mar 2014 9:19:33pm

          This is my understanding of the matter. Bolt lost the case because he defamed the parties involved due to their race. The parties involved could have sued Bolt for defamation in a civil court and they would have won and been awarded compensation based of the findings of the case. They chose not bring civil case instead they lodged a complaint and the government took bolt to court.

          Not everybody has the ability to finance a civil case for defamation especially against someone with the resources of Bolt.

          So should people who are defamed due to their race and not able to afford the cost of civil proceedings be able to get a government help in cases based on race?

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        • Michael Dixon:

          26 Mar 2014 7:33:04am

          No. Your understanding is incorrect.

          The parties did not sue for defamation. That's because they would have lost the case. 18c, on the other hand, is an easy-peasy win when the law is drafted with contempt for liberal western civilised values. Having a morally outraged judge helps as well.

          That's how we got Native Title. Morally outraged judges on the High Court.

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        • astro free press:

          26 Mar 2014 9:52:21am

          No michael they wouldn't have lost the case. It's quite obvious that defamation had occurred. But you are correct in saying that that there's a lot of people outraged about racism.

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        • RayS:

          25 Mar 2014 10:50:39pm

          Bolt should have been sued for slander for all he and his godfather Rupert own, not merely prosecuted under 18c and required to apologize.

          Slander is the communication of a false statement that harms the reputation of an individual, business, product, group, government, religion, or nation. The false statement was that certain Aborigines were really white people only adopting Aboriginality to gain advantage and benefit. That statement is an abominable accusation to level at people who had always lived their lives as Aborigines and had focused their lives on the betterment and advancement of Aborigines.

          The statement capitalizes on the ignorant but widespread prejudice that Aborigines are actually advantaged and get stuff that white people do not get, ignoring the hundreds of years of disadvantage and discrimination.

          It was slander, not just racial vilification.

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        • KA:

          26 Mar 2014 10:03:14am

          Thank you RayS for the most insightful comments that I've read so far - lets just be a little gracious here and not forget the hundreds of years of disadvantage and discrimination faced by Aboriginal people in this post-colonial country.

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        • Consideredview:

          25 Mar 2014 11:24:12pm

          At the very end of the judgement (you can find it here on the ABC web site) the judge said it was not the issue of race being discussed, but the way that it was discussed, with errors or mis-representations of fact.

          Andrew Bolt demanded apologies from the ABC because a panelist called him racist - a court of Law had found the same thing.

          Andrew was very upset! So horrible, upsetting a man who uses his web site to make people angry at Aboriginal people, really nice guy.

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        • Darkwood:

          26 Mar 2014 12:32:10am

          By 'political regulation' you of course mean a law enacted by the Australian Federal Parliament?

          And yes - it may well be amended by this incarnation of the same body, championed by an Attorney-General who champions your right to be a bigot.

          Progress, mmm

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      • Tristan:

        25 Mar 2014 10:31:08pm

        "Andrew Bolt lost because of a political regulation which will now be removed."

        Robert,

        Nothing like being in a position of power to further the interests of your mates and political donors, is there?

        You scratch my back, I'll scratch yours.

        For anyone who's endured the Bolt Report, it's a 1 hour free commercial for the Liberal party aired twice on Sundays.

        Then there's Bolt's Herald-Sun column and 2GB radio spot - always criticising the ALP and never been negative about the Liberals.

        Repealing section 18c is payment in kind.

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    • the working man:

      25 Mar 2014 8:12:46pm

      Robert, spot defending a man who seeks to divide a country.
      He like Abbott works by rule 1 of the right. Divide and rule,
      always has always will. I remember the nasty, vile comments
      you and your right wing nutters said of PM Gillard.

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      • Platapus:

        25 Mar 2014 9:31:52pm

        It would seem that the people who see the world in terms of 'Aboriginal-not-Aboriginal' are the ones dividing the country.

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        • Phil:

          26 Mar 2014 9:56:31am

          It would seem that after removing Aboriginal peoples' land base and economic independence, subjecting them to draconian restrictions on personal liberties amounting to virtual imprisonment in Government-run reserves, barring them from receiving an education, decimating their languages and cultures, using them as virtual slave labour, and locking them out of having a political voice for nearly 200 years, Australians want to be able to wash their hands of them by saying "there's no such thing as Aboriginal or not Aboriginal; we're all Australian and we're equal, stop being divisive."

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        • Gr8Ape:

          26 Mar 2014 11:10:19am

          Hmm yeah, and women are just men who wear dresses.

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        • godbothered:

          26 Mar 2014 11:23:46am

          Platapus,

          "It would seem that the people who see the world in terms of 'Aboriginal-not-Aboriginal' are the ones dividing the country.".

          What the? Who sees "the world" in those terms? I mean, how would a person see the crisis in Crimea or the search for MH 370 (you know, "the world"), "...in terms of 'Aboriginal-not-Aboriginal'..."?

          What a bizarre smokescreen...I mean comment!

          Anyway, it's the conservatives who see the world in black and white...quite divisive really. ;)

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      • John1:

        25 Mar 2014 11:05:09pm

        the working man

        No, this is about ridding ourselves of legislation designed to silence reasonable debate.

        You may not like bolts ideas and opinions, but to silence them through threat of legal action is far more appalling than ANYTHING Bolt has said or done.

        If Bolts arguments are so thin, then why not develop the verbal skills to win the debate. It seems that as soon as people find themselves unable to properly debate, they scream racism and the like.

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        • Mike Shackleton:

          26 Mar 2014 9:27:53am

          The problem with this is that you could write the most eloquent rebuttals, with indisputable facts to back them up and post them as a discussion in the comments section of Bolt's artcles. They will never see the light of day! They get moderated out of the column so all you see are Bolt's sycophants. Unlike here on the ABC, where you can voice your opinion, and provided you don't pepper your discourse with swearing and don't launch into an overtly racist, sexist, homophobic tirade, it will be posted.

          Arguing/debating Bolt on his own turf is like playing chess with a pigeon, you can best the best player in the world, but all the pigeon is going to do is knock over all the pieces, defoul the board and strut around smugly like he won the game.

          Bolt's platform silences the "reasonable" debate, yet demands that Bolt be allowed to engage in it. Double standards much? Freedom of speech also implies the freedom for others to criticise that speech.

          And yes everyone is entitled to an opinion, but if it is on a matter of facts, an opinion that does not address the facts should not be given the same weight as someone who has spent all their professional life dealing in the data. Bolt's opinions on AGW/Climate Change spring to mind.

          So you could come here and post all your eloquent arguments on the ABC, which is really like preaching to the converted, and really doesn't tackle his opinions head on.

          Alert moderator

        • astro free press:

          26 Mar 2014 9:54:19am

          Racist bile is not reasonable comment. There are similar laws in Europe against anti-semitic comment.

          Alert moderator

    • dennis:

      25 Mar 2014 9:56:05pm

      What happened to Bolt was reasonable despite his playing the victim. The judge made specific mention as to what would avoid action under the act. Essentially he was found guilty because he was not fair dinkum, either because he was manipulative or foolish. The Liberal drum beat of freedom of speech is completely misleading and ignores the reasons for judgement. Please don't swallow the bait being offered by this inscrutable government to change something that has served us all well.

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      • John Coochey :

        26 Mar 2014 7:04:15am

        And interesting assertion, now give it some credibility by giving some actual data if you can. It is interesting how no commentators seem to have actually read the articles nor the judgement.

        Alert moderator

    • JohnnoH:

      26 Mar 2014 12:09:29am

      Dear Robert, Bolt got his just sesserts. And it appears Brandis and co are repealing this section for News Limited's and in particular Bolt's services. This is a dirty sleazy act on behalf of the government, but since when aren't tories slaezy, it took a Labor PM to set a royal commission into child abuse.

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    • LH :

      26 Mar 2014 12:20:03am

      You mean that you find it was outrageous that he was found to have done his job badly? Did you read the judgement, quoted again very carefully in this article? He did not do his job properly, and he was caught out.
      Outrageous that he should be reprimanded for that!

      Alert moderator

      • John Coochey :

        26 Mar 2014 8:59:32am

        Not at all provided all such errors by journalists are similarly reprimanded.

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    • Big Bad Dalek:

      26 Mar 2014 2:25:52pm

      If you read the article properly, you would know the answer to that question. Hint, she doesn't say race is so inconsequential.

      Alert moderator

  • Free Advice:

    25 Mar 2014 4:25:26pm

    You are all completely missing the point.

    Should middle class "urban types" take scholarships and places at university which have in good faith been set aside for not so middle class "remote types" and get away with it?

    That is the question that lefties fail to address!

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    • scholastica:

      25 Mar 2014 5:57:18pm

      Since I (mostly) vote Labor party or Green, I suppose that makes me one of the 'lefties' whom Free Advice castigates. I also work at a university which has several highly successful scholarship and support programs for Aboriginal students from rural and remote regions, many of whom are the first of their families to receive a university education, and would, perhaps, never have thought it within the bounds of possibility for them, had these programs not existed.

      So where is the evidence that 'middle class' 'types' are taking over places designed to help other, less privileged sectors of the population? Can Free Advice quote any reliable statistics to support his assertion? (Following the finding of the court that Andrew Bolt had been insufficiently careful even to check that his broadcast material was correct, I would not accept his say-so on the matter!) Where is the evidence, come to that, that no urban Aboriginal people are of lower socio-economic status, or suffer any discrimination? If they are of less than middle-class standing, and have suffered discrimination, why should they, in turn, be further discriminated against in favour of the regional 'types' Free Advice cites?

      In other words - prove there's problem before asking someone else to 'address' it.

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    • jennbrad:

      25 Mar 2014 5:57:20pm

      Such scholarships were not set up for more "remote" people, and the bulk of Aboriginal children, all over Australia, still struggle to get a good education. It doesn't matter which state, it's pretty much the sae all over. So few of them are yet "middle class" that they're hardly taking any opportunities from anyone.

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      • John Coochey :

        25 Mar 2014 6:57:17pm

        Jennbrad, not in my experience my old china! I have a friend whose father did not find out himself he was aboriginal until wlll into prosperous middle class middle age (he like me knew he was adopted but not from whom) his children went to private schools but are now on student grants twice those available to non aboriginals. That is not right.

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        • Oaktree:

          25 Mar 2014 8:01:45pm

          Well, either your friend was rorting the system, or the children were entitled to these grants. One apple does not an orchard make. However one rotting apple can affect a whole bin. I don't think any race has the monopoly on cheats, you just have to look at the parliamentarians who try to get away with illicit expenses and only pay up on the Minchin principle if they get caught. There are some highly questionable book purchases and sporting events costs, particularly on the part of a member of the opposition claiming the expenditure was ok, even though his expressed intention was to shore up support for his party??

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      • And Justice for All:

        26 Mar 2014 9:34:13am

        So here's a question. I suspect I'm a member of the upper middle class. I'm middle aged, I live in a nice neighborhood and enjoy a good income. To my knowledge my ancestry is Anglo-Saxon (mainly English and Scottish). If I did my family tree and discovered that I have indigenous ancestors (unknown to me until now), and if I identified with that part of my background, would I all of a sudden become eligible for welfare that is unavailable to those without an indigenous background, regardless of their income and wealth, and to which I was unaware I was entitled until a short time ago?

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    • David Kay:

      25 Mar 2014 6:06:11pm

      Your implicit caricature of what constitutes a "real" aborigine is, in itself, an ignorant and racist concept? Bolt would be proud.

      Here's a hint: Not all Aborigines stand around on one leg, leaning on their spears with the silhouette of Uluru in the background.

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      • Craig of Bathurst:

        25 Mar 2014 6:53:05pm

        That is obviously true, David Kay, but it is also true that scholarships, art prizes and other targeted support was not designed for the urban, mixed blooded, well supported Aborigine. It was and is designed for those who, as you romantically put it, stand around on one leg.

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        • David Kay:

          25 Mar 2014 8:53:24pm

          This is both incredibly simplistic and oozing with racist stereotypes.

          Firstly, it's just a worthless generalization about "urban" and "rural" aborigines. Secondly the term "mixed blood" is meaningless but is used to suggest that somehow those labelled as such are somehow less aboriginal and therefore less deserving.

          This country is going to stay mired in it's ignorance and racism until people can shake off these kinds of ill-informed and discredited concepts. Unfortunately, that would require the courage to recognize them for what they are - something that we seem to lack entirely.

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      • NomDePlume:

        25 Mar 2014 6:53:28pm

        However it is the ones in the desert that need most assistance not the urban ones who have jobs and stable families. By not distiguishing between the two you are reducing the assisstance to those who really need it.

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        • David Kay:

          25 Mar 2014 8:56:04pm

          By assuming that aborigines belong to one of two clearly delineated and differing groups you are reducing your argument to incoherent nonsense that you just made up.

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      • Terry:

        25 Mar 2014 6:57:17pm

        I think your racism may be showing.

        The previous poster said nothing about "real" aborginals.

        He questioned whether government money intended for the disadvantaged should go to those in no need of assistance.

        Apparently race is more important to you than need.

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        • David Kay:

          25 Mar 2014 7:29:53pm

          You really should educate yourself about the long-term intergenerational effects of the European invasion of Australia and the subsequent genocidal frontier wars. You should also educate yourself about the widespread racism that aboriginal people are still subjected to.

          Because if you don't understand these things then you have no idea who "needs" assistance and who doesn't.

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        • Big Nana:

          25 Mar 2014 10:46:11pm

          How do indigenous people who are indistinguishable from non indigenous people suffer from racisism? They look white, live white, work white. If they live in an urban area they have access to exactly the same resources as other Australians. Yet these are the people graduating from universities, not the indigenous people raised in slums in inaccessible remote communities. Which is exactly the point Bolt was trying to make.

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        • David Kay:

          26 Mar 2014 10:35:41am

          "How do indigenous people who are indistinguishable from non indigenous people suffer from racism?"

          You really don't know the answer to that question? You don't recognise the consequences for most people of more than two hundred years of racial persecution and exploitation? That would require an almost complete lack of knowledge of both history and psychology. Isn't that just the same wilful ignorance that Bolt displays?

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        • NoHalfMeasures:

          26 Mar 2014 2:55:07pm

          Are you even open to the possibility that some of the people who meet the legal definition of Aboriginality do not suffer from racism (or do to an inconsequential degree)? For all your accusations of simplistic thinking you appear dogmatically wedded to the view that all legally defined Aboriginals without exception suffer from racism. It's a nonsensical view that betrays the experience of at least some legally defined Aboriginals. No doubt you will take offense at my qualifying Aboriginal with "legally defined". I do so because my primary interest in this debate is to see the end of all Government assistance based on race which I believe is legally defined. The result of making welfare decisions solely on need would mean that some legally defined Aboriginals would no longer receive assistance. That the thoroughgoing Aboriginal identification of some people strikes me as silly and not to be taken seriously is a secondary matter for me. Though I must say what I find silly others find deeply offensive, and among the offended are some people whose Aboriginality is beyond question.

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        • Sidneysaid:

          25 Mar 2014 11:45:36pm

          So David, given your ancestors were at some point part of what you call the "invasion of Australia" I think it is incumbent on you to right some of the wrongs. Have the courage of your convictions and erase some of the stain that your ancestors have wrought on this country by going back to your roots, wherever that may be.
          I have yet to hear of any of you self loathers do anything other than castigate those that established this country you call home, you and those like you are all gob and no action. Give the Aboriginals back what you and your ancestors have stolen from them and leave, then and only then will people like you have any credibility.

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        • David Kay:

          26 Mar 2014 10:09:06am

          You're right. It is without question incumbent upon me to try and make reparations, because I live with all the advantages that have accrued from the invasion, wars and persecution of aborigines. Expecting any Australian to leave, though, is just plain stupid.

          However, I would probably support a treaty and reparations that you would think is insane.

          And I'm not sure why you mistake trying to take moral responsibility for your life with self-loathing. That's probably not very good for you.

          Alert moderator

        • godbothered:

          26 Mar 2014 12:27:02pm

          Sidneysaid,

          "Give the Aboriginals back what you and your ancestors have stolen from them and leave, then and only then will people like you have any credibility.".

          And how would that work? What a ridiculous proposition that makes you sound like an ignorant moron. Akin to the convenient (to the anti-science brigade) notion that, unless you live in a cave and hunt and gather your food, you have no right to promote a "green" agenda.

          And yes, it is entirely true that my ancestors (ie the British) invaded this country in 1788, then massacred, dispossessed and persecuted it's original inhabitants, often mercilessly, and that some of this mistreatment continues to this day. Even though I don't know to what extent (if any) my DIRECT ancestors, dating back to the First Fleet, played in such horrendous events, I most certainly feel a deep and abiding sense of national shame and remorse that we/us/our people inflicted such damage.

          As for those who seek to deny or trivialise these sad aspects of our history (the "white wash" brigade), I feel contempt.

          Alert moderator

        • NoHalfMeasures:

          26 Mar 2014 12:44:24am

          The only people who should receive assistance are those in need. That someone identifies as a member of a racial group tells me nothing about whether or not that person needs assistance.

          Alert moderator

        • Tristan:

          26 Mar 2014 7:57:04am

          "The only people who should receive assistance are those in need."
          That someone identifies as a member of a racial group tells me nothing about whether or not that person needs assistance."

          NoHalfMeasures,

          Or people identifying as a member of an occupational group, namely politicians.

          How many other occupations get to vote for their own annual bloated payrises well above the inflation rate?

          At least increased executive pay is brought up at annual general meetings and company shareholders are given the opportunity to vote on the issue.

          How many occupations get to design policies which enrich themselves?

          How many occupations get to apply policies to the rest of the population but not politicians - like raising the retirement age?

          How many occupations get their own Remuneration Tribunal to set their generous pay and conditions which are above community standards?


          Alert moderator

        • And Justice for All:

          26 Mar 2014 9:20:04am

          So Tristan, are you saying that because politicians get to vote for their own pay etc etc that welfare shouldn't be based on need? I think you make a good argument to have an independent party manage the remuneration of our politicians, but this is totally separate to having a welfare system based on need.

          Alert moderator

        • And Justice for All:

          26 Mar 2014 9:14:44am

          Totally 100% correct NoHalfMeasures. Welfare should be based on need and only need. It should be blind to race, religion, sex etc.

          Alert moderator

      • Platapus:

        25 Mar 2014 9:35:35pm

        You missed the point David. I suppose you are also going to throw around the word 'stereotype'. Most people expect that for an Aboriginal person would have a substantial amount of Aboriginal ancestry, and not just a trace.

        Alert moderator

        • David Kay:

          26 Mar 2014 10:51:25am

          I understand that.

          Nevertheless, it's an incredibly simplistic way to try to understand such a complex question as the long-term effects of persistent, systemic racial persecution. What, exactly, would be an acceptable "trace" of aboriginality for the purposes of this discussion? Even the very concept of race is a nebulous one. Simplistic explanations to complex issues only work for simpletons.

          I also take issue with the bizarre idea that returning some of what has been taken is somehow "assistance". It doesn't even begin to make sense. It is nothing more than a moral perversion used by people who refuse to take responsibility for themselves.

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      • Who_Knew:

        25 Mar 2014 10:05:54pm

        Oh look, I think Andrew is onto something unfair here and just wants to right a wrong. No doubt this funding injustice has been brought to his attention by the various aboriginal groups and persons making up his audience, friendships and social interactions. His heart is in the right place - he wants money to go to the people who look Aboriginal and therefore prone to take to heart the racism delivered by ignorant members of society to the extent that it gets in the way of their being successful citizens like the rest of us. If I were him, I would suggest that the distribution of Aboriginal scholarships and the like be at the discretion of a panel of 10 or so of these ignorant Australians who have skill in the area of distinguishing an Aboriginal from other Australians. Applicants could be paraded past the panel and a decision made. It would have to be unanimous, but in the event that one or two panelists were unsure, they could ask the applicant to do a dance as if they are a kangaroo or play the didge or something like that to make sure imposters did not slip through. It would also be sneaky justice, wouldn't it, if a panel that was most likely racist was responsible for dishing out money for their own nasty behaviour! Would be a good column piece anyway.

        Alert moderator

      • Ando:

        26 Mar 2014 11:10:22am

        David KAy,
        Aboriginals argue about aboriginality, whether someone is aboriginal enough, whether they are an uncle Tom or abandoning thier aboriginality. I was at an Indigenous rugby League Carnival and there were protests and sits downs with several games held up for hours deciding who was aboriginal. Should they be allowed to do this.

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        • David Kay:

          26 Mar 2014 11:33:37am

          Absolutely. And Bolt should not be prosecuted for stating his opinions. Nor should anyone else, short of physical threats or harassment.

          A country in which people are not free to offend is pretty much the definition of a totalitarian state and the people who crave it appear to have no idea what they are asking for.

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    • Mr. Jordon:

      25 Mar 2014 6:11:04pm

      How do you know that the people taking these scholarships are not from disadvantaged backgrounds?

      And where is it written that these scholarships are for "remote types"?

      The reason that Left won't address your question is because they are loaded and invalid question as they are not based on reality. They are based on your preconceived notions.

      Alert moderator

      • NoHalfMeasures:

        26 Mar 2014 12:51:33am

        There shouldn't be any race based scholarships, only scholarships based on need. Then we wouldn't even have to ask whether recipients are disadvanted or not.

        Alert moderator

      • Whitey:

        26 Mar 2014 1:36:53am

        I suppose we can't be too critical about people who aspire to extra benefits to gain a good education. However, aboriginal people in remote locations have hurdles to jump that middle class urban aborigines never even have to contemplate, and it would be fair enough if some educational benefits were targeted to help the people most in need. I don't know that aboriginal people anywhere are overrepresented in tertiary education, but spending money on middle class aboriginal welfare makes no more sense than any other middle class welfare.

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    • aGuy:

      25 Mar 2014 6:16:30pm

      The answer to the left which Bolt has exposed is "you are racist for suggesting it".

      The idea is that due to one ancestor of a race and the belief of an individual that they are that race, automatically makes all within equal and above judgement for their decision.

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    • lazarus:

      25 Mar 2014 6:23:01pm

      The places are given to aboriginals, whether they live in the city or the country. If you want to argue that there should be specific places reserved for "country" and city aborigines please make that argument, no-one else has.

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      • aGuy:

        25 Mar 2014 7:56:05pm

        There are programs targeting more rural Indigenous populations. Bolt questioned whether the receivers of grants/entitlements etc where actually the people the Australian public intended.

        If someone has been living a very well off life and can trace their ancestry back to a great grandparent and has been recognized as Indigenous, should they receive extra assistance?

        The simple categorization of race without having a firm and consistent rule makes it open to abuse. If you can claim to be part of a race which allows you to receive extra centrelink payments, apply for grants, have a greater political say or anything else there would be some people who would do it just for that reason.

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        • NoHalfMeasures:

          26 Mar 2014 12:26:51am

          Amen. Which is why all race based welfare, etc. should be scrapped immediately. Welfare, etc. should be provided on the basis of need alone.

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        • wearycynic:

          26 Mar 2014 1:08:46am

          Quite right.
          On virtually every government questionnaire you are asked: are you an Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander?

          Is this a racist question? I believe it is, but if I say so, then I'm the one accused of racism! (Similar tactic by the neo-liberals, if you question wealth disparity, you're accused of 'class warfare').

          If race is then not important, but fairness is, then why is this question asked in the first place?

          Since other non-white races dont receive extra payments because of their skin colour, could it be argued that all this argy-bargy about 'race' is misdirected, and should be classified as about culture?

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        • David Kay:

          26 Mar 2014 12:18:52pm

          You're conflating two very different things. Ignoring racial issues is not somehow the opposite of racism.

          In our case ignoring questions of race would obviously result in little more than the perpetuation of our long-standing and deeply-entrenched disenfranchisement of aborigines.

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      • Pete:

        26 Mar 2014 5:15:37am

        I think that's the right criteria - or something like it. Why can't these affirmative action programmes include criteria that include 'social disadvantage'? That might stop some of Bolt's alleged privileged types getting them, and re-allocate them to those who would most genuinely benefit from them. The concept of racism in Western cultures has now become so overloaded with views on culture, religion, societies and even economies, that it's almost impossible to even discuss these issues anymore. When Australians refer to each other, or Australia as 'racist(s)', I think they often mean 'culturalist' or 'religionist'. The toxic debate over boat arrival asylum seekers is a prime example of this kind of oversimplified, polarising thinking. If we were to break the issue down into its components of race, religion, cultural and social values, the benefits would be two-fold. Firstly, we could identify and reject genuine racism, and secondly, we could give ourselves the intellectual space to have a much needed debate on the impact of mass immigration (and there's no doubt it's 'mass' at the moment, with refugess making up the smaller part). We could understand where and why it works or fails, and what makes it succeed. We might even be able to do all this without the hysteria that accompanies the issue at the moment.

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    • Tristan:

      25 Mar 2014 6:31:35pm

      Free Advice,

      Should a particular sour grapes columinist claim a certain direction bias because he failed to win a plum hosting job ahead of better qualifed and more experienced journalists with decades of experience and multiple journalistic awards, and sought to trade on his identity instead of producing his body of work?

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      • John1:

        25 Mar 2014 11:16:52pm

        The point being made was that yet another "plum" job went to a journalist of the left......as with most jobs at the ABC.

        The ABC is as far biased to the left as Bolt is to the right.

        The difference is that Bolt admits his conservative bias.

        You of course prefer to listen to those who agree with your own predilections, and would seem to want to silence those with alternate views such as Bolt by branding him.

        This type of oppression is disgusting and is the reason why the repeal of 18c is a great step forward into the light and out of the dark!

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        • Serenity:

          26 Mar 2014 1:07:39pm

          John1: you are relying on your own opinion, not facts.

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        • Lindsay.:

          26 Mar 2014 4:34:18pm

          Sorry John1, but the ABC is not left wing. That has been proved time and time agin. However you are right in suggesting Bolt is a long way to the right in Australian politics. It is sad to read so many comments from people who imply they support the political right, but fail to understand where the century of politics is and how far to the right they are.

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    • The Blue Smurf:

      25 Mar 2014 6:35:53pm

      Fair point. Indeed, how many urban academics of any background have lived in or returned to rural and remote Australia. We are a first world nation that still has third world issues.

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    • evie:

      25 Mar 2014 7:03:02pm

      grrr. Just so I can actually take you seriously, can you please, please stop using that stupid term 'leftie'. What you mean is 'moderate' i.e. not right wing. To right wing people, anyone who is not more right than they are seems to them to be left wing. This is the typical simplistic thinking of the right. But no. There are a whole lot of people in the middle who are neither left or right.

      There is no real 'left' in Australia now. Got that? Anyone who uses that term signals that they don't really know what they are talking about, so I suggest with respect, that you widen your information sources from the simplistic, narrow, shallow places that you have been getting it from. It is all much much more complex than you can imagine, apparently. For example, your use of 'middle class' together with leftie? How do you explain that? Think about it. (The original left hated the middle class) What you might mean is educated middle class. But even that group includes a whole range of political stances. You can't divide a whole society into just two cut and dried groups. Doesn't work.

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      • (Former) Crime Minister:

        25 Mar 2014 8:56:35pm

        Ms Evie,
        You state, "You can't divide a whole society into just two cut and dried groups."
        Before that, you claimed, "What you mean is 'moderate' i.e. not right wing."
        You also falsely claim that there is no real left. I suspect that the Socialist Alliance, Socialist Forum, Fabian Society and Lee Rhiannon, to name but a few, would stridently disagree.
        Essentially, you have argued that you can't have just two groups but that non-moderate must be right wing.
        I find it astounding that you construct such an argument and discuss the 'educated middle class' in the same post. Or do you consider yourself to be of an altogether different class?

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      • Paul Pott:

        25 Mar 2014 8:58:25pm

        Evie
        You are wasting your time. These people have a script that they stick to. The concept is based on the Tea party in USA. Anyone who disagrees with them is a socilist, leftie, luvvie. Quite frankly I think most of them are bigots, and George Brandis says they be bigots, and we can freely abuse them.

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      • Pete:

        26 Mar 2014 5:35:38am

        I agree with what I think you're trying to say, but your argument collapsed when you started assigning all that negativity onto that other inane categorisation of people: 'right' wingers. Both 'left' and 'right', and too a lesser extent 'racist' have become lazy terms that people use when they want to bundle up all their insecurities and project them onto 'the other' - it comes in handy to shutdown an opponent too. Who's the 'other'? : to the lazy labellers of the left, 'right' usually refers to anyone who owns more than they do. To the intellectually shallow of the right, 'left' means anyone who advocates any forced reallocation of wealth to those who have less. You'll notice professional writers (including journalists) are much more careful with the terms, usually using them to discuss a political bloc (a reasonable thing to do), not a grab-bag of thoughts. The key when you want to use a term like 'left' or 'right' is to ask yourself what do you specifically mean, then describe that instead, and banish the terms all together. By the way, I'm not talking about the terms themselves, which we all agree are silly: I'm talking about the people who use them.

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    • Jay Somasundaram:

      25 Mar 2014 7:19:41pm

      During electioneering, Abbott said he was going to change the focus - "place, not race". I was hoping to see more of it, since there is increasing evidence that location is a better marker of disadvantage than race, but it seems to have been quietly swept under the rug.

      I suspect it was unpopular with the sector you mention.

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      • David Kay:

        25 Mar 2014 9:11:06pm

        I'm afraid I must respectfully disagree. I think you'll find Abbott has an almost exclusive focus on the difficulties and hardships of the battlers struggling to get by on Sydney's North Shore.

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      • MD:

        26 Mar 2014 1:18:09am

        The NAPLAN schools data is reported to reveal that socio-economic status of the school attended is an accurate indicator of likely educational attainment. The SES led to comparisons of "like" schools that have completely dissimilar "location".

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    • firthy:

      25 Mar 2014 7:36:17pm

      If Bolt's article had focused on that point then he would have been OK. Indeed I worry that the programmes/funding Bolt focused on aren't really helping the people they were meant to. But as I said his article focused on individuals and the argument (false as it was) that they chose to identify as aboriginal simply to get benefits when it was clear they didn't.

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    • And Justice for All:

      25 Mar 2014 8:25:10pm

      Discrimination is abhorrent under any circumstances, so I'm just wondering what people would think if scholarships etc were set aside for the genuinely disadvantaged regardless of 'race', ethnic background, sex etc. and not reserved for any one group.

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    • GraemeF:

      25 Mar 2014 8:46:55pm

      Bolt claimed that they abused their positions to gain advantage. This was proven to be false.

      What other of Bolt's lies have you swallowed.

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  • GJA:

    25 Mar 2014 4:32:45pm

    Andrew Bolt represents the worst characteristics of Australian society, not limited to his clinging to racial definition obsession. The reversal of those parts of the Act that got him in trouble is simply LNP recompense for his unwavering, virulent support for them and foam-dripping opposition to anything Labor. As such it is the act of a mongrel party, more intent on maintaining its prejudices and bias than being "grown ups".

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    • mike:

      25 Mar 2014 5:54:05pm

      Grown ups know that sticks and stones can break my bones but words can never hurt me (unless I let them).

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      • jennbrad:

        25 Mar 2014 7:14:29pm

        But they can - and do. Look at the material on bullying, not only at schools but in a wide variety of workplaces. Such bullying - has resulted in toxic workplaces, suicides and copious psychological illness. Particularly these days as such words can be widely dread through social media.

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        • mike:

          25 Mar 2014 10:07:39pm

          We're talking about adults, not children.

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      • MD:

        26 Mar 2014 1:31:24am

        What's the benefit of a AAA credit rating, then?

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    • Andrew:

      25 Mar 2014 6:01:23pm

      The only people clinging to racism, are the ones who write, and the ones who tick, the box marked: 'Are you an Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander?' I disagree with Andrew bolt's methods, but not his sentiment.

      Racism is wrong - government benefits for a particular 'race' regardless of the need of individuals of that designated 'race', is wrong.

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      • dubious the third:

        26 Mar 2014 9:21:35am

        I agree Andrew. I prefer the terms "uncompensated Rightful Residents" repressed by the dominant bullyboy "illegal invaders".
        Drop the race stuff.

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    • aGuy:

      25 Mar 2014 6:20:05pm

      Yeah, never question, just blindly follow opinion of the majority, how dare someone do anything else. Independent thought should not be tolerated.

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  • Stuffed Olive:

    25 Mar 2014 4:38:53pm

    A very good article Chelsea. Tells is like it is. I think Bolt is a selective racist - he picks on just one.

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    • aGuy:

      25 Mar 2014 6:18:59pm

      He is not picking on one, he is questioning if the assistance aimed at a race is being done so effectively. Pity that many refuse to challenge their own beliefs.

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      • Macroo:

        25 Mar 2014 9:18:24pm

        He picked on 9 and got caught out for in the very least, not checking his facts and lying. Thats why the court ruled against him. I have heard that his lawyers had advised him not to publish but he went ahead and did anyway. Deliberately provocative.
        But thats Bolt for you, don't let the facts get in the way of a twisted mean spirited ideology.
        I haven't known him to complain about the billions given to his mining mates in corporate welfare. But then again their white.

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        • aGuy:

          26 Mar 2014 11:41:49am

          It is called examples. It is correct that people of a mixed race background and arguably advantaged life are receiving extra help due to their heritage. Even when errors where pointed out, it still did not demonstrate that the examples he used where worse off because they where raised by a person who was Indigenous.

          So much for equality.

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    • A happylittle debunker:

      25 Mar 2014 6:39:41pm

      SO,
      Take Noel Pearson as an example.

      He is rightly, culturally proud all of his peoples & all his cultural influences, but it does need identifying that he is never referred to as an Irish-Australian? That certainly is not Bolt's doing - but a wider attempt at a artificial social cultural divide - Something that Bolt actually argues against. Be it Australian-Muslim, Australian-Dutch or Australian-English he is very clearly, repeatedly saying the important bit is the Australian.

      He also favours supporting those in need, not those wishing to be.

      You suggest that Bolt is a selective racist, picking on just one - but this is not demonstrable when appraising his supportive and positive relationships with the likes of Warren Mundine, Bess Price, Noel Pearson & Dallas Scott.

      Remember the foul racial abuse directed at Warren Mundine over his preference for an Abbott led - LNP government. Do you suppose that any of that was Bolt's doing?

      Most recently, looking at Professor Marcia Langton's comments on Q&A - we see an attempt to vilify based on a series of false statements and a false allegation. She retrospectively argues something completely different from her false statements and allegation, because they had become untenable as they were shown to be totally untrue.

      Attempting to silence opponents by crying racist, sexist or any other 'ism' is surely as wrong as being any 'ism'?

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      • Stuffed Olive:

        26 Mar 2014 11:42:52am

        Thanks for your usual thoughtless drivel O Happy one. Bolt lied and lied and lied - couldn't get his facts right. I don't recall any foul racial abuse directed at Mundine - just disappointment and some horror that he couldn't see he had plonked himself in a ridiculous position. He's regretting it today though.

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    • Bill:

      25 Mar 2014 6:42:23pm

      Bolt is so self centred that he is a disgrace to the human race.
      Any one with gumption would not in the slightest believe the drivel and biased crap he comes up with.
      As the old saying goes "Self praise is no recommendation".

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  • custard:

    25 Mar 2014 4:39:58pm

    The authors final sentence proves why the racial discrimination act section 18c needs to be changed or abolished.

    It is pathetic that free speech is blocked for fear of offending.

    Bolts lawyers insist he not comment so its a bit disingenuous of the author to say he can........

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    • Tristan:

      25 Mar 2014 6:32:37pm

      "It is pathetic that free speech is blocked for fear of offending."

      Custard,

      If Bolt had bothered being accurate and fair, he would have fulfilled section 18d, the exemption to 18c.

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      • Bev:

        25 Mar 2014 11:05:12pm

        18C is subjective not objective. 18D can be interpreted however the judge wants (within limits). As such section 18 is bad legislation because it can be selectively used and interpreted.

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        • lazarus:

          26 Mar 2014 2:35:16pm

          Bev, under 18D you need to show that you checked your facts and got them right when you propose an argument. It helps if you keep a civil tone as well.

          Of course the Right are upset about this because it is extemely hard to mount their usual arguments if they have to have facts to back them up and can't ramp up the rhetoric.

          Much easier to whine and make slurs by omission if you don't have to have facts to back them up. Bolt is the biggest loser crybaby ever, "they hurt my feelings" as if he cared about the hurt feelings of the people he wrote about.

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  • EVAN:

    25 Mar 2014 4:43:05pm

    I wonder how people who are easily identified as Aboriginal feel about people who it would be hard to determine as Aboriginal if they did not identify as so when it comes to the alotment of places set aside for Aboriginal people.

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    • Esteban:

      25 Mar 2014 6:03:05pm

      A good question but under the present laws it can not be answered within the law.

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    • Benice:

      25 Mar 2014 6:33:36pm

      Hi, Evan

      That's the thing. Aboriginal people are aware of the context - of how in a 'colonised' nation, indigenous people mix with 'colonising' culture leading to all manner of mixed ancestries.

      While many of those with mixed ancestry these days are born out of loving relationships, there is an awareness of the history of violence, kidnapping, rape, children stolen from their parents and brought up in ignorance of their Indigenous background that has led to this.

      Because most Indigenous people are aware of this historical context, there seems to be very little hostility based on any measurement of someone's 'level' of Aboriginality. There may be pockets of it and exceptions, but what I've found with extensive contact with Aboriginal people in cities and regional areas is that it's not an issue unless brought up by a non-Indigenous person and then it's dismissed.

      There are also quite a lot of Aboriginal people who do not receive assistance, privileges, or a leg-up based on their Aboriginality. Marcia Langton on Q&A referred to one such woman who had been criticised by Andrew Bolt, but in fact had not received the support being claimed. It is a myth that there is this giant honeypot out there just waiting for anyone identifying as Aboriginal to jump into and reap the rewards. So I guess it would also be a myth that Aboriginal people are scrapping with each other over these meagre spoils based on someone's theory of mixed race.

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      • gnome:

        25 Mar 2014 7:59:44pm

        Unfortunately for Marcia, the one she referred to wasn't criticised by Bolt, who wrote only that she hadn't taken undue advantage of her aboriginality, and who is still very active in talking to young people in schools and colleges in support of science, though Marcia said she has withdrawn from public life because of Bolt.

        She also wasn't one of the complainants in the Bolt case.

        That's why Marcia ended up apologising

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        • Benice:

          25 Mar 2014 9:51:38pm

          Ah, I see. Thanks for this, gnome. My mistake.

          It's interesting, though, this phrase "taken undue advantage of her Aboriginality". Considering all the markers for Aboriginal health, life-expectancy, education, likelihood of going to prison, income levels, etc, etc, you'd hope that at some point, there was an upside. But "undue advantage" - what does that even mean?!

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        • gnome:

          26 Mar 2014 1:54:15pm

          Well Benice- seeking support against poor health, education, overrepresentation in prison population etc might be considered reasonable.

          Seeking advantage because some long distant, submerged ancestor may have been aboriginal, is seeking undue advantage when you have no personal disadvantage to address.

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        • lazarus:

          26 Mar 2014 2:37:17pm

          And you have proof of this fraud and lack of disadvantage where?

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    • Tristan:

      25 Mar 2014 6:36:15pm

      Evan,

      I wonder how multiple award winning journalists who follow a journalistic code of professional conduct and ethics and have decades of experience feel about a high profile columnist nominating themself to be parachuted into a plum hosting role ahead of better qualifed people, not on the basis of their body of work, but merely based on their identity, and criticism of their potential employer allegedly having a bias opposite to the bias that they have.

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    • Original Aussie:

      25 Mar 2014 6:49:30pm


      I'll tell you Evan; their our rellies; and Name Currency which has no mention here plays a part as well as kinship ties...
      Your post is typical of mainstream Australians, you have little knowledge of Aboriginal culture.

      There has always been a difference in appearance; Desert people of far south western Queensland and the Pitjanjara have always been lighter skinned and some with blonde hair;

      Aboriginal Australia is not one Homogenous group - it's like saying every Swede is blue eyed and blonde haired; that's just not true, just a stereotypical ideal.

      We know who we are ...however, this may be changing...
      I have lost patience with explaining this over and over and over again!...


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      • jennbrad:

        25 Mar 2014 7:19:50pm

        And not only you know them - but so do the communities with which such Aborigines are associated. Keep educating the masses, Aboriginal culture is both more varied and interesting than many correspondents ever think. And might I add that most of the current crop of educated Aborigines - like Marcia Langton - grew up with considerable disadvantage, and worked extremely hard to get where they are. Even if one gets a scholarship, no one gets their degree in a cornflake pack, they have to do the work.

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      • Benice:

        25 Mar 2014 9:54:37pm

        Don't know if it'll make much difference, but some of us know what you mean. Not this government, though, and certainly not Andrew Bolt. He's really been harping on this subject for a long time, with a great degree of ignorance. You'd think he'd have learnt SOMETHING by now.

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    • Big Nana:

      25 Mar 2014 10:53:32pm

      Evan, I can tell you exactly how most full blood feel about "yellow fellas" as they are termed in some areas. They acknowledge the fairer skinned are part aboriginal, but do not recognise them as full, or true, aboriginals, especially when it comes to land claims. Disputes over land rights are bitter and ugly, sometimes physical and the term "proper blackfella" is frequently thrown around. I know this because I have many indigenous grandchildren living in remote communities across the top end.

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      • lazarus:

        26 Mar 2014 2:41:21pm

        Well they wouldn't want to share the royalties would they? Especially with someone whose father or grandfather had proper claims to the land.

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  • jennbrad:

    25 Mar 2014 4:43:37pm

    You are right Dr Bond and I hope your comments provide some education of the usual suspects frothing at denigration of Andrew Bolt. For me his ignorance is shameful - someone who considers himself a view setter should learn more about the subjects he spruces about.

    In addition, to your comments, I'd add that skin colour is irrelevant in most communities, especially in NSW and Victoria (and Tas) where every community with Aboriginal inhabitants knows their ancestry, and makes sure none of them are allowed to forget it. School children are rubbished for their black ancestry, their names are instantly recognisable. I grew up in such a community and to this day certain surnames raise the probability of Aboriginality in my mind. Why shouldn't people of Aboriginal descent identify when everyone around the puts them firmly into that racial/cultural category. Or divide as it often is.

    Andrew Bolt is being disingenuous when he gets insulted by comments that he construes as accusatory - he knows perfectly well what he's saying and to get insulted by Marcia's comments. His reaction is extraordinary given the fact he expects the recipients of his comments to shrug them off, and if they dare to fell insulted, then ...

    (And no, I'm not, neither Ab nor TSI.)

    Alert moderator

    • David Kay:

      25 Mar 2014 6:14:06pm

      Bullies almost always whimper and wail like toddlers when they are on the receiving end. It seems that hypocrisy, weakness and cowardice are essential characteristics for people like that.

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  • dubious the third:

    25 Mar 2014 4:44:46pm

    To live in a country that is so obviously founded on the most blatant form of racism imaginable, and to not consider that one could not be racist is to deny reality.
    The settler state called Australia privileged british criminals, to the expense of the Rightful Residents.
    In 1901, the Rightful Residents of these lands were excluded from the Constitution, and other people of colour prohibited from migrating for the next 70 years.
    As the AA pledge begins, Step one is to admit that you have a problem.
    The whole settler society has a huge problem which is tries so hard to paper over, and with leaders refusing to call racism when they see it, it will probably get worse.
    I am racist. It's not my fault, it was inherent in the culture I grew up in, Australia, but unlike some, I am working to address my problem.

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    • aGuy:

      25 Mar 2014 6:24:22pm

      Its not denying reality would to believe all defined in a race are of equal need. Racist too.

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    • Maryanne:

      25 Mar 2014 9:37:48pm

      Wow. Australia was founded on racism?

      18th century Englishmen didn't even have the word, 'racism', in their vocabulary so how could they practise 'racism'?

      When the First Fleet arrived in what was later called Australia they found it was inhabited by people who didn't even have houses let alone villages.

      So it's no wonder they thought them an inferior race as people in the rest of the Pacific - Maori, New Guinea, Solomon, Fiji, etc did have houses and villages - concepts which Europeans could understand and relate to.

      I respect Aborigines for just having survived. Life was probably easy and sweet around the Hawksbury River and Port Jackson in NSW. But life must have been tennuous in the Central Australian deserts, yet they survived with their songs as maps.

      A brilliant accomplishment, akin to the Polynesian epics.


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      • dubious the third:

        26 Mar 2014 8:37:55am

        There you go Maryanne.
        Even if it was true that there were no villages (which is untrue) how would that excuse whites from killing them so as to steal their lands?
        Do you believe that because they belonged to the bottom rung of a stratified and cruel race they had the right to steal and murder?
        Australia is a Christian country, based on the breaking of nearly all of the Ten Commandments.

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        • gnome:

          26 Mar 2014 1:58:36pm

          Wow- I can' recall ever having agreed with you before Dub, but Maryanne takes even my robust breath away!

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  • pete21:

    25 Mar 2014 4:48:35pm

    ...but he is a right wing neo liberalist McCarthyism, US lover , profit at all cost believer and Gina supporter who believes a subsidized bus ticket to pensioners is the slippery slope towards Aust. becoming a socialist totalitarianism country. When really he wants a far right totalitarianism country.

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    • the nose:

      25 Mar 2014 6:43:07pm

      Andrew Bolt is not only Neo Liberal, he also believes he is a cut above everybody else.
      He has deluded himself into believing that his intellect is far superior to us mortals, the question he should be asking himself is, why do I attract an audience of non intellectuals? [dumb people]




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      • David Kay:

        25 Mar 2014 9:04:50pm

        It's bizarre watching a man who professes to be some kind of free-thinker constantly peddle out exactly what his self-serving paymaster wants him to say.

        Bolt is, in fact, an excruciatingly boring and unimaginative thinker. Let's face it, everyone knows what he is going to say before he says it. Why does he think he was hired? Because it certainly wasn't for his intellect.

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      • Nell:

        25 Mar 2014 9:37:50pm

        I think it's because they are the only people interested in reading the Murdoch press and Murdoch and Bolt know that amongst their "customers" there's votes to be had in dog-whistling on race and ethnicity.

        And the votes of bigots translates into big bucks when the Abbott government greenlights Murdoch's media plans which brings job security for Bolt.

        Hence Bolt will give no relief to any that he can abuse - he pays his bills from "riding on the backs" of this society's disadvantaged.

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      • Maryanne:

        25 Mar 2014 9:43:17pm

        Hello, the nose,

        Surely you find it interesting that Andrew Bolt's posters never descend to the foul language of his critics. Never. Now that's interesting, isn't it.

        So why do you descibe his audience [sic] as dumb people?

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      • Tristan:

        26 Mar 2014 8:21:54am

        "Surely you find it interesting that Andrew Bolt's posters never descend to the foul language of his critics. Never. Now that's interesting, isn't it."

        Maryanne,

        Andrew Bolt's anti-carbon tax, climate change sceptics just attend convoys of no consequence coordinated by 2GB radio and attended by Gina Rinehart, Tony Abbott, Sophie Mirabella, Bronwyn Bishop and Alan Jones, wave "Ditch the Witch" and "Bob Brown's B*****" placards while making death threats against independents who vote against the Liberal government, and climate scientists.

        Maryanne,

        As for your "never descend to the foul language of his critics."

        We have seen the Liberal Facebook, Larry Pickering website, and anti-Julia Gillard Facebook pages you know.

        Plenty of foul language and misogynistic comments there.

        And plenty of censorship - but only when it comes to removing posts that are critical of Tony Abbott and the Liberal government.



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  • NotIdefix:

    25 Mar 2014 4:48:39pm

    "...narrating their own identity."

    people are free to narrate their own identity in any manner and along any path they choose.

    the recipients of their narration should not be expected to be passive and simply accept the contents and method of narration.

    if you use religion, ethnicity, elements of culture in your narration, specifically in a public arena, it should be expected that those elements are questioned.

    Drawing conclusions, based on falsehoods, as Bolt has been proven to have done, is a different matter entirely.

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    • John Coochey :

      25 Mar 2014 6:02:47pm

      And these alleged falsehoods are precisely what? And do they amount to anything more than a hill of beans?

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    • John Coochey :

      25 Mar 2014 6:34:58pm

      And the falsehoods in question are? And of what consequence?

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  • the working man:

    25 Mar 2014 4:50:51pm

    Bolt is a carbon copy of the shock jocks in the USA. Add a bias media
    headed by news corp , the right wing nutters screaming every day
    about President Obama and that sums up the right of politics beautifully.
    Thank god America has a balanced media unlike here. With bias media
    coverage you end up with Abbott, Brandis and co. But hey, many people
    warned of this outcome .

    Alert moderator

    • mike:

      25 Mar 2014 5:56:26pm

      You obviously have never been to the USA if you think that.

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  • Alpo:

    25 Mar 2014 4:51:19pm

    Let's just say that Andrew Bolt is simply a little man. I watched the One Plus One interview (see the photo here) and he came up as an opportunistic character, tormented by a past lived in fear of poverty and failure. He finally found a cow that can give him enough milk to live a materially safe life, and he does what his financiers expect from him. His is just a simple, pretty basic story of survival... The only difference between him and others, is that he has access to a most powerful megaphone: the Media. The media are like weapons, especially those that are one-way (unlike the two-way The Drum).... if you misuse them, you may end up in jail... Let's keep the laws that protect the disarmed citizen!

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    • Tristan:

      25 Mar 2014 6:37:59pm

      Channel 10, News Ltd and 2GB radio gives Andrew Bolt the riches he seeks, the credibility remains elusive.

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  • MJLC:

    25 Mar 2014 4:51:23pm

    It's probably just as well he's not a racist - Senator Brandis has made it pretty clear that all of this is being done to give bigots a good, old-fashioned Aussie fair go. Racists apparently don't qualify for any sympathy.

    I sniff a Macquarie Dictionary re-write in the wind.

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  • whogoesthere:

    25 Mar 2014 4:59:39pm

    First off I'm sick of hearing about Andrew Bolt. Stop giving him publicity, thats what he wants.

    However, if we are going to contine to discuss treating Aborigines in different ways to other Australian citizens, then the definition of Aboriginality is a valid issue. And discussing it does not mean you are a racist.

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    • evie:

      25 Mar 2014 7:11:44pm

      I'm pretty old now, and I can remember when race was a big topic of discussion in the '50s and early '60s (the era that the Abbott government seems to want to take us back to). You could always tell a racist. They were the ones that wanted to talk about what an Aboriginal was, anyway. They were jealous if Aborignal people seemed to be getting help or any 'advantages', especially if they didn't seem to be very 'black', and they talked about it all the time. Remind you of anyone?

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      • Graham H:

        25 Mar 2014 7:46:41pm

        Abbott wants to get rid of penalty rates.

        He wants us to join the rest of the world who work weekends for same rate.

        Isn't that progressive ?

        Or do you only want to be progressive when it suits ? Penalty rates are things of the past too.

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        • Tim:

          26 Mar 2014 4:52:57am

          Taking money from low-paid hospitality and retail workers (the major beneficiaries of weekend penalty rates) seems to me to be the opposite of 'progressive' - make no mistake, this is all about taking money off people the liberals see as lazy workers and handing it back to liberal-voting business people. Who needs a living wage anyway

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  • mike:

    25 Mar 2014 5:00:59pm

    "This remark tells us very little about Aboriginal identity and instead reveals his own anxiety toward the dilution of the 'coloniser's' identity, power and privilege."

    What is this writer talking about here? Does she really think Andrew Bolt feels his "identity, power and privilege" is threatened by white skinned people claiming to be black? Of course he doesn't. He was pointing out the sheer absurdity of racial classification schemes - the latter being the foundation of racism! Bolt's stance is anti-racist. He resorted to ridicule which was uncalled for, but his essential stance is the exact opposite of racism.

    The author of this piece admits that there is NO biological basis to the concept of "race" but then says it is real because "we" act as though it is; so why don't "we" do what Bolt wants us to do, which is to NOT act as if it is real any longer?

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  • barsnax:

    25 Mar 2014 5:01:41pm

    Why people care what this bloke says or writes baffles me.

    If we stop listening perhaps he will just go away.

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    • David Kay:

      25 Mar 2014 6:27:12pm

      I think many people realise that Bolt's opinions are, in themselves, entirely irrelevant and inconsequential. But the concern is that he appears to have an army of over-indulged, under-educated, unwashed Bogan followers. Many of them can barely hold a coherent thought, let alone construct a coherent sentence, but nevertheless remain convinced of their own deep wisdom.

      Ever since Howard made racism respectable again in conservative circles, some people have become more and more emboldened in their vilification of those they consider outsiders. History shows that people like that are a real risk to decent, civilised society.

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      • Maryanne:

        25 Mar 2014 9:52:32pm

        My, arent you a respectful person, David Kay.

        So the people who disagree with your worldview are, "an army of over-indulged, under-educated, unwashed Bogan followers. Many of them can barely hold a coherent thought, let alone construct a coherent sentence, but nevertheless remain convinced of their own deep wisdom."

        If you are so educated why the conspicuous captial B in 'bogan' as you have used it as an adjective? Please explain?

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        • David Kay:

          26 Mar 2014 10:14:14am

          "Respecting" bigotry is itself contemptible.

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      • Bev:

        25 Mar 2014 11:13:55pm

        "Many of them can barely hold a coherent thought, let alone construct a coherent sentence, but nevertheless remain convinced of their own deep wisdom."

        " some people have become more and more emboldened in their vilification of those they consider outsiders. "

        Does not your last sentence type you as what you are supposedly condemning?

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        • David Kay:

          26 Mar 2014 9:02:39am

          The difference is clear between vilifying someone simply because of their race and vilifying someone who embraces the wilful ignorance and contemptible cowardice of racism. I never expected that I'd need to explain it to an adult.

          Thank, though, for confirming the quote.

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    • Adelaide Rose:

      25 Mar 2014 6:32:09pm

      I stopped paying attention to him years ago when I first discovered that a) he wouldn't know a fact it it hit him in the face and b) he stoops to gutter level cruelty to malign anyone he disagrees with - he may not use bad language but his intentions are always to denigrate and condemn. He also has a habit of disallowing any informed dissent in the comments to his columns.

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      • keyboard warrior:

        26 Mar 2014 12:46:31am

        Spot on Adelaide Rose, Andrew Bolt & his fellow editorialists here in this one printed media source town get away with far too much speculation into creating their one (brown eyed) verbal diarrhoea expression of innuendo & opinion & get away with it, with little consideration for publication of anyone who disagrees with their views.

        Thank god they found Alexander Downer another job at least, but there are still far too many editorialists working in the Murdoch media who will not open their comments up for criticism or otherwise constructive input.

        Whatever happened to freedom of speech?.

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    • Tristan:

      25 Mar 2014 6:39:51pm

      The channel 10 board - Lachlan Murdoch, Gina Rinehart and James Packer loooove Andrew Bolt.

      That's why they axed Meet the Press, extended the Bolt Report to an hour, and inflicts him on viewers twice on Sundays every week.

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      • JRM:

        25 Mar 2014 7:49:10pm


        If taxpayers have to pay for Barrie Cassidy on our "unbiased" ABC - then commercial TV should surely be allowed Andrew Bolt.

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        • Mark James:

          25 Mar 2014 10:13:30pm

          JRM, you'd have thought commercial TV would embrace the fair-skinned Bolt if there was a market for dumb and divisive polemic. However, did you notice how the Channel 10 share price has dived since Bolt came on board?

          Or maybe it's something more sinister? Perhaps somebody is driving the share price down to make the channel cheaper to buy once the government relaxes the media ownership rules?

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        • JRM:

          26 Mar 2014 9:58:18am

          Mark

          That market is right here on the Drum.

          Its just most on welfare won't pay for their media.

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      • Tristan:

        26 Mar 2014 8:29:59am

        "Questioning why some people with a few drops of Aboriginal ancestry want to make a career out of being Aboriginal is not racist. Bolt is only saying what many are thinking."

        Platapus,

        Yes, casting slurs on indigenous Australians and accusing them of using their "identity" instead of winning jobs based on merit.

        Andrew Bolt would know all about trading on identity instead of merit.

        What this is really about is indigenous Australians not fulfilling the preconceptions and stereotypes of how the Dutchman Bolt thinks Aboriginal people should look and behave.

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        • platapus:

          26 Mar 2014 10:30:46am

          "accusing them of using their "identity" instead of winning jobs based on merit." is not a slur, it is a fact, and an uncomfortable one for many. And asking that those who identify as Aboriginal do so only when they have a substantial amount of Aborignal ancestry is not stereotyping.

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    • Platapus:

      25 Mar 2014 9:52:35pm

      Questioning why some people with a few drops of Aboriginal ancestry want to make a career out of being Aboriginal is not racist. Bolt is only saying what many are thinking.

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  • NotMyName:

    25 Mar 2014 5:02:28pm

    I'm not making any negative or judgemental comments on this discussion, if the proposed changes pass, I fear that I could be litigated into bankruptcy, the changes are certainly not been made to protect the majority of Australians; I feel my freedom of expression and my right of freedom of speech could soon be removed by someone with deep pockets and a flash and expensive legal team.

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  • Poldo:

    25 Mar 2014 5:03:50pm

    I think Marcia Langton was pretty much on target in her recent analysis of Andrew Bolt's "business". At the root of all this he is an entertainer (thought not so entertaining to some) whose only value is to attract as many listeners as he can so he or his employers can sell advertising time on the sole basis of his audience size. It's all about the money. Cleverly he has identified a large demographic in the Australian population with certain biases and political leanings who are easily stirred by playing on their fears and prejudices. And he does this like a puppet master, pulling this string and that one, speaking in this voice and that from this side and the other.
    Without that audience he'd be reduced to shouting from a soapbox on the banks of the Yarra every Sunday, but as long as media proprietors put money before decency and continue to provide him with a platform he will play the game to the max. It's really "black theatre", nothing more.

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    • Maryanne:

      25 Mar 2014 10:08:36pm

      As long as you think like this, Poldo, you are part of the problem.

      You are under the delusion that the likes of Andrew Bolt and the so-called shock-jocks PERSUADE people to their viewpoints.

      The opposite is true. People tune in to the likes of Andrew Bolt and the shock-jocks because they REFLECT their viewpoints.

      Please do try and think about the difference. Inarticulate people do think!

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    • Tristan:

      26 Mar 2014 8:32:15am

      "The opposite is true. People tune in to the likes of Andrew Bolt and the shock-jocks because they REFLECT their viewpoints."

      Yes Maryanne,

      Andrew Bolt and shockjocks like Chris Smith, Ray Hadley and Alan Jones reinforce your existing stereotypes and preconceptions about the way ethnic minorities and Aborigines are meant to look and behave.

      When they don't fit those preconceptions and stereotypes, that unsettles you.

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  • Phantom:

    25 Mar 2014 5:04:14pm

    I find it quite ironic that so many have fought so hard for so long in the name of equality and now, when Bolt calls for all people to be treated equally (and for special treatment of Aborigines to end) that he is ...almost... called a racist.

    Notwithstanding his factual errors and attacks on individuals, his stance of equal treatment regardless of race is a difficult one to argue against on an ethical or ideological basis. You might say that many Aborigines are at disadvantage and require special treatment and I would agree, but I would add the caveat that they deserve special treatment due to their disadvantaged situation, not due to their race, and that a white-skinned person of European descent should be able to access the same special treatment if they were to find themselves in a similar situation of disadvantage.

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    • Tristan:

      25 Mar 2014 6:44:40pm

      Phantom,

      Yes, that "special treatment" should have seen non-indigenous Australians refused the vote until 1967.

      Non-indigenous Australians used as the guinea pigs for the Liberals work for the dole schemes and quarantining of welfare.

      Non-indigenous Australiians paid a lower wage because they're not indigeneous.

      Non-indigenous Australians incarcerated indefinitely although they have committed no crime.

      And spending on indigenous people underestimated and classified as overestimated spending on non-indigenous people by the Liberals, instead of the other way around.

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      • Phantom:

        25 Mar 2014 7:22:45pm

        I'm not sure what your point is, Tristan.

        All of your examples come from instances of Aborigines being treated differently to how non-Aborigines are (or were) treated.

        Bolt argues for Aborigines to be given exactly the same treatment as everyone else so, by extension, would argue against each of the injustices you mentioned.

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      • Graham H:

        25 Mar 2014 7:50:31pm

        Tristan

        And non indigenous having to pay for their education.

        You don't say.

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        • Tristan:

          25 Mar 2014 11:50:09pm

          "And non indigenous having to pay for their education."

          Graham H,

          Oh you mean like how tax dollars are used to fund both private and public schools attended by indigenous and non-indigenous Australians?

          How dismissively you disregard the incarceration without conviction, the long history of deaths in custody, the lack of voting rights, their use as guinea pigs for the Liberals welfare quarantining and work for the dole experiments, the differential slave labour pay rates, and the Liberals long and sordid history of deliberately misclassifying hundreds of millions or billions of dollars of unrelated expenditure into "indigenous spending" to deliberately overestimate the real amount spent on indigenous Australians, and deliberately underestimate the amounts they spend in all other areas.


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      • Big Nana:

        25 Mar 2014 11:07:39pm


        Tristan you are wrong on so many levels. I married an indigenous man who didn't get citizenship until a few weeks before our wedding. Legally he was allowed to vote, even back then he received the same pay as non indigenous men doing the same job, he was free to own property, and free to travel pretty well anywhere. The only thing he couldn't do was buy alcohol without applying for an exemption, which he refused to do.
        It is a common misconception that indigenous people were not allowed to vote until they received citizenship. They got the vote back in about 1905.
        Another misconception is that indigenous people weren't allowed to own property, yet a well known indigenous family in the NT purchased a pastoral lease back in the 1950's, and still own it to this day.
        Too many people comment on a topic about they know nothing but what they have garnered from political sites. And this is the main complaint of the rural indigenous, who still are connected to their country, who still speak their language and still practice parts of their law. Their main is is that urban, fair skinned indigenous people are speaking on their behalf when they know nothing of culture or country. They would like to have their own voices heard.

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        • dubious the third:

          26 Mar 2014 10:01:17am

          Big Nana
          in Queensland, Murris didn't get the vote until 1963, whereas in SA Aboriginal peeps had the vote before 1901, but were disenfranchised with Federation.
          So you're over generalising from a few exceptions, yet again.

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      • Tristan:

        25 Mar 2014 11:42:58pm

        Phantom,

        You were posting about "special treatment" of Aborigines.

        I was giving you examples of "special treatment."

        "Bolt argues for Aborigines to be given exactly the same treatment as everyone else so, by extension, would argue against each of the injustices you mentioned."

        Bolt's articles argue that Aborigines are given better treatment than non-indigenous Australians, when you say "special treatment".

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        • Phantom:

          26 Mar 2014 10:47:06am

          Perhaps "differential treatment" is a better term than "special treatment" so there is no implication of positive (or negative) difference.

          Bolt may focus on the aspects of differential treatment that are beneficial to those that receive it, but I am sure that he would support the elimination of all differential treatment.

          Would you not also support the elimination of all race-based differential treatment?

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  • Jimmy Necktie:

    25 Mar 2014 5:06:18pm

    I don't know I agree with some of the assumptions made but I have to say this was a refreshingly well reasoned article.

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  • Desert Woman:

    25 Mar 2014 5:06:57pm

    Well said Chelsea. The fear of equality and loss of the right to dominate, to oppress runs very deep in some people, particularly those who have their identities tied to being in some way the better, the superior. This basic insecurity leads to some of the most imaginative and also bizarre forms of justification of behaviours that have the sole goal of retaining their higher social status. We see it with our Aboriginal sisters and brothers as we see it with racism more generally and with the now (sometimes) subtle forms of sexism. Once more to the barricades my friends.

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    • no such thing as race:

      25 Mar 2014 6:35:04pm

      Desert Woman, numerous black aborigines have made essentially the same arguments as Bolt did but were not pursued in court under 18c. Do you think that is far?

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      • Desert Woman:

        25 Mar 2014 9:18:07pm

        Really? I don't know of them. Can you provide details so I can compare? Thanks.

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        • no such thing as race:

          26 Mar 2014 3:30:51pm

          Desert Woman - Here's Anthony Dillon, writing for The Drum, for starters:

          "On the front page of The Australian, there was a story that spoke about fraud where non-Aboriginal people pretend to be Aboriginal. Why would they want to do this?

          In brief, there are benefits for identifying as Aboriginal. The benefits typically relate to schemes and incentives to address the disadvantage experienced by many Aboriginal people. In theory, specific strategies to address this disadvantage are a good thing, but there are problems. Specifically, should all people who identify as being Aboriginal be entitled to access such benefits?

          I think a better approach to addressing the disadvantage and despair that characterise some Aboriginal communities and individuals, is to focus on need, rather than race."

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      • Maryanne:

        25 Mar 2014 10:16:12pm

        No, it's not as I have documented above.

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        • Desert Woman:

          26 Mar 2014 8:57:34am

          Can only find an argument that the first Europeans here weren't racist because they didn't have the word. It's good to know that the internet, spacecraft, boomerangs etc are only figments of my imagination.

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        • Big Nana:

          26 Mar 2014 9:42:16am

          Desert woman, read the articles written by Dr Anthony Dillon, an indigenous lecturer at Sydney University or the blog, Black Steam Train written by a full blood Victorian man, DallS Scott. They are just two of the indigenous people echoing the sentiments expressed by Bolt.

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        • lazarus:

          26 Mar 2014 2:52:26pm

          So are your kids just on the gravy train, if they are only "yella fellas" shouldn't they be professing their whiteness rather than their aboriginality?

          Just because 2 aboriginal people want aboriginality decided one way we should accept that all aboriginals think that way?

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    • Steve:

      25 Mar 2014 9:12:45pm

      DW can I offer this to you and many who have posted on here today. Recently (this is true) I seen a Black Person, I am unsure of the race, walking down the main street of the city in which I live, he had on a TShirt which emblazoned across the front and rear in large letters had the words "Black Power", if I had for example the same shirt with white power written across it would I be a racist? I can guess that would be the accusation regardless of my true feelings towards race related matters. If I challenged the person I seen and accused him of being racist I can imagine the hue and cry that would have genereated, the unfortunate truth is that many people who are numerically in the minority demand they have a greater say and greater amount of "rights" than the numerical majority, be it race, religion or ethnicity. I dont listen to Andrew Bolt I form my own views from what I see and hear and the drum of racial disharmony on both sides has been beating now for years sadly the sound is getting louder and closer. Harmony is a two way street

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      • Desert Woman:

        26 Mar 2014 8:13:16am

        Steve, Black Power arose out of the American civil rights movement as a call for greater equality and thee end of racism. I am sure that when these are achieved, it will die a natural death.

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    • Bev:

      25 Mar 2014 11:19:00pm

      Are You talking about the privileged feminists in our midst who are forever making sexist and mysandic comments.

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      • Desert Woman:

        26 Mar 2014 9:06:00am

        Keep up the good work Bev, your comments are a model of clarity and simplicity.

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  • CC:

    25 Mar 2014 5:07:50pm

    Wow. That was a powerfully unconvincing article. "But differences between 'races' are not explained by genes, biology or physical traits - they are explained through social, cultural, historical and economic differences." Really? Again. Wow. I'll try to explain that nonsense to the next Aboriginal that racially abuses me on the street. Should be in about 15 minutes as I walk past South Terrace.

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  • DiogenesNT:

    25 Mar 2014 5:08:27pm

    During parliament in the early '80s a liberial politician was called a 'racist bastard' by one of those on the other side of the house. He indignantly replied "I am not a racist'. The story could equally apply to Bolt. Will he take me court for being agrieved/ Nah, you can't be found guilty of telling the truth - I think that rule still applies but Brandis will probably take care of that loophole.

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  • Dylan:

    25 Mar 2014 5:09:09pm

    Andrew Bolt may not be racist, but he is a disgraceful excuse for a human being. Unfortunately he has just as disgraceful mates in the Liberal party who are dedicated a great deal of time and effort to support such medieval views.

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  • g:

    25 Mar 2014 5:11:27pm

    No Chelsea, it is not " the possibility that the 'colonised' could simultaneously be Aboriginal and powerful in their life" it is that the colonised could be Aboriginal, powerful and still claim victimhood on the basis of their "colour", when their colour isn't even discernible.

    Disadvantaged Aborigines don't get a look in because of it, and the gravy train would stop rolling if there weren't any, so the powerful need to keep them in their place.

    Does the shoe fit?

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    • gnome:

      25 Mar 2014 8:06:34pm

      Apologies everyone- that wasn't your correspondent gnome hiding behind another identity- he doesn't do that, it was a computer glitch or something. G = gnome.

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  • Malcolm:

    25 Mar 2014 5:11:52pm

    Andrew Bolt is probably not a racist as such - he is actually worse. He is just a purveyor of ill-informed badly researched and somewhat addled opinions which his status as a "commentator" encourages people who are not well-informed to believe him. This sort of behaviour is similar to the behaviour of shock jocks everywhere who push their "opinions" in the happy knowledge that they are pandering to people's biases rather than their intelligence. That sort of behaviour does not fall within any definition of useful and enlightening free speech that I am aware of. Bolt lost the case because he got his facts wrong - he should be man enough to accept it. He isn't but luckily for him he's got Brandis to protect him from the results of his mistakes. Both men are offering a travesty of the concept of free speech.

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    • John Coochey :

      25 Mar 2014 6:42:06pm

      Malcolm great comment but now could we have some examples to give it substance?

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      • Malcolm:

        25 Mar 2014 8:09:48pm

        Well John start with his absolute ignorance of climate science and it's all downhill from there. You did of course see his wonderfully coy performance in that interview by Jane Hutcheon didn't you - what an absolute lack of intellectual substance he has. Poor man - no qualifications, no career in journalism because he couldn't hack it and now look at him - Australia's answer to Sarah Palin sponsored by a female admirer. One could call him the poor man's Alan Jones but then when you see the type of people that rush to defend him then perhaps that title is not far short of the truth is it. However all of that ignores the simple fact that the judgement went against him because in his rush to play the stereotype card he didn't do proper research - what might be called in other areas due diligence. John you just have to accept the fact that there is a fine line between freedom of speech and outright libel. Perhaps you need to do some research yourself.

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        • John Coochey :

          26 Mar 2014 7:12:10am

          In that case why did not the plaintiff's not sue for libel? Because the would have lost. Once again can you actually give us some fact. You know things like the fact that the climate has not warmed for seventeen years. Facts.

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        • Malcolm:

          26 Mar 2014 8:54:03am

          Bolt chose to published an untruth which was sufficient for them to win their case and good luck to them - this country and its citizens should never be held hostage to the wild claims of pseudo journalists who lack the intellectual resources to properly research the subjects upon which they write. A little competent research and he would not have been put in the humiliating position he was. He alone, not the women who defended themselves are responsible for what happened to him.

          As for your comment about climate change and Mr Bolt's views on that I'll accept the findings of the scientists, such as those at the BoM and the CSIRO over the wild guess of someone who doesn't have any scientific qualifications John. Sorry about that but facts are facts and self-serving dissimulation like that you apparently choose to believe will never replace them. I have the proper qualifications, earned by a great deal of hard work, to understand climate matters - I may be wrong but I would suspect that you like Mr Bolt don't. That is unfortunate for both you and Mr Bolt but it is remedial. In Mr Bolt's case, if the statements made by Mr Bolt regarding the five women are any guide I suspect that he lacks the capacity for that level of application.

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    • Ralph:

      25 Mar 2014 6:58:51pm

      Actually, most of what Bolt says is identical to what the Menzies government and most other governments, state and federal, ran as policy up to the Whitlam era.

      Menzies is held up by most commentators as one of the greatest leaders our nation has ever had.

      Bolt is denigrated and deemed to be a bad person, is it possible he just wants to be remembered like Menzies?

      They both espouse the same ideals

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      • harry:

        25 Mar 2014 9:00:31pm

        Yeah, it's been great since Whitlam. Sit down money has meant that alcohol abuse, paint and glue sniffing has led to widespread permanent brain-damage to generations. But we can look on proudly and say we give money to the indigenous. Awesome work!

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        • Ralph:

          26 Mar 2014 7:48:48am

          Harry, I am unsure if you are being sarcastic or backing Bolts view.

          I have worked on projects in Indigenous settlements, some groups are exactly as you stated and some are a better quality of person than you would find in a urban area.

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  • spud:

    25 Mar 2014 5:12:41pm

    We will always have problems of race and associated claims of unfair treatment of individuals currently alive because of historical mistreatments (whether mythical, perceived or actual) of their ancestors (likewise whether mythical, perceived or actual) for as long as people don't stop to think that their lives are what they make of them rather than being something owed to them by dint of what may or may not have happened to their ancestors.

    All the successful individuals I know (and that includes black, white, yellow, brown, women, men...) all made it without being given any special leg up. Where leg ups were/are given to these people, it was because they were human beings and not because they were members of some perceived sub-group of humanity. That is the way it should be.

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  • Iain Hall:

    25 Mar 2014 5:14:06pm

    The problem with this sort of argument is that it totally ignores the racial qualifications for a whole slew of government programs designed to help those who are clearly very much in need of a hand up out of poverty and despair. So it becomes much more a matter of how an unchallengeable self identification can privilege some Australians while excluding the vast majority.

    Having any specifically racial qualification for government largess can and should be questioned and that is precisely what Bolt set out to do in the pieces that found him in recent of court proceedings. Had he not made a couple of errors of fact (not lies as so many critics suggest) its more than likely that the case against him would have failed

    I wrote this in my own blog this morning:
    From my appearance with a (now greying) red beard, blond hair and blue eyes its pretty obvious that I have some measure of Anglo Saxon blood in my veins, thanks to the period of English history when the Saxons were ascendant . What would people think if I were to begin to insist that I am a Saxon? Or if my children were to do the same and therefore ignoring the fact that their Opa was a Dutchman from Rotterdam? Or that their Grandmother?s family were all good Irish Catholics? Under the way of thinking of those who sued Andrew Bolt I or my children should forever be unquestioned were we to insist that we are Saxons (even though my daughter has dark hair and hazel eyes ) if my family insisting that we are Saxons is a shallow a conceit, and one that I could insist upon would it make someone a bigot if they were to question that conceit? I might certainly dislike my conceits being questioned, I might even feel offended , insulted even a bit intimidated because I have had something as fundamental as they way that I ethically self identify

    So I ask why should an analogous claim of aboriginal ethnicity inspire a lawsuit if its questioned?

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    • jennbrad:

      25 Mar 2014 7:27:46pm

      Aboriginality is not just self-identification. It has three strands - Aboriginal descent, identification and being accepted as Aboriginal by the community with which they are associated.

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      • Platapus:

        25 Mar 2014 9:59:04pm

        And that is an arbitrary rule. It is in no way any sort of 'truth'.

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  • Esteban:

    25 Mar 2014 5:20:45pm

    This article completely misses the point and the writer has wasted her time.

    It is not about Bolt being correct or incorrect it is about his right to comment irrespective of whether he is right or wrong.

    The writer is able to mount a solid case against Bolt being wrong however does not want Bolt to have any right of reply because mounting his own argument is against the law.

    Let Bolt and others have their say then republish this article to refute him.

    What if there are white people who claim aboriginality to rort welfare? We never know because it is illegal to comment?

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    • Mark James:

      25 Mar 2014 6:23:54pm

      Estaban, of course Bolt has a right of reply, even with the existing law. The only thing he has to watch is his tendency to use "significant distortions of fact" when attempting to "offend", "humiliate" and "intimidate" those he wishes to attack.

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    • Tristan:

      25 Mar 2014 6:57:33pm

      Esteban,

      And what about people prepaying health insurance in advance to avoid government means testing?

      The Liberal government hiding the amount of money they truly spend on offshore detention, non-indigenous services, opposing Native Title by misclassifying expenses as "foreign aid" and "indigenous spending".

      What about Peter Costello using creative accounting to produce artificial surpluses by misclassifying money given to the states as "loans" instead of grants in contravention of proper accounting standards and the practices of the federal Auditor-General and all state Auditors-General?

      What about people hiding their assets in discretionary family trusts and companies using offshore tax havens?

      What about the alleged laundering of illegal NSW property developer donations to the Liberal party via a slush fund EightByFive, affiliated to a former staffer of a NSW Liberal Minister, which is the subject of the next NSW ICAC inquiry?

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      • Esteban:

        25 Mar 2014 7:48:41pm

        Tristan. All those rorts can be freely discussed. There is no ban on discussing the points you have raised.

        Even if you were mistaken on one or two points you are still free to make your comment.

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      • Tristan:

        25 Mar 2014 11:57:07pm

        Esteban,

        Andrew Bolt had the freedom to comment under the exemption to section 18c.

        I don't think it's asking too much to expect someone to at the very least to be fair and accurate - 19 errors.

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  • RB:

    25 Mar 2014 5:26:15pm

    Some reasonable points made ... however, Bolt's main point is that laws should be made to unify us as citizens, not divide us into sub-groups requiring special treatment. Special treatment by government has almost always done more harm than good. This applies to the terrible policies of past and present.

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    • MD:

      26 Mar 2014 10:14:54am

      Contravening existing law in the expectation that the law doesn't apply to an individual is an appeal for special treatment. Brandis will deliver, apparently.

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  • Andy Ward:

    25 Mar 2014 5:34:24pm

    Chelsea ,
    Thank you for this excellent article , in which you have exposed the sophistry and clever psychology of Mr Bolt and his ilk . The deep seated anxieties of middle aged white patriarchs are in overdrive as the economic system they have created creaks and groans also .
    Mr Bolt is no Burkean conservative in any traditional sense , but a propagandist for a radical economic ideology which arose in response to communism and operates very similarly to it ..
    As the world sails head first into the Cerberean catastrophes of overpopulation , climate change and resource depletion , Australia is front and centre as a valuable resource province for the faltering U.S/ Anglo empire ..
    Perhaps their main obstacle to legitimate " ownership " still resides in the presence of Aboriginal People as a coherent entity in this country , and the descent of this debate into child like binary tit for tat is no coincidence .
    As the ultimate true Conservatives , Aboriginal people will be here long after any ephemeral economic ideology has passed away , and hopefully we can face the future ( after acknowledging the horrific injustice of the past ) white and black and
    others , and move forward as Australians
    Regards
    Andy Ward

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    • Bev:

      25 Mar 2014 11:26:17pm

      That is until the Chinese or who ever is the world power at the time arrives. Has always been so.

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  • John51:

    25 Mar 2014 5:34:59pm

    Dr Chelsea, you say Bolt is not racist, but I have to wonder under that assessment what one has to do or say to be classed as racist. You see I take a different tack in this argument by saying that to varying degrees we are all racist. That is not the problem. The problem is when we don't acknowledge that fact and challenge that racism within ourselves.

    All of us see the world according the influences of the world we have grown up in and been influenced by. To what degree we allow those influences to determine the way we treat others. That is people other than our own self, who may look, sound or have grown up in a different culture. Depends very much on the way we have been brought up to question and challenge our own beliefs.

    Bolt's attitude and actions reminds me too much of the history of this country that thought that Aboriginality, like color could be breed out of the Aboriginal population. That attitude thought that if they could deny Aboriginals to their own culture that it also would die out.

    Of course this attitude was nothing new from colonizers. All we have to do is look at the English attempts to do the same to the Welsh, Scots and Irish. And if we look at each of these countries now we would have to agree that the English were not successful.

    But of course we would also have to agree that over that time the Welsh, Scots and Irish have changed since the English first colonised them. But of course the English people have also changed even though all of these peoples have retained some aspects of their earlier cultural identities.

    Equally we have all culturally changed from our ancestors who first came here whether we are sixth generation Australian or first generation. And we could equally say whether they be one called British, or the other 170 national and ethic and cultural peoples who now call Australia home.

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  • Darren:

    25 Mar 2014 5:40:40pm

    Andrew Bolt is well known to be willfully ignorant and that is his right to choose to be so. The problem is he projects his ignorance as knowledge and people seem to love it. Perhaps Andrew is just a reflection of the Australian communities demand for ignorant bliss.

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    • John Coochey :

      25 Mar 2014 6:25:26pm

      And an example is?

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      • allaboutlies:

        25 Mar 2014 8:57:09pm



        Last Sunday's Bolt Report should be a good example.

        He spent the whole hour lying about how Julia had lied, and then how Kevin had lied, complained incessantly about the carbon tax.

        He complained that March in March was nothing more than an Abbott hate fest. His hour long program was a hate fest about all things Labor. The last six years have been nothing more than a Labor hate fest from the Murdoch press.

        Shouldn't Bolt and the rest of the media including Murdoch and the right wing media in general be holding the present govt to account or is it their strategy to ensure by all means that Abbott is re-elected next time.

        Democracy in action?

        pffffffft!



        ******

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        • John Coochey :

          26 Mar 2014 7:13:55am

          Well what is your point? He made a case and backed it up with facts and argument something you have yet to do.

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      • John51:

        25 Mar 2014 11:23:02pm

        John you say you want an example. But to ask that question suggests that you must not have watched any of his programs. Because if you had you would not ask that question because each of his programs would provide you your example.

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        • John Coochey :

          26 Mar 2014 7:14:32am

          So you are incapable of giving one example?

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        • John51:

          26 Mar 2014 9:42:29am

          John, you obviously did not understand my answer. I do not have to give a specific example because all of Bolt's shows, talks, articles, provide endless examples. When something is so obvious there is no need to identify it, to point it out.

          And as someone else said here. Bolt is so predictable in what he says that you know what he is going to say on something before he says it. In fact the remarkable thing is that once in a thousand utterances, or is that ten thousand, he surprises you. But than when you see what he said in its overall context you see that it is no different in argument than all his other arguments.

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  • Michael from Hobart:

    25 Mar 2014 5:48:32pm

    I fear we are giving Andrew Bolt too much free publicity. He seems to belong to that sad group of people who are so unhappy with themselves that they only ever feel better about themselves by being nasty to minority groups.

    An overwhelming majority of the non-aboriginal population feel sad for the cruel dispossession that English invaders effected on Aborigines since the 18th century.

    When and if George Brandis' miserable and mean changes to the racial discrimination act are effected, Andrew Bolt might feel vindicated and, no doubt, he will publish some self-patronizing article in a toilet-paper masquerading as a newspaper.

    That doesn't mean the majority believe him, and if we stopped wasting our valuable time thinking about him and the dross he pretends is opinion he just might disappear into the obscurity he deserves.

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  • David Kay:

    25 Mar 2014 5:58:14pm

    Bolt's paranoid obsession with Muslims, his constant vilification of asylum seekers, his deliberately misleading focus on the crimes of a handful of refugees and his snivelling resentment of Aboriginal Australians are all clearly the product of the most base and vile bigotry that should be despised and denounced in the strongest terms at every possible opportunity.

    Nevertheless, Brandis may be deeply corrupt, but he is right in this case. Only in totalitarian states are people not free to offend.

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    • Big Nana:

      26 Mar 2014 12:28:18am

      His "snivelling resentment of Aboriginal People" apparently doesn't include people like Bess Price, Noel Pearson,Dalllas Scott, Warren Mundine, Anthony Dillon, just to name a few. Bolt is extremely supportive of benefits going to indigenous people who are disadvantaged by circumstances such as remote locality, neglect, disability etc. What he does not support are benefits going to people who look white, live white and who have the same access to services as other Australians.

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      • PD:

        26 Mar 2014 9:15:55am

        I like you Big Nana! I'm biased, I know, but you always come across as reasonable and (of course) informed, pragmatic and practical. You live it - Aboriginal children, Aboriginal community.

        Are you political? If not, could you be? I.e. in politics?

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      • David Kay:

        26 Mar 2014 9:36:02am

        He is entirely oblivious to the disadvantages suffered by indigenous people due to the armed invasion of their land, the genocidal frontier wars that followed and the deliberate, systematic persecution and exploitation that has gone on ever since.

        What he does not support is taking any responsibility for the many, many crimes that our country has committed against it aboriginal victims. Better to just storm around huffing about how they just need to pull their socks up. That is deeply contemptible.

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        • 1Question:

          26 Mar 2014 3:33:56pm

          Where in this thread to ask this question? David, I have read of and readily accept the historical evidence of suffering post "white settlement". I further believe with many others that assistance should be on need. However, I struggle with the venomous use of "invasion" to describe what I was told at school was one of many conquerings of people in Australia. I recall (vaguely) discussions of Mungo Man as an early inhabitant and that another group came down from Indonesia some 40,000 years ago, overtook and assimilated them, and became what was back then called "the modern Aborigine". My "but I know Aboriginal people" comment is that for 20 years I lived and worked with Aboriginal people in western NSW and the Kimberly. Their answer to "where are you from?" was always a tribal reference just as I would say that my family arrived in the 1850's from UK/Europe etc.

          So, am I mistaken in my memory of past learnings of "multiple invasions"? Has it been proven or debunked since then (1960's)? Anyway, can we exclude that emotive term, acknowledge the melting pot we have (as I suspect all continents do) and just work to help the disadvantaged? We can't go back & I supported the "sorry" sentiment expressed by the past PM. Again, I'm more than happy for my taxes to support & eradicate disadvantage. If anyone simply wants to label me racist & say nothing else, so be it.

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      • lazarus:

        26 Mar 2014 11:05:54am

        Because they are "proper black" Aboriginals. Are you going to argue that Warren Mundine is wrong when he says 18C should stay or does he turn into a "yella fella" for taking a different view to yourself.

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  • Kurisu Shimei:

    25 Mar 2014 6:00:22pm

    "Here, Chelsea Bond revisits the newspaper columnist's treatment of Aboriginality, explaining that race is more than skin deep."

    Chelsea was most disingenuous, bolt pointed out that self identifying 'aboriginals' were claiming benefits that in any sane world they would not have.

    Was bolt racist for pointing out that a self identifying, 'white man' won an art prize for aboriginal women.

    The main premise was that we are Australians first and races second.

    "Andrew Bolt may not be racist ... but his obsession with, and expectations of Aboriginal bodies and minds is ... well, no comment ..."


    That is untrue, and, by default you are a racist.

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  • Tropicalcat:

    25 Mar 2014 6:00:39pm

    I live in Cairns and have worked in the QLD outback and the Straits. I also identify with Andrew Bolt 100%. This article is an appalling mishmash of verbal gymnastics and more importantly can only have been written by some one divorced from the reality of regional Australia.

    Any one who sees ATSI discrimination on a daily basis is appalled at the photos of people who for reasons of advancement purport to be Aborigine. The Australian is the worst culprit in running what it no doubt sees as feel good stories of "white" ATSI kids or the like in a scholarship.

    It's simple, the bush is full of black ( in colour) kids who desperately need a leg up and will be marked out for discrimination because of their appearance till the day they die ( well in advance of the rest of us most likely) They need every extra advantage that we can give them to break what is a brutal cycle of poverty and disadvantage.

    Does that make me a racist, Hell No. It's just that the situation is desperate and the time for niceties is long gone.

    Your correspondent needs to get out and talk to those who work in social services to find the Bolt veiw of the world up here is the norm. Because they are bigots, no because they care and are trying to make a difference and still generally have more bad than good days.

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    • Tristan:

      26 Mar 2014 12:02:00am

      Tropicalcat,

      The question is on what basis are scholarships awarded - are they going to financially disadvantaged people.

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    • Big Nana:

      26 Mar 2014 12:34:08am

      i couldnt agree more. I have lived the last 44 years in the top end of Australia, including in a remote, traditional community and to say that all indigenous people are the same is like comparing apples with broccoli. they are both plants, but belong to totally different families. Fair skinned urban people who identify as indigenous are totally alien in comparison to actually black, traditional, remote indigenous people. and the average Australian, including urban indigenous, live in total ignorance of the lives these people lead.

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    • PD:

      26 Mar 2014 9:38:03am

      Agree. I used to live in FNQ and have been in remote Aboriginal communities all over Australia. There is a big Aboriginal middle class in places like Townsville and Cairns. You never hear about them, too boring. They go to work, take their kids to school, go shopping, play sport, have fun on the weekends. They are in Defence, construction, the mines, public service and private enterprise. I've lived with them and worked with them and, from my experience, their lives are thoroughly normal. They don't need any additional leg up or hand out.

      But if you've heard a "stereotypical" story of an Aboriginal, it will also be true at some point. Where Aboriginal people fall outside the mainstream, that is where our help should be going. Not to the middle class or elite and those who like "...Paris for food and shopping..."

      Visit the emergency ward of a Mt Isa or Katherine or Darwin hospital the day after pay day to see need; not a book launch in Sydney. Visit a remote Aboriginal community in Queensland or the NT, SA or WA and see the damage. That's where our money should be going. Not on lawn mowing services in Gippsland and for culturally appropriate "incursions" in metropolitan kindergartens.

      Bolt is right, and no amount of pretending he's a racist will change his central fact: Aboriginal identification is fine, but not at the expense of real need.

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  • Mr. Jordon:

    25 Mar 2014 6:06:45pm

    Andrew has a habit of leaping on any account of a minority group attacking 'white' people.

    A few week ago two young 'white' girls racially and physically attack an elderly man on a bus. Andrew didn't comment on the story. So I challenged him as to why on his blog.

    His response was that I have it the wrong way around. The Girls, he said, had claimed that the elderly man had told them to go back to where they came from. He also pointed out that the elderly man wasn't an Aboriginal.

    The Girls believed at the time that the elder man was Aboriginal. They racially and physically abuse this man. All of which was captured on video.

    Andrew found not bring himself to condemn that attack by these girls. Instead he defended them. Andrew's claim that he is not a racist is hard to swallow when he does stuff like this.

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    • John Coochey :

      25 Mar 2014 7:44:05pm

      The incident you referred to occurred on 27 February 2014. I have checked that day and subsequent days for the comments you refer to but cannot find them. If in fact they exist I think you should source them after all editorial accuracy seems to be now at a premium. Are you claiming that they have now been removed from the blog?

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      • Mr. Jordon:

        25 Mar 2014 9:44:57pm

        it was on the 5th of March. The topic was called The Retribalising of Australia. It is the first comment on the page.

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      • Mr. Jordon:

        25 Mar 2014 9:49:13pm

        heres my comment:

        And yet no comment on the vile and racist attack on a near blind elderly Aboriginal man by two young girls on a bus last week.

        And not once did you question why the media hasn?t mentioned their race or religion.

        Mr. Jordon (Reply)
        Wed 05 Mar 14 (08:05am)

        and heres Andrew?s reply:

        He isn?t Aboriginal, and while it is claimed the girls thought he was even that seems doubtful. The man reportedly told the girls to ?go back where you came from?, and they retorted: ?Oh, bro, we?re in Abo country.?

        I think you?ve got this exactly the wrong way around.

        Andrew Bolt
        Wed 05 Mar 14 (08:54am)

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        • Rae:

          26 Mar 2014 3:36:41pm

          It is appalling.

          An elderly lady at my scrabble group tells harrowing stories of the cruelty she experiences due to being visually impaired and wearing a badge to identify this fact.

          We have allowed young people to get away with intolerable behaviour for way too long.

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      • Big Nana:

        26 Mar 2014 12:39:47am

        I read Bolts blog every day, especially anything connected to indigenous affairs, and I saw nothing remotely matching Mr Jordan's accusation. In actual fact, Bolt does not respond to comments. He generally posts articles from other sources, makes an initial comment, then takes no further part in the comments. He does not even moderate the blog, that is done by employees of the Herald Sun.

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        • Mr. Jordon:

          26 Mar 2014 8:35:19am

          As you can see I've provide the evidence about.

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  • Keith Lethbridge Snr:

    25 Mar 2014 6:07:34pm

    G'day Chelsea.

    Thanks for your article.

    In my humble opinion, Australians are not well served by any legislation that identifies people according to racial origin. And the way I read Mr Bolt's column, that's what he was saying.

    As the father, grandfather & great grandfather of 18 part-Aboriginal descendants, I can't see where any of them have benefitted from the many legal, educational, financial, accommodation, corporate or any other legislated options available to them, but not available to my other 6 descendants. Quite the contrary. Some have been lulled into not bothering to pursue their obvious potential & that makes me quite sad.

    Despite its name, The Racial Discrimination Act carves in stone the right of much discriminatory legislation to exist, under the guise of "positive discrimination".

    If there was one gift I could give them, it would be the gift of "necessity", that good old "mother of invention". My non-Aboriginal descendants are blessed with this wonderful gift. It encourages them to get out of bed in the morning, to set goals for themselves & to steadfastly toil to achieve ambitions, large or small.

    Certainly, there will always be the needy amongst us. Let this need, & nothing else, be the criterion for assistance. Perhaps I got it wrong, but the way I read it, that's what Mr Bolt was saying. If that makes him a racist, then I'm quite obviously the same & I make no apology.

    I love all my family equally & want only the best for each one. I honestly believe that this can be best achieved through equality of opportunity. "Equality of outcome", on the other hand, is a cart in front of a horse; never likely to be of great benefit & unwittingly causing a great deal of harm.

    Regards,

    Cobber

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    • Big Nana:

      26 Mar 2014 12:44:49am

      Keith, unlike you I have no non indigenous descendants. All 28 of mine are indigenous and the only ones I wish to see given special consideration are those living in remote communities without access to the same standard of education as their town dwelling cousins. And I have 2 that are autistic and receive the same services as non indigenous autistic children, which is exactly what Bolt was proposing. And you are correct, unnecessary help and assistance removes motivation. I have witnessed this in my own family.

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  • bluedog:

    25 Mar 2014 6:11:47pm

    The underlying issue that Dr Bond carefully skirts around is that of the benefits paid to Aborigines, and that was the issue that Andrew Bolt himself was focussed upon. Until 18c is repealed it seems unlikely that this issue can be openly debated and it should be. In aggregate, persons of Aboriginal identity receive 2.52 times the government expenditure that non-Aborigines receive. The Productivity Commission collates the statistics and they are publically available under Indigenous Expenditure. This begs a simple question, who is Aboriginal and how and by whom is that identity determined?

    There can be no question that Indigenous Australians living in remote and regional Australia should receive a high degree of assistance to help them with participation in the workforce. But is an Indigenous resident of Redfern as disadvantaged as an Indigenous resident of Brewarrina by virtue of locality and circumstances?

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    • Platapus:

      25 Mar 2014 10:03:42pm

      You nailed it bluedog, but I bet Dr Bond's fans won't see it that way.

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    • dubious the third:

      25 Mar 2014 11:51:36pm

      "In aggregate, persons of Aboriginal identity receive 2.52 times the government expenditure that non-Aborigines receive"

      Much of this money is paid to persons who do not identify as Indigenous.
      Tarring individuals who do identify as Indigenous because of this figure is not a relevant comparison, but it is an argument often put forward.
      Why must any assistance, as you put it, be confined to workforce participation. There are other reasons support is needed, and would be better targeted if paid directly to People who are accepted as Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander, and have had their family inheritance illegally confiscated by the Crown.

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  • IanM:

    25 Mar 2014 6:11:52pm

    Chelsea Bond isn't an opportunist, but ...

    Ms Bond explains that differences between races "are not explained by genes, biology or physical traits but instead through social, cultural, historical and economic differences." Leaving aside what "economic differences" Ms Bond might have with the rest of Australians, it sounds as if Ms Bond's concept of race is based on a kind of Tweedledum definition, that is it "means what I want it to mean". This is somewhat confirmed when Ms Bond further explains that "Race is real, because we have acted as though it is real". Does it also therefore follow that if we act as if it isn't real then it becomes imaginary? Isn't that rather close to Andrew Bolt's position?

    Personally I don't have any problem with anyone choosing to self identify in this way, I'm just not sure why I should sponsor that choice through my taxes.

    And that's the point, isn't it. This whole divisive debate is caused by the fact that there is money to be made by claiming to be a particular race. Or as Ms Bond would have it, by choosing social, cultural, historical and economic differences. No money, hardly anyone cares how others "narrate their own identity" and no divisive debate.

    To paraphrase Ms Bond once again, she may not be an opportunist... but her concept of race which conveniently allows her to access benefits not available to other Australians... well, no comment ...

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    • Mark the Lawyer:

      25 Mar 2014 6:44:37pm

      Actually, IanM, I'd say "this whole divisive debate is caused by the fact that there is money to be made trading in hate," and that the fair-skinned Bolt and the Murdoch press have cornered the market.

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  • aGuy:

    25 Mar 2014 6:12:08pm

    Bolts views are not of a "bygone era". In no previous era has someone been suggesting we completely forget about race and completely ignore race.

    The idea of slavery was one of race. The idea of conquering other nations was either one from race/religion/power. The idea of breeding out certain races including the Scots and Aboriginals was one of race.

    What has Bolt suggested about race that is one of the past because it has never been before? In Australia racial separation existed due to the white Australia policy AND denying the Indigenous people the right to vote.

    The idea is very progressive. Perhaps ahead of its time because people still act of racial assumptions thus making his notion of people completely forgetting race a very difficult one to achieve.

    The idea of perpetually ensuring one race is deemed in greater need of assistance than another, one person due to one parent no matter how generations ago is automatically disadvantaged and more is racist. The left is taking the conservative approach of not wanting a change in the status quo.

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    • dubious the third:

      25 Mar 2014 10:46:02pm

      Not sure why you are setting up Andy for a Knighthood, but he appears to want to omit the black history of white Australia and just go "let's all be equal now".
      That is disingenuous, as is your calling such an outcome 'progressive'.
      To those living a whitewashed lie, the historical truth is considered divisive.

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      • aGuy:

        26 Mar 2014 11:44:15am

        Since when did he deny what occurred to Indigenous people of Australia?

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    • Dove:

      26 Mar 2014 10:44:35am

      You got it half right. Yes, we should all try and move beyond dividing our country by race, and that means not to denigrate on the basis of race. Not to offend on the basis of race. Not to humiliate on the basis of race. How you think that insulting and offending, on the sole basis of someone's race is progress is bewildering.

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      • aGuy:

        26 Mar 2014 11:43:25am

        The alternative is to leave racist payment in place. Any time the government gives out money, it should be talked about. If people do not want to discuss race, they should remove all questions of heritage and abolish programs like ABStudy.

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    • Reinhard:

      26 Mar 2014 4:20:18pm

      Oh give it up, Bolt's "one race" meme is a pathetic attempt to excuse his pathetic and divisive racial stereotyping.

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  • Rick of SA:

    25 Mar 2014 6:20:54pm

    Quite a few people have called me ugly and some nights I've cried myself to sleep ... why, oh why, do they do this? ... I hope it's not because I'm ugly.

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  • Grandpapa:

    25 Mar 2014 6:30:08pm

    Do we remember how the newsreader Jeremy Fernandez suffered insults in a public bus because of the colour of his skin?

    As well as indigenous people, we also have Australian citizens from South Asian and African backgrounds who are picked on because of their skin colour. When some bigot wants to "offend, insult, humiliate or intimidate" them what will stop that bigot once the Brandis/Abbott/Bolt amendments become law?

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  • anote:

    25 Mar 2014 6:40:04pm

    "The tactic of 'no comment' is cleverly deployed ... ". Is it really clever? It seems to me that much of what people get away with by just being brazen is considered clever.

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  • Aly:

    25 Mar 2014 6:58:57pm

    The aboriginal survivors of attempts to do even more than decimate them by providing poisoned flour, and YES, actions equivalent to massacre, are often resilient, proud individuals who refuse to have the appalling treatment meted out to them by my ancestors go un acknowledged. It is a pity that Mr. Bolt could not leave his paltry and anti-miscegenation (the theory of miscegenation having been discredited increasingly post 1930) views in South Africa where, a generation ago they were deemed appropriate by like-minded 'whites'. He and his followers have a one-eyed view of history and he should not be able to make a living by continually reviving nonsensical concepts via which aboriginals are either some shade that is too black or more commonly today 'not black enough'. Bolt seeks to simplify racial identities in such a simplistic way and, significantly, by neither criteria can aboriginal Australians win peace. Bolt is to be pitied for his ignorance.


    Attention moderator - I have corrected errors in the comment I sent five minutes ago. Please publish this version instead!

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    • Platapus:

      25 Mar 2014 10:06:39pm

      Yep, let's keep dwelling on the past and do so for the next 200 years.

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    • Tristan:

      26 Mar 2014 8:56:28am

      "Yep, let's keep dwelling on the past and do so for the next 200 years."

      Platapus,

      Hear ye, Hear ye,

      Don't worry, Abbott is.

      We've reverted to the lucky country when we were the skilled country.

      Abbott's reverted back to the archaic system of Dames and Knights.

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  • Hudson Godfrey:

    25 Mar 2014 7:01:47pm

    Denigration based on something that someone is such as sexism, racism or homophobia differs quite clearly from any disapproval we may have of some act they commit or ideology they hold. The content of the former is merely a kind of disdain towards the ?other? that lacks any merit, whereas the latter contains nothing but questions about the merit of their thoughts and deeds. In short the latter may have legitimacy where the former does not.

    When it comes to changing 8C of the racial discrimination act to protect the likes of Bolt's speech I think the point to be made is that justice needs to be scalable in line with the kind of harms caused by those media outlets whose potential to denigrate is magnified by their relatively large distribution. In other words the notion that free speech is met with better speech is only given effect to if an equivalent voice is given to both sides of the debate. There would otherwise be no compunction for a racist publication supporting Andrew Bolt to offer right of reply to somebody such as Marcia Langton.

    I suspect that Marcia Langton, who I greatly admire, seemed somewhat caught on the back foot in not being prepared to call Bolt Racist on Sydney radio. It might have been better to express the view that we?re all a little bit racist as a quick online try of the Harvard implied attitude (IAT) test will demonstrate. Whereas in saying skin colour was any factor in whether aboriginals are best represented by light skinned advocates Bolt inherently neglected that community?s ability to judge fellow travellers in their culture on their merits, and he did so in a way that introduced race in a clearly prejudicial context. Since the Supreme Court also sides with something approximating that view I think there was reason despite her best social graces for Marcia to have put that to the offender as constructive criticism. She says she means no gratuitous offence, nor I gather did Bolt, but that makes no matter in the overall debate over whether anti-discrimination provisions ought exist to ensure minorities are fairly treated in the public discourse.

    What is lacking in Bolt?s rhetoric and what members of the Abbott Government especially George Brandis are now advocating isn?t a sense that they understand how free speech works in public discourse so much as any indication they can be relied upon to properly distinguish bad speech from good. While they fail to hold themselves accountable to that standard then the clear inference from their woefully inadequate responses is that they equate the ability to act badly with the right to do so?.

    We have in effect the kind of ?might is right? mentality here that Putin would envy!

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    • Matt:

      26 Mar 2014 11:33:16am

      I fully admire Marcia Langton as well. She is great.

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      • Hudson Godfrey:

        26 Mar 2014 4:25:56pm

        Damn but isn't it nice to hear from you Matt, thanks for the comment, its not what one fully expects under the circumstances :)

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  • Justin Moloney:

    25 Mar 2014 7:12:29pm

    Bolt likes to dish it but whines when brought to task. As to his familiarity and knowledge of Australian society's evolution he appears to be a somewhat trivial in his comprehension: the school-yard bully caught out.

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  • Terry:

    25 Mar 2014 7:13:48pm

    Not sure if Dr Bond misses the point willingly or through incapacity.

    Mr Bolt's article did not denigrate aboriginals and was not racist at all: nowhere did he propose that one race was superior or inferior to another.

    It was an article about the use of government funds for the disadvantaged, and who should receive them.

    I for one think it a disgrace that those who have clearly not suffered in any significant way from discrimination should profit from monies intended to assist those on the outer of society.

    Nothing to do with race. Fairness. Equity.

    It smacks of those in no need claiming the first owner's home subsidy to build McMansions.

    PS Can any explain to me why having one ancestor of a particular race is so important? (And all the rest presumably meaningless?)

    I have no idea what "race" any of my great great greats were: and I care even less.

    Would it be different if I thought one was Aryan?

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    • Mark James:

      25 Mar 2014 8:10:30pm

      "Bolt's article did not denigrate aboriginals"?

      Well Justice Bromberg ruled to the contrary, Terry. He spoke of the "mocking and derisive tone of the article" and stated that "A number of the individuals" were "derided and ridiculed" by Bolt's columns.

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      • Terry:

        25 Mar 2014 8:59:32pm

        Deriding someone is not racist.

        The judge did not find Bolt to be racist.

        Am I the only one to have the decision?

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        • Mark James:

          26 Mar 2014 10:30:45am

          Terry, I know Justice Bromberg did not find the fair-skinned Bolt to be racist. I never said he did.

          However, Bromberg did find that Bolt had used "significant distortions of fact" to "deride" and "ridicule" the plaintiffs.

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      • Catch:

        25 Mar 2014 10:09:53pm

        Therefore it is true because the judge said so? Should we assume that judges always get it right? I can imagine that many years back when a judge could decide that a gay person was criminal, you would have seen this as proof positive that gay people were criminal.

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        • Mark James:

          26 Mar 2014 10:36:11am

          Er Catch, in modern, developed democracies, judges don't tend to decide whether "gay people" are "criminal". Their job is to interpret the law.

          The closest they could possible come to your scenario is if they were making a judgement on a law that deems it a crime to be gay.

          Do judges always get it right? Probably not. But, just because sometimes some judges get some things 'wrong' does not mean that all judges always get everything 'wrong'.

          As far as Bromberg v Bolt goes, I've read plenty of Bolt and some of Bromberg, and I'd trust Bromberg's word over Bolt's any day.

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      • Tristan:

        26 Mar 2014 8:58:08am

        Bolt's comments were unfair and inaccurate.

        Thanks to George Brandis, Bolt is now free to be a bigot and to "spread mistruths".

        It'll be in Brandis' legislation.

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        • David Kay:

          26 Mar 2014 11:13:34am

          The whole point of a free country is so that people are free to "spread mistruths". You really do not want to live in a state in which only one "truth" is allowed.

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  • TJ:

    25 Mar 2014 7:46:51pm

    Not sure I agree with Brandis but even if he does make the changes, Andrew Bolt would still be found guilty (read the Judge's ruling)

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  • Poisonous Mushroom:

    25 Mar 2014 7:48:25pm

    Maybe it is time for Australians all to ignore Bolt. If no one bothers to listen to his hateful rants on behalf of his political masters we might find peace reigns across the airwaves and in our daily lives once again. Shades of the developments on Rake.

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  • Tom :

    25 Mar 2014 7:52:46pm

    Dr Bond has spoiled what could have been a perfectly adequate insight into the futility of pigeonholing people on the basis of "race" with the sort of clich?d babble that would only pass for intelligent comment in the Australian university system, or in the comment sections of the ABC.

    It is simply true that the threshold of "aboriginality" (as Dr Bond might call it) required for eligibility for an array of government schemes and subsidies is set so low that it would not be unfair to call it "an honesty system". This being the real world, it would also seem obvious that in such an honesty system, a scheme which confers advantage on self-identified members of the targeted group is likely to itself be the target of rorting.

    What remains is to have a frank and unambiguous discussion of the pros and cons of a system which has positive discrimination towards indigenous Australians as its modus operandi. Obfuscating the debate with barely coherent digressions on "colonialism" and "quantum discourses" might dazzle the PhD committee, but it does little in addressing a legitimate question of public policy.

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    • Tristan:

      26 Mar 2014 12:17:06am

      "What remains is to have a frank and unambiguous discussion of the pros and cons of a system which has positive discrimination towards indigenous Australians as its modus operandi."

      Tom,

      Positive discrimination?

      What about the negative discrimination?

      Incarceration without conviction. Mandatory 3 strikes law in the NT.

      Being used as guinea pigs for the Liberals welfare quarantining and work for the dole schemes.

      Decades of underpayments and lost wages based on their race.

      Government legal fees incurred fighting against Aboriginal native title claims being classified by the Liberals as "indigenous spending".

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  • stephen:

    25 Mar 2014 7:59:42pm

    Mr. Bolt was investigating the proportion of race to memory ... and unfortunately, he stumbled across not the fact, but the act : remembrances that come to fruition through the Courts - and it is for this reason that new legislation is required now : It protects everyone who queries the act, and looks to the fact.

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  • the working man:

    25 Mar 2014 8:06:46pm

    Bolt is a carbon copy of the shock jocks in the USA. Add a bias media
    headed by news corp , the right wing nutters screaming every day
    about President Obama and that sums up the right of politics beautifully.
    Thank god America has a balanced media unlike here. With bias media
    coverage you end up with Abbott, Brandis and co. But hey, many people
    warned of this outcome .

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    • Jim:

      25 Mar 2014 11:08:11pm

      I nearly fell off my chair. Just google who owns the Us media.

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  • Brian Francis:

    25 Mar 2014 8:08:39pm

    Whether Andrew Bolt is racist or not - if you want something Socialist to worry about consider 550 people given the death penalty in Egypt. We really need to get a life here in Aust.

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  • Maxx:

    25 Mar 2014 8:18:20pm

    Judging by the comments here perhaps we need to have the discussion that most seem to fear, but not until the legislation is amended.

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  • Lehan Ramsay:

    25 Mar 2014 8:38:06pm

    Is it still not legal for people to be under surveillance simply because of their race? Then all the Australians should be pretty annoyed about this NSA rubbish. I cannot see why someone cannot come up with a computer program to put into the internet that shrieks blue murder when the NSA try to download something. Shrieks at them, not at us.

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  • GraemeF:

    25 Mar 2014 8:44:35pm

    The most egregious aspect of this is the open lies that are used to protect Bolt and to change the laws.

    The legislation does not suppress 'freedom of speech' because 18d has enough loopholes in it that you could drive a truck through them. Bolt was charged because he went out of his way to attack a group of people by using false information against them. He was factually wrong. It wasn't just a different opinion it was the levying of false accusations.

    Bolt is a professional right wing rabble rouser. No one is stopping him doing that. He can whip people up into a frenzy by appealing to their fear and ignorance as much as he wants to. He is allowed to reject the solid evidence of global warming day after day and not be dragged to court for crimes against science. He can accuse the ABC of bias if they dare report facts and no one can ask him to shut up. All in all he can continue to be a mindless, fact free, right wing jerk and get well paid for it and no one can stop him.

    What he can not do is name and target people with lies.

    Which brings me back to my first complaint. Since Bolt is clearly adverse to the truth and in this case it has been proven in a court of law that he doesn't or didn't bother getting his facts right, then why does this man get so much support? Why do people lie and say he is being discriminated against? Why are they changing the laws so he can get away with openly lying? Is there a bigger agenda? Are the right wing in general trying to get legal changes to get their particular brand of utter gibberish and fact free ranting to have equal weight with factual reporting and scientific evidence?

    I can think of no other reason for supporting someone who is so obviously wrong/incompetent/lying and for lying about why he was convicted with this 'free speech' malarkey.

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  • Bigot:

    25 Mar 2014 8:56:14pm

    State has duty to not encourage, not nourish, not support, not help bigots. Sadly one party thinks that these protections are needed as many in the party may be described as bigots.

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    • Tristan:

      26 Mar 2014 9:02:32am

      Brandis' repeal will be interesting.

      One of the usual targets of verbal abuse is those in positions of authority - such as parking inspectors, ticket inspectors and police officers on the front line.

      I wonder how the repeal of section 18c will operate in real life when disgruntled people use their freedom of speech.

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  • Alan d:

    25 Mar 2014 9:01:38pm

    This type of discussion about bolt is the reason. Question about ABC impartiality are raised bolt is entitled to open discussion like everyone else lets all have more not closed the door with leaning opinion journalist have a responsibility to be impartial

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  • Alan d:

    25 Mar 2014 9:03:23pm

    This type of discussion about bolt is the reason. Question about ABC impartiality are raised bolt is entitled to open discussion like everyone else lets all have more not closed the door with leaning opinion journalist have a responsibility to be impartial

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  • Jamie:

    25 Mar 2014 9:06:13pm

    Isn't it amazing,
    Britain have spent their taxpayers money on a satellite system that happened to find a missing jet in the World..And how does Australia spend taxpayers Billions?
    Aborigines and halal un known aliens in Indonesian registered boats.
    Good on you Andrew Bolt, millions of REAL Australians are behind you all the way.

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  • Barney:

    25 Mar 2014 9:15:10pm

    I think have a maternal social policy based on race definitely does no favour to eliminating racism in society.

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  • Andy B:

    25 Mar 2014 9:39:34pm

    What a pity that the author could not actually discuss Bolt's arguments directly; rather she chooses to try and read between the lines instead of actually reading his lines. Ultimately and predictably she comes to the wrong conclusion. Bolt simply states that we should be judged as individuals, not by the colour of their skin. The end.

    It seems others would prefer we are judged not as individuals but by blood lines and/or heritage. One must ask, which one is the racist standpoint?

    The law change is a victory for common sense. Three cheers for Abbott and Brandis.

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  • outside lookin in:

    25 Mar 2014 9:49:56pm

    Only a deeply racist country would be having this conversation

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  • Leon Nayr:

    25 Mar 2014 9:55:24pm

    As I understand it, the Dutch system doesn't allow for dual citizenship, unlike the Australian system. All of this storm in a tea spoon is due to poor Andrew feeling deprived and discriminated against. It's not Australia and Australians who are at fault but Mt Bolt and the Dutch system. Take a reality pill Mr Bolt and don't pick on Australia's First People to pursue your grievance which I find rather Freudian - why do you hate your mother (Holland) Mr Bolt?

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  • old67:

    25 Mar 2014 10:08:22pm

    He is just another NEWS LTD motor mouth not worth the time of day.

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  • Catch:

    25 Mar 2014 10:12:22pm

    Am I too understand that if somebody says something I don't like, I claim to be offended and take them to court?

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  • Blotted:

    25 Mar 2014 10:35:41pm

    Andrew Bolt wants to say what he likes when he likes and bad luck if you can't defend yourself. This self opinionated self appointed prat prevents comments to his blog by fire walling any opinion other than his own. Don't be fooled this is an attack on freedom of speech not as Brandi's and bolt portray it because they have the power to shut opposite comment out.

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  • Abbott Voter:

    25 Mar 2014 10:47:33pm

    Thanks Senator Brandis for inferring to Australia the bigot is Coalition code for Abbott and his disciples. It is very handy for all Australians to know this.

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  • Michael Wild:

    25 Mar 2014 11:09:34pm

    I'm afraid I haven't read the original article but my understanding is that Bolt questioned whether a small group of highly educated, articulate and clearly not very oppressed Indigenous Australians really were Aboriginals.

    Well I do know that to be called an Indigenous Australian all you need is to say you are one and be recognized by the local indigenous Australians to be one. This is an old and easily understood definition - skin colour matters not one whit. I work as a school psychologist in South West of WA and know I'm somewhat darker than some of our local Aborigines (Nungars). Who cares? Bolt quite clearly was wrong and failed in his duty as a public intellectual - to make his readers better informed rather than mis-informed on social issues.

    How meaningfully such well to do Indigenous Australians can represent the Indigenous Australians we should be really concerned about-the ones right at the bottom of all manner of things such as health, education, income, low violence households etc is another matter. Perhaps he was right in suggesting that their self-identification with the truly disadvantaged ones came from more selfish motives rather than a love of justice and altruism.

    In either case I was distinctly uneasy about the resulting legal case. Being wrong on social issues shouldn't mean breaking the law and I'm sure I would have heard if he'd called for nasty racists actions. His barbs were at the privileged Aborigines, not the disadvantaged ones. Pauline Hanson's statement that Australia was at risk of being 'swamped' with Asians (a whole 5% if that of our nation) was far more dangerous.

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  • Jim:

    25 Mar 2014 11:21:03pm

    Andrew Bolt has just played into the stereotype that the left has created for anyone with a different opinion. He in no way represents white nationalists or normal white people who are against white genocide. We believe that it is wrong to deliberately hurt people's feelings and we can only stop white genocide by ourselves because we are the majority in this country. We let the white antiwhites open our boarders so only we can close them. There is nothing to gain by upsetting non whites. We hope they can respect us for caring about our people the way they care about theirs.

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    • Marflo:

      26 Mar 2014 10:38:37am

      Andrew Bolt made 19 errors of fact, 1 gross error of fact. His comments had no factual basis. But hey it's his right to denigrate people. How else can we get ahead of the rest of humanity if we don't lie about them.

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  • Horrocks :

    25 Mar 2014 11:22:17pm

    I think what upsets some people, including 2 full blood Aboriginal gentlemen I work with, is how "diluted" governments have allowed those that claim Aboriginal blood/benefits to go. The funny thing is that many full blood Aborigines do not look on some of these people as people of Aboriginal heritage, rather than interlopers, however that upsets the industry that seems to have sprung up surrounding Aboriginality.

    I recall one of these gentlemen, and they are true gentlemen, telling us how he had applied to ATSIC as it was for some money, only to be told that he was a dishrag to his race because he had a full time and had done so for more than 10 years at the time.

    By definition, as a 54 year old white man, I am also an Aborigine as I was born here, look up the meaning before you start frothing at the mouth

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  • Marflo:

    25 Mar 2014 11:34:55pm

    Andrew Bolt doesn't bother with the truth. If you are looking for a person of scholarship from whom to learn or be illuminated by, you've come to the wrong person. But if you run out of toilet paper and his column is handy, you've got the right paper to deal with your business.

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  • Bill Daley:

    25 Mar 2014 11:35:29pm

    Race? What's it about? I thought all humans were part of the human race. How stupid am I?

    Religion? That's your business. I don't have any.

    I am a "first fleeter". I see a lot of human degradation hanging around the local mall, cadging fags or a bit of change, clearly affected by some sort of substance. Shock, horror, almost all of them, male and female, are white Anglo-Saxon types.

    Should I denigrate my own heritage and condemn these people, or maybe should I look at our society and ask "Why? What has led us to this?" It's not a political question and there is no legislative solution, but perhaps we should forget the whole idea of "race".

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  • volkovic:

    25 Mar 2014 11:46:57pm

    I agree with Dr Chelsea, that the Aboriginal people IN GENERAL, deserve more respect and more recognition from the white majority in Australia, especially from the hotheaded, would be "old style colonisers" in the image of Andrew Bolt. All Aboriginals are legal owners of Australian land and Australian natural resources and therefore they deserve special benefits and entitlements from the wider community.

    On the other hand where I disagree with Chelsea is on the subject of genetic inheritance of a race Aboriginal or any other. Basically she seems to be saying that the genetic inheritance of a nation DOES NOT MATTER. It is not a material force in shaping world history, nor is a motivating factor in individual conduct. According to dominant scientific dogma race is something immaterial, it is all about false labelling of physical differences, or due to the influence of environmental factors like education, social class, religion or culture. All things which can be learned or unlearned during a single life-time. Such dogma defies all common sense, is utterly unscientific, and it obviously serves the aims of political elites in Western countries.

    If the idea of race is a purely imaginary, immaterial force in history, why then did the ANZAC soldiers VOLUNTEER in their millions to fight the Germans during the World War I, and II, in order to defend THEIR King and Country ? These volunteer soldiers were prepared to lay their very lives for Great Britain, they did not have to be brainwashed, forced and indoctrinated to do so.

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    • Phil:

      26 Mar 2014 9:25:00am

      Umm, there were thousands of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in those wars too; no doubt there were many people of German origin. The fact that people volunteered to fight for their country hardly proves they all belong to one genetic "race".

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    • Lindsay.:

      26 Mar 2014 12:06:03pm

      " These volunteer soldiers were prepared to lay their very lives for Great Britain, they did not have to be brainwashed, forced and indoctrinated to do so. " This maybe true, then again it may not be true. There were far more who did not volunteer, so are you suggesting they were they brainwashed?

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  • keyboard warrior:

    26 Mar 2014 12:13:23am

    We need to get real here, Andrew Bolt & the rest of his one-eyed mates who write for the Mr. "M" News media get away with blue murder, especially pre-election with the view of creating or preserving electoral favours for their conservative mates.

    If the ABC speak out against a conservative government (in a far lesser degree), & there is talks of constraints both to monetary & written content input.

    It clearly seems we have two different sets of rules here.

    I gave up reading the content of editorialists like Andrew Bolt quite a while ago, it is a god damn shame that they are able to get away with publishing their views. So idealistically corruptive. No fairness of evaluation whatsoever.

    The "M" media would write anything, as long as it going to be financially worth their while.

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  • Big Nana:

    26 Mar 2014 1:12:31am

    One issue rarely raised in the debate over identity and the inability to have a rational debate on the subject, is the absolute travesty that exists within Child Protection Departments around the country. Because of "cultural sensitivity" and fear of another stolen generation, indigenous children are left living in conditions the RSPCA wouldn't leave a dog in. Children can be starved, unwashed, sexually abused, truant from school and living in absolute filth, but unless they are physically damaged social workers are extremely reluctant to remove them from their families. Certainly the level of dysfunction accepted within an indigenous family is far higher than what is deemed to be acceptable within a non indigenous family. This has led to not just permenant damage to children, but actual deaths. Quite a few of them in fact. Apparently it is more important for children have have "culture" than to be fed, loved, protected and nurtured. This is what has resulted from judging and treating people based on their "race". We now have the abandoned generation.

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  • Rasmunchr:

    26 Mar 2014 2:39:39am

    Anyone who needs to distinguish people and describe people by their race is most probably a racist, or at best, a bigot.

    Bolt finds objection with anyone who is not shiny white, more so if they are poor and/or Muslim.

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  • skeptical observer:

    26 Mar 2014 3:06:19am

    I am an old whitefella. I grew up in the era when aboriginal people, the owners of this country were not counted as people but were exploited under the flora and fauna act. I asked what happened to the aboriginal men who fought for Australia since all the stories were about white men - nobody knew. They were expected to die out we were still told in the fifties.
    When I started University there were no aboriginal graduates. We could not find anyone finishing High School to give our Abscol scholarships to.
    It has been positive discrimination that has altered this led by men like Nugget Coombs.
    In the fifties and 60s people denied their indigenous origins because it would mean being removed from society, to be locked away, denied political and social freedom and be robbed if they earned money by working.
    What is racism? What is a racist? It is someone who feels that a fellow human being is not deserving of equal treatment because they have an inherited "deficiency" that makes them a lesser human being. That this is scientifically bovine faeces is obvious.
    Discrimination like this damages people, they grow with a personality disorder, often sociopathic, because they have been treated as an inferior human for most of their childhood when their nascent personality is developing. Other people subject to different childhood traumas develop different personality disorders. Two types of PD that cause frequent social disruption are psychopathic and narcissistic. Such people are unable to comprehend the hurt that is suffered by other people. The more extreme ones are murderers others become successful capitalists or politicians or journalists. They venerate Ayn Rand who wrote novels praising the sociopathic. They are never wrong.

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  • Zany:

    26 Mar 2014 3:30:26am

    How mr blot and his ilk are considered journalists is beyond me. Maybe the facist daily or hitler tribune would be better suited to this buffoon. What fantasy world does he live in to expect ordinary folk to standby and accept his rants?

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    • Lindsay.:

      26 Mar 2014 12:09:41pm

      It might not be correct to claim Bolt is a journalist. All he does is write opinion and dose not deal in fact. A real journalists would not make the mistakes Bolt appears to make.

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  • TheNewBoilerMakerBill:

    26 Mar 2014 5:36:00am

    "...Chesterman and Douglas noted that protectionist legislation in all states demanded a legal definition of who was Aboriginal and who was not as there was a need to distinguish between the coloniser and the colonised...."

    Ah how the tables have turned; now it is the Aboriginals who demand proof of Aboriginality before you are allowed to access certain privileges e.g. allowed to take your 4wd past the "gate".

    I have stated before here and other places including on the Hansard: there is no working definition of "race" and never has been. Accordingly there is no definition of "racism". Have a look back over Drum articles and try to find what "racism" is.

    http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-12-04/young-we-shouldnt-risk-returning-our-workplaces-to-the-70s/5134258

    http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-11-27/levey-pringle-why-the-bolt-laws-should-stay/5118040

    http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-07-02/lane-local-government-referendum/4793956

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  • ashtongate:

    26 Mar 2014 5:52:05am

    My father was a black American GI in England during WW2. My mother was a white and very english.Then the American military refused them permission to marry as was the case in most American states.US law prevailed within the American military during WW2, no matter which country the troops were serving.
    Blacks were prevented from marrying whites, the American Red Cross refused to use black blood with white troops,black and white American soldiers fought in Bristol( the city of my birth) and killed each other, concerning black troops fraternising with white women, black troops were prevented from marching in Victory parades at wars end, in 1992 Bill Clinton finally awarded the Medal of Honor to a dozen black troops after a review of courage on the battlefield during WW2. Only one black soldier was alive to receive this award.
    I'm telling you this because this is the background to racism and its as well to learn the process from other sources while we consider the nature of racism in Australia. There is no place for this filthy despicable response to ones fellow man and women.
    The problem with racism is that it is insidious, transparent or opaque whichever way you want to play it.
    It can be practised with the flick of an eye lid, the stroke of a pen.In 1974 when I came to Australia in my first job interview the interviewer said that I was the by far the best candidate, articulate well spoken and intelligent ' but i can't give you the job (selling equipment and firearms to farmers in the wheat belt) they wouldn't buy anything from you.
    Anyone can perform or take a racist decision and you wouldn't know anything about it, the best candidate gets rejected from a job, the unspoken word at the shop counter, the snide remark.
    In my review impossible to legislate against except on a grand scale as for instance in a general sense as a population and with leaders akin to King and a government willing to bite the bullet and upset a lot of people. We rant growing up enough yet to take this path, we are ( or governments are) frightened of the consequences.
    Do I know the answer? Sadly no and no again.
    I do believe that the answer though starts in schools and that we ensure that the basis of understanding compassion and friendship are placed and understood by us all.
    Sorry about the ramble after having been through the darkie, blackie and nigger bit perhaps my thoughts might be useful.

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  • Simon:

    26 Mar 2014 6:09:49am

    It seems that PM Tony Abbott wants to regress back to the colonial days by reverting back to the British Honour system of Dame and Knighthood. Basically Tony Abbott by his action has ranked our own Australian Honour system is less prestiges than the bBritish system.
    We have a PM who still thinks that he is living in the 50-60s instead of moving forward to the 21 century.
    God Save Austalia

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  • grumpy:

    26 Mar 2014 7:07:30am

    Hi Chelsea. My Great Grandfather was a Bundjalung man from the North Coast of NSW (who's parents were killed in a massacre). At last count I have a mixture of German, Irish, English, and Scottish blood flowing through my veins. According to Andrew Bolt I am an Australian. You would regard me as an Indigenous Australian I think. I'm with Bolt, I just "get on with it."

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  • madness:

    26 Mar 2014 8:34:34am

    I'm an Auzzie living oversees. Surely there must be many more important issues worth debating back home? Many people I meet travelling hold Australia in very high esteem and are surprisingly informed of some of the more positive policies Australia has implemented, most notably on climate change reform, and cigarette plain packaging. People are shocked when I tell them of how most of it is in the process of being undone (lets hope not the cigarette packaging laws to). We're definitely not winning any points on whole asylum seeker debacle either.

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  • Gavin:

    26 Mar 2014 8:38:40am

    Bolt's arguments are in the public interest because some Aborigines who experience racism and disadvantage are locked out of good jobs by Aborigines who do not experience racism or disadvantage. We should be free to talk about this.

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    • Lindsay.:

      26 Mar 2014 12:12:11pm

      Bolt might have a view worth considering if he got his facts right. However as he is at his best when getting things wrong, maybe his views should be left out of intellectual debate.

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  • awake:

    26 Mar 2014 8:51:47am

    Backwards ever backwards.

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  • Tippex:

    26 Mar 2014 8:52:46am

    Chris Berg writing elsewhere on The Drum is right - the debate over Article 18C is politicised. But so is pretty much every issue touched by a government of ideological crusaders due to their own strategies and tactics. Andrew Bolt is a key propagandist for radical neo-liberalism in this country and his job is to give curry to "leftists", which is what neo-liberals love to call anyone not signed up to their economic agenda for small government and big business.

    Bolt may not be a racist but like any good shock jock he will congratulate his fellow ideological travellers and mercilessly ridicule and denigrate those on the other side. That is how he earns his living and he has hungry TV hours and newspaper columns that need to be fed with new and provocative content.

    Predictably, all the "fair-skinned aboriginals" Bolt identified have committed the unpardonable neo-liberal sin of taking employment in the public sector, with universities, land councils and cultural organisations like the ABC. How could Bolt pass up such an opportunity expose the hypocrisy of these leftists with taunts such as being "as pink in the face as they are in politics"?

    Let's not forget neo-liberalism has always found ideas of indigenous recognition hard to swallow because it contradicts the myth of terra nullius and makes landholders feel insecure. The idea that our landscape contains the cultural remains of 50,000 years of continuous human history is very inconvenient for those who want to dig it up. Many heroes of neo-liberalism such as mining bosses Hugh Morgan and Charles Copeland and their friends in the Liberal Party were apopleptic about the Mabo decision 20 years ago and ran a major fear campaign on the subject - sound familiar? As for the notion of a stolen generation and an apology, that just encourages victimhood and a sense of entitlement and will stick in the craw of people like John Howard and Andrew Bolt to the end.

    Unfortunately for national cohesion, using the race card to sow political divisions is a very dangerous game. There are a lot of people in this country who are deeply insecure - about their wealth, their job security, their status in society, whatever - who are capable of taking such dog whistles quite literally. History tells us what the consequences will be and we don't need to look as far back to the 19th century. Is it too much of a stretch to suggest that Howard on asians or Alan Jones on muslims may have influenced those with a chip on their shoulder to think it's OK to let fly with racial abuse at any foreign looking individual on public transport in Melbourne, Sydney or Brisbane? What message will government pandering to Bolt's sense of entitlement to taunt his political enemies in the media without the restraining influence of 18C say to those people who do hold seriously bigotted views? How will it encourage our better and kinder natures and raise the abysmal

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  • ken:

    26 Mar 2014 9:13:21am

    It bothers me that the debate persists about whether Bolt is racist when the ruling on his offence clearly hinged primarily on his incompetence as a journalist. He, simply, failed to check his 'facts' and also twisted them. You cannot claim the excuse of 'fair comment' when the comments are wrong and distorted.

    Here us the ruling:
    I have not been satisfied that the offensive conduct that I have found occurred, is exempted from unlawfulness by section 18D. The reasons for that conclusion have to do with the manner in which the articles were written, including that they contained errors of fact, distortions of the truth and inflammatory and provocative language.

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  • Aussie Sutra:

    26 Mar 2014 9:19:13am

    My entire body hurts after going through all that contorted thinking the author has flung together there.

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    • Steve_C:

      26 Mar 2014 10:26:54am

      Only your whole body?

      Not your brain?

      I guess that'd be about right... I take it you're someone who considers themselves representative of all good 'thinking' Aussies who "aren't racist; but"...

      All I've got to say to that is "No comment".

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    • Lindsay.:

      26 Mar 2014 12:13:36pm

      Well is she got her facts right she is doing better than Andrew Bolt.

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  • Tim:

    26 Mar 2014 9:37:35am

    I for one can't wait for Section 18c to be repealed. Basically, you can't police emotions.

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  • Mark:

    26 Mar 2014 9:53:31am

    "nothing in the orders I make should suggest that it is unlawful for a publication to deal with racial identification, including by challenging the genuineness of the identification of a group of people".

    You reasonably conclude from that quote that Bolt "can interrogate the identity of Aboriginal people who have fair skin but he has to be truthful". Bolt's appalling journalism should have been condemned as laziness and prosecuted as libel.

    Your comments about Aboriginality being cultural rather than biological may be compelling but they are not relevant. Bolt's argument is that light-skinned Aborigines are not readily enough distinguished to have been discriminated against, and therefore do not need additional protection or advantage. He may not have been correct, but it is a reasonable proposition for public discussion.

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  • Dave_Bairnsdale:

    26 Mar 2014 10:02:01am

    We need to protect some in the community from bigots who stir up hate. After the Bairnsdale Advertiser ran gay hate editorials, I was almost killed at my property. I had to put up security cameras, spend thousands on a solicitor, attend court, and now have post traumatic stress disorder. I had no power against a one paper town editorial. We need laws that protect people from the lack of power some have. It is simply astonishing Brandis is on the side of the barking mad haters, those who seek to bring harm because of your skin colour, or your sexuality. My partner is a doctor, born in Hong Kong, he has been pushed over in the streets in Melbourne while people yell racist rants. Papers have unique power, and we need unique laws that can offer some legal redress. Bolt does not get it, but we should not have laws passed because he does not know what it is be a victim of hate crime. Abbott and Brandis should not be in public office if they cannot understand the link with some editors, and the hate crimes that follow.

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  • Matt:

    26 Mar 2014 10:40:27am

    I wholeheartedly agree that saying that, based on someone's skin colour, physiological appearance or genetic ancestry, they have less of a capacity for intelligence, or are predisposed to act in unsavoury ways, is completely unscientific, and should be illegal. It is that same enduring myth that has always walked hand in hand with a pyramidal society, and that oh-so-conveniently explains why exploitation and inequality are inevitable. And, why exploitative behaviours, that lead to inequality, are not people deliberately choosing nasty ways, but rather are a product of the way people are made - something that is no more to blame than we would hate a spider eating flies.

    The gist of the myth is that people are born with different structural potentials for intelligence and ability; different structural propensities for behavior; and some structural propensities to behave in the same ways, perhaps the most significant example of this being our so-called 'innate' drive to reproduce (and profligately at that). This myth not only takes the heat off selfish elites, it reconciles people at the bottom of the heap to their lot. No wonder it has always been so popular.

    But the thing is, the way people perceive racism, they say culture is immutable and unassailable. Probably because they believe culture is in part genetically fixed in the ways just described. In defiance of millions of years of human cultural evolution, of course, and - no matter how Dawkins and the 'evolutionary' psychologists might paint it (whew, that dubious figurehead of god no longer need explain our beliefs, things are written in our genes instead) - right in the face of the logos of the theory of evolution. What makes us successful as a species is our ability to change our behaviours in response to changes in environment.

    Culture is just ideas. Software in the brain. And if you cannot criticize culture, which seems to be what people are promoting, you cannot criticize ideas. Which is wrong. No wonder there is so much support for the idea you cannot criticize culture - nobody wants their dumb ideas subject to negative scrutiny. Believers in pixies at the bottom of the garden, for example, would say 'thou shalt not criticize the culture of a foreigner' because they would believe wholeheartedly their own culture is beyond reproach. What a dread complicity!

    Ho hum, I guess I have to listen to a bunch of sanctimonious Neo-Darwinists explain how the shape of society really is written in our genes now. Yawn, so much for enlightenment.

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  • Connie Coburg:

    26 Mar 2014 11:41:36am

    Hold on. bolt was supposedly born in SA (explains the accent and the mouth piece for the lnp) to parents who are of Dutch descent....does he consider himself or have ties to the Dutch community??? No different to the Greeks and Italians and Chinese etc who have been born here...do they break their ties with their culture just because they were born in Australia? Meaning that do the aborigines, of white parentage, have any different ties with their aboriginal community, than the Greek, Italians, DUTCH or Chinese? Why would or should the supposed white aborigines have to break ties with their culture or not even be allowed to refer to themselves as aborigines when the Italians, Greeks, DUTCH, Chinese etc can have it both ways??????

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  • Dani:

    26 Mar 2014 11:44:12am

    Throwing back to comments from the pre 1950's to fuel the outrage is exactly the type of behaviour Bolt was talking about. The question is - that if you haven't been discriminated on the basis of your race (your 1/8th indigenous genetic backgrond)or come from disadvantage because of your race - then should you recieve remedial postive descrimination. This is the 'emporer's new clothes.' Everyone is to afaid to call it because the victimhood industry is too powerful.

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  • Lindsay.:

    26 Mar 2014 12:00:03pm

    Give Bolt appears to be excellent at getting things wrong, why should anyone both with what he thinks?

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  • Another Trevor:

    26 Mar 2014 12:22:22pm

    I'm sorry but did I hear outraged LNP members in question time (was it Christopher Pyne at the desk?) say something along the lines of "how dare you call us bigots" to the Opposition? I didn't hear the original comment but if was labelling the LNP as bigoted then isn't this just the sort of robust free speech the LNP are promoting?

    Or is this episode rather an example of the appalling depths of disgrace that this country is plumbing in public discourse and political leadership on both sides?

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  • gs:

    26 Mar 2014 12:24:12pm

    I'd like to see the use of "That's racist.." be covered by the legislation.

    Far too often that charge is used to stifle valid points in a debate, or avoid talking about the gaping flaws in one's own argument.

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  • Clancy:

    26 Mar 2014 1:54:53pm

    Most of you, including the author seem to entirely miss the point. The question is not whether Andrew Bolt it's right or wrong, the question is; does Andrew Bolt have a right to be wrong?

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    • Now I'm Bullimic:

      26 Mar 2014 3:55:59pm

      BS
      Nice try using convenient hindsight to rewrite history.
      The question is do we accept a racist bully publicly lying to further a well known and long running anti-indigenous agenda.
      Emphatically no.

      He was guilty as charged and then some.

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  • Mals Buddy:

    26 Mar 2014 3:30:16pm



    So many (fake) lawyers, so few (real) swimming pools..

    Sigh...

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  • Reinhard:

    26 Mar 2014 4:31:37pm

    Bolt's articles were yet more examples of racial stereotyping to make it seem that indigenous people were unfairly leeching off the system. He may have been found guilty of breaching R.D.A. sect. 18C but he suffered no more "punishment" for this behaviour than being forced into a grudging apology. Bolt and Steve Price "double teamed" Marcia Langton to make her retract her comments on Q&A, above all they forced her to say on air that Bolt isn't a racist. Bolt has then used that "admission" to effectively bully the ABC into an undeserved apology. No doubt he'll be dining on that for months, and it begs the question..
    What type of person would think that this kind of behaviour is acceptable ?

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