Indigenous leader Noel Pearson has lambasted the ABC as "miserable" and "racist" during a speech in Sydney.
Speaking to launch a biography of Paul Keating on Monday, Mr Pearson – a lawyer and academic – said the media "aided and abetted ... ignorant ministers and malign bureaucrats" to wreck "promising reforms".
More National News Videos
- Video duration
- 02:24
The deep Indigenous crisis
The deep Indigenous crisis
Aboriginal people are disempowered and their leaders have been ignored, plunging them into crisis says Noel Pearson. Courtesy ABC News 24.
Up Next
Government's robo debt recovery
- Video duration
- 01:57
- Video duration
- 01:57
Government's robo debt recovery
Government's robo debt recovery
The machine relied on by the government to recover welfare overpayments has actually misapplied the law. The Age's Economics Editor Peter Martin explains.
Up Next
Strained relations
- Video duration
- 01:40
- Video duration
- 01:40
Strained relations
Strained relations
The Indonesians have suspended military co-operation with Australia over training posters deemed offensive and concerns Indonesian soldiers will be recruited in Australia. Courtesy ABC.
Up Next
The Mornington Peninsula Koala Project
- Video duration
- 02:18
- Video duration
- 02:18
The Mornington Peninsula Koala Project
The Mornington Peninsula Koala Project
The koala population at Somers, 86 km's south-east of Melbourne, is shrinking. Researchers aren't sure why, so this summer Deakin University researchers tagged 16 koalas to monitor their behaviour.
Up Next
How to hack the NBN
- Video duration
- 02:06
- Video duration
- 02:06
How to hack the NBN
How to hack the NBN
A simple hack for those of us lucky enough to have the NBN could give you some of the fastest internet in Australia. Video courtesy TechWiz Time.
Up Next
Tough guys unite against coward punch
- Video duration
- 00:30
- Video duration
- 00:30
Tough guys unite against coward punch
Tough guys unite against coward punch
Ben Roberts-Smith and Jonathan Brown feature in a new advertisement pushing for an end to one-punch attacks.
Up Next
Boxing Day 'sealebrity' a repeat offender?
- Video duration
- 00:52
- Video duration
- 00:52
Boxing Day 'sealebrity' a repeat offender?
Boxing Day 'sealebrity' a repeat offender?
Markings on a fur seal who found fame on top of a car on Boxing Day suggests it may not be his first offence.
Up Next
2016 the planet's warmest year
- Video duration
- 03:37
- Video duration
- 03:37
2016 the planet's warmest year
2016 the planet's warmest year
Australia experienced its fourth-warmest year on record in 2016, and the globes warmest for the third year running. Courtesy: Bureau of Meteorology
The deep Indigenous crisis
Aboriginal people are disempowered and their leaders have been ignored, plunging them into crisis says Noel Pearson. Courtesy ABC News 24.
"[N]ot the least the country's miserable, racist national broadcaster: a spittoon's worth of perverse people willing the wretched to fail," Mr Pearson said midway through his speech.
"They need blacks to remain alienated from mothers' bosoms, incarcerated in legions, leading short lives of grief and tribulation – because if it were not so, against whom could they direct their soft bigotry of low expectations?
"About whom could they report of misery and bleeding tragedy?
"Between [magazine] Quadrant's hard bigotry of prejudice from the right and the ABC's soft bigotry of low expectations on the left, lies the common ground of mutual racism."
Mr Pearson described the pair as the "Scylla and Charybdis of the black burden in this country", invoking Greek mythology to express having to steer between two equally dangerous threats.
The ABC issued a statement in response to the speech.
A spokesman said the broadcaster "provides more coverage of Indigenous issues and has a broader Indigenous staffing profile than any other Australia media outlet".
"It has given an extended platform and broad audiences to a range of Indigenous commentators including Noel Pearson, Josephine Cashman, Marcia Langton and others to canvass issues like welfare dependency, alcohol abuse and violence against women," the spokesman said.
"The ABC has also been at the forefront in recognising Indigenous talent. ABC Radio, ABC TV and ABC News have set up Indigenous units to better reflect Indigenous culture in staffing and in story-telling. These initiatives have delivered programs including the award-winning series Redfern Now and Gods of Wheat Street and the recent hiring of journalist Stan Grant, whom Mr Pearson has described as 'speaking for black Australia'."
Mr Pearson's remarks, in a speech titled Rhetoric, Imagination, Power, were given at an office in Barangaroo in front of an audience including dignitaries. The biography, Paul Keating: The Big Picture Leader, was penned by the paper's columnist Troy Bramston.
Mr Pearson went on to praise Keating's capacity for imagination and creativity, including his "salutary" addresses – at Redfern in 1992 and in a eulogy to the Unknown Soldier in 1993.
He compared current political leaders to Mr Keating, and said the former Labor leader would not have abandoned Gillian Triggs or Julian Assange as the current government has.
"Whatever one thinks of the besieged head of the Human Rights Commission, Keating would never abandon Triggs – or indeed Assange – to suffer alone," he said.
"I think he stood by my mob too long for his own good. His opponents sought to cast us as a black albatross around his electoral throat, but his advocacy for reconciliation and Mabo never wavered. Because it was the right thing for the nation."
Mr Pearson finished his speech by outlining what he believes should be a national agenda for indigenous affairs: focusing on constitutional recognition, empowerment, and cultural embrace.
"Indigenous Australian cultures and languages should be officially embraced as Australian cultures and languages," he said.
"The vision of Barangaroo developed by the subject of this biography can be the country's greatest cultural amplifier, a gift to the nation and a promise to our future.
"But we can't pith helmet this vision. The Indigenes must play a 21st century role in this vision: we have to do as well if not better than the New Zealanders."
114 comments
Comment are now closed