Eatock versus Bolt decision

It seems that we are able to talk in generalizations, but not specifics!
Here is the link to the Eatock v Bolt (2011) FCA 1103 (28 September, 2011) Federal Court of Australia ruling.
Perhaps all people who have been hurt, insulted or intimated by what anyone else says should have the right to an apology. Sorry? Is that what we are all looking for, or do we want the debate to continue? I have so many issues with this case and the judgment I don't even know where to begin! Perhaps Steve said it better. Anyway, for the readers information there have been 522 views of my article 'Andrew Bolt/Bindi Cole/Indigenous Politics' and 20 comments since I posted it on this blog on 7 April 2011.

Cocksucker!

Wow! there were 338 visitors to the site yesterday and 753 page views, just shows you how commenting on Andrew Bolt can raise the hair on the back of one's neck. It's a pity that people can't make comments without having to make personal attacks on the writer, but that's the value of anonymity I guess. I thought Steve dealt with the whole situation very well, but I suppose you have to be thick-skinned to deal with the general public and their varying viewpoints. I've also found that I've garnered comments on the blog when I mentioned the name Bolt, he certainly wields a lot of power in our community, and we are certainly a community that has opinions especially when it comes to politics. All this discourse, is I think, just grist to the mill in understanding what is human, what makes us tick, what gets the stomach juices flowing. I myself, prefer the domain of the philosophical. Perhaps I'm just more comfortable there in the space of the poetic, that airy zone of speculation, proposition and even a little intrigue. My mind has been somewhere else this week. I've rarely thought of what was happening 'in the world', for the world is going to go on regardless of my engagement with it. My own inner world providing enough richness for the psyche, my excursions into new territories and domains, the world of the other, who, although almost always confusing, is still a joy! Just want to add that I'm thoroughly enjoying Deadwood, the story line's engaging, the acting brilliant, it's bloody, filthy, down to earth and crass, and in their world, as in ours, everyone's a cocksucker.

you want facts with that?

time travel to the review for real, a month or so later

I was going to review The Bolt Report, News Limited Columnist Andrew Bolt's new television program on the Ten Television Network.

That was before the news broke that the Australian National University in Canberra had increased security at facilities where its climate scientists are working after receiving many death threats aimed at the scientists and their families.

If Andrew Bolt didn't exist we would need to invent him. The News Limited political commentator has for many years been a lightning rod for Australians with dissenting social and political opinions, and his columns are widely read, and commented upon, from a broad spectrum of political perspectives.

Bolt has an opinion on almost everything, and if you don't like those, he has plenty more. Bolt waves what Frank Hardy used to call the finger of scorn at public policies and political figures, a single-digit bullshit detector working overtime.

But today, just as I sit to write a review of the four episodes of his television program I watched, Bolt writes

Global warmists are terrified of debate. No warming activist or Labor minister has agreed to come on The Bolt Report to discuss their claims. Almost no global warming scientists here will agree to debate sceptical ones.

When he appeared on the Bolt Report's first episode Federal Opposition and Liberal Party Leader Tony Abbot wasn't asked a single question about climate change, even though he is (in Boltspeak) a "warmist". "I believe", Abbot told anyone who would listen earlier this year, "that climate change is real and that human activity is at least partly responsible for it". Australia's alternative leader has, in fact, budgeted to take twelve billion dollars from government expenditure for programs to mitigate climate change over four years, a fairly activist putting-yer-money-where-yer-mouth-is political position. The Bolt Report's host might have questioned Abbot's wisdom, given a golden opportunity to, for Andrew Bolt is on the record as believing Global Warming is a great fraud perpetrated by scheming scientists and green enterprises grasping for wads of government money like the twelve billion dollars Tony Abbott proposes to hand out.

The Bolt Report is driven by belief. In a comment on the Victorian State Government's decision to make Welcome To Country Ceremonies optional, where they were obligatory under the previous Labour Government's protocols for state-sponsored events, its host asserts "These welcome events seem very traditional, but were in fact invented by popular Actor and TV presenter Ernie Dingo, and my next guest, distinguished didgeridoo player and artist, Doctor Richard Walley."

"Well, you don't invent welcome to country, the welcome to country has been here for thousands of years amongst Aboriginal peoples themselves", Walley replied.

There followed some banter about us being all Australians, and the whole welcome to country, and Aboriginal thing in general, being so divisive.

"Whatever happens to Aboriginals affects Australia. Whatever happens to Australia affects Aboriginals", Walley observes dryly.

"Well, thank you very much for coming on the show to put your point of view, I don't agree with it but I'm glad you are here to say it", the host wraps up.

Well, hang on. Point of view? Was it a matter of fact that the Welcome To Country events "were in fact invented by Ernie Dingo and Richard Walley", in the host's words?

It seems to me that The Bolt Report suffers from post-modernity's great melancholia of uncertainty. Bolt's other media ventures find their audience in a generation swept aside by mighty change, multiculturalism and workplace restructuring, with little left to sustain them beyond belief and shrinking pensions. Uncertainty resonates with the 55-64 demo displaced and made redundant by rationalization and globalization.

But is it fair to assert that someone made something up, and to then disagree with a matter of fact that he did not on the basis that the fact contradicts a belief?

Until the news of death threats to the academics at the ANU and their families I would have said, unreservedly, yes. Let everyone have their say. And encouragingly, Australians are turning to opinion-driven media to find a voice. The Bolt Report's capital city averages are around the same as for many opinion-driven programs on the Community TV stations around the nation.

Now I read reports that Australian media regulator, the Communications and Media Authority, has begun an investigation into a Sydney radio station's coverage of the climate change debate with a degree of trepidation. The last time they did that, Australian commentators were revealed to have been taking money to talk about stuff they didn't believe in as if they did.

So I'm going to reserve judgement on The Bolt Report, for now. It is just possible that I'm old fashioned enough to be entertained by facts alone, and don't need them filtered through a bunch of beliefs, no matter how entertaining, or off-the-wall.

The Bolt Report is on television Channel 10, Sundays at 10 AM. I watched episodes 1 to 4.

Andrew Bolt/Indigenous Australians

Fantastic dinner party last night, and for those interested I made Borsch as a starter, then Shaun and I made Squid with black ink Risotto (served with salad) and for dessert, Baked Cheesecake with cream. The meal was a resounding success and the colors of each dish so amazing; the bright red/purple of the beetroot, the deep black of the risotto and the creamy white of the cheesecake!

Since there was so much humbug floating around in the delightful conversation, I dragged out Dessaix's On Humbug and we each read from it, which produced spontaneous laughter and then after wards much discussion. My focus next week will be on Germaine Greer's On Rage, not sure, but doubt whether it will be as humorous as Dessaix's book.

At some point, just before everyone left, we turned back our clocks in line with the end of daylight savings and eventually I fell into bed at around 1.45 am or was it 12.45 am and woke this morning after 8 am to the sound of my Magpies warbling.

I read with interest this morning the reported next installment of the court case against Andrew Bolt and although I have a number of views on the subject, I suddenly feel gagged in light of the fact that 'free speech' appears under threat. However, after reading a number of posts Bolt made on his blog in regards to Indigenous Australians, I believe that, rather than being racist himself, he is proposing that an emphasis on skin color (light or dark) and racial identity (Indigenous or non-Indigenous Australians) by Australians (who are also of mixed heritage) is divisive, in that it sets one individual as different and apart from one another. As he said in his 15 April, 2009 post: ...let’s go beyond racial pride. Beyond black and white. Let’s be proud only of being human beings set on this land together, determined to find what unites us and not to invent such racist and trivial excuses to divide. Deal?

My question is: When light skinned Indigenous Australians are provided with funding and opportunities for educational and employment advancement does that reveal an inherent racism, in that funding bodies, Universities and other institutions more likely to support individuals who appear white on the surface, and have been fully inculcated into White culture, rather than those Indigenous Australians who are more obviously culturally and physically Indigenous?

Or does this simply mean that Indigenous Australians of mixed heritage are more informed and perceptive, since they are reaping benefits of the three decade fight for Indigenous justice and can take advantage of a range of opportunities already existing for non-indigenous Australians, which of course is their right?
As much as I applaud the success of those who identify as Indigenous Australians, I lament for the majority (particularly those aboriginals who live in regional and remote areas of Australia) who do not have opportunities to improve their living conditions, access to education and meaningful employment and remain geographically and psychologically on the edge of mainstream Australia. Which leads to my next question: Does providing financial, educational and other support for mixed heritage Indigenous Australians take similar opportunities away from aboriginal Australians who are not savy and unable to represent their needs? And if so, what can be done to overcome this, since their welfare is of concern.