Media Watch Dog: The ABC airs pre-election Q+A advert featuring purely Teal, Labor MPs in apt reminder of the Gucci Australians the broadcaster represents
The national broadcaster running an advert for Q+A featuring four serving Australian politicians - none of them Liberal - is the perfect representation of the ABC's tertiary-educated inner-city echo chamber, writes Gerard Henderson.
STOP PRESS
KIM WILLIAMS’ BUCKETS OF DENIAL
Quelle Surprise.
ABC chair Kim Williams AM [doesn’t he have an AB as well? – as in Always Begging? – MWD Editor] addressed the Melbourne Press Club on Thursday April 3.
The occasion was held to mark the conclusion of your man Williams’ first year as ABC chair.
Once again, Mr Williams called for more taxpayer funds to be given to the taxpayer funded broadcaster, which is a Conservative Free Zone (despite the fact that conservatives pay lotsa taxes).
And despite the fact that a year into the William chairmanship, his pet project – the resuscitation of Radio National – has gone backwards.
Witness the further decline and fall of the key RN program, Breakfast, currently presented by Sally Sara with all too many side interviews with ABC journalists Melissa Clarke and Peter Martin.
According to the report in Nine newspapers, Williams “broke down in tears twice while reflecting on the positive messages he has received from its audience on the impact of his work”.
Fancy that.
Just as well he didn’t reflect on any criticism he might have received over the past year – staff would have needed buckets to catch the flow.
The Australian reported that Mr Williams spoke about the ABC’s “perceived independence” which suggests that he is in denial.
In his (all too many) speeches as ABC chair, Kim Williams has failed to address the ABC central problem.
Namely its lack of viewpoint diversity.
Until this issue is tackled, Kim Williams can go on talking ad nauseam about the ABC’s “perceived independence”.
But many will regard this as meaningless verbal sludge.
CAN YOU BEAR IT?
- PETER DUTTON ANTAGONIST NIKI SAVVA TELLS THE OPPOSITION LEADER TO “WAKEY”
Wasn’t it great to see Peter Dutton antagonist Niki Savva return to The Age and Sydney Morning Herald on Thursday 3 April?
It seems that, in recent years, Comrade Savva has only one topic.
To wit, that the Liberal Party is hopeless, and its leader Peter Dutton is even more hopeless.
Savva is one of those Canberra Press Gallery types who maintains it’s okay for the Liberal Party to govern (in coalition with the Nationals) provided that it is led by someone like Malcolm Turnbull (who lost 14 seats when leading the Coalition government in 2016).
But not by the likes of John Howard, Tony Abbott or Peter Dutton – the first two won office from opposition by defeating Labor.
In any event, it would seem that the powers-that-be at Nine Newspapers reckon that since Comrade Savva only seems to have one topic, it’s best to space it out on a monthly or fortnightly basis.
The Nine newspapers’ headline writer had an easy task with Savva’s column on 2 April.
It was headed “Wakey, wakey, Dutton looks shaky”.
By the way, in her column, Savva alleged the Opposition leader is acting “as if the election is months rather than days away” and added “Wakey”.
How clever is that?
Writing in the Sydney Morning Herald on 1 March, the Letters editor Margot Saville declared:
Each fortnight, I impatiently drum my fingers on the desk, waiting for a new column from Niki Savva. This week she predicted that, post-election, the teals will have the balance of power. Amy Hiller is another fan of Niki – and the teals. “Bravo Niki Savva! ... For our democracy and our futures, let’s get behind them”. Joy Nason agreed. “Yes, Niki Savva, it is an insult to the teals’ intelligence to suggest they are beholden to billionaires; they stand proudly in parliament, not for themselves, not for a party, but as a voice for their constituents. Bring on the federal election!
The reference was to Niki Savva’s column “Teals key in sink or swim election” – which was published last month, not last fortnight.
But Ms Saville wrote that Comrade Savva (who lives in the Canberra Bubble) is now barracking for the Teals – which would not exist without the support of the multi-millionaire-and-multi-bore Simon Holmes à Court.
Like your man Holmes à Court, Savva is a Dutton antagonist and Teal barracker.
This is how she concluded her column on 3 April, after praising Malcolm Turnbull:
Nor is it OK for a prime ministerial aspirant from Queensland to spit on the capital of the nation he wants to lead while expressing his preference to live in a harbourside mansion in Sydney.
When prime minister Paul Keating lived in Kirribilli House – as did John Howard, MWD does not recall Comrade Savva accusing either man of spitting on the capital.
As to Mr Turnbull, he did not move into Kirribilli House in view of the fact he reckoned he had a better mansion on the other side of Sydney Harbour.
But Comrade Savva did not mention this.
Can You Bear It?
- WHAT A COINCIDENCE – TWO TEALS FEATURE IN AN ADVERTISEMENT FOR ABC TV’S Q+A
As Media Watch Dog has documented, the taxpayer funded public broadcaster is giving lotsa free publicity to the Teals – sometimes called the Gucci Teals.
After all, they present as ABC types.
They are well-off, tertiary educated and live in the inner-cities – where they are unlikely to have to encounter wind turbines, solar farms and the like in their own backyard – whilst advocating that renewables be based in regional and rural areas.
In short, the Teals fit the profile of city-based Friends of the ABC – now termed ABC Friends.
How convenient then that the Teals get considerable coverage on the ABC – despite the fact that they are all but politically impotent since the Albanese government has a majority in the House of Representatives.
Even to the extent of showing footage of Monique Ryan (MP for Kooyong) and Zoe Daniel (MP for Goldstein).
The footage of Monique (“please, oh please, call me doctor”) Ryan and ex-ABC journalist Comrade Daniel was run to advertise the ABC TV’s (piss poor) Q+A program – accompanied by this script:
Patricia Karvelas voice over: Every Monday there’s a lot to talk about. It’s over to you to ask the important questions.
Audience Question 1: Does our current political system reward narcissists?
Audience Question 2: Who decides what’s true and what’s not?
Patricia Karvelas voice over: To challenge power.
Monique Ryan: Mental health care in this country is inadequate.
Zoe Daniel: Oh yeah, let me at it.
Patricia Karvelas voice over: To debate the issues….
What a coincidence (as the saying goes).
There are some 150 members in the House of Representatives, but the ABC decided to advertise Q+A by showing the image of two Teals – plus Labor’s Mark Butler and Anne Aly plus former Liberal Party Senator George Brandis.
Somewhat out of proportion, don’t you think?
- ANDY PARK INVITES CRITICISM OF THE COALITION
On The World Today 31 March 2025, host Andy Park gave Saul Griffith from climate think tank Rewiring Australia an incredibly soft interview about Labor’s expected announcement of a federal household battery incentive scheme.
Most of Park’s questions were more like an invitation to criticise the Coalition’s energy policy – which Griffith willingly did. Let’s go to the transcript:
Andy Park: The Coalition's pledged a gas reservation policy, again, without analysis or policy detail. What's your view on that?
Saul Griffith: I think you've said it exactly right. This is without analysis or policy detail. When I do the analysis, it's, it's a bad idea….
Andy Park: Dare I ask you about the Coalition's nuclear energy proposal?
Saul Griffith: Oh, it will be too expensive and too late….
How’s that for two leading questions? And here’s another question – Can You Bear It?
MEDIA RANT OF THE MONTH
NINE’S BEN FORDHAM’S RANT AGAINST THE LATE CARDINAL GEORGE PELL TOPS FOR IGNORANCE
Due to enormous demand, the Media Rant of the month segment resumes after what journalists like to call a W.E.B. – i.e. Well Earned Break.
Thanks to the avid reader who drew attention to this contribution by Ben Fordham, the presenter of Nine’s 2GB breakfast program Ben Fordham Live.
Now Fordham is a successful and (usually) well-informed journalist – but he lost it on Friday 28 March.
On that day The Australian ran a front-page story by Tess Livingstone titled “US toddler’s miraculous survival after prayers to George Pell”.
Livingstone wrote:
The miraculous recovery of an American boy who stopped breathing for 52 minutes after falling into a swimming pool is being credited by senior Catholic clergy to the intercession of the late cardinal George Pell.
Media Watch Dog has no position on miracles.
But there is reason to correct Ben Fordham’s follow-up rant about the late Cardinal Pell following The Australian’s story – especially since Fordham is an influential journalist.
Let’s go to the transcript:
Ben Fordham: …Throughout his career, George Pell turned a blind eye to paedophilia in the Catholic Church. That's the bottom line. He may have done some good things, he may have helped a lot of people, but he is no saint. That is my opinion. I welcome yours. …My beef with George Pell has always been the way he responded when young people and even older people came forward and said, "This terrible thing happened to me".
And there were so many examples of George Pell involving himself in a cover up. And also assisting paedophile priests when they were facing the music, standing alongside them when they walk into court, even after he knew that they'd done the wrong thing. And look, maybe that's part of your job as a Catholic priest or cardinal, that you support people no matter what, but what about supporting those people who were victims of abuse? They were routinely ignored, and many of their arguments and complaints and cases were shoved under a carpet in the hope that they would just go away.
Ben Fordham’s statement is totally false – as he would know if he or his 2GB staff had done any research.
Six months after becoming Archbishop of Melbourne, George Pell established what was termed the Melbourne Response to handle allegations of child sexual abuse.
The Melbourne Response came into operation in November 1996 (in cooperation with Victoria Police at the time).
The Victorian Department of Education set up a process to handle instances of historical child sexual abuse in Victorian government schools in 2023 – that is, a quarter of a century after Pell acted with respect to Catholic schools and other Catholic institutions in Victoria.
It is true that the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, headed by Peter McClellan KC, made hostile findings against Cardinal Pell – alleging that he had covered up child sexual abuse.
However, Mr McClellan and his fellow commissioners produced no witness or documentary evidence in support of their findings.
This is documented in Gerard Henderson’s Cardinal Pell, The Media Pile-On & Collective Guilt.
This book has been censored by the ABC and by Nine Newspapers – Ben Fordham’s employer.
As has Frank Brennan’s Observations on the Pell Proceedings.
Peter McClellan claimed the Royal Commission covered historical instances of child sexual abuse in government schools.
This is not correct – it only looked at three instances of abuse of students by other students in government schools.
It did not cover paedophile teachers or non-teaching staff in any existing government school in the whole of Australia – despite being advised of some such cases.
In recent years, there have been allegations of widespread paedophilia in government schools in Tasmania, Victoria and NSW from the mid-1960s until recent times.
See Gerard Henderson’s column in The Australian, 3 February 2024.
All these matters were overlooked by the Royal Commission – despite the fact that it had evidence before it.
In recent times, Nine’s Sydney Morning Herald covered a trial of a former teacher at Vaucluse Primary School in Sydney.
The accused had first been charged with such offences in 1965 – which was reported in the media at the time.
Contrary to Fordham’s assertion, Pell only walked one priest to a courthouse – Gerald Ridsdale on his first trial in 1993.
Ridsdale had pleaded guilty and was attending court for sentence.
He was imprisoned (the Royal Commission got this wrong) but soon released.
Ridsdale offended again in 1994 – he went to prison and remained there until his death in February 2025.
Cardinal Pell admitted that walking Ridsdale to court was a mistake – even though he was asked to accompany Ridsdale on this one occasion by the Curia of the Melbourne Archdiocese.
He did not give a character reference for Ridsdale.
Sure, Ben Fordham’s anti-Pell rant was born of ignorance.
But highly paid Nine journalists like Mr Fordham should be able to do better than to defame the dead.
COMEDY REVIEW CORNER
- THE NEVERENDING DEATH MARCH WITH CHARLIE PICKERING
The Weekly with Charlie Pickering seldom shows up in the pages of MWD, for the simple reason that Ellie’s (male) co-owner tries his best to avoid watching the program.
The ABC TV attempt at satirical news debuted in 2015, presenting as a blatant knock-off of American shows The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and Last Week Tonight with John Oliver.
Meaning Pickering, and a cast of supporting actors, offer up jokes about politics and the news, usually mocking the right, and always from the left.
The show’s 11th season began on 12 March 2025, proving once again that at the ABC longevity is easy for those with the right (meaning left) politics.
Alas, at no point in the decade or so it has been airing, has the show ever become consistently funny.
As an example, here are some jokes, or at least attempts at jokes, from the 26 March edition of one of the ABC’s longest-running comedy shows:
Charlie Pickering: Send the kids to bed because we are gonna spice things up tonight and get a little bit steamy. That’s right, we’ve just got our hands on the R-rated, full uncensored, ACCC supermarket enquiry. Or should that be A-triple-sexy?
…
Donald Trump: Everything will be revealed [relating to the JFK assassination].
Charlie Pickering: Uhh thank you Mr President, but we’d prefer you keep your clothes on.
…
Insider Edition reporter: The Trump administration did not give anyone in President Kennedy’s family a heads-up about the release [of previously classified files related to the JFK assassination].
Charlie Pickering: Hmm a valid point, although if history tells us anything the Kennedy’s would have benefitted more from a heads-down approach.
Enough said.
AN ABC UPDATE
ABC RADIO NATIONAL’S GLOBAL ROAMING THROWS THE SWITCH TO GLOBAL FOAMING
Media Watch Dog has been of the view that ABC presenter Geraldine Doogue was well brought up – by her family and the teaching nuns in far away Perth.
A bit like Ellie’s (male) co-owner.
Except that he was only under the control of the nuns for the first two years of primary school.
In any event, that was a long time ago.
Until January 2024, Ms Doogue (Hamish Macdonald calls her “Gerry”) used to present Saturday Extra at Hangover Time on ABC Radio National.
However, former BBC journalist Nick Bryant took over this gig and Ms Doogue was given the task of presenting what is termed Global Roaming with Hamish Macdonald.
The program runs from 8.30 am to 9 am on Radio National on Saturdays – commencing just after Dr Bryant (for a doctor he is) who now presents Saturday Extra.
The Doogue-Macdonald team locate someone or other in the globe and interview them.
The question is – has Global Roaming become “Global Foaming”?
In the sense that the Doogue/Macdonald duo seem to have taken to interviewing left-wing men who are angry about something or other. You be the judge.
On Saturday 22 March, the Irish-born rockstar Bob Geldof was Global Roaming’s guest.
The 73-year old achieved fame with the Boomtown Rats and on account of co-founding Band Aid Charitable Trust.
For over nearly half an hour, your man Geldof raged against United States’ President Trump and his administration.
He described (i) the administration as consisting of “unthinking fools”, (ii) Elon Musk as a “sociopath”, (iii) Trump as “a f—king idiot”, (iv) and Vice President J. D. Vance as “worse” than the president because he’s “clever and a thug”. Oh yes, Bob said this about contemporary America under President Trump – “It’s Rome, he’s Nero”. And added that he (Trump, not Nero) is a “great orange bloated fool sitting in the White House”. However, the ranting Sir Bob did not claim that Trump is playing the fiddle while Washington DC (aka Rome) burns.
Last Saturday (29 March) there was more of the (discourteous) same.
The guest was Professor Justin Wolfers, from the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy at the University of Michigan.
The learned professor did an anti-Trump rant before declaring that his own life was at risk.
Let’s go to the transcript:
Justin Wolfers: I have had a large number of friends reach out to me – I’ve been quite vocally anti-Trump. I have had a large number of friends reach out to me and ask me about my safety.
Geraldine Doogue: Really.
Justin Wolfers: I don’t want to overstate that case. But my partner’s a former Obama appointee and at various points we have had knocks on the door from men in suits telling us to never answer the door again. [Interesting. I thought that Barack Obama ceased being President in January 2017. MWD Editor.]
Geraldine Doogue: You’re kidding, what do you mean? You’re known to be Democrats are you? Is that it?
Justin Wolfers: Yeah. I mean you can just look that up on the internet. But, you know, there’s an ugliness to the state of American politics since the emergence of the Trump era and an explicit attempt at intimidation. Most people that I know are okay. But, you know, Nancy Pelosi’s husband was not. Where, you know, someone broke into his home with a hammer.
What a load of absolute tosh.
Wolfers did not mention the two assassination attempts on Donald Trump.
Nor the attempted murder of the Republican politicians who were playing in the congressional baseball game in June 2017.
The shooter, who was killed by Capitol Police, hated Trump.
By the way, Professor Wolfers praised the late Professor Joan Robinson whom he described as “a wonderful economist”.
He failed to mention that Comrade Robinson was an enthusiastic supporter of the communist dictator Mao Zedong.
Mao was responsible for the so-called Great Leap Forward – the forced famine of 1958-62 in which some 45 million Chinese died.
And of the (so-called) Cultural Revolution – in which an estimated 100 million Chinese were purged and around two million were killed.
In short, the “wonderful economist” was hopelessly wrong about Mao and his economic policies which devastated China until his death in 1976. By the way, Comrade Robinson also praised the communist totalitarian regime in North Korea – writing about the “Korean miracle”.
None of this was mentioned by the learned Michigan professor. Can You Bear It?
[No, not really – now that you ask. I note that the Gerry and Hamish team seem to find the bad manners of Comrades Geldof and Wolfers amusing. Perhaps you should book them into the late Nancy’s Courtesy Classes. As you know, these days the classes are conducted with a little help from the American psychic John Edward. Just a thought. – MWD Editor.]
AN ABC UPDATE
YET ANOTHER STACKED Q+A PANEL
As avid MWD readers will recall, in the previous issue comment was made that the episode of ABC TV’s Q+A which went to air on 24 March had an uneven panel.
There were three left-of-centre panellists (two of whom were former Labor staffers) and one right-of-centre panellist (who has never been a Coalition staffer).
The left-of-centre Patricia Karvelas was in the presenter’s chair.
Last Monday, 31 March, it was more of the same – except that the panel was reduced from four to three.
Namely, Labor cabinet minister Ed Husic, Coalition frontbencher Ted O’Brien and Aruna Sathanapally from the left-of-centre Grattan Institute in Melbourne.
The Grattan Institute comrade criticised Ted O’Brien and the Coalition over their nuclear energy policy.
So did the ABC presenter.
So did the Labor cabinet minister.
And this is what the ABC maintains is balance.
FIVE PAWS AWARD
Media Watch Dog’s Five Paws Award was inaugurated in Issue Number 26 (4 September 2009) during the time of Nancy (2004-2017).
The first winner was ABC TV presenter Emma Alberici.
Ms Alberici scored for remembering the Nazi-Soviet Pact of 23 August 1939 whereby Hitler and Stalin divided Eastern Europe between Germany and the Soviet Union.
And for stating that the Nazi-Soviet Pact had effectively started the Second World War, since it was immediately followed by Germany’s invasion of Poland (at a time when the Soviet Union had become an ally of Germany).
Over the years, the late Nancy’s Five Paws Award has become one of the world’s most prestigious gongs – rating just below the Nobel Prize and the Academy Awards.
Step forward Megyn Kelly
On the 3 April 2025 of Paul Murray Live, Megyn Kelly – host of The Megyn Kelly Show – spoke to Paul Murray about her interview with the New York Times.
The bottom line was, they just don't get it. They don't understand new media. They only understand corporate media and these old rules, these anachronistic rules by which we all did once play, but which they blew up. The rules of not owning your own bias and not speaking openly about your own opinion on the news worked, when we really would collectively move to hide our bias and do our level best, to be fair to both sides. There was a long time in journalism when we were at least trying that. Maybe not succeeding, you know, I mean, you can't tell me the year 2000 we were perfect at it, but we were a hell of a lot better at it than we are now, 25 years later. They changed the rules. They were the ones who decided to openly lean into their bias, to write only positive articles about Democrats and only negative ones about Republicans.
The only time they criticise a Democrat in power is when he or she's no longer become useful to them, and they need to get out of the way for someone they consider more useful on their team. So it's a completely dishonest setup. And then they go out there and try to tell us that they're objective. And that somebody like you know yours truly is not. See, I can't cover Trump fairly anymore because I said I'm voting for him and I want other people to vote for him too.
So therefore I'm no longer independent, and my audience can't trust me to report unfavourably on him when he deserves it.
And I just I laughed, because it's like, no, no, you don't understand, that only gives me more credibility with my audience, and not because they need to hear me say I like Trump, because they want to hear where I really stand, whether they like it or not.
Those are the rules in this lane.
And you people at the New York Times who won't say who you're voting for, aren't fooling anyone….
In Australia, just like the New York Times, the ABC and other leftist outlets have long been guilty of the same selective coverage – despite their claims to impartiality.
You only need to watch any of the soft interviews and favourable coverage the ABC gives to the Greens and the Teals for an example of this in action.
Megyn Kelly, Five Paws.
HISTORY CORNER
SIGNIFICANT HOWLERS IN ROBERT MANNE’S POLITICAL MEMOIRS
Gerard Henderson has reviewed Robert Manne’s A Political Memoir: Intellectual Combat in the Cold War and the Culture Wars (La Trobe University Press – In Conjunction with Black Inc, December 2024) in the April 2025 issue of The Sydney Institute Review – see here.
Robert Manne is a good historian.
However, there are some serious factual errors in his political memoirs which should be corrected in the online edition of his book and in any re-print.
Here we go:
- Gough Whitlam and Vietnamese Refugees
At Pages 141-142 Manne writes:
According to Clyde Cameron, one of the government’s left-wing Cabinet ministers, Whitlam described the Vietnamese refugees to him as “yellow Balts”- that is to say, conservative anti-communists who would never support Labor.
This is a serious error.
If Manne has read Clyde Cameron’s China, Communism and Coca-Cola (Hill of Content, 1980) he would know that Cameron quoted Whitlam as referring to “f—king Vietnamese Balts coming into this country with their religious and political hatreds against us”.
By this, Whitlam meant that he did not want coming to Australia the Vietnamese equivalents of the anti-communists who had settled in Australia after the communist takeover of the Baltic States (Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia) during the Second World War as part of the Nazi-Soviet Pact of August 1939.
Whitlam’s position was callous – but he did not use a racial term.
By the way, Whitlam never denied the Cameron quote.
- Isi Leibler as an Alleged Mossad Agent
At Page 212 Manne writes:
As Lone Voice, Suzanne Rutland’s recent highly sympathetic biography of Isi Leibler, reveals, however, while he was the most prominent leader of the Jewish community in Australia, Leibler had indeed worked for Israeli intelligence since 1959, following a “transformative meeting” with “the legendary Israeli spymaster” Shaul Avigur. According to Rutland, for decades Leibler “acted unofficially under instructions from Avigur and Levanon [another senior member of Israeli intelligence], becoming a de facto operative for Israel on foreign affairs [my emphasis] …
Suzanne Rutland wrote in Pearls and Irritations (which had published an extract from Manne’s memoirs) in the following terms:
Robert Manne’s article entitled “Executive Council of Australian Jewry’s Isi Leibler was a ‘covert agent of Israeli intelligence’” …is based on a completely inaccurate understanding of the late Isi Leibler’s efforts for Soviet Jewry over the period from 1959-1989. Shaul Avigur, whom Robert Manne refers to, worked with the illegal immigration movement to Palestine known as Mossad L’Aliyah Bet which is where the post-1948 Israel’s Intelligence Agency name “Mossad” [Institute] came from.
However, Isi Leibler did not have any connection with the Institute for Intelligence and Special Operations, the “Mossad”.
In 1953, Israeli Prime Minister asked Avigur to became head of Lishkat Hakesher (Liaison Bureau), later known as Nativ (The Path), which was concerned with rescuing Soviet Jewry in the face of Soviet anti-Semitism.
As is clear with the formation of Lishkat Hakesher, the campaign for Soviet Jewry began in Israel, and therefore, it had to be clandestine during the bitter years of the Cold War in the 1950s and early 1960s to protect the lives of the three million Soviet Jews.
Avigur remained in this role until 1971, when he was succeeded by Nehemiah Levanon.
Thus, Nativ was a separate organisation which was not connected with the Israeli Intelligence Agency. There was nothing secret or “covert” about Isi Leibler’s close connection with Lishkat Hakesher/Nativ from 1959 onwards.
In other words, from 1959 Isi Leibler worked with Israel’s The Path with respect to the Soviet Union Jews – he was not a Mossad agent. This is an unfair allegation to make against the deceased Leibler, especially since Manne implies that Leibler had an allegiance to a foreign power, albeit a friendly nation. In fact, both the Coalition and Labor supported Isi Leibler’s cause in this instance.
- The 1967 Referendum & Aboriginals
At Page 299 Manne writes that May 1997 “…was the thirtieth anniversary of the 1967 referendum, which had finalised the passage of full Indigenous citizenship”.
This is hopelessly wrong – especially for an academic who has written at length about Indigenous Australians.
All Aboriginals had full citizenship by 1948 following the passing of the Nationality and Citizenship Act.
Consequently, citizenship was not on the 1967 referendum ballot.
As the historian Murray Goot has explained (The Australian, 6 February 2023), the amendment to Section 51 (xxvi) proposed that the Commonwealth could legislate with respect to Aboriginals where Commonwealth and State legislation was inconsistent – so that Commonwealth legislation would prevail over state legislation in such instances.
The Section 127 proposal was that the number of Aboriginals in the Census could be used for Commonwealth purposes – for example, determining the size of Commonwealth electoral divisions and when offering per capita grants to the States.
This led to the deletion of Section 127 from the Constitution.
Due to the technicalities involved, it is understandable why an historian may make minor errors when explaining the legislation affected by the 1967 referendum.
But it should be well known that Aboriginal Australians had full citizenship before the referendum by those who present themselves as experts in the field.
- Polly Farmer and the “Stolen Generation”
At Page 329, Manne writes:
The greatest moment of the Rudd government was, by general consensus, the prime minister’s 2008 apology to the Stolen Generations…. I learned at this time that perhaps the greatest ever ruckman in the history of my beloved Geelong Football Club, which I had followed with undiminished passion since the age of four, Graham “Polly” Farmer, had been brought up at “Sister Kate’s”.
That might have helped explain something I had noticed, how his eyes often seemed to be looking into the middle distance, almost blank.
Graham Farmer’s history is well told by Steve Hawke in his book Polly Farmer: A Biography (Fremantle Press, 1994).
Hawke quoted Farmer as saying that he accepted Sister Kate’s as his home and regarded himself as fortunate to have been there.
Tony Boti commenced his obituary on Polly Farmer in WAtoday on 15 August 2019, as follows:
Born in Fremantle in March 1935 at the height of the Depression to an unknown father and twenty-five-year old Noongar mother from the Wheatbelt town of Katanning, Graham Vivian Farmer, aka “Polly”, arrived at Sister Kate’s Children’s Home in Queens Park in December 1936.
He was voluntarily placed at Sister Kate’s presumably because his mother did not have the means to support young Farmer.
Unlike the experience of others placed in various institutions for Aboriginal children, Farmer was grateful for his time at Sister Kate’s and believed it provided him with a good start in life.
Manne’s assessment of Polly Farmer’s eyes is both subjective and unprofessional – it would seem that the author knows little about Farmer’s story and assumes that all of those Aboriginal children at Sister Kate’s home were “stolen”.
* * * * *
Media Watch Dog is of the view that avid readers would like to be aware of Professor Manne’s historical howlers in his political memoirs.
* * * * *
Until next time.
Gerard Henderson is an Australian columnist, political commentator and the Executive Director of The Sydney Institute. His column Media Watch Dog is republished by SkyNews.com.au each Saturday morning. He started the blog in April 1988, before the ABC TV’s program of the same name commenced.