Reconciliation with indigenous Australians is of national importance

More than just an on-air spat and catalyst for a social media pile-on, this week’s heated exchange between Kerri-Anne Kennerley and Yumi Stynes over ‘Invasion Day’ delivers an urgent message to all Australians, writes Matthew Condon.

PERHAPS future historians, as yet unborn, will be able to work out exactly when, why and how commercial Australian television and its phalanx of pancaked presenters and hosts became the arbiters of intellectual life on some of the country’s most serious points of debate.

If you need any evidence, look no further than this week’s pastel-hued bunfight on a Channel 10 show called Studio 10, between veteran TV personality Kerrie-Anne Kennerley (aka KAK) and fellow panellist Yumi Stynes.

Less than a week after the Australia Day commemorations, and during a discussion about last weekend’s protests against Invasion Day, KAK piped up: “OK, the 5000 people who went through the streets making their points known, saying how inappropriate the day is. Has any single one of those people been out to the Outback, where children, babies, five-year-olds are being raped? Their mothers are being raped, their sisters are being raped. They get no education. What have you done?”

And Stynes countered: “Keep going then, because every time you open your mouth you’re sounding racist.”

Offended, KAK fumed and declared she had never issued a racist comment in her life and long career. Twitter and Facebook issued steam.

KAK was accused of being ignorant and uninformed. Studio 10 invited on indigenous guests the next day for a response. Twitter and Facebook built up a greater head of steam.

Stynes cancelled her appearance on the show after the brouhaha. She reportedly said the “controversy” wouldn’t hurt KAK’s career: “She’s been around forever. She’s like a cockroach, she can’t be extinguished. I mean she’s invincible; she’s an Aussie TV legend.”

Stynes has a right to her opinions. As does KAK.

But the very nature of this unsavoury spat, over an issue of such grave importance to this nation, not only suggests, but surely demands that a serious and rigorous discussion over reconciliation in this country not only needs to happen, but it needs to happen as soon as possible.

In the absence of that, as this week has shown, it spills awkwardly and ill-informed and without proper consideration into that other awkward and ill-informed Zeitgeist known as social media. It’s akin to throwing a match into a fireworks factory.

This week, and in the lead up to a very important federal election, PM Scott Morrison set up his HQ in Brisbane to discuss this nation’s future. Opposition Leader Bill Shorten recently made his foray into the Sunshine State in the “Bill Bus” to plead his and the ALP’s case.

Morrison is talking jobs, jobs, jobs. Shorten is discussing health and renewable energy.

These are matters of national import.

As is reconciliation with indigenous Australians.

Surely we’re better than this. Surely constructive debate in this country is not triggered by an unscripted exchange between two people on a lifestyle program, a show that describes itself as one that “brings the latest news and entertainment headlines as well as smart and fun conversation on the day’s hot topics”.

Perhaps we should thank KAK and Stynes and Studio 10 for at least bringing the issue into the wider public forum.

Or perhaps we should hope that we could all be grown-ups and have a talk about and with our First Australians that won’t be interrupted by so-called celebrity rhetoric, and advertisements for frying pans and shampoo.

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Originally published as Reconciliation with indigenous Australians is of national importance