Piers Akerman: Australian of the Year panel miss the point
DAVID Morrison was named Australian of the Year and it didn’t take long for the custard to start flying. His principal protagonist Malcolm McGregor, a transgender who prefers to be knownas Cate.
Opinion
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WITHOUT doubt last week’s Australian of the Year was the most mismanaged and divisive event since former Prime Minister Julia Gillard was dragged out of a Canberra restaurant in 2012 by federal police, losing her shoe as she fled a group of Aboriginal protesters who had been urged to stage a demonstration by a member of her own staff. Video of that farce went viral within seconds.
This year, former general and former chief of army David Morrison was named Australian of the Year following his selection by a panel of unelected individuals on the basis of a speech on gender equality which he delivered but didn’t write.
It didn’t take a nanosecond for the custard to start flying.
Morrison’s principal protagonist was the person who wrote his speech, Malcolm McGregor, a transgender who prefers to be known these days as Cate, or Catherine.
While that may be McGregor’s preference, the biological reality, accepted universally since 1905 when Edmund Beecher Wilson and Nettie Stevens discovered the chromosomal XY sex-determination system and established this to the satisfaction of the scientific community, is that males have XY sex chromosomes and females have XX sex chromosomes.
McGregor may identify as a woman and may even, with the blessing of the politically correct military establishment, use women’s lavatories, but until the chromosomes undergo some miraculous alchemic transformation, McGregor remains by all biological and scientific rules, a bloke.
Just like Aunty Jack.
The lipstick and pearl twin-set wearing McGregor has one thing going in her favour in her bid to prove his femininity, however.
McGregor went off like a stereotypically jealous sheila over Morrison’s award.
The 17th century English poet William Congreve noted: “Heaven has no rage like love to hatred turned, Nor hell a fury like a woman scorned,” usually written as “Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned”.
There is often more than a grain of truth in stereotypes.
McGregor was bizarrely nominated for the same award as Morrison by Queensland, where she hadn’t lived for nearly 43 years, apparently for having the courage to wear a dress.
There was a bloke named Richard Byron who used to perform as Carlotta, the lead drag queen and later the compere of Abe Saffron’s Les Girls when it was the focal point of Kings Cross, right beside the El Alamein fountain.
But no-one nominated him as Australian of the Year though he was undoubtedly better known to his fellow citizens than McGregor is ever likely to be and probably uttered more soothing words to the gender confused than the military reservist will ever utter.
McGregor, who wrote the only memorable words Morrison delivered in his years in the military, was mightily displeased by her former superior’s selection by the po-faced worthies who delivered the award from a somewhat lacklustre field of individuals nominated for doing what they were paid to do.
McGregor told the homosexual community’s newspaper, the Star Observer, that the choice was “weak and conventional” adding “he’s on a steep learning curve when it comes to LGBTI (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex — thank you for asking) and trans issues”.
Morrison had apparently preferred to remain scientifically correct and not politically correct when McGregor started appearing in dresses as dress uniform, and referred to him as “Malcolm” and used male not female pronouns — a form of torture called “dead-naming” by those who think they can flick the gender switch with an application of lippie and a visit to the women’s wear department.
McGregor would have won my sympathy if the attack had been about Morrison politicising the award with his support for the dead Republican movement, but nevertheless.
When The Australian newspaper asked McGregor about her attack on the man who had been of such assistance to the sexually confused within the military, she recanted and apologised for a “poor choice of words”.
McGregor’s principal beef is that the selection committee didn’t have the cojones to select an LGBTI person. That’s somewhat self-serving as she appears to have been the only one on offer.
But disregard that small issue, and the point is about the Australian of the Year award in general.
McGregor is apparently of the belief that it should have gone to a member of a minority group because — hey, if you’re a member of a minority, you’re entitled to take all the prizes, right?
Well, no, there’s nothing in the criteria that says the award should go to members of minority groups. The three main demands are that those nominated have demonstrated excellence in their field, have made a significant contribution to the community and nation and provided an inspirational role model.
That precludes all of this year’s nominees and throws a shadow on the selection of some recent recipients.
This fiasco highlights the problem faced by those asked to select the Australian of the Year, indeed, the problem starts with their selection.
They are unrepresentative of Australians and in their detachment miss the real values Australians admire.
They need to read The Sunday Telegraph to understand the nation and they could easily ignore 99 per cent of what is said or written by anyone who needs to stand on an academic qualification to gain stature in the community or, for that matter, is championed by the ABC.
Such a hissy fit — and the Mardi Gras is still a full month away.
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