Matt Canavan: Identity politics industry ties itself in knots over Sam Kerr race row

We will never defeat the scourge of racism while we apply laws that provide different rights to people of different races, argues Matt Canavan.

Sam Kerr should be an early nomination for Australian of the Year. Not for anything she has done but for what her alleged actions have inadvertently exposed.

Thanks to Sam, Australia’s identity politics industry has tied itself in knots that the Greek peasant Gordias would be proud of.

On January 30 2023, Sam Kerr had one of her greatest ever days, scoring a hat-trick to win a crucial FA Cup tie. It sounds like it wasn’t one of her greatest ever nights.

The night ended, allegedly, with her being sick in the back of a taxi, arguing over the fare and then apparently using a word that causes “alarm or distress” to the indigenous, caucasian police officers of the British Isles.

While Sam faces a ludicrous four-day trial under the Nanny State laws that now exist in the UK, we also have an identity politics industry that is getting out of hand.

The Sydney Morning Herald devoted an entire article headlined “Is ‘white bastard’ racist?” To answer the question, the SMH turned to Victoria University professor Mario Peucker, who was described as “an expert in multiculturalism and far-right extremism”.

Thanks to Sam, Australia’s identity politics industry has tied itself in knots. Picture: AFP

Sam Kerr pictured celebrating Mackenzie Arnold’s birthday just hours after London court appearance.

Professor Peucker claims that: “It’s very hard to communicate the complexity of systemic racism” ... and that “Racism, in its briefest form, is prejudice plus institutional power.”

See we are now told that racism is “contextual”. So apparently you cannot be racist while drunk, and after having just been sick in the back of an uber, or something like that.

As Shiren Ahmed, apparently a “sports activist and journalist”, says: “A white policeman from London does not have the same systemic power of a racialised lesbian from Australia. Power dynamics, anyone?”

While there are some parts of this sentence that I do not understand, what exactly is a “racialised lesbian”, it helpfully skewers the modern woke movement that has to date been secretly fighting old racism by introducing a new form of racism.

What most people want is a world where you are not defined by your race, your gender or your sexuality. So it should not matter if you are a lesbian, an Indian or a straight white male. What is right or wrong is not who does something, it is what is done or not done.

Sam Kerr with the PM Anthony Albanese. Picture: Getty

There should be no doubt that what Sam is accused of is wrong. Although we do not know precisely what Sam did, as a general rule, you shouldn’t be sick in the back of a cab, you shouldn’t then argue over the fare and you shouldn’t be abusive to a police officer.

The only possible thing that Sam should face serious criticism is if she did vomit in a taxi and then did not ultimately pay to clean up the cab.

That would not be racism. It would just be very, very poor form.

Hardly any of the reaction has thought of the poor cab driver who faced the degrading job of cleaning his own car of someone else’s vomit.

If there are any “power dynamics” here it is a sports celebrity who earns millions of dollars a year allegedly arguing over a cleaning fee imposed on a working class taxi driver.

The one question that should be put to Sam when she emerges from exile is did you vomit in the car and did you help make amends once you sobered up?

But more importantly for the rest of us, we need to take an axe to the anti-discrimination laws that have just become another form of bigotry.

We will never defeat the scourge of racism while we apply laws that provide different rights to people of different races. It is now clear that our existing laws commit this sin.

After many had failed to untie the knot on Gordias’ oxcart, Alexander the Great turned up and simply sliced it in half with his sword. Job done.

It’s time for the same sword to be used to cut through the complexity and absurdity of our anti-discrimination laws and return to a time where all people were just treated equally under the law.

Matt Canavan is a Liberal Nationals Senator

Originally published as Matt Canavan: Identity politics industry ties itself in knots over Sam Kerr race row