Stan Grant felt ‘betrayed’ by ABC coverage of Queen’s death

Stan Grant has revealed he felt “betrayed” by the ABC’s coverage of the Queen’s death and a “visceral anger” at Australia’s show of mourning.

ABC host Stan Grant has revealed he felt “betrayed” by the national broadcaster’s coverage of the Queen’s death and a “visceral anger” at Australia’s show of mourning.

The Q&A presenter was speaking to ABC Radio National breakfast host Patricia Karvelas on Monday to promote his new book The Queen is Dead, in which he decries “whiteness” and describes the UK’s longest-reigning monarch as “the last white queen”.

Grant, 59, said he had met Queen Elizabeth several times and had nothing against her personally, but that he initially refused to participate in the ABC’s “obsequious” coverage last September.

Karvelas asked how Grant felt about “the response to her death and the kind of media coverage that was a consequence of that”.

“What did it reveal to you about Australia?” Karvelas said.

“I felt betrayed,” Grant sighed.

“And I think that’s really what was the moment that inspired me to write this book. And this book was written in a flurry. It was a cathartic book, it was a book that opened up and fell onto the page.

Q&A host Stan Grant. Picture: ABC

“I wrote this book in about eight weeks from the death of the Queen, to when I finished the book. And it was written in real time. The things that happen in the book, the people I meet, the incidents I talk about, my own reflections, my own struggles with that, were all playing out in real time in that moment.

“When the Queen died I didn’t anticipate the response that I would have, which was a visceral anger. How dare you? How dare the Queen just die and this country go into mourning? And yet what about my own people who continue to be the most impoverished and imprisoned people? What about my people who die 10 years younger? What about our people who are written out of history?

“And I struggled with the idea that a nation could go into mourning for someone at the same time as often turning away from us. And those two things just did not sit together.

“And I felt in my own organisation, I’m very honest about this in the book, a sense of betrayal, because the ABC, everyone donned black suits, everyone took on a referential [sic] tone, we know that the Prime Minister on down were saying, ‘This is not the time to talk about empire and colonisation, this is not the time to talk about the republic.’

Queen Elizabeth with Prince Charles in June 2022. Picture: Daniel Leal/AFP

“Well it is always the time. We saw Aboriginal people being attacked because they dared to voice another view, and an angry view. And we are entitled to our anger. It was the time I thought to open it all up to have the real discussion, and we didn’t. We retreated into this national genuflection, we got down on our knee and we mourned the Queen.

“Now I respect what the Queen means to people, I was brought up in a culture of respect, but I also know that for my people that crown represents a deep and ongoing suffering. And I felt a great sense of betrayal to the point at which I didn’t participate in the coverage in the early part of the week because I would not do those things, I would not put on a black suit and mourn.

“I thought a lot of our coverage was obsequious and I made that view known. In the early days of the death of the Queen I felt we failed. We failed my people and we failed Australia to have the debate that we needed to have.”

Grant discussed the legacy of colonisation, saying the “racial hierarchy of whiteness” had ruled across the world in countries including Britain and the US.

“The distinction is the distinction between white people and whiteness as an organising principle,” he said.

Grant felt ‘betrayed’ by coverage of the Queen’s death. Picture: ABC

“And we know that over the last 300 to 400 years that the legacy of empire, colonisation, genocide, has firmly established whiteness as an organising principle. Look at the power and where power sits in our world. Who occupies positions of power?

“I experienced that personally as a First Nations person because my people lost our place in the world, our land, our sovereignty — which we have never ceded.

“The crown, the symbol of the crown, that my people continue to suffer under and I wanted to explore the full dimensions of that and her death was a cathartic moment I thought to tear open that idea.”

Grant also discussed the upcoming Indigenous voice to parliament referendum. “There is a judgment on us in this moment, I feel as a First Nations person incredibly observed and judged and it can be a deeply wounding, lonely thing,” he said.

“I feel as a First Nations journalist it’s hard to walk that line between being able to ask the questions, which I’m quite happy to ask of all sides, but also reflect on those answers that can cut so deep.

“Whenever we get close to the flame of our history we know that we get burned and it seers, it’s a searing wound within us.”

The Queen is Dead, published by HarperCollins, will be released on May 3, three days before the coronation of King Charles III.

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