NSW to allow ‘debunked’ history book Dark Emu to remain in schools

Mark Latham has ripped into the NSW government as a “disgrace”, asking how they can “sleep at night” after a controversial move.

Mark Latham has slammed state MPs for allowing “fake history” book Dark Emu to remain in NSW schools.

But the Education Minister defended the move, saying the Liberal Party does not believe in “banning books”.

The NSW One Nation leader moved a motion in state parliament on Wednesday to have the controversial Indigenous history book pulled from the curriculum.

Author Bruce Pascoe’s influential 2014 bestseller has faced renewed criticisms over its accuracy in recent weeks, following the publication of a scholarly rebuttal by two respected academics.

Mr Latham told 2GB’s Ben Fordham on Thursday it was “a disgrace” that only five MPs supported his motion, with both Liberal and Labor voting against.

“We had five supporters, two from One Nation, Fred Nile and two Shooters, the 34 who voted against it were the Liberal Party, the National Party, Labor and The Greens,” he said.

“Now how these people can sleep at night knowing they’ve authorised a book that’s untrue, particularly Young Dark Emu, to be taught to seven- and eight-year-olds, misleading them about the truth of Australian Indigenous history, is just a disgrace.”

Mr Latham said there were “many more books not allowed in schools (than) are allowed, for obvious reasons, and the idea that we’ve now got a fake history book in NSW classrooms I just find horrific”.

He added that “surely it’s not that hard to work out that Dark Emu is a work of fiction”.

“There are established history books that set out the truth – that the Indigenous were hunter-gatherers in a sophisticated culture that was to be admired,” he said.

“That is the historical truth, that’s what we should teach. When we’ve got young people, their minds polluted by fake history, it’s a sad day for NSW.”

Mark Latham and Gladys Berejiklian. Picture: Jenny Evans/NCA NewsWire

During Wednesday’s debate, NSW Education Minister Sarah Mitchell stressed that Dark Emu was “not a set text and is not mandated for use in NSW schools”, but added “if the text is used by teachers, it is used as one of many historical sources and must be taught through a critical lens in an age- and stage-appropriate way”.

“What I mean by this is that teachers must provide students with opportunities to interrogate the claims in the book as part of the discipline of history as they would with any text,” she told the upper house.

“This is how I expect Dark Emu to be discussed in schools – if it is discussed at all.”

Ms Mitchell said that “as a general rule, our government believes in encouraging critical thinking and teaching children, and not in banning books”. “We believe in teaching students how to think, not what to think,” she said.

“We on this side of politics believe in freedom of inquiry and, for those reasons, we will not be supporting this motion.”

Greens MP David Shoebridge accused Mr Latham of moving the motion in “bad faith”.

“It is ironic that someone who often complains about cancel culture is using the parliament to try to cancel a book that was published seven years ago and which is not even a required text in schools,” he said.

“The motion is not about young people, the integrity of history or anything like that. I do not think it has been moved in good faith.”

He added, “We should not be afraid of the complex and competing threads of Australian history. We should not be afraid of the different voices of First Nations peoples as they talk about history. We should not ban books in Sydney schools.”

NSW Education Minister Sarah Mitchell. Picture: Gaye Gerard/NCA NewsWire

A number of experts have spoken out against Dark Emu following the publication of anthropologist Peter Sutton and archaeologist Keryn Walshe’s rebuttal last week, Farmers or Hunter-Gatherers? The Dark Emu Debate.

Dark Emu, which won numerous literary awards, argued that Indigenous Australians were not just hunter-gatherers but engaged in agriculture, irrigation and construction, and lived in stone houses in cities of up to 1000 inhabitants.

But Prof Sutton and Dr Walshe write that while Dark Emu “purports to be factual” it is “littered with unsourced material, is poorly researched, distorts and exaggerates many points, selectively emphasises evidence to suit those opinions, and ignores large bodies of information that do not support the author’s opinions”.

Last week they called for the book to be removed from schools, with Prof Sutton saying that was partly his motivation for publishing the rebuttal.

“When it got to the point of being inserted into school curricula, either as a reference or as in fact the major source, I thought about the children – who’s going to stand by and watch them be misinformed?” he told 2GB.

“It shouldn’t be in the school curriculum, because of the errors and the incorrectness of the entire work,” Dr Walshe said in the same interview.

“It’s not about a different interpretation (of history), it’s about misuse of the archival sources, the actual primary sources. It’s a matter of looking at those sources and using them in the correct manner with integrity and reliability, and that is not what Dark Emu reflects.”

Dark Emu author Bruce Pascoe. Picture: Andy Rogers

On Wednesday, prominent Aboriginal human rights advocate Hannah McGlade also weighed in, telling The Australian the book was “misleading and offensive to Aboriginal people and culture”.

“Aboriginal people support truth-telling in this country because the past still hasn’t been properly acknowledged and responded to, notwithstanding the devastating impact it continues to have today,” Dr McGlade, a Noongar woman from Western Australia, told the newspaper.

“It’s a nonsense to say that we support truth-telling and at the same time support Dark Emu, which clearly is not very truthful or accurate.”

Speaking to The Sydney Morning Herald last week, Pascoe put the criticism down to a “difference of opinion about history”.

“We’re looking at the same facts and we’re having a difference of opinion about the facts,” he said. “That’s not a bad thing. I think Aboriginal people have been wanting to have this discussion for 250 years, so I think it can only be positive.”

He added he wouldn’t have written Dark Emu any differently given the chance.

“No, the only thing I would change would be to include more material that has now become available,” he said. “That material, I believe, strengthens the argument. I’m in touch with a lot of archaeologists and anthropologists in Australia and overseas and they keep sending me corroborating material.”

Indigenous Australians Minister Ken Wyatt told news.com.au on Saturday that he welcomed “more people taking the time to read Dark Emu and consulting Mr Pascoe’s references to verify or disprove his assertions as we do with various academic studies or research”.

“Not all Australians agree with every reflection or idea presented in the book, nor is that necessary,” he said.

“What’s important here is that we are open to hearing other people’s perspectives, contemplating and genuinely engaging in working constructively together to reconcile our understandings.”