For taxpayers, it’s pay but no say with a fourth arm of government
Class, let me see a show of hands. Who remembers being taught from day one of school that it is wrong to blame someone for something they never did?
You all do? Excellent. But that’s out the window now. And forget the lesson about all citizens in a democracy, irrespective of race, having equal political rights.
Likewise, disregard what you were taught about thinking for yourself and not blithely accepting everything you are told. The government’s Statewide Treaty Bill mandates truth-telling. Claims that bears the imprimatur of truth-telling must be the truth, especially if the government says so.
“Trust me: I’m a truth-teller,” is the new incontrovertible. Truth-telling is based on oral history, that being hearsay six or seven times removed. It is especially important you do not dispute truth-telling or even query its authenticity. Asking truth-tellers to substantiate their pronouncements is a microaggression. It is one of the many things that lead to ongoing intergenerational trauma and systemic racism.
Pay no attention to claims that truth-tellers are unaccountable. They will be appointed by the First Peoples’ Assembly and are accountable to that body. And who gets to say by means of a vote how that assembly appoints truth-tellers and makes other decisions that affect all Victorians? Why, the one per cent of Victorians who have the right to cast a vote for that assembly, that’s who.
Class, this bill merely formalises a process which began with schools and other learning institutions tentatively opening their doors to truth-telling. Think of Uncle Bruce Pascoe’s landmark book ‘Young Dark Emu: A Truer History’ and what it did for your education.
The knowledge that truth-tellers provide not only enriches us but also dispels misconceptions and ignorance. For instance, as Professor & Pro Vice-Chancellor (Indigenous) Tristan Kennedy and Professor Melissa Miles of Monash University wrote last year, “Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples were the first astronomers, physicists, biologists and pharmacists on this continent.”
But conservative pushback tries to discredit this ancient wisdom, hence the need for enforcing truth-telling by legislative decree. It will also introduce a much-needed Indigenous component to a colonial curriculum, because at present our schools do not recognise First Peoples or their cultures, apart from commemorating National Sorry Day, Indigenous Literacy Day, the anniversary of the 1967 Referendum, National Reconciliation Week, Close the Gap Day, Mabo Day, NAIDOC Week, Wurundjeri Week, National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children’s Day, International Day of the World’s Indigenous Peoples, as well as conducting incessant Acknowledgements of Country.
Actually, disregard what I said about adding an Indigenous component to the existing curriculum. This will be a complete overhaul. As the Yoorook Justice Commission stipulated, the Victorian Department of Education must “set targets for school libraries to audit and decolonise collections, removing outdated or racist material”.
Naturally this decolonisation overhaul will be “Guided by First Peoples”. As the purveyors of truth-telling will remind you, their veto power is not a case of censorship. Rather, to quote from the treaty bill, it is about “ongoing healing and reconciliation”. Because we cannot allow inconvenient historical texts to compromise healing and reconciliation or to cause your tender young minds to tune out from the truth-telling narrative, can we?
Thankfully, the self-proclaimed pedagogical experts have endorsed this ideological usurpation of your curriculum. The Yoorook recommendations “must be listened to, heard, and acted upon”, declared the Victorian branch of the Australian Education Union in July, adding it was “committed to truth-telling about our past and present”.
This is the same union which said last year in a Senate submission on civics education that a “school curriculum cannot be owned by any individual group, political party, regime or tendency,” adding that it “must be owned by society and the community in general”.
Well that’s awkward. It continues:
“All involved in the development and review of curriculum need to manifest an understanding that curriculum statements and documents are not, and never have been in Australia’s liberal democratic heritage, prescriptive diktats.”
How to explain this about-face? Easy. To summarise the union’s policy on framing curriculums: prescriptive diktats are bad, but progressive diktats are good. Simple.
Class, truth-telling is not just for students. As Victorian Premier Jacinta Allan warned in September, when the treaty bill was still before parliament, opponents would try to undermine it with “deliberate misinformation” and “outright lies”, as they did during the Voice referendum.
Formalised truth-telling will dispel disinformation about this treaty. It will help people understand that a two-tiered governance system fosters social cohesion. Through undergoing truth-telling, taxpayers will learn it is fair and just they shell out over $72m a year (and permanently indexed thereafter) for this fourth branch of government but have no say in how it operates. It will also help them to understand that legislated racial separatism unites everybody.
But what is truth-telling’s ultimate purpose? Just ask the members of that newly created grievance behemoth, otherwise known as Gellung Warl. The same ones who now have the power to summon ministers and departmental heads, commission inquiries at a whim into matters relating to racism and unconscious bias, as well as give directions and provide training under the mandate of “cultural safety guidelines” to all arms of government.
Truth-telling is about making people aware of the ongoing effects of colonisation. And as these activists will tell you as they go about their billion-dollar business of constant bemoaning and shaming, the legacy of colonisation continues to be a terrible, terrible thing for them.
More Coverage
The Allan government’s Statewide Treaty Bill means, among many other things, that ‘truth-telling’ will be embedded in school curriculums. The Mocker volunteers to draw up the lesson plans.