When the Coffs Harbour City Council last week attempted to ban Warlpiri/Celtic woman, Alice Springs councillor and former Coalition federal candidate Jacinta Nampijinpa Price from speaking on her Mind the Gap tour, it was merely continuing a long tradition of being seen to act in the best interests of indigenous people.
For example, nearly 70 years ago, one Councillor (President) Harry Bailey told the Dorrigo Shore Council, as it was then, that it was wrong for the NSW Government to accommodate Aboriginals within the town, or nearby for that matter.
“The aborigines are a vanishing race and we owe a great deal to them,” said Bailey, as quoted in the Coffs Harbour Advocate on November 19, 1948. “They should be treated with all the consideration and kindness we can bestow on them.” According to him, this involved allocating them “a natural setting — an area of land close to a beach, served with a stream or two and with some natural brush in which they could erect some dwellings and fish and work and live in keeping with their way of life”.
Bailey was wrong in believing the demise of indigenous people was nigh. Nonetheless, his romanticised and simplistic depiction, together with his belief that isolation and patronising were the answer, mirrors the views of many other officials, activists, and commentators today who purport to speak on behalf of indigenous people. Less enlightened folk refer to this phenomenon as the racism of low expectations.
Bailey, sometimes referred to as “the father of modern Coffs Harbour” died in office in 1965 but the WH Bailey Memorial City Library still bears his name, or at least it will until some professional offence-taker discovers his “vanishing race” utterance. Now a female mayor, Denise Knight, heads the council. No doubt she too would say it was acting as with consideration and kindness this month in writing to Price, who had booked the Jetty Memorial Theatre for her tour, saying it would “appreciate” her “requesting permission from Gumbaynggirr Aboriginal people to enter the land”.
A question for the non-indigenous folk who have stayed in Coffs Harbour — was your visit preceded by a similar instruction from council or were you allowed to go about your business as if you were an adult with the ability to make decisions for yourself? Memo to Mayor Knight and her mostly fair-skinned fellow councillors: the days of indigenous people not being allowed to travel unless they have a permit from a white government inspector are long gone.
Price has ample grounds to make a complaint of racial discrimination to the Australian Human Rights Commission, although for some unknown reason the normally noisy so-called anti-racists have not urged her to do so.
This is the same mayor who said only last month: “It’s vital in an inclusive community that we learn as much as we can about each other’s cultures so that we can better understand the different ways we view the world.”
The occasion was the launching of ‘Yandaarra — Shifting Camp Together’, an “Aboriginal cultural awareness and engagement guide”. Get ready for a good laugh: the guide specifies: “It is important that the Aboriginal community is provided with opportunities to openly share information and discuss issues that may impact on their community, culture, heritage and traditional lore.”
An Aboriginal Cultural Awareness and Engagement Guide, developed to assist Councillors, staff and volunteers to provide a consistent and respectful approach to engaging with the Aboriginal community, has been adopted by Council.https://t.co/w4qNmqAQAL pic.twitter.com/snuT9vBlWW
— CHCC_Media (@CHCC_Media) August 13, 2019
That is exactly what Price’s tour is about, thus proving that Coffs’ council chambers are full of mealy-mouthed hypocrites. Admittedly Price has some controversial views, for example, she says indigenous empowerment is realised through people taking responsibility for themselves rather than rely on government welfare. She also maintains colonisation is used to excuse epidemic levels of violence by indigenous men against women and children, and that the vulnerable in these communities are silenced through intimidation. Those views are uncomfortable facts, otherwise known in progressive parlance as “hate speech”.
Price is also dismissive of that ancient indigenous ritual, the so-called “Welcome to Country” ceremony. So ancient in fact that the two indigenous men who invented it, Ernie Dingo and Richard Walley, are still alive. The custom has become so widespread that no official function can claim moral legitimacy if it dispenses with it. And as the council’s guide specifies: “In providing cultural services such as Welcome to Country, artistic performances … it is important to acknowledge the intellectual property of the Aboriginal people through appropriate payment for their services.”
“People ought to be ashamed and disgusted†by how Coffs Harbour council treated Indigenous politician @JNampijinpa says Chris Kenny - condemning the local government and its mayor for washing “their hands of the affairâ€. #KennyReporthttps://t.co/TtQfSAHwAE
— Sky News Australia (@SkyNewsAust) September 18, 2019
The ceremony serves two purposes. First, it reinforces the guilt industry by continually reminding whitey he is stained by the sins of his forefathers; and second, it makes for much moolah in return for doing very little. For example, in 2013, Matilda House of the Ngambri clan was paid $10,500 for officiating at the opening of the 44th Parliament. No wonder so many indigenous activists loathe Price. As Herald-Sun columnist Andrew Bolt pointed out last year, some of the foulest misogyny directed at her — including exhortations she “die a painful death” — was from indigenous men paid by government departments to conduct these ceremonies.
Price herself knows only too well the threat of impending death. In 2008 her then-partner struck her in the head with a lamp. Bleeding profusely, she escaped from the house, fearing she would be murdered if she did not. Her message is that men in her community must take action to end domestic violence. If she were a white woman, she would be feted by the leftist commentariat.
Instead Fiona Poole, an ABC Coffs Coast presenter who attended Price’s function, described her as “very divisive”. Her ABC colleague Claire Lindsay spoke with members of the Gumbaynggirr community groups who had objected to Price’s visit. As national affairs associate editor Chris Kenny noted this week, neither journalist sought Price’s input. In addition, Lindsay blithely repeated on air a defamatory excerpt from an indigenous community media release that Price “spreads racist vitriol, vilifies and ridicules Aboriginal people and cultures”. The ABC later released a statement, saying the organisation was “remiss in not offering Ms Price the opportunity to respond to criticism”.
Why did Gumbaynggirr people on the Coffs Coast ask the community to boycott @JNampijinpa ? Take a listen. https://t.co/fOg4cBNaOe
— Fiona Poole (@Fipoole) September 11, 2019
As for the ABC dissing an indigenous woman on the grounds she is “very divisive”, this must be a new thing. There was no such criticism from the national broadcaster when indigenous activist Tarneen Onus-Williams declared at an “Invasion Day” rally in Melbourne last year “F**k Australia, hope it burns to the ground”. In a column titled “Australia Is Tearing Down Another Woman of Colour for Daring to Have an Opinion,” then Junkee news and political editor Osman Faruqi defended her from conservative critics, stating: “The goal is not just to silence Onus-Williams, but to discourage anyone like her from speaking up.” Faruqi is now deputy editor of ABC Life. Surely any day now it will be running his article: “Progressive Australia is Tearing Down a Woman of Colour for Daring to Have a Contrary Opinion”. Right?
Then there is the case of indigenous woman, actor and playwright Nakkiah Lui. In 2016, the star of ABC’s “Black Comedy” tweeted: “My main concern in Indigenous Affairs atm is our use of the saying ‘White Dogs’. Dogs are innocent, sweet and loyal. Let’s not insult dogs.” All in the name of reconciliation, I am sure. Interviewed on ABC Radio National regarding a negative review of her play How to Rule the World by Daily Review critic and ABC senior producer Jason Whittaker this year, Lui attributed this to “white supremacy”, and suggested he no longer be allowed to review any works by “people of colour”.
Joining her in the studio and metaphorically holding her hand as Lui told of how Whittaker had “hurt” her “feelings” was Gamilaroi/Eualeyai woman, academic, and host of ABC’s Speaking Out, Larissa Behrendt. You might remember in 2011 she tweeted “I watched a show where a guy had sex with a horse and I’m sure it was less offensive than Bess Price,” referring to Jacinta’s mother, who like her daughter is outspoken about reducing Aboriginal violence and who supported the Northern Territory intervention. But of all these indigenous women it is only the Prices who are divisive, at least in the eyes of Aunty.
As to why this is the case, it is best explained by the reality that many indigenous activists see perpetual bemoaning of the status quo as a livelihood, and a lucrative one at that. Working in tandem with them is a sympathetic progressive media eager to portray itself as the stalwart defender of the wretched. Any indigenous person who publicly challenges that narrative can expect to be labelled a pariah by the former and treated with cold indifference by the latter. The fact that even local government now takes part in this bullying, ostracising and groupthink shows how pervasive the censorious ideology of identity politics has become.
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