NT Justice Judith Kelly critical of cult of anti-racism

A senior NT judge says an ideology of supposed anti-racism is stopping people from talking about the domestic violence plague.

Northern Territory Supreme Court Justice Judith Kelly.

A senior Northern Territory Supreme Court judge says a “cult-like ideology of supposed anti-racism” is stopping people talking about a plague of domestic violence towards Indigenous women.

In a speech to a group of female lawyers this week, Justice Judith Kelly said false claims of individual and systemic racism detracted from the search for solutions to the far higher rates of domestic violence in Indigenous communities. “Talking honestly about the problems that exist and encouraging honest and open public debate would have to be a good start,” Justice Kelly said.

Read the speech in full here

“And by speaking honestly about the problem, I mean not self-censoring for fear of being branded a racist by the ideologues of the new ‘anti-racism’ religion.”

Justice Kelly said people and institutions, including the legal system, were casually and inaccurately labelled as racist without any evidence.

“The underlying assumption of this ideology appears to be that Aboriginal people must exist in a permanent state of victimhood, an assumption that is in fact deeply racist,” she said.

“Further, among those in thrall to this ideology, labelling someone or something ‘racist’ seems in many cases to be an end in itself – not a prelude to remedial action, but a substitute for it.”

Justice Kelly earlier this year spoke to The Australian about an “epidemic of violence” plaguing Aboriginal women in the NT at the hands of their partners.

Those comments drew criticism from the NT’s Australian of the Year, Leanne Liddle, at the Garma Festival. Justice Kelly said while Ms Liddle, as director of the Aboriginal Justice Unit, had said many useful and positive things, her comments at Garma were not among them.

“Ms Liddle invited the audience to reflect on what might be meant by ‘people’ and she was quoted as saying: ‘I feel strongly that such language reflects an undercurrent of racism – an othering of Aboriginal people that exists within our society’. I am sorry Leanne feels that way so let me make my meaning clear,” she said.

“By ‘people’, I meant ‘people’ – not ‘people other than Aboriginal people’. I want all the people of Australia in cities, towns, the bush and bush communities to know what is happening so that, just maybe, something might be done about this terrible scourge.”

Justice Kelly noted that in the past 22 years, two Aboriginal men had been shot by police. In the same period, some 65 Aboriginal women were killed by their partners. The police shootings received massive media coverage, but the deaths of those women were barely noted.

She described two instances where Aboriginal women were killed by their partners in front of numerous witnesses who did nothing. Other victims, she said, were actively discouraged from reporting violence and may be punished for doing so.

“Everyone is willing to talk about the over-representation of Aboriginal men in prison. It has been called Australia’s shame and so it is,” she said. “But … the stream of Aboriginal men going to prison is matched by a steady stream – a river – of Aboriginal women going to the hospital and to the morgue.”

She said false claims of individual and systemic racism detracted from the search for solutions.

“The causes of this epidemic of violent abuse are multiple and complex … unemployment and passive welfare dependency; lack of access to adequate education, health and mental health services; lack of adequate housing and consequent overcrowding; substance abuse; dispossession and loss of culture,” she said. “And one that deserves a stand-alone mention – the ‘rivers of grog’ that run through our communities.”