Photo: Rachel Perkins, Marcus Stewart, Jon Faine and Marcia Langton at Woodend.
The small Victorian town of Woodend was truly blessed on Saturday June 24 to have four Voice luminaries descend from on high. It was never revealed why Woodend (population 4,500) was chosen to have the elect, in the form of Jon Faine, Marcia Langton, Rachel Perkins and Marcus Stewart, grace the rural locality with their presence and wisdom.
The free-ticketed event sold out within 48 hours of being advertised. The amassed elderly crowd of some 350 people, many adorned with ‘Yes’ badges and windcheaters, seemed to have an average age of 60+, with nary a young person in sight.
On every seat was a brown paper show bag of Voice goodies, including a programme, a pocket edition of the Constitution, the text and a copy of the Uluru Statement from the Heart, some notes about the Voice proposal and a ‘Yes’ voters resources list (but nothing for No voters). Faine welcomed everyone and noted his “respect for all the First Nation’s people here” but presumably, no respect for anyone else. He advised us that no questions would be allowed from the floor, so this was to be a two-hour lecture.
Despite later talk of Aboriginal dispossession, powerlessness and disadvantage, it seemed from the outset there was not a bit of disadvantage on that stage. Indeed, only privilege and wealth and a great deal of reflected white privilege at that – or is that now ‘black privilege’?
Marcia Langton and Rachel Perkins were bedecked in RM Williams boots @ $650.00 a pair, along with puffer jackets, whilst Marcus Stewart sported his by now trademark Akubra and a pair of new white Nikes topped with white socks, Nike being well known for its poor wages and exploitative employment practises in China.
Up close, Marcus Stewart is to all intents and purposes a ‘whitefella’, just like the rest of us. Yet he is a clear beneficiary of the (deeply flawed) ‘one drop’ policy, that is, if a person has only ‘one drop’ of Aboriginal blood, irrespective of how far back in history that might be, you can count yourself as 100% Aboriginal – this of course to any rational person just seems absurd. Most of the time, Stewart looked bored, simply going through the motions. Perkins too looked both bored and impatient, seemingly frustrated with the process, and as usual, Langton just appeared angry, rarely if ever looking at the assembled crowd.
After the obligatory background introductions, Stewart was asked to say the ‘Welcome to Country’ which in fact he didn’t do, instead opting to talk of Woodend’s proximity to Hanging Rock, citing Taungurung ceremonial ritual male cultural initiations into manhood held at the site, presumably referring to penile incisions, cicatrices, scarring, ritual cutting and burning and possibly even forced sex with underage girls. Stewart later noted his fight to “retain and preserve Aboriginal culture”, but obviously not that culture, only the palatable modern day inventions. Apart from wearing a possum skin cloak, painting your face, and eating some bush tucker, there’s arguably little left of traditional pre-settlement Aboriginal culture in Victoria, and that’s likely a good thing. Stewart seems to be an example of cultural appropriation at its worst. These people are charlatans and hypocrites.
Oh, and it’s worth noting that coincidentally, Stewart is married to Victorian Senator Jana Stewart, who replaced Kimberly Kitching in the Senate after Kitching’s death. Very ‘in-house’ Labor; do you see what’s going on here? More privilege. Don’t you smell a rat? Read more about Marcus Stewart’s curious heritage at Dark Emu Exposed1.
As moderator, Jon Faine was spruiking like an old time leftover red-ragger from the 1970’s, so much so that Rachel Perkins had to keep him in line as he repeatedly attempted to turn the discussion into a ‘lets-bash-the-Liberals’ pile on. Later, Tom Calma and Greg Craven were repeated butts of derision from the panel, and John Howard, Mal Brough, Peter Dutton, Jacinta Price and Warren Mundine all came in for a verbal bashing as well.
Langton led the charge with a potted history of Aboriginal activism since the 1960’s, then focusing on more recent events like the NT Intervention, of which she was scathing (‘harming our people’), Black Deaths in Custody (‘institutionalised racism’), Stolen Generations (‘attempted genocide’), Child Abuse (that’s ‘the churches’) and the usual grab-bag of victimhood complaints. It’s remarkable just how much Faine and Langton hate John Howard. Langton argued that the Voice is needed to “limit the ability of the Parliament to cause us harm” – so just how precisely is that to occur? And, of course, what ‘harm’ – the annual $36 billion spent on Aboriginal affairs? Langton of course trotted out the old ‘Terra Nullius’ furphy again, and the ignorant audience drank it all in with rapturous applause.
Marcia spent some time drilling us that there is “no biological evidence whatsoever for ‘race’ – it doesn’t exist”, which is highly disputed, and the usual claims to 65,000+ years of history, also hotly contested. Langton seemed blithely ignorant to the inherent illogicality of her own argument. If ‘race’ does not exist, then why do we need a race-based ‘Voice’? Langton claimed Aboriginal ‘spirituality’ and connection to the land makes them special, but there’s no biological evidence of intergenerational genetic or DNA transfer of ‘love of land’ either to suggest that contemporary Aboriginal people have any greater feeling of attachment to the land than anybody else who was born and raised here.
Langton continued to bang the old well-worn drum of using the excuse of the ‘disadvantaged tribal Aboriginal people in Central Australia’ as justification of the need for the Voice. But these tribal people represent a tiny minuscule fraction of the 3.4% of Aborigines in Australia, and much of their own current situation is a direct result of their own choices. Tribal Aboriginal people have bad diets because that’s what they want to eat. White colonialists don’t make them have bad diets. The panel made reference to the high prevalence of diabetes within Aboriginal communities, again inferring it’s the whitefellas fault, without any reference to tribal Aborigines lack of tolerance for sugar that promotes the increased incidence of diabetes.
And again with the ‘housing shortage’, tribal Aborigines still trash their houses because so many families and individuals live in them communally because of ‘humbugging’, again, no mention was made of that, yet both Perkins and Langton would be well familiar with that problem. We don’t need a ‘Voice’ to sort out those problems, which have been around for over five decades. We need to admit that much so-called ‘Aboriginal culture’ is very damaging to Aboriginal people and that only by greater integration into modern western society will these problems be solved.
The form of ‘intergenerational trauma’ experienced by Aborigines has nothing to do with colonisation or alleged inherited ‘genetic or DNA trauma’, as the panel asserted. It has everything to do with intergenerational lifestyles of poverty and violence. As has often been said before, self determination is the problem, not the solution!
Langton insisted that the Voice would only “advise on things that specifically and directly affect Aboriginal people”. However, that’s not what the Voice wording says, so such an assurance is worthless. Langton is being deliberately disingenuous and misleading here, and she knows it too. This is the latest attempt to con the people.
Further, Langton poo-poohed the idea that the ‘Voice’ would result in Australians having to pay rent on their land or homes, but that’s not what Voice advocate Thomas Mayo has clearly said. Mayo has indicated that’s exactly what the Voice would be advocating for, along with “reparations and compensation” from all us nasty colonial whitefellas.
Almost laughably, the panel members agreed that the Voice would be “cost neutral” as the “efficiencies and reduced duplication would save what the Voice would cost”! Haven’t we all heard that one before! It’s simply a lie. The panel also claimed that “research shows” that 86% of Aboriginal people support the proposed Voice, but provided no real evidence for that disputed claim.
To her credit, Rachel Perkins resisted every effort by Faine to drag her into his repeated attempts at a political belting of the Liberals, but Rachel refused to be drawn, – well done Rachel. In stark contrast to Jon Faine, at least Perkins showed some integrity. Unfortunately, Perkins claimed towards the end that “This (the Voice) won’t affect most Australians at all, but we will all feel better”, and that it’s a “modest invitation of great unity.” These are the big lies; a successful Voice referendum will affect all of us, we won’t ‘feel better’ at all, it’s not ‘modest’ and it’s clearly already divisive.
Despite Langton’s disavowal of the existence of ‘race’ Marcus Stewart, who was most likely just like the rest of us before discovering his true Aboriginal self, is now somehow special, and more special than the rest of us, because of his ‘race’. Langton herself seems to have developed a real hatred of what was supposedly done to ‘her people’ by the white colonialists, and in believing her own propaganda, now seemingly fosters a great hatred towards the settlers. This bitterness seeps out every time she speaks.
In summary, Jon Faine’s agenda was clearly to bash the Liberals and extol socialist Labor, his love of Gough Whitlam being not even barely disguised. At least from Rachel Perkins there was a sense of integrity, even if misguided; however, from Marcus Stewart there seemed nothing more than virtuous self-interest and from Marcia Langton, nothing more than a tired bitterness, anger and deceit.
What was really astounding was the level of acclamation from the floor. After the event, I chatted briefly to the old chap seated beside me, but didn’t dare ask him if he were a Yes or No voter, you see, we’re already divided.
References:
1 https://www.dark-emu-exposed.org/home/category/Marcus+Stewart
