The following is an unedited reply to questions put to Independent Kevin Loughrey.
In a Bay FM interview last week, Loughrey made claims around Indigenous massacres that occurred by early European settlers. As upset listeners called the station, The Echo sought clarification.
Loughrey told BayFM presenter Mia Armitage, ‘From the very beginning of settlement in this country, the administrations had a benign attitude towards the Aborigines, and did their utmost to try and integrate them into modern society’.
The Echo asked, ‘Where do you source your views from? You also said, “If we have any criticism at all, it is that we left those children who were full blooded Aboriginals in their despicable circumstances. And that included things like child rape and so forth”.
The Echo asked, ‘Are you talking about marriage age in Aboriginal cultures, when you talk about child rape? Or are you saying that full-blood Aboriginal communities in colonial times had a lot of actual child rape by Aboriginals, as opposed to rape by colonists? If so, is there a historian that you’re relying on for that information?’
Loughrey’s reply:
Dear Hans and Mia
Some things you should know. My eldest brother was murdered by two “tick a box” Aborigines. I was put into foster care when I was four because my mother was so ill she could not look after me. Life just after the 2nd World War was austere and tough. I grew up with families who were real Aborigines, not the pretenders you see parading around today. They had exactly the same opportunities as I had. One of them who was friends with my elder brothers, Peter K…, went on to own a successful furniture removal company. There were 4 boys in that family and two girls. The other three boys went on to become a doctor, teacher and lawyer. My father owned a corner grocery store and gave them groceries when times were tough. Mr K… the father lost his leg in an industrial accident. So anyone who suggests Aborigines were disadvantaged are taking far too generalised and simplistic view of things. There is no doubt some suffered hardship and injustice just as did other persons of a different racial background, living in the lower-socio-economic strata of Australian society.
I agree emphatically with Jacinta Price whom I have met in Canberra some years ago. Stop telling Aborigines they are victims. European settlement brought to most Aborigines great benefits compared to the Neolithic existence they had to endure before Europeans arrived.
My wish is that everyone should be treated exactly the same; regardless of their race or gender. That is the only way we will have a just, cohesive society going into the future.
Texts you should read to gain a more informed perspective are https://aifs.gov.au/resources/policy-and-practice-papers/child-abuse-and-neglect-indigenous-australian-communities and then appreciate that everyone is tip toeing around this problem. Senator Jacinta Price is not so delicate and I admire her for that because without bluntly acknowledging the enormity of this problem it will never be solved. Everything Jacinta says, I agree with.
This abuse of children in Aboriginal societies is not new. Indeed, it was prevalent in all prehistoric societies; European societies as well.
Your email illustrates how successful Marxists have been in defaming our ancestors and trying to cleave our society along racial lines. You and Mia are a victim of this as are most other younger Australians; especially those with aboriginal genes in their makeup. Much of what you have been told has been a pack of lies, exaggerations and the sad part of this is that you are not sufficiently inquisitive to go back and look at the reference material these charlatans have used to build their case. If you wish to be truly successful in your profession, distrust everything you are told and read and check everything. Never believe academics on their face value. Be critical thinkers for nothing is ever what it at first seems.
To learn more about what actually happened, you should read real history instead of the history confected by the likes of people who, in my opinion, are despicable imposters such as Bruce Pascoe who claimed to be an Aborigine and, when his history was investigated, like his writings,it was found to be totally untrue; a work of fiction. I’ve now looked into the study of massacres prompted by Mia’s assertions and it, too, was a work of malignant fantasy with Dr Lyndall Ryan featuring heavily in this effort. It relied largely on verbal accounts by people who, themselves, have been the victims of misinformation spread by the mischievous to destroy our social cohesiveness. In my opinion, it beggars belief that persons, Pascoe and Ryan, have been made Professors given what I consider to be the poor standard of their scholarship. To gain some insight into how dreadfully poor the scholarship was with respect to the purported massacres of Aborigines in Tasmania, here is an analysis of Ryan’s work by Keith Windschuttle:
Lyndall Ryan cites the Hobart Town Courier as a source for several stories about atrocities against Aborigines in 1826. However, that newspaper did not begin publication until October 1827 and the other two newspapers of the day made no mention of these killings.
Ryan cites the diary of the colony’s first chaplain, Rev Robert Knopwood, as the source for her claim that, between 1803 and 1808, the colonists killed 100 Aborigines. The diaries, however, record only four Aborigines being killed in this period.
Ryan asserts: “Even if only half the stories [George Augustus] Robinson heard were true, then it is possible to account for 700 shot.” However, Robinson’s diaries record a total of only 188 Aborigines killed by whites, and many of them are dubious claims.
Ryan says that the documentary evidence shows 280 Aborigines were “recorded shot” and that unrecorded killings would bring the total to 700. However, she provides no sources for these figures. Brian Plomley did a survey in 1992 but could find records of only 109 Aborigines killed. I could find records for only 120.
Ryan claims that in 1826, police killed 14 Aborigines at Pitt Water. However, none of the three references she provides mention any Aborigines being killed there in 1826 or any other time.
Ryan claims that hostilities in the northern districts in 1827 included: a massacre of Port Dalrymple Aborigines by a vigilante group of stockmen at Norfolk Plains; the killing of a kangaroo hunter in reprisal for him shooting Aboriginal men; the burning of a settler’s house because his stockmen had seized Aboriginal women; the spearing of three other stockmen and clubbing of one to death at Western Lagoon. But not one of the five sources she cites mentions any of these events.
Between 1828 and 1830, according to Ryan, “roving parties” of police constables and convicts killed 60 Aborigines. Not one of the three references she cites mentions any Aborigines being killed, let alone 60. The governor at the time and most subsequent authors regarded the roving parties as completely ineffectual.
Ryan says the “Black War” began in the winter of 1824 with the Big River tribe launching patriotic attacks on the invaders. However, all the assaults on whites that winter were made by a small gang of detribalised blacks led by a man named Musquito who was not defending his tribal lands. He was an Aborigine originally from Sydney who had worked in Hobart for ten years before becoming a bushranger.”
I could go on but you should now be coming to the conclusion that you have been spreading gross lies about our ancestors. You need to read Windschuttle and then try to refute his work. You will be hard pressed to do that.
To gain a further understanding of the level of obfuscation and dissembling of Australian History by those academics, eager to gain their doctorate by discovering some novel gem of history, never-before-appreciated, you need to read https://quadrant.org.au/opinion/history-wars/2009/05/the-fabrication-deniers/ It is great and elegant prose if nothing else.
I suggest you obtain the book https://ncc.org.au/uncategorized/1270-books-the-fabrication-of-aboriginal-history-by-keith/ I have checked some of Keith’s references and they are accurate. His scholarship to me is disciplined and rigorous. I admire him greatly. For example, Lyndall Ryan gained a doctorate on a thesis which examined Aboriginal Massacres in Tasmania. By way of example, she cites a letter from Governor Arthur which she claims deals with a massacre of Aboriginals but when you go and look at the actual letter there is no mention of this at all. You have to understand that academics at universities are craven, despicable persons incapable of being honest for they are working to an agenda driven either by an intense desire to gain a qualification or by a hate for our society and our country. Dr Peter Ridd has aptly illustrated that when he revealed and complained publicly about the extremely poor scholarship being conducted at the James Cook University regarding the Great Barrier Reef. The academics were claiming the reef was dying, Professor Ridd said, “Not so” and felt compelled to speak up about it. His services were terminated. Such is the fate of truth tellers which explains why liars and charlatans gain qualifications and status. Some years later an independent report by the CSIRO states that the reef is in great shape and growing! Prof Ridd was correct but he didn’t get his job back.
I have also read https://www.connorcourtpublishing.com.au/Aboriginal-self-determination-The-Whiteman%E2%80%99s-dream–Gary-Johns_p_85.html by Gary Johns someone whom I respect. To gain a better perspective, I recommend you read that book. He deals with the matter of the stolen generation and concludes, as I have, that they were “the saved generation”, not stolen. Not one of those children, it would seem, was wrongfully removed from the situation they were in. In all cases I have examined, the child was of mixed race and the father was nowhere to be found. The mother was not coping, there was nothing like the social services that exist today to support single supporting mothers and the child was often ostracised by the rest of the community. As I have said, if any criticism is to be laid at the feet of the authorities of that time, it was that they discriminated between pure-blood Aborigines and mixed race; leaving the former to their fate.
Gary Johns is an interesting chap. At the time of writing his book he was the Associate Professor of Public Policy, Public Policy Institute, Australian Catholic University. Gary served in the House of Representatives from 1987-1996 and was Special Minister of State and Assistant Minister for Industrial Relations from 1993-1996. He served as an Associate Commissioner of the Commonwealth Productivity Commission 2002-2004. He holds a Doctor of Philosophy (Political Science) University of Queensland, Master of Arts (Geography) Monash University, and a Bachelor of Economics Monash University. He is President of The Bennelong Society – a Society devoted to a rational explanation of indigenous policy, in particular, those challenges in integrating indigenous people into the mainstream economy. I’ve watch Gary develop from a wide eyed naive enthusiasts to a realist who sees that they only resolution to this problem we face with some Aboriginals living in terrible circumstances is to treat everyone equally.
So I suggest you and Mia get educated. You are proliferating lies which defame our ancestors and, in doing so, you are destroying the Aboriginal people and the self-esteem of every-day Australians. “If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it.” Nazi Leader Joseph Goebbels. It is easy to fall for “presentism”, ie, you judge things by the way life is now, ie, in the present, where a lot more taxation money is available and social mores are radically different to what they were in days past.
You will no doubt not be happy with my response. But as you get older I hope you may gain a different perspective of the state of things.
Your problem now is, if you believe there is some substance in what I have related here, how will you tell others the facts of the matter without causing them distress. They have become so indoctrinated by lies that the truth will not be appreciated. Maybe you can sugar-coat it better than I.
But I think, as Senator Price asserts, “It’s time for some truth telling”.
Ends
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