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Byron Shire
September 13, 2024

Going the ‘Full Donald’

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If, as the polls report, there are more than 80 per cent of Indigenous Australians in favour of the Voice, who do Warren Mundine and Jacinta Price actually represent?

The recent Conservative Political Action Conference (19 August) had all the elements of the hard right’s navel-gazing. Central theme: whatever happened in the past should stay in the past. It’s time for Indigenous Australians to get over it.

A cameo from former PM Tony Abbott: ‘This generation of Aboriginal Australians are not victims. This generation of non-Aboriginal Australians are not oppressors… The last thing that we should be doing right now is entrenching victimhood and institutionalising grievance in our governance arrangements’.

What? So we are just dealing with living Indigenous folks who he claims are not disadvantaged? Still the amnesiac’s view of Indigenous history. Apparently no intergenerational trauma of the stolen generation despite recently-departed Archie Roach’s painful songs.

Ever the royalist, Abbott says the 1,000 Indigenous Australians who ‘signed up for king and country during the First World War’ would not have done so if they faced discrimination. He conveniently omitted reference to the post-war experience of the diggers who suffered discrimination and disadvantage on their return. No soldier settlement blocks for them.

Apparently journalists in attendance were given passes labelled ‘fake news’, I expect as a light-hearted stunt, but accurate, fact-checked journalism is more important than ever. Then there was Ms Price proclaiming that opposing the Voice is a way to stand against ‘woke’ insidious ‘cancel culture’ of ‘city elites’. (Guardian 19/8/23). What? This Trump-era cliched language is hardly helpful in a discussion that requires clear thinking and less inflammatory debate. Many Liberals (Julian Lesser, Mark Speakman, Matt Kean) have called out this dog whistling.  

Frank Lynch, Mullumbimby


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16 COMMENTS

  1. News Flash: Meta fires RMIT FactLab for fake fact checking over censorship of the 26 pages claim. Fact-checkers can lie through omission, Frank.

    • And posters to the Echo lie through deliberate false claims, exaggeration, distortion & misrepresentation eh Christian?
      News Flash: Meta TEMPORARILY SUSPENDS RMIT FactLab after an apparent lapse in RMIT FactLab accreditation with a global group known as the International Fact-Checking Network. Membership of the network is a requirement to be part of Meta’s factchecking program.

      According to Meta: “The International Fact-Checking Network (IFCN) requires participating organisations to demonstrate a commitment to nonpartisanship and fairness. The IFCN will determine whether RMIT FactLab’s expired certification should be reinstated.”

      An RMIT spokesperson said in a statement that it was aware of the suspension, which it noted was temporary, and said FactLab was in the process of renewing its IFCN accreditation. “The IFCN has confirmed that FactLab’s fact-checking meets all its standards and adheres to the IFCN’s Code of Principles.”

      • Factlab didn’t just ‘forget to renew’, they are under investigation after Elon Musk exposed what they had been doing with Twitter. The AEC is now looking into them for falsely implying they are working with the AEC. They may have also breached election laws by accepting money from foreign sources in the matter, which is now being investigated by The Parliamentary Joint Committee for Intelligence and Security, who have been investigating foreign election interference. So if the IFCN suddenly allows them to renew, that will tell you what IFCN is worth.

        • More fantasy nonsense. Is it because the lies they uncover don’t support your warped world view?

          The AEC is NOT investigating RMIT Factlab, & they have NEVER implied they worked for the AEC. They are both falsehoods invented & repeated only on Sky – the LEAST reputable of any major media organisation, whose reports often feature in RMIT Factlab, & probably the only media organisation in Australia to have never won any major awards for excellence in journalism. At least we know where your sources are.

          The fact that Sen James Patterson (Chair of Parliamentary Joint Committee for Intelligence & Security) wants ABC to reconsider their partnership with Factlab is nowhere near the same thing as your claim of “being investigated”, just another of your frequent exaggerations & distortions. It’s equally hilarious that Patterson’s sole basis for doing so is because that bastion of truth & accuracy, Fakebook / Meta, has TEMPORARILY SUSPENDED RMIT Factlab due to their lapsed accreditation, even though both parties have announced the suspension is only temporary. It’s obviously an oversight by both RMIT & IFCN since accreditation lapsed 10 months ago & has only just been noticed, it’s not a reflection of their work, nor the frequent reporting of their work by ABC.

          Furthermore, the IFCN is the ONLY internationally recognised credible fact-checking organisation, & is acknowledged as such by all countries with a free independent media – albeit begrudgingly on some instances. So the IFCN is in on the giant conspiracy against you too now? A case of don’t like the news, then shoot the messenger. And Yes, I am a donor to RMIT Factlab because truth & facts are more important than scaremongering, conspiracies & bullsh*t

          • The AEC was directly referenced on factlab’s website in an ambiguous statement that could infer collusion. Sen Paterson is in talks with Meta executives because a foreign company censored an Australian journalist’s story about an election on the behest of an Australian organisation that may receive foreign funding via RMIT. 55 of IFCN’s ‘fact-checker’ organisations have ‘lapsed membership’, seemingly due to complaints involving possible breaches of laws around the world. If the IFCN had a right-wing bias instead of a left-wing bias, you would be screaming about them being a corrupt monopoly.

        • OMG you’re kidding right?
          Elon Musk “exposed” what exactly? All he did was complain about the global influence of Facebook (hardly new information, but funny coming from a right-wing billionaire who disdains facts, promotes hate speech & sacked all the quality control staff on his own rival, less popular social media platform). Then he had a whinge about not being able to have access to the Facebook algorithm because Zuckerburg won’t share boo hoo. What part is the headline ?
          The hypocrisy is mind-blowing & your straw-clutching has me ROFLMFAO

          • He released all of Twitter’s internal documents, such as email, to do with censorship, and these censorship organisations. Didn’t your television cover the scandals revealed?

  2. Well written Frank, your question as to who Mundine and Price represent when polling does suggest 80% of Aboriginal people do support the Voice, is well put, it would be easy just to apply simple maths and say 20%, but I suspect that might be a stretch, Mundine is on the board of a mining company (he has admitted it), that probably suggests just who he represents, and Price has long been associated with that bastion of right-wing extremism, the Sydney Institute, We can just imagine how much these right-wing warriors have the welfare of Aboriginal people on their daily agenda.

  3. As I have said before, the states are starting to turn on their lefty draconian governments. Just a matter of time before the coalition wins them back, Albo’s government is looking more like a one termer day after day, we live in hope.

    • You haven’t changed much Greg, have you?, still cranky, still living in hope, wishing and hoping and praying and planning and dreaming, good luck and take it easy.

    • You REALLY want that last crowd back?

      But I wouldn’t count on Victoria in a hurry. Have you seen what’s happening in the Liberal Party down there?

      • Lizardbreath have been in Victoria for the past 3 weeks ..and can confirm that the
        Liberal party provide no opposition to
        The Andrew’s government.. but apparently this will not save Andrew’s ..the spin king
        Will not be at the helm for much longer..
        With what he has put Victoria through the past 3 years it’s not surprising..

  4. The ‘83% Indigenous’ poll was back in March and had an undersized sample size. RMIT Factlab has been promoting it as one of their ‘facts’, and just got caught out on it.

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