Charles Pakana (Victorian Aboriginal News)

Throughout the referendum campaign last year, this podcast sought regularly to shed light on the murky waters of misinformation that was stirred up by elements of the conservative media, most frequently, and notably those on Sky News. Now, episodes of the podcast that focus on those issues can be found on the Victorian Aboriginal News website, and while I’d hoped that we had left the bulk of such behaviour behind us, this was pretty obviously a vain, if not naïve hope.

I will admit that now, on the 26th of January this year, after giving a speech to a local community in Melbourne, I was approached by Wurundjeri Woi-wurrung Elder Aunty Diane Kerr.

She was at the event to provide a Welcome to Country. Now, for those of you who may not be aware, Aunty Diane is a very highly regarded Wurundjeri Elder, a senior Elder. She’s devoted a good 50 years of her life to her community, working in fields such as health, education, Native Title, Stolen Generations and childcare. And I’ve personally known Aunty Di for quite a few years and I have nothing but utmost respect for this quietly spoken and knowledgeable woman.

And when she spoke to me after the speech, during which I admit freely that I pointed out the absurd behaviour during the referendum campaign of certain Sky News commentators, Aunty Di made simple mention of the fact that Andrew Bolt had verbally attacked her during a recent broadcast. Well, that obviously raised my interest, and hence this podcast episode. 

Here’s Andrew Bolt in a video clip posted to Facebook by Sky News on the 10th of January. I’ll play it in its entirety, because even though some of the commentary doesn’t relate to 26 Jan and directly Aunty Di, it has some other elements that display even more just how absurd some of the Sky News commentary can be and is.

Andrew Bolt:
But first, and related to exactly that, this weirdness, particularly under this Albanese government, how did we get to the point where so few Australians think that Australia’s worth their time defending where this government is running so short of soldiers and sailors that it’s actually saying it might now ask Pacific Islanders to join our armed forces instead to be mercenaries paid by us to defend us?

Charles:

Well, on that particular comment from Andrew, which appears to be accusing the Albanese government of preparing to employ mercenaries from overseas to defend these antipodean shores, I want to point out that on the 1st of May last year, the Sydney Morning Herald journalist Matthew Knott reported that I quote, the Federal Opposition and leading military experts are calling on the Albanese government to consider radical policy changing, including foreigners to fight under the Australian flag to help address the recruitment crisis plaguing the nation’s Defence Force. I’ll just reiterate, it was a call by the federal opposition and leading military experts.

The report goes on to say that former senior defence officials have said that Pacific Islanders should be allowed to enlist in the Australian Defence Force and offered an accelerated pathway to Australian citizenship, while others said the offer should be extended to citizens from friendly nations such as New Zealand, Japan, the United States and the United Kingdom.

This seems to have the support of the opposition, with the same report from Matthew Knott in the Sydney Morning Herald quoting Opposition defence spokesperson Andrew Hastie as saying, I quote, with immigration about to increase, we should consider opening service in the ADF, the Australian Defence Force, as an accelerated pathway to citizenship. So it appears that accusing the Albanese government of this hiring of mercenaries, maybe Sky News? It’s Researchers and commentators should first of all do a quick search on Google and find out some of the foundation facts and of course, truths.

Andrew Bolt:
But every day another penny drops. Hi. You think that’s why it’s the trashing of Australia and its traditions that explains it. And today I’ll give you an incredible example.

Charles:

Just before we continue with Andrew Bolt’s little tirade about 26th of January and Aunty Di and various other things, I just want to point out the absolute absurdity of this claim of Australian traditions being trashed. What are Australian traditions? Are they only those that have been introduced in the past 230 odd years since colonisation, invasion, settlement, whatever you want to call it?

Or do we have a deeper, more meaningful and appropriate library in history of traditions, And that is a culture, the longest continuing culture in the world that stretches back some 65,000 years. I’ll leave that to you to ponder as we continue to listen to Andrew Bolt on Sky News.

Andrew Bolt:
Now remember the Melbourne council and someone of those crazy left wing ones that you find in so many places in Melbourne. This one’s served from an eastern suburbs area where I used to live. I thought it was quite reasonable, but it’s now had a bright idea for Australia Day. This shows how far the rot has spread for Australia Day. It is going to have a day of healing, apparently, because Australia Day is so traumatic and terrible.

Charles:
Well, Andrew, yes, for a great number of Australians it is just that. And the sarcasm fairly dripping from that statement is testament to the fact that there are far too many instances in this country where trauma and transgenerational trauma is trivialised. It’s a date that, for a large number of Australians, marks the death of language, culture, identity and family.

And it’s a date that is recognised as such by not just one council in an eastern suburbs area of Melbourne, but by councils across Victoria that include Mildura, Stonnington, Merri Bek, Moonee Valley, Yarra City, City of Ballarat, Surf Coast Shire Council and Sheppharton. 

Add to that the article in The Age on the 25th of January this year from Rachel Dexter stating that nearly 40% of Victorian councils had opted not to have citizenship ceremonies on the 26th of January. Andrew may call it out as a spreading rot, but for more and more Victorians it’s a progressive move towards a society that is no longer turning its back in ignorance on the truth of this country’s modern history. Let’s hear more from Andrew.

Andrew Bolt:
It’s a day of healing where you can hear the healing words of Professor Aunty Diane Kerr, who’s a Fellow at Melbourne’s University, Melbourne University’s Indigenous Knowledge Institute, and it’s helping this university’s medical researchers.

Charles:
Just quickly here to clarify a bit of what I’m sure is unintentionally misleading information. The Melbourne University’s Indigenous Knowledge Unit does not exist to help the university’s medical researchers. It has a stated aim to advance research and education in Indigenous knowledge systems that the university’s website correctly identifies as characteristically holistic, relational and rooted in strong and continuing connection with the land, sky and waters. 

Actually, we can only hope that the Indigenous Knowledge Institute is advising medical researchers. Because the reality is, without medical researchers listening to traditional knowledges and practices around the world, we would not have morphine, aspirin, artemisinin, which is an anti malarial medicine, teniposide an anti cancer agent and digoxin, a cardiac medicine.

These are just an absolutely tiny sampling of medicines that have their origins in traditional knowledges and practices.

Andrew Bolt:
Now, the fact that a council and even Melbourne’s leafier suburbs thinks Australia Day, oh, should actually be a day of healing where we hear the woes of Aboriginal Australians, well, that’s actually sad enough. I mean, where’s the pride in this great country?

Charles:
Once again, the trivializing of trauma is beyond reprehensible. Yet as Andrew asked, where is the pride in this great country? From my perspective, that pride is being expressed by those councils and those people who recognise the trauma experienced by the First Peoples of this country. And as Australians walk together in, as called for in the Uluru Statement from the Heart, a movement of the Australian people for a better future. That is pride.

Andrew Bolt:
But then I checked on this professor Aunty Diane Kerr. Here she is this Aboriginal Elder. I mean, seriously, her father is white, but she identifies as Aboriginal because she says some of her mother’s ancestors are. Well, I don’t doubt that.

Charles:
Well, it seems that you are Andrew, and that doubt is quite simply abhorrent. Yet it’s a doubt that seemed never to have been given voice to Senator Jacinta Nampijimpa Price, whose father is also white. They are both strong Aboriginal women and to cast racial doubt on one is to cast racial doubt on many.

Andrew Bolt:

But can we just get over this ludicrous division by race where a council has as an Aboriginal, some with plenty of white ancestry as well to tell us white settlement was terrible, etcetera etcetera and we should feel guilty why not her? She’s got plenty of Aboriginal ancestry and a non-aboriginal ancestry say oh this is quite insulting and quite dumb.

Charles:
I know many listeners would love me to comment on those last words from Andrew, those about being dumb, but let’s not drag ourselves down to that level. What is insulting, though, is the question posed by Andrew. Can we just get over this ludicrous division by race? Well, rather than a supposed division for progressive Australia, it’s actually known as another word, respect.

It’s respecting the loss, it’s respecting the trauma, it’s respecting culture. And just as meaningfully, it’s respecting the work and efforts of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, regardless of their mixed ancestry, often forced upon them to address the loss and trauma and strengthen their culture.

There’s no division, Andrew, despite the voices of some radicals. And I point once again to that last sentence in the Uluru Statement From the Heart, we invite you to walk with us in a movement of the Australian people for a better future. 

There’s no racial division in that.

Andrew Bolt: 

But unfortunately, this story gets even worse. Australia should be celebrating how rich it is, how healthy, how comfortable and peaceful life is here for so many people. Migrants from all over the world come here because of it. And almost all of this is because of Western science and medicine that’s part of this country’s Western heritage.

That should be celebrated too. Instead, more shame, more curtailing Melbourne University, but should be a temple of that Western science and medicine. It’s actually hired and promoted this professor Aunty Di to tell us to treat infections in children, among others, with Aboriginal medicines that she says she’s used. And this lecture, swear to god, is actually on the University of Melbourne’s website, to its shame.

Charles:
Well, actually, I see no shame in the university including a lecture that advocates for alternative methods of treating infection. If anything, when you look at it, it’s responsible. The World Health Organization has already stated that antimicrobial resistance AMR is one of the top global public health and development threats, and it estimates that bacterial AMR was directly responsible in 2019 for 1.27 million deaths around the world, and it contributed to 4.95 million deaths. Where is the irresponsibility in seeking to address this massive problem too?

Aunty Diane Kerr:

…much antibiotics are used on our children, so I want them to stop that. My vision is to have like the Ngangkari in South Australia is have our people beside the doctor and offer our Indigenous healing. You know, for example, I know that with ulcers we make a paste out of old manweed, put it on the wound… and it will heal. And I use old man weed every day. My friend has made it into a tea because I have a lot of chronic illness. And I told my doctor and my doctor got on her computer and was looking and she says I can’t find it. I said no, it’s a weed. And she said be very careful. And I said I don’t have to be careful of my business.

Andrew Bolt:
That, ladies and gentlemen, is a professor at Melbourne University, which I should remind you also hires Professor Bruce Pascoe. Now when even one of our top universities sells out western medicine, so this kind of neo-primitive treatment so-called you know using weeds, we’re really going to the pack.

Charles:
First up, the caution from Aunty Diane’s doctor to regulate the dosage was quite correct, but I’m sure she knows how to manage that, and careful regulation of dosage is nothing new. It’s a standard caution with most Western medications, after all. But aside from that, the use of Old Man weed, otherwise known as sneeze weed, scent weed, or by its traditional name of Gokwunguruk, seems to be recognised by researchers as a treatment for wounds, infections, and inflammation.

I also put forward, I wonder what Andrew’s comment might have been in 1928 when doctor Alexander Fleming identified a mould of all things, produced a self defense chemical that could kill bacteria. That discovery as we know, lead to penicillin, the forerunner of modern antibiotics. I wonder if he would have referred to penicillin as a neo-primitive treatment. Surely not. After all, Doctor Fleming was a white Scottish physician and microbiologist with a formal education.

Andrew Bolt:

I mean, where is the pride in what we’ve built and how indeed we built it in Western science and technology? I’ll tell you where it’s going. It’s going going almost gone, with 81 councils now saying they won’t hold Australia Day citizenship ceremonies.

Charles:
Oh OK. We’ve suddenly gone from the use of old man weed to a growing number of councils saying they won’t hold citizenship ceremonies on the 26th of January. I’m not really sure how the two truly connect except to note that they are evidence of this country’s political, bureaucratic and educational systems starting to recognize there is a need for change.

And maybe the conservative media and politicians are starting to get a bit concerned that the archaic policies and stands of the past are no longer regarded as palatable by more and more Australians.

Andrew Bolt:
And with the Albanese government saying public servants, they don’t have to celebrate Australia Day either, They can take another day off instead if they object to the day. Well, I tell you what a proud government of a proud country would instead say, well, if you can’t celebrate this country and its culture on its national day, you don’t deserve the day off. Use it or lose it.

But I’m afraid that’s not how this government thinks. And it isn’t how many of our elites think either. Which is, again, maybe why so many Australians feel it’s not worth serving in the defence of this nation.

Charles:
And now we’re back to the shortfalls in recruiting for the Australian Defence Force. Frankly, this really doesn’t warrant a response, but yes, it’s a real concern. We’re facing a shortfall in ideal for recruiting and I’m saying that as an Aboriginal man who proudly served in the Australian regular army for nine years. 

But how can you really seriously argue that a government that’s been voted in less than two years can be held to blame? And this has nothing to do with Labour versus Coalition, by the way. To top that off, ADF numbers actually seem to be higher now than when they were when the Albanese government was formed. 

As of June 2023, the most recent numbers I was able to find, the ADF had just over 89,000 full time and part time personne. ln 2021, prior to the current government, that number was close to 85,000. So in fact, the numbers seem to have increased by 4000 under the current government.

And we’ll leave it there, because the rest of Andrew’s commentary was to suddenly take a twist and focus instead on immigration, another bastion of conservative society bashing. So until next time, and we will be returning in a few days time with an insightful interview with Thomas Mayo. 

I hope you’ll join me then.

[ENDS]