Since Tony Abbott seized the leadership of the Liberal Party in late 2009, Australian party politics have become extremely polarised. The indecisive election in August 2010, which led to a hung Parliament and a minority Labor Government, didn’t reduce this polarisation; if anything, it’s increased since. There are clear differences between the two major parties (left-of centre Labor and right of centre Liberals) on a range of social, economic and environmental polices.

On most of these partisan debates I favour the Labor Party. I especially dread the prospect of an Abbott Government’s impact on environmental policy. Combined with gung-ho pro-development Liberal/National Coalition Governments at State level, I fear the likely direction an Abbott Government would take on ‘green’ issues. So in general, I favour the re-election of a Gillard Government at the coming general election, which is due by the end of 2013.

But while I prefer Labor’s policies on most issues, there are exceptions. Some of them are important to me. They’re more than mere “flies in the ointment” – I regard a few of them as potentially serious drawbacks to the re-election of the current Government. On those issues I’d like the current Labor Government to shift its position.

This article is about one such exception. I write not motivated by a desire to help defeat the ALP Government; I want to encourage it to change policy. If that doesn’t happen it’ll seriously detract from my enthusiasm for renewal of Labor’s mandate to govern.

A most illiberal law..

Back in 1995 the Keating Labor Government was in power and Michael Lavarch was his Attorney-General. After intensive lobbying from Australia’s powerful mainstream Jewish/Israel Lobby, that Government legislated an amendment to the 1975 Racial Discrimination Act (RDA).

Here’s the amendment in question:

RACIAL DISCRIMINATION ACT 1975 – SECT 18C

Offensive behaviour because of race, colour or national or ethnic origin

             (1)  It is unlawful for a person to do an act, otherwise than in private, if:

                     (a)  the act is reasonably likely, in all the circumstances, to offend, insult, humiliate or                                                       intimidate another person or a group of people; and

                     (b)  the act is done because of the race, colour or national or ethnic origin of the other person or of some or all of the people in the group.

Note:          Subsection (1) makes certain acts unlawful. Section 46P of the Australian Human Rights Commission Act 1986 allows people to make complaints to the Australian Human Rights Commission about unlawful acts. However, an unlawful act is not necessarily a criminal offence. Section 26 says that this Act does not make it an offence to do an act that is unlawful because of this Part, unless Part IV expressly says that the act is an offence.

             (2)  For the purposes of subsection (1), an act is taken not to be done in private if it:

                     (a)  causes words, sounds, images or writing to be communicated to the public; or

                     (b)  is done in a public place; or

                     (c)  is done in the sight or hearing of people who are in a public place.

             (3)  In this section:

“public place” includes any place to which the public have access as of right or by invitation, whether express or implied and whether or not a charge is made for admission to the place.

On Monday this week, in a speech to the right-wing Institute of Public Affairs which he called ‘Freedom Wars‘, Opposition Leader Tony Abbott gave what for me was one of his finest speeches – a speech more in keeping with the liberalism of John Stuart Mill (which I respect) as opposed to the reactionary polices of Australia’s Liberal Party on a raft of other issues (which I oppose).

In ‘Freedom Wars’ Mr Abbott took a stand against the Finklestein Inquiry proposals for a new media tribunal. As I’ve written previously, I also regard Finkelstein’s key proposal for a new ‘media tribunal’ as deeply flawed and I welcome Abbott’s clear rejection of it. If that happens, on this rare occasion, to locate me on the same side of a debate as executives of News Ltd, so be it. In fact I’m glad, this once, to have powerful allies on what I regard as a very important policy issue.

His speech also clarified the Liberal Party’s position on the notorious 18C Amendment to Australia’s Racial Discrimination Act. Abbott said:

Abbott’s reference to ‘Bolt’ was to the prominent Australian political commentator Andrew Bolt, who was convicted in 2009 of infringing this notorious section of the RDA. Some of the nuances of the case were discussed by Jonathan Holmes on Media Watch before the court’s decision – see Andrew Bolt and The Herald Sun on trial. Mr Holmes also wrote about the case after Justice Mordecai Bromberg brought down his decision in September 2009: Bolt, Bromberg and a profoundly disturbing judgment. I found his coverage of the case insightful, fair and well-argued.

The feisty and (to me) highly irritating Andrew Bolt is not the only person to have faced the courts since the RDA was amended in the mid-1990s. Other notorious earlier cases had been brought by the organised Jewish/Israel Lobby against people it derides as ‘Holocaust deniers’. The most famous of those cases was that of Dr Frederick Toben, who was eventually jailed for several months for breaching court rulings made after he was found guilty of breaching the 18C of the RDA back in 2002.

Toben often uses polemical language that may well cause offence to Jewish people. But if his language offends Jews, it’s no surely more offensive than recurrent vilification of Muslims (and occasionally Christians) by some Jewish and non-Jewish commentators in Australia. Toben’s key ‘thought-crime’ appears to be his rejection of the mainstream narrative of the history of World War Two. The judgement against Toben makes it clear that it was that specific issue – a matter of historical debate – that was the nub of the case brought against him.

The judgement handed down against Dr Toben by Justice Branson on 17th September 2002 sought to restrain him from “further publishing information which conveyed the following imputations:

(A) there is serious doubt that the Holocaust occurred;
(B) it is unlikely that there were homicidal gas chambers Auschwitz;
(C) Jewish people who are offended by and challenge Holocaust denial are of limited intelligence;
(D) some Jewish people, for improper purposes, including financial gain, have exaggerated the number of Jews killed during World War II and the circumstances in which they were killed.”

It was an extraordinarily illiberal judgement.

I’ll take the four points one by one:

(A) is meaningless without a precise definition of ‘The Holocaust’ which, as far as I can see, the judgement lacked. This term ’The Holocaust’ was rarely used to signify events pertaining to the fate of Jews in World War Two until the 1970s. In previous decades – the 1950s/60s – ‘holocaust’ was used mainly as a term to signify the much-feared prospect of a “nuclear holocaust”. Contemporary usage is actually quite recent.

“The Holocaust” is therefore quite different from historical events that were identified as such by protagonists at the time - such as the 1940 ‘Battle of Britain’ or the 1945 atomic bomb attack on Hiroshima. Without a precise and generally agreed definition of what is meant by the term, to say “The Holocaust happened” or “the Holocaust didn’t happen” are statements so devoid of precise content that they are, effectively, meaningless.

(B) is a matter of historical debate. Judge Branson may not like the fact that numerous serious scholars have expressed doubts that the gas chambers in Auschwitz were ever used to kill human beings, as opposed to their overt function which was to de-louse clothing and bedding and hence help arrest the spread of typhus. But like it or not, it’s a fact that serious doubts have been expressed by numerous serious scholars. The debate over whatv really occurred at that time is ongoing.

In effect, Judge Branson arrogated to himself the right to determine historical fact. That’s a disgraceful thing for a judge to do. Courts of law are neither equipped to act as the arbiters of history, nor should they ever attempt the task. In the Enlightenment tradition, history is for historians and the general public to debate – not for judges to specify.

(C) is a curiosity. I can find no evidence that Dr Toben ever made such a claim. Perhaps someone can point me to the exact quotation/s which formed the basis of Justice Branson’s decision on this? However, even if Toben didmake such a silly comment, its hard to see how that was not a legitimate part of public discourse. If you want to hear people insulting each other for being ‘stupid’, listen to Parliament, read the newspapers, get on Twitter or go the the pub. It happens all the time. If’s is a criminal offence to say people are of limited intelligence few indeed in our society are not guilty of it.

(D) the notion that some Jewish people “have exaggerated the number of Jews killed during World War II and the circumstances in which they were killed” may cause offense to some people, but it is extremely easy to prove that it’s a factual statement. The key word is “some”. There are numerous cases of demonstrably false claims made by some Jewish people on the events of World War Two. Some of those claims have been openly acknowledged as false by the individuals who originally made them. If Justice Branson wished to restrain free speech on this point, he was clearly seeking to restrain people from telling (a part of) the truth. Judges have no business to do this in a civilised society that takes honesty seriously.

In short the judgement made by Justice Branson in 2002 was an extremely poor judgement that – in my opinion – should never have been made. It would surely have caused a major media outcry at the time were it not that the great majority of journalists and public commentators such as Jonathan Holmes live in fear that their careers will be jeopardised if they fall foul of the Jewish/Israel Lobby. They may also regard Toben as a distasteful character  - but I suspect that’s of secondary importance. After all, Mr Holmes is clearly no fan of Andrew Bolt, yet he felt able and compelled to speak in Bolt’s defence when the latter was on trial for breaching 18C of the RDA. Yet very few public commentators had the guts to criticise the earlier judgement against Dr Toben, which in certain key respects was an even more outrageous and sinister judgement.

Defending Toben’s right to make public statements about the (so-called) ‘Holocaust’ is not simply a matter of defending an eccentric’s right to express a unorthodox opinion. It’s not equivalent to saying that people should be free to express the view that the earth is flat. The events of World War Two have remained a dominant theme in public discourse to this day. They are mentioned incessantly in ongoing political debates. If nobody could discuss them openly that would be bizarre, but at least it would be symmetrical and ‘fair’ in a silly kind of way. But what the likes of Justice Branson appear to believe is that the subject matter commonly described as ‘The Holocaust’ can and should be discussed – as long as the content of discussion is within court-approved boundaries. That’s outrageous!

For what it’s worth, I no longer believe the mainstream narrative about the events of the 1930s and 1940s. Some people might call me a “Holocaust Denier” because of my views. I repudiate the term and never use it myself except within inverted commas, regarding it as a deliberately nonsensical and misleading meme, invented decades after the end of World War Two as a sneaky way to police opinion.

I used to share the now-orthodox view of what happened in German concentration camps during World War Two – indeed, until a decade ago, I never really questioned it. Then came 9/11 and my gradual realisaton that the official 9/11 narrative is a pack of lies. After that, I began to take a deeper look a historical controversies such as the JFK assassination and the (so-called) “Holocaust”. I spent some considerable time looking at different sides of these debates – reviewing for the first time perspectives and analyses that barely ever get aired in the mainstream Western media. Now I’m deeply sceptical.

If that expression of my opinions causes offence, I regret it. I try not to cause offence unnecessarily to anyone – but history matters and more generally, the truth matters. I’m offended almost every time I watch the History Channel or open one of Mr Murdoch’s newspapers. But that’s life. I don’t seek to censor people whose views offend me or ban the expression of their opinions. What I do demand is that evidence-based contrary views are not excluded from mainstream discourse. I want them expressed more freely than at present and without fear of persecution. I argue for that publicly. Oh.. and I don’t want one-sided, distorted history that may not be debated openly made compulsory in schools. In fact, when I was a boy, I was often told that was the kind of reason why Britain fought World War Two!

This article began on the theme of ‘exceptions’ – so maybe it’s appropriate to end it on the same note.

It’s not quite true that no ‘mainstream’ commentators had the guts to stand up for Toben’s right to free speech. An exception was Janet Albrechtsen. Like Andrew Bolt, she writes for the Murdoch media. Like Bolt’s output, I usually find her articles irritating, crass and well off the mark. But in 2009 she penned an opinion piece entitled “The Freedom to be Offensive” with specific reference to Fred Toben and his tangle with the RDA. She said a number of things in the article with which I disagree, but did express the view that Toben should not be jailed for his views.

However, Ms Albrechtsen used the long-established formula that makes the opinion that so-called “Holocaust Deniers” should be allowed to speak acceptable in the mainstream Western media.  It’s the same formula used, for instance, by philosopher Peter Singer when he defended David Irving‘s right not be be jailed for his historical views.

Janet Albrechtsen’s trick was to thoroughly rubbish Toben’s beliefs in the same breathe as defending his “free speech”. She did this prominently in her third paragraph:

I detest Frederick Toben’s views about the Holocaust. They are wrong. They are stupid. They are offensive. But using laws to censor his views does not enhance our democracy. It diminishes our democratic fibre by suggesting that we are too precious, or too lacking in confidence, to confront wrong words with right words. Let the man speak. These foolish views will be defeated by facts in the end.

Without that sort of proviso, Ms Albrechtsen’s article would doubtless never have been published in The Australian. Without it, she’d probably never have wished to write it..

Janet Albrechtsen is quite entitled to her view – and to express it. But note she didn’t attempt to justify it in any way – not even by providing supporting references. She states it as a fact – something that her her readers are expected to take as given.

In its own way, that style of argument is another way of shrinking, rather than expanding, the domain of free speech. In general, it’s easier to police opinion by ridicule than via the courts. The key – and positive – difference is that the Albrechtsen/Singer approach does not land “offenders” in jail – although it does create an intellectual climate conducive to the marginalisation of the views they disparage.

What we really need – in my opinion- is full, respectful, polemic-free debate about the complexities of our history - especially the thorny subject of World War Two that seems to get even more emotion-laden and propaganda-ridden as time goes by (not less, as is usual with historical events). We need to look back at the catastrophic major conflicts of recent history and try to understand what really happened, free from propaganda and bias. Only then can we learn the real lessons from our past.

Preventing that from happening seems to be the over-riding priority of all these “acceptable” commentators, whatever their posture on the topic of free speech.

Each year, hundreds of millions of children around the world get sports injuries.

The statistics are horrifying and the problem is by no means confined to children; many grown adults (who really should know better by that stage in their lives) also fall victim to this epidemic of self-harm.

Australia is one of the worst cases. From football fields to cricket nets, tennis courts to surfing beaches we find the same grim pattern: thousands upon thousands of avoidable injuries daily, sometimes serious, occasionally leading to permanent disability or even death.

Calling off the War on Drugs? Australia's spare war-fighting capacity can now be directed at really evil enemies

Governments have been slow to act. Indeed, the public is often encouraged to think that it’s OK to engage in sporting self-harm. This is partly cultural – but of course big money is the root cause. Vast sums are made by sports purveyors as they peddle their deadly products to an unwary population – targeting youth and preying on the most vulnerable sports-addicts in our society.

Tolerance has been tried, but it has comprehensively failed. Some liberals hoped a little ping pong might not be too harmful at weekends, but it’s a gateway sport that leads on to dangerous field sports and worse. The best policy, of course, is to just say no to sport – and governments should show zero tolerance to sports abusers.

Sports injuries impose a terrible burden on our hospitals and medical system as a whole. There are huge costs to the economy in terms of absenteeism and lost working days. Sports tempt students to skip on their studies. Then there are the millions of passive consumers of sport, who sit at home growing obese watching others engage in these anti-social activities, irradiated by big-screen TV.

Worst of all, sports fans occasionally congregate in large groups to watch “matches” where professional sports addicts are encouraged to compete like gladiators in Ancient Rome. The behaviour of large congregations of sport-fans is so atrocious it makes urban rioters look like gentlemen.

As tolerance and harm minimization have been tried without success, there’s only one solution to the problem…

We need a global WAR on Sports!

Australia's 'Tough on Sports' PM Julia Gillard educates children on the perils of sport: "Sports kill people, they rip families apart, they destroy lives and we want to see less harm done through sports usage."

These dangerous activities should be completely banned and we must unleash our under-employed police to go after pushers of sports products and their hapless users. We’ll certainly need special Sports Squads to target the pernicious industry, along with anti-corruption police to make sure corrupt sports police don’t end up running illicit sports rackets.

Above all, we must ensure children are taught to avoid these dangerous activities from a very early age.

Better border protection will help us avoid the harmful impact of the international trade in soccer balls, tennis rackets and surf boards. Mail intercepts will crack down on sports profiteers who operate in cyberspace.

Australia is well placed to lead the War on Sports.

Although we have a dubious international reputation for being sports-crazy, if we can take on the powerful sports industry and ban it coast to coast, it will prove to the world what can be achieved with guts and determination. Our expertise is sports-suppression will doubtless become a major Australian export industry in the decades ahead.

In agony AGAIN!: only deviants could call this harmless fun

A few whingers may complain that they enjoy sports. Some may even try to claim they’re only engaging behaviour that doesn’t affect others.

These are very selfish arguments.

Australia’s bookish Foreign Minister – a man who’s been completely sports-free for many years and thrives as a result – said it well.

Senator Bob Carr is a moderate on banning sports and an advocate of harm minimisation rather than ruthless suppression. Even so, Carr said recently that doing sport is “dumb”. He advised anyone feeling tempted to “go for a bushwalk instead!”

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POSTSCRIPT – 5th April 2012

It seems I’m not the only one to have serious concerns about the sports pandemic.

Alan Watt, who has a website called Cutting through the Matrix, takes a dim view of the role of mass sport in the media-facilitated dumbing down of modern humanity.

Thanks to PsychoANONysis for the heads up on this.

For years I have considered the Australian Broadcasting Corporation to be an unsavoury organisation.

My disillusion really set in when I realised the ABC had no intention of giving fair and balanced coverage to the story of the century:accumulating evidence that the official story about 9/11 – Founding Myth of the “War on Terror” – is baloney.

That was years ago. Soon I realised the ABC’s reporting about wars such as Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and now Syria is more like war propaganda than genuine impartial news coverage, that its narrative on Israel/Palestine is biased and deceptive – and that a strand of Judeophilia runs through the organisation that’s inappropriate for a national broadcaster in a multi-cultural society.

In short, the ABC exercises bias and practises deception. These are not good traits for a publicly funded organisation. The ABC’s Charter, remarkably, does not require the organisation to tell the truth. Staff – presumably with the Board’s connivance – take considerable advantage of this convenient omission. We, the public, pay for a service that practices systematic deception and exercises gross bias on what are arguably the most crucial issues of the day – matters pertaining to war and peace.

ABC's Breakfast News duo - smug war sales every morning with coffee, toast & marmalade

Yet I’ve also acknowledged throughout that good people do work for the ABC and that some of its services are high quality – such as sports (although I don’t honestly know because I rarely watch it), arts (usually BBC re-runs, but even so…), gardening (definitely fine Australian programs!) and local news. I usually threw in the latter acknowledgement out of a sense that at least at a local/regional level, ABC news coverage is likely to be reasonably truthful.

Whether it’s true that the ABC’s local/regional coverage is truthful and balanced throughout the continent is debatable. I should be honest and admit I don’t listen enough to ABC Far North know. But it’s nice to be charitable.

Yet whether or not local my ABC does do a good job reporting, interviewing and storing information about our ongoing political process, one thing is apparent. It is NOT keen on giving the public easy access to this information.

ABC Far North: It will decide on what's news and the circumstances under which is will be made available!

During the recent Queensland election campaign, I didn’t catch any of the interviews conducted by ABC Far North with the candidates on local radio, but assumed I’d be able to access them online after the election. At the very least, I thought, interviews with winning candidates would be downloadable from the website – ideally (but not necessarily) with an accompanying transcript..

How wrong I was. When I checked, NO interviews with candidates were on the website. I phoned ABC Far North to ask if that could be rectified. My inquiries were treated like nuisance calls. When I finally spoke to the Station Manager she was abrasive from the outset and at one point remarked on poor rates of pay at the ABC as some kind of justification for not providing this material to the public via the ABC website. She referred me eventually to the ”Cross Media Reporter”. With her assent, he reluctantly promised to send me one audio file of the interview with my own new local MP – Michael Trout – by email. It arrived in my email the next day, without any conditions set as far as I could see. I put the file online on the website of a local community group and notified him, with thanks.

Happy Sam Davis, Cross Media Reporter

The next morning Sam the Cross Media Reporter called. He was extremely cross and demanded prompt removal of the audio file from the web, as it breached the ABC’s copyright.

Of course I comply with legitimate copyright infringement notices (actually it’s the first I’ve ever had!) and agreed to remove it. But I also asked him to put the file up on the ABC website, so I could still link to it. What’s the harm in that – especially as his time had already been invested locating the file from ABC archives?

But no, Sam won’t put this material on the ABC website and is vehement it has no “news value” at all.

I’ve issued a formal complaint to the ABC and we’ll see whether it gets anywhere. Past experience has not been encouraging.

Here’s a challenge to Mark Scott, ABC Managing Director, who himself maintains a 100% track record of never replying to my many tweets.

Why not let the PUBLIC decide what’s got news value and what doesn’t?

If members of the PUBLIC express interest, doesn’t that indicate PUBLIC interest?

What are we expected to do? Organise a petition?

This is a small but not isolated case of ABC staff behaving like tin-pot dictators. Has the malevolent arrogance that so enrages informed people aghast at its one-sided coverage of certain overseas conflicts permeated the entire organisation?

I’ve always believed that funding a national – and local – public broadcaster is worth doing. But there must be truthfulness, diligence, accountability and responsiveness to the public.

If the local ABC can’t be bothered to keep a publicly accessible archive of its own unique material of the ongoing political debate in this region, it should lose its contract.

The public should not have to beg or pay twice for information about our own democratic process – just as we should not have to plead for truthfulness.

Mark Scott, ABC Managing Director; such a lovely portrait it would be a shame if more people don't see it

______________________________

Please note: all images on this webpage are the copyright property of the publicly funded Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

If the ABC hierarchy wishes them deleted a phone call will suffice and I’ll strip the webpage bare of offending material, with a humble apology for inconvenience caused. The local station has my number.

Of course, it would be discriminatory if only my website alone is required to do this, so I presume any such instruction would be extended to all websites bearing any images sourced from the ABC website.

Before embarking on this course, ABC management may reflect on whether they wish to attract howls of derision from thousands of webmasters and web-mistresses – all for behaving as though it has an impediment at the read end of the alimentary canal.

You may be able to shrug me off  Mr Scott – but beware the wrath of the blogosphere en bloc.