Hajnal Black (nee Ban) is a young, avowedly right-wing, female Councillor in local Government in South East Queensland. Both Hajnal and her husband are on Logan City Council.

There are thousands of local Councillors around Australia, but Hajnal is more colourful than most. She has attempted – so far unsuccessfully – to win higher elective office. She maintains a blog. Hajnal has also been involved in some interesting controversies outside politics in recent years. As this blog does not go out of its way to peddle scuttlebutt, I’ll leave interested readers to do their own googling.

Hajnal Black: Australia's answer to Tzipi Livni?

A week or so ago, Australia was abuzz with debate about the term ‘climate change denial’, which supporters of action on climate change have been using with increasing frequency despite my unheeded entreaties.

The issue erupted in Federal Parliament when Liberal front-bencher Christopher Pyne claimed to take deep offense at the Opposition being branded ‘climate change deniers’ by the Government. His reason? He argued it was an attempt to smear the Opposition by comparing them with ‘Holocaust deniers’.

Soon the great and the good of the Australian Commentariat took up the debate – a fatuous debate, in my view, because no-one I noticed (except yours truly) posed the question whether the concept of ‘denial’ is EVER an appropriate label to use in relation to ANY debate about history or current affairs, including the event of World War Two. In my opinion, it isn’t.

Within a few days Hajnal Black weighed into the debate. She posted an Open Letter to the Prime Minister of Australia on her blog. As it’s an ‘open letter’, I trust there’s no harm reproducing it here in full:

Dear Prime Minister

My grandfather was a holocaust survivor, the English emancipated his camp and rescued him from certain death in the closing hours of World War II. If it were not for that fact that Grandad survived the holocaust, I would not be here, and as such I regard myself as a holocaust survivor. The affects of the holocaust are still being felt in our family today, Grandad’s first wife and two babies were gassed by the NAZI’s and the pain he felt affected his relationship with other family members until his death.

As a family we came to Australia to escape the ravages of communist Eastern Europe. Freedom of speech was extinguished, and no one prospered for the hard work they undertook every day of their lives.

Since I have been a city Councillor I have worked hard to highlight the plight of local families, indeed the Carbon Tax will burden local families and hurt small business. It is my right to stand up for families and question the science behind human induced ‘climate change’. A prosperous Australia is something I will always fight for, it’s the reason our family came to Australia.

You and your Ministers’ use of the word ‘climate change denier’ to describe me and others who agree with the fact that human induced climate change ‘science’ is questionable and the fact that a Carbon Tax will do zilch to lower Earth’s temperature is offensive. It is clear that your clever use of the English language is designed to paint people with opposing views to you as similar to holocaust deniers; fringe extremists who can’t grapple with reality.

I would like to formally make you aware of the fact that I regard your comments as racial vilification, as they link me to a group of people who I hold with such anathema, such distaste, that it hurts our family’s sensitivities surrounding the holocaust.

I won’t bother writing a letter of concern to the Greens who also part take in this despicable word game, as the Greens are a fringe group. However your antics and the hysteria that you whip up against people opposed to your increase in taxes is most certainly painting you as a Green-sympathising extremist.

Regards,

Hajnal Black (nee Ban)

I imagine in the Prime Minister’s office Ms Black is regarded as an annoying pest – insofar as they think about her at all. The PM may well ignore the letter. I’ve yet to receive a reply to an open letter from a senior politician, but Hajnal may have more luck.

Any such reply, however, would doubtless treat Ms Black’s family narrative with reverence. After all, she says she is a ‘Holocaust survivor’ herself of sorts, that her grandfather was a first generation ‘Holocaust survivor’ – and that members of her family were gassed by the Nazis. They are not the kind of claims to be be treated dismissively in this culture.

Ms Black’s letter makes a couple of specific factual claims about her family’s World War Two experience:

1. Her grandfather was in a concentration camp liberated by British troops in the closing hours of the World War.
2. His first wife and two babies were gassed by the Nazis

What I found puzzling about her account is the combination of the two.

According to mainstream ‘Holocaust scholars’ such as Deborah Lipstadt, there were no homicidal gas chambers on German soil. Claims of that nature were made in the decades following 1945 – and were used to convict at the post-war Nuremberg trials – but the current ‘official’ Holocaust scholarly view, as far as I can establish, is that homicidal gas chambers existed but were confined to camps located in Poland, most notably Auschwitz (see for instance page 82 of Lipstadt’s well-known book ‘Denying the Holocaust‘ or this less sympathetic discussion of the topic from the Institute of Historical Review journal).

On the other hand, it seems quite clear from the historical record that British troops did not liberate concentration camps in Poland. That task fell to the Soviets. British troops were, however, first on the scene in some of the northern German concentration camps such as Bergen-Belsen, around the time the war in Europe was coming to its bloody conclusion.

Hajnal Black is on Twitter, so I sent here a tweet as follows:

@HajnalBlack Sad to read about your grandmother & aunt. Which concentration camp were they in? How long after did the British liberate it?

Tweet from Hajnal Black

She replied shortly afterwards:

@SydWalker It was g/d’s first wife and children. approx 9 months. Mum says Auschwitz Dad says Bergen-Belsen. So it may not have been British

Now, I’ll admit that I approached Hajnal with some skepticism. Hence my quite precise questions. Nevertheless, my expression of sympathy was genuine. If she remains upset about the events of that period, I’ve no wish to add to her angst.

However, an open letter to the Prime Minister published on the internet by an aspiring politician is… a very public document. Surely it can be discussed by the public? If it contains apparent factual discrepancies, surely that can be discussed too? I think so – and it’s on that basis I continue with this brief analysis. This is NOT an attempt to vilify Hajnal, her ethnicity, her family history or anything else. It is an attempt to ask reasonable questions of a public figure regarding the veracity of her public claims.

If I was puzzled by Hajnal initial open letter, her tweet simply added to the confusion.

Now it appears she’s not actually sure which concentration camp her relatives were in. It seems her mum says one thing; her dad another. The former says Auschwitz (where orthodox Holocaust scholars continue to claim homicidal gas chambers were utilized – although not in the last months of the war). But Auschwitz was liberated by the Soviets, not the British. The latter says Bergen-Belsen, which was liberated by the British – but where it is now generally accepted by all interested historians that no homicidal gas chambers were ever used.

Perhaps there’s an explanation for this apparent discrepancy. Hajnal’s grandfather might have been separated from his wife and children in different camps? We may not have been told the whole story.

On one key fact, however, I doubt Hajnal will change her narrative: the claim that her relatives were gassed.

Any expression of skepticism on my part regarding that might well be construed as ‘racial vilification’ or ‘religious persecution’ – or some other such damn nonsense that’s increasingly being seeded into our culture to help ring-fence certain contentious (but socially and politically important) topics from open public debate.

So I’ll re-iterate my earlier expression of sympathy to Hajnal. I regret she feels pain about events that took place so long ago. My own family and network of friends was not entirely unscathed by that hideous war; hundreds of millions of families were blighted by the war. So I do know where she’s coming from. These days, I increasingly see World War Two as an unnecessary or ‘forced’ war, contrary to the view I was taught in school. But that’s another subject…

I simply don’t know how on earth anyone can be certain her relatives were killed in a specific way if she doesn’t know for sure where they were at the time. Maybe she isn’t certain they were gassed? If that’s the case, perhaps Hajnal Black could acknowledge it? The public respects honesty in politicians.

One other quibble…

Hajnal’s Open Letter says”As a family we came to Australia to escape the ravages of communist Eastern Europe. Freedom of speech was extinguished, and no one prospered for the hard work they undertook every day of their lives.”

Yet according to Wikipedia, her place of birth was Afula, Israel. Does she consider Israel to be located in Eastern Europe? What were the freedom of speech problems her family experienced in the Zionist State?

Happily Hajnal can relax now. This is Australia, where we do enjoy free speech – and where the population is determined to retain it!

ANOTHER plea that Labor drops the policy of mandatory internet censorship FORTHWITH

Dear Senator McLucas,

Queensland ALP Senator Jan McLucas

Congratulations to you – and to Julia Gillard and Wayne Swan – on the re-election of a Labor Government.

I’m one of the people in the community who hoped to see Labor remain in power – but I’m also delighted the ALP will be forced to rely on support from progressive cross-benchers.

One of the main reasons why is the mandatory internet censorship issue (aka Conroy’s Filter).

The ALP’s blind support of this policy, justified only with cliches – and despite extraordinarily widespread criticism from within the IT industry and by IT users – is a major reason I’m glad Labor will not be able to govern alone at this time.

I have no doubt this absurd and widely-despised policy very nearly cost Labor government.

It tarnished the ALP’s reputation with a large number of computer-literate, uncommitted voters – offsetting the positive impact of the ALP’s much larger broadband expenditure pledge. In a very close election, that unnecessary loss of support was decisive.

I refer to the recent article by the ABC’s Technology Editor Nick Ross:

• Time to listen to the tech-heads

I wrote an article in similar vein on my own blog around the same time:

• Saga from down-under: brain surgery and the global mind

Yesterday evening, I made the following comment on Twitter.

SydWalker
Julia Gillard. Get yourself another tech advisor. Not Conroy again! PLEASE!!!
#labor #greens #ausvotes #openinternet #nocleanfeed #abcnews24

It has been been re-tweeted 33 times – and counting.

On election day, I was handing out for the Greens. I’ve done that for a decade or so, and I’ve got to know my Labor equivalents. I asked one of them what on earth had been Labor thinking re: the Internet censorship issue? He rolled his eyes and told me he’d tried to lobby within the party for a couple of years to get the policy reversed, without success.He told me it was like banging his head against a brick wall.

The Labor leadership’s determination, to date, to continue pushing the ‘filter’ proposal, strikes me as akin to neuroticism. It’s habitual – but lacks any coherent rational explanation.

PLEASE drop this discredited policy NOW – so the Gillard Government can regain community trust and move foreward with what is potentially a first class IT policy.

We need an NBN with built-in guarantees of affordable universal access, net neutrality, freedom of information flow and best-practice privacy standards.

Substantial progress towards implementing this, by the time of the next Federal election, would stand Labor in good stead with the electorate.

I respectfully suggest you need a new Minister to implement this – someone with genuine empathy for the whole objective.

At the very least, PLEASE drop the mandatory internet censorship policy forthwith.

Yours sincerely

Syd Walker

near Cairns,
Queensland

I’ve never met Bob Katter and I’ve barely written about him.

So I was surprised when checking my September weblogs that the colourful North Queensland Independent MP – one of three independents who currently hold the future of the Australian Government in their hands – is by far this month’s number one search phrase for visitors arriving at this blog. He’s way ahead, outdoing luminaries such as Kaiser Wilhelm and Julia Gillard and much higher even than the delectable Julie Christie.

Bob Katter: hatless in Canberra

Right now, Bob Katter is defintely ‘the man’, as the Irish say. Like Bob Oakshott and Tony Windsor, the other two independents yet to declare their hand, he appears to be playing political poker with considerable skill.

Some journalists, especially nasty types in News Corp, thumped their feet on the ground in the days following the inconclusive August 21st election, demanding a rapid decision from politicians holding the balance of power. The loss of their own political influence to a handful of well-respected, very independent politicians was probably not to their liking. Realising in the end screeching is just as likely to be counter-productive, most of them have quietened down. Today it’s almost eerie. Journalistic chatter has subsided. It’s like the hush before a showing of cards.

Meanwhile, Kaiser Wilhelm rests in peace. Bart and Marge continue to fascinate the sexually curious. Benjamin Yahoo remains Prime Minister of Rothschildistan.

And after 24 years, whistleblower Mordechai Vanunu is still not free.

Appearing on the ABC‘s popular TV political chat show Q&A on August 30th 2010, former Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser dropped a minor bombshell.

Malcolm Fraser on Q & A

80-year old Fraser was head of the Liberal-National Coalition Government between 1975 and 1983. Deeply unpopular on the Australian left back in the 1970s – especially following the controversial sacking of the Whitlam Labor Government in 1975 by Australia’s Governor General – Fraser has none the less emerged in later life as an elder statesman of quality.

Like Ted Heath in Britain before him, Fraser watched the centre-right party he once led moving much further to the right in the quarter century following his departure.  Like Heath, Fraser has been outspoken in his criticism. This independent stance has made the right-wing of Australian politics nervous, but his genuine liberalism strikes a deep popular chord.

Last night, 49 minutes into the show, Fraser was posed a hostile, partisan question by a young Liberal supporter in the audience.

Fraser gave a rather thoughtful response:

“There is certainly a great yearning amongst both parties for a different approach, a broader approach, one which has some vision for the future of Australia and one which really tackles difficult issues and and is prepared to explain those issues, and not respond to focus groups or today’s polls or to pressure from News Corporation.”

The elderly ex-politician paused. There was a momentary and rather embarrassed silence, followed by a few titters.

It was as though, in Imperial Rome, an elderly Senator had made seditious remarks about the Emperor.

Fraser’s follow up was superb. He asked his audience rhetorically:

“You think that’s FUNNY?

Just look at the paper! Read that paper – and read all their papers and see where their pressures come and where their purposes and objectives lie. Not just in Australia  but in the United States, the attacks on Obama and in Britain also…”

Excerpt from Australian Greens Media & Communications Policy

Fraser was referring to an entrenched problem in Australian political life. Most informed Australians know about it. Few if any active politicians and journalists dare mention it.

As well as enormous online interests and national satellite/cable TV channels, News Corp dominates national daily newspaper readership.

A recent University of NSW research paper explains:

“In 2005, Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation controlled two-thirds of Australia’s newspapers and dominated circulation, accounting for 68 per cent, 61 per cent and 78 per cent of capital city figures on Monday-Friday, Saturday and Sunday respectively.“

The feisty north Queensland Independent MP Bob Katter, whose vote may be crucial in the formation of the next Australian Government, has spoken out against a ‘Woolworths-Coles economy’. Bob is right – the two enormous supermarket chains do dominate the Australian market to an unreasonable extent. It doesn’t benefit rural food producers, who’d be better off with a larger number of competing purchasers.

Bob Katter: Man enough to be Rupert's nemesis?

Yet so far, it seems only former politicians have the guts to mention News Corporation’s far more egregious anti-competitive quasi-monopoly.

News Corp dominance is not so noticeable in the cities of Sydney, Melbourne and Canberra, where the main quality daily newspaper is not from the News Corp stable. In relative terms, they are the lucky Australians. For those of us in many parts of the country – such as Far North Queensland – News Corp is almost completely dominant in the newspaper market.

This must change. The cross-benchers are ideally placed to promote legislation for greater diversity in Australian media ownership.

Bring it on!

______________________

POSTSCRIPT: Speaking today at the National Press Club, acting Prime Minister Julia Gillard pitched for the Independents’ support:

“I want to renovate that Labor tradition, to deliver lasting and durable improvements to our democracy, improvements not just for this parliamentary term, but measures to permanently uplift our system of government as other reforms have done in generations past,” she said.

Is there a better way of putting substance into those fine sentiments than by legislating to restore genuine media diversity in this country?