"White. WHITE. white." *WARNING: offensive language & racist comment*

[@fulani]

It’s the 2015 Australia Day long weekend and the Aussie arm of the twitterverse has been discussing everything from patriotic cake decorations and barbeques through to invasion, colonial occupation and race-based discrimination.

All is as expected. Some tweets are happy, some sad. Others are hurt, angry or defensive. Many more are insightful, balanced and supportive of other people’s views.

At some time over the last two days I began to realise that my Twitter timeline was showing signs of a savage argument developing somewhere else and, that a number of people living in Australia were having their racial and/or cultural identity questioned in some manner.

I peeked at this ongoing argument. Big mistake. I fell into a sewer.

The main focus seemed to be the fact that a well-known young Aboriginal woman was erroneously having her identity questioned because the colour of her skin, hair and eyes were judged to be too light for her to be recognised as indigenous. Shades of journalist Andrew Bolt!

However, I was surprised at both the degree of vitriol spewed across the Internet and the places it originated.

Along the way, other Australians were gratuitously insulted as well.

In no particular order here are just some of the comments made by those seeking to denigrate the Australian indigenous experience (click on any of the images to enlarge):

And the vileness spread far and wide:

This attack went on and on and on. Leaving a bad taste in the mouth and a tarnished holiday weekend in its wake.

@ebswearspink, @upjulie and @StringStory didn’t deserve the hate sent their way.

UPDATE

In which two individuals (one with a doctorate) apparently decide to mistake an adjective describing an argument for a noun allegedly indicating a person(s) in an effort to justify their tweets:

To make matters clear to those doubters, deniers and downright abusive tweeters, this is a brief snapshot of Ebs background:

Descended from Kamilaroi and Dharug peoples of New South Wales;

Bachelor of Laws (LL.B) Australian Indigenous Law;

Graduate Diploma Legal Practice;

Admitted to the bar by the Legal Profession Admission Board (LPAB) of the Supreme Court of NSW;

Represented traditional owners in NSW Native Title applications;

National Congress of Australia’s First Peoples inaugural delegate.

I am confident that Ebs achieved this because she was both embraced and accepted by the Aboriginal community and loved by her large extended family.

An open letter to Prime Minister Abbott and his coterie of knuckle-dragging fascists

This letter was reportedly sent to The Australian which appears to have declined to publish.

The Conversation January 2015:

We, the undersigned, are concerned about recent public criticism of one of Australia’s most respected independent public office-holders, Australian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) President Gillian Triggs. Below we comment on the relentless attacks, including from Prime Minister Tony Abbott, of her recommendation in the Basikbasik matter. In our view, they are based on a misunderstanding of the role of the commission.

Independent public office-holders are an important part of modern democratic societies. Their task is to ensure accountability for abuses of power by government. Their capacity to perform this role depends on their independence and ability to act impartially.

Independence and impartiality are undermined when a political leader publicly attacks holders of public office and when the media presents inaccurate accounts of the work of public institutions.

The Australian Human Rights Commission Act provides in Section 11(1)(f) that the commission has a function to:

… inquire into any act or practice that may be inconsistent with or contrary to any human right.

In the Basikbasik case, which has been at the heart of the recent criticism, the AHRC did not recommend that Mr Basikbasik be released into the community forthwith. Rather, the commission found that Mr Basikbasik had been held in detention for a total of 13 years – a six-year period of imprisonment following a criminal conviction, then a further seven years in immigration detention.

The commission found that the government had not established that continued detention after completion of sentence was necessary. It was therefore arbitrary and in breach of the human rights standards Australia has voluntarily accepted. The commission recommended that a less punitive form of community detention be found for Mr Basikbasik and that he be compensated for his lengthy arbitrary detention, in line with widely accepted national and international standards and precedents.

President Triggs has made clear that she respects the government’s right to reject her findings, including her recommendations. The government should likewise respect the commission’s role in investigating complaints and reporting its findings to the minister according to law.

If the government disagrees with the commission, providing a reasoned explanation of why it considers the commission’s reasoning or conclusions to be wrong as a matter of law would be the most constructive way of contributing to the discussion of the important and sensitive issues involved in this case.

In our view, the President of the Australian Human Rights Commission has carried out her duties under the Act with independence, impartiality and professionalism.

Signed by:

Professor Don Anton, Professor of International Law, Griffith Law School, Griffith University

Associate Professor Afshin Akhtarkhavari, Griffith Law School, Griffith University

Kevin Boreham, Lecturer, ANU College of Law, Australian National University

Professor Andrew Byrnes, Australian Human Rights Centre, Faculty of Law, UNSW

Professor Hilary Charlesworth, Centre for International Governance and Justice, College of Asia and the Pacific, Australian National University

Professor Holly Cullen, Faculty of Law, the University of Western Australia

Dr Alice de Jonge, Senior Lecturer, Department of Business Law & Taxation, Monash University

Professor Andrea Durbach, Director, Australian Human Rights Centre, Faculty of Law, UNSW

Emeritus Professor Judith Gardam, Law School, University of Adelaide

Professor Fleur Johns, Faculty of Law, UNSW

Professor Sarah Joseph, Castan Centre for Human Rights Law, Monash University

Professor David Kinley, Chair in Human Rights Law, Sydney Law School, University of Sydney

Professor Penelope Mathew, Griffith Law School, Griffith University

Professor Jane McAdam, Scientia Professor and Director, Andrew and Renata Kaldor Centre for International Refugee Law, UNSW Law

Associate Professor Adam McBeth, Faculty of Law, Monash University

Associate Professor Justine Nolan, Australian Human Rights Centre, UNSW Law

Professor Anne Orford, Michael D Kirby Professor of International Law, Law School, University of Melbourne

Professor Dianne Otto, Francince V. McNiff Chair in Human Rights Law, Director, Institute for International Law and the Humanities, Melbourne Law School

Professor Joellen Riley, Faculty of Law, University of Sydney

Professor Ben Saul, Professor of International Law, Faculty of Law, University of Sydney

Professor Tim Stephens, Professor of International Law, Faculty of Law, University of Sydney

Professor John Tobin, Melbourne Law School, University of Melbourne

Associate Professor Margaret Young, Melbourne Law School, University of Melbourne

Associate Professor Matthew Zagor, ANU College of Law, Australian National University

Cecil drank the Kool-Aid while John held his nose

In what may be his one and only letter in recent years, retired local businessman Cecil Denis White regurgitates the Liberal-Nationals party line with gusto in The Daily Examiner on 16 January 2014.

The other side of the political coin was represented by another Northern Rivers resident, history buff John Drydale, who registered his disgust in the same newspaper five days later on 21 January.

Abbott on the nose

OVER the past several months I have sat down to write letters about the current Federal Government's latest atrocity: on refugees, the unemployed, the ADF, Medicare, the universities, education.

Each time my concerns have been overtaken by yet another Federal Government stuff-up.

In the cabinet reshuffle at Christmas, Tony Abbott, the country's worst prime minister since Billy McMahon, could have done the right thing and fallen on his sword. Alas, for the LNP and the nation he did not.

He continues to blunder along, promising more money for the unwinnable war in Iraq while denying the ADF a sensible pay rise; supporting the "latest" changes to Medicare the day before his recently promoted minister scraps them while local National Party members, who obviously have not been told anything, try to defend the indefensible.

They just do not understand the people they claim to represent.

The Gillard Government was a model of order and purpose compared with this rabble.

John Drysdale

Clunes

You had one job........

A sharp-eyed reader pointed North Coast Voices in the direction of one of NSW Nationals MP for Clarence Chris Gulaptis' 2014 newsletters.

Mr. Gulaptis is not so important to parliament or his party that he wouldn't have had ample time available to approve this newsletter and, one wonders why he let these three sentences pass on to publication.

[Chris Gulaptis Clarence Valley Newsletter, 30 June 2014]

Did Gulaptis really mean to say that the National Party and its Liberal Party partner had prevaricated and failed to fund this second bridge for sixteen years?

Surely he was intending to have a dig at the former NSW Labor Government instead?

Does he also mean to say that he alone convinced the NSW Government to fund this new bridge?

Can he have forgotten that his own party in Opposition had promised Grafton this bridge in 2005, seven years before he stood for election? This pledge was repeated again in 2011 when in government and, seventeen months before the surprise by-election which saw Gulaptis elected, the then Member for Clarence told parliament that; Planning is well on the way: at present, possible sites are being considered. Indeed the NSW Dept. of Planning & Environment as well as Roads & Maritime Services have been progressing the second crossing for years.