Strange bedfellows: aboriginal haranguer Gracelyn Smallwood makes a guest appearance for an organisation that practices exactly what she opposes.
Anna Palaszczuk’s Labor regime is about to right a mighty wrong, and we may rest easy in our (well-locked) homes knowing that we live under a government that takes law and order – ahem – seriously.
The ‘Pie’s occasional award, The Ironyman Trophy, goes south to none other than a journo at The Australian newspaper.
… and just in case you missed it last weekend, one of the funniest animations on Australian politics you will ever see.
But first.
Gung-ho About Guns
Labor is about to reverse changes introduced by the Newman regime to the Queensland Weapons Act, so that bikies can now legally possess weapons. Which should cut down on crime stats for theft, since the boys in leather and tats will no longer have to steal or smuggle their business persuaders, they will again be able to buy them legally. The revised law insists that ‘a person’s participation in a criminal organization would only be considered as part of the general fit and proper person test.’
‘As part of’?!? That can only mean that having a criminal record as a gang member does not automatically bar you from getting your weapon of choice. The matter is yet to be ratified by parliament but it seems it will be. We now await the first report of a bikie-performed murder committed with a legally-purchased gun.
Bentley reckons there’ll be some hasty sign-writing to be done over the doors of bikie establishments, especially since bikies will also again be allowed to own pubs, restaurants and – yep – clubs.
Without a shot being fired, the first wound caused by this proposed change is to Anna Palaszczuk’s foot.
We’ll Never Forget Whathisname
Here’s one for irony corner.
If you get a name wrong, the credibility of the whole story falls down. If readers see you’ve got this simple thing wrong, why should they believe you’ve checked the other facts in the story? P30 News Limited Style Book (fourth edition)
Why indeed. And that would be doubly so if the name you get wrong is one of your own senior executives, the person in charge of one of Australia’s major News Ltd metropolitan papers. AND the mistake was in another of News’s major paper’s, The Australian, no less.
Chris Merritt Legal Affairs Editor, The Australian
AND the error is by its Legal Affairs Editor Chris Merritt
On MONDAY September 12, The Australian carried a story by Merritt about a Press Council ruling giving the Courier Mail a clip around the ears for revealing the name of an 8-year-old witness in a murder trial. The Australian, in usual News Ltd fashion, inexplicably whacked an exclusive banner on what was basically a media release from the Press Council, with a few predictable defensive quotes from the usual suspects. This was one of them.
Err, that would actually be Lachlan HEYWOOD, known in these parts as Pinocchio Heywood when he was at the Astonisher. So we’ve even more reason not to believe the guff from the usual suspects.
But that it not irony … what appears on the very opposite page is … page 24 carried the regular column The Diary, which featured a catty and tedious in-fight by media editor Darren Davidson, smugly listing the alleged errors in a story by a rival gossip columnist. The inference being that The Australian is well above that sort of lax stuff. Adding to the overall irony, in this particular column, the self-important Mr Davidson takes pains to point out his rival’s paper’s libel payouts,.
But The ‘Pie wonders if he’ll get around to mentioning – among the many actions the Australian’s Media Column attracts – the case The ‘Pie won in April against the very same column. Although damages haven’t been determined yet, it will end up costing The Australian more than half a million dollars in legal fees, no matter what the outcome of the paper’s appeal against the jury’s verdict (yes, they disdainfully think a Townsville jury had a cheek to find against the mighty News Ltd, arguing that the verdict was ‘perverse’.)
The Ironyman Award of the Month is all yours, Mr Davidson.
On The Other Hand
Fair’s fair, so since The ‘Pie so regularly sinks the slipper into the Astonisher, time to even up. The paper came up with one of its best headline’s of the year (not much competition, I know, but …) Thursday, when it took just two words and a bitingly photoshopped pic to sum up airhead MP Aaron Harper’s weird dismissal of our juvenile crime epidemic.
And boy, did he do some back-pedalling faster than Wily Coyote the next day. Goofy is as goofy does.
Strange Bedfellows Indeed … Scientology and Smallwood
Ideologically a good fit? You’d think not, but then …
Gracelyn Smallwood, who styles herself an aboriginal activist on a mission to right historical wrongs against her people, often speaks of the Stolen Generation, when white bureaucracy tore apart indigenous families, about the wages stolen from aboriginal workers throughout the first half of last century, and what she sees as the iniquitous treatment of her ‘people’ by white society generally. In The ‘Pie’s experience, Ms Smallwood’s frequent rants are unproductive, blame-game finger-pointing without any suggestion for any realistic ‘road map’ for indigenous people or reconciliation.
So The ‘Pie was more than surprised when he read that Ms Smallwood recently accepted an invitation to speak at the opening of the Scientologist’s new Sydney headquarters. Her remarks at the opening were not reported, although they no doubt reflected the above concerns.
When The Australian asked why she had made a clearly unusual choice at which to speak, the paper reported: ‘… she said she had agreed to be a guest speaker because it provided a platform for her cause. ‘My religion is 50,000 years old and I have made that very clear, but as a human rights activist … if you get a platform to discuss human rights violations, then that’s a privilege. I wasn’t going to play politics with different religions when my people are dying at alarming rates in one of the richest countries in the world.’
This just about summed up the muddled thinking that has characterised many of Ms Smallwood’s public pronouncements. Here’s a news flash, Gracelyn. This IS politics you’re spouting, and in politics, perception is everything. Whether you like it or not.
So it is apparently OK to accept a platform from an organisation that former members claim targets the vulnerable, engages in brainwashing, forcibly separates people from family and friends who do not agree with Scientology, and gouges huge amounts of money from emotionally gullible members for spurious courses leading to ‘enlightenment’? Most of these alleged (but well documented) transgressions are PRECISELY what Ms Smallwood is fond of accusing ‘whitey’.
A sad and misguided grab at the limelight. Getting this mob of quasi-religious/voodoo shysters together with one of the leading Townsville exponents and beneficiaries of the aboriginal industry (so she’s a professor, eh?) suggests that a careful eye is kept on future pronouncements. Especially since Dr Smallwood (yup, a doctor, too, no less) has displayed virulent reverse racism in the past.
The Pie well remembers a court case a few years ago, where an aboriginal man was charged with raping an aboriginal woman. After lengthy consideration of the evidence, the jury found him guilty, and when the judge handed down the appropriate sentence ‘Professor’ Smallwood stood in the gallery and yelled out ‘Fucking white man’s justice’. On inquiry, it turned out the ‘professor’s’ racist profiling was apparently a smokescreen for the fact that the convicted man was from her ‘tribe’ – her ‘mob’ – and the woman, who had travelled from South Australia for the trial, was not. On another occasion, when an indigenous man accused The ‘Pie of being racist (his term was more colourful) for reporting what had been said in court about his dead son, the good professor intervened and told me ‘All he wants is respect’. So how would that be earned? By censoring a court report? By foul-mouthed abuse of the reporter?
As usual, muddled and counter-productive thinking from a self-styled ‘leader’ of her people – a fact many of those ‘people’ have been at pains to deny and even berate The ‘Pie for terming her as such in the paper.
It is clear that Scientology manufactures its own mythology and its own morality, to the detriment of society as a whole. It is sad to realise that this is also true of some addle-headed reverse racists among us.
In Case You Missed It.
One of the welcome diversions of Sunday morning is Insiders on the ABC – although much depends on the week’s choice of the three journos to discuss the weeks doings. – self-righteous old fusspot Gerard Henderson and the smug lisping overtalker David Marr are switch-offs for The ‘Pie. The week’s review of cartoons and photographs are worth a show on their own, but lately, there’s a new star segment. Some back room tech wizard takes a topic of the week, gets a clip from a well known movie and then superimposes the heads of political figures into the clip and cleverly mixes the audio for a thigh-slapping result.
And this is one of the best yet, from last Sunday. Just brilliant.
Clive Palmer’s Goon Show
With shirt uncharacteristically tucked securely under tummy, Clive Palmer turned on his own goon show as he came and went from the federal Court grillings during the week about the collapse of Queensland Nickel. Each day, he was surrounded by a posse of no-necks who elbowed and manhandled media out of the way.
But this goon show isn’t the only connection with a possible career in show biz for Ol’ Chubby Chops. As reported here last year, a group of former Yabulu workers heard about a new quiz show being planned on the ABC, and wrote in suggesting that Palmer would be the ideal host. They were disappointed when the head of Light Entertainment wrote back, pointing out that they had misheard the title of the projected new show, which was in fact to be called “Fact Hunt.’
A Medical Warning
There’s always some medical tomfoolery coming along to engage the bold and the befuddled, from alarm about that ‘muffin top’ roll of waist fat, ‘box gap’ thighs and the miracle of tummy stapling.
Now, there is a new procedure gaining popularity … the bum lift.
But early experiments with this radical new surgery are yet to be perfected and people are urged to hold off until a few cosmetic techniques are ironed out.
Otherwise …
That’s it for this week, don’t forget to join in the comments as we roll through the next seven days. And if you feel so inclined, a donation to help keep The Magpie aloft would be greatly appreciated. See below if you feel you can support the old bird with the blog’s bills.
