Albanese’s misplaced respect for an enemy commander

Lest Albanese Forget

Sir: In his piece on Anthony Albanese (July-August 2023), Samuel Mullins missed a clear indicator that our Prime Minister is morally not up to the task. 

On June 4, during his official visit to Vietnam, Mr Albanese visited Ho Chi Minh’s mausoleum and laid a wreath to the deceased architect of what was an oppressive communist regime. Over 60,000 Australian men and 500 women served this country overseas in the Vietnam War. Some 3131 of them were physically wounded, thousands more came home with mental health problems, while just over 500 Australians were killed in action or listed as missing in action.

Mr Albanese may make a great show of attending annual remembrance services for Australian servicemen and women, but this hardly squares with his paying respects at the shrine of a former wartime enemy leader.

Lest we forget? The Prime Minister cheerfully appeared to do exactly that on June 4.

Christopher Heathcote

Dividing by Race

Sir: Race is a fundamental requirement in establishing who is a First Nations individual for the purposes of the Voice and the treaty and reparations likely to follow.

Racial definition is not new, although it is variable in its approach. In National Socialist Germany individuals were designated Jews irrespective of religious affiliation, if they had three grandparents so considered. If South African apartheid principles were applied here, nearly all Australian First Nations individuals would be classified as Coloured rather than Black, although some self-identifiers would to their disappointment be mandatorily designated White. Finally, we have categorisation in the US Deep South. This comes closest to the current Australian model which only requires one ancestor to be indigenous, however distant. Under Jim Crow a token level of black ancestry was needed to be black (although Nebraska did set a more liberal bar of 87.5 per cent white ethnicity to qualify as such).

One of the many unanswered questions relates to reparations. With race a defining feature it would be inequitable for reparations to be distributed equally, including to individuals whose ethnicity is largely that of what Voice activists condemn as “invaders”. Thus, we can apply the South African historical precedent where Blacks were divided into ten further subcategories.

With many First Nations claimants unable to be distinguished from other Australians, identification becomes an issue to eliminate fraudsters and fantasists seeking to exploit the Voice and its collateral advantages. This problem was solved in 1930s Germany with labelling affixed to clothing.

Voice activists will no doubt be outraged to be linked to the above examples. But the logic is undeniable and equally applicable. Dividing the citizenry on racial grounds has always ended badly. And so it will if the Voice is passed.

 Bruce Watson

Setting the Voice in Stone

Sir: One issue that occupies the minds of many Australians regarding the Voice to Parliament, is where it will go in the centuries to come.

Constitutional change impacts not just on us, but on our grandchildren’s grandchildren as well, because it is set in stone. Unlike legislation, which becomes irrelevant or inappropriate over time, the Constitution cannot be adapted to changing social values, expectations and national needs. Examples of past legislation, now replaced to reflect current Australian values, are things like the death penalty, and “blackbirding”, the practice of indenturing kidnapped Pacific Islanders for work in cane fields. Australia has historically also created legislation for a specific period and removed it when it is no longer relevant. An example of this is military conscription. Constitutional change does not allow this ease of reversal, and it cannot be dismantled or rescinded when no longer relevant.

In Australia’s future, I believe we will become like the English, who now call themselves simply “English”. They are, as we know, an amalgam of Celtic, Viking, Saxon, Roman, Norman and other peoples, but nobody in England today identifies with any of those races. Australia will no doubt follow the same pattern in centuries to come—so what happens to the Voice then?

Robert Constantine

Where Does the Money Go?

Sir: The debate on the Voice and constitutional recognition has become divisive and shallow. Much is coloured by romantic beliefs and the commendable desire to assist those less fortunate.

It is common ground that Australia has been settled by successive waves of immigration starting with the Aborigines who are thought to have arrived about 50,000 years ago.

When the First Fleet arrived in 1788 from England, there are thought to have been approximately 200,000 Aborigines, or about only one for every forty square kilometres of this vast continent. In 1788 they were small bands of foraging hunter-gatherers speaking hundreds of different languages. Being semi-nomadic most had little concept of land property rights or national sovereignty, until they were taught these things by the later arrivals.

In a growing world, where is it written that a few original arrivals should own an entire continent in perpetuity? And that subsequent arrivals are consequently all invaders and that now, 235 years later, the current Aboriginal descendants, whether full-blooded or mostly not, are entitled to financial reparations?

The solution was always obvious. Separate the two issues. With eleven Aborigines now members of various parliaments and with some hundreds of Aboriginal bodies to represent Aborigines, staffed by thousands of public servants, costing $30 billion annually or about $40,000 per Aborigine, it has never been more important to investigate why most of this money doesn’t hit the ground, and why yet another voice is necessary.

Lindsay Brown

A Swan Attack

Sir: Reading the (somewhat curmudgeonly) wisdom of Anthony Daniels is always a highlight of Quadrant and this July was no exception. I agree with his general assessment of the ignorance and ugliness of modern life.

However, for the crux of his argument, he chooses an excerpt from a novel he hasn’t read from a review in the Guardian. He criticises both reviewer and novelist for several offences including incoherence, lack of wit and style. I too have not read the book, but surely the “swan attack” mentioned in the excerpt spoken by one of the interlocutors, seemingly the one spoken down to by his/her partner in conversation, is a witty and clever mistake meaning “black swan event”. In the context of the “grid going down” and allusions to obtaining one’s information from conspiratorial website sources, I thought the excerpt intriguing and, granted, not meeting the splendour of style demanded by Dr Daniels, it left me questioning his judgment—did he not get the joke?

Anthony Sharpe

Albanese’s Dada

Sir: The term “dada” is a colloquial French term for a hobbyhorse, yet it also echoes the first words of a child, and these suggestions of childishness and absurdity appealed to the Dadaist group, who were keen to put a distance between themselves and the sobriety of conventional society.

We are seeing a reversal of centuries-old traditions. One feature is the speed talking and dropping of syllables that we now hear every day, notably by Mr Albanese. A feature is the refusal to use the letter t, which has been replaced by d—the Albanese favourite being “impordan”. No price is too high to pay to look or sound like an uneducated person.

The Left claim their climate-change religion and other emergencies are based on science. They tell us their position is based on “dada”—childish nonsense—which of course, it is—sorry, “id” is (please overlook the psychiatric significance of id).

Saxby Pridmore