Our Woke Boffins’ Orgy of Self-Loathing

The Australia-wide “No” triumph in the Referendum was mud in the eye for the woke corporations (QANTAS, banks etc), the ABC, the education and the charity sectors and the poobahs of sports management. But one element of the defeated YES phalanx has had no scrutiny – the elite science, research and professional bodies.

These collectives have floated away from mainstream Australia in a froth of virtue-signalling. Why our alleged brainiacs have separated from the mostly silent majority is quite a question. I do think leftist woke lunacy (support for Hamas, hate speech against CO2, gender confusion and Disneyland take on Aboriginal culture) correlates well with years spent at university.

None of these bodies has paused to ask the elementary questions, a small sample being

♦ Who is an Aboriginal?

♦ How much of pre-colonial Aboriginal cultures was admirable?

♦ Whose Australian history represents “truth-telling”?

♦ Do the 80 per cent of Aboriginal-identifiers who live and work in suburbia really possess ancient wisdoms and why do they get special privileges?

♦ What rent per squ metre should the academies pay their first-nation landlords? and

♦ What does “Reconciliation” mean and how will we know when we get there?

The peak of peaks in the elite-experts scene is the Australian Council of Learned Academies (ACOLA), representing five academies. It dived in head-first, backing Voice, treaty and so-called truth-telling to (supposedly) reconcile us with Aboriginal needs and aspirations. It described the Uluru committee statement as involving “momentous effort and significance” notwithstanding the Prime Minister labelling it as just a modest idea redolent of good manners.

ACOLA claims with some justice that Aborigines have often in the past been “the target for racialised and exploitative research discourse.” ACOLA and its five institutions then beat themselves up as “product[s] of Australia’s colonial history” with research being “an enabler and tacit supporter of colonialist values and logics [and] built on false, racist and entrenched assumptions”.

Continuing its orgy of self-loathing, ACOLA says its research and scholarship “have come to represent a tool of suppression, marginalisation and subjugation. Whether intentional or not, research and its collective institutions and communities have often served to dehumanise and devalue Indigenous peoples, their knowledge and their aspirations. We must reconcile with those harmed by this history of systemic injustice.” [I’d be interested to learn the names of any living Aborigine-identifier so harmed].

ACOLA believes itself to be on a crusade against racism and bigotry. It announces its leadership role and responsibility “to expose actively and foster dialogue about racism and bigotry in all of its forms, as a key action in reconciliation and truth-telling, to help create the future to which we aspire.”

ACOLA then talks about its respect for the “ancient wisdom and knowledge systems of our first peoples”, overlooking the less-pleasant ancient cultural facets of sorcery, payback, misogyny and – dare one say it – infanticide and cannibalism, sometimes jointly.[1]

ACOLA pledges to beef up Aboriginal perspectives and contributions across research:

“We urge our Fellows, industry, academia, all levels of government and fellow Australians to support meaningful inclusion of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander perspectives.”

This reminds me that Aboriginality is one of those three cross-curriculum priorities enforced on Australia’s four million schoolkids.

Concerning ACOLA’s “first peoples”, it needs to deploy some of its claimed wisdom and knowledge to check whether pre-colonial Aboriginals were actually “first” or merely descendants of the latest wave of prehistoric arrivistes. It would also be interesting to hear ACOLA’s view on whether the Uluru statement it pledges to is 440 words on one page or 26 pages pushing for things like sovereignty and reparations as a percent of GDP.

In places ACOLA’s virtue-signalling burbles to incoherence, as in (my emphases),

We seek to engage with and learn from, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander knowledge systems, histories, ecosystems and ways of being into and alongside collaborative research and policy endeavours with the goal of creating solutions for all people.

Getting further carried away, ACOLA then claims indigenisation of Australia’s research sector will “create a better future for all humanity” – who knew we Ockers are so influential?

It comes as no surprise to learn that ACOLA subjected its draft policy to vetting by “Indigenous leaders … to ensure ACOLA moves forward in a constructive, respectful and productive way.”

 Specific stuff from various elite institutes makes for creepy reading. Here are some samples:

Australian Academy of Science (June 2023): Going off half-cocked as usual, the Academy’s YES backing was fixated on the “terra nullius” canard.

The Council recognises that this continent was falsely declared terra nullius, or nobody’s land, to legitimise British settlement, and this was corrected only in 1992 when the High Court of Australia recognised the continuous connection of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples to the land.

The Council observes that the adoption of terra nullius was profoundly detrimental to generations of Indigenous peoples.

The Council, therefore, supports the establishment in the Constitution of a Voice to Parliament and to Executive Government – enshrined to provide Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples with an enduring means to influence policies that specifically relate to them and is safe from political whim. The Council will work with our Fellows and the science community to promote and facilitate evidence-informed conversation on the Voice and Traditional Knowledges.”

The term “terra nullius” was unused when Australia was settled in 1788 and is a relatively recent creation. Nobody can say definitively what it means, but the most likely interpretation is “land without sovereignty” and not “nobody’s land” as the Academy asserts.

The Academy is also wrong to claim the Voice could deal solely with “specifically” Aboriginal issues – only the High Court could have judged whether parking tickets and nuclear submarines were excluded from the Voice’s remit. The Academy’s reference to the Voice being “safe from political whim” is just rehashing the Aboriginal Industry’s semantics. Even if not in the Constitution, Voice legislation could only be restricted by proper democratic processes involving both Houses of Parliament and potentially, an election. If that’s “whim”, so is every legislative alteration.

And finally, there has been no “evidence-informed conversation” on the proposed Voice to date because Prime Minister Albanese refused to release any detail about how the Voice would operate – and disowned the 26-page Uluru backgrounder, which was laden with ominous details.

Science & Technology Australia (STA): This organisation’s interesting take on the defeat of its YES campaign includes, “Indigenous leaders who supported the Yes campaign have called for A Week of Silence to grieve and reflect on the referendum result … Science & Technology Australia honours this call. This week, we give space and silence to mourn and reflect.” STA claims 115,000 brainy members.

Academy of the Social Sciences: In a statement in April it “strongly supported” the Voice, expressing the vibe involving “the clear and compelling request from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander authors of the Uluru Statement from the Heart, including Academy Fellows, to ‘walk with us in a movement of the Australian people for a better future’.”

Lacking any specifics about the Voice, the Social Sciences Academy fell back on vacuities about “reconciliation and moving forward as a nation” while urging members somehow to “inform and educate people” about the [undefined] issues. The educative materials it provided solely backed the Yes case, such as urgings from sponsors Marcia Langton and Megan Davis. After the Yes defeat, it added a reasonable statement that it “respects the democratic process”.

Professionals Australia (PA): These union members plus their national board and committees backed the wrong horse big-time. PA even ran online campaign of “pledging” for YES along with “Conversation Training” to help convince the unwashed that a racist upending of our governance since 1901 was a good idea.

Burnet Institute (medical research and education): Its statement in May

We consider that a Voice to Parliament is an evidence-based approach that will have a positive impact on the health, development and aspirations of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island children and young people.

I don’t know how the Yes case could be “evidence based” when Prime Minister Albanese refused to offer any details about it (and claims not even to have read the 26-page Uluru backgrounder). Likewise the Institute used its crystal ball to discover that most Aboriginals wanted the Voice – which the “No” Aboriginal team of Jacinta Price and Warren Mundine disputed. After 60% of Australians voted No, the Burnet Institute leaders went into teenager-like meltdown.  Burnet CEO Professor Brendan Crabb had this to say:

My first thoughts are with the communities that will feel devastated today, scars that are unlikely to heal any time soon… This is a time of mourning for many and we recognise and respect the wishes of the Yes campaigners for a week of silence.

The 58 institutes of the Association of Australian Medical Research Institutes (AAMRI), March 2023:

As scientists, the AAMRI Board and leadership team support evidence-based [sic] conversations and encourage informed and respected debate on this topic… Leading immunologist, A/Professor Misty Jenkins, a proud Gunditjmara woman and Laboratory Head at WEHI[2], said the upcoming referendum on the Indigenous Voice to Parliament is an important opportunity to build a more just and reconciled Australia [and] address the ongoing impacts of colonialism and build a future based on shared understanding and respect.

It’s a well-worn quote but George Orwell had it right: “There are some ideas so absurd that only an intellectual could believe them.” The Voice was one of them.

Tony Thomas’s new book from Connor Court is Anthem of the Unwoke – Yep! The other lot’s gone bonkers. $34.95 from Connor Court here

[1] Hesperion Press, Perth, has kindly provided me with the following works: “Cannibalism, Constables and Courts – Pilbara/Murchison 1887-1896; “Cannibals, Cooke and Customs, ed Peter J Bridge” and “Anthropophagitism in the Antipodes, or Cannibalism in Australia”, by James Cooke RN (Rtd).

[2] Walter & Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research