A biased report used as justification for racial vilification legislation
The following is a reproduction of a chapter from Australia Betrayed: How Australian Democracy Has Been Undermined and Our Naïve Trust Betrayed by Graeme Campbell (then the Federal Member for Kalgoorlie) and Mark Uhlmann.
This section concentrates on the government-funded report Racist Violence: Report of the National Inquiry into Racist Violence in Australia. This report was the product of an inquiry chaired by Irene Moss, who was the Federal Race Discrimination Commissioner of the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission. With Irene Moss, of Asian background, coming from the Orwellian-named “Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission”, itself a bastion of the ideology of Multiculturalism being imposed upon Australia, many people queried her even-handedness and whether the report would be biased against mainstream Australians.
The Racist Violence report, described herein as “seriously flawed” and “McCarthyist”, with a “blatant bias against 'old' Australians”, was used as a major justification for racial vilification legislation in Australia. The whole event was a set-up, a political show piece; the main findings of the report were largely a foregone conclusion, as this was a inquiry orchestrated simply to provide an excuse to introduce laws that would enable the Establishment to further advance the authoritarian ideology of Multiculturalism by restricting the right to free speech in Australia, so as to smother criticism of immigration and Multiculturalism.
The Law of Moss
Russell Lewis in his book, Anti-Racism: A Mania Exposed (Quartet Books, London, 1988) quotes Tom Hastie's formula of Newsam's Law: "The incidence of alleged racism in a given society will vary in a direct proportion to the number of people handsomely paid to find it". The society in question is Britain and Newsam's Law is named after Peter Newsam, who at the time was chairman of the Commission for Racial Equality.
In Australia, Newsam's Law could be rechristened "Moss's Law" after Irene Moss, who for seven years was the handsomely paid Federal Race Discrimination Commissioner of the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission. Prior to that she worked for ten years at the NSW Anti-discrimination board. On 1 June she took up an appointment as a NSW magistrate.
In an interview with Justine Ferrari of The Australian, published on 22 April 1994, under the headline, "Magistrate blazes a trail for Asians", Moss "admitted to wanting to have had national racial vilification laws in place before she left as commissioner" and stated, that whether or not it happened in that time frame, "that will happen [such a law] and I know I had something to do with it". Indeed. She, along with various ethnic lobbies, has been the driving force in the push for such laws at the Federal level and would seem to regard such a law as a personal monument.
The draft Racial Discrimination Amendment Bill, otherwise known as the Racial Vilification Bill, was introduced into Federal Parliament at the end of 1992, but was not proceeded with due to the timing of the last Federal election. One of the principal justifications of the bill, was Racist Violence: Report of the National Inquiry into Racist Violence in Australia (AGPS, 1991). The chairperson of this inquiry was Irene Moss.
A new bill, The Racial Hatred Bill 1994, which includes criminal sanctions, as desired by Moss, has been introduced and is likely to be passed, so it is instructive to examine her report, which remains the main one justifying such legislation.
Moss's Report is not only seriously flawed in method as a piece of research, but displays a blatant bias against "old" Australians, the "Anglo-Celtic" majority or "Anglos", as the report refers to them when listing alleged aggressors in a highly selective Appendix 14 (p 478 - 535).
"Anglo" in fact, as used in Moss's report, is just a blanket designation for all whites of English-speaking background. It seems to escape Moss's attention that there were a number of Germans and Italians who settled in Australia from the 1840s onwards. Though their descendants are part of the Australian mainstream and are English speakers, many would not accept the "Anglo" term as a designation of themselves. Indeed many of them, like their "Anglo-Celtic" compatriots, will accept no other designation than Australian. This is of course also the case for the children of many migrants of non-British background who have arrived here since World War II.
Background
The Moss Report consists of four parts. Part one is the background to the National Inquiry into Racist Violence, including the terms of reference, definitions of key terms, the basis in Australian law and a potted history of so-called 'racist' violence in Australia from the frontier years until today. One of the historical gems of the Report is the claim that Lambing Flat (Young in NSW) is located in Victoria.
Part Two gives an outline of the evidence. Part Three details the overseas experience and part four describes what Moss believes are the necessary directions for change needed to achieve a supposedly harmonious and just multi-racial and multicultural society.
Moss's report is founded on the assumption that "multiculturalism" is self-evidently a success in Australia. The term presumably incorporates the government policy on the one hand and racial and cultural diversity on the other. She wants increasing degrees of ethnic "pluralism" to continue.
In her preface (p. xvii) Moss states, "Multiculturalism is working well in Australia" and indeed that "racist violence, intimidation and harassment is nowhere near the level experienced in many other countries" (p. xiii). The latter statement is a truly gracious admission.
Having made such an admission you might think that this would undermine the need for the inquiry, but of course The Law of Moss must be enacted.
Aboriginals
She must justify her position and so Moss uses the alleged level of racist violence against Aboriginals and Torres Strait Islanders as the central justification for her report. This is in spite of the fact that it was the supposed violence against migrants, particularly Asians, which was most frequently cited by those in favour of such an inquiry.
Aboriginals therefore become the convenient stalking horse for belting the "Anglos", without any contemplation of the fact that migrants of other ethnic backgrounds, in sharing the country's prosperity, laid by the "Anglos", consequently share the responsibility for the position of Aboriginals. This is quite apart from the fact that negative attitudes to Aboriginals certainly also exist among such migrants.
When it comes to Aboriginals, the multiculturalists, particularly those who are handsomely paid from the public purse like Moss, cannot simply absolve themselves of responsibility and point the finger at "Anglos". While wringing their hands about Aboriginal dispossession, people like Moss neglect to consider that they have profited by it. And in using Aboriginals as stalking horses for their own purposes they themselves exploit Aboriginals.
Apart from allegations about the treatment of Aboriginals, Moss's report is very thin. Nevertheless, Moss believes that racial violence and harassment will increase against Aboriginals and other ethnic groups in future (in spite of the fact that "multiculturalism is working well in Australia"!) and that it will be perpetrated by those evil villains - the "Anglo" majority.
There is no consideration of course that the biased attacks on the majority by people such as Moss themselves raise the racial temperature and add to the likelihood of conflict. Such people seem to regard themselves as totally pure and should increased conflict occur they may only take it as confirmation of the evil of the Anglos and the vital role they fulfill as protectors of the right.
Chapters 3 and 4 of the Moss's report leave us in no doubt that she regards the old Australian population as tainted with the original sin of racism, passed on since the frontier days.
There is no consideration at all of racial conflict in other countries or among other races.
The fact that the taxes of the majority are appropriated to pay the salaries of Irene Moss and others like her and that in such a publicly-funded position she has a duty to be fair-minded does not seem to occur to her. The unique villain status of the "Anglos", even as she puts her hands in their pockets, must be confirmed.
Extirpation of "Anglo" influence
For Moss, multiculturalism is much more than the welcoming of diversity, it seems to be the path to extinguishing not only the original sin of Anglo-Celtic occupation of Australia, but to extinguishing the Anglo-Celtic cultural base of the country itself. Were her position taken to its logical conclusion then English would lose its primacy as the national language.
Apart from the national division and expense which would ensue if this occurred, it would, ironically, be severely embarrassing for those professional ethnics who in fact do not speak the language of their forebears well or at all - yes such people exist! It would also be a problem for those "Anglo-Celtic" multiculturalists who, for all their distain of their own people, have only English with which to communicate.
Moss claims that multiculturalism is the "acceptance that the nature and unity of Australian society will emerge from the integration of old and new settlers rather than from the assimilation of newcomers into some fixed concept of Anglo-Celtic 'Australianness' that existed in the past." (p 63).
Yet Australia went from a policy of assimilation to integration before the policy of multiculturalism was embraced. Integration in practice meant that migrants were encouraged into the Australian mainstream while being entirely at liberty to keep an attachment to ethnic clubs, to continue speaking the old language and so on. Integration offered access on very benign grounds - all that was required was that the new migrants and their children accept English as the national language and give their loyalty to Australia above other nations.
Multiculturalists however lamented and lament the fact that once distinct ethnic groups have integrated into the mainstream. They want these groups to maintain themselves separately ad infinitum. The very success of integration is a threat to them.
The "Anglo-Celtic" base of the society of course is what provides it with unity and stability. To believe that unity would ensue by eroding it is not idealism, but utopianism, or something worse.
However the end of the "Anglo-Celtic" base is welcomed by multiculturalists because according to the new history taught in high schools and at university, Australia's history is one of shame, genocide and racism and many of the heroes of the past are murderers or fools.
Don Watson, an academic and speech writer for the Prime Minister Mr Keating, sums up this New Class white-guilt view of history in these words:
"My generation was taught from the model of the Victorians, like Carlyle. They were always looking for heroes, so we learnt the history of great men. But you can't do that today ... You can't teach about explorers, for example, because they killed Aborigines." (The Australian, 19 August 1993, p 7.)
Moss repeats the white-guilt view of history in Chapter 3 of her report, drawing on the work of Dr Andrew Markus. Markus's main work in the field is entitled Fear and Hatred: Purifying Australia and California 1850 -1901 (Hale and Ironmonger, Sydney 1979.) In that book Markus argues that Australia was founded upon the twin pillars of racial hatred of Aboriginals, culminating in horrific genocide and the irrational fear of kindly Asian people to the north of Australia.
Illegitimate occupiers
The over-riding emotion often produced in "Anglo" students and other people, when confronted with the white-guilt view of history, is one of shame and possibly an unconscious desire for punishment. They are made to feel illegitimate occupiers of their own country, in spite of the fact that their forebears built its prosperity and that this prosperity supports the very people who attack the forebears.
In white-guilt history Aboriginals are legitimate because they were here first and suffered at the hands of the whites. Post World War II non-"Anglo" migrants, particularly Asian, migrants are legitimate because they did not kill Aboriginals and they have been discriminated against in the past, so by implication recompense has to be made to them, or racially equivalent descendants. This being so there is, for example, no moral right for the illegitimate "Anglos" to restrict immigration.
It is only in recent times that Australian history has been widely studied in schools and universities. In the past a colonial cringe led to Australian history being regarded as unworthy of study, so the majority of people, largely being unaware of their own history, do not have the means to defend themselves when faced with the seemingly learned works and pronouncements of the dominant white-guilt view of history.
Though many instinctively know that this white-guilt view is biased and unfair, they are unable to match the sophisticated assaults of people who have the resources of universities and other publicly-funded bodies, including arms of government, at their disposal. So at the very time that Australian history comes to be widely studied, it is studied as a history of shame.
The "Anglo-Celtic" intelligentsias, for the most part enthusiastic multiculturalists themselves, are the main culprits in perpetrating the white-guilt view of history, but this self-revulsion for their own kind rarely expresses itself as sacrifice at the individual level. (How many multiculturalist academics, bureaucrats and judges have given up their jobs, properties, Volvos and sailing boats to Aboriginals for example?) Rather this guilt is manifested in campaigns at the wider social level in which others will have to bear the sacrifices dictated by their elevated consciences.
Moss's version of Australia perfectly fits this agenda of political correctness. This is so even as she draws a salary, now as a NSW magistrate, which would be the envy of the majority of "Anglos" - a salary which they are forced, through government appropriation of taxes, to be the major contributors towards.
For Irene Moss racist violence characterised the "Anglo" development of Australia. Of course, taking her perspective this could be extended to any country, but in the way of these things Australia is considered in isolation. If comparisons are ever made by white guilt historians they are made with other "white nations", particularly "Anglo" countries, which are comparatively among the most tolerant of nations. Rarely if ever do such historians consider the history of "racist violence" of the Asian invaders of Europe, such as the Mongols, whose savagery puts the excesses of the white settlers of Australia well and truly in the shade.
Moss highlights the frontier violence against Aboriginals, but does not consider the impact of introduced diseases which were far greater killers.
Moreover these diseases were not only introduced by Europeans. Chinese indentured labourers introduced diseases like leprosy to Aboriginals in the Northern Territory.
Aboriginals in North Queensland, particularly on the Palmer River goldfields, also indulged in cannibalism of Chinese. There were in fact clashes between all major groupings - Aboriginals, Europeans and Chinese in the Palmer River area during the goldrush. Aboriginal society is of course regarded as utopian and peaceful, in perfect harmony with the environment. None of the harsh elements of Aboriginal societies, or their own impact upon the environment is considered and there certainly was an impact. For example, as reported in The Sydney Morning Herald of 8 January 1993, "One scientist who has done intensive research on the subject, Dr Tim Flannery, head of the mammals section at the Australian Museum [in Sydney] concludes that Aborigines were responsible for the disappearance of most of the 60 or so species of giant marsupials which inhabited Australia until 30,000 to 40,000 years ago." Aboriginals also dramatically changed the vegetation pattern of Australia by their use of fire.
Displacement
The coming of a modern society was bound to have a traumatic effect, but it is not only "Anglo" nations which have colonised and displaced original inhabitants. It has been a constant throughout history. Europeans themselves have been displaced. Much of modern day Turkey was originally inhabited by the Greeks and Greeks still regard Istanbul, formerly Constantinople - captured by the Turks in 1453 - as a Greek city. How would the Turks react to a Greek native claim on Istanbul? Alexandria in Egypt was a Greek city before the invasion of the Arabs. In fact, large areas of the Middle East were ruled by the Byzantine Empire before the Muslim Arab invasions of the 7th Century. Western crusader kingdoms rose and fell in the Middle East.
In Britain Celts were conquered by Romans and displaced by Angles, Saxons, Jutes and Frisians in parts of Britain, who were themselves subject to Viking and Norman invasions.
So what has happened in Australia with the Aboriginals is nothing new, but at least since the 1960s, genuine - if at times misguided - efforts have been made to improve the lot of the indigenous people. The same cannot be said of those Asian nations who we are enjoined to emulate, being in the eyes of some both our economic and moral superiors. As the Vice Chancellor of Hong Kong University, Professor Wang Gungup stated, as reported in The Canberra Times of 8 July 1992, "where most Asians are concerned the survival of Aboriginal people and cultures never had any priority."
By today's standards the establishments of Aboriginal reserves, legislation such as the Aboriginal Protection Act and the Child Welfare Act and polices such as the prohibition of hotels selling Aboriginals alcohol seem harsh and/ or paternalistic, but they involved some genuine attempts to improve conditions for Aboriginals. Moss however portrays such things as a great and deliberate evil, a further extension of "Anglo" racist violence. Whites are judged in the harshest possible light, while Aboriginal societies are presented as having been utopian before the whites.
While in the past judgements on Aboriginal societies have of course been overly harsh and dismissive, they have gone to an opposite extreme in recent years. It is important to put things in perspective. Things were far more complex than people like Irene Moss are prepared to allow. She takes all the benefits of a modern society, while attacking that society with the wisdom of hindsight and idealising a way of life she shows no inclination to try herself.
Moss then jumps from Aboriginals to post war migrants. Moss states, p 54, "migrants were a disadvantaged group within Australian society who deserved social justice". All of them? Surely they are not just one big group of disadvantaged? How did their conditions actually compare with their conditions before arrival? If their conditions in the vast majority of cases improved considerably, as they did, then how were they all disadvantaged? Some had problems adapting no doubt, some were discriminated against, but overwhelmingly Australia was a great land of opportunity for them. If not why didn't they return to their country of origin and why do they continue to come?
What of the "Anglo" and other migrants who came out in sailing ships on sometimes dangerous voyages in the 19th Century and had little, if any, society and government support? Life was far harsher in those days surely than it was for the great majority of post war migrants, who arrived when material living standards and work opportunities were rising and one of the world's most generous social security systems - fought for and won by previous Australian generations - was being put in place.
Methodology
Moss admits that there has been lengthy philosophical debate about the definition of 'race' and 'racism'. Likewise the definition of 'violence' is contentious. However it was not considered appropriate to discuss these 'important issues in the report' (p. 13). Instead the frame of reference is adopted from the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, which in Article 4:
"...condemns all propaganda and all organisations which are based on ideas or theories of superiority of one race or group of persons of one colour or ethnic origin, or which attempt to justify or promote racial hatred and discrimination in any form, and undertake to adopt immediate and positive measures designed to eradicate all incitement to, or acts of, such discrimination...."
Yet Affirmative Action and quota policies are discrimination based upon race. The policy of multiculturalism is racially-based and effectively promotes favouritism on the basis of race.
Moss defines 'racist violence' as a 'specific act of violence, intimidation or harassment carried out against an individual, group or organisation (or their property) on the basis of:
- race, colour, descent, or national or ethnic origins; and/or support for non-racist policies (p 14).
The definition is so broad as to include almost any disturbance, dispute or disagreement as 'racial' in nature if it occurs between people of different races, descents, nationalities or ethnic groups. First, most disagreements, disputes or disturbances are to some degree 'violent' or have some element of intimidation or harassment. Second, we have already seen in our examination of the race-relation industry's view of Australian history that racism is already presumed to be endemic among the 'Anglos'. They are the target population.
It does not come as a surprise that Moss includes in her definition of 'racist harassment', all behaviours that may intimidate subjects, such as verbal abuse. But what constitutes verbal abuse? What constitutes intimidation? It is often, and is allowed to be by Moss, a purely subjective definition. The mere fact that someone feels - or claims to feel - verbally abused or intimidated and is of a different race would be enough to constitute racist violence under the definition of Moss.
Evidence
The evidence presented in Part 2 of Moss's report consists of four chapters: Racist violence against Aboriginals, racist violence on the basis of ethnic identity, racist violence against people opposed to racism and a chapter drawing conclusions from the evidence.
Virtually all of her 'evidence' is based on uncorroborated testimony. The incidents which are reported may or may not be factual, but the majority of the evidence given is simply unproven.
In cases where violence may have occurred Moss and the alleged victims simply assume that the violence was racially motivated.
Logic and the rules of evidence did not prevent Irene Moss from concluding that racist attitudes, practices and violence 'pervade our institutions', including the police and the media. She was prepared to identify the perpetrators of 'racist violence' against people of a non-English speaking background as young male Anglo-Australians (p 219). No examination was conducted of racial violence between ethnic groups; inter-ethnic violence was simply dismissed as not being a problem. There was no consideration of the activities of ethnic gangs. For Moss it is only the Anglos who have the problem.
On this basis she recommends the creation of new criminal offences of racist violence and intimidation and incitement to racist violence. In spite of the fact that "Racist violence on the basis of ethnic identity in Australia is nowhere near the level that it is in many other countries (p 219)", it is necessary Moss believes to put race-hate laws in place now, in anticipation of racial tensions increasing in Australia.
This is inconsistent with Moss's claim that the policy of multiculturalism is working well in Australia. It seems on the contrary that in order to maintain the policy, free speech has to be constrained. Is this to be one way in which we emulate Asian nations such as Malaysia and Singapore? In order to manage ethnic divisions, speech is curtailed by the state. Is this one of the prices we have to pay, along with democracy, for the policy of multiculturalism?
The most revealing parts of the report are those passages where Moss speculates on the ultimate causes of racial tension in Australia: the immigration debate and indeed any questioning of multiculturalism and foreign investment. Two passages are worth quoting:
"Most of the incidents of racist violence on the basis of ethnic origin which were reported to the Inquiry occurred in a period of increasing non-European immigration, rapid economic change and recession and highly publicised expression of opinion on the desirability of a multicultural Australia (p. 172)".
"Evidence to the Inquiry indicates that the incidence of racist violence is particularly influenced by debates about the ethnic composition of Australia, immigration policy and the economy. Ethnic community organisations maintain that, when issues such as foreign investment, immigration and multiculturalism receive extensive media coverage and public discussion, they can expect an upsurge in racist violence and abuse. A large number of witnesses felt that there had been a perceptible increase in spontaneous racist violence, abuse and harassment following public debate about Asian immigration during 1987-88" (p. 217).
The implication here is that opposition to immigration is the cause of the 'problem' (p. 172) and that such opposition is a non-specific form of race-hate, or at least that it inspires it. In the Melbourne Community Consultation meetings on the draft racial vilification bill, proponents of the bill stated that they would be happy to see "anti-immigration people" caught up in the bill.
Moss leaves no doubt that she herself believes that Professor Blainey opened the door to the expression of 'racist feeling' with his statements questioning the rate of Asian immigration in 1984. Moss regards critics of multiculturalism as having 'misconceived views' (p. 174) - although she never details why. Further, she is critical of those who oppose immigration on economic and environmental grounds (p. 175), seeing unconscious or subtle racism lying behind these concerns (p. 176).
Conclusion
Irene Moss's Racist Violence is not based on either science or sound logical reasoning. Its style may be best described as McCarthyist: under every bed is a racist, and probably in every bed as well. Worst of all Racist Violence has its own 'racist' bias. It is firmly within the multicultural tradition which sees "Anglos" in particular and Europeans in general as uniquely stained with the original sin of racism.
Irene Moss
Federal Race Discrimination Commissioner
Professional ethnics use the very freedom provided by "Anglo" countries, not only to attack the general populations of these countries, but to try to impose alien restrictions upon freedom of expression. In particular it is hard not to hold in contempt people who have fled tyrannies or left far less tolerant countries, only to try to impose a form of tyranny upon those who have given them shelter. It is doubly a farce when this is justified in the name of maintaining the culture of the countries they have left.
The multiculturalist view that Europeans are unique sinners derives from the general economic and political dominance of Europeans for the last 500 years, but even during that time and certainly further back Europeans themselves were subject to other races. In each period of ascendancy the conquering races regarded themselves as superior to those they had conquered. This was also true among the tribes of the New World and Africa before the coming of the white man. "Anglos" then are not the only "baddies", they have simply been the most efficient colonisers, in fact "Anglo" based countries are far more tolerant than most.
How many non-Anglo and non-European countries actually have people like Irene Moss and co funded at public expense to attack the public as she does? Certainly none of our Asian neighbours. It is interesting that in making comparisons with the "Overseas Experience" (p 229) of dealing with "Racist Violence" the examples are the USA, Britain and Canada, the first two "Anglo" countries and the third largely "Anglo" with a strong French element. Is racist violence only a problem in these countries?
Of course not. Paradoxically it is the very fact that these countries are among the world's most tolerant that has allowed people like Irene Moss to thrive. She has exploited our tolerance. In nations where racist violence really is a big problem, there is no desire to subsidise someone like Irene Moss.
Irene Moss's report is best described as a work of theology or dogmatic religion. It has no philosophical rigour or social-scientific basis and reveals a thinly-disguised dislike of "Anglo" Australians, the very people who make her privileged position possible.
NOTE: Another report used to justify racial vilification legislation, though without criminal sanctions, is the Report of the Royal Commission into Black Deaths in Custody. For all its moralising, research commissioned by this inquiry found, very early on in its investigations, that although it was assumed that many more blacks than whites died in custody, in fact the proportional death rate was roughly the same. Numbers wise, many more whites than blacks died. Although its rationale broke down early on, this did not stop the commission from continuing of course. Research since then has confirmed that the proportion of deaths is roughly equal. What is disproportionate is the arrest rate. When an Aboriginal dies it is front page news, when a white dies it is ignored and so the impression is still given that deaths in custody is solely a black problem caused by nasty whites.
Source: Graeme Campbell and Mark Uhlmann. Australia Betrayed: How Australian Democracy Has Been Undermined and Our Naïve Trust Betrayed, Foundation Press, Carlisle, Western Australia, 1995, p. 169-179.
bravenet.com