Australia's Fifth Column

[Rorschach]

Judge dismisses case against QUT students over 18C
The Australian
November 5, 2016
Hedley Thomas
National Chief Correspondent

A judge has thrown out a racial hatred­ case brought against three university students from Queensland over Facebook posts, prompting a scathing rebuke of the Human Rights Commission and its president, Gillian Triggs.

The students from the Queensland University of Technology have been released from the case, in which they were being sued for $250,000 in damages by indigenous QUT staffer Cindy Prior. Federal Circuit Court judge Mich­ael Jarrett ruled late yesterday that they had no case to answer.

Alex Wood, Jackson Powell and Calum Thwaites told The Weekend Australian they were ­“incredibly relieved” at the ­collapse of Ms Prior’s action under section 18C of the Racial Discrim­ination Act.

But they said the experience — which had escalated since May 28, 2013, from a seemingly trivial incid­ent at QUT to the Human Rights Commission and then the Federal Circuit Court — had caused them unnecessary stress and worry as they fought to clear their names and deny false accusations of racism, and even a connection to American white suprem­acist group the Ku Klux Klan.

The students and their lawyers, Tony Morris QC and Michael Henry, issued a plea to politicians to uphold free speech by abolishing section 18C. They said the law was being used as a weapon to limit free speech and as a tool to extract money in a “legal shakedown” of people who preferred to pay confidential settlements ­rather than risk a public fight to prove they were not racist.

Other students accused of ­racism for their Facebook posts were dropped earlier from Ms Prior’s legal proceedings, run by Brisbane solicitor Susan Moriarty, after making confidential payments. Neither Ms Prior nor her solicitor was in court yesterday.

Judge Jarrett comprehensively dismissed the proceedings against the three remaining students ­yesterday, effectively exonerating them of any wrongdoing.

He ruled that Mr Wood had posted “an accurate statement of fact” when the student wrote on Facebook: “Just got kicked out of the unsigned indigenous com­puter room”.

Judge Jarrett said it was “difficult to see how … that statement was likely to infringe the prescript­ion of section 18C”. He ruled that Mr Wood had made a statement of opinion when he also posted on Facebook “QUT stopping segregation with segregation?”

Judge Jarrett said the sentences were a comment with racial under­tones about QUT having a computer room “from which ­people who are not indigenous are excluded by reason of their race or ethnicity” — but he ruled it was not reasonably likely to offend, ­insult, humiliate or intimidate someone. “This is so because Mr Wood’s words were directed to QUT and its actions, and Mr Wood’s words were rallying against discrimination,’’ Judge Jarrett said.

Mr Powell’s Facebook post — “I wonder where the white sup­remacist computer lab is” — was, Judge Jarrett found, a “poor ­attempt at humour” but incapable of being unlawful under section 18C. Judge Jarrett accepted that the third student, Mr Thwaites, had not posted the word “nigger”. Ms Prior had not produced any evidence to the contrary.

Outside the Federal Circuit Court, Mr Morris launched a blistering attack on the human rights body and Professor Triggs for ­allowing the case to escalate.

He said it was a tragedy for the students as it had exposed them to enormous strain. He said Ms Prior, who will be pursued for costs, was also a victim of what he described as the commission’s “incompetence” for its failure to throw the case out at an early stage.

He said Professor Triggs drew a $400,000-plus salary but had ­failed to do her job, which was to ­inquire properly into 18C cases and dismiss them if they lacked substance. Mr Morris said Professor Triggs should have told Ms Prior and her legal team that their case was “completely hopeless’’.

He said if Professor Triggs had “any decency” she would hand her resignation to Attorney-­General George Brandis on Monday.

Professor Triggs last night declined to respond to the criticisms but said that the human rights body “fully respects the decision” of the court.

Mr Thwaites said: “I’m very happy and very relieved — this was a long time coming and now I want to get on with my study and my career and my life.”

His mother, Tina Thwaites, said: “You would not believe the trauma he has been through with this. We are just so glad it’s over.”

QUT vice-chancellor Peter Coaldrake said in a brief statement that the university was “pleased the matter is now resolved as far as the three students are concerned and regrets that the issue has taken so long to come to a conclusion for them”. Professor Coaldrake ­offered no comment on whether the university viewed section 18C as an impediment to free speech.

Ms Prior could not be reached for comment. She had previously described feeling “at risk of immin­ent but unpredictable physical or verbal assault” after reading the Facebook posts. The former admin­istrative officer at the university’s indigenous-only comput­er lab gave sworn evidence that she had “nightmares, fear and sweating”, and felt “unsafe and frightened to return to work”.

Ms Prior, a member of the Noongar nation, said in an affid­avit: “I could not understand how or why the students had not ­already been suspended or discip­lined. I felt as though I had personally been found ridiculous for fearing physical assault and a KKK presence in the university.

“I feel completely let down by all the people involved in this episode. It ended my career and my tertiary studies.

“I was unwell for a very long time, unable to go outside my home, hospitalised for panic ­attacks and reduced to living off $450 a week for nearly two years. I am deeply disappointed that my private case has now become public, and I have been publicly vilified by people I don’t even know or who know me, or who don’t know the full story which led to the ending of my career at QUT.”

The case, which grew into a test of the public’s view of the controv­ersial section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act, came before Judge Jarrett after it failed to ­resolve in the Human Rights Commission. The court heard that the Facebook posts could not possibly have caused “offence, insult, humiliation or intimidation which has profound and serious effects, not to be likened to mere slights”.

Judge Jarrett was told by Mr Morris there was “nothing ­inherently offensive, insulting, ­humiliating or intimidating” about the words.

Mr Wood, now an engineer, had started the Facebook conversation after he was ejected from the computer lab by Ms Prior ­because he was not indigenous.

[Black Orchid]

It never had a chance to begin with and should not have been allowed to get as far as it did. What a shocking waste of time and money.

[Rorschach]

People like Triggs and Soutphommanse should be sacked...
18c should be amended or removed

This LW Progressive politically correct nonsense should never see the light of day.

The 5th column in Australia should be routed out and ignored.

[Outlaw Yogi]

People like Triggs and Soutphommanse should be sacked...

No, they should be placed in detention and be deported to some place that doesn't recognise the concept of human rights.

18c should be amended or removed

No, it should be abolished outright, and everyone persecuted under it be compensated directly from the sale of the current commissioners' assets.

This LW Progressive politically correct nonsense should never see the light of day.

Yes it should. It should be printed on toilet paper so we can address it appropriately.

The 5th column in Australia should be routed out and ignored.

No, they should be rounded up with cattle dogs, publicly flogged and pelted with rotten fruit, loaded on to live sheep/cattle transport ships and dumped on China's 7 fake islands in the South China Sea.

[Rorschach]

Sooooo I guess we agree

[Rorschach]

Post-truth was out there, but the electorate ignored it
The Australian
November 26, 2016
Chris Kenny

Donald Trump, say the progressive media commentators, has been elevated on the back of post-truth politics. They couldn’t be more right, or more wrong.

The liberal media, smug about its own world view, sees Trump’s victory as evidence voters ignored the truth it presented. Silly voters; the media is never wrong.

It believes voters fell for Trump’s post-truth over the media’s truth. The self-delusion is staggering.

On our shores, the Guardian Australia’s Katharine Murphy put it this way: “We’ve been drifting, in increments, in the direction of post-truth, but the election of Trump is a headfirst pitch over the cliff. A person with manifest disdain for facts and evidence now occupies the White House because half the country didn’t care.”

As Murphy would have it, the media “did its job” trying to expose a “manifestly unqualified and potentially dangerous” candidate. Murphy discounted the “post-truth partisan hackery of Fox News” because she says it isn’t journalism.

The point that set Fox’s coverage apart from the media Murphy defends is that it got the story right, portraying Trump as a plausible contender. Fox also was, as ever, upfront about its own right-of-centre perspective. Viewers can take it or leave it, but there is no pretence.

The overwhelming majority of left-of-centre journalists and media organisations portray themselves as objective, “independent” or centrist. In doing so, they take their audiences for fools and break the nexus of trust at the first hurdle. Truth, and its absence, is a powerful factor in current discourse. No political group or individual is blameless but the progressive media doesn’t care to examine its own deceptions.

Perhaps the dishonesty of the PC brigade helps to drive voters to people such as Trump, Pauline Hanson and the Brexiteers, despite misgivings. When you are be­ing corralled in a certain direction by a jaundiced and sanctimonious political/media class consensus, why not rebel against it?

Remember, I say this as someone who opposed Trump and argued US voters would be unwise to abstain because they needed to pinch their noses and vote for Hillary Clinton to stop him.

By calling out the cosy establishment of politicians, media and lobbyists, and raising real grievances they ruled off-limits, he was a compelling figure.

There is much more to be analysed about Trump’s win — particularly economic factors and swing state campaigning — but this post-truth aspect is fascinating because we see loud echoes of it in our own politics.

The political/media class, exemplified by our taxpayer-funded media but strongly reflected in most political coverage, skews the news and opinion it produces on major issues. This underestimates the intelligence of the public, who surely resent being patronised.

Journalists and left-of-centre politicians (including Coalition moderates) can get caught up in self-referential circles, affirming their version of reality. Voters crash the party at elections or, if the politicians are lucky, by voicing their concerns beforehand.

Julia Gillard’s misogyny speech, carbon tax and live cattle export ban were illustrative examples, as was the NSW Baird government’s recent greyhound rac­ing ban — they were cheered by the Left and media but recognised as madness by the public.

This week Immigration Minister Peter Dutton spoke harsh truths about the Islamic extremists who have emerged from our Lebanese Muslim community, and the reaction from the green-Left and progressive media was classically post-truth.

The message Bill Shorten accused Dutton of promulgating was the polar opposite of what the minister enunciated. Dutton said the majority of Lebanese Muslims who have “done the right thing by this country” should not be “defined by those people who have done the wrong thing” but the Opposition Leader accused him of the “wholesale labelling of entire communities for the actions of a tiny minority”.

Shorten’s critique was fallacious but most media did not pin him. Before long the Guardian Australia was calling Dutton’s comments “incendiary” and Fairfax Media was running “Dutton race row” headlines and calls for his resignation.

As for the well-established facts about Lebanese Muslims arrested in terror operations and broader, extensively analysed problems of welfare dependency, crime and poor integration, the more outraged the media outlets, the less interested they were in such matters. Greens senator Nick McKim captured the zeitgeist. “Undoubtedly the advice he’s got is accurate but just because something is fact doesn’t mean that it’s reasonable or productive to talk about it,” he told Sky News.

Do these politicians and journalists presume the public (to use Jack Nicholson’s famous line) can’t handle the truth?

Or do they think the public will join a delusional parlour game of political theatre when serious issues of security, immigration and cohesion are at play? Some partisans will, of course, but the crucial, sensible centre is more interested in reality.

This is the real post-truth environment: mainstream voters seeing through the spin and jaundice of an overwhelmingly green-Left political/media class. Just as they have long been sceptical of arguments from big business because of its obvious self-interest, voters discern a politically correct agenda from the establishment, including the media.

Climate change is an area where these pontificators treat the public like mugs. Anyone with a pulse knows the scientific consensus about carbon dioxide emissions and temperature models; the complexity comes in whether actual events match the models, whether remedial action is worthwhile and comparing the range of possible responses and their likely costs and benefits.

Yet the political/media class pretends Australian action — be it a wind farm or a carbon price — equates to an environmental benefit. Does it think the public is not aware we contribute only 1.3 per cent of global emissions?

When the political/media class continually censors such realities, or eliminates them from discussions, to maintain a simplistic and binary discussion, does it think mainstream voters will never discover that China and India continue to massively increase global emissions?

Do the politicians and journalists presume all members of the public want to join their campaign of climate gestures or do they think we are too silly to comprehend that we are being made to pay higher electricity prices to produce a net environmental dividend of next to zero?

These are the same journalists, activists and politicians who went quiet on border protection when it was in chaos under Labor. ABC news bulletins often neglected to report boat arrivals, the Australian Human Rights Commission sec­retly delayed an inquiry into children in detention and journalists re­peated Labor’s mantra that “push factors” were to blame and boats simply could not be turned back.

After the Coalition turned back boats, stopped the people-smuggling and started emptying and closing the detention centres, the AHRC finally began its detention inquiry and the media went back to shrill reports of boat arrivals and claims of mistreatment from asylum-seekers. Instructively, only after the change of government did the ABC construct a web page to log the arrival of every boat; clearly intended to log the Coalition’s failure, it quickly became redundant.

The media/political class can easily convince itself of its ‘‘truthiness” version of reality, and it can have it reinforced constantly by “independent” and social media, but it can’t fool the public. That is the real message of the post-truth age. And the public has the ultimate say through the ballot box. The more they are preached at, especially with incorrect assertions or incomplete arguments, the more they are likely to rebel.

In this respect, Murphy may have been on the money when, in her piece about the media’s efforts to expose Trump, she said: “Our efforts to make things better could be making things worse.”