Wik, the press and public debate

Query: Wik, the press and public debate

Author: Joanna Sassoon <jsassoon@CYLLENE.UWA.EDU.AU>
Date: Wed, 23 Apr 1997 10:34:13 +1200

Date Sent: Tuesday 22 April 1997

With regards to the Wik debate I am searching for answers to the following questions.

Has anyone noticed the lack of real debate in the media regarding the post Wik discussions? Has this something to do with media magnates' ownership of pastoral leases?
Why the silence from the academe on the issues surrounding Wik particularly as we public servants are in effect gagged from public debate?
What relevance is the concept of certainty to Wik? Does not certainty, as Marcia Langton asked on RN the other day, relate to a different agenda, and that what pastoralists want in the way of certainty is the transfer of their leases from leasehold to freehold. The current Wik debate is an opportune moment for them to run with this agenda to confuse the general public, but what relevance does it have to the Wik decision?
What precisely is the problem with co-existence for the pastoral leaseholders?

I'd be interested in ideas, but if your time is limited, please do write to the decision-makers and articles of publishable length for the press. I urge you all take this opportunity to use the clout that you have to contribute to the public debate in whatever way you can.

These are my views and not those of my employer, whose identity is not reflected in my email address.

Reply: Wik, the press and public debate

Author: Donna McLachlan, Producer, Frontier Online <frontier@YOUR.ABC.NET.AU>
Date: Wed, 30 Apr 1997 11:02:28 +1200

Date Sent: Tuesday 29 April 1997

Last week Joanna Sassoon wrote:

"With regards to the Wik debate I am searching for answers to the following questions.

Has anyone noticed the lack of real debate in the media regarding the post Wik discussions? Has this something to do with media magnates' ownership of pastoral leases?
Why the silence from the academe on the issues surrounding Wik particularly as we public servants are in effect gagged from public debate?
What relevance is the concept of certainty to Wik? Does not certainty, as Marcia Langton asked on RN the other day, relate to a different agenda, and that what pastoralists want in the way of certainty is the transfer of their leases from leasehold to freehold. The current Wik debate is an opportune moment for them to run with this agenda to confuse the general public, but what relevance does it have to the Wik decision?
What precisely is the problem with co-existence for the pastoral leaseholders?

These are my views and not those of my employer, whose identity is not reflected in my email address."

In reply, Donna McLachlan writes:

"Just thinking back to your questions of 23 April. Why don't you post them on the Frontier Website? There's a Guestbook open 24hrs a day for continuing debate, comment, opinion, and users are writing in it regularly."

I think you would get some replies to your questions, though it would be from a wider range of people.

Reply: Wik, the press and public debate

Author: Norman Etherington <nether@cyllene.uwa.edu.au>
Date: Thu, 1 May 1997 13:15:23 +1200

Date Sent: Wednesday 30 April 1997

A general problem with academic comment on the debate is that most of us who know something about dispossession of indigenous peoples and Colonial Office intentions in the 19th century, are not so well informed about the history of pastoral leases.

Another problem arises from the successful propagation of the myth of the bushman as the embodiment of Aussie nationalism. Historians have more than a little to answer for in this respect. Today, the average Australian's idea of the "man who belongs to the land" is a ruddy-faced bloke in a 4 wheel drive, pausing to open the stock gate on his property. This is so widespread that it has become possible for the media to do what would have been impossible on the basis of historical documentation: to present the Aborigine as the alien Other who threatens to dispossess people of their ancient patrimony.

It would be virtually impossible now to make the media take up the alternative proposition that might be phrased along the following lines: "Although they number less than 20,000 of Australia's population of 17 million, they are laying claim to 42% of the continent, which they refuse to share. Unlike ordinary Australians, who must face up to the harsh consequences of unemployment or business failure, their powerful lobbyists have been successful in shielding them from the hazards of their environment. When drought comes along, or interest rates get too high, they rely on the government for relief that is not normally given to any other group. During the last drought they angrily denounced Prime Minister Keating for failing to cry over their desperate plight. Who are this privileged tribal minority? They are the Pastorali Tribe, the pastoral leaseholders who continue to exercise power out of all proportion to their numbers."

Reply: Wik, the press and public debate

Author: Ann McGrath <A.McGrath@unsw.EDU.AU>
Date: Fri, 2 May 1997 10:27:32 +1200

Date Sent: Thursday 1 May 1997

I liked Norman E's comments re Aussie pastoral legend; Borbidge's 'the bush' is a white space and the rhetoric has powerful resonances for most Australians. One of my colleagues suggested I mention my interventions on Wik, so I will; they might be useful to teaching too. 'A Fair Share of Pastoral Land', appeared in the Sydney Morning Herald, Jan 21, 1997, and another article in The Courier Mail, 28 February 1997. A paper was delivered the same day at a Conference on Wik held by the Humanities Research Centre, Sydney and they are publishing that soon. Paul Patton is the contact person. I recall that Henry Reynolds published something in the Australian immediately after the Wik decision was announced, on the inside politics.

Nonetheless, it's somewhat embarrassing to see artists, novelists, actors, art historians getting together to protest and our own historical organisations doing little, or so it would appear. I'll be glad to be wrong here. And I'll be glad to assist if the AHA would consider taking a stance/making a statement.

Reply: Wik, the press and public debate

Author: Ian Campbell, University of Canterbury <hist024@CANTVA.CANTERBURY.AC.NZ>
Date: Fri, 2 May 1997 11:14:11 +1200

Date Sent: Friday 2 May 1997

Ann McGrath writes:

"Nonetheless, it's somewhat embarrassing to see artists, novelists, actors, art historians getting together to protest and our own historical organisations doing little, or so it would appear. I'll be glad to be wrong here. And I'll be glad to assist if the AHA would consider taking a stance/making a statement."

Please, let's not have a purportedly "correct" statement from a self-appointed professional organization claiming absolute authority. The American Historical Association did this for the Columbus half-millenium commemoration in 1992. I thought it was as embarrassing as the old triumphalist views that everyone now rightly condemns, and will probably date just as much, in time.

Professional organizations like the AHA exist to promote the professional interests of the members, not to proclaim Truth from time to time. The idea of any such body purportedly speaking for its membership on matters of historical fact and interpretation is a bad one. By all means let's accept the proposition that if we know something about a subject and if that subject is politically or socially important, we have an obligation to inform the public, but we have to do that as individuals, because our expertise (both technical and factual) is an exclusively individual property.

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