Thoughts on Freedom

 Last Sunday, i took my eight year-old son and father-in-law for an evening fishing trip on Sydney’s Middle Harbour. As we motored past a good spot for bream and flathead near Castle Rock beach, my father-in-law suddenly yelled to me to turn sharp right. Two guys were fishing no more than 20 yards in front of us sat in a little tinny anchored up in a main shipping channel. There were no lights on the boat, the only illumination coming from a hand-held torch inside the boat. Without the moon, Sydney Harbour is pitch black. It was a very near miss.

Early yesterday morning, a bunch of partying youngsters were not so lucky. Their boat was hit by a fishing trawler near Bradley’s Head and six of those on board died. It was a tragic accident. Our prayers are with the relatives of those who lost their children. I cannot imagine how they must be feeling today.

But a ‘tragic accident’ is not good enough for our salacious media.  They need an angle and that means finding someone or something to blame. The local papers repeatedly quote a local fisherman, Andrew Ogle, who claims that he was ‘deeply concerned” about overcowding and too much alcohol and predicted that ‘there goes tomorrow’s front page story’.  Already our sympathies are checked - alcohol?   overcrowding?  stolen boat? too fast? (‘the boat roared off engines screaming’).  Bloody hoons.

But let’s save our damning commentary until the inquest is held. Let’s leave open the possibility that this might just have been a tragic accident where no-one is to blame. And please, for the love of God, let’s not introduce yet more regulations for those wishing to use Sydney’s beautiful waterways.

NSW secretary of the Australian Institute of Marine and Power Engineers, Andrew Williamson is clear that more regulation is needed. He won’t wait for the findings of the inquest to be aired. He knows who is to blame. “It is an indictment of NSW Maritime that we have had 10 deaths [on the harbour] in two years on their watch. If we want to stop people killing themselves on the harbour, reform is what has got to happen.”

Mr. Williamson - you are a fucking idiot and a fucking disgrace.

Update I - the inevitable cry of ’something must be done’ just got louder.  

It certainly is very easy to obtain a boat license in NSW. Applicants have to take a written test but unlike a car, no practical test is required.  But this is a red herring. Boating deaths are not caused by new drivers failing to remember 100 pages of theory or being unable to reverse into a tight mooring space. They are caused by carelessness, drunkenness, stupidity and bad luck - none of which can be reduced by more regulation. 

Victorian schools are being encouraged to begin assemblies with a ‘Welcome to Country’ ceremony acknowledging the traditional Aboriginal owners of the land.

Victorian Principals Association President, Fred Ackerman, heartily encouraged the trend describing it as ‘good practice, and appropriate’. 

To illustrate the offensivenss of this ‘appropriate good practice’, let’s take an example from my home country.  Imagine if schools in England began their assemblies by reminding England’s growing population of Arabs, Pakistanis, Indians, Chinese, Slavs and Africans to ‘respectfully acknowledge the [Angles, Saxons, Danes, Jutes, Normans and Celts] who are the traditional owners and custodians of the land on which we stand.’ 

Fair enough?  No, of course not. It would be rightly slammed as offensive, divisive and appallingly racist.  One of the great features of citizenship in England and in Australia (i thought) is that all are equal in the eyes of the law. This new direction would mean judging people by the colour of their skin rather than their personality; it would mean valuing them on the basis of their ancestors not themselves. It would be racism and it would be wrong.

So why is it ok in Australia?

In July, i am due to take my Citizenship Test, having been a permanent resident in this fine country for two years. Am i right in thinking that i will be a second class citizen in Australia because i am not ‘indigenous’?

Andrew Bolt has more.

Update I - my sincerest apologies for using the word ‘indigenous‘. I hadn’t realised that it is no longer politically acceptable to use it. I wasn’t aware that it ‘robbed the traditional owners of Australia of an identity’. Won’t happen again.

Update II - thanks to Andrew Bolt for the link to this post.  Check out the comments section for an ancient English history lesson!