Popular Australian Conservative Commentator Found Guilty of Violating Discrimination Law
- Posted on September 28, 2011 at 7:03am by
Billy Hallowell
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CANBERRA, Australia (AP) — A popular right-wing commentator was found guilty Wednesday of breaking Australian discrimination law by implying that fair-skinned Aborigines chose to identify as indigenous for profit and career advancement.
Federal Court Justice Mordy Bromberg ruled that fair-skinned Aborigines were likely to have been “offended, insulted, humiliated or intimidated by the imputations” included in columnist Andrew Bolt’s two articles published by the Herald Sun newspaper in Melbourne in 2009.
Bromberg ruled out Bolt and his publisher’s defense under a clause of the Racial Discrimination Act that exempts “fair comment.” Bromberg said he will prohibit reproduction of the offending articles and will consider ordering the newspaper to publish a correction if it doesn’t print an apology.
Bolt, who writes opinion pieces for newspapers around Australia and hosts a nationally broadcast weekly public affairs television program, described the ruling as a defeat for freedom of speech.
Andrew Bolt
“This is a terrible day for free speech in this country,” he told reporters outside court. “It is particularly a restriction on the freedom of all Australians to discuss multiculturalism and how people identify themselves.”
Publisher Herald and Weekly Times Pty. Ltd., a subsidiary of Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp., said it was considering lodging an appeal.
“We defended the action because we believe that all Australians ought to have the right to express their opinions freely, even where their opinions are controversial or unpopular,” the publisher said in a statement.
But Aboriginal activist Pat Eatock, who filed the court action, said Bolt’s two articles “were not professional journalism.”
“He set out to offend from the word ‘go,’” she said.
The judge said his orders would not suggest it was illegal to challenge the genuineness of people’s racial identification. Bolt and the newspaper broke the law because the articles “contained errors of fact, distortions of the truth and inflammatory and provocative language,” Bromberg said.
Australian Press Council chairman Julian Disney, who heads the print media’s self-regulatory watchdog, welcomed the judge’s decision to leave racial identification open to media scrutiny.
“I think there would be a very clear and worrying risk to free speech and I think also to eventual social cohesion if … this case was seen as establishing a no-go area,” Disney told Australian Broadcasting Corp. radio.
Bolt’s articles, headlined “It’s so hip to be black“ and ”White fellas in the black,” named 18 prominent Australians of mixed heritage whom Bolt wrote were part of a trend of choosing to be identified as Aboriginal.
Nine of them joined the court action, testifying that none “chose” to be Aboriginal. The plaintiffs, who included indigenous academics, business people, an author and an artist, said they had all identified as being indigenous since childhood.
Some were in the Melbourne court room on Wednesday and cheered when Bromberg made his ruling.
The Bolt articles touch on public concerns in Australia that people who do not appear obviously Aboriginal benefit from government programs designed to lift Australia’s indigenous population out of poverty.
Aborigines make up 2.3 percent of Australia‘s 23 million people and are the nation’s most impoverished ethnic group. They die more than a decade younger than other Australians and endure higher rates of disease, joblessness and imprisonment.
The Racial Discrimination Act became law in 1975 under Australia’s multicultural policy to protect minorities against intolerance. It is not enforced by prison sentences or fines, but enables judges to make orders to correct breaches.
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COASTIE90
Posted on September 28, 2011 at 4:25pmI served 23 years in the US military for people to have the right to say what they want without censorship. I may not like nor agree with their speech, but I will defend their right to say or write it.
Report Post »SpankDaMonkey
Posted on September 28, 2011 at 2:52pm.
Report Post »We are all gonna end up in jail lol………………..
Anamah
Posted on September 28, 2011 at 3:25pmWe will…
Report Post »thegreatcarnac
Posted on September 28, 2011 at 10:43amWhite people made these western nations…like Australia. We need to take them back. Destroy the anti-white racist. Burn the nations down and start all over. Enough is Enough.
Report Post »vennoye
Posted on September 28, 2011 at 10:14amFreedom of speech is the lynchpin!! If we lose freedom of speech, then all other freedom can be taken away easier. Political correctness was supposed to shut us up! That‘s why political correctness can’t win.
Report Post »bigfatslob
Posted on September 28, 2011 at 8:31amThe Aussie 1975 law is similar to our terrible overreaching laws ei; affirmative action, voter rights law, etc.. So when Mr. Bolt says that blacks are the new whites and that whites are the new blacks, it exposes the reverse discrimination much like the racists bake sale in our universities. Now Mr. Bolt is a writer not a company boss or school president but a writer , and he CAN’T speak his mind ??? Austrailia is gone, Australia IS Western Europe.
Report Post »green_manalishi
Posted on September 28, 2011 at 8:06amSue this Diggi. Hey I”m A Seppo ( Yank) working in Australia right now and Andrew Bolt is True Blue Ossie and Too Right in his opinion. There is a group in Australia that thumbs its nose at working, paying taxes, sending their kids to free school, spends the majority of their time staggering drunk, ( if you doubt it, get on a plane right now and see for youself), begs white people for money and bashes them without consequence ( been there and seen it) gets lifetime payment from the government in return for lifetime support of Labor ( Julia ******), gets free housing and health care ( Now that you’ve drunk your kidney usless well give you that New White Kidney for free) Constantly protests the existence of Australia ( but not Austrlian welfare) and now thinks its above comentary. A Judical Decision Does Not Make it Right, Ask Nat Dread
Report Post »biohazard23
Posted on September 28, 2011 at 8:12amWow, that sounds like Detroit (or Philly, Oakland, Miami…). From what I hear, Detroit is doing so bad that Haiti is throwing them a benefit concert…..
Gee, I wonder how well received the diversity bake sale would be in Oz? ;)
Report Post »BSdetector
Posted on September 28, 2011 at 7:56amFree speech is under attack is nearly a thing of the past in the “Western” world.
Report Post »grudgywoof
Posted on September 28, 2011 at 7:33amOver my dead body! This is why we must stand up, speak, and have courage. It will not happen here as long as “we the people” don’t let it. Austrailia was a penal colony and it looks like it’s becoming one again.
Report Post »absolutely
Posted on September 28, 2011 at 8:06amAnother case of give them money and lift them out of poverty. It has never worked and never will. Forget that he was exposing this by highlighting that even people you wouldn’t suspect of being aboriginal were riding the system, free money, why not? Send be some, I tan up pretty good. Absolutely
Report Post »NuffSaid
Posted on September 28, 2011 at 7:28amWelcome to the New World, Australia, where RACE is just another FASHION ACCESSORY.
Except this little “bling” can be used as a deadly weapon especially when the other person isn’t armed.
In the US, the Democratic Party Africans re-vitalized racism in this country for the sole and short term purpose of energizing what the US African, President himself described as the “bed room slipper” vote.
Get back to your basics, study your history and keep your social limit lines drawn.
Otherwise your history, your national pride, your culture and your future will be castrated and feminized and everything that you created for yourselves and your posterity will become just another affectation.
The new wave, the racially accessorized people of the future, will wipe away your Australia like so much lip-stick on a 5-dollar whore.
Trust me, Is just a fashion. Challenge the mixed races fops with real will and they will run back to their holes.
Report Post »loriann12
Posted on September 28, 2011 at 7:40amAnd how is this different from Obama using lighting to make himself appear more “black” when in front of a black audience, while speaking a dumbed down form of American English, and then using lighting to make himself appear more “white” in front of white audiences while speaking perfect American English? It’s a way to game the system, garner an advantage, any way they can. It would be like me (1/32 Blackfoot, 1/16 Osage and a trace of Cherokee) claiming I’m Native American to get in on the Casino money.
Report Post »NuffSaid
Posted on September 28, 2011 at 8:04amMore like LORIANN12, please.
I‘m not talking about more comments like LORIANN12’s,
Report Post »more people like LORIANN12, please.
Rorchach
Posted on September 28, 2011 at 7:17amWe are next!
Report Post »vennoye
Posted on September 28, 2011 at 10:06amNot if we don’t allow ourselves to be next!!!
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