Dear Andrew ...

Mr Andrew Bolt
Herald-Sun Newspaper
PO Box 14999,
Melbourne City MC, 8001

Dear Andrew,

I imagine your columns are read by roughly a million more people than read mine. So, lest you think that what follows is motivated by professional jealousy, let me assure you that I would chew my right arm off to achieve the readership figures that you enjoy. And in the unlikely event of this happening, I will try desperately hard to restrain myself from using my perch on a super-size soapbox to launch bitter, personal attacks.

Perhaps minnows shouldn’t give advice to the big fish, but I’m going to have a go anyway. As it happens, I write quite a bit about Indigenous issues so I thought that you might be interested in a few reflections. In any case, you seem to have a remarkably thick skin, so I’m sure you won’t take offence.

My experience - for what it’s worth - is that it takes white fellas like us about two years of serious work to realise that we know absolutely nothing about Indigenous Australia. Then, if we move carefully and slowly, I think it’s possible over time to gain a basic grasp of how things work. But don’t get down-hearted. Wasn’t it Socrates who recognised the value of “knowing that we do not know”? When you reach this point you’re actually on the right track.

But it seems to me that you’ve still got quite a way to go. On Wednesday, April 12, you offered your readers a nasty little epistle entitled “Ferals run Amok”. I felt you appointed Camp Sovereignty spokesman Robbie Thorpe devil incarnate, and went at him like a dog worrying a postman. Yes, Thorpe is given to bursts of hyperbole - but he’s not Robinson Crusoe there, is he Andrew?

In fact I was going to suggest it might be a case of “the pot calling the kettle black”. But on reflection I thought I’d avoid clichés about colour, because it seems that the issue is one of deep sensitivity for you.

Remember your observation that “not even a third of the 150 illegal campers [at Kings Domain] looked even tanned”. What were you trying to say? Is it your view that Europeans have no business campaigning for Indigenous justice?

Or were you trying to make the point that you like your black fellas “proper-job”? Would you have preferred to see 150 charcoal-skinned warriors, silhouetted against the Kings Domain sunset, right foot on left knee, holding a brace of spears and speaking in staccato bursts of language? A romantic vision Andrew, but the world’s not like that anymore, and we all have to move on.

In any case, why are you so concerned that many children with an Aboriginal parent or grandparent identify as Aboriginal themselves?

These children are often raised in remarkably supportive - if not materially comfortable - extended family environments, and grow up accepted by all concerned as Indigenous.

There’s nothing sinister about it.

It strikes me as odd that someone in your powerful position should find this so threatening. Why for example do you refer to the “pale-skinned” Michael Mansell? And when you describe him as the “legal” manager of the Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre, what extra information do you intend this word to convey?

Perhaps you ought to give this all some thought.

Anyway, I reckon you fell over your own feet when you took a poke at Graham Atkinson.

Remember how you may have misrepresented his position in an apparent effort to recruit him to your vendetta against Camp Sovereignty? You had suggested that he thought of the protestors as “blow-ins who are causing trouble”.

Atkinson corrected your errors in his letter to the editor a few days later. You responded the following week with what seems a remarkably intemperate and personal attack.

In fact, Andrew, you were way out of line.

Just to set the record straight, Graham Atkinson is not your average knockabout Koorie. His Bachelor of Social Work and Bachelor of Arts degrees were awarded by Melbourne University. He completed his Masters of Business Administration at RMIT in 1994. He’s a busy professional who runs his own consultancy.

In his “spare time”, Graham is co-chair of the Victorian Traditional Owner Land Justice Group and chair of Native Title Services Victoria.

He had previously co-ordinated the Indigenous Studies elective for social work students at the University of Melbourne and chaired the Darebin Koori Employment Services Network.

But I should, as they say in this caper, declare a personal interest. I’ve met Graham on a couple of occasions, and - for a pointy-head - he’s surprisingly good company at the footy. Though I must concede that his refusal to support the Mighty Saints did give me occasion to doubt his acumen.

At half-time we chatted a bit about politics. For what it’s worth, I was impressed by his considered approach and his restrained use of language.

Indeed, if the extravagant pronouncements of some Indigenous leaders get on your wick as much as you suggest, you could do worse than seek to have a chat with him yourself.

It’s a tricky business for white fellas like ourselves to write about Indigenous issues, but luckily help is at hand.

You’ll kick yourself for not twigging it earlier, but the best source of information about this sort of stuff turns out to be the Aboriginal people themselves.

So don’t be afraid to ask them. Just be polite - and prepared to be the butt of some gentle jokes from time to time.

In my experience, most Indigenous Australians are a lot less angry than they are entitled to be.

Incidentally, if you’re looking for Gurnai country you’d do much better heading to the east of Melbourne than the west, as you implied in the “Ferals” piece. But don’t take my word for it. Ask Gurnai man Robbie Thorpe - he’ll tell you where to go.

Yours fraternally
Graham Ring
National Indigenous Times