Antinuclear

Australia’s “Murdochracy” and the grab of Aboriginal land

The Murdoch press has been the most lurid and vociferous in promoting the “intervention”, which a United Nations special rapporteur has condemned for its racial discrimination….There is an old-fashioned colonial grab of mineral-rich land in the Northern Territory 

How the Murdoch press keeps Australia’s dirty secret , New Statesman, John Pilger 12 May 2011 News Corp papers across the world propagate the myth that prejudice has no effect on the lives of modern-day Aboriginal people n his native land, Australia, Murdoch controls 70 per cent of the capital city press.

The illegal eavesdropping on well-known people by the News of the World is said to be Rupert Murdoch’s Watergate. But is it the crime by which Murdoch ought to be known? In his native land, Australia, Murdoch controls 70 per cent of the capital city press and the only national newspaper. Australia is the world’s first murdochracy, in which smear by media is power.

The most enduring and insidious Murdoch campaign has been against the Aboriginal people, who were dispossessed by the arrival of the British in the late 18th century and have never been allowed to recover……..

Political power in Australia often rests in the control of resource-rich land. Most of the uran­ium, iron ore, gold, oil and natural gas is in Western Australia and the Northern Territory – on Aboriginal land. Indeed, Aboriginal “prog­ress” is all but defined by the mining industry and its political guardians in both Labor and coalition (conservative) governments. Their faithful, strident voice is the Murdoch press……..

Andrew Bolt, columnist on Murdoch’s Melbourne Herald Sun tabloid, is the defendant in a racial vilification case brought by nine prominent Aborigines, including Larissa Behrendt, a professor of law and indigenous studies in Sydney. Behrendt has been an authoritative and outspoken opponent of Howard’s 2007 “emergency intervention” in the Northern Territory, which the Labor government of Julia Gillard has reinforced. The rationale to “intervene” was that child abuse among Aborigines was in “unthinkable numbers”. This was a fraud. Out of 7,433 Aboriginal children examined by doctors, four possible cases were identified – about the rate of child abuse in white Australia. There is an old-fashioned colonial grab of mineral-rich land in the Northern Territory where Aboriginal land rights were granted in 1976.

The Murdoch press has been the most lurid and vociferous in promoting the “intervention”, which a United Nations special rapporteur has condemned for its racial discrimination. Once again, Australian politicians are dispossessing the first inhabitants, demanding leasehold of land in return for health and education rights that white people take for granted and driving them into “economically viable hubs” where they will be effectively detained – a form of apartheid.

The despair and outrage of most Aboriginal people is not heard. For using her institutional voice and exposing the government’s black supporters, Larissa Behrendt has been subjected to a vicious campaign of innuendo in the Murdoch press, including the implication that she is not a “real” Aborigine. Deploying the language of its soulmate the Sun, the Australian derides the “abstract debate” of “land rights, apologies, treaties” as a “moralising mumbo-jumbo spreading like a virus”. The aim is to silence those who dare tell Australia’s dirty secret.

New Statesman – How the Murdoch press keeps Australia’s dirty secret

May 13, 2011 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | aboriginal issues, AUSTRALIA - NATIONAL, media