Thugs Unrepentant

Last Thursday was Australia Day. As is traditional on such days, various honours are given out - the Order of Australia (Australia's equivalent of the OBE, MBE, knighthoods etc. in Britain).

The Australian Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, and the Leader of the Opposition, Tony Abbott, were both in Canberra to present awards to members of the State Emergency Services.

Near to the awards ceremony there is the Aboriginal Tent Embassy. Wikipedia describes it thus.

The Aboriginal Tent Embassy is a controversial semi-permanent assemblage claiming to represent the political rights of Australian Aborigines. It is made of a group of activists, signs and tents that reside on the lawn of Old Parliament House in Canberra, the Australian capital. It is not considered an official embassy by the Australian Government.

Love the sotto voce in the last line. It's not a real embassy, huh? No kidding?

Essentially it's a hovel where a bunch of Aboriginal activists engage in a permanent protest against a range of causes relating to Aboriginal rights in one form or another. It's also been there since 1972.

No, really.

Now, dear reader, you may be forgiven for thinking that such an institution is likely to represent the worst excesses of a permanent grievance culture that views racial politics as a zero-sum game. You may think that a permanent slum encampment has no place on the lawn of Old Parliament House, if only as a matter of aesthetics. You may think that any protest movement that has been around for nearly 40 years has probably outlived its social usefulness.

And these would all be thoroughly defensible views.

One person who did not espouse those views, however, was Tony Abbott. Earlier in the week he had given a radio interview where he was asked about it. His thoroughly reasonable reply was as follows.

“Look, I can understand why the tent embassy was established all those years ago. I think a lot has changed for the better since then. We had the historic apology just a few years ago, one of the genuine achievements of Kevin Rudd as Prime Minister. We had the proposal, which is currently for national consideration, to recognise indigenous people in the constitution. I think the indigenous people of Australia can be very proud of the respect in which they are held by every Australian, and, yes, I think a lot’s changed since then and I think it probably is time to move on from that.”

The tent embassy was set up originally to protest the lack of land rights. Australia now has native title, and more's the pity, but it has it nonetheless.

Overall, his statement seems jolly reasonable.

So what happened next?

One of the four press secretaries for the Prime Minister, Tony Hodges, decided that this was an excellent opportunity to stir up some racially motivated bad press. He called UnionsACT secretary Kim Sattler, who circulated among the protesters at the tent embassy that Tony Abbott had called for the embassy to be torn down.

He hadn't, of course.

But so what did these fine examples of civic society do?

When the protesters interrupted a medal ceremony for courageous emergency services personnel involved in the Queensland floods and Victorian bushfires, their behaviour was vile.

“Who f ... ing cares? They’re not our heroes,” yelled one of the first tent embassy people to arrive.

Then, spotting the Opposition Leader, she screamed: “Tony Abbott, you f ... ing big-eared Dumbo c. .t”.

This was followed by more obscenities directed at Prime Minister Julia Gillard. Things went downhill from there.

Originally Gillard got some sympathy for the affair, before it became known that her own press secretary had organised the whole thing.

He's now her ex-press secretary.

Meanwhile, Kim Sattler decided that valor was the better part of discretion:

She also posted on her now-deleted Facebook page that “Tony Abbott is like your typical bar-room brawler who starts a fight and then disappears like a coward when it is in full swing.”

Then she went into hiding

This ingenious strategy was clearly taken directly from the pages of military genius Sun Tzu:

To begin by bluster, but afterwards to take fright at the enemy's numbers, shows a supreme lack of intelligence.

Indeed.

There's so much shame to go around in this sorry and sordid spectacle that it's hard to know where to start.

A lot of the blame has deservedly focused on Tony Hodges, the genius mastermind behind the plan to incite the tent embassy protesters by misrepresenting Abbott's words. There's a lot of questioning, as in all these cases, whether he acted alone, or whether other Labor Party figures were involved. Andrew Bolt has a number of questions for the PM, none of which I ( or likely he) expects to get an answer to.

Tim Blair nails the media, for repeating the false accusation that Tony Abbott had called for the embassy to be shut down, without bothering to even check the transcript of what he'd actually said. He focuses a lot on the fact that the protesters went off their trolley over statements that hadn't even been said, without bothering to investigate them first.

And while the actions of the Prime Minister's office are clearly despicable in terms of trying to ineptly foster racial antagonism in a weak attempt to embarrass the opposition, a subtler point seems to have gone less remarked on.  

A lot of people are focusing on the role of the Prime Minister in duping the tent embassy folks:

Territory Indigenous Affairs Minister Malarndirri McCarthy wants Prime Minister Julia Gillard to apologise for the Aboriginal tent embassy clashes in Canberra.

The former ABC journalist and newsreader says Julia Gillard should apologise to the nation, Federal Opposition Leader Tony Abbott and the tent embassy organisers.

Let's suppose that Abbott had actually called for the tent embassy to be shut down. I would still be equally outraged that this bunch of rabble thought that this was cause to violently mob the Prime Minister such that she needed to be evacuated by the police.

Let's replay the tape once more:

“Who f ... ing cares? They’re not our heroes,” yelled one of the first tent embassy people to arrive.

Then, spotting the Opposition Leader, she screamed: “Tony Abbott, you f ... ing big-eared Dumbo c. .t”.

The whole assumption is that the tent embassy folks were so incensed by the alleged statements that they had no option but to act like a mob of violent scumbags, abusing heroic emergency services workers and physically attacking Australia's elected leaders.

The tent embassy folks aren't children. They aren't psychopaths on hair trigger alert. They're adults, and they're completely responsible for their disgusting actions. They aren't in a position to demand apologies from anyone. Their repulsive behavior is the absolute best evidence that the tent embassy should  be shut down, because it appears to be populated by dangerous and violent buffoons who think this kind of response is acceptable in a democracy.

Do you think the tent embassy folks appear to have realised the folly of their ways? Let's ask tent embassy founder Michael Anderson

Mr Anderson said he believed the protest incident outside the restaurant on Thursday was a set-up.

''Someone set us up. They set the prime minister up. They set Abbott up,'' he said.

''And they knew that feelings and emotions were running high here and I think they knew that reaction would occur.''

Mr Anderson said that person would face retribution under Aboriginal law.

''And whoever it was that really promoted that confrontation, we need to take them through the cleaners.

''And I'd like them to hand them back when they finish under White Man law, give him under our law so we can put him under our law as well.''

The 'someone set me up' line has been famously tried before as a defense for being a giant @$$hole, and it didn't work then either.  

Listen to this self-pitying fool. It's all a huge injustice against him and the rest of the tent embassy folks. Note the ridiculously self-serving obscuring of subject and object:

'And they knew that feelings and emotions were running high here and I think they knew that reaction would occur.

'That reaction would occur'. Not 'we acted like cretins and hooligans', but 'reactions would occur'. Another example of what Theodore Dalrymple aptly characterised as 'The Knife Went In'.

And whoever it was that really promoted that confrontation, we need to take them through the cleaners.

''And I'd like them to hand them back when they finish under White Man law, give him under our law so we can put him under our law as well.'

Screw off, Michael Anderson, you dishonest hack. The folks at the tent embassy are the ones that 'really promoted that confrontation'. I believe the words you're looking for are 'Tony Abbott, we're really sorry that we attacked you for no good reason.' Anything else you have to say without uttering that phrase is merely adding insult to injury.

If the only person who faces police scrutiny out of this whole mess is Tony Hodges, it will be a gross injustice. There was a whole media crew there. There's footage available. The laws for disorderly conduct are clear. Charge the lot of them.