I Hope Australia Wins the Rugby World Cup - There, I Said It!

Lately I've been starting to think that Australia doesn't like us Kiwi's very much; yes the whole country, or at least it's starting to look that way, especially as we get closer to the rugby world cup final and Australian sports fans contemplate the joys of playing the All Blacks. Not being a fan of rugby I generally don't care about the outcome of test matches, except games between these two teams because regardless of the outcome I know I am going to get crap from some of my Aussie mates: if we lose it's a week of pathetic sheep shagger comments, of Kiwi sportspeople being chokers, etc, etc.  And it's no better if we win, because the comments swap to us Kiwi's being arrogant, poor winners if by chance even the slightest hint of a smile should cross my lips anytime over the next few days. I have a good Aussie friend who told me earlier this year that he didn't go to the pub to watch the games anymore because he was "sick of all the arrogant Kiwi's carrying on if the AB's win". I've tried to be sympathetic, but I simply can't be because it is obvious to me that he is mistaking joy and humble pride with arrogance because let's face it, as an Aussie rugby fan he hasn't enjoyed either of those feelings too often over the past 8 years or so of regular hidings from the men in black.

Although I am not a fan I will still be rooting for the All Black's to win, but a small part of me, deep in my gut, would be happy for an Aussie win, just so I can avoid the whining and crying of my sports obsessed Aussie mates, all of whom seem to possess a gene from birth that makes them believe that their country should dominate New Zealand in all sports. For my Aussie male friends, it seems to be an affront to their fragile masculinity anytime we beat them in either of the main rugby codes.  And so it has been a particularly painful time for them since 2008, and for me who has to listen to hours of excuses about the grass being too long, of Ritchie McCaw being offside, etc, etc.

But one particular reason why I wouldn't be upset if the Aussies won is because now my friends have a new jibe to throw into the mix of insults and moans they can deploy against my fragile psych, namely the fact that we Kiwi's are a bunch of violent, criminal thugs who should, and are being deported at an increasing rate back to New Zealand. I am referring to the fact that recent changes to legislation in Australia make it easier for officials to deport New Zealander's with criminal histories back to the homeland.

In summary, the facts are these (for more detailed information on this issue and related to the permanent residency and visa issues for New Zealander's I recommend you access the following Facebook page of Vicky Rose, manager of the Nerang Neighbourhood Centre,https://www.facebook.com/votevicky/): 

• recent changes to legislation means that New Zealander's either on a visa (no, you do not automatically become a permanent resident upon arrival), or indeed who is a permanent  resident can have their visa/status revoked due to criminal offending;
• your visa can be revoked and you can be deported back to New Zealand if you commit an offence that results in a prison sentence of 1 year or more;
• your visa can be revoked if you fail what is called the 'bad character test', meaning that you can be deported if you have served prison sentences that accumulate to 1 year or more timed serviced (for example, 2 sentences of six months, or 3 sentences of say 3-4 months each); and
• you can also be deported if you are a permanent resident; if you have been one for less than ten years then once again, your status can be revoked if you are sentenced to a term in prison of 1 year or more.

The numbers of New Zealander's currently being held under these powers varies, but it appears that as of late October 2015 there are up to 200 New Zealander's being held in detention centres both around Australia, and, of particular concern to some, in this country's offshore detention centres, such as Christmas Island.  This fact is of concern to some because it is in these institutions that the Australian government detains refugee's, or as government officials prefer to call them, 'illegal economic migrants'; people fleeing countries experiencing civil war, or war perpetrated against them by Australia and its 'coalition of who gives a sh&t about international law'.

The rhetoric offered by government officials and member of Cabinet, including Prime Minister Turnbull when commenting on this issue to the media, usually consists of one or all of the following justifications:

1. the people being detained and deported are serious offenders who pose a risk to the community;
2. their deportation is important for 'keeping Australia safe'; and
3. there is a process in place for review of the deportation process, which is open to all those detained.

However, the reality of who is being detained, their offending histories, and the process itself, exposes the self-serving nature of these justifications.

For a start, not all of the people detained and awaiting deportation are serious offenders, unless of course you consider people with low-level property offending, fraud, dishonesty-type offences as being a 'serious risk to the community'.  A nuisance yes, a serious threat? Probably not. And the reality is that many of those already deported and awaiting deportation fall into this category. Remember, you don't have to have committed a serious offence, such as one of the raft of violence related, or drug related offences; you can in fact be deported for a series of non-violent, and therefore in my opinion, non-serious offences which accumulate to 1 year or more time served in prison, to have your visa revoked under the character test. But this little inconvenient truth is often neatly passed over by officials and Cabinet Minister's, many of whom appear to be happy to erroneously portray the New Zealander's affected by the process as a bunch of violent, dangerous thugs.  Yes, some of them are, but many others are not.

Second, given some of the cases reported in New Zealand media of late, one has to question the veracity, indeed the ethics of the review process.  Take for example the recent case reported in the New Zealand Herald of a 56 year-old quadriplegic man deported with nothing but $200 and an accommodation voucher, but with no friends or family to take care of him when  he arrived.  This man had lived in Australia for 36 years before having his visa withdrawn.  His 'serious crime(s)' that demonstrated he was a danger to the Australian community?  Self-medicating drugs, painkillers for which he served 2 sentences totalling 13 months of prison time. Surely an ethical, just review process, as opposed to one that exists for appearances only, took into account the fact that a) his offending did not victimise others, b) his obvious health issues, and c) the social circumstances he faced if deported?  Sadly, or perhaps predictably, it did not.

Or what about Angela Russell, a 40 year-old who had lived in Australia for 37 years after moving from New Zealand as a child?  Her children, a boy aged 4 and a girl aged 17, are both Australian citizens. But 2 weeks before her release date from a short stint of imprisonment, she received a letter from the Australian government informing her she was to be deported because she had failed a 'character test'.

Ms Russell's is not the only incident where New Zealander's who have been, or are about to be deported, who are what some criminologists refer to as life-course persistent offenders.  They also have something else in common, the fact that they came to Australia at a very young age, and face deportation 15, 20 or even 30 years later. And it is this practice that reveals to me both the condescension and contradictions behind the Australian government's rationale for the process, and its ethical flaws.  In deporting such people, the Australian government is not exporting back to New Zealand  a crime, community safety and risk problem created by, or in New Zealand: in actuality the Australian government is exporting their crime problem to New Zealand. The condescension behind the Australian government's attempts to justify the process is evident in the fact that officials, and no doubt some Minister's of the Crown, are fully aware that they are exporting to New Zealand a problem created by the social, cultural and political environment of their country. They are cynically using their recently reconstituted 'white Australia' immigration and visa policies to export undesirable members of the Australian community to country's, such as New Zealand, that had little or no part to play in the deportee's becoming a 'risk' to society.  

As I write this blog, and if you believe the hype, both countries are gearing up for the rugby world cup final. A lot of the overblown bullsh&t and commentary in the formal and social media has included references to the fierce, yet generally respectful nature of the rivalry, often followed by a reference to this being forged on the battlefield of Gallipoli, as a contemporary manifestation of the ANZAC spirit, and so on. The same cannot be said for the way in which successive Australian governments have shafted New Zealander's in relation to social security, visa and now crime control policies. In stripping us of the rights that their own citizens enjoy when residing in my country, and because they are more than happy to pocket the millions in taxes we pay into the coffers each year while purposely exporting a crime control problem forged in their own backyard, Australian politicians and policy makers are demonstrating that at least on their side of the Tasman, the ANZAC spirit exists in rhetoric only.  

Critiquing Arguments Against Extending the Jurisdiction of Indigenous Law

The following post is not written in the 'academic style', just notes I use when discussing with students in my Indigenous Justice unit at Queensland University of Technology, arguments for and against extending the use of 'customary law', or what I prefer to call Indigenous Law.  My apologies to colleagues if I haven't referenced as per the academic convention (as long as I've presented our ideas accurately!).  Nor have I rewritten the piece to correct grammar, etc; instead it is written very much how it is spoken in class; in general, not specific terms. I've simply uploaded the notes as prepared for the lecture; in other words posted 'as is' in order to contribute to debate on this issue:

A Few Comments on Customary Law to my QUT Indigenous Justice Students

For JSB381 students to consider:

The term customary law: is something that should give you all pause to think; why is it that any other ‘law’ besides European (British) law is often described as ‘customary’? 

This is an issue within ‘law’ and justice that has been pondered by great Indigenous theorists, jurist and thinkers.  For example, the great Nigerian Criminologist, Biko Agozino refers to this type of ‘reasoning’ – that all European law is ‘the law’ while all others are ‘customary’ - as a continuation of the Imperialist Reasoning used to legitimise the colonisation of Indigenous peoples and the imposition of European legal jurisdiction over subjugated peoples.

The Maori jurist, Moana Jackson, goes a little further, describing this kind of representation of Indigenous law as being based upon racist assumptions of the superiority of Eurocentric law, and the baseness of the law of coloured folk; of its inherent weakness due to its not being written, codified or institutionalised.  Building on the work of the legal Anthropologist Fitzgerald, who wrote about the mythology of law, we might describe these assumptions as forming the Great White Myth of Law, one based on the racist assumption of the inherent superiority of ‘White Ways’ due to a related belief that the legal system we now practice in Settler Societies is the end point of legal evolution; that is it the ‘best way’ of 'doing law and seeking justice'.

Let us take a moment to consider and dissect these notions:

1.    That Indigenous law was not codified: we are able to demonstrate that this is pure myth; at the time of colonisation, Europeans were writing of the codified laws of the Dine (Navajo), and of the six Nations of the Iroquois peoples who straddled what is now the Eastern US/Canadian border, and who’s Confederation the founding fathers of the American constitution and the Republic, actually based that constitution upon (at least in part). 

2.  The myth of codification is based on an assumption that Indigenous law is inherently weak(er) than White Law because it was not written down; it was practiced and hand down thru generations orally.  And yet we have 19^th and 20^th century European Anthropologists recording and reporting the sophisticated, orally derived legal processes of numerous First Nations; of Tohunga, legal specialists trained in linking genealogy with ‘cases’ that demonstrate precedence and an evolving jurisdiction, the supposed hallmark of the superior, codified Western European law.

3.   Indigenous law is inferior because it is based in the distant past: things have changed, so therefore it is not applicable to the contemporary moment: and yet we see in Africa, over the past 2 decades, more and more jurisdictional autonomy being given to First Nations in various countries, to mould a contemporary justice system based on ‘ancient’ philosophies and practices, carried out via resurrected, localised justice institutions.  We see in New Zealand over the same period (in a small number of largely rural areas), the resurrection of communal, marae-based justice processes, based on tikanga (think about Aroha Terry's marae-based justice process for dealing with sexual offending, practiced in the Waikato region in the 1990s onwards), blended with contemporary notions and practices of human rights, which yet again highlights the racism inherent in the assumption that Indigenous justice and cultural is incapable of ‘evolving and changing’, and incapable of being applicable to the modern world. 

      If this were so, then how do we explain the movement amongst Western, European jurisdictions to adopt so many of our justice philosophies and practices; FGC’s, Circles, significant elements of what they call restorative justice, etc?  It is evident that continued moves by existing legal institutions, law makers, politicians and the like, to block the extension of jurisdictional autonomy to First Nations, has little to do with the inherent weakness of Indigenous law, or the inability of our peoples and culture to ‘evolve’, but instead has everything to do with maintaining the status quo, namely the hegemony of their way of law.

4.   So, let's look closely at the law and legal institutions of contemporary Settler States:  does the fact that it is written (in fact almost all contemporary Indigenous justice processes are now written and codified, yet again underlining the myth of our inability to grow and adapt), that it is codified and institutionalised make it inherently more just than Indigenous justice?  If your answer is yes, then think about the growing numbers of exonerations being passed down in American, Canadian, New Zealand jurisdictions, and becoming a not so rare feature of Australian jurisdictions: decisions that come about, in the main (or in part, depending on your ideological persuasion!), because of judicial and police racism, classism and sexism.  Think about the racist laws passed (or the laws and powers used in racist ways) that drive people of colour in to the system, or drive them ever deeper into it; e.g. the anti-drug laws of America, search and seizure laws in Great Britain targeting black youth, ‘move on’ and search laws in Australia, the NTER, and so on.  Think about the massive amount of research evidence gathered by white criminologists and Indigenous researchers on the failings of our legal system; of its class, race and gender bias, of the myriad unjust sentences/decisions, and of the inhumanity of our correctional regimes….. consider all this body of evidence and think twice about arguing, as some do here in Australia, that Indigenous justice should not be promoted or extended because it promotes/supports child rape, violence against women, and is founded on archaic, inhumane punishments.

5.   On the argument of the violence of Indigenous justice: we often hear or read non-Indigenous commentators saying that ‘customary law’ supports violence, that it is inhumane – let us be frank, in times past our responses to social harm were by today’s standards, ‘inhumane’, but as previously discussed, this presupposes that those same penalties will be employed in a contemporary, reconstituted Indigenous legal system.  In others words, those espousing such views are falling back on the tired, racist assumptions about our inability to change with the times.  And with all the injustice and inhumanity practiced in Western jurisdictions, as stated previously, can anyone truly argue that the contemporary system is always just and humane? 

 

Lastly, on the argument that Indigenous law supports violence against women and children, we have no evidence to that effect so we can’t argue definitively either way on this matter: unfortunately, what we most definitely have is evidence that western influences have permeated some Indigenous communities, re: ‘imported’ notions and practices of gender and familial relations, power and authority, that have framed ‘institutionalised’ violence within our communities (and yes, a trend we must acknowledge, own and respond to ourselves).

It's Not So Black and White: An Outsiders Observations on Racism in Australia

In this blog I will be making observations on racism in Australia.  I have to preface this piece by clarifying that:

• I am a New Zealander, which in the minds of a lot of Australian's automatically disqualifies me from making any observations about their country or culture (too bad!);
• I am indigenous, which for a small group of Australian's disqualifies me from having an opinion about any subject, 
• I've only lived here for two years (three if you include 1990);
• I am not racist or prejudiced against Australians... some of my best friends are Australian....
• Yes, I will be making sweeping generalised statements about Australia and Australians, but those of you are not racist will know who you are :-)
• Mostly importantly, I live in Brisbane, which most Aussies living south of Tweed Heads don't consider part of Australia at all, but some weird, backward place stuck in the 1950s.

Putting all that aside I believe that as an 'outsider', in being both non-Australian and Indigenous, I am able to bring a unique perspective to an analysis of racism in this country.

So, here are some observations that hopefully will cause debate:

Observation 1: casual racism

Most of the courses I teach at University in Brisbane focus on Indigenous justice.  A couple of times I have been asked by students 'are there any differences between Australia and New Zealand with regards racism'.  In my experience there is a significant difference in how racism is expressed in social settings and I explain it to them in this way: in New Zealand we have 'polite racism', here in Australia you have 'casual racism'.

To clarify the difference between the two sets of behaviour - in New Zealand if someone is about to make what might potentially be considered a racist comment they will preface it by saying 'I'm not a racist, but....', and then proceed to make a completely uninformed, racist remark about people of colour.  They make this comment not because they do not think they are racist (I suspect the majority know) but so they can feign hurt, shock and surprise if they are pulled up for their racist behaviour.  Another possible explanation is that they hope that the Maori or Pacifica guy who overheard them, the one built like the All Black front row, doesn't decide to pummel their racist ass.

Here in Australia, especially where I live in Central Brisbane, racists don't appear to be concerned about being pummelled - mainly because you see very few people of colour in social contexts here (by that I mean drinking!) apart from the odd Maori of Pacifica man who work in nearby building sites.  They see no need to preface their racist comments with a qualifier like 'I'm not racist, but...'.  Instead they just say it, and say it loud and proud: 'I hate Abo's, Wog's, Nigga's, Chinks, Maoris, Muslim's, Boat People'.. and occasionally, 'New Zealanders'.  I have heard it all and I have heard it often.

In a two week period last year an English friend and I counted four different occasions when we went out that we had a white Australian standing next to us or talking directly to us make these types of comments - always unsolicited.  The worst incident was when a Torre Strait Island friend and I went to a pub where two young Australian men and two Canadians had a competition to see which country's Indigenous peoples were the worst (the most drunk, violent, poorest, laziest, etc), judged by telling the best (as in the most racist) joke.  The funniest part of this incident was when they finally realised the two guys sitting next to them were 'brown', one commented... 'only joking guys', we aren't racist'.

I have a feeling that particular idiots mother is a New Zealander.

Observation 2: it is better to be white....if you stuff up

Sports is a big thing in Australia: If you are good at sport people will like you.  If you excel in Rugby League, AFL, Rugby or Athletics and Swimming  a lot of people will adore you.  So, when a sporting star stuffs up in some way it brings a lot of media and public attention.  My observation is this: how you get treated and how your behaviour is explained by media and sports insiders depends a lot on your ethnicity.  

This issue arose recently when a high profile Aboriginal AFL player was charged with a criminal offence while on leave in the Northern Territory.  Soon after an article appeared in a newspaper quoting a AFL club scout who said that problems such as this made clubs weary of contracting Black Fellas and that they were more attractive propositions if one of the parents was white.  The implications of this attitude is obvious: if a 'Black player' behaves it is because of his 'whiteness', if he is all Black, well....

Naturally these comments and the newspaper articles caused controversy and the AFL scout resigned.  Amongst all the commentary one thing stuck out for me, how come when white players misbehave, say abuse drugs, shag their team-mates girlfriend or wife (perhaps not 'illegal' but dodgy, unethical behaviour nonetheless), sleep with and use young women after making 'school visits', get drunk, fight, fall over, urinate in public, etc - all behaviours that are common in sports populated by young, fit, well-paid and well known men -  their 'whiteness' is never raised as an issue?  In comparison to Black Fellas, the poor behaviour of white sportsmen (yes, they are almost always men) is explained by focusing on them as individuals and never on their ethnicity.  I long for the day when I read the newspaper headline: 'White Player Behaves Badly'.

Observation 3: being Australian means being white, anything else is 'UnAustralian'

My last observation relates to the propensity for some white, middle class or wealthy, middle aged men to use the term 'UnAustralian' to criticise and silence a political view or action that differs from their own.

The first time I heard that comment was when the Federal Government talked about making Mining companies pay more taxes on their not inconsiderable profits (making them pay more tax = 'UnAustralian').  Aussie friends tell me the term has been around for some time, but is being used more frequently.  Since Xmas I have heard the term used against anyone who dares criticise the rich and powerful (more often than not mining magnates) and especially against the Aboriginal tent protesters for their actions on Australia Day.

As I said at the beginning of this section, the people who use this term most often come from a small section of Australian society.  What they appear to be saying is that unless you behave and think like I do, as a white, middle class or rich, middle age male, you are not truly Australian.

So, I would like to hand my second Bullsh*t Artist of the Week award to anyone who has used this term in the past, or in the future, in order to silence views and ways of life that differ from your own.

God help this country if this self-important group were to one day dictate how to live as an Australian.