Australian Politics
Indigenous mastery of ecology is a historical delusion
Archaeologists have been struggling to identify the rightful owners of the United Arab Emirates for decades. Could prehistoric stone tools discovered 12 years ago at Jabel Faya have been brought by migrants from East Africa 125,000 years ago? Or were the true indigenous people the camel slaughterers from Mesopotamia who arrived in the glacial period 5000 years before the birth of Christ?
The question is more than academic in Chris Bowen’s mind. He appears convinced that indigenous people everywhere hold knowledge vital to the future of the human race. The Climate Change and Energy Minister began a speech at the UN climate change conference in Dubai in early December with a clumsy welcome-to-country performance that would’ve puzzled his hosts.
He expressed his profound respect for the people “who have cared for our respective lands for millennia”, asserting that indigenous knowledge, cultures and traditional practices were “critical” to solving the climate crisis.
First Nations people, as Bowen fashionably calls them, possess the special knowledge that will allow us to solve the complex problems created by climate change.
It is hard to doubt his conviction. Bowen doesn’t just talk the talk, he is prepared put our money where his mouth is. In April, Bowen announced the formation of a First Nations Clean Energy and Emissions Reduction Advisory Committee as part of a $75m package to bring Aboriginal voices into the debate.
“We have to learn from the people who have had stewardship of our land for over 60,000 years,” he said. “We need to do that now, for example, with the Indigenous-led savanna burning carbon credit system. And there are many more examples where we could do better.”
What are those examples? The minister did not feel compelled to elaborate. The pseudo-science is settled as far as the climate cognoscenti are concerned. Indigenous people were diligent stewards of this land, living in perfect harmony with nature until white people arrived with the poisoned fruits of Western civilisation and trashed the joint.
Australian historian William J. Lines masterfully unpacks the intertwined narratives of ecology and indigenous exceptionalism in his recent book, Romancing the Primitive: The Myth of the Ecological Aborigine (Quadrant Books). Lines traces the strands of thought from Michel de Montaigne and Jean-Jacques Rousseau in the 16th and 18th centuries to Australian poets Mary Gilmore and Judith Wright, whose siren call had an uncanny influence on public policy during the Whitlam era.
The Albanese government also seems entranced with works of fiction, albeit stories that some consider history. Bill Gammage’s The Biggest Estate on Earth asserts that Indigenous mastery of fire turned the Australian continent into an idyllic, eco-friendly landscape, or as Lines describes it “an Edenic world of abundance resembling the cover image of a Jehovah’s Witness tract”.
Bruce Pascoe’s revelation in Dark Emu that pre-settlement Australians were not hunter-gatherers but cultivators, builders, town planners and hydrologists takes the romanticisation of primitive life to a fantastic level of absurdity.
Yet Anthony Albanese is an unabashed fan. “Bruce has unearthed the knowledge that we already had in our possession but chose to bury along the way,” the Prime Minister told parliament in February 2020. “Bruce has simply reminded us where the lights switch is … a complex mosaic of ancient nations is suddenly laid out before us.”
Penny Wong told the Senate in November 2020 that thanks to Pascoe and Gammage, “we are no longer trapped in the ignorance of our own assumptions and prejudice, premised on the underlying supremacy of the narrative that white people know best”.
Wong’s self-demeaning lapse into a race-based argument was unfortunate. The achievements of Western civilisation have nothing to do with skin colour and everything to do with the triumph of reason over superstition.
As it evolved in the West, the scientific tools of logic, deduction and probability are available to all. “Scientific knowledge is not restricted to the initiated,” says Lines. “Curiosity is the only criterion.”
The notion that Aboriginal Australians would be happier quarantined from modernity is absurd. So, too, is the fashionable idea that Western civilisation is no better than any other civilisation and probably worse.
Against this, the romancers of the primitive invest hope in a different form of knowledge – traditional or cultural knowledge that they claim is the intellectual property of Indigenous people alone.
Lines points his finger at the naked emperor. “No one can precisely define what they mean by traditional knowledge,” he writes. The methodology upon which traditional knowledge depends is not explained. “Instead,” writes Lines, “they advanced terms such as “holistic”, “relational” and “interconnectedness”, which they contrast with “reductionist” and “linear” Western science”.
The claim Indigenous Australians “managed” the land is at the core of the primitive delusion. Lines disputes it. The expression “fire-stick farming” was invented by anthropologist Reece Jones in 1968, says Lines. The theory that Aboriginals possessed an “ecological consciousness” made them prudent ecological managers is belied by the absence of the words ecology or management in the lexicon of any known Aboriginal tongue.
Lines describes the hard reality of the hunter-gatherer lifestyle that runs counter to the narrative of environmental stewardship. A small population, speaking 250 languages, on a sparsely occupied continent domesticated only the dog and did not control animals stocks. “Wildlife management consisted of exhausting local prey and moving on,” he writes. “While horticulture and agriculture increase yield through human effort, hunting and gathering do not.”
This is not to deny the ingenuity and perseverance that enabled Indigenous Australians to survive on a continent that does not easily surrender its riches. Lines point is that knowledge is not exclusive and does not emanate from the received wisdom of a particular group. “Each human group faced specific challenges to which they divide specific solutions,” he writes. “Everywhere, humans draw on the same traits of adaptability, intelligence, and for Unity to adapt a local circumstance.”
Primitivism is unhelpful to Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians alike. “Romanticising does not help the romanticised,” writes Lines. “Instead, it isolates them from rational thought and gives them an unrealistic assessment of their abilities and place in the world.
“Romantics continue to impoverish the Aboriginal world with the introduction of intellectually hollow and dubious pledges.”
For 21st-century progressives, however, romanticising the primitive was never an exercise in improving the lot of Aboriginal Australians any more than hopes of ennobling the savage inspired by Rousseau.
“Aborigines were Cyphers, carriers of a fantasy about pre-contact life and calculators of lessons about the failings of Western civilisation,” writes Lines. It is an exercise in ennobling themselves and asserting their moral and intellectual authority.
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Major backflip by Anthony Albanese's government on electric vehicles outrages environmentalists
A promise by the Albanese government to unveil mandatory pollution caps for new vehicles sold in Australia by the end of 2023 has been broken, sparking fears its landmark EV policy will be put on ice.
In April, Labor committed to introducing a new fuel efficiency standard, with a favoured model to be unveiled 'before the end of this year'.
Under the standard, automotive brands will be penalised when they sell cars with high-polluting internal combustion engines in an effort to spur the uptake of electric and other low-emissions vehicles.
Aside from Russia, Australia is the only developed nation without fuel efficiency standards.
As a result, passenger vehicles can emit as much as 50 per cent more carbon dioxide than in similar overseas markets, as less efficient cars are still imported to Australia.
At the same time, just eight per cent of new cars sold in Australia in the last 12 months were electric vehicles, while this figure was almost 17 per cent in Europe.
But despite assurances of long-awaited fuel efficiency standards by year's end, Transport Minister Catherine King is still yet to unveil the proposed legislation.
In September, modelling work undertaken by ACIL Allen for the proposed standard which was due to be completed in August was extended through to January 30 2024.
Weighing on the proposal are fears that against a backdrop of the rising cost of living, the standards - which could potentially limit the number of cars available to consumers or increase the cost for some high-polluting models - could open the government up to Coalition scare campaign in the lead up to the next election, industry sources said.
Others said Ms King had been consumed by other matters across her portfolios including her controversial decision to block Qatar Airways' bid to increase flight capacity and the independent review of Australia's $120 billion infrastructure pipeline.
In a statement, a spokesman for Transport Minister Catherine King would not provide a timeline for when the proposed standards could be released.
'Designing the best possible fuel efficiency standard (FES) to suit Australia's circumstance is complex, and the Australian Government is committed to taking the time to get it right,' the spokesman said.
But with Australians heading back to the polls by May 2025 at the latest, advocates for a more ambitious standard feared the policy could be shelved in its entirety.
Independent member for North Sydney, Kylea Tink, who has spearheaded calls for stringent fuel efficiency standards in federal parliament, said the Albanese government had demonstrably failed to meet its commitment.
'It's definitely a pretty clear case of a broken promise,' Ms Tink said.
'It's worse than frustrating that we're going to end 2023 without fuel efficiency standards ... there is no line of sight on them.'
Citing the failed commitment by two previous Labor governments to introduce a similar efficiency standard, Ms Tink said it was imperative that the government was held to account on its promise.
'Up until now, at least the government's been prepared to say: 'Yes, they're definitely coming and here's the timeline',' Ms Tink added.
'Now there's no timeline - that really concerns me.'
The Climate Council's head of advocacy, Dr Jennifer Rayner, agreed that it was critical that the government delivered on its commitment, ensuring access to cleaner and cheaper-to-run cars.
'Every day we delay putting a fuel efficiency standard in place, Aussies are missing out on the three-in-one benefits of cheaper costs, cleaner air, and greater choice,' Ms Rayner said.
However, car dealers and their industry association representatives have urged the government to take a more cautious approach to the new standards, citing the need the for strong community support for the change.
Tony Weber, chief executive of the Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries, said despite the delay, it was paramount that time was taken to ensure the standard reflected the demands of the Australian car market.
'It's absolutely critical that the government takes time and gets this right. That's critical for environmental outcomes and for consumers,' Mr Weber said.
'There's no point in going for what others are calling for - a stringent target - which means essentially in the very near future, the only cars that will be able to be sold will be complete electric vehicles.
'There are so many segments of the market that there is not an electric vehicle capability among mainstream brands - and that's before we talk about price.'
Mr Weber also pointed to the need for a scale-up in supporting infrastructure to drive the uptake of the low-emission vehicles.
'We need to have the product supported in the marketplace ... rather than people who just purely talk about a target.'
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12913993/Albanese-backflip-electric-vehicles.html
*********************************************Don’t desex the language: Doctors warn of danger over gender-inclusive terms
A large group of researchers and academics is pushing back against moves to “desex” medical language to accommodate transgender and gender-diverse people, saying the terms used in the name of inclusion confuse health data and can lead to serious medical errors.
A letter signed by 120 researchers to peak funding body the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) also warns that blurring the lines between biological sex and gender identity on medical forms and in research threatens to widen what’s known as the female data gap.
“Using ‘women’ with a gendered meaning, that is grouping males and females together, when considering healthcare provision or undertaking research, has risks,” the letter says.
“Even when males and females experience the same disease, they may experience it very differently, irrespective of gender identity.”
Why do gender pronouns matter and how do you use them?
Advocates for the new approach to language say that in medical settings, transgender people are often discriminated against, misgendered – referred to by a gender they do not identify as – or required to reveal to doctors their birth sex or deadname, which is a name they no longer go by.
They say this is a “cultural safety” issue which, if not addressed, can drive gender-diverse people away from seeking medical care.
General practitioners in Victoria are being urged in a course on transgender and gender diverse health, conducted by official training provider Thorne Harbour Health, to issue new admission forms for patients that emphasise gender identity and not biological sex.
The recommended question for biological sex is, “what was listed on your first birth certificate?” and optional for the patient to answer. The gender question, which is compulsory, asks if the patient is “female, male, non-binary, different identity (specify).”
The Queensland Department of Health now invites “persons with a cervix” rather than “women” for cervical cancer screening in their health promotion materials.
Professor Hannah Dahlen, the associate dean of research at Western Sydney University and a signatory of the letter to the NHMRC, says that term is “frankly, demeaning” and confusing, particularly for people from non-English-speaking backgrounds.
Dahlen said the push to desex language was motivated by the best of intentions, but from a scientific point of view was “scary”.
“Sex plays a fundamental role in the health of females and males and to lose the ability to identify and represent the needs of females is a huge backwards step, not only for females, but for women’s rights, equity and health,” Dahlen said.
“So when we’re being inclusive, let’s not be exclusive. Half the population is female, let’s not discriminate against them. It’s lazy not to get this right, and it’s dangerous not to get it right.”
Australia’s peak health statistics body, the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare notes on its website that in its reports, “male or female may refer to either sex or gender, depending on the data source ... so it can be unclear which is the focus”.
The letter to the NHRMC came in response to a consultation paper it released on the ethics of conducting medical research on pregnant women.
The draft paper used the term “pregnant woman”, then acknowledged that some would consider it controversial and asked researchers whether the language was appropriate and, “if not, with what should it be replaced?”
A footnote added that “we recognise that it is also important to avoid gendering birth, and those who give birth, as feminine”.
In response, the letter from researchers warns that physicians are under increasing pressure to “desex language in research, policy, and public health communications” and that, as a result, “sex is not being accurately recorded in health systems and elsewhere”.
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Australian Border Force crackdown nets 30 foreign fishers, destroys three boats off Kimberley coast
Thirty suspected Indonesian fishers have been placed in immigration detention following a targeted crackdown on illegal foreign fishing vessels in waters off Western Australia's Kimberley coast.
The fishers are facing prosecution and removal from Australia after a multi-agency operation, led by Australian Border Force (ABF), uncovered three illegal fishing boats, a combined haul of one tonne of trepang (sea cucumber) and fishing equipment.
The intercepted vessels have been destroyed.
The exercise included surveillance by land, air and sea, and focused on areas within the Kimberley Marine Park north of Broome.
ABF Assistant Commissioner and Operation Leedstrum commander Kylie Rendina said it was "the largest cohort of foreign fishers to be detained in over a decade".
"If you fish illegally, you will lose your vessel, your equipment and you will be placed in immigration detention to face potential prosecution," she said.
The Indonesian fishers were safely transported to shore and have since been flown to the Yongah Hill Immigration Detention Centre in Northam, north-east of Perth.
Australian Fisheries Management Authority fisheries operation general manager Justin Bathurst said an investigation would take place.
"As well as facing destruction of their vessel and seizure of catch and equipment, these foreign fishers will be subject to a thorough investigation and, where appropriate, prosecution for offences against Australian law," he said.
"[The operation] will continue to disrupt illegal activity along our coastline. We continue to combine our resources to prevent illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing and safeguard valuable fish stocks against exploitation by illegal foreign fishing vessels."
The Kimberley Marine Park stretches for nearly 75,000 square kilometres and is home to whales, dolphins, dugongs and turtles.
Mr Bathurst said the highly protected park was an "attractive choice for illegal foreign fishers".
Surge in illegal fishers
Operation Leedstrum was set up in December amid a surge in illegal activity in Kimberley waters in recent months, with 65 vessels sighted over a 24-hour period during October 2023.
ABF says the operation will continue until illegal fishers are deterred from entering the region.
ABF records show 125 boats were intercepted during the 2022-2023 financial year.
Animal populations like sea cucumbers are in demand by illegal fishers.
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http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM -- daily)
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http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)
http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs
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Evelyn Rae, a conservative Australian political commentator
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My son Joe at ANU
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