How the unAustralian lost the plot

In mid-February the national broadsheet called for a “new civility” in public discourse. Three days later, the paper used its editorial to launch a savage personal attack against HREOC Social Justice Commissioner, Tom Calma.

In matters of Indigenous Affairs, The Australian long ago nailed its colours to the mast. Not content with being a mere journal of record, The Oz adopted a policy agenda which it would pursue aggressively through selective reporting, sanctimonious editorialising and shrill columns.

The paper's pin-up boys, Noel Pearson and Warren Mundine, would receive extensive coverage of their every utterance, and even be described as “visionaries” by a publication with a barrow to push.

But readers could search in vain for thoughtful discussion of the policies advocated by those on the left. The Oz had made up its mind after all, and the addition of further factual material could only serve to complicate matters.

So the gloves were off and the punches being thrown were very much of the bare-knuckle variety. There was a culture war to be won after all.

However, the country's voters muddied the waters considerably in late-November by terminating the political existence of John Winston Howard and Malcolm Thomas Brough.

Then, on February 16, The Oz editorial team came out with this cracker: "As we prepare for the 2020 summit, let's return civility to the national conversation. We should be able to respect our opponents even when we disagree with their ideas, counter them with argument, not argumentativeness."

Pardon me while I smirk.

Consider the “civility quotient” of the paper's editorial entitled “Social justice about more than rights” - which appeared all of 72 hours after the broadsheet's all-too-brief dalliance with decency.

The “new civility” was quickly overshadowed by the “old belligerence” as the paper launched a vicious attack on HREOC Social Justice Commissioner, Tom Calma. In a flood of vituperation from the “heart of the nation” (the new catchphrase that appears in The Oz's masthead), we learn that Calma was "enjoying an upper-middle-class lifestyle on a salary package four times that of average Australians and 10 times that of the average Indigenous Australian".

It is puzzling that a newspaper which notionally champions Indigenous participation in the mainstream economy should be so virulently critical of an Aboriginal man winning a senior public sector job.

What exactly is the problem here?

The Oz excitedly published Calma's actual salary - which is simply a prescribed public service remuneration package.

In a stunning invasion of privacy, they also published a front-page photo of his Canberra house to accompany a quote that the paper had somehow managed to prise from the notoriously shy and retiring Warren Mundine.

In a torrent of patronising penmanship reminiscent of a primary-school report card, the national broadsheet opined that Calma must “do much better” and that he “lacks a basic grasp of what social justice means”.

How this ill-informed and petulant sneering stacked up against the “respect your opponent” rhetoric of three days earlier is hard to say.

And - make no mistake - from inside the narrow confines of The Oz's policy tunnel, Tom Calma must indeed look like an opponent.

You see, the meticulous, sober and carefully-documented Social Justice and Native Title reports that the Social Justice Commissioner produces each year are based on a fundamental premise: Indigenous Australians have human rights.

This is anathema to the big paper, which abhors talk of “rights”. They prefer to employ missionary zeal in dispensing wisdom and succour to the poor benighted blackfellas - that they might one day have housing mortgages of their own.

In a worrying development, The Australian has identified that Calma may be working in cahoots with others, noting that his views "run parallel with those of another well-educated, highly-paid member of the Indigenous elite who also needs to find more compassion for the real needs of her people, Marion Scrymgour (NT Minister for Aboriginal Affairs)".

This is a truly staggering slur - all the more incomprehensible because of the nature of the charges: Well-educated? Highly paid?

These are clearly very serious criticisms of Aboriginal people who don't seem to fit The Oz's preferred mould of “charity case”.

The notion that Calma and Scrymgour lack insight into the “real needs” of their people is risible. It is also grotesquely insulting.

The Australian signed off its breathtakingly pompous “new civility” editorial by invoking the Age of Enlightenment, and calling for the “national conversation” to be a “battle waged with wit”.

But do they have the armoury?