A storm has erupted over a strongly-worded attack penned by conservative political candidate Bess Price on a respected Aboriginal elder and two Alice Springs Amnesty International activists.
Price — an indigenous Country Liberal candidate in the August 25 NT election — despatched an ill-tempered 1250-word response on Tuesday to an AI pre-election survey that was quickly leaked to truth organs like the online Alice Springs News and The Australian — which splashed it on its front page today.
Last week, Amnesty’s James Milsom and Rachel Toovey sent the questionnaire to candidates for the seats of Arnhem, Barkly, Braitling, Namatjira, Nhulunbuy, Nightcliff and Price’s intended seat of Stuart. It asked whether they were committed to supporting the 30% of Territory Aborigines that live in remote communities.
The response, emanating from husband Dave Price’s email address, fails to answer Amnesty’s questions and instead accuses the activists of supporting r-pists and killers.
“When Aboriginal women in Central Australia ask for help, when they are killed, r-ped and beaten, when they cry for their abused children you ignore them and you support those who are oppressing them.”
Price brands Tasmanian Australian of the Year state finalist and former ATSIC commissioner Rodney Dillon a liar, a “white blackfella” and “physically white”. She reckons Milsom and Toovey are spoilt southerners:
“You are not interested in our rights you are only interested in your own agenda that you learned at the universities you attended down south … the best thing I can say about you is that you are well meaning but young, idealistic and naive, but maybe you are racist, arrogant and don’t give a damn about my people because you have your own agenda.”
Price lives in Alice Springs’ Kurrajong Drive, 250km from her wannabe electorate, and runs a successful consultancy. She holds an applied science degree from Curtin University. Stuart is currently held by Price’s nephew Karl Hampton on a margin of 15%.
Internal Amnesty International correspondence seen by Crikey says Milsom was “shaken” by the assault, and shows how The Oz‘s Stuart Rintoul was desperate to obtain a quote from Dillon who, in the end, could not be contacted. Dillon has spent his life fighting for the rights of his people.
NT health minister Kon Vatskalis has taken to Facebook to attack Price. It is understood members of Vatskalis’ family were saved from the Greek Junta as a result of Amnesty’s activism.
The Land Holds Us report, published in August last year, shows the rights of Aboriginal communities have been eroded since Mal Brough’s 2007 intervention. It argues that policies of the Gillard and NT governments can constitute grave human rights violations when applied to the so-called “homelands”.
The activists have called for “a commitment … to adequately fund housing, infrastructure and services to support positive health outcomes, preservation of land and culture, economic development and the self-determination of homelands communities across the Northern Territory”.
Price’s campaign echoed another from May this year, when she attacked Amnesty over its criticisms of the Gillard government’s plans to extend the intervention for another 10 years, claiming that Amnesty wanted “to keep us in ghettos in the bush without individual rights, choices and options”. And on Tuesday night, Price starred when SBS’s Insight program reprised the “debate” about true claims to Aboriginality. The program was followed up in today’s Herald Sun by popular tabloid polemicist Andrew Bolt, who was keen to rake over what Price’s stand meant for “free speech”. Bolt’s employer News Limited controls 70% of Australia’s metropolitan newspapers.
Price previously hit the headlines last year when campus indigenous rights activist turned Australian bureau chief Patricia Karvelas turned an off-beam tweet by Larissa Behrendt into a front-page story reporting Price’s outrage.
Despite the federal government’s pledge to “close the gap” between the indigenous and non-indigenous population, huge gulfs remain on measures like life expectancy, infant mortality, pre-school participation, reading, writing, numeracy, year 12 attainment and unemployment. The level of indigenous disadvantage in Australia is regarded as an international embarrassment as Australia’s first inhabitants continue to live in third-world conditions amid a once-in-a-generation mining boom.
Bess Price is certainly entitled to her point of view, but people are entitled to point out that hers is a minority view amongst central Australian Indigenous people. She seems to have caught the Murdoch bug of thinking that disagreeing with her is tantamount to restricting her speech, while vociferously shouting down those who disagree.
Bess’s views are at the extreme end of a spectrum of Indigenous views – why don’t we hear from others on that spectrum on the hallowed pages of the Murdoch journals?
“The level of indigenous disadvantage in Australia is regarded as an international embarrassment as Australia’s first inhabitants continue to live in third-world conditions amid a once-in-a-generation mining boom.”
Yeah, yeah, yeah. By whom? By what measure?
I don’t think the founders of
Amnesty who did great work in and about Franco’s Spain and then more of the
same for Greeks and South Americans would be attracted to the all purpose
platform for self-promoting knowalls that Amnesty has now become. Its mission
creep is an invitatuon to wet-behind=the-ears careerist activists.
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Amnesty International thinks Burka wearing is a ‘human right’- like hell it is. As for Bess Price- I saw the Q&A segment where some part Aboriginal activist woman said she found Mrs Price’s well founded accusations of violence and sexual assault against women and children in remote camps, more offensive than a video clip of a footballer raping a dog.
Like sh*t for brains or what? The Price is Right!
Looking on their website, Amnesty protested against the French ban and laws against freedom of association that affected public dissent by Muslim women on the issue. Reading their press releases, that was explicitly done on first principles — ie. that it is illiberal to restrict the right to wear whatever clothing you like and to restrict free association in making a stance.
Now, we can argue about the moral dynamics of the Burqa, including alleged false consciousness of women who wear the Burqa entirely voluntarily, but that is a difficult issue too. The point is Amnesty has taken an absolutist position on the broader civil liberties issue, which is debatable but not pugnacious nonsense. As well say that all of the legions of eminent American political theorists, including the Founding Father, who advocate for an expansively right of freedom of speech are really advocating a human right to Holocaust denial.
As for the other, are you referring to Larissa Behrendt and totally getting your facts wrong about the Deadwood reference. Or is this another incident that has nothing to do with the topic?
Price is free to advocate her side passionately. I am glad she is prepared to contest an election and try to make a difference. However, in my observation she too often resorts to emotive claims rather than deploying facts when questioned about the intervention. A bit more restraint and decorum would be helpful, following the charitable principle of argument – rather than accusing anyone who disagrees with you of racism, bad faith or being a tool of the white metropolitan academics. I notice she did not substantiate either accusation. At best she argued persuasively that certain consultations were done inadequately in English. The rest was a half-cocked rant applauded only by those with an axe to grind in the cultural wars.
Whatever she wants to think she doesn’t have a monopoly on righteousness. She gets to put her position and if she can’t defend it without the rhetorical equivalent of “when will you stop murdering puppies and beating wives” she is betraying a deep inadequacy.
Unlike the metropolitan academic activists, Price actually knows what happens to aboriginal women who are regularly beaten by their menfolk.
That is why the Income Maintenance program is essential to protect vulnerable women–not just aboriginal women. My sister is bedridden with multiple sclerosis suffered violence from a husband who used her credit cards and nearly sent her broke. Sisterly intervention made matters worse and finally she was able to get the public trustees to manage her money thus putting it out of reach. She is a strong feminist and points out that superannuants have their finances managed and it doesn’t demean them. It is very convenient and leads to financial security.