Latest / Uncomfortable Conversations with Josh Szeps / Are Indigenous People Victims? with Anthony Dillon

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Are Indigenous People Victims? with Anthony Dillon · Uncomfortable Conversations with Josh Szeps

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  Okay, humans, welcome to SafeSpace, the dangerous ideas, and are there any more dangerous
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  conversations than ones around First Nations, Indigenous, and racial issues, especially
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  with a white fella like myself. Dr Anthony Dillon is an academic, a part aboriginal academic
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  who's also a commentator on Indigenous affairs, who's quite heterodox in his thinking.
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  He was previously at the ABC, the public broadcaster. Now, he writes for the Australian for
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  news.com.au. He has a lot of thoughts about the way that we perhaps fetishize and condescend
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  to Indigenous Australians and indeed First Nations people all over the world. This particular
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  episode is brought to you by the University of Technology Sydney. It's a part of a series
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  that we're doing with them called Permission to Think, where we talk about the ways that
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  academia and real life intersect, especially at the front lines of the Culture War and
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  a big thanks to Professor Alan Davidson for being our collaborator on this. He is the
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  Dean of the School of Social Sciences at the University of Technology Sydney. We get into
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  a lot here. It's thorny areas, but Anthony is always a pleasure to talk to and provides
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  a fascinating insight into a perspective from an Indigenous Australian that you don't
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  always hear. Please enjoy it. I'm so fascinated by so much of what you write. I mean, I've
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  been diverted in the last 24 hours. Of course, of course. Bits and pieces here and there
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  over the course of years, but then of course a lot of reading in the past 24 hours.
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  I mean, so my circle of friends and colleagues would mostly be on the progressive left and would
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  have an idea about Indigenous affairs as being, you know, that white Australia just doesn't get
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  the way that black fellows think, work, need to run their affairs and that there's been a long
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  history of a kind of paternalistic attitude towards First Nations Australians that while
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  only be remedied by giving control back to First Nations people to make decisions for themselves
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  because whiteies can't understand it. You know, even though most are married to whiteies or the
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  offspring of whiteies, you're crazy about that way of thinking. Why? Because look, there's great
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  diversity amongst those people who identify as Indigenous or Aboriginal and a great diversity
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  in terms of the way they think and also in terms of the way they live lifestyle at living
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  standards and that sort of thing. So we've got to be aware that there's these differences and not
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  just paint everyone with the same brush and it's been very popular for people to want to paint
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  all Indigenous identifying Australians with this romanticised culture brush where they're all
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  seen as having a strong connection to land, having ways and customs that are far different to
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  the white fella and that brings in the need for cultural advises, the voice and that sort of thing.
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  And so I think what has been overlooked due to the fabrication, large fabrication of difference,
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  what has been overlooked is that the Indigenous people are very similar to the non-Indigenous
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  or many of them at least. Anyway, there is a small percentage who, you know, English is not their
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  first language, they're not familiar with Westernised ways and that sort of thing, but the majority
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  of people who identify as Indigenous are very similar to you and I. And certainly we all
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  have the same basic needs anyway for shelter, that sort of thing. Are those needs best met by
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  the community itself? That's true for any community, but we know in a large country like Australia,
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  where you got 28 million people or something, you know, there is some sort of centralised
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  bureaucracy that hands out money and all the way things are done. But yeah, certainly on the ground,
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  I think people in any community, whether it be red, black, yellow, white community, have some
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  say over how things get done in that community. But also, you know, in a particular community,
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  you could have an Indigenous, you know, Indigenous community, you might have some white
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  fillers as well. They should have a say as well. And you used the word fictionalised when talking about
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  the fabricated or fabricated right? With the culture. Yeah. And what does that mean? Who's doing
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  fabricating of what? Ah, the virtue singlers. A lot of the, there I say, the lefties. I still get
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  confused what left them right me because I just want to think I've understood it. I meet some great
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  people who are so like-minded. And they tell me they're left, I think, oh, okay, well, whatever, so.
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  Look, it's, I guess, gatekeepers. People who want to have a job for themselves,
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  they will tell you that the Indigenous people are so vastly different. And it's only with their
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  lived experience because they identify as Indigenous, they have an experience, but they
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  identify as Indigenous. So they then had this Indigenous lived experience, whatever that means.
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  Become gatekeepers and make decisions for Indigenous people.
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  Right. And is that, is there a romanticisation? Oh, very, very romanticised, yeah.
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  Right. We just want, you know, I said in many meetings in academia, I'll have someone,
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  and I'm not exaggerating. Someone as white as you, who identifies as Indigenous, and they will
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  say, well, as an Aboriginal man, I believe this, I think that. And I think, gosh, when I'm
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  outside of the meeting with you, I hear nothing, I see nothing to suggest any sort of difference
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  between you, me, and everyone else. But don't we all constitute ourselves in, you know,
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  strange ways like that, like we'll have, we'll feel that we'll suddenly find out that we're
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  the descendant of a Roman Emperor or something, and we'll channel whatever stories and narratives
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  empower us from that knowledge. You don't have to be, you know, a hundred percent genetically
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  Indigenous, and nonetheless draw meaning or... Well, or many times. But you said the word
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  in power, and there's nothing wrong with talking about, you may have a great, great, great,
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  grandfather who was an Egyptian or, you know, someone else or, you know, a wise Buddhist monk or
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  whatever, and you can just refer to that person. Yeah, you know, my great, great, great grandfather
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  did this, but then just make it that you take on some special quality that others don't
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  is a bit silly, and you know, it gets used for power being able to silence other people.
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  Well, I'm an Indigenous person. I have a right to say this, you don't sort of thing. And I
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  believe in the meetings I go to, the white person has just as much right as me to have this say,
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  and I don't come in with this cloak of culture, which makes me the expert,
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  automatically makes me the expert on Indigenous matters. And so what do other First Nations,
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  Australians generally make of your position on that? Well, I guess there's three groups,
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  ones who hate me for it, ones who don't care either way, and ones who admire me for it.
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  So there are three broad groups. And is that spread between particular demographics or places like
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  is it likely it'll be university educated in a city, people who feel one way versus people
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  on country who feel another? Yeah, well, let's say urban, urban ones will have a mix, but certainly
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  the ones who dislike me would be the urban ones. And that's possibly because the ones who are
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  in rural or remote areas haven't heard of me. I'll be honest. Yeah. And when you talk to people who
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  are in rural or regional parts of Australia, what is it that they say that they want out of
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  wanting order to progress? Well, first of all, they want to make sure their families are safe.
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  They themselves and their families. And I mean, some of them don't know what they want,
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  but they live day to day, and they just want to know that they've got food and safe home
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  to live in. Why have we failed to achieve that? Yeah. Remoteness is a big issue.
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  A political practice is another issue. So when you combine those two, I think it's very difficult
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  to service people, whether you're black or white, living in remote parts of Australia. How does
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  political correctness impede it? Well, again, only certain people can have a say about Indigenous
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  people. And you're going to have very well-meaning people who want to do something, but
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  their views get sidelined because they're not Indigenous. Right. What do you make of the sort of
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  waxing and waning, I suppose, of what you might call paternalism from successive federal governments?
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  Sometimes you'll get a government which comes in and says, we've been too soft and we need to do
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  something radical, like the intervention into the Northern Territory during the Howard years,
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  and then it'll swing back. And you'll say, well, that was a bit brutalising, well, that was a bit
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  paternalistic. So we need to re-empower communities and local elders. Do you see this as a flux?
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  Or is there a... Look, the pendulum will always be swing. You'll always get that. And often,
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  it's a reaction to what happened before. And so until some time afterwards, we can look back and
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  think, okay, we perhaps could have been a little bit softer. We could have been a little bit harder
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  here. And it's a bit like, you know, the left and the right. It's the extremes within each that
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  are throwing grenades at each other. Right. And can you explain to Northern Australian listeners or
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  people who aren't older after a member at what the intervention was? Yeah. Okay, look, it was
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  misrepresented. Basically, it was we had known for many years that there were problems in many
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  Indigenous communities right around Australia, but the spotlight was on the Northern Territory.
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  Which is a very remote... Yeah, desert. Yeah, Australia. Exactly. And, you know, you do have a nice
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  township like Gala Spring, but you've got these satellite communities and that. So there were
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  a lot of problems in term. And, you know, even if you have a remote area full of white people,
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  if you've got no work, no employment, and you're throwing some alcohol, you're going to have a
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  lot of problems. I wasn't an Indigenous specific problem. It was a problem that affected people in
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  these areas who just happened to be Indigenous. And so you had problems that go along with
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  unemployment and alcohol, violence, child neglect, that sort of thing. It's not attending schools,
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  people gambling and pornography and all that sort of thing. And, you know, something had to be
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  done, something had to be done quickly. And it wasn't... It was portrayed as a government going
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  in and just ripping kids away from their parents and all that sort of thing. It was, you know, an
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  intervention where people went into give health checks and infrastructures, you know, services
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  and that were put in place as well. But it was often only the bad bits reported. And as my friends
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  in Ella Springs, Dave and Best Price were telling me, they didn't see many non-English speaking
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  Indigenous people get interviewed and asked to give their opinion. And so you had people there who
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  in love, the fact that, you know, they could rely on the law for help and that sort of thing.
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  Yeah, right. And subsequent to that, what has happened?
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  Things go back to LAR normally. You know, you may get a change, but unless you have a change,
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  you know, a fundamental change. And by that, I mean, creating economy. And that's something like
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  War and Mundine is into, you know, creating economy in these remote communities. A lot of
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  interventions and programs and that can be, you know, they can make a difference on the margins,
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  but sometimes it's, you know, almost cosmetic. So you do, at the end of the day, you need adults
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  engaged in opportunities where they can contribute to the society in which they live, which essentially
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  is a job most times. And you need the kids to be learning so that they can then go into those jobs
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  when they leave school. And if you don't have that, you have a series of band-aids trying to fix
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  the problem. Right. I mean, I can hear some people hearing that and thinking, well, of course,
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  you need that because the white colonial society is a capitalist one, and that's the way that we
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  have imposed this new regime in Australia since European colonisation, but prior to that,
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  that wasn't necessary. Sure. And things are different, don't I? Okay, now we can't turn back the clock.
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  Now, for those who, those are indigenous people who want to go back living a traditional
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  lifestyle, go for it, not many could, not many would, even if they could. They've had a taste of
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  what's available, they've lost their skills for living off and on the land, so it's just really not
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  viable. You know, we can all agree, yeah, you know, British settlement, etc. It was a major
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  disruption, not that life was paradise before, but it certainly disrupted a lifestyle that was
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  sustainable with those sorts of numbers. The reality is we live in 2024 with 28 million people
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  in this country, and it's hard to single out a group and say, well, you know, you can do a certain
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  way off the land if they can do it great, but many don't want to do it. When you say it wasn't
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  paradise before, I've spoken to quite a lot of indigenous activists who say that really given
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  the longevity of First Nations civilizations, that was about as good as humans have ever done,
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  that really that was, you know, the way of life of indigenous Australians prior to the arrival
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  of Europeans was the best. I don't know, I've done the best way. I don't know, the best might be
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  too strong a term to use, certainly had its advantages and nice features, but, you know, women
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  weren't treated that well, elderly often weren't treated that well, and that's no criticism of the
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  people. They did what they could with given everything that went before them, but a new world did
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  arrive, you know, mortality was high, they didn't, not as if they grew into millions and millions of
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  people in the country, and you know, the reality is we do have a country with a large population,
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  and so therefore we do have to change our ways in order to live. I mean, look where we are now,
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  we've kind of stacked on top of each other in a building kind of thing, so that's something we
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  have to do to accommodate the large population. I mean, so one attempt to move things forward was
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  the referendum last year, which was, you might just want to explain to Australians what the
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  referendum was about and what you thought of it. Okay, it's, it was just the the latest incarnation
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  of a theme that's been happening for a long time. Again, this whole notion that indigenous Australians
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  have a different set of needs, a different way of thinking, and therefore need to be represented
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  only in indigenous people, which I disagree with strongly, and so the move was to formalise and in fact
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  modify our constitution, have this representative body, you know, that was portrayed represented
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  in the constitution, and myself and many others didn't think it was a good idea simply because
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  indigenous people, one, already have their own voices as individuals like you and I, but also
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  they are represented by many bodies already, and I don't oppose those body, I mean, I don't,
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  many of those bodies I don't agree with, but I certainly don't wish to stamp them out. I'm happy
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  for them to be there and we can debate with them. So to say that indigenous people were without a
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  voice was just completely false, and I think what happened was many people just heard this thing
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  called the voice, it's supposed to help indigenous people, and all they heard was help indigenous people.
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  And you know, I certainly want to help indigenous people, we all do, but for many people they just,
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  they just heard the bit, help indigenous people didn't really think so much about the how they
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  would be helped, they just, okay, this voice here, whatever, I'll tick the box if it's going to help
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  indigenous people, but then people start to ever think about well, exactly how will it help
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  indigenous people? First of all, they already have a voice, how will this new body put food on the
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  table and that sort of thing? So that's where I think a lot of people departed from it.
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  Wasn't it wasn't the idea that you would corral all of the disparate voices from different
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  First Nations communities together and have them present a single front, so to speak,
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  so that there was less of a cacophony, and there was greater clarity on what
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  indigenous people feel would enhance indigenous lives to parliament.
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  Okay, well, you will never get a single front, but I mean, the structure of a body would
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  demand it. Yeah, okay, but I mean, you'd have diverse views and interests in the people.
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  Yes, in that body anyway. I mean, just as a parliament does though, right?
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  It has lots of different ideas, but ultimately it has to come up with a single bill or a
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  single piece of legislation after hammering it all out.
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  I just don't see how it could be done. Given that indigenous people already have
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  means an access to the existing structures. But they don't have a single, they don't have a
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  capacity of four of them in which to put forward a single. Well, they have a minister for indigenous
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  affairs. They have a minister for indigenous affairs. We have many, many organisations,
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  large ones. You have prominent indigenous leaders. So the people on the ground are not only
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  just represented through the usual channels at UNI access, but they do have these other indigenous
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  bodies and people as well. Right up to the level of, like I said, the minister for indigenous.
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  So, well, let's assume that it's redundant then. The voice body is redundant and they're already
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  these other mechanisms for Aboriginal needs to have a voice. What's the downside? Why not
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  just try it and see if it helps? The downside is again, it's a post-parting doing what we know
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  works. It's seen as another silver bullet, just like, you know, we had this apology which I
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  didn't oppose in 2007, I think, whenever it was. But people hung their hopes on it. They thought
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  this was going to be the game changer. We thought that having, so we've had the, we've had the
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  minister's position for indigenous affairs and it was before Bernie, it was Ken White. He was the
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  first indigenous identifying person to get the role and people thought that was going to be game
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  change. We've got an indigenous person and he understands indigenous people, which he does, I believe.
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  But you know, better, no worse than a good intelligent white person as well. So we thought that
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  was going to be the game changer. But then, you know, he was a little say he wasn't the right kind
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  of indigenous person. So then we got, you know, the right kind in the form of the latest indigenous
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  minister who may have respectful but disagree with on lots of things and that still hasn't been
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  the game changer. When we look at like the last two, the current and the last two ministers,
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  indigenous ministers and other successful indigenous people like those who, you know, the leading
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  proponents of the voice, they've done very well for themselves and they deserve that they've worked hard.
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  And we know how they've done well for themselves. They have either, they were like myself kind of
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  born into good circumstances. Well, they worked really hard and received a helping hand like all
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  Aussies. We all received helping hands and took advantage of those helping hands and worked and
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  applied themselves and had passion, you know, education and higher education and some degrees.
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  And it did in places where there was ready access to jobs and modern services and that sort of
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  thing. So, you know, I find it interesting, ironic that the of those indigenous people who were
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  for the voice, they've done very well without a voice. And I just think the rest of indigenous
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  Australians should have what they've got. And I know it's going to be easy. We can't just get all
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  the people in remote areas and bring them into cities. It's a bit more complicated than that.
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  Right. So your concern is that it's a distraction from practice and like that it's a sort of a
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  reliance on bureaucracy and official process rather than the new magic one. Right. And, and look,
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  you know, part of me said, well, had the voice of God up, I would have, I wouldn't have been
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  protesting. I would have, I would have worked with it if I had the opportunity. Absolutely. I would
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  say, I was wrong. Let's work together. And if it failed, I wouldn't say I told you so.
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  We have tried it. We've given it a go. Let's have a focus on developing those parts of Australia.
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  We're indigenous people suffering the most. You might allow yourself a very quiet, I told you so,
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  just in the privacy of your own later. Of course I would. You know, there's a little bit of ego.
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  So, all right, if if new bodies and voices and ministers aren't the solution, then what is the
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  most, what is the most practical way forward? Well, I think what I've been saying, we focus on
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  those indigenous people who are suffering the most. And I've always said for many years that the gap
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  we should be focusing on is the gap between well-off indigenous people, people like myself who
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  know where their next meal is coming from and live in a safe home. And those indigenous people who
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  live in circumstances, not like that, you know, they sleep on a mattress with three others and
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  two dogs and don't know where their next meal is coming from. But does that mean targeting
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  specifically by race or does it mean only? Well, a lot of our approach to economic
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  well, if we're going to focus on indigenous people, I don't have a problem with having a race
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  focus, you know, call it race-focused if you want. But yeah, in practical terms, it will mean
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  focusing on geographical areas where our high percentage of the people are indigenous. And if
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  there's white people there and they benefit from something, that's great. Right. Yeah, I mean,
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  there is an argument that says that the best way actually to help disadvantaged racial minorities
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  is to introduce universal social welfare benefits because then the whole population is brought
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  along for the right and there's a lot more public support for it because it doesn't seem
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  anti-egalitarian. Yeah, so if there's an area, remote area where there's a high proportion of
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  indigenous people and you've got some whites and you bring in, let's suppose diabetes, there's a
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  problem in that area or lack of exercise or whatever. And you build a gym and you bring in some
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  diabetes specialist, well, I'm happy for white people to have access. No, who wouldn't be happy for
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  them to have access to that as well? Well, I mean, maybe the person who wouldn't would be the
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  person who would say that there's a particular community in Australia that has suffered such
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  historically devastating and persistent disadvantage that requires unique solutions.
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  Well, the solutions to our basic needs are the same and the solutions are often
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  pretty much the same as well. So ensuring that people are skilled for jobs and that sort of thing.
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  What do you make of the rise? I went away and lived in New York for a dozen years and came back
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  a few years ago and saw it was night and day between Australia's cultural attitudes towards
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  the importance of First Nations reconciliation over the course of the past 15 years or so.
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  I came back to a country where acknowledgements of country were routine, that award ceremonies,
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  where you'd have a bunch of white HR women on a Zoom call and it would begin with acknowledging
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  the traditional owners of the land and so on. Is that cultural shift a good thing? Is it a bad
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  thing? Is it a distraction? A bit of a mix. Look, I'm not a fan of welcome to countries,
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  but I don't oppose them. If it's going to be done in a nice short, sweet sincere way,
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  that's fine, but does it have to happen before every meeting? Individual organisations can
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  decide for themselves. I would say don't, but if they want to get in that path, I think they're
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  a bigger fish to fry, bigger battles than that. At the very least, if you are going to have a
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  welcome to country or acknowledgement of country, it should be short and sweet, like that, not
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  hijacked and then talk about colonisation and all that sort of thing. Is colonisation still relevant?
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  It's relevant in the sense that I'm here and you're here, but I think the question you're getting
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  at is is it relevant in terms of solving the problems we face and was it a cause? No, it's not,
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  look, the fact, if colonisation was the problem, or one indigenous people would be suffering,
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  we know that many are not. So what the problem is is a lack of opportunity or lack of access
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  to opportunities. Now, if you want to blame colonisation, well, you could also, you know,
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  someone who's a white person who's a descendant of someone who has ripped up from England and
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  separated from their family and brought across to Australia for stealing a life of bread,
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  you know, they could also claim to have some sort of transgenerational trauma or something,
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  and if you want to blame colonisation, you can get back to the garden of Eden and blame Adam and
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  Eve for our problems, if there's Richard Blee. So now, look, the past is certainly it's an event,
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  it's a factor, but it's not the early factor and it's not the determining cause of problems we
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  see today, just like, you know, if I go out in the sun without a shirt without a hat, I'll get sunbird,
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  but we don't say it's this, you know, it's not wise to say, well, it was the sun that caused
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  the sunbird. What really was at play was the fact that I wasn't wearing a shirt and a cap and
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  sunscreen and that sort of thing. Does that analogy? No, no, no, Zach, what's the shirt on the hat
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  in the sun? Okay, for a civilisation that's being invaded by Europeans. A couple hundred years ago.
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  Yes, not now. No, okay. So what I'm saying, you know, the shirt and that I think represents
• 27:49
  opportunities today. So yes, colonisation did happen, but for those who have been like enough to
• 27:54
  be in areas where there are opportunities, they're doing quite well. Right. I'm not sure that
• 27:59
  there has to be a universal impediment to be an impediment. Does that? I mean, you could say that,
• 28:06
  you know, this discrimination against trans people and you can't say, well, surely there isn't,
• 28:11
  because they're perfectly happy trans. There are some perfectly happy trans people, you know,
• 28:16
  do some holocaust survivors. There are some perfectly fine holocaust survivors. So the holocaust
• 28:19
  can't have been a determining factor in disadvantaging. Are there indigenous people suffering
• 28:24
  today? Absolutely. That's why we have this thing called the gap. How do we address that? We do not
• 28:29
  address it by game back in a time machine. And I prefer to, as I mentor, talk me, we're never
• 28:34
  victims of the past, but only other victims of our view of the past. And if we take a more realistic
• 28:40
  view of the present and ourselves, we realize Australia is a good country. There are plenty of
• 28:43
  people to help us. There are plenty of opportunities. It will maximum sometimes places will take a
• 28:48
  bit of work extra work to help the people either to bring services there or move them to where the
• 28:54
  services are. So the past is there. It's static. It can't be changed. It can't be undone. What can we
• 29:00
  do today to make a difference? Okay. Make sure the people have access to the opportunities.
• 29:05
  Right. And I think you're now getting towards what is really your field of expertise, which I
• 29:10
  think is underpins a lot of your point of view, which is about psychology. Probably more of a hobby
• 29:16
  than a passion rather than expertise. Well, you sound very learned when you're right about it.
• 29:23
  I mean, I get the sense that what you're actually talking about is less practical strategies.
• 29:32
  And you know, of what what body we need, what minister we need, you know, what happened,
• 29:38
  how much responsibility is there for how much causation is there between past wrongs and today's
• 29:44
  you know, gap of metrics between the success of First Nations, Australia and other communities.
• 29:49
  And what it strikes me that you're really getting at is like what is the most empowering
• 29:54
  way to interpret our lot in life? And you know, what are the what are the best stories that we can
• 30:01
  tell ourselves to go here as a country and you know, find individual flourishing? And I would add to
• 30:07
  that too, the people who choose to tell those stories can be black or white too. So I mean,
• 30:14
  we shouldn't just say that and we see this all the time in, you know, Albanese words and documents
• 30:23
  and I suppose you know, Scott Morrison was also doing it last when he was in too that we,
• 30:28
  you know, got to have indigenous people looking after indigenous affairs.
• 30:32
  No, we don't. We've got to have competent people in positions and individuals look after
• 30:40
  themselves by taking grasp of the opportunities available to them. So having worked at the public
• 30:46
  broadcaster at the ABC for some years, I was sort of swept up in a, I guess, a dogma that you
• 30:55
  can't really talk about a community without speaking with that community, right? So you have to,
• 31:01
  you know, you can, it's no longer tenable in Australia the way it might have been 10 or 15 years
• 31:05
  ago to have a panel about indigenous issues with no indigenous people on the panel or a panel
• 31:11
  about trans people without trans people or a panel about, you know, you, you name your minority.
• 31:17
  And I was always a bit conflicted by that because I thought, you know, it just may be the case
• 31:23
  that the best expert on Bangladesh is not himself Bangladeshi. But there might just be a really,
• 31:28
  you know, an expert in South Asia at a university who I want to talk to, who I can't talk to today,
• 31:34
  really, because it would just smell a bit off for a white guy to be talking to another white guy
• 31:40
  about what Bangladesh needs. Where are you on that balance? To avoid trouble, if I was to organize
• 31:47
  a panel or something, I would, you know, to be seen to be doing the right thing, optics counts
• 31:52
  for a lot. And I would save myself a lot of trouble. Yeah, I would have some, I would encourage
• 31:57
  indigenous people to get on to that panel and I would make space for them.
• 32:02
  But I was also let them know that your view is variable. So is the white person next to you.
• 32:06
  He's a her view is variable as well. Um, you know, it's like if you have
• 32:12
  families of where you've got indigenous and a non-indigenous person, that child usually
• 32:16
  identifies or is identified as indigenous. That doesn't mean the indigenous parent has exclusive
• 32:22
  rights. Um, and you know, although she's a, as an example, it, that does have real implications
• 32:30
  because we know that in the child protection system, that gang gets played out often where the
• 32:36
  indigenous side of the family will have more rights than the non-indigenous side when it comes
• 32:42
  to a child that is of mixed. Is that right? Yes, absolutely. So child protective services tends to
• 32:47
  err towards. Yeah, I have a friend. She's a white woman, grandmother and great-grandmother of the
• 32:53
  large indigenous family because she was married to a indigenous man who's passed away. But
• 33:00
  she said she's had a couple of custody battles with grandchildren and it's been very,
• 33:04
  very hard for her, which she's been competing against. Other. Right. Is that because of the history
• 33:10
  of ripping, you know, relations families apart? And so there's a kind of post-colonial guilt about
• 33:16
  being perceived to do that. Yes, and an overreaction to it as well. Right. So yeah, but that's a
• 33:23
  topic for another discussion. Yeah, but I am certainly happy to hear from indigenous people
• 33:30
  or indigenous people. Of course. I mean, I'm just wondering whether it depends what you're talking
• 33:33
  about, right? I mean, if you're talking about the experience, if you're talking about, you know,
• 33:35
  you mentioned lived experience before. This is the buzzword that everyone, you know, the lived,
• 33:39
  mind lived experience, mind lived experience as a blah, blah, blah, blah. And that means shut up. Yeah,
• 33:44
  exactly. That's right. Yeah. I mean, you don't get to contradict me, even if what I'm saying is
• 33:48
  nonsense. And that's what I pose. Right. Right. But if the person's talking about something that you
• 33:54
  have to, the person's talking about their life story, about like experiences of discrimination,
• 33:59
  experiences of finding it hard to get a job or to be a, to get a house to rent or something,
• 34:06
  then surely it is salient that they've experienced the thing. I think where I part company is when
• 34:13
  you're talking about things that fundamentally come down to data and reason and evidence and
• 34:18
  sort of science or, you know, policy, where it shouldn't really matter what background you're on,
• 34:23
  because there are objectively defensible facts that you're talking about. You know, so if you're
• 34:27
  talking about, you know, how much money needs to be put into remote schools, it shouldn't,
• 34:34
  you shouldn't need to be a First Nations Australian to have an opinion about that, even if the money
• 34:39
  is mainly benefiting First Nations Australians. I agree. But if you're talking about, you know,
• 34:45
  if you're sharing the experience, essentially, of being a First Nations Australian on the panel,
• 34:49
  on this hypothetical panel, presumably you do need to be. Well, there are problems with when
• 34:54
  people relate their experiences, those experiences I always looked at. I mean, first of all,
• 34:59
  when we describe our experiences, which is usually often something in the past,
• 35:05
  we don't record the events perfectly like a tabric order. We reconstruct events. That's
• 35:09
  very easy to say. I walked into that shop and that shopkeeper was looking at me and he was looking
• 35:16
  at me because I had dark skin. And we walk away thinking that's a fact. So we can sometimes
• 35:21
  embellish things, not to dismiss everything, but we just, again, just need to put some limits
• 35:28
  around that and just realise, hey, you know, there could be some error here. You know, we all
• 35:36
  make mistakes in our recall about our interpretation and what we believe is causal.
• 35:45
  Yeah, no, it's interesting. You're reminding me. There was a thing that went viral on social
• 35:49
  media a few years ago where there was a famous black American musician who was in Australia and
• 35:56
  he was on a domestic flight. And he went viral because he was saying that the flight attendant
• 36:02
  was racist for telling him to put his, for barking at him to put away his laptop and put his seat
• 36:07
  to his tray table up when they were coming in for landing. And I just thought that is
• 36:13
  so interesting because he doesn't probably, he's not familiar with the different culture of
• 36:18
  the way that flight attendants interact with you here versus maybe in the States. He's not
• 36:22
  familiar with the different ways that a white Australian might like the fact that they may not
• 36:27
  be treading on as many egg shells with a black person as an American person might because Americans
• 36:32
  might be more hypersensitive about race. He may not be aware of how strictly they enforce the,
• 36:37
  put your seat back upright rule. So there's all this stuff that is put, there's in the mix
• 36:43
  that could be a potential for misinterpretation. He reaches for the one of, you know, easiest
• 36:48
  interpretation to rile people up and to make him feel aggrieved and righteous, which is that he's
• 36:54
  being discriminated against as a black man. But there's a constellation of other reasons why he
• 36:58
  might be asked to put his tray table up. And, you know, we often do take metal shortcuts and we get
• 37:03
  it wrong sometimes and sometimes we, you know, do want to try and embellish the story and be the hero
• 37:09
  in all of this. So we do need to be careful. There was another story to some guy I think I went
• 37:14
  in the Melbourne casino or something complained about his mistreatment as, you know, person of dark
• 37:21
  skin. So bringing that to the conversation about psychology and how we, how we interpret the
• 37:27
  past and how we interpret our loss in life as a result of it, how do you, what are your thoughts
• 37:33
  about the kind of victimhood narrative, I guess, which I feel has been increasing in recent years,
• 37:40
  not just for the First Nations people, but all over the place. Like you get a, there's a certain
• 37:45
  kudos for feeling like there was a microaggression that was made against you or that you've been,
• 37:50
  you know, you've been made to feel unsafe in the workspace because someone's erasing your
• 37:53
  identity or whatever it might be. These are things that would have sounded like gibberish 10
• 37:56
  years ago that are now, you know, currency. Yeah. What happened? Yeah. Okay. Well, first of all,
• 38:02
  before I explain or give my opinion of what happened, I'm glad you said it's not just Indigenous
• 38:07
  people because I was going to say the same thing as well. Do you live in an age where it's so easy
• 38:11
  just to say I'm offended and then suddenly you've got the year of the HR manager and all that sort
• 38:16
  of thing. When I said in the mental health industry as well, it's so too much more there.
• 38:23
  But how did it happen? I think it was just that creeping of ideas just bit by bit where
• 38:33
  once someone takes one step to be offended, it's over something. It's very easy to take the next
• 38:38
  step to be offended over something even smaller and it just grows and grows and you do get, you know,
• 38:44
  there can be a bit of a victimhood Olympics out there where you get people who are competing
• 38:49
  to be the most victimised. The fact that so people are looking to be special and one of the
• 38:58
  quick and feel important and I believe one of the quickest, easiest ways to feel important is just
• 39:03
  to say I'm offended. To be offended is to feel important. What has kept it going, unfortunately,
• 39:08
  we've got a fire here, the oxygen that keeps us going is people being let you will get rewarded
• 39:15
  for it. You will be able to get someone fired for claiming you're offended.
• 39:22
  You know, like I said, you will get the year of the HR manager or whoever it is. You will get
• 39:27
  that compensation payout. You will get that apology. So knowing that people can get those rewards,
• 39:36
  that can spur them on as well. I might have a doubt this. Is social media playing a role?
• 39:41
  Yeah, very much. It just amplifies everything. It's a wonderful tool, but it also has given a voice to,
• 39:48
  you know, people who we would rather not hear from. And it also empowers the mob to wield,
• 39:58
  an outsized power. It sort of gives the pitchforks and the flaming torches added violence.
• 40:04
  Absolutely. And so, you know, as much as I don't want to hear from those people, I still think they
• 40:09
  should be allowed to say what they want to say. We've just got to be able to come up with better
• 40:14
  responses for them. And I just hope there are people out there at all levels of the business sector
• 40:21
  and government who can show some backbone and say, you know, enough is enough. But, you know,
• 40:26
  also unfortunately, and my profession of mental health, do you do have some people who are
• 40:33
  contributing to this, you know, saying, well, you know, this person is a victim of the microaggression
• 40:38
  and all this sort of thing. And once, once you have these experts giving opinions like that,
• 40:46
  it does kind of take on a legitimacy, which is hard for the average person to challenge.
• 40:50
  I've had Jonathan Hyte on the show. Yeah. If people haven't heard that episode and are interested
• 40:55
  in this kind of stuff, they should go back and listen to the episode with John Hyte, who's a
• 40:59
  social psychologist in New York and one of the world's leading experts on this kind of thing.
• 41:03
  And he makes the point that, you know, if you had to construct a way, a worldview that
• 41:10
  impedes resilience and makes people more vulnerable, it would be the kind of worldview that
• 41:16
  university students at the moment are being inculcated, which is, you know, words of violence,
• 41:23
  microaggressions make you unsafe. You should exclude ideas that you consider to be hateful, hurtful
• 41:30
  from your purview. Is there a way of reversing the direction here, or do you think you're getting
• 41:35
  better naturally? Before we reverse it, I think we should realize, okay, this is pointing to a real
• 41:40
  problem, pointing towards their identifying or fabricating another problem. But there is a problem
• 41:46
  that we do live in a world where people are wanting to be validated, wanting to be cared,
• 41:51
  part of the flock, and that is a legitimate net. We're increasingly becoming an impersonal
• 41:57
  world. Like, for example, you know, my local train station, you no longer have a person that
• 42:02
  that you can buy a ticket from. And for some passengers, that may be the only person they get to
• 42:07
  the sea and have an exchange with. So it's becoming a more impersonal world and people are looking
• 42:12
  for ways to please notice me. And one of those quick and easy ways to be noticed is to
• 42:18
  shout victim. Okay, so that's a problem we should be aware of. So I think if we're aware of that,
• 42:23
  that might be able to turn things around. As for other solutions, it does, I mean, we need people
• 42:30
  like Jonathan out there who, although their voices are the minority, it gives hope to other people,
• 42:37
  you know, when I hear people like Hyde and Thomas Sal and others, that gives confidence and hope
• 42:47
  for those people who have been thinking, gosh, you know, I didn't want to say it, but
• 42:52
  they've been able to say it for me. I might start saying it as well, you know, I might start
• 42:58
  when, you know, for someone who's got a college kid who winges, you know, that parent might say,
• 43:02
  mate, toughen up. So, you know, it could start in the house when someone sees an influential person,
• 43:08
  given alternative message that we do not have to, or as a town, Jonathan, Molly Kotl.
• 43:14
  Yeah. Kotling, yeah. Kotling of the American mind. Yeah, and you know, there's tell it's
• 43:18
  Kotling that happens in the families and suburbs out there. But again, when you've got institutions
• 43:24
  like universities and that sort of giving this message, it can be daunting, it can be hard to
• 43:30
  resist that. Is there a, but I count a failing problem of the kind of tough bloke, you know,
• 43:36
  there's been a lot of talk about the crisis of masculinity and, you know, spoken to First Nations,
• 43:42
  Australians about this and the First Nations communities as well about their being a kind of,
• 43:46
  you know, stiff up a lip, you know, don't cry, like get on with life attitude of masculinity,
• 43:51
  that the blokes are finding it hard to understand between consent and feminism and like,
• 43:57
  a quality, a gender equality where they fit and, you know, what a good male role model is.
• 44:04
  Well, I'm not sure of your question, but just I'll give a response and you can ask me to clarify.
• 44:09
  I think it's fine for males to show emotion and cry and this is a lovely video I show people
• 44:17
  that are when I'm helping and it's just a real nice tear jerker and it's great to see people cry
• 44:22
  when they see that. But what we don't want, you know, just to, this is how I'm feeling, but
• 44:29
  what we don't want is people getting upset as a way of manipulating and silencing other people.
• 44:36
  Does that go part way towards it? Yeah, it does. It does.
• 44:39
  So you can be at male with strong principles and be rugged and that and you can have a cry if you want.
• 44:46
  But, you know, with regard to consent and boundaries and that, the same rules of play, you know,
• 44:50
  just respect others, treat them the way you want to be. The way that some other countries have
• 44:58
  dealt, just getting back to the First Nations question, have dealt with their indigenous populations
• 45:03
  is by having a treaty, you know, the Kiwis have a treaty that comes up in Australia. It was part
• 45:09
  of the opposition from some indigenous Australians to the voice saying that the voice wasn't going
• 45:15
  far enough and what we actually needed was a treaty between Australia and indigenous Australians.
• 45:20
  Is that a good idea? Well, two things coming to mind. If you say, look at a, well, first of all,
• 45:24
  New Zealand is a very different country to Australia. Different sorts of problems, you know,
• 45:29
  smaller the, the smaller geographically, so you don't have a remote, remoteness like you do
• 45:35
  here. But I would also ask how well does it work in terms of, say, keeping the indigenous people in
• 45:43
  jobs and out of prison and that sort of thing. And I hear a lot of bad reports. But the other thing
• 45:51
  too, if we bring it back home to Australia again, the indigenous leaders, and particularly those
• 45:59
  with the voice, I don't need to name them, I can name them if you want, but we know who they are.
• 46:04
  They are all people who are high achievers. Some of them have Professor in front of their name.
• 46:10
  They're people I respect, but I disagree with someone a lot of things, but I still respect them.
• 46:16
  I think, okay, you've done really well and you've done it without the voice and you've done it
• 46:20
  without a treaty. So again, if you can show to me how the treaty will enable
• 46:28
  and indigenous people to, you know, live in homes where they got food on the table,
• 46:32
  and the kids are in school and the adults are engaging in
• 46:37
  meaningful work and that sort of thing, I will give the the treaty some consideration,
• 46:42
  but at this stage I can't see how that will help. And I've already seen good evidence that
• 46:46
  people can achieve without the treaty. I think it's a bit of a red herring to say people
• 46:51
  can achieve without it, therefore it's useless. It reminds me of saying, look, Obama became president,
• 46:57
  therefore a copy race is America. One amazing person was able to do it, that doesn't mean that
• 47:04
  everybody can. I don't know if that's the best parallel there, but again, what's different?
• 47:11
  You're saying, you're saying here are some people who are really successful, therefore?
• 47:15
  Well, you're a Obama one was saying, oh, Obama got president, so therefore there's no racism.
• 47:21
  Well, yeah, it's a way of saying that the disadvantage can't be too bad because look at
• 47:25
  these successful people from that community. I'm saying that this advantage in some places where
• 47:33
  there's a high proportion of indigenous people is really bad, so I'm not in denial of that.
• 47:38
  I'm saying that there are many indigenous people who are doing very, very well, and I believe what
• 47:42
  they've done, that this formula for their success can be applied to those people who are doing
• 47:52
  poorly. So, and that's the gap we've got to close, those indigenous people who are doing poorly
• 47:55
  and those who are doing well. And again, the other thing, if we do want to go down the treaty path
• 48:00
  and I hope we don't because I think it will be again, waste of millions and billions and
• 48:06
  you'll have issues there about with all the different agreements between groups and,
• 48:12
  you know, particularly when it comes to payouts and that sort of thing, you will probably suddenly
• 48:17
  have arguments about just exactly who is indigenous and who does belong to trybacks and all that
• 48:23
  sort of thing, but putting those problems aside. Again, if we do have to get in that path that
• 48:28
  it works, I will be the first person to say I was wrong and that was right. And so, when we say
• 48:36
  that like, you know, there are some people who are successful and so we have to try to find a way
• 48:41
  to overcome disadvantage by doing the same sorts of things that those successful people did.
• 48:46
  Is there a cultural component to this? I mean, is there a way of thinking about opportunity,
• 48:52
  about success, about disadvantage that is not present in indigenous families that could be?
• 48:59
  Okay, look, I would say just like some non-indigenous people, you do have some people who,
• 49:04
  whether it's been that generational dysfunction, it's not the best way I was looking for,
• 49:11
  but you know, disadvantage, lack of opportunity, they're not going to be able to work,
• 49:15
  it's going to be very hard. And I've seen it in remote places and also, you know, towns like
• 49:23
  Alice Springs where you do see some indigenous people who, and there would be white people as well,
• 49:29
  they probably just indoors so I don't get to see them, but there are some who just will not be
• 49:34
  capable of working. And so with them, we need to look after them the best way we can. We want to
• 49:41
  make sure that they're not having alcohol, they're having good food, they're being looked after,
• 49:48
  and I believe government could sponsor those people, make sure they're living in good times,
• 49:52
  but we need to make sure we are targeting the next generation where we can normalize work
• 49:58
  for them and normalize education where they get to learn, you know, in this world, this is what
• 50:04
  you do. You go to school and then you get a job. Right. And do you have any ways of spreading that
• 50:12
  message like what's the one hanging fruit? Messages like this and I think it is good for good
• 50:17
  news stories. Look, the ABC, for example, to their credit, and I know that they've been in
• 50:24
  incredibly woke and it's also interesting you have some good people who have come from the ABC.
• 50:30
  You and Tom Switzer, a couple of others, but the ABC to their credit do publish good news stories.
• 50:38
  And I retweet those good news stories as well. And so I think we need to hear more good news stories.
• 50:45
  And it's nothing feels a bit of joy more than what I see those good news stories about school kids
• 50:52
  in remote communities who are doing really well. They've got a project up and running there
• 50:58
  just doing really well. So yeah, we can just highlight the doom and gloom. We've got to keep that on
• 51:03
  the radar for sure, but just remind Indigenous people and non-Indigenous people, there are some
• 51:08
  good things happening. And it was on pressure. It was one of the Dodson brothers who said we need to
• 51:15
  replicate the success. And you know, I agree. I don't think there would be anyone who would disagree
• 51:21
  with that. Where there is success, we need to replicate it. And of course, it's not a one size fits
• 51:25
  all. What works in one community, you may need to modify it for it to work in another community.
• 51:33
  But at the same time, we do need to make some tough decisions about some remote communities.
• 51:38
  And I know that someone like Warren Mandine, who's more experienced than me, but also more optimistic.
• 51:45
  And I'm happy to follow easily. He believes most if not all of those communities can be saved.
• 51:52
  And you know, he should be given the opportunity to do that. But I suspect there will be some
• 51:58
  remote communities where it's just not viable. And we have to keep our eye on the next generation
• 52:05
  of what opportunities they're going to have. Because I find it hard to see in some communities
• 52:12
  there being any real opportunities for the next meeting that they might have to be relocated.
• 52:16
  Real like out of here. Not just ripped up and thrown in a concrete jungle, but
• 52:21
  you know, moved to a close by urban center where there's a bit more happening. Do not force anyone,
• 52:29
  but just say, you know, look what happens here and look at these other
• 52:34
  indigenous people who come from here and nearby communities. We're just saying the
• 52:39
  invitations open for you if you want to come here. I'm reading Tyson Yunker Porter's
• 52:46
  latest bookies and other indigenous academic I'm sure you're familiar with.
• 52:50
  And you know, one of his sort of arguments is that there's a very linear Western enlightenment way
• 52:57
  of thinking about solutions and about narratives and about even conversations that is not natural
• 53:05
  to indigenous Australians that, you know, yarning, which is talking through
• 53:11
  issues in an exploratory way and an indigenous way, it sort of is a, I suppose,
• 53:20
  doesn't always fit easily into the logical sequential pattern of Western civilization. Do you buy that?
• 53:30
  Well, a bit like the indigenous people who don't like making eye contact or those
• 53:34
  indigenous people who need to be warned about something that's going to be on a TV show in their
• 53:39
  way, which very, very few people like that. As far as yarning, you follow it up, we said talking.
• 53:45
  Yarning is just talking. Yeah, when it comes to indigenous people, we've got to call it yarning.
• 53:51
  We says the closest word in English in Western civilization might be having a thought experiment,
• 53:57
  where, you know, you're throwing things out, but you're not really, but it's sort of blue sky,
• 54:02
  where you're not, you're not pinned down to, I don't know, expectations of structure or logic.
• 54:09
  Certainly for indigenous people who are say living in remote communities, I haven't had much
• 54:13
  experience with, if I say the word modern, that may be misinterpreted as, that's the word
• 54:21
  rustic with, you know, modern day things in Australia. Sure, they may need more time to chew over
• 54:28
  these things and discuss it amongst themselves and that sort of thing, but if you want to call
• 54:34
  that yarning, that's fine, but the problem is where you think every indigenous person and
• 54:42
  yarns, and of course, if you're going to write a proposal for a research grant in academia,
• 54:47
  you'll be talking about yarning and yarning circles and all that sort of, if I had to say bullshit
• 54:52
  on this issue, or that sort of nonsense. I just gave you permission to say bullshit here,
• 55:01
  the applications will be full of that sort of bullshit. Now, using yarning methodology,
• 55:06
  we will approach these indigenous people, blah, blah, blah, and then you'll get the grant,
• 55:11
  because it'll seem like it's profound and deep. We'll likely get the grant, yeah. Yeah, it's
• 55:15
  interesting. Just as an aside, while I think of it, Anthony, was your dad, one of the people who
• 55:20
  brought down the corruption of the Queensland government? Can you tell us anything about that?
• 55:28
  It was only pointed out to me, just as I walk into the studio. Can I spend two or three minutes?
• 55:32
  Please, it's fascinating. It's very quickly. So in Queensland, where there was corruption in
• 55:38
  the police force, this is the 1980s. Yeah, so I'd been happening for a while, but then there was this
• 55:43
  commission called the Fitzgerald Enquiry. And it was an extremely corrupt state government.
• 55:50
  Well, if we just focus on the police force, but yes, outside of the police force, there were other
• 55:57
  politicians who had their name associated with corruption. I mean, this was at the time of
• 56:02
  BLC, right? So the premier of the state, who would be the governor in America, was a populist,
• 56:09
  a nationalist, and turned out to be a pretty corrupt author. Well, you know, like a bit of dirt
• 56:16
  on his hands. So the police force is corrupt at the same time. Yeah, right at the top.
• 56:23
  Yeah. Okay. And so my father was a police officer. And you know, there was also the nation's first
• 56:31
  Aboriginal police officer. That was never something he kind of pushed or rode on. It was just the
• 56:36
  fact. He was just a good police officer. And he was at a serve all Queenslanders, regardless of
• 56:43
  colour. He did his job well. He was offered bribes. And when it come time for the Fitzgerald Enquiry,
• 56:52
  he was satisfied that it was a credible body in the form of Tony Fitzgerald. And he gave evidence.
• 57:01
  So he was the first one to give evidence. And that kind of knocked over the dominoes. And so
• 57:07
  two things I want to add to that was, well, a few things. There were many police officers who
• 57:18
  in the situation where it was easy for them to accept bribes. You know, it was just easier.
• 57:23
  They may not have been that way inclined, but it was, you know, the carrot was dangled in front of
• 57:27
  and they took it and then took a bit more and a bit more. My father said no. I guess I was an
• 57:32
  extraordinary in that sense. And the other thing I want people to know was what really
• 57:43
  enabled my father to be truly successful, I think, was the fact that for him, it was always
• 57:49
  family first. So when my father come home, not once, did I ever get a whiff of
• 57:56
  there was something wrong at work where dad was under stress because when he come home,
• 58:02
  the police kept went off and he was a father and he was just able to be the father. So that's
• 58:08
  something that the public don't get to hear about. The second thing was just the wonderful story we
• 58:14
  I was at a CIS Consilium, Centre for Independent Studies Consilium, Bill Leake and myself received
• 58:23
  a award, one of their fellowships and my father was there. I got my award, said my speech,
• 58:33
  Bill got his award, said his speech and then there was Greg Lindsay the CEO. So this one
• 58:37
  of the duty to perform and it was Bill Leake presented my father with this portrait he'd done
• 58:44
  of leading figures in the corruption side of things. So one of them, I think, was the police commissioner
• 58:53
  and people can google his name if they want. But it was a current Bill had done at the time,
• 58:58
  kept the original gap to my father. Wow. Unexpected surprise. Bill Leake is a great Australian
• 59:04
  cartoonist for people who don't know. Bill kept it a secret from me and it's just amazing.
• 59:10
  Unexpected surprise. I mean, your dad must have been incredible. When you think about Queensland
• 59:16
  is a heavily rural state. I mean, I wouldn't say that. Well, they'd be defying geography if they didn't.
• 59:25
  There's a corner in the southeast that's heavily developed, but it's generally a conservative
• 59:34
  farming state. At the time, it must have been quite a racist place in the 70s and 80s. I mean,
• 59:44
  I'm just thinking for an Indigenous Australian to make it to the top of the police force
• 59:49
  in Queensland in the 80s, he must have been a lot better than his peers. He was just a better
• 59:57
  cop. I mean, he was also the type, I think, radiated confidence that I'm sure of who I am
• 1:00:06
  and people would also interpret that as, you don't mess with him. Yeah, right, Ronda thing.
• 1:00:11
  Yeah. Has he shaped you? Yeah. Oh, undoubtedly. Just like I said,
• 1:00:21
  where he's first, the most important role is father. I think that's what heavily
• 1:00:26
  informs me. And then the other thing, when you do work, you do it to the best of your ability.
• 1:00:33
  And, you know, going back to generation, his parents too were very inspirational.
• 1:00:39
  Both Aboriginal, his father was tough, but his mother was very gentle and just radiated peace.
• 1:00:47
  And dad, you know, what might be called the higher, highest achiever in his family,
• 1:00:56
  he would tell you that it's his brothers and sisters who he admires equally because they have
• 1:01:02
  all just been workers and did what they did in an honest way and contributed to society.
• 1:01:09
  And so, you know, there were good citizens, good neighbours.
• 1:01:14
  Dad just happened to be a police officer, but was also a good neighbour and a good citizen,
• 1:01:19
  and that was a family of those. That's certainly been handed down to me.
• 1:01:23
  And do you think his success as a both professionally and also personally has shaped your ideas about
• 1:01:31
  Indigenous affairs, independence, psychology?
• 1:01:35
  Yes, certainly. And look, I should say, not once has my father ever given me
• 1:01:42
  advice or taught me anything about Indigenous affairs. So I got that there was just
• 1:01:47
  like coincidence, I guess. So it's certainly not something my father preached or anything.
• 1:01:54
  No, but by example, by example, I've just, you know, being a role model, absolutely.
• 1:01:58
  And, you know, I should, I learned some good things from my mother as well.
• 1:02:04
  But, you know, just do what you do, do it well, be honest. And, you know, my father gave the very
• 1:02:12
  clear explicit message. He said, I don't care what you do, just be honest in what you do.
• 1:02:18
  So he proved that, is it? Yeah, it is, by example.
• 1:02:21
  So, yes, amazing, amazing story. And you've talked about mental health a little bit. I just
• 1:02:26
  want to touch on that because you're not crazy about the way that we think about mental health
• 1:02:30
  and particular things like ADHD. What have we got wrong? Well, I'm hoping after this
• 1:02:39
  interview, I still have a job. But I think we're very quick to, and I'm quite in psychiatrist,
• 1:02:46
  by the way, I just happened to agree with them that we're too quick to slap a label on something.
• 1:02:51
  And, you know, a label certainly certs serves a purpose. But in mental health, very often,
• 1:02:57
  that label doesn't explain something just kind of, it's a convenient label to describe a cluster
• 1:03:03
  of behaviours. But that gets, what we call, reified it, you know, it becomes a reality,
• 1:03:09
  sort of thing. And people say, oh, I've got this, I've got that. Well, you've got a group of
• 1:03:15
  behaviours, and it's described by that label, but it doesn't explain why you're having difficulty
• 1:03:23
  in life. That combined with what we said before, where we live in a society where we are being
• 1:03:28
  coddled a bit, is a recipe for, you know, a fragile nation, which is I think is a name of a book
• 1:03:35
  which Tamver had. And so, yeah, there's a psychologist who's a psychiatrist, a psychiatrist who's
• 1:03:45
  also an interesting sort of dissident on, on matters of political correctness and diversity and so on.
• 1:03:51
  So with regard to mental health, the things I say, I can always quote other psychiatrists
• 1:03:57
  who have said the same thing, where, yeah, we're too quick to label, too quick to
• 1:04:02
  give medication to people. And as I read in one book by a psychiatrist, Joel Paris,
• 1:04:14
  he said, if psychiatrists based more firmly on science, there'd be less people being medicated.
• 1:04:19
  So that's something worth considering. And we saw an article in the last, I think it was the last
• 1:04:24
  weekend Australian that's been picked up in the conversation where the benefits of exercise
• 1:04:29
  have been shown to be, you know, as good as or better than medication. But you know, we know
• 1:04:37
  that big farmer has a lot of weight. And again, we do. No money in jogging in the sunshine.
• 1:04:44
  No, no. As I said, one author said, there's money to be found and then their pills,
• 1:04:55
  not pills, but pills. But also, you know, combine that with the fact that, you know, society is
• 1:05:03
  becoming so much more instantaneous where we're less able to delay gratification. We want everything
• 1:05:12
  now. And I always tell people very often, you know, as a kid, I remember, you take photos,
• 1:05:16
  take your camera down to Kmart, get the film developed. We cloudy, you pick up your photos.
• 1:05:22
  Now we take a photo, set it halfway around the world all within 30 seconds. Everything we want
• 1:05:27
  it now, now, now. Take 20 photos and then you pick the best one, you delete the other 19. Exactly.
• 1:05:33
  But we want everything now, now, now. And for things just like, you know, just like our bodies take
• 1:05:37
  time to go. Also, our mental side of us too, particularly if it's been wounded, takes time to
• 1:05:43
  get better. And takes as long as what it takes. And we shouldn't be trying to offer quick solutions.
• 1:05:50
  That's what I'm saying. We do need to work on ourselves. And that's tough. A lot of people
• 1:05:55
  these say it's just one quick solution. They want the therapist to work on them rather than
• 1:05:59
  they have to work on themselves. The therapist should be there to guide, just like a physio therapist
• 1:06:04
  or an exercise consultant can say, you know, this is what you can do, but you ultimately have to
• 1:06:11
  do the hard work. We get people these say, they're wanting the hard work done for them.
• 1:06:16
  Lastly, Anthony, and I'll, if people are listening to the free version of the podcast,
• 1:06:21
  then I'll thank you for being here and the episode will end here. But for paid subscribers,
• 1:06:26
  I just want to talk about the future a bit because it strikes me that there's a bit of a
• 1:06:31
  battle on the left between people who think that the way to achieve.