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What’s Acknowledgement of Country got to do with a law degree? · The Front

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  Speaker 1: From the Australian. Here's what's on the front. I'm Claire Harvey.
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  Speaker 1: It's Tuesday, March eighteen, twenty twenty five. Treasurer Jim Chalmers
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  Speaker 1: has revealed what he really thinks about US President Donald
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  Speaker 1: Trump's tariffs in a major pre budget speech at the
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  Speaker 1: Queensland Media Club on Tuesday. He'll call the duty's economic
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  Speaker 1: self harm. Australia is unlikely to meet most of Labour's
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  Speaker 1: twenty thirty climate goals, so the party has quietly removed
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  Speaker 1: its modeling from its website. You can read that exclusive
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  Speaker 1: story right now at the Australian dot com dot au.
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  Speaker 1: The University in Sydney will fail law students who refuse
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  Speaker 1: to perform an acknowledgment of country, or if they don't
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  Speaker 1: do it with enough enthusiasm. But what's that kind of
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  Speaker 1: formality got to do with a law to go? And
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  Speaker 1: how does acknowledgment of country fit in today's Australia. That's
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  Speaker 1: today's story.
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  Speaker 2: Are you ready?
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  Speaker 1: Here is the lands, Here is the sky planes, meetings,
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  Speaker 1: school assemblies, and thank.
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  Speaker 2: The people of the wine Tree and barn.
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  Speaker 1: If modern Australia has a sound, it's the acknowledgment of country.
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  Speaker 3: We acknowledge the traditional owners and custodians of the Daru peoples.
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  Speaker 1: The Gatigel people of the Eora nation, the.
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  Speaker 3: People of the Southern Highlands.
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  Speaker 1: We respect their spiritual relationship with their country. But there's
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  Speaker 1: a new twist. If you don't do it properly, you
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  Speaker 1: might not pass your unicorse.
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  Speaker 3: Governed over the weekend that there is a marking rubric
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  Speaker 3: for one of the courses at Macquarie Law School. The
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  Speaker 3: course is called Age and the Law, which is a
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  Speaker 3: fairly innocuous sounding subject about the way that the law
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  Speaker 3: impacts on children and older people.
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  Speaker 1: Janet al Breton is a columnist with The Australian and
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  Speaker 1: she also has a doctorate in juridical studies. She's worked
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  Speaker 1: as a solicitor in commercial law.
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  Speaker 3: And I discovered that in the marking rubric for one
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  Speaker 3: component of this course, students are required it's mandatory to
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  Speaker 3: deliver an acknowledgment of country. If you're non indigenous or
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  Speaker 3: if you are a member of the local tribe, then
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  Speaker 3: you deliver a welcome to country, so obligatory for all students,
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  Speaker 3: and if you don't present it at the beginning of
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  Speaker 3: your oral presentation in the way that has been set
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  Speaker 3: down by the marker, or if you don't do it
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  Speaker 3: in a way that was appropriate, or if there is
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  Speaker 3: significant room for improvement, or if you didn't show enough
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  Speaker 3: cultural respect when delivering it, you fail, which is pretty extraordinary, Claire.
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  Speaker 3: I must say I had to read it a couple
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  Speaker 3: of times to really understand that they were literally compelling
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  Speaker 3: a form of political speech in the classroom in the
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  Speaker 3: law school. I've never seen anything quite like this, and
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  Speaker 3: you know, you wonder what else is going on.
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  Speaker 1: Would this kind of thing have been in vogue when
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  Speaker 1: you were at law school, Claire.
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  Speaker 3: I don't recall one ounce of politics in Adelaide Law
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  Speaker 3: school in the eighties. When I was there. It didn't
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  Speaker 3: even cross my mind that it might be there, or
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  Speaker 3: should it be there. We were literally taught law. The
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  Speaker 3: subjects were very classically legal subjects, contract equity, criminal law.
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  Speaker 3: When you look at the curriculum now in law schools,
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  Speaker 3: it is infused with politics, its gender and the law.
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  Speaker 3: When I left a law firm a number of years ago,
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  Speaker 3: I taught for a while at Sydney Law School and
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  Speaker 3: what really turned me off and why I stopped teaching,
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  Speaker 3: was because the subjects were so infused with politics, and
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  Speaker 3: I didn't want to teach politics. I wanted to teach law.
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  Speaker 3: And I do think that we are letting down students
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  Speaker 3: who pay a hell of a lot of money to
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  Speaker 3: be trained in the law.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah. This is the intersection of two themes that come
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  Speaker 1: up very frequently in your writing, the law and the
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  Speaker 1: way it's taught, and freedom of speech and the idea
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  Speaker 1: that we can have different opinions. The idea of acknowledgment
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  Speaker 1: to country or welcome to country has really become a
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  Speaker 1: bit of a shibbalith, hasn't it? For the progressive classes,
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  Speaker 1: the university classes in Australia it has.
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  Speaker 3: And look, it's not just the university classes, Claire. You
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  Speaker 3: would find up until I think the decision on the Voice,
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  Speaker 3: there were many boardrooms where there would be an acknowledgment
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  Speaker 3: to country. There would be audit committee meetings within the
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  Speaker 3: board where there was an acknowledgment to country. It got
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  Speaker 3: really really silly, and it was overused and it was
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  Speaker 3: wrote read and there was no real meaning to it.
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  Speaker 3: I think the only outcome was that it annoyed a
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  Speaker 3: lot of people and it lost its worth. And I'm
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  Speaker 3: sure there is a cultural worth to both an acknowledgment
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  Speaker 3: of country and a welcome to country. In some areas.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, so there's welcome to country. Let's talk about that
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  Speaker 1: in a moment. But first acknowledgment of country, which is
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  Speaker 1: meant to be read by someone who is not of
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  Speaker 1: the local people that are not necessarily Aboriginal, but they
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  Speaker 1: are acknowledging that we're meeting on the lands of such
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  Speaker 1: and such people. The interesting thing about that is how
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  Speaker 1: ubiquitous it's become in the public sector. I know people
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  Speaker 1: in the public sector who say that at any meeting
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  Speaker 1: with more than three or four people, there's an expectation
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  Speaker 1: that an acknowledgment of country will be read, even if
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  Speaker 1: they're meeting over zoom and they're all in different places.
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  Speaker 1: How do you think that has become so embedded in
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  Speaker 1: the fabric of our our public service.
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  Speaker 3: I think it's got this quasi religious aspect to it, Claire.
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  Speaker 3: I mean, we did away with the daily prayer. If
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  Speaker 3: we're in court, we can affirm or give an oath.
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  Speaker 3: But the acknowledgment to country now is there is a
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  Speaker 3: religious fervor with which it's applied but not necessarily delivered.
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  Speaker 3: I think it's often delivered with a sense of utter
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  Speaker 3: resignation that it has to be done. There was a
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  Speaker 3: court sitting or an address at the New South Wales.
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  Speaker 3: I think it was a Federal court or Supreme Court
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  Speaker 3: where every single person who addressed the court gave an
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  Speaker 3: acknowledgment of country. I think there were ten. Unfortunately, it's
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  Speaker 3: been so overused that it ends up dividing people. It
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  Speaker 3: has absolute opposite effect on people. And I think when
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  Speaker 3: you start mandating it at a law school and you
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  Speaker 3: threaten to fail students if they don't deliver it with
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  Speaker 3: the right amount of fervor, we have really gone too far.
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  Speaker 3: And I think it's an indication. If that's what is
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  Speaker 3: happening in one class, what else is happening in other classes?
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  Speaker 1: Now?
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  Speaker 3: Macquarie University's response to from the Australian was that it
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  Speaker 3: does not apply to all oral presentations at Morquarie University. Well,
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  Speaker 3: how many does it apply to? And what about other universities?
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  Speaker 3: And I just wonder what is the next step here?
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  Speaker 3: Is there going to be an investigation into the level
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  Speaker 3: of what I see as political activism in the lecture
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  Speaker 3: room at Macquarie Law School? Who cares? Does anyone care?
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  Speaker 3: That this has happened.
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  Speaker 1: Coming up. Where do university's obligations on freedom of speech
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  Speaker 1: sit with their rules about everything else?
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  Speaker 2: Janet.
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  Speaker 1: The big football codes were very early adopters of acknowledgments
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  Speaker 1: to or welcomes to country. The Alat Football Club we
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  Speaker 1: like to acknowledge there's a land we meet on today.
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  Speaker 1: It's a traditional land on the Ghana people. And last year,
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  Speaker 1: at the end of the football season for both the
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  Speaker 1: AFL and the NRL, we saw some controversy arising about it.
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  Speaker 1: After one of the AFL finals there was a speaker
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  Speaker 1: who caused some controversy. I heard that particular speaker, Uncle
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  Speaker 1: Brendan Karen, actually speaking at another event.
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  Speaker 2: Within Australia, we have many Aboriginal lands and we refer
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  Speaker 2: to our lands as country, so it's always a welcome
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  Speaker 2: to the lands you're gathered on. All Welcome to country
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  Speaker 2: is not a ceremony that we've invented to cater for
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  Speaker 2: white people. It's a ceremony we've been doing for two
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  Speaker 2: hundred and fifty thousand years plus BC and the BC
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  Speaker 2: stands for before Cook.
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  Speaker 1: That triggered a big debate in the AFL community. Then
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  Speaker 1: the Melbourne storm in the NRL said that they would
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  Speaker 1: be re examining their use of acknowledgments or welcomes to
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  Speaker 1: country and they would let their actions rather than their words,
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  Speaker 1: speak for how they incorporate indigenous culture. And of course
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  Speaker 1: the other cultures specific are maldi people who play with them.
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  Speaker 1: Where do you think we're at in a broader culture, Janet?
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  Speaker 1: Are we seeing a backlash or a lack of interest
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  Speaker 1: in these ceremonies spreading now?
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  Speaker 3: Yes, I think one of the advantages of the voice
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  Speaker 3: devot and there were there were lots of awful parts
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  Speaker 3: to it. It got very vicious, I think at times.
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  Speaker 3: But one of the lasting effects is that we have
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  Speaker 3: been able to have this discussion around an acknowledgment of
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  Speaker 3: a welcome to country. We've seen it at the Australian
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  Speaker 3: with our readers. A lot of people are pushing back
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  Speaker 3: on it. A lot of people are explaining why they
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  Speaker 3: don't like it. They're wondering why it's become so obligatory
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  Speaker 3: and that it's overused.
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  Speaker 1: Do you think there's a kernel of well meaning intent
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  Speaker 1: behind all of this, Janet, that you well meaning people
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  Speaker 1: are concerned about Aboriginal incarceration rates or child poverty, rates
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  Speaker 1: and feel that they want to do something and feel
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  Speaker 1: that this is the kind of thing that they can
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  Speaker 1: do in their own lives.
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  Speaker 3: I'm sure there is, Claire, I have absolutely no doubt
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  Speaker 3: about that. I haven't met in Australia who doesn't care
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  Speaker 3: about the high incarceration rate, the welfare issues, the violence,
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  Speaker 3: the drugs, the educational failings for Indigenous children. But I'm
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  Speaker 3: not sure that delivering an acknowledgment does anything. And I
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  Speaker 3: think if we trick ourselves into thinking by giving an
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  Speaker 3: acknowledgment at a zoom meeting with two other white people
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  Speaker 3: that we are somehow doing something useful, we're deluding ourselves.
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  Speaker 3: I think there are other things we can do, and
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  Speaker 3: then I think there are a whole batch of other
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  Speaker 3: people who are just doing it because they're forced to,
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  Speaker 3: And what is the value of that.
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  Speaker 1: It's interesting too, isn't it? Because universities said when they
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  Speaker 1: had encampments of pro Palestinian groups that they weren't able
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  Speaker 1: to dictate what students were allowed to do on campus.
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  Speaker 1: You know, they had to expect students freedom of speech.
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  Speaker 1: And if that meant that Israeli or Jewish students felt
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  Speaker 1: discriminated against, well it wasn't the university's problem. How do
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  Speaker 1: those two things square up?
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  Speaker 3: Well, they don't do though. If they can't discipline a
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  Speaker 3: pro Palestinian academic or students for acts of anti Semitism,
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  Speaker 3: and yet they can fail a student for not delivering
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  Speaker 3: a force of compelled political speech, they don't square off
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  Speaker 3: at all. They don't make sense. And that's where universities,
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  Speaker 3: I think sadly, are losing credibility. They're losing trust and
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  Speaker 3: respect with the public. And these are public institutions and
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  Speaker 3: they need to have the legitimacy that arises from us
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  Speaker 3: believing in them and in students believing in them. Again,
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  Speaker 3: I don't think it's good enough. We have to work
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  Speaker 3: out how that changes, because nothing so far has put
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  Speaker 3: a rocket under the backside of the governing councils of
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  Speaker 3: Australia's biggest universities.
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  Speaker 1: Janedal Bregson is a columnist with The Australian and you
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  Speaker 1: can read her writing right now at The Australian dot
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  Speaker 1: com dot a