The Hon Linda Burney MP and the Rhetoric of Bad Faith - Part 3 — Dark Emu Exposed

Jan 27

Jan 27 The Hon Linda Burney MP and the Rhetoric of Bad Faith - Part 3

Just Making Stuff Up, Linda Burney, Politics

This post is about how the Australian people are not always given an historically accurate narrative with regard to the social and political events that have occurred in Australia’s history.

Too often it seems that commentators, such as politicians, are willing to ‘slant the narrative’ for political effect or, in the worst of examples, are willing to ‘just make stuff up’ about our country’s history for their own ideological reasons.

In many cases, when an observer has had the benefit of a good education, it is relatively easy to identify politicians acting in ‘bad faith’, as they attempt to mislead the Australian people, and even themselves, with their ‘re-writing’ of our Australian history.

**Figure 1** - Iago (right) and Othello from *Othello* by William Shakespeare. Much of the tragedy of the play is brought about by advice Iago gives to Othello in **bad faith.**
In his book *Being and Nothingness* (1943), the philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre defined **bad faith** (Fr. mauvaise foi) as the action of a person hiding the truth from him- or herself. *Wikipedia*

In this post, we will look at one such example of what we believe is a case of ‘bad faith’ by the Hon Linda Burney MP, the current Minister for Indigenous Australians in the Federal Parliament.

**Hon Linda Burney MP** *Credit: David Foote*

Before detailing our argument, we should first clarify that some of our regular readers may think we are being perhaps too unfairly critical of Linda Burney, given that we have previously produced two posts on her genealogy. However, we do not believe that this is the case.

We use the life situations and thoughts of Linda Burney as examples in many of our arguments because she is a public figure and she has been generous in publicly providing many details of her own family life. She readily uses her ‘life experiences’ to her own political advantage as needed. She has also expressed her thoughts on Aboriginal affairs and her own political, social and economic ideology in numerous public statements.

What Linda Burney freely says about herself and her political thoughts are a good proxy for the ‘progressive’ view of about half of Australia’s population (Labor and Greens voters predominately). If we bring our counter-arguments up to what Linda Burney has said, then that is a good way to debate our opinions with the half of Australia that does not generally agree with our views.

In addition, Linda Burney is a public servant, employed with our taxpayer funds to represent her constituents in parliament, plus all the rest of us Australians as our Minister for Indigenous Australians. As long as we are respectful and stick to the facts we believe that we are acting in ‘good faith’ when we provide evidence to show where, in our opinion, Linda Burney, and her claims and policies, are wrong.

The Power of Language in Culture

We have read (and listened to) enough of Linda Burney’s speeches and interviews to see how she successfully uses rhetoric to persuade her audience, where rhetoric is defined as, language designed to have a persuasive or impressive effect, but which is often regarded as lacking in sincerity or meaningful content.

One rhetorical technique she has successfully developed is that of ‘Aboriginal victimhood,’ where she implies that, ‘the torment of our powerlessness’, of the Aboriginal people, is due to failings by white Australian society and its governments, past and present.

Her literary technique is to engender a feeling of guilt in non-Aboriginal Australians for some claimed, past injustice, and in that way persuade her targets to agree to the political position that she is advocating for today.

As a way of example, consider one of the claims she made in her maiden speech in the NSW State Parliament in 2003, where it was reported that,

**Figure 1 -** *Source:* *ABC Fact Check*

In our opinion, Burney’s rhetorical aim here is three-fold. Firstly, she aims to elicit sympathy from her non-Aboriginal listeners with her reference to the ‘flora and fauna’ Act, the implication being that, “you racist Australians just treated us Aborigines as animals as recently as 1957-67.”

Secondly, she aims to make her non-Aboriginal listeners feel guilty for the actions of their forebears and thus become more amenable to Burney’s political demands of today - she wants us to agree that ‘justice’ or ‘reparations’, in the form of some political concessions, are now due.

And thirdly, this phrase is a call for solidarity to Aboriginal Australians, “look how badly ‘our people’ were treated by the whites - join our political group and we will fight for justice on your behalf.”

Now it’s a free-country (just), and claims like this phrase can be freely made, but is it true? Or is it simply, as we surmise, a rhetorical claim made in bad faith?

Quiet surprisingly, but to their credit, the national broadcaster, the ABC, undertook a ‘fact-check’ of this ‘regularly repeated claim’ and found it to be a myth:

‘A regularly repeated claim in public debate is that Indigenous Australians were covered by a flora and fauna act, which did not classify them as human beings, and that this only changed when the constitution was amended following the 1967 referendum.

For at least the past 10 years, academics, media commentators and Aboriginal people, including an Indigenous MP, have claimed this to be true…The verdict [is that Burney’s] claim is a myth. Aboriginal people in Australia have never been covered by a flora and fauna act, either under federal or state law. But despite several attempts by various people to set the record straight, the myth continues to circulate, perhaps because, as one academic told Fact Check, it "embodies elements of a deeper truth about discrimination". - ABC Fact Check

However, this rhetoric, and the false-narrative (lie?), of Burney’s did still achieve some of its desired effect when one considers the response of other commentators, such as 'Professor Marcia Langton, described as ‘one of Australia's most respected Indigenous academics’, who … added: "We were not classified under the 'flora and fauna act' but we were treated as animals." (Source: ABC Fact Check)

As the falsehood (lie) of the phrase, ‘Aborigines were classified under the flora and fauna act’ has become more widely known, Linda Burney (and/or her speech writer?) have needed to find a replacement for the empathy- and guilt-inducing ‘victimhood’ notion that white Australians only ever treated Aborigines as ‘animals’ under law.

A suitable replacement was soon constructed by altering the history books again by promoting the idea that the Aborigines were so lowly regarded by white Australia that they weren’t even counted during the Census.

The future speeches of Linda Burney were even able to re-craft the ‘Aborigine as animal’ meme by just adding a few words about sheep as a mental prompt so that, in her maiden speech in the Federal parliament of 2016, she tells us in her newly minted, rhetorical phrase that,

‘I was born at a time when the Australian government knew how many sheep there were but not how many Aboriginal people. I was 10 years old before the '67 referendum fixed that.’

House Hansard, Wednesday, 31 August 2016, p163

This is a powerful piece of political rhetoric by Burney - she is laying the guilt onto white Australia - “you cared more about how many bloody sheep you had, than you did about us Aboriginal people.”

But is this even true?

Were Australian governments clueless as to the numbers of Aboriginal people in Australia around 1957, when Burney was born?

Most of our regular readers may not be surprised when we tell them that the evidence suggests that the Hon Linda Burney MP, like Professor Bruce Pascoe with his fabricated pronouncements, is ‘just making this up.’

For in fact, the evidence we have uncovered comprehensively confirms that state governments, such as NSW where Burney was born, did have very detailed counts (allowing for the resources, methodology and technology of the time) of Aboriginal peoples, both ‘full-blood’ and ‘half-castes.’ [Note 2].

In our opinion, we would suggest that the Aboriginal censuses were just as accurate as those of the non-Aboriginal population, and most probably very much more accurate than the sheep censuses, given the huge number of sheep in Australia and the large margins of error in counting the flocks.

As our evidence, consider the following.

The Town of Whitton.

Linda Burney was in born in Whitton, in the Shire of Leeton in western NSW, in 1957 and lived there at least until 1967, when the referendum she refers to took place (See Map in Figure 2).

**Figure 2 - Whitton town, Linda Burney’s birthplace in 1957, and where she was living at the time of the 1967 Referendum** *(Source: GoogleMaps).*

Linda Burney recently re-stated her ‘pet’ rhetorical phrase by claiming that,

I was 10 years old, in a little town called Whitton in southwestern NSW, when Australians voted in the 1967 referendum, so for the first decade of my life I wasn’t counted as part of the Australian population.

- The Australian, 16 January 2023

The Evidence that Refutes this Claim

The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS, and its predecessor, the CBCS) is responsible for collecting and collating the statistics on Australia’s population. The ABS does this by carrying out a nation-wide census at regular intervals (typically every 5 years).

Contrary to what Linda Burney would have us believe, the ABS (CBCS) did in fact collect and collate statistics on the Aboriginal population, which they published in the Year Books, along with the statistics of the wider Australian population.

We have been able to locate the original census records for the 1954 census, conducted a few years before Linda Burney was born in 1957. These records clearly show the numbers of Aboriginal people that were counted in NSW for this 1954 census.

In particular, we have been able to locate even the original, hand written notes used by the census staff in the Shire of Leeton, which would have taken in Whitton, the town of Linda Burney’s birth and childhood (See Note 1 below).

These records include a letter, dated 18th February 1959 (nb. when Linda Burney was aged two) from the Deputy Commonwealth Statistician in Sydney, K Davison, to the Commonwealth Statistician in Canberra tabulating the census data for the ‘full-blood’ and half-caste Aboriginals in NSW (Figure 2).

The table includes the counting of the Aboriginal population in the census of 30th June 1954 and compares the Aboriginal populations to those of the previous six censuses, between the years 1891 to 1947.

It thus appears to be ludicrous for Linda Burney to make claims that lead the Australian public to believe that Aboriginal people were not counted, as a matter of government policy, as part of the population.

As can be seen in the paragraphs at the bottom of the first page and onto the second page of this letter in Figure 2, the Commonwealth statisticians endeavoured to ensure their data were robust and open to scrutiny, so much so that they allowed the inclusion of another data-set, provided by the NSW Aborigines Welfare Board, who were critical of the Commonwealth’s figures (Figure 4).

It is very flippant of the Hon Linda Burney MP to smear the reputations of the hundreds of thousands of Australia’s public servants who have worked over decades putting together the Commonwealth and State Census reports, with her ‘bad faith’ claim. These Census reports we suspect would be some of the most accurate and reliable ever produced by governments from anywhere around the world.

**Figure 3 - Page 1 of a 1959 letter of correspondence on the Aboriginals Census of NSW** *Source: copy of original supplied*

**Figure 4 - Page 2 of the same 1959 letter of correspondence on the Aboriginals Census of NSW in Figure 3.** *Source: copy of original supplied*

We also located in the archives of NSW records a very detailed census or counting of the NSW Aboriginal population in the period, October 1955 to January 1956 (Figures 5 to 12).

**Figure 5 - Records of the counting of the Aboriginal population of NSW by the Aboriginal Welfare Board in the census of 1955-56** *Source: copy of original supplied*

**Figure 6 - Records of the counting of the Aboriginal population of NSW by the Aboriginal Welfare Board in the census of 1955-56 (cont)** *Source: copy of original supplied*

**Figure 7 - Records of the counting of the Aboriginal population of NSW by the Aboriginal Welfare Board in the census of 1955-56.**
**This page shows that Aboriginal people in the Leeton district, which would have encompassed** **Linda Burney’s home town of Whitton when she was born there are few years later, were counted in this census, contrary to the narrative being promoted Burney.**
**Interestingly, the tennis champion, Evonne Goolagong (b.1951), and her family may well have also been included in this actual census given that they lived in the Griffith area at that time.** *Source: copy of original supplied*

**Figure 8 - Records of the counting of the Aboriginal population of NSW by the Aboriginal Welfare Board in the census of 1955-56 (cont)** *Source: copy of original supplied*

**Figure 9 - Records of the counting of the Aboriginal population of NSW by the Aboriginal Welfare Board in the census of 1955-56 (cont)** *Source: copy of original supplied*

**Figure 10 - Map of the NSW Aboriginal Welfare Board designated western regions of 1956 (in red)** **as referred to in the above tables.** *Source: copy of original supplied*

**Figure 11 - Map of the NSW Aboriginal Welfare Board designated western regions of 1956 (in red)** **as referred to in the above tables.** *Source: copy of original supplied*

The following figures illustrate some of the detailed worksheets used during a census of the NSW Aboriginal population in the 1950s, the time of Linda Burney’s birth and childhood. Note the name of the town of ‘Leeton’ at the top on the middle column, a town not far from Whitton, where Burney lived.

**Figure 12 - Census handwritten worksheet which includes Leeton Shire, believed to encompass Burney’s home-town of Whitton.** *Source: copy of original supplied*

We were able to locate even more documents from the Census of 1954, this time documents that show the counting of the Aboriginal ‘Half-caste’ population of NSW.

**Figure 13 - Records of the counting of the Aboriginal Half-caste population of NSW in the census of 1954.** *Source: copy of original supplied*

**Figure 14 - Records of the counting of the Aboriginal Half-caste population of NSW in the census of 1954 (cont).** *Source: copy of original supplied*

**Figure 15 - Records of the counting of the Aboriginal Half-caste population of NSW in the census of 1954 (cont).** *Source: copy of original supplied*

**Figure 16 - Records of the counting of the Aboriginal Half-caste population of NSW in the census of 1954 (cont).** *Source: copy of original supplied*

**Figure 17 - Records of the counting of the Aboriginal Half-caste population of NSW in the census of 1954 (cont).** *Source: copy of original supplied*

These documents thus provide the evidence to refute the claim of Linda Burney that Aboriginal people, in her home state of NSW, were not counted as part of the population censuses of Australia pre-1967.

Data like these were collected by the Aboriginal Welfare Boards or Protectors and/or Commonwealth and State statisticians and were then published in a table in the Year Book as the Census of the Aboriginal Population. An example of a contemporary census, that of 30th June 1947, is shown below in Figure 18, which is a page from the Year Book of 1959.

The Aboriginal population was clearly being counted by governments in Australia at the time of Linda Burney’s birth and childhood.

Figure 18 - Table of the Aboriginal Population Census data of 1947 from the ABS Year Book. Note the term ‘enumerated at the Census’ indicating that Aboriginal people were counted during Australia’s Census of 1947. *Source: ABS Year Book Australia, 1959 Section 14, p322* *here*

Thus, It is clearly incorrect for Linda Burney to say that governments did not know, ‘how many Aboriginal people’ there were, or imply that in, ‘the first decade of my [her] life I [she] wasn’t counted as part of the Australian population’.

Some observers may wonder whether Linda Burney may have ’mislead parliament’ now on two occasions, during her maiden speeches, by including her politically loaded phrase?

One thing that we do find strange in modern Aboriginal politics is how it only seems to be Aboriginal spokespeople who publicly describe Aboriginal people being treated ‘like animals’, ‘not being countered’, or ‘being classed under the ‘flora and fauna act.’

We are yet to find a white Australian spokesperson who routinely claims that, ‘we shouldn’t count the Aborigines as people’, or ‘I don’t care how many Aborigines there are, just tell me how many sheep we have.’

Perhaps the reason is because white Australians don’t actually think like that, or hold those views.

In contrast, Aboriginal spokespeople, such as the Hon Linda Burney or Professor Marcia Langton, must either actually believe this about their white Australian compatriots, or are they ‘just making up’ these claims for their own, rhetorical, political purposes.

**Figure 18A -Linda Burney as a child ca1957-58.** *Source*

Note 1 - It is difficult for us to know how the guardians of the young Linda Burney’, her Scottish-Australian great uncle and aunt, described Linda as a child - did they mark her down on the census form as Aboriginal? Or as Australian [European]? Perhaps Linda was counted as part of the ‘white Australian population’ all along, through the first ten years of her life. Maybe she never was counted as an Aboriginal ‘half-caste’ at all. We can’t know and most probably Linda Burney herself wouldn’t know either.

Note 2 - Today many people in Australia consider the word ‘half-caste’ to be offensive (See Wikipedia for a summary). But when it was used by the statisticians during the population censuses in the 1950s, to describe people of mixed European descent in Australia, it had a specific ‘technical’ meaning.

The definition of ‘half-caste’, as used in the censuses of the 1950s, is described below in Figure 18B, which is from a section on ‘Race’ within the Year Book of 1959 on page 309.

**Figure 18B - Definition of ‘half-caste’ as used is the Australian Censuses.** *Source: year Book Australia 1959, p309*

The census data on the population of ‘half-castes’ in Australia were presented as a Table within the Year Books. For example, the 1947 and 1954 Census data were published in the Year Book of 1959 (Figure 18C).

**Figure 18C - Census data on the ‘half-caste’ population of Australia.** *Source: year Book Australia 1959, p310*

What Question were Voters Actually asked in the 1967 Referendum?

We were able to locate an actual ballot paper from the 1967 Referendum (this one in Figure 23B intended for use in the state of WA)

**Figure 23B - Ballot paper for use in the state of WA for the 1967 Referendum**

Section 127 was included in the Constitution of Australia when it was ratified, and stated that:

‘In reckoning the numbers of the people of the Commonwealth, or of a State or other part of the Commonwealth, aboriginal natives shall not be counted.’

- Source Wikipedia

As explained above, section 127 of the Constitution related to ‘reckoning the numbers of the people of the Commonwealth, or of a State or other part of the Commonwealth’ for electoral purposes [the number of voters per seat, the number of seats and members per state, etc]. Section 127 does not mention the word ‘census’. Thus the ABS continued to include, by counting, the numbers of the population of Aborigines in census figures and provided them in a separate population table to Year Books.

Activists who wish to paint Australia in a bad light deliberately use a misinterpretation of s127 to make it appear that Australia did not count it’s Aboriginal population in the censuses, when clearly it did.