We welcome CIS contributor and Australian Catholic University academic, Dr Anthony Dillon. Writing in The Herald Sun recently, Anthony says proponents for truth-telling of Australia’s past selectively advance a sanitised version and are disinterested in inconvenient truths facing Indigenous Australians today.
Anthony argues that truth-telling hasn’t extended to sensitive contemporary issues, such as the tragic rates of child abuse, violence, and suicide inflicting Indigenous communities. Instead, he warns that a loud minority seek to silence debate and distract from persistent and pervasive dysfunction faced by marginalised Australians. He cites the confected outrage generated against the late cartoonist, Bill Leak, empty charges of racism hurled where none is found to exist, and the harmful groupthink that has swallowed false narratives about Australia’s Indigenous history.
Watch guest host, Glenn Fahey ask how we can promote genuine truth-telling on Indigenous affairs?
Does political correctness and cancel culture silence genuine truth-tellers? How can Australia purport to be a free and open society when civil debate is unwelcome? Can evidence trump emotion in tackling policy challenges facing Indigenous Australians? Is there cause for optimism following the recent rebuke of false claims about Indigenous histories?