In John Black’s novel Man Down, the protagonist reflects on a campaign to remove the statue of a colonial-era figure in a New Zealand town. Whatever his faults, all of them the common failings of his era, at least people like him built something. A century later, the people campaigning to remove his statue have built nothing. All they can do is tear down, destroy, and endlessly, endlessly whine and complain.
Much like Australia’s taxpayer-funded leftist propaganda outfit broadcaster, the ABC. There’s nothing in Australia’s history that gets reported by the ABC without some kind of “grievance” spin. However long a bow they have to draw.
Most of us might consider the 150th anniversary of the completion of Australia’s Overland Telegraph Line as a remarkable achievement of engineering and endurance, and the beginning of a communications revolution. Not the ABC. No, for them it’s an even “with painful history”.
Because of course it is.
It was a feat that took place through the forbidding and unrelenting centre of Australia with no machines, no vehicles and no paths. Just men on their horses, and whatever food they could carry.
On Monday 15-year-old Harry Pew, from Darwin, replicated the ceremonious moment as around 200 people watched on […]
It is often cited as one of Australia’s greatest engineering and logistical feats, allowing fast communication over long distances for the first time.
What on earth could even the ABC find to complain about that?
But to the First Nations people who had been using the trail as a trading route for thousands of years, the Overland Telegraph Line took a gruelling toll.
Rule of thumb: anyone who parrots the faddish, imported, American nonsense phrase “First Nations” is not someone to be taken seriously. The ABC are no exception. But I digress: what, exactly, was this “gruelling toll”?
Mudburra and Jingili man and traditional owner Harrold Dalywaters said generations ago, grandfathers in his family helped the linesmen navigate the bush, but it wasn’t harmonious from the start.
“It was the first time they’d seen whitefellas,” he said.
“They were upset, some of them got pushed away, but we’ve come a long way.”
“They worked with the linesmen, showed them the waterholes, bush tucker and lead them the way from here to Darwin.
“It was pretty scary for them back then … they were scared, frightened, they didn’t want to move away from their land, but they ended up working together.”
So… they were “upset” and “scared” at meeting people who were different from them? Sounds like they were pretty racist. Imagine if it was white explorers being terrified of “black savages”.
Despite the ABC’s desperate spin, the fact remains that the Aborigines and the linesmen worked together. They “came a long way” and built one of the pivotal achievements of 19th century Australia.
Louise May, from Adelaide, was one of the people who trekked deep into the outback for the anniversary, wanting to mark a monumental moment in history.
She could remember a time her family on a station used Morse code to communicate, and later, listening in to next door’s conversations — all made possible due to the line.
ABC Australia
Apparently it’s too much to expect the ABC to simply celebrate people who actually built things of consequence. Far easier to constantly whine and smear.
