a black day

The issue I want to talk about today has to be handled with some delicacy but it is that very point that I believe, proves my point. The fact that I have to walk on eggshells is wrong. We have become so politically correct we have moved into Noddyland.

This time, yet again it involves indigenous Australians. Or to be precise… ONE indigenous Australian.

Yet another player with the rebellious West Coast Eagles is involved in a brush with the law.

Ashley Sampi allegedly threatened his girlfriend with a knife. Two women told West Australian Police that Sampi had threatened one of them with a knife and Police plan to interview him.

Pretty straight forward. Except for the media release issued by the club.

It said: “It is a sensitive personal  indigenous situation which the club has been assisting, and will continue to assist, through counselling”.

A “sensitive personal indigenous  situation”. No it’s not. A man has been accused of a crime. A man has been accused of pulling a knife and threatening his girlfriend with it. It doesn’t matter if he is a black Australian or a white Australian or an Asian Australian. The alleged crime remains the same.

What has Sampi’s aboriginality go to do with it?  Under our laws – much touted the other day by Peter Costello – everybody must live by the same rules.

And for the Eagles’ football club to drag ethnicity into this is racism in itself.

I raised a similar issue yesterday after I heard about a black group called the Black GST and their plans to try to disrupt the Commonwealth Games by establishing an illegal protest camp in King’s Domain near Government House. An area, proscribed under Games security legislation as a no-go area. Part of the “Games Management Zone”.

There are bans on protesting, creating a disturbance, and other activities. People who breach those restrictions can be arrested.

As I said, if they do it – and get away with it – it would a sick racist joke. If I tried to pitch a tent in the same area during the Games I wouldn’t even get the second peg in the ground before the Police hauled me away.

But back to footballer Ashley Sampi. He should be treated no differently – no better and no worse – than any Australian facing a charge involving  an alleged violent crime.

His indigenous heritage should have nothing to do with it.

Wednesday, March 1, 2006

©Copyright Derryn Hinch 2006