It would appear that our previous Race Discrimination Commissioners  have been very decent people. However, some of their decisions have left a lot of people wondering just how in touch with reality they have been. It is an important position and we have already seen with the death of the beloved cartoonist Bill Leak and the “less than appropriate” dealings (as many would see it) with some of the students at the University of Technology in Brisbane, how the powers of the Commission could be seen as leading to “less than desirable” outcomes.

So I have a suggestion.

Appoint NOBODY as the Race Discrimination Commissioner ! NOBODY is the most highly qualified and most suitable to take up this position. NOBODY has never made a mistake in any human relationship. No person has ever been able to lay a charge of discrimination against NOBODY.

NOBODY would never pursue brilliant, caring sensitive people like Bill Leak. Nor deal less than appropriately with university students for trivial matters [in the eyes of most fair-minded Australians].  It seems to me that the appointment of NOBODY would meet with wide acclamation by the whole Australian populace (except of course, for those who want to be Somebodies!)

With NOBODY in charge of the Race Discrimination Commission it could cease to function because the Race Discrimination Commissioner Office would have NOBODY in it. Then Everybody would rejoice that the appointment of NOBODY has had the desirable outcome of ceasing to waste time and finances trying to satisfy the whims of those who see themselves as nobodies but who are wanting to be seen as Somebodies.

Every time I go with my wife to the chemo treatment ward at our local hospital, where she, young people and  older folk line up to receive treatment (until it no longer works or they cannot afford new types of treatment), I think of the absolute waste of money that is being used to cater for those in this world who are trying to be Somebodies. How? By seeking what they think is justice for themselves.  None of course, I presume,  would be seeking notoriety or monetary gain for [what many see as] their “less than absolutely essential” (trivial?) complaints. Nor would they, I presume, seek to entice the Commission to play “more than Trivial Pursuit” by pursuing people they target with what appear to be disastrous results.

On this day after Anzac Day as I think of my father with thousands of other Australians in 1918 risking [and sometimes losing] their lives to protect the freedom of French and Belgian people in World War 1, I am wondering what he would make of the freedoms we are losing right here at home in Australia. They went all that way to protect the rights and lives of those they didn’t even know who were in grievous circumstances. Perhaps 100 years later we may need to do some protecting of every vulnerable person here at home and not support an ever growing “Grievance Industry.” We all need help and healing in dealing with a victim mentality!

The Australian way inherited from our forebears especially our service men and women who faced tremendous difficulties and dangers is to “give everyone a fair go”, to support one another “Can I help you mate?” We don’t need a Commission to tell us how to act as Australians!  The shed blood of thousands of young Australian service men and women over more than a century bears witness to the concern that Australians have to care for the individual, for groups of people or even for nations needing protection and care. The warm acceptance into our country of thousands upon thousands of migrants and fleeing persecuted folk since World War 2 is probably unmatched anywhere in the world.

We don’t need a Race Discrimination Commission to shame Australians nor to condemn them when they fail to meet some artificial politically correct standard imported from overseas, much of which is as un-Australian as you can get. Many of our forebears died to protect democracy in far-off countries. They didn’t give their lives over there, to have democracy destroyed here! To have a position known as a Race Discrimination Commissioner is really an affront to ordinary Australians who go out of their way to welcome, embrace and protect those from different backgrounds.

So my simple solution is to appoint NOBODY as the Race Discrimination Commissioner  and replace the Commission with Nothing.  Nothing in funding so that human lives can be bettered in other ways (such as more funding to medical research and affordable treatment) that add quantity and quality to life and do not threaten nor destroy precious Australian lives.

P.S. Someone suggested that it might be unwise to write something that could be seen as ever so slightly critical of a Race Discrimination Commission. Exactly my point! It would be entirely different if NOBODY was the Race Discrimination Commissioner!

Blog No.277. Posted on www.jimholbeck.blog on Thursday 26^th April 2018