WEBVTT - Read This: David Marr vs Australia’s Old Lie 0:00:00.680 --> 0:00:04.000 Hey there, it's Ruby Jones. Our colleagues that Read This 0:00:04.240 --> 0:00:07.880 routinely hosts the brightest and best writers from Australia and 0:00:08.039 --> 0:00:11.360 around the world, including some of this country's leading social 0:00:11.440 --> 0:00:15.120 and political commentators. Today we're going to hear from David 0:00:15.160 --> 0:00:19.800 mah David is one of Australia's most unflinching forensic reporters 0:00:19.840 --> 0:00:23.520 of political controversy and one of its most eloquent biographers. 0:00:23.960 --> 0:00:26.560 He's also a regular contributor to The Saturday Paper and 0:00:26.600 --> 0:00:29.200 The Monthly, and just this month has taken over from 0:00:29.240 --> 0:00:33.479 Philip Adams to host Radio National's Late Night Live. Last year, 0:00:33.600 --> 0:00:37.120 David released Killing for Country. It's a book that explores 0:00:37.159 --> 0:00:39.880 the violent history of his own family, a handful of 0:00:39.920 --> 0:00:43.239 whom were key figures in the Queensland Native Police, an 0:00:43.320 --> 0:00:45.760 arm of the government believed to have killed more than 0:00:45.800 --> 0:00:50.440 forty thousand Indigenous Australians. Michael Williams is the host of 0:00:50.479 --> 0:00:57.600 Read This and he's with me now. Hi Michael, Great 0:00:57.600 --> 0:00:58.200 to see you again. 0:00:58.280 --> 0:00:59.840 Ruby Jones, welcome back. 0:00:59.760 --> 0:01:01.440 Thank you, thank you. It's great to be here. Lovely 0:01:01.480 --> 0:01:04.560 to see you. So the discussion between you and David 0:01:04.720 --> 0:01:08.480 covers some pretty tough topics. How did you approach the conversation. 0:01:08.880 --> 0:01:11.000 There are a couple of different things at play here. 0:01:11.040 --> 0:01:13.640 For me, one is, any time you interview a journalist, 0:01:13.680 --> 0:01:16.880 you're acutely aware that they're second guessing the construction of 0:01:16.920 --> 0:01:18.600 the story, So you need to kind of find a 0:01:18.600 --> 0:01:20.559 way to find a rhythm when you're talking to them. 0:01:20.800 --> 0:01:23.600 But the other thing is that family and personal history 0:01:23.640 --> 0:01:26.840 when it intersects with national history can create this kind 0:01:26.840 --> 0:01:29.399 of really interesting tension. And part of what I really 0:01:29.480 --> 0:01:32.720 like about what David's done in Killing for Country is 0:01:32.920 --> 0:01:36.480 that He's resisted the tendency that happens, which is people 0:01:36.480 --> 0:01:39.480 wanting to absolve their ancestors, people wanting to use the 0:01:39.600 --> 0:01:42.920 chance of retelling history to say it was a different time, 0:01:43.200 --> 0:01:45.800 or here was some crucial context, or these are the 0:01:45.840 --> 0:01:48.720 human beings. David, on the other hand, doesn't do that 0:01:48.920 --> 0:01:51.720 for a moment. He is unflinching in writing about the 0:01:51.760 --> 0:01:55.000 horrors perpetrated by his family and what it actually meant, 0:01:55.000 --> 0:01:56.400 what the very human cost. 0:01:56.200 --> 0:01:56.640 Of it was. 0:01:58.000 --> 0:02:02.320 So what do you hope that listeners might take away 0:02:02.360 --> 0:02:03.559 from this chat with David? 0:02:03.920 --> 0:02:06.120 Look, listeners are going to, you know, at the other 0:02:06.200 --> 0:02:08.079 end of their day when they're done with seven AM, 0:02:08.240 --> 0:02:09.960 they can go on to Late Night Live and they 0:02:10.000 --> 0:02:11.359 can do the two. So they're going to get a 0:02:11.400 --> 0:02:13.960 lot of David Maher in their ears potentially in the 0:02:14.000 --> 0:02:17.720 months ahead. I do feel like in this interview as 0:02:17.800 --> 0:02:20.760 subject rather than as the person steering the ship, we 0:02:20.919 --> 0:02:23.919 get a glimpse into the kind of more intimate David 0:02:24.320 --> 0:02:26.800 beyond the performance, and I think it's pretty exciting. 0:02:27.200 --> 0:02:32.960 Can't wait to listen coming up in just a moment. 0:02:33.120 --> 0:02:41.760 David Maher versus Australia's Old Lie. 0:02:45.639 --> 0:02:48.480 An old, old old uncle of mine asked me if 0:02:48.520 --> 0:02:50.519 I could find out something about his grandmother because he 0:02:50.560 --> 0:02:55.360 knew nothing about this woman. Maud, you were my mother's family. 0:02:55.560 --> 0:02:59.800 His family is pretty good at secrets, and he was 0:03:00.000 --> 0:03:01.919 serious to know something about this woman, and I was 0:03:01.919 --> 0:03:05.600 a journalist. Would I dig around? And I found pretty 0:03:05.639 --> 0:03:11.359 quickly a photograph of my great grandmother's father, Reginald Ewer, 0:03:11.720 --> 0:03:15.959 in the uniform of the Queensland Native Police. And it 0:03:16.040 --> 0:03:21.320 hit me like a blow at the same time, almost 0:03:22.240 --> 0:03:25.000 I thought to myself, I'm not going to hide this. 0:03:25.840 --> 0:03:29.120 I've been asking people to face the reality of this 0:03:29.200 --> 0:03:32.400 country for a long time. I'm going to tell this story. 0:03:36.040 --> 0:03:38.920 Facing the reality of this country is a task that 0:03:39.480 --> 0:03:42.320 at a broader public level, at a political level, at 0:03:42.320 --> 0:03:47.200 a constitutional one, has proved enduringly difficult as a nation. 0:03:47.320 --> 0:03:49.680 We're seeing that play out now through the referendum on 0:03:49.760 --> 0:03:52.960 the Voice to Parliament. For David Mahr, finding the right 0:03:53.000 --> 0:03:55.080 way to tell the stories that allow us to see 0:03:55.080 --> 0:03:58.560 the truth of our history is a personal quest and 0:03:58.680 --> 0:04:02.160 one that has led to his later book, Killing for Country. 0:04:02.840 --> 0:04:06.440 It's an I owning book, an often horrifying look at 0:04:06.440 --> 0:04:11.960 the reality of the colony that is modern Australia. I'm 0:04:12.000 --> 0:04:15.160 Michael Williams and this is read this the show about 0:04:15.160 --> 0:04:26.880 the books we love and the stories behind the Killing 0:04:26.920 --> 0:04:30.440 for Country is a story of brutality, greed and death. 0:04:31.040 --> 0:04:34.640 It follows David's own family only a few generations back. 0:04:35.160 --> 0:04:39.400 Key figures in the Queensland Native Police. If you're not 0:04:39.400 --> 0:04:42.200 familiar with the Queensland Native Police, they were this murderous 0:04:42.240 --> 0:04:44.880 wing of the government, said to have killed more than 0:04:44.920 --> 0:04:49.440 forty thousand Indigenous Australians over their sixty year reign. And 0:04:49.480 --> 0:04:52.120 there's every chance you haven't heard of them. The atrocities 0:04:52.120 --> 0:04:55.560 committed under their watch are not often taught in schools, 0:04:56.800 --> 0:04:59.159 and the fact that this major work of history comes 0:04:59.160 --> 0:05:01.920 from David Marr, a writer better known for his incisive 0:05:02.000 --> 0:05:06.760 journalism his Towering Biographies, explains some of its impact. He 0:05:06.880 --> 0:05:09.960 manages to capture both the complications and contradictions of his 0:05:10.040 --> 0:05:13.520 Forbeare stories while at the same time being fearless and 0:05:13.640 --> 0:05:18.680 uncompromising in reaching his conclusions about their actions. And to 0:05:18.720 --> 0:05:21.520 hear him describe it, this is a labor that sprung 0:05:21.640 --> 0:05:23.520 from a deep sense of responsibility. 0:05:24.440 --> 0:05:26.839 I found a way of telling a much bigger story 0:05:27.279 --> 0:05:31.679 than I had imagined when I started. But I made 0:05:32.279 --> 0:05:36.839 savage choices throughout because my view is that if the 0:05:36.880 --> 0:05:41.000 book was to have narrative power, it had to follow 0:05:41.040 --> 0:05:47.520 the cut of the Er family. That means this enormous subject. 0:05:47.560 --> 0:05:51.600 I mean, it is an enormous subject, like a great forest. 0:05:52.200 --> 0:05:54.960 You can cut through the forest and tell the story 0:05:54.960 --> 0:05:59.680 in a way that has resonance and power that I 0:05:59.720 --> 0:06:03.680 don't I think the very beautiful and horrifying studies of 0:06:03.720 --> 0:06:07.720 the Native police quite have. It's a different way of 0:06:07.760 --> 0:06:11.560 telling this story along the path cut by my family. 0:06:12.400 --> 0:06:14.400 You know when your heart sank when you saw the 0:06:14.440 --> 0:06:19.240 picture of Reggia in the Queensland Native Police uniform. What 0:06:19.360 --> 0:06:22.440 did you already know about that uniform, about the police, 0:06:22.480 --> 0:06:25.840 about what that signified when looking at that photo, because 0:06:25.920 --> 0:06:30.839 I will wager far too many Australians wouldn't immediately put 0:06:30.880 --> 0:06:32.120 that into a context. 0:06:32.560 --> 0:06:36.960 I knew what the Native police was, but Michael, for 0:06:37.000 --> 0:06:40.160 a moment, I thought, maybe I'm wrong, Maybe I'm wrong. 0:06:40.360 --> 0:06:42.080 So I went to Wikipedia. 0:06:42.200 --> 0:06:43.000 I looked there. 0:06:43.000 --> 0:06:46.080 It was not only did it confirm everything I knew, well, 0:06:46.600 --> 0:06:49.800 it confirmed what the Native police were, you know, a 0:06:49.880 --> 0:06:53.200 state force of killers with white officers and black troopers. 0:06:53.360 --> 0:06:57.280 But there was my great grandfather there in the Wikipedia 0:06:57.440 --> 0:07:01.000 entry and his brother, and it was all in the 0:07:01.080 --> 0:07:06.200 space of about ten rather turbulent minutes, and I thought, well, 0:07:07.040 --> 0:07:09.440 this is it, This is what I must write. 0:07:09.800 --> 0:07:14.960 Generally, when people launch into a history inspired by discovering 0:07:14.960 --> 0:07:17.320 a family and connection, it seems to me one of 0:07:17.360 --> 0:07:22.000 the guiding impulses is the phrase it was a different time. 0:07:22.680 --> 0:07:26.200 The process of writing the book, the history is to 0:07:26.240 --> 0:07:31.600 frame the sometimes objectionable, sometimes monstrous acts of one's forebears 0:07:32.120 --> 0:07:36.240 in a historical context that absolves them of responsibility. And 0:07:36.280 --> 0:07:38.440 it seems to me that part of the power of 0:07:38.520 --> 0:07:41.920 killing for country is you're refusing to do that. You 0:07:41.960 --> 0:07:46.240 are refusing to buy into the idea that something that 0:07:46.360 --> 0:07:50.560 is monstrous and an atrocity to us today was somehow acceptable. 0:07:50.760 --> 0:07:55.840 Yeah. Absolutely, no excuses. There's quite a bit written about 0:07:55.880 --> 0:08:01.480 the Ure family, and the excuse come thick and fast, 0:08:02.320 --> 0:08:07.240 and there's also that very colonial thing of claiming distinguished 0:08:07.280 --> 0:08:11.640 connection back home. My god, Michael, you're sitting with the 0:08:11.720 --> 0:08:14.640 ninety ninth cousin of the Dukes of Roxburgh here. You know, 0:08:14.720 --> 0:08:17.960 these things matter in family histories. This is a history. 0:08:18.360 --> 0:08:20.680 It has to stand on its own two feet. The 0:08:20.720 --> 0:08:25.080 scholarship is there to be gritted by scholars, by anybody. 0:08:25.400 --> 0:08:28.320 It's all laid out where everything comes from, and it 0:08:28.360 --> 0:08:32.360 has to survive on its own merits as truth or 0:08:32.400 --> 0:08:34.400 as near to the truth as it's possible to get 0:08:34.440 --> 0:08:38.200 at the moment, and as it happens. I don't think 0:08:38.280 --> 0:08:42.400 human beings fundamentally change from one time to another. Greed 0:08:42.520 --> 0:08:45.800 and cruelty a I'm afraid, are bricked into us. So 0:08:45.840 --> 0:08:50.240 it's goodness and the offense of murder is little changed 0:08:50.600 --> 0:08:54.760 today to the words in the legislation at the time 0:08:55.400 --> 0:08:59.199 these murders were being committed on the frontier, absolutely unpunished 0:08:59.400 --> 0:09:03.199 along the front here. This was a time when the 0:09:03.200 --> 0:09:09.280 worst of European colonists was simply let loose. And it 0:09:09.320 --> 0:09:11.440 is grim. It is grim. 0:09:12.720 --> 0:09:15.960 Talk to me about the experience of unfurling the horrors 0:09:15.960 --> 0:09:18.280 at a human level, because one of the great achievements 0:09:18.280 --> 0:09:20.040 of this book is and I don't want to make 0:09:20.080 --> 0:09:25.480 it sound unapproachable in how unflinching it is, but you 0:09:25.600 --> 0:09:33.600 recreate that human level of venality and monstrosity. And well, the. 0:09:33.600 --> 0:09:38.280 Plan was to attach that history to people. And I mean, 0:09:39.240 --> 0:09:43.560 I'm a biographer, really, I suppose. And there's one way 0:09:43.559 --> 0:09:45.920 of looking at the structure of killing for country is 0:09:45.960 --> 0:09:49.920 to see it as three biographies. Richard Jones to begin with, 0:09:50.000 --> 0:09:53.960 and then his protege Edmundure, and then Edwin Dure's two sons, 0:09:54.000 --> 0:09:57.040 reg and Darcy, who served in the force. And these 0:09:57.160 --> 0:10:04.400 three biographies are a way of showing how individual ambition, hopes, 0:10:04.440 --> 0:10:08.160 and fears their characters helped form the history of this 0:10:08.320 --> 0:10:15.000 time and were part of the forces that dispossessed violently 0:10:15.280 --> 0:10:19.719 on the Australian frontier. It doesn't grow out of abstract 0:10:19.760 --> 0:10:23.400 historical principles. It doesn't grow out of the law. It 0:10:23.440 --> 0:10:34.240 grows out of an arena of really fundamental struggles over life, greed, survival, money, debt, 0:10:34.800 --> 0:10:37.640 and the politics of all of this. And I had 0:10:37.679 --> 0:10:41.680 not imagined that it would be so rich, which is 0:10:41.679 --> 0:10:49.520 why the book is two years late. I became intrigued 0:10:49.640 --> 0:10:55.760 by it. I'm absolutely intrigued. And though I thought I 0:10:55.840 --> 0:10:59.600 knew what the Native Police were, I really discovered it 0:10:59.679 --> 0:11:04.000 in the course of this. You know, they were an armed, 0:11:04.920 --> 0:11:10.280 murderous wing of government used by the Queensland government without 0:11:10.320 --> 0:11:14.000 any legal basis for what they did, which was something 0:11:14.040 --> 0:11:17.480 that the Attorney generals of Queensland used to say, oh, 0:11:17.760 --> 0:11:21.200 there's no laws backing what you do, and it was 0:11:21.320 --> 0:11:24.040 used to terrify and kill and it was used for 0:11:24.120 --> 0:11:30.720 sixty years. I had not understood how terrible in human 0:11:30.840 --> 0:11:35.000 terms it was, and I became fascinated by the politics 0:11:35.000 --> 0:11:41.360 of it because there was always voices condemning what was happening, 0:11:41.800 --> 0:11:46.200 calling murder murder. There were squatters, there were magistrates, but 0:11:46.280 --> 0:11:50.280 above all there was the press. In a way, the 0:11:50.280 --> 0:11:53.120 book is a homage to the press through all those 0:11:53.240 --> 0:11:57.800 years that kept saying this is appalling, this is murder, 0:11:57.880 --> 0:12:01.400 this can't go on, of course did go on, but 0:12:01.440 --> 0:12:04.120 the voices were always there. The book is dedicated to 0:12:04.160 --> 0:12:05.640 those who told the truth back then. 0:12:06.720 --> 0:12:09.800 I can't remember reading this kind of history as narrative 0:12:09.840 --> 0:12:16.400 before telling the story the way you do, sequentially largely dispassionately, 0:12:16.520 --> 0:12:19.959 even though your horror at it comes through, you're very 0:12:20.000 --> 0:12:22.920 meticulous in laying it out and not putting a foot 0:12:22.920 --> 0:12:26.480 on the scales. How hard was it to do that? 0:12:26.559 --> 0:12:30.160 How much did you find yourself suddenly wanting to rage 0:12:30.240 --> 0:12:32.240 or suddenly wanting to kind of tear it down? 0:12:34.200 --> 0:12:37.600 I know that those sudden rages are a terrible indulgence. 0:12:39.320 --> 0:12:42.320 Don't help the reader, don't help the telling of the story. 0:12:43.080 --> 0:12:48.280 I'm not aware of any narrative history of the Native Police. 0:12:48.760 --> 0:12:50.559 I mean, this is essentially the Native Police in the 0:12:50.600 --> 0:12:55.280 eighteen sixties. There are marvelous books about the Native Police. 0:12:55.800 --> 0:12:58.480 But this has always been my way of leading people 0:12:58.520 --> 0:13:04.600 into difficult territory by story. Story allows people to judge 0:13:04.640 --> 0:13:09.080 whether they believe the facts, does the story hang together, 0:13:09.280 --> 0:13:12.840 does it make sense? And I believe it's a great 0:13:12.880 --> 0:13:19.040 tool for helping people understand very very complex things. If 0:13:19.040 --> 0:13:23.920 they trust you, they will follow you into difficult territory, 0:13:24.800 --> 0:13:27.560 confident that you'll get them out on the other side 0:13:27.640 --> 0:13:31.880 safe again. That's my strategy. I hope the book has 0:13:31.920 --> 0:13:35.920 a steady beat that will take readers through to the end. 0:13:36.240 --> 0:13:39.240 Well, it's funny. Back in twenty nineteen, you know, you 0:13:39.280 --> 0:13:42.360 say the book is two years late. You couldn't have 0:13:42.400 --> 0:13:45.480 known that it would land at a time that so 0:13:45.679 --> 0:13:51.200 neatly corresponds with questions about this nation's appetite and ability 0:13:51.880 --> 0:13:56.600 to look honestly at its history and tell the truth. 0:13:57.800 --> 0:14:01.440 Look, I did all I could, all I could to 0:14:01.480 --> 0:14:05.360 bring the book in earlier, because as far as the referendum, 0:14:05.400 --> 0:14:06.920 I mean, in my view it is a book that 0:14:06.960 --> 0:14:11.400 will last forever. But as far as the referendum, it's 0:14:11.440 --> 0:14:13.680 pretty late. But I couldn't do it. I mean, the 0:14:13.720 --> 0:14:16.680 material is too rich, there was too much there, and 0:14:16.720 --> 0:14:20.720 the task of cutting that path through the forest, of 0:14:20.840 --> 0:14:23.680 making things clear it was hard work. 0:14:23.960 --> 0:14:26.200 At the center of the ularus statement from my heart 0:14:26.840 --> 0:14:31.280 is that kind of three part thing voice, treaty, truth 0:14:31.960 --> 0:14:34.680 and the truth bit seems to be something that we've 0:14:34.800 --> 0:14:39.720 so consistently fallen down on in this country in the 0:14:39.760 --> 0:14:42.320 way we're able to talk about and acknowledge and write 0:14:42.320 --> 0:14:43.240 about our history. 0:14:43.760 --> 0:14:46.400 Look, I think this is an enormous thing which we 0:14:46.520 --> 0:14:49.960 are beginning to face. And it's not just a matter 0:14:50.040 --> 0:14:57.720 of the superb Stamner line about the culture of forgetfulness. 0:14:57.240 --> 0:15:03.000 It's not a negative thing. The saga of Australia as 0:15:03.240 --> 0:15:10.560 a freely settled continent enlivened by wool booms and goldfinds 0:15:11.480 --> 0:15:19.240 is an astonishingly durable cultural artifact. It's a lie so 0:15:19.520 --> 0:15:24.320 huge that there are many people in Australia, including the 0:15:24.360 --> 0:15:29.400 current leaders of our conservative political parties, who cannot imagine 0:15:29.400 --> 0:15:34.720 the country without that lie remaining intact. I think of 0:15:34.760 --> 0:15:38.280 it in a way as the wall of a tailings 0:15:38.400 --> 0:15:42.640 dam You know what, if we face the truth, What 0:15:42.720 --> 0:15:49.200 if we knew what happened, the tailings damn would collapse? 0:15:49.200 --> 0:15:53.280 And where would all that shit go? How would the 0:15:53.280 --> 0:15:57.600 country be changed if we simply all acknowledged that it 0:15:57.720 --> 0:16:02.680 was conquered. It has the power to transform the fundamentals 0:16:02.680 --> 0:16:07.280 of politics in this country. And so the old lie 0:16:08.360 --> 0:16:14.640 is being very vigorously defended, and it almost entirely centers 0:16:15.200 --> 0:16:18.120 on how we dealt with the original inhabitants of the continent. 0:16:18.800 --> 0:16:21.360 But there are other aspects of it as well, and 0:16:22.240 --> 0:16:27.000 the opponents of the referendum are simply shit scared about 0:16:27.000 --> 0:16:32.960 what happens to the country if the lie evaporates. When 0:16:33.000 --> 0:16:36.000 you look at the way the referendum is being fought 0:16:36.880 --> 0:16:42.440 by the No campaigners, it is clear that this struggle 0:16:43.040 --> 0:16:44.360 is a long way from over. 0:16:49.200 --> 0:16:51.760 Coming. Up after the break, David walks us through the 0:16:51.800 --> 0:16:55.400 need to distinguish between shame and guilt at both a 0:16:55.480 --> 0:17:11.760 personal and national level. David Mara has been writing for 0:17:11.800 --> 0:17:15.199 more than three decades, often focusing on the careers and 0:17:15.280 --> 0:17:19.800 lives of politicians, artists and writers. Looking at his body 0:17:19.840 --> 0:17:22.920 of work across the years reveals much about the evolution 0:17:23.040 --> 0:17:26.200 and preoccupations of him as an author, many of which 0:17:26.280 --> 0:17:29.040 play out in the way he's approached his family's history. 0:17:30.480 --> 0:17:34.200 In My Country, your Collected Stories, Essays and Speeches, which 0:17:34.240 --> 0:17:37.800 is wonderful, but not for nothing. That is the first 0:17:37.960 --> 0:17:41.679 essay titled Shaman Forgiveness, and you describe yourself as a 0:17:41.720 --> 0:17:45.960 young man who was very attuned to ideas of shame 0:17:46.040 --> 0:17:46.720 and forgiveness. 0:17:46.880 --> 0:17:50.560 Yep, I grew up as a very closeted gay young 0:17:50.640 --> 0:17:55.520 man and did everything I possibly could, including marrying In 0:17:55.600 --> 0:18:01.280 my twenties to make myself straight, and none of it worked. 0:18:01.680 --> 0:18:06.439 And I have very bitter memories, not only of the 0:18:06.480 --> 0:18:08.880 harm to me, but the harm I did to others 0:18:10.119 --> 0:18:14.760 because of that shame. But yes, I know shame, and 0:18:14.840 --> 0:18:18.320 I also know the value of coming out. 0:18:18.600 --> 0:18:21.720 Did you find your voice as a writer before you'd 0:18:22.680 --> 0:18:25.160 moved beyond shame or did you need to move beyond 0:18:25.160 --> 0:18:28.320 shame before you could write the way you do today? 0:18:29.320 --> 0:18:33.159 Well, the business of coming out and the business of 0:18:33.200 --> 0:18:38.920 becoming a journalist overlapped for a few years, And yes, 0:18:39.359 --> 0:18:42.600 that was at the same time that I was finding 0:18:42.600 --> 0:18:44.960 a voice. The odd thing is, of course, that I 0:18:45.000 --> 0:18:46.840 don't know what my voice is. I mean, it's my 0:18:46.920 --> 0:18:49.880 voice and I can't hear it, which is a strange thing. 0:18:50.359 --> 0:18:53.240 But anyway, finding your voice and finding yourself, I suppose, 0:18:54.359 --> 0:18:56.480 are pretty much the same thing. 0:18:57.359 --> 0:18:59.679 Part of whatso defines you as a writer to me, 0:19:00.320 --> 0:19:02.760 a reader who has loved reading you for so many years, 0:19:03.280 --> 0:19:09.280 is the relationship between your intellect, your fury, and your 0:19:09.440 --> 0:19:12.880 irrepressible sense of humor, and the fact that those three 0:19:13.000 --> 0:19:15.280 things the ven diagram a little bit in the middle. 0:19:15.320 --> 0:19:19.680 That is A David mar essay is about kind of 0:19:19.760 --> 0:19:22.720 channeling different parts of who you are, which is why 0:19:22.720 --> 0:19:25.159 it seems to me it has to come from a 0:19:25.160 --> 0:19:28.960 place of if not forgiveness for self at least not 0:19:29.040 --> 0:19:30.800 full blown shame anymore. 0:19:31.160 --> 0:19:37.280 Well, killing for countries, and exercise where there is no humor. 0:19:38.000 --> 0:19:41.600 I mean here and there. I know I have put 0:19:41.640 --> 0:19:44.840 in a few lines, but it's not a world of humor. 0:19:44.960 --> 0:19:48.480 It can't be. It can be dealt with with ridicule 0:19:49.240 --> 0:19:53.120 at times, but it is driven by I hope largely 0:19:53.200 --> 0:19:57.840 masked anger. I mean, you don't spend the years that 0:19:58.240 --> 0:20:01.960 me and my partners best into Cerrero, who has helped 0:20:02.000 --> 0:20:05.320 me all through this. We don't do that without being 0:20:05.400 --> 0:20:06.240 driven by anger. 0:20:06.359 --> 0:20:08.360 I mean, you pay tribute to Sebastian in the book. 0:20:08.720 --> 0:20:11.080 Maybe we'll just dig into Sebastian for a moment, because 0:20:11.080 --> 0:20:15.399 I am fascinated by this, and I do think you know, 0:20:15.760 --> 0:20:18.400 a less a relationship might be broken by trying to 0:20:18.520 --> 0:20:22.240 uncover this kind of story together. But you do say 0:20:22.359 --> 0:20:25.639 here he proved a fine at times, savage editor, We 0:20:25.720 --> 0:20:30.000 had many disagreements, not all are resolved. That seems a 0:20:30.000 --> 0:20:32.359 little ominous now. 0:20:32.680 --> 0:20:36.920 Look, he comes from a Sicilian and Calabrian family. I've 0:20:36.960 --> 0:20:39.280 suggested to him that our next task should be to 0:20:39.320 --> 0:20:43.679 investigate his Sicilian four bears and his Calabrian four bears. 0:20:44.520 --> 0:20:47.560 He doesn't seem to be too keen, but where both 0:20:47.640 --> 0:20:53.000 former lawyers, we think very much alike. He is a 0:20:53.160 --> 0:20:57.919 terror for absolute accuracy. There was a showdown when I 0:20:58.000 --> 0:21:00.919 rather theatrically said it one stay. The trouble with you, 0:21:01.080 --> 0:21:04.320 Sebastian is that I write like a poet and you 0:21:04.440 --> 0:21:06.680 think like a lawyer. And he just looked at me 0:21:06.720 --> 0:21:08.840 and said, yeah, but I really do think poetry should 0:21:08.840 --> 0:21:15.760 be accurate. Squell wow. But we worked together very closely, 0:21:15.840 --> 0:21:19.280 and it began in COVID. It began with his Internet searching, 0:21:19.400 --> 0:21:22.920 and then it was a wonderful uninterrupted discussion of four 0:21:23.000 --> 0:21:27.960 years about this book and his attacks on my colonial imagination. 0:21:28.280 --> 0:21:33.920 And he was pretty brutal. And then we had a 0:21:34.040 --> 0:21:37.080 last fight was over the first word of the book, 0:21:38.600 --> 0:21:40.399 and I got, oh, Jesus, I'm just going to give 0:21:40.440 --> 0:21:44.320 in here. I wanted to say a young man drove 0:21:44.400 --> 0:21:47.520 his flock over the Liverpool Range. Sebastian's viewers, get on 0:21:47.600 --> 0:21:50.080 with it, David, you're going to name him in two lines, 0:21:50.240 --> 0:21:54.280 the young man. Anyway, I tried to find friends who 0:21:54.280 --> 0:21:58.840 would back my version, and they wouldn't. And it's the young. 0:21:58.680 --> 0:22:04.040 Man are somewhat elliptical in the book about the impact 0:22:04.080 --> 0:22:06.639 on your own family of your decision to choose to 0:22:06.640 --> 0:22:10.600 tell this story. And it seems interesting to me not 0:22:10.760 --> 0:22:12.800 to want to delve too far into the personal, but 0:22:13.000 --> 0:22:16.520 in terms of what that reflects about that national conversation, 0:22:17.480 --> 0:22:20.800 is that difficulty in facing a thing and in finding 0:22:20.800 --> 0:22:23.760 a way to tell that story differently? Was that something 0:22:23.800 --> 0:22:25.280 that tormented you in the writing of. 0:22:25.240 --> 0:22:28.199 This To begin with, Michael, you must understand that this 0:22:28.240 --> 0:22:30.840 has nothing to do with the Mars. This is my 0:22:31.000 --> 0:22:35.120 mother's family. The Mars are people of the most impeccable 0:22:35.720 --> 0:22:40.040 moral order, generation after generation since they first appeared as 0:22:40.119 --> 0:22:41.560 Blacksmith's in this colony. 0:22:41.680 --> 0:22:45.639 What a scurrilous disclaimer to put it there, just determined 0:22:46.080 --> 0:22:47.280 to protect one good name. 0:22:47.400 --> 0:22:50.240 Yeah, it's my mother's family that we're talking about here, 0:22:51.400 --> 0:22:54.679 But mah, my poor siblings. Can you imagine what it 0:22:54.800 --> 0:22:59.720 is like to endure having a brother like me who 0:22:59.760 --> 0:23:04.400 has been showing off and yelling at the country and 0:23:04.480 --> 0:23:08.359 cracking jokes for fifty years now, and then finally you 0:23:08.400 --> 0:23:13.120 write a book which goes to their bloodlines. At first 0:23:13.280 --> 0:23:18.560 they were oh, David, must you for Christ's sake? And 0:23:18.640 --> 0:23:20.760 as I learned more and more about the story and 0:23:20.880 --> 0:23:24.560 kept them roughly up to date with what was happening, 0:23:24.840 --> 0:23:27.919 they ended by saying, no, you must, you must. But 0:23:28.000 --> 0:23:30.520 one of my sisters added, but I still don't like 0:23:30.560 --> 0:23:34.400 it involving our family, and I say in the afterward, 0:23:34.520 --> 0:23:38.679 she speaks for Australia. You know, we are coming to 0:23:38.720 --> 0:23:42.160 grips with the fact that this happened, and there were 0:23:42.359 --> 0:23:45.680 twelve or thirteen hundred officers and men of the Native police. 0:23:46.440 --> 0:23:50.880 They've left a lot of descendants behind. I'm not claiming 0:23:51.040 --> 0:23:55.879 any heroism here. I'm a writer. It's my trade. I 0:23:56.040 --> 0:24:00.520 was handed a rather shocking discovery. I knew you at 0:24:00.560 --> 0:24:04.360 once that the only response to it was to write it. 0:24:06.040 --> 0:24:08.840 My family have gone along with that. 0:24:09.480 --> 0:24:14.159 You're not claiming heroism as a product of that family. 0:24:14.200 --> 0:24:17.199 As someone who lives in contemporary Australia, what are the 0:24:17.240 --> 0:24:20.960 implications of acknowledging and owning this in our past. 0:24:21.160 --> 0:24:23.520 I think you have to make a very clear distinction 0:24:23.640 --> 0:24:27.240 between guilt, which I don't feel at all, and shame, 0:24:27.359 --> 0:24:30.000 which I do feel. We can be proud of our 0:24:30.040 --> 0:24:33.840 families for things that happened generations ago that we had 0:24:33.880 --> 0:24:37.240 no part in. We can feel shame on exactly the 0:24:37.280 --> 0:24:41.120 same grounds. And I am ashamed of what the yours 0:24:41.280 --> 0:24:45.280 did in Queensland at the time that they were officers 0:24:45.280 --> 0:24:49.320 of the Native police and their forebears. I am ashamed 0:24:49.359 --> 0:24:52.960 of that. But my task as a writer is to 0:24:53.000 --> 0:24:56.600 put that shame. I mean, let it drive me, but 0:24:57.240 --> 0:25:02.480 not distort what I'm doing, not self indulgent. And by 0:25:02.520 --> 0:25:08.880 the time you realize how widespread that source of shame is, 0:25:09.760 --> 0:25:12.320 it kind of in a way melts into the national 0:25:12.400 --> 0:25:16.840 shame that we are beginning to feel and should feel 0:25:17.400 --> 0:25:20.240 for the way this country was put together. I hope 0:25:20.240 --> 0:25:22.119 the book is a new way of bringing home to 0:25:22.240 --> 0:25:25.880 us stuff that some of us didn't know at all, 0:25:26.800 --> 0:25:28.960 some of us, including me, who thought they knew it 0:25:29.000 --> 0:25:34.840 and discovered that it was different or worse, or more 0:25:34.920 --> 0:25:41.480 subtle or always. I'm fascinated by contradiction, and it's full 0:25:41.680 --> 0:25:42.679 of contradictions. 0:25:43.240 --> 0:25:47.960 Forgiveness is not quite the right construction, but progressing as 0:25:48.000 --> 0:25:52.280 a nation, being able to be a genuinely mature nation 0:25:52.400 --> 0:25:56.280 that is able to meaningfully grapple with its own past, 0:25:56.960 --> 0:25:59.720 requires some kind of process, some kind of reconciliation. 0:26:00.160 --> 0:26:05.520 But where do we go when the modest and generous 0:26:05.960 --> 0:26:14.439 suggestion of a voice for Indigenous Australians is met with fury, lies, misrepresentation. 0:26:15.359 --> 0:26:20.879 Where do we go? What happens if this referendum is 0:26:20.920 --> 0:26:25.399 as it seems utterly lost? Where do we go? Above all, 0:26:25.440 --> 0:26:29.040 I don't think you can survive in this trade unless 0:26:29.080 --> 0:26:33.199 at some zany level you're an optimist, and I am 0:26:33.280 --> 0:26:37.640