Aborigines unfair game in Canberra’s public service

Question and answers, answers and questions,
Where is the truth and what is the lie?
Questions of fortune once built on a fib
Foundations less stable than Pisa’s sick soil
Answers now skewed, so we’ll flattened it all
By building walls higher on angling downhill!
Questions and answers, no truth can be told,
Lest props sunk in subsoil are exposed when all falls!

The end of the twelfth century heralded the beginning of the religious and racial intolerance of the medieval Christian Inquisition. Commencing in 1184 with the Papal Bull of Lucius III, Ad abolendam, the Episcopal Inquisition was instituted to counter the growth of splinter religions that had arisen in the Languedoc region of France, not far from the Spanish border. Immediately following this Episcopal Inquisition came the Papal, Spanish and Portuguese Inquisitions, extending the attacks on religious pluralism and tolerance all the way into the Iberian peninsula. The result was the complete eradication of Catharism and the Waldensian movement. (A Waldensian Church exists today, but the movement had changed irrevocably to a sect of Protestantism with the reformation and is believed to no longer represent the religious tenets of the movement begun by Peter Waldo of Lyons, according to Gerald Audisio in his treatise The Waldensian Disssent: Persecution and Survival c1170-1570.)

The original intention of the Papal Bull was to renounce heresy and crush schisms within the Catholic Church. Waldensians were painted as witches and in 1211, a mass staked burning of Waldensians almost decimated the small movement. There were further attacks including the Piedmont Easter, a particularly heinous aspect of the Inquisitions.

Feeling themselves morally and spiritually superior and no doubt seeing an opportunity to gain power, as evidenced by the Alhambra Decree of 1492 (not rescinded until 1968), Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabella I of Castille instituted the Spanish Inquisition in 1480. Muslims, Jews and Catholics lived side-by-side in communities at this time, but there was a distinct hierarchy with Catholics well above others in the communities; legislation specifically discriminated against non-Catholics. Pope Sixtus VI, blackmailed by Ferdinand I who threatened to cease assisting in the protection of Rome which was under threat from the Turks, assented to an Inquisition led by the Spanish monarchs. It was subsequently followed by the Portuguese Inquisition when Maria of Aragon, daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella, married the Portuguese king Manuel I.

There can be little doubt that the true intent of the Christian Inquisitions and more specifically, the Spanish and Portuguese attacks was empire building and that Ferdinand and Isabella were particularly adept at manipulation of the Holy See in attaining the political and supposedly spiritual right to expound their totalitarian view. The tools of trade of the Grand Inquisitors were inquiry, unsubstantiated accusations and fear. The final aim was ethnic and religious cleansing of Jews and Muslims from the Iberian Peninsula. Already persecuted under the terms of the Inquisition, Ferdinand and Isabella issued the Alhambra Decree expelling all Jews from their kingdoms within four months, even those conversos who had publicly accepted Catholicism. Subscribing to the religion of the ruling elite was no longer protection for anyone other than those born to Catholicism.

Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition

“NOBODY expects the Spanish Inquisition! Our chief weapon is surprise! …Surprise and fear…fear and surprise…. Our two weapons are fear and surprise…and ruthless efficiency…. Our three weapons are fear, and surprise, and ruthless efficiency…and an almost fanatical devotion to the Pope…. Our four…no…”

Cardinal Ximenez, Monty Python’s The Spanish Inquisition

Australia is, nominally at least, a nation built upon a rule of law that is separate from any specific religious dogma. Whilst on the one hand this country has promoted legislation that protects minorities and established commissions and bodies to facilitate these protections, the laws and commissions have been ineffectual in the protection of the Australian Capital Territory’s (ACT) former indigenous Commissioner for Revenue (aka ‘Pat’). With accusations leveled by the ACT Department of Treasury’s own Inquisitor, Pat was stripped of his rights, his freedom from persecution and mobbed by a zealous band of fellow public service employees both within the ACT Department of Treasury and the Australian Federal Police, further abetted by Ernst & Young and a hearing impaired Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission.

We’ve all seen the letter penned by the Inquisitor, in which he vilifies not only Pat’s racial heritage, but attacks his credentials. We’ve also seen contemporary evidence of Pat’s qualifications from Ernst and Young signed by Canberra Partner Andrew McCrossin (page 1 & page 2), which not only confirms Pat’s qualifications listed by the Inquisitor on 9 May 2002, but negates claims that he was an inappropriate choice for his roles in either private enterprise or the public service. Now read the communication Pat received from Ms. Veronique Ingram, then Chief Adviser, International, Economic Group and General Manager, Corporate Governance & Accounting Policy Division on 7 July, 2003:

Ms. Ingram left the above-stated Commonwealth role in August of 2003 and has since held various influential roles culminating in her current position as Chief Executive of the Insolvency and Trustee Service Australia (ITSA) and Inspector-General in Bankruptcy, an appointment made by the Attorney-General Robert McClelland in January of 2009. This personally penned and signed letter from one of the Commonwealth’s most senior appointees makes several points blatantly apparent:

• The Inquisitor was contacting a range of people and institutions to gain information about and to discredit Pat.

• By his own admission to Ms. Ingram, the Inquisitor indicated that he had attained access to Pat’s contacts through illegally accessing information not only within the workplace, but at Pat’s private residence. This raises the equally compelling question, how did the Inquisitor, a known adversary of the former Commissioner, gain access to his home?

• Enquiries regarding Pat’s allegedly falsified qualifications were being made as early as mid 2003.

• The Inquisitor appeared to have embarked upon a campaign to oust Pat from his role as Commissioner for Revenue based purely upon racially intolerant grounds, raising the concerns that he was in breach of the Racial Hatred Act.

Ms. Ingram dutifully directed the Inquisitor to cease his pursuit to defame Pat through the Commonwealth Department of Treasury and brought the unauthorized communication and disclosed suggested break and enter to the attention of Pat himself. It is interesting to note that around the same time as this letter was written, animals belonging to the Commissioner were killed when his house was broken into. Blak and Black is unaware of who carried out this crime and no-one has yet been charged, despite the former Commissioner’s wife reporting the intrusion and animal deaths to Dr. Deb Foskey, the then sole Green’s member for the legislative assembly, as well as making a complaint to the AFP, who refused to take her statement.

Pat has been racially vilified by a quasi-inquisition, led by a public employee who believes himself to be above Aborigines. The ACT Government and its Department of Treasury, in failing to address the abuses of process have in effect issued their own decree against Aborigines in the ACT public service and the signatory can be none other than the Treasurer and Police Minster of the time himself, Ted Quinlan, allegedly a very good friend of the Inquisitor. The AFP and HREOC, as instruments of the Commonwealth, have abetted the ACT’s local monarchs and turned a blind eye to the attacks upon innocent people in the same manner as the Holy See did in the fifteenth century. This is why Bakchos calls the attitudes in the ACT and Commonwealth Government genocidal. If the attacks upon others including Angelique, Lucinda McMillan and Ms. King are any indication, it seems that the unofficial decree holds greater weight than any legislated protections and points toward corruption of the spirit of the rule of law among Australia’s leaders, law enforcers and human rights bodies. A much greater mind than mine (a Catholic convert, as it turned out) expressed the revision of history thus:

“I do not believe that the past is most truly pictured as a thing in which humanity merely fades away into nature, or civilization merely fades away into barbarism, or religion fades away into mythology, or our own religion fades away into the religions of the world. In short I do not believe that the best way to produce an outline of history is to rub out the lines.”

G.K. Chesterton, The Everlasting Man, Concluding Summary

It’s just as well that many people keep important documents. Afterall, that’s how libraries and museums build history and learn the truth, how the lines are penciled back in.

It’s time that a serious investigation of the allegations contained in Ms. Veronique Ingram’s letter was made in conjunction with all the other documentation published so far on Blak and Black along with that held by the ACT Department of Treasury, it’s representatives at the time of Pat’s appointment and dismissal and the AFP, so that Australia and the ACT Government can finally show itself to be what they profess – leaders of human rights and equality in the Asia-Pacific region.