Screengrab from Australian Citizenship Test website
By Darryl Mason
As noted by Tammois on Twitter, the Australian Citizenship Test website uses a photo from the very unAustralian Cronulla Riots of 2005 to illustrate a story about the importance of Australian values. How the photo appears on the website :
Some of the text that runs with the photo clearly showing a man with 'No Lebs' scrawled across the back of his t-shirt, next to people wearing the Australian flag as capes :
Australia is a land that represents different things to different people; to some, the land down under is a distant and mysterious place punctuated with visions of kangaroos and coral reefs, while to others, the expansive outback and sharply contrasting city skylines stand out. For those who are truly close to Australia, however, there are scores of ways to think about the country, and the nation’s collective values often make up one of the most important. When newcomers venture to Australia for the first time, they may find national values strange and very different, or fairly familiar, depending on their place of origin. With a strong love of democratic government, a dedication to preserving the country’s unique customs, and a pioneering spirit that has helped to make Australia stand out among even the most populous and powerful countries in the world, Aussies aren’t especially quiet about their values, and immigrants may find the social and moral landscapes daunting at first.Wow.
UPDATE : 'Dan' Lewis from the RWDB blog read the above post and dreamed up distortions and lies :
"There should have been a few subtle hints that this wasn't an 'official' website."Where above do I claim that photo was posted on an 'official' site? Nowhere. I called it the Australian Citizenship Test website, which is what it calls itself. Next :
The URL - Australiantest.com and the Wordpress website which follows, don't exactly scream "Australian Government".Where did I say those websites screamed Australian government? Nowhere. Dan Lewis is hallucinating, hopelessly. If I intended the post to be a criticism of the Australian government, or official immigration policy, I would have tagged the post as such. I tagged it 'online racism' because that's what the post is about. Next :
How could any sensible person reach the conclusion that Mason did?How could any person with half a brain read the above post and conclude I was blaming the Australian government for that appalling website?
Keep lying, keep trying, Dan.
And better luck next time.
Darryl Mason is the author of the free, online novel ED Day : Dead Sydney. You can read it here
