White history comes under attack

PROPOSALS to alter or remove Sydney monuments to Captain Cook and Arthur Phillip have been likened to the worst extremes of rewriting history by the Taliban or by Josef Stalin in the USSR.

Sydney Lord Mayor Clover Moore has not ruled out the removal of the 126-year-old statue of Captain Cook in Hyde Park because it says the explorer “discovered this territory” in 1770.

The push to remove or alter monuments honouring Australia’s colonial heritage has been condemned by Shooters Fishers and Farmers MP Robert Borsak as “Taliban-like” and derided by Aboriginal leader Warren Mundine, who likens the trend to a “Stalinist approach” to create a “false history”.

Mr Borsak said: “What’s going to be next? Are they going to tear down the Anzac memorials in every municipal park in Australia?”

The debate began when indigenous ABC journalist Stan Grant wrote an analysis attacking the inscription on the memorial to Captain Cook in Hyde Park – that the British explorer “discovered this territory”.

He said the inscription implied no Aboriginal history counted “until a white sailor first walked on these shores”.

Mr Grant, who has not called for the removal of any monument, also attacked the legacy of the anti-slavery first Governor of NSW, Arthur Phillip.

Ms Moore’s spokesman said: “The Lord Mayor has referred Stan Grant’s comments to the City of Sydney’s Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Advisory panel for their consideration and advice.”

Historian Keith Windschuttle said that committee had previously said Australia was invaded rather than settled, which was “false in Australian law and history”.

“The only response you are going to get from them is that the statue should be removed,” he said.

Mr Windschuttle’s call for the statue to be left untouched has been widely supported by politicians and the Aboriginal community.

NSW Treasurer Dominic Perrottet said: “Commemorating one part of our history shouldn’t have to come at the expense of another part – that’s just divisive.”

Local Government Minister Gabrielle Upton said the City of Sydney should focus on “working for its ratepayers and not rewriting history”.

Liberal Upper House MP Peter Phelps said men such as Cook and Phillip were heroes.

“Attempts to rewrite our public history for the sake of political correctness – which is what these activists want to do – is little better than Stalin erasing his political opponent from photographs.”

Mr Mundine echoed the point.

“All this nonsense about changing things – we cannot look back at history with our modern minds, otherwise we would have to tear down the pyramids because they were built by slaves,” he said.

“Trying to have a Stalinist approach and whiting out people’s names is false history.

“The problem is an absence of memorials, we need more about our ... indigenous people.”