Magistrate declares lying un-Australian
Greg Bird the footballer was back in court for a final time after allegedly glassing his girlfriend. In his summing up of Greg’s alleged lie about his flatmate who was said to have done the glassing the magistrate declared the lie “un-Australian”.
Among the things that are automatically included among the list of things which are accepted as “Australian” is that Magistrates do not get to make that call. There has been constant pressure to change the underlying culture of the average Australian to something which is acceptable for consumption by the up-market conservatives.
It is pressure that should be resisted. Making the term “Australian” into soft chewable pap for the wealthy and the corporate sponsorships disregards the actual tone of Australians and alienates the people who most associate with the term.
Australians tend to rebel against self-serving authority and pomposity like this. The magistrate attempts to own the rights to describe the limits of the term but is actually outside of the definition himself. Magistratism is not traditionally associated with being “Australian” in that use of the term!
Historically speaking the most important definition of “un-Australian” and “Australian” include larikanism and a fine disregard for the letter of the law in preference for the spirit of the law (or even of pure rebellion) that has defied the often brutal attempts by magistrates and their masters to impose their will on it.
To the magistrate who feels an urge to add to the definition of what is and isn’t “Australian” and “un-Australian” it can only be said that traditionally on the part of a great swathe of the population the way of dealing with authority was to avoid it or when that that didn’t work it was to slap a hand over the heart, look them straight in the eye and lie without shame!
The term “bugger off” also comes to mind!
The comment here is not in any way a comment on the general work of the magistrate or of this case. Who would want to have unravel what happens at times like this!
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No he didn’t. It was the fact that Bird falsely accused a friend of the attack, that made the Magistrate correctly describe his actions as un-Australian. You never blame a mate!
You are correct in that his act of falsely accusing a friend was un-Australian. My point was the person who made the call of it being an un-Australian act was a magistrate. Magistrates are not a part of the culture that includes mate-ship and not dobbing a mate in. They are traditionally the detractors of the Australian working class and country culture that usually owns the term.