'The Sorcerer's Apprentice' - Part 3 : Stolen Lands — Dark Emu Exposed

Feb 3

Feb 3 'The Sorcerer's Apprentice' - Part 3 : Stolen Lands

The writings and public pronouncements of Bruce Pascoe just keep on giving - a real ‘Magic Pudding’ that, no matter how much we debunk, never fails to supply us with more and more examples of Bruce Pascoe’s, ‘Invention of the False Past.’

In December 2020, Readings Bookshop in Carlton, Melbourne conducted an on-line launch of Mr Pascoe’s new book, Loving Country - A Guide to Sacred Australia (Note 3).

Bruce Pascoe, along with co-author Vicky Shukuroglou, were introduced by Readings Bookshop Events Manager, Christine Gordon, prior to the pair being interviewed by the author, Tony Birch.

Ms Gordon’s introduction allows us to explore one of the latest of the ‘parasitic brain memes’ (Note 1) that is working its way through our society - the political narrative, which actually has no legal basis, that Australia is a Stolen Land and ‘Always was, always will be Aboriginal Land’.

Let’s watch Ms Gordon promote this ‘meme’, which we can then ‘unpack.’

Now, us simple folk at Dark Emu Exposed are confused by Ms Gordon’s rather blase admission that we (she?) are living a privileged life on stolen land, as she claims,

‘…I want us to reflect on how fortunate each and every one of us are, to live in this beautiful country. And of course this country is not our country. This is owned by the traditional Indigenous owners of our land. It is stolen country and we are very privileged to live here. At the moment I'm speaking from the Kulin Nation. And on behalf of all of you, I want to pay my gratitude, and my respect to their elders past present and emerging…’

Now, when we were young, our parents taught us that stealing, as well as handling stolen goods, was morally wrong as well as being a criminal act. We have just checked the Statutes, and both are still criminal offences in Victoria:

CRIMES ACT 1958 - SECT 72 - Basic definition of theft

(1) A person steals if he dishonestly appropriates property belonging to another with the intention of permanently depriving the other of it.

(2) A person who steals is guilty of theft; and "thief" shall be construed accordingly.

VICTORIAN CRIMES ACT 1958 - SECT 88 - Handling stolen goods

(1) A person handles stolen goods if knowing or believing them to be stolen goods he dishonestly receives the goods or brings them into Victoria, or dishonestly undertakes or assists in bringing them into Victoria or in their retention, removal, disposal or realization by or for the benefit of another person, or if he arranges to do so.

(2) A person guilty of handling stolen goods is guilty of an indictable offence and liable to level 4 imprisonment (15 years maximum).

(3) Where a married woman handles stolen goods, the fact that the person from whom she receives the goods is her husband shall not of itself constitute a defence to a charge under this section.

So, what does Ms Gordon really mean when she speaks on ‘our behalf’ and says, ‘this country is not our country’ and, ‘it is stolen land’ and she is, ‘speaking from the Kulin Nation’, but she is ‘very privileged to live here’?

Maybe we thought, she might be referring to ‘us plebs, the land thieves,’ whereas, her Readings Bookshop may have done the honourable thing, in her eyes, and handed ownership of their little part of Carlton, located in the Kulin Nation, back to the ‘rightful’ traditional owners?

Perhaps Readings were just leasing the land from the traditional owners, which is really the only ethical thing to do if one believes, ‘the land was stolen.’

We cannot believe that Ms Gordon and Readings Bookshop would be so hypocritical as to accuse the rest of us Australians as being, ‘land stealers’, without her and the bookshop having first arranged to hand back the title of the bookshop land to its traditional owners, or alternatively arranged a lease deal with the Kulin Nation.

Readings Bookshop, cnr Tyne St and Lygon at 309 Lygon St, Carlton, on ‘Stolen’ Kulin Country. - Source Google maps — Readings Bookshop, cnr Tyne St and Lygon at 309 Lygon St, Carlton, on **‘Stolen’ Kulin Country**. - *Source Google maps*

So we thought we would just, ‘Google It’, and see what the public records say about the site of Readings Bookshop at 309 Lygon Street, Carlton, Victoria, in the heart of Kulin Country.

Our friend Mr Google revealed the following Title :

The Original Certificate of Title for 309 Lygon St Carlton (cnr Tyne St), issued on December 14th, 1914. It is on the Title Office letterhead with the

stylised Royal Coat of Arms of the United Kingdom, indicating that the Title has been issued by authority of the

original Sovereign owners of this land, King George III and his heirs and assigns.

This is the legal document that shows that the legal owner of this land and building is, as of 16/10/1997, RUBBO SMITH Pty Ltd.

The Certificate of Title does not seem to make any reference whatsoever to the land being ‘stolen land’, or belonging to the Kulin Nation. But perhaps the company, RUBBO SMITH Pty Ltd is an Indigenous Kulin land owning company?

Former Greens MP Lidia Thorpe with Members of the Warriors of Aboriginal Resistance (L-R) Apryl Day, Tarneen Onus-Williams, Crystal McKinnon and Rosie Kalina. CREDIT: LUIS ASCUI

Checking the available public records shows that RUBBO SMITH Pty Ltd is a private company with two individual shareholders. It would appear that the shop and land at 309 Lygon St, which is owned by RUBBO SMITH Pty Ltd has two company shareholders named, according to a recent ASIC Extract, Stephen Smith and Mark Rubbo, who are believed to be the owners of the Readings Bookshop business in Carlton.

We have not been able to determine whether either Mr Smith, or Mr Rubbo are Indigenous Kulin Nation descendants, or whether they have a land-lease arrangement with the Kulin Nation.

Similarly, we have not been able to determine whether they make a regular annual payment to an Indigenous organisation such as, ‘Pay the Rent- Saying Sorry Isn’t Enough’, to atone for the ‘crime’ of being in possession of ‘Stolen Land’ as their employee, Christine Gordon informs us is her belief to be the case for all land in the country.

As Green’s Senator Lidia Thorpe says,

“the pay the rent campaign was a way of giving the Indigenous community "economic independence to determine their own destiny. It's not about making people feel guilty, it's not about questioning how Aboriginal people are going to spend it. If you live in someone's house, you have to pay the rent. You're living on stolen land, there's never been a treaty. It's time to pay the rent.”

The point of this blog-post is not to focus on the business structure of the Reading Bookshop business which we, as regular customers will admit, is a wonderful business. Rather, it is to show yet again how Mr Pascoe’s re-writing of our history, his ‘invention of the false past’ (Note 2) can be taken up uncritically by ‘his apprentices’ and younger fans so that they become mouth pieces, or even ‘foot-soldiers’, for divisive ideas that are patently incorrect.

It is not possible for someone in today’s Australia to ‘steal’ something as significant as a piece land without promptly ending up in court - either by being sued by the true land owner, who has a title issued by the Crown, or by being arrested by the Police Fraud Squad for those trying to ‘forge’ a title.

If Ms Gordon (and Readings Bookshop’s owners?) is agonising over the guilt of the settlement of Victoria, and what the consequences were for the original Aboriginal inhabitants, that’s fine and she (they) can make whatever financial or title-transfer arrangements they like with the descendants of the Kulin Nation.

But it is not acceptable to use the collective ‘we’ and ‘us’ to rope in the rest of us Victorians into believing we are ‘handling stolen goods’ everytime we buy and sell property.

Most of ‘us’ Victorians are quite comfortable with our current, internationally recognised, Australian Sovereignty and the land titles that have been issued to us. And the Australian High Court, the International Law Courts and the United Nations are on our side.

So back to mowing the lawn on my little quarter-acre block with my name on the Title.

Note 1 - We will discuss more on ‘parasitic brain memes’ in a later blog post - In the meantime, readers might like to buy the following book, The Parasitic Mind, as part of their ‘vaccination program’ against this insidious infection, of which, in our opinion, Professor Pascoe could be described as a ‘super-spreader!’

Note 2 - Mr Pascoe’s ‘parasitic meme’ that ‘the land was stolen’ infects his latest book, Loving Country as well : ‘British law aided and abetted the theft of land by excluding Aboriginal people from its processes’ - page 11.

Note 3 - The full video of the on-line Book Launch and the interview of the authors by Tony Birch is here.