'The country' is racist?

I had the misfortune to listen to Bush Telegraph on ABC radio today. The show was about rural identity so I suspected the ABC might be up to no good. Sure enough, host Michael Cathcart replaced almost every use of the expression "the country" with just "country", as seems to be the Aboriginal way of speaking. The program description included:

When we're living on country, who do we think we are?

What is the point of changing our language to speak like Aboriginals? Was it to appease the one Aboriginal guest on the show? Was it just to annoy the mainstream public, since that seems to be the ABC's main skill? Who knows, but maybe it's applying "acknowledge the traditional owners" to its logical conclusion i.e. every time we use the words "the country" we should acknowledge the traditional owners. What better way than to use Aboriginal-speak?

So now every reference to land is loaded with the recognition of its prior owners and potentially other matters that follow i.e. land rights, reparations, compensation. The program description also said:

The media and politicians love to make grand claims about what it means to be Australian...

And the ABC is making grand claims on what language you can use and therefore what thoughts are permissible. George Orwell:

Don't you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought? In the end we shall make thoughtcrime literally impossible, because there will be no words in which to express it...

The whole climate of thought will be different. In fact, there will be no thought as we understand it now.

Gold Coast man charged with racist fax to MP

Race-hate words found not illegal:

A staff member working for Broadwater MP Peta-Kaye Croft complained to police after receiving the document from 62-year-old Denis Mulheron of Labrador on June 30 last year.

Christie Turner, 28, told Southport Magistrates Court she was deeply offended when she read the one-page fax which called on the Labor Party to tighten immigration laws against 'niggers' and 'sandnigger terrorists' and Muslim women with circumcised genitals.

The fax also made reference to indigenous Australians as 'Abos'...

Mr Mulheron was charged with using a carriage service, namely a fax machine, to menace, harass or offend -- a offence which carries a maximum penalty of three years jail.

After lengthy consideration, Mr O'Driscoll ruled that Mr Mulheron's words were not enough to invoke criminal sanctions.

"The words used were crude, unattractive and direct but were not offensive to a reasonable person," he said.

Strange how journalist Leah Fineran judged the words as "race-hate" moments after the judge ruled them "not offensive to a reasonable person".