Letter to The Editor - The apology never had a genuine popular mandate and was based on an unreliable document

To The Australian        Mark Leibler continues a notable furphy in the current debate about Aboriginal constitutional recognition ("Clear voice without the repercussions of a third chamber", 20-21/7). He writes misleadingly that "the intellectual drive behind the constitutional amendment for an advisory voice emanates from constitutional conservatives, including Liberal MP Julian Leeser." That drive comes from other sources too, but the fact is that Mr Leeser is not a conservative on this topic at all. The real conservatives are Keith Windschuttle, Frank Salter, John Stone and Andrew Bolt (to name just four). Promoting faux-conservatives as conservatives is a devious trick which should be dropped. Leibler is also less than courteous to opponents of constitutional change when he disparagingly refers to them as "nay-sayers" who, he quite wrongly implies, have been proved wrong with their "dire predictions for native title and the apology to the Stolen Generation." The apology never had a genuine popular mandate and was based on an unreliable document ("Bringing Them Home"); and the ongoing saga of "native title", based on the very questionable High Court decision in Mabo, has become a national scandal, tending towards a dangerous separatism, which needs to be halted.
  Nigel Jackson, Belgrave, Vic