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Willheim, Ernst --- "Book Review - The N Word: One Man's Stand" [2005] IndigLawB 66; (2005) 6(15) Indigenous Law Bulletin 21


Book Review

The N Word: One Man’s Stand

By Stephen Hagan

Magabala Books, 2005

review by Ernst Willheim

This is an important book. One of only a small number of Aboriginal autobiographies, it tells the story of an Aboriginal activist, including his determined fight to have the word ‘Nigger’ removed from a sign at the Toowoomba Sports Ground.[1] This fight alone makes the book worth reading. Where else but Queensland would such a sign be countenanced? Where else but in Australia, under John Howard, would a government reject the decision of the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination that the sign be removed?

The book is much more than a tale of Stephen Hagan’s epic struggle against the ‘Nigger’ sign. Hagan recounts his father’s life in a fringe camp humpy on the banks of the Warrego River, opposite the Cunnamulla cemetery. He writes poignantly how ‘the dead in Cunnamulla were cared for better than the Aborigines’. When the cemetery caretaker was not on guard, the camp Aborigines, without a tap among them, would walk to the cemetery taps to fill their kerosene tin containers. He recounts also the forcible removal by cattle truck of a large group of Aboriginal women, children and old people while the able-bodied men were away at work. Oral history may be the only records of some of these shameful aspects of Australia’s past and it is important that the present generation record what has been passed down to them. Hagan’s anecdotes will be a future resource for historians.

Hagan’s own childhood stories tell much of life for a young Aboriginal boy at the Yumba, the Cunnamulla Aboriginal camp; going to school without shoes; the teacher who chastised him for not completing a drawing of his (non-existent) bathroom; exclusion from dances; discrimination in clubs, pubs and shops; the humiliation of separate roped-off Aboriginal areas at the local cinema; and ‘nigger’ taunts at school.

Hagan’s adult career has been rich and varied, including flirtations with various interest groups. Early contact with Moral Rearmament led to a visit to India. Employment with the Aboriginal Development Commission in Canberra led to an offer to join the Department of Foreign Affairs. He became the first Aboriginal to achieve a diplomatic posting overseas, to Sri Lanka. After his return to Canberra, Charlie Perkins invited him to join the Department of Aboriginal Affairs, working first in Canberra and subsequently in North Queensland. Later he was seconded to be Manager of Aboriginal Programs in the Department of Employment, Education and Training. After some moderately successful business ventures, he became CEO of an Aboriginal corporation, directing the Community Development Employment Program (‘CDEP’), but was dismissed in controversial circumstances.

A stint with a Queensland Indigenous advisory group led to an unfortunate political flirtation with the Queensland National Party. Hagan was one of a small group who organised Indigenous support for the Nationals in the all-important Mundingburra by-election, in return for commitments to Indigenous health programs. The Nationals won the by-election and came to power but failed to honour their commitments to Indigenous health. More significantly for Hagan, he was investigated and prosecuted for travel irregularities. The amount involved was modest. All had been repaid. He had an unblemished record. Yet a magistrate sentenced him to six months’ imprisonment. Bail was refused pending the appeal. Hagan implies the prosecution and sentence were politically motivated, a view also volunteered by a prison official. The account of his traumatic prison experience is a moving one.

This book has so many interesting facets, it is not possible to mention all. Followers of Aboriginal politics will be interested in his depiction of division and conflict within Aboriginal communities and organisations, including Hagan’s own conflicts with Aboriginal powerbrokers, initially over his resistance to nepotism and lack of accountability and later in relation to the ‘Nigger’ sign. He gives his account of an irregularly called ‘community meeting’; the assistance he provided to Aboriginal people and groups not assisted by the publicly-funded Aboriginal bodies; election to the Goolburri Regional Council; and his clash with Commissioner on the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission (‘ATSIC’), ‘Sugar’ Ray Robinson.

Hagan’s relentless fight to have the ‘Nigger’ sign removed from the Toowoomba Sports Ground occupies the later part of the book. This is a fascinating tale of division, not only within the Indigenous community but also within the non-Indigenous community. He received strong support from community leaders; Senator Bob Brown moved a motion in the Senate calling for the removal of the ‘Nigger’ sign and supporters organised a march and a petition. Hagan was also the unfortunate victim of physical abuse and intimidation, including threatening letters from the Ku Klux Klan and the League of Rights. Readers will be shocked to learn that Hagan’s utilisation of the procedures established by Parliament to counter racial vilification led to threats of violence and intimidation from extremist organisations. It is to be hoped that others will not be deterred by his experience. Fortunately, Hagan established a good rapport with the local police who provided protection for him and for his family.

At the more formal level, the tale begins with his complaint to the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission and talks of the unwillingness of the Toowoomba Sports Ground Trust to participate in the Commission’s face-to-face conciliation process. Hagan notes the Brisbane solicitor who agreed to take on his Federal Court application on a pro bono basis; the refusal of legal aid by both the Commonwealth Attorney-General’s Department and ATSIC; the rejection of his application to the Federal Court; the unsuccessful appeal to the Full Court; and the unsuccessful application for special leave to appeal to the High Court.

While Hagan conveys some of the atmosphere of those court hearings, one can only guess, from a few short sentences, at the obvious antagonism on the part of at least one member of the Full Court. The High Court hearing can only be described as extraordinary. Hagan quotes from some of the transcript and, upon reading, it is no wonder that Hagan was devastated at the conclusion of the case. The presiding judge likened Hagan’s objection to ‘Nigger’ to a pink person being offended by a pink truck with ‘Pinky’s Cement Mixer’ written on the side; an analogy which demeaned and trivialised a serious complaint about what is possibly the most racially offensive term in the English language. To rub salt in the wounds, the Courts rejected the argument that this was public interest litigation and awarded costs against Hagan at all stages.

Specialist legal readers may be disappointed that the legal questions in issue are not analysed in more depth.[2] The legislation required that the complainant establish, not only that the act complained of was reasonably likely to offend, but also that the act was done ‘because of the race’ of those offended. In substance, it was necessary to establish an intention to offend, an almost impossible hurdle. It is a pity that Hagan did not take the opportunity to draw attention to the deficiencies in the legislation and to call for reform.

The next step was Hagan’s submission to the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination. Here the issue was not whether the sign breached Australian law but whether Australia was in breach of its international obligations under the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination. The Australian Government fought the application vigorously, even to the extent of challenging jurisdiction. The Committee had little difficulty in rejecting the Government’s technical objections and found in Hagan’s favour, calling on Australia to secure removal of ‘Nigger’ from the sign. Australia has a long and proud history of advocacy and respect for human rights. In recent years, however, Australia has repeatedly rejected decisions of the Human Rights Committee and the Racial Discrimination Committee, preferring denigration of the Committees and their members to substantive responses. It therefore came as no surprise that, after an unexplained delay of some eight months, the Government refused to give effect to the Committee’s decision.

That is not the end of the story. The Toowoomba Sports Ground Trust has instituted bankruptcy proceedings against Hagan to recover its costs. In response, Hagan is contending that, in light of Australian accession to the Optional Protocol to the Racial Discrimination Convention, the Racial Discrimination Committee is now in substance incorporated into Australia’s legal system and that as a consequence of the Committee’s finding that the sign should be removed, Hagan was ultimately successful and enforcement of the costs order constitutes an abuse of process. That is a story for another day.

Ernst Willheim, is at the Law Program, Research School of Social Sciences, Australian National University. He appeared as counsel (pro bono) for Mr Hagan in the Full Federal Court and the High Court and drafted the successful application to the Racial Discrimination Committee.


[1] ‘Edward Stanley Brown was born in 1898 and died in 1972. He was of Anglo-Saxon descent. He became a very well known Toowoomba identity primarily because of his career as a footballer... In 1960, the trustees of the Athletic Oval voted to name the stand ‘The ES “Nigger” Brown Stand’, plainly to honour Mr Brown as a distinguished local sportsman.’ Transcript of proceedings, Hagan v Trustees of the Toowoomba Sports Ground Trust (Federal Court of Australia, Drummond J, 10 November 2000).

[2] For analysis of the issues see Ernst Willheim, ‘Australia’s Racial Vilification Laws Found Wanting? The ‘Nigger Brown’ Saga: HREOC, the Federal Court, the High Court and the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination’ (2004) 4(1) Asia-Pacific Journal on Human Rights and the Law 86.


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