Thank God for David Oldfield. He is dogmatic, inflexible, arrogant and abrasive, but he's the beating heart of First Contact (SBS, November 29 to December 21 at 8.30pm), a show that would otherwise have only bleeding hearts at its disposal.
The co-founder of One Nation arguably represents the views of an awful lot of white Australians in the second season of this constructed reality show from Blackfella Films (Redfern Now, First Australians, DNA Nation).
Before starting out on their 28-day immersion in Aboriginal Australia, each of the six "well-known" (SBS doesn't do celebrity) participants records an interview in which they lay out their preconceptions of the Aboriginal people and culture they have had little or no direct experience of. As you might expect, Oldfield pulls no punches.
"It's not actually good for Aborigines to remain Aborigines. They should be Australians." Of Indigenous culture, he says: "You just naturally let it die out. I mean frankly, it should have died out, like the Stone Age died out."
His fellow travellers have preconceptions too. Actor Nicki Wendt says "I floss and brush my teeth twice a day, without fail," expecting the people she meets to be less fastidious in matters of personal hygiene. And she's right – in a house with 25 inhabitants, there's barely elbow room to floss – but she is one of the most open to change.
Natalie Imbruglia admits to an idealised view of Indigenous culture formed in her school days and untrammelled by the messy business of ever actually meeting an Aborigine. It's all campfires and corroborees and living in harmony with nature. Some of what she sees shatters that illusion, some of it helps rebuild it in more robust form. There's hope and despair aplenty here.
Former Miss Universe Australia Renae Ayris comes from a place of fear, having been harassed by drunken blackfellas in Perth. She ends with her concerns not allayed entirely, but with a knowledge of the circumstances that may contribute to such behaviour.
Ian "Dicko" Dickson wrestles with the tension between his lefty leanings and his get-off-your-arse-and-fix-it response to problems. Comedian Tom Ballard is steadfastly articulate and compassionate but finds himself opening to the idea of personal responsibility in a way that takes him by surprise.
In each of these, there is a shifting – in some cases slight, in others substantial. They visit the state facilities to which kids were taken after being abducted from their families 50 years ago, where they were trained for service and chained for punishment. For some it is the first they have heard of the Stolen Generations, and they are moved.
They visit a model prison in WA where the inmates are given training and structure and a shot at breaking the cycle of recidivism (80 per cent of Indigenous prisoners, we are told, will re-offend). But they are conflicted over the fact life inside looks so much better than life outside.
David Oldfield, though, is a rock. He budges not an inch. He clings to the mantra of responsibility and self-reliance, which has some appeal wherever you sit politically. But he starts from a position in which Aboriginality is a problem best solved by being erased and he ends up there. A scene in which he quibbles over details with two men who speak of being taken from their families as children – "but you don't know why you were taken, do you?" – is breathtaking in its lack of compassion.
Of course, Oldfield sees himself as a rationalist, not a racist. He takes the Andrew Bolt line of logic that refusing to acknowledge difference puts him above the petty distinctions of race. That would be fine if everyone started on an equal footing and had equal opportunities from there on, but that's not the way the world works. Not yet, anyway.
For now, denying race as a factor in an individual's outcome is a wilful act of ignorance. Thank God for David Oldfield, for showing us so clearly what that looks like.
Karl Quinn is on facebook at karlquinnjournalist and on twitter @karlkwin
