Western Australia’s Federal Liberal Member for Tangney, Dennis Jensen’s controversial views continue to dog his patch of the political landscape. On Tuesday he tweeted various insults that do not befit someone in political office. His is not the first but it does come as a surprise when it is from a highly educated individual. He twittered to an Aboriginal lady, known as @TheKooriWoman, who identifies as Gomeroi and who has many Twitter followers – “get over” colonialism.
Dennis Jensen
“Hell, how long ago was colonialism?”
“Get over it… every country in the world has been successfully invaded in the past,” tweeted Mr Jensen.
@TheKooriWoman responded.
“Do I snap my fingers and forget 213 years of oppression Mr Jensen?”
“(The oppression) which has created effects that are still being played out.”
Dr Jensen responded.
“It is time to unify Australia, not divide based on a victim mentality.”
“What do you do when knocked down, just blame?”
Then in typical Dr Jensen style he came in with this clanger.
“So you have personally lived 213 years?”
“Work out ways to maximise your own life experiences, you can’t for deceased ancestors.”
“Being a victim doesn’t help with overcoming those deprivations. All need to progress with positive agenda.”
Dr Jensen said affirmative action policies had failed Aboriginal Australia. He attacked Abstudy for providing specific allowances to Aboriginal students. He twittered that to do so was “discriminatory and racist.” He twittered it was unfair to be paying higher rates of Abstudy to only Aboriginal students.
“Why (are) Indigenous students living independently given more financial assistance than any other in (the) possie,” tweeted Dr Jensen.
Without adequately explaining why he twittered that the solution to Aboriginal poverty was “no affirmative action programs, and (to) address issues in terms of need, not race.”
Dr Jensen yesterday issued a statement expressing regret about posting the tweets.
“In expressing my desire for true Indigenous advancement, I may have used inappropriate channels of communication.”
“I will in future look at using more appropriate channels to pursue an agenda of generating policies to get true equality.”
“I want to engage with the Indigenous community constructively.”
Dr Jensen has had nine years in parliament to engage with Aboriginal communities. He was first elected to the House of Representatives in 2004. He is South African born and well educated. On his personal website he boasts that he “has the highest scientific qualifications of all MPs and Senators.”
Dr Jensen graduated from Monash University with a PhD in Materials Science and Physics. He is one of the Coalition’s most famous climate change deniers – in terms of its extent and in terms of human activity being its origin.
Before entering Parliament, Dr Jensen spent a long career in science and research industries.
He worked at the CSIRO and was a research scientist and analyst at the Defence Science and Technology Organisation.
He emigrated to Australia at age 20 in 1982 from South Africa.
The Stringer is aware that Coalition Leader Tony Abbott chided Dr Jensen for his comments but in public Mr Abbott limited what he had to say.
“We can have very strong feelings about all sorts of things but it is important to conduct our discussion in a civil way, and that is what I would urge all of my colleagues to do.”
Coalition shadow Treasurer Joe Hockey said Dr Jensen’s comments were “unfortunate.”
“From our perspective, we owe the Indigenous community so much,” said Mr Hockey.
Gerry Georgatos declares an impartiality conflict of interest. – For a number of years I lived and worked in the electorate of Tangney and met Dr Jensen on several occasions, especially in my role as the General Manager of the Murdoch University Guild of Students and in my various roles with a number of organisations that often brought us into debate or conflict especially over climate change. We have met in person and managed our conversations civilly but we disagree with each other’s worldviews. I had also publicly criticised Prime Minister John Howard for overruling the majority vote of the Tangney Liberal branch, they had selected another candidate. Prime Minister Howard vetoed the branch outcome and installed Dr Jensen as the Liberal candidate.
I was disturbed by assumptions that senior staff in Dr Jensen’s Tagney office made to me, and which were initially supported by Dr Jensen, till I challenged them, about the conditions and poverty of many African peoples and also of charitable organisations. On this occasion I had been invited to attend a meeting with Dr Jensen and WA’s OXFAM campaign coordinator, Paddy Cullen.
Tweets have not been deleted, so any expressions of remorse would seem insincere.
The racist expressions of Dr Jensen which he inherited from his Afrikaaner heritage in South Africa, should have been left behind when he migrated to this country.
A personal message to Dr Jensen – please educate yourself about the history of this country and how Indigenous peoples were mistreated by violent settler society. If you are really interested in helping Indigenous people to move beyond being victims then you need to do a lot of work on yourself first. It doesn’t help Indigenous people to be talked down to by someone such as yourself who holds such racist and ill-informed opinions.
I love this new movement of extreme conservatives who like to re-write history. Secondly his job at the University needs to be AXED. He should not be linked to ANY tertiary institution as how would this look on a international platform?
Okay stupid is what stupid does; prior to 1967 we were not considered AUSTRALIAN and or part of the AUSTRALIAN CONSTITUTION. Even when we were added into the constitution there were still barriers – big ones. The biggest was education and tertiary education. It was also about taking command of the knowledge and information out there as within the 1980’s we were still being taught about the ‘noble savage’ and Captain Cook.
There was an encouragement to look at areas where Aboriginal people could have the most impact for Aboriginal people. This was teaching, nursing and law. This was also the time when baby boomers had grown up and University suddenly was a pay as go institution. However there were still a lot of sponsored grants and scholarships for ANYONE that wanted to go to University. However not a lot of Aboriginal people applied. Also schooling became by law an institution that children needed to attend and Aboriginal Children. Unfortunately being isolated, not allowed to work or be employed in mainstream, not a lot of Aboriginal People had money to firstly buy uniforms, school books or food. Shame is huge in Aboriginal Communities and a lot of children were missing school due to being shame and not be able to provide new uniforms, unused school books and lunch money. School is and will remain one of the cruelest institution that we are forced by law to send our children too. Aboriginal children were being tortured, teased and isolated completely.
So a funding initiative was created to alleviate this shame, isolation and participation within mainstream education. It angers me when people who are ignorant but should know, call it racist without a thought or care. Yes it was tailored towards Aboriginal people. We are persecuted for what is our rights in this country Australia has a welfare state and identified equity grouping in which Aboriginal people are included in. lastly I think a question to him is ‘did he receive his tertiary education for free’? I bet he was the last of the baby boomers that received FREE university.