ERROL PARKER | Editor-at-large | Contact
A privately-educated banker who’s played a lot of rugby union is surprisingly not up to speed with the myriad of social and economic disadvantages faced by Aboriginal Australians.
Rugby World Cup-winning Wallaby captain Nick Farr-Jones said earlier this week that the national rugby union team should not take a knee in support of the Black Lives Matter protests sweeping the globe as it might ‘alienate’ audiences.
“Just don’t do it,” he told 2GB yesterday.
“It’s too devisive and it’ll put people off the sport at a time when we need to be more open and inclusive. By supporting black people, sorry, I mean coloured people, by taking a knee, I think it’ll upset the audiences and might get them to switch off,”
“I think it’s better if we just continue to ignore what’s going on and maintain the status quo here in Australia of pretending that nothing’s wrong and coloured people get the same start in life as people like yours truly.”
The halfback’s comments attracted widespread condemnation, including that of Gary Ella, who said Farr-Jones has “made a cunt of himself, again.”
Mr Ella was unavailable to provide comment to The Advocate this morning.
Our reporter did speak to interim Rugby Australia CEO Rob Clarke, who said he’s staying out of it.
“Look mate, the players can do whatever the hell they want,” he said.
“I’m not their Dad. I can’t tell them what to do. My opinion is fucken go for it if you want. If you don’t want to knee, good for you. If you want to, go right ahead. How fucken hard is it?”
“Yeah but looking at old Mr Magoo-Farr-Jones, are you surprised an old Caringbah boy with two fancy surnames and a job on Bligh Street investing millions of dollars has no idea what it’s like to be Aboriginal?”
“Honest to Christ.”
The Advocate reached out to Mr Farr-Jones for comment but were told by his receptionist that he doesn’t take calls or eat meat on Fridays.
More to come.
