Mr Neal is Entitled to be an Agitator

Let us pray for an entire High Court of Lionel Murphies. Lionel Murphy (1922 – 1986) was one of those rare lawyers who were interested in justice, not just the law. The law rests on precedent, which entrenches the injustices of the past. Justice requires a broad understanding of many areas of study and their use to empower the poor and destitute. Hence, we need judges who are skilled in areas other than the law. Lionel Murphy was a lawyer critical of his own discipline. He had read widely. This breath of knowledge is reflected one of his many descents that involved the chair of the northern Queensland ‘Yarrabah Aboriginal Council.’

I do not know how old Percy Arthur Neal, chair of Yarrabah Aboriginal Council, was at the time of his 1982 High Court appearance. This was the height of the paternalistic Bjelke-Petersen Queensland where Neal’s aims of aboriginal self-determination was met with “don’t you worry about that.” The Queensland government controlled aboriginal affairs and consulted who and when they wanted. The government never employed aboriginals except as ‘liaison officers.’

At Yarrabah, Percy Neal was making a nuisance of himself complaining about the local government run store selling rotten meat to aboriginals. Presuming, the store was the only one for miles. After the official channels ignored the Council’s and Neal grievances, Neal confronted the stall manager and, in anger, spat in his face. The local magistrate fined Neal $75 and gave him two months imprisonment because he was a stirrer. Neal appealed but the Supreme Court of Queensland increased the imprisonment to six months. Neal appealed to the High Court.

Again, Murphy dissented from the main judgement. Yet the decent is a brilliant defence of direct non-violent political action. The key paragraph states:-

That Mr Neal was an ‘agitator’ or stirrer in the magistrate’s view obviously contributed to the severe penalty. If he is an agitator, he is in good company. Many of the great religious and political figures of history have been agitators, and human progress owes much to the efforts of these and the many who are unknown. As Wilde aptly pointed out in The Soul of Man under Socialism, “Agitators are a set of interfering, meddling people, who come down to some perfectly contented class of the community and sow the seeds of discontent amongst them. That is why agitators are so absolutely necessary. Without them, in our incomplete state, there would be no advance towards civilization.” Mr Neal is entitled to be an agitator.

Note the redemptive quality of the agitator. He wakes up some class by confronting them with their ‘incomplete state’. This awakening brings forces the oppressed to redemption. Human progress occurs! It is not an economic rape talked about by the conservative vandals but the empowerment of the oppressed that marks human progress for Wilde and, by inference, Murphy. Here is a description of an Old Testament prophet, one who stirs against injustice. Here is a description of Jesus.

Percy Neal was the real hero of this story. He was the agitator, the stirrer or the prophet trying to bring justice to his people. Neal’s modern comparisons are Ghandi, King and Mandela. They all fought for their people’s right to determine their own future. Murphy simply said that such action should be a lawful activity. No court should consider whether one is a nuisance to the powerful in either judgement or sentencing. Murphy was saying that we are all entitled to be political agitators.

Yet in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7), Jesus wanted us to go beyond the law. Our citizenship of the Kingdom of Heaven requires us to engage in social redemption; a social redemption that requires us to be agitators. I pray that I will fulfil that mission.

I read Murphy's judgement in Michael Cathcart and Kate Darian-Smith (eds), Stirring Australian Speeches: The definitive collection from Botany to Bali (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 2004), pp.290 - 294.