I was there, and Gebhardt should apologise to Abbott for this "racist" smear Peter Gebhardt, a former judge and poet, has a very vivid imagination - and a dangerous propensity for labelling others racist. I've noted this before: It's Australia Day on Saturday. Time for The Age to celebrate it in the usual way, with this year's dirge written by Peter Gebhardt: What might an Aboriginal person say of Australia Day? Why should the Aborigines celebrate that day? It was the day that marked the theft of a land (terra nullius), the day that marked the theft and abduction of a people, of a culture, the day that initiated the pathways to the Stolen Children and, to our ultimate shame, the deaths in custody. It is a day that stands as a reminder of massacres. The wind-stench of bodies burned in bonfires hangs heavy upon the nation's conscience and in the clouds. Aborigines might well be grateful to The Age for getting a white writer to sum up what they are all collectively thinking - every one of them. After all, much better for The Age to have a white describe their thoughts than to let some Aboriginal writer speak for themselves and risk him or her straying off the ideological reservation. But let's address the extraordinary Gebhardt hyperbole. In fact, "Stolen Generation" activists to this very day still cannot name even 10 children stolen just for being Aboriginal. A royal commission found Aborigines are no more likely than whites to die in custody, and black prisoners are more likely to die outside of jail than in it. And which bodies were burned in bonfires exactly? I'd expect a former judge to be rather more careful with evidence. Gebhardt today does it again - writing a nasty smear piece for a grateful Age. The headline sums up the charge: We have racist attitudes and we need to stop sweeping them under the carpet. By "we," of course, Gebhardt and Fairfax mean "you" - not them. In fact, Gebhardt has two people in particular in mind: Since 2008 I have had the good fortune to work with four young Aboriginal men who studied at the University of Melbourne. I was described as a ""mentor"..." Two of the young men were medical students, one from Darwin, the other from Cairns.. I have had my ""ups and downs"" with them, they with me... This year one of the medical students, Ryen Diggle, is studying in a hospital and Melbourne University rural academic centre. Diggle is very intelligent, very reflective and very Aboriginal in his physiognomy. One day when we were lunching at Southgate, he saw Andrew Bolt with Tony Abbott and he went across and took them on. He was just 19. There are those who think Abbott has a new approach to Aboriginal affairs because of his friendship with Noel Pearson and his media sorties into communities to rant and flaunt his boys" own manual attitudes. Suggesting Abbott is a racist is lower than low, given his record of service in Aboriginal communities. I may well criticise Abbott giving in to what I term the New Racism with his support for a race-based change to the Constitution, but I doubt very much this is what Gebhardt wants to smear him for. But what stuns me most is Gebhardt's portrayal of a conversation to which he was not a witness. I have only a vague recall of Diggle barrelling up to Abbott and me, but I do not recall that he "took us on." I recall a rather insistent young man taking a very long amount of Abbott's time to discuss in a roundabout way some issues involving Aboriginal health and his career prospects. I was struck by his sense of entitlement to so much of Abbott's time, but I was struck even more by Abbott's generosity. Both he and I encouraged the young man in his career, and agreed there was much to be done. No fair person witnessing that conversation could have possibly concluded that this was between racists and an Aboriginal youth who "took them on." Gebhardt's portrayal is unfair, offensive, ill-founded and unbecoming of a former judge. He should apologise. Thanks to reader Jamie and others.