Barry Spurr: further leaked emails reveal detail of attack on Adam Goodes
University of Sydney poetry professor wrote that Australian of the Year needed only depression and a disability to be ‘the complete role model for Australians’
University of Sydney students rally on campus, calling for the sacking of Professor Barry Spurr. Photograph: Jane Dempster/AAP
Suspended University of Sydney professor Barry Spurr said Australian of the Year Adam Goodes needed only depression and a disability to be “the complete role model for Australians today”, leaked emails reveal.
Spurr, who worked on the government’s review of the school curriculum, was suspended from the university on Friday after the website New Matilda revealed emails sent by him to colleagues over the two years referred to the prime minister as an “Abo lover” and talked about “Mussies” and “chinky poos” taking over Australia.
In new emails released by the website Spurr attacks Goodes for winning Australian of the Year. He lists Goodes’s qualities as “Aborigine, Sportsmen, mother was a member of the ‘stolen generation’.”
“Ticking all the correct boxes, now all we need to know is that he suffers from ‘depression’ and has a disability and he becomes the complete role model for Australians today. In his acceptance speech all he talked about was racism and every time he said ‘Australia’ he mispronounced it,” Spurr wrote to a colleague and a friend in January this year.
“Abbott wants this so he can combine it with the inclusion of Abos in the Constitution later this year – his version of Rudd’s apology and perpetuating the black armband – to show that he really is a sensitive guy after all.”
Labor has used the emails to attack the government’s curriculum review saying it is “tainted”. Spurr recommended a greater emphasis on western literature in the review, saying that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander culture had a “minimal” impact on Australian literature.
The education minister, Christopher Pyne, has dismissed the attacks, saying Spurr was independently selected to be a “special consultant” on the English curriculum. Spurr was hired by Sydney University as chair in poetry in 2010.
In separate transcripts, released by New Matilda after accusations the emails were “taken out of context”, Spurr complains about an Aboriginal family living in his neighbourhood in a “dear little terrace”.
He writes that the terrace has been “utterly destroyed” with empty beer bottles strewn outside with other garbage.
“These are the people whose ‘ancient wisdom’, our V-C says, we should respect, and to whom we apologise on every possible occasion and whose rich culture we bow down before, confessing our wickedness in our mistreatment of them,” he wrote.
“... I wonder how he’d like these manifestations of ancient wisdom living next door. The immediate neighbours tell me it has been hell on earth and, of course, their property values have plummeted.
“They’re living next door to a rubbish tip: human and material.”
In a separate exchange a friend emailed Spurr to complain about a story about a “harlot” who fell asleep in a bed at a party and woke to find a colleague putting his penis in her mouth. Spurr’s friend referred to her as a “worthless slut” who was going to cause the “poor chap” years of imprisonment because she made a complaint to police.
“Reeling from that [redacted] story. Ye gods. I think she needs a lot put in her mouth, permanently, and then stitched up,” Spurr responded, before going on to write mockingly abouta transgender person he had been told about.
Spurr defended the emails last week as a “whimsical” game which was mocking the extreme language used. He was suspended by on Friday by the university, which “precluded [him] from attending any university campus while the matter is investigated and dealt with in accordance with the terms of the university’s enterprise agreement”.
“Racist, sexist or offensive language is not tolerated at the University of Sydney,” the university said in a statement.
In one of the emails published by New Matilda, written on 19 April, Spurr reveals that Pyne wanted him to compare Australian school curriculums with those from other countries.
“The Californian high school English curriculum has arrived (as Pyne wants me to compare ours with other countries). Another 300 pages of reading!
“And whereas the local curriculum has the phrase ‘Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander’ on virtually every one of its 300 pages, the Californian curriculum does not ONCE mention native Americans and has only a very slight representation of African-American literature (which, unlike Abo literature, actually exists and has some distinguished productions).”
The heads of the curriculum review, Kevin Donnelly and Ken Wiltshire, did not comment on the emails when contacted by Guardian Australia on
University of Sydney students rally on campus, calling for the sacking of Professor Barry Spurr. Photograph: Jane Dempster/AAP
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