In his Oz piece yesterday, Keith Windschuttle exhibits a pattern that has become the norm, making accusations against his opponents that apply as well, or better, to himself. He begins

[Michael] Duffy also observed ( The Daily Telegraph , December 21) that intellectuals on the Left “have always had a remarkable ability to switch arguments as soon as they sense they are losing”. The co-editor of the National Museum’s anthology, Bain Attwood, confirmed this ( The Australian , January 6) when he claimed there was nothing new about my rebuttal of the Aboriginal genocide thesis. Academic historians had already abandoned the concept of overt genocide for more focused, local analyses, he said, citing the work of Reynolds, Ryan and Dirk Moses.

Hence my book was no expose. “It’s just old news from a tabloid historian. Only those ignorant of the academic historiography – or unwilling to go and read it – could believe otherwise.” Moses himself followed Attwood ( The Australian , January 13), arguing that since I was “unable to describe historical writing accurately”, no one should trust anything I say.

True, Reynolds has admitted the colonial authorities did not intend genocide, which I acknowledged in my conference paper and twice in my book. Instead, however, Reynolds claims it was the Tasmanian settlers who wanted to exterminate them, which is why I devoted my longest chapter to analysing and disproving this claim.

But in relation to Reynolds, it’s Windschuttle who’s switching away from a lost argument,and misrepresening Attwood in the process. In his National Museum piece, he was asserting that Reynolds had made, then abandoned a claim of genocide.

Despite their denials, the very fact that the orthodox school has at last been publicly subjected to some sceptical questioning has already, in this brief period, led some of its practitioners to abandon some of their more outlandish claims. These developments include:

· Whereas Lyndall Ryan was still claiming in 1996 that the Tasmanian Aborigines were ‘victims of a conscious policy of genocide’, Henry Reynolds now disagrees. In his latest book, An Indelible Stain? , he has conceded that what happened to the Aborigines in Tasmania did not amount to genocide. [6] (emphasis added)

Windschuttle complains that Ryan has had a long time to answer his criticisms, but the clock is ticking for him too. His misrepresentation of Reynolds is one of a number of points where he’s been accused of error. So far his response on most points has been nothing but bluster.

In the spirit of practising what I preach, I will concede that I overstated the significance of Windschuttle’s misquotation of Lyndall Ryan (running two paras together and shifting the footnotes). However, I still think that
(i) When quoting someone’s words against them, no unacknowledged change is acceptable [added emphasis should be noted, omissions indicated with ellipses etc]. When a misquotation is identified in a case of this kind, and the person misquoted objects, they should have the benefit of any doubt
(ii) the effect of Windschuttle’s change was to strengthen a perception of deliberate dishonesty as opposed to sloppiness.