Now on bbc news, Zeinab Badawi talks to australian writer Thomas Keneally on hardtalk. Welcome to hardtalk, where i have come to manly, in sydney, australia, to talk to one of the worlds most distinguished authors, Thomas Keneally. He has written more than 30 novels, including his most famous, Schindlers Ark, which was made into an 0scar winning film, schindlers list. Now in his 80s, as he reflects on modern day australia. Does he believe it is a country that has matured in its identity, or is it still divided on race and culture . Thomas keneally, welcome to hardtalk. Thank you, zeinab. You have written about a huge range of topics the american civil war, australia, of course, the first world war, joan of arc, napoleon. How do you go about choosing a subject for a book . Well, its generally some weird connection with australia that begins me, in that i heard that there was a family on saint helena who knew napoleon, and then they got so close to napoleon that they fell out of favour and were sent where the british sent everyone unsatisfactory in the 19th century, to australia. And so i love those connections between the old world because i was raised in an australia that considered itself to be out of the world, the sort of, the last thing before the penguins of antarctica. So you start with your home country and then link to the rest of the world. All right. You are very drawn to moral dilemmas and in fact in your youth you trained to become a priest, and then you say a loss of faith made you change your mind. However, has religion, morality how has it influenced your work . Well, i think theres a tradition in moral argument, typified injudaism, of taking hours to discuss whether you should give a camel a drink or not, and in which vessel it should be. And i love those moral arguments and am drawn to them. Above all, having grown up in a country fairly much at peace with itself and having been white in that country, i ask myself how i would have behaved if i were an ss man, for example, and thats one of the engines that drove my interest in the schindler book, to ask myself, with the correct conditioning and i was conditioned towards the catholic priesthood in my childhood with the correct conditioning, could i be a killer . Could i be filled with the right strain of ideology to give me, to empower me, to pull that trigger . And its often questions of that nature that i look at. Would you have pulled the trigger . Could you. I dont know, and im pleased ill probably never find out. The price for not pulling the trigger is of course very extreme under that regime, and so when you have an upside down system, where himmler says, courage is to stand, or morality, rather, is to stand on a heap of 500 bodies and feel nothing. If id been taught that, could i have done it with the right conditioning . Ill never know, thank god. Ill never likely, im 83. I dont think you would have, somehow. I do tend to be trouble institutionally, i hope that would stick with me in those extreme situations. Glad to hear that youve written more than 30 novels, but it is Schindlers Ark for which you won the booker prize, that really is the book that people most associated with you. But there was some controversy when you were awarded the prize for it, and of course it was made into the 0scar winning film schindlers list, starring liam neeson playing 0skar schindler, the german industrialist who saved more than 1,200 jews from the nazis. But the controversy was that it wasnt a book of fiction, you wrote it as though it was a sort of a novel, but your plot was already there. It was based on a true story. Yes it was the greatest multifaceted lens through which to look at the holocaust one could encounter. And the survivors want it told literally, and i was happy to accommodate them in the spirit of in cold blood, in the Truman Capote factional, fictional factional spirit. And so it was registered as a novel, and it won the booker. Now this was, as you say, an intense controversy for a while, and i think the people at booker have shown that they knew it was a mistake they shouldnt have made by never nominating me for a booker again laughs. Because the plot was there. I mean, do you think some of the criticism was legitimate for that reason, that you based it on a true story . I based it on a true story and i tried to tell it in the spirit of Truman Capotes in cold blood, and in the spirit of the newjournalism as well. And therefore, i would have been hard if condemned for, brought before a court for passing myself off as a novelist in that case, i would have had quite an argument on my hands, iadmit. One of your most famous early novels was the chant ofjimmie blacksmith, about a mixed race aboriginal man who goes on a killing rampage. One could say to you, how could you, as a white australian, put yourself in the shoes of an aboriginal man, is that an example of Cultural Appropriation . Yes, i believe it was. It wasnt seen so at the time, but ive since said that if i were writing the chant ofjimmie blacksmith, for which the aboriginals have forgiven me, that if i were writing now, i would leave the interior world of the aboriginal to them, because theyve been there, there is a whole cohort of gifted australian novelists jonathan birch, for example emerging from amongst aboriginal people, and therere other people who should tell that story from within. But are you not doing the same thing again with your latest novel, your new bookjust out, the book of science and antiquities, when you put yourself in the mind of an aboriginal who lived 42,000 years ago. Yes, well we had homo sapiens here, and dominant, very early. Dominant, i say because of the megafauna that surrounded them. There were the species that surrounded the early aboriginal australians. They were phenomenal, and they were protein on legs, and on big legs and so the palaeolithic aboriginals lived very well, and it did come to this time, i wanted to write about two old men. A modern old man like myself dying, of cancer, which i then had so i was not letting my research go to waste. Laughs. And then this palaeolithic man whom ive encountered and whom ive known, i feel hes my soulmate, this palaeolithic human being. But i dont see him as aboriginal, although he is the forerunner of three aboriginal tribes. The traditional owners of that area are his descendants. But i see him as fair game because hes early homo sapiens. Now, at the time, he was living high on the hog, or on the diprotodon, to name one big ancient animal. My forebears were probably in central asia, living somewhat more miserably, but pursuing the same mentaljourney, both the mental and spiritual journey, of deciding how to behave as humans, and so because my forebears had been there too, i felt it was ok to write about mungo man. Are you trying to make a point to the modern world that aboriginals have lived in australia for longer than we originally thought . Yes is that the message you want to make . And thats the i felt that with the case of mungo man, who i put as learned man in my novel, that he is an australian phenomenon. He is a world phenomenon. Hes the first ritual burial of a human, 42,000 years ago, he was adorned with ochre that came from 200 miles away. Implements were used in his burial that came from another community of homo sapiens way up in the australian alps, so i just want australians to know that there were humans who were a going concern and who were living well two ice ages ago in australia, and that thats our history too. That that spiritually, at least, is our history. And mungo man, who should have a great centre unto himself in Central Australia was buried quite not routinely, but his return to country, the taking of his skeleton back to his country and reburying it by the three tribes was not a big australian event, and it should have been. It shouldve been because it makes a mockery of the way aboriginal history was taught to us. The sort of aboriginal history that was taught to us was all we needed to take the country away and to consider it terra nullius, earth belonging to no one, so we could just take it. And the more we relish and celebrate this palaeolithic history, the more untenable our views about aboriginals are going to be. But here we are in modern day australia, 25 million population, about 3. 5 are aboriginal, and yet we know their Life Expectancy is about ten years shorter than the average australian. Yes, its scandalous, isnt it . And infant mortality is twice the rate of others. You think now that things are getting betterfor the aboriginals Scott Morrison the Prime Minister has appointed, for the first time ever, an aboriginal as a cabinet minister, ken wyatt. Yes, indeed. Good progress is being made, do you think . Progress in education, but it is not automatic. It is two steps forward and one step back. And a lot of the damage that was done was done well intentioned ly. I mean, i suppose you could say that of every great human injustice. But, for example, the removal of Aboriginal Children is an example, an extreme violation of human rights which the administrations of the past saw as a solution to the problem of having a large, unreconciled native population in the hinterland. They were removed from their families and resettled with white families. But in 2008, the Prime Minister at the time, kevin rudd, issued a complete and utter apology for that. Yes, indeed. Good, so, recognition of the injustice. It was an example of things being done in the name of virtue and progress in the past that was a terrible violation of how people felt. And ive met aboriginals who were of the stolen generation, and theres no doubt that it has damaged them hugely. What does the treatment of the aboriginals tell us about australians today and the vast majority, of course, like you, the descendants of white settlers, because i give you a quote from one British American comedian, john oliver, of the daily show. He said this after he visited australia australia turns out to be a sensational place, albeit one of the most comfortably racist places ive ever been in. Theyve really settled into their intolerance like a resentful old slipper. Its a good description is that a fair comment or would you say that, you know. . It is, he would have met plenty of people who wouldve justified that comment. 0n the other hand, he wouldve met the sort of australian who considers that understanding aboriginal history is the way to establishing our legitimacy, that our legitimacy cant be had at the price of denying theirs. This australia was a huge land grab and that we can come to terms with that cooperatively and through figures of reconciliation which force the reality of ancient occupation upon us in the way that mungo man does. There is reconciliation there, there is a solution there. And theres knowledge there, the sort of knowledge that puts paid to narrower versions of the aboriginal story. You like to write a lot about culture and identity. Its a recurring theme in so many of your books and you describe yourself as an Irish Catholic australian. But i wonder why you need that sort of hyphenated identity . Why cant you just say im an australian . Because once you start saying im this kind of australian, im that kind of australian, doesnt that introduce divisions immediately . Uh, its not meant to. Certainly not as i use it. It is meant to acknowledge whose ones ghost is. We all have a different dreaming, we all have a different set of icons which are soul enriching and come partly from the old world, where our ancestors came from, and after all ancestor worship is one of the great religions. And we want to mediate that story to the world. So everyones allowed to have their ghosts but it is common, right wing people, conservative people do say, 0h, wejust want to be, we dont want to be greek australian, we just want to be australian australian. but theyre generally of the anglo tradition, a lot of them. And so there is a continuity for them in their british origins and their british identity here. So when you talk about identity and the other and so on, you have said, because you are an ambassador of the Asylum Centre here in australia, you were made that in 2015. And you have said how Asylum Seekers are treated in australia is the greatest test of our National Honour and honesty, the way we welcome and, or, punish the asylum seeker. It is a test we have frankly failed. But why is that the test of National Honour . Well, it is the test of National Honour because its bad for liberal democracies, for governments, to lie. And to get us in a position where we can countenance the excision of various territories from parts of australia so that if a refugee turned up on there, on a boat, it didnt entitle them to seek asylum. Thats when they went to Christmas Island and it was made not part of australia. And then nauru which is independent and manus and so on. Which is in papua new guinea. So we began by arguing that to save australia from terror we had to keep these people in permanent detention. And so we have had what can only be called concentration camps in australia run by, often, to the wealth of international corporations, which upsets me too because theyre not run by the Australian Public Service exhaustively but they are camps in which people are punished for having, psychologically, for having the ambition to being australians. May i say there is a big lie we have to punish these people to stop them taking boats across the arafura sea to australia. Many of them will drown if they do and so either you are in favour of our punitive regime of punishing people not the people smugglers but the people who get smuggled punishing them for wanting to be australian, for wanting to seek haven. If we ease up on them, well only encourage the boat smugglers. Now, there is a third plan that hasnt even been tried. What if you save all the money youre spending on Foreign Corporations running these concentration camps, put your officials into bali where the refugees are turning up and use your officials and use the money youre wasting on hysteria, at the moment, use that money to process those people there they call them detention centres not concentration camps but the fact is, its difficult for governments, isnt it, thomas . Because you cant allow unfettered, you know, numbers, of Asylum Seekers coming in. Even then. And its not even a kind of right wing thing, in the use of right wing but actually labor Prime Ministers, labor governments, the liberal, which are the conservative party here. My niece is the shadow minister for home affairs. So its on her plate. And public opinion, on the whole, supports governments keeping out boat people. Yes, indeed. But i think its been done with smoke and mirrors and lies. And the real option, the civilising option, the only option thats going to work in europe or here, is if there is collaboration across many governments and i know the hungarians dont want, but there has to be agreed on terms for dealing with this problem because it is delusional to think its going to stop. There are 60 million of these people worldwide, theyre a nation in the midst of us and we wont be able to deal with them byjust saying no, no, no, no, no. When you look at australia, you see that nearly half the population, 49 , were born abroad or one of their parents was born abroad, so it is a very welcoming country. A country built by immigrants, starting on the 18th century with the british coming here, so how would you describe australia today in terms of being a successful multicultural country, which many of its people here say it is . Yes, there is an undeniable generosity in those who have it. Im not talking about myself, these are noble people. Theres an undeniable tolerance combined with great political incorrectness. I think the americans, with all due respect to 0liver, the americans say one thing, theyre careful about what they say, their language is cleaned up, but theyre primitively racist often at base. The australians often Say Something outrageous but theyre practically non racist at base. Not always, i dont want to romanticise us, always a mistake to romanticise anyone. Im not trying to excuse australian racism, but it is the truth that, amongst men in particular, the British Isles working class tradition of expressing affection through mutual insults is very strong. So dont take some of the abusive invective at face value. There is the stereotype, particularly of the australian male as being this rather chauvinistic, almost misogynistic character, as the former Prime MinisterJulia Gillard said. Almost misogynistic, youre too kind to us. Laughs. Julia gillard, former Prime Minister, talked about that. Finally, youre very famous for your work ethic, Thomas Keneally. Have you already started your next book . Youve just got one out, but have you already started the next one . Ah, well, you know, this is australia and the world im fascinated by the fact that australia was the netherworld to which 19th century british sent its people and dickens sent his son. This novel is going to be about dickens youngest son Charles Dickens . Charles dickens youngest son, Charles Dickens girlfriend, Charles Dickens family collapsed. Charles dickens son born in australia in 1868. We look forward to it. Thomas keneally, thank you very indeed for coming on hardtalk. Thank you very much. Hello there. South eastern parts of the uk were warmest and sunniest on monday, but things look a little bit different over the next few days. We are looking down towards iberia, a lot of cloud around here, that is going to get drawn up towards the uk, together with some warm and humid air, and it brings the threat of some thundery downpours towards the south east. At the moment though, things are fairly quiet. Towards the end of the night, we are starting to see a bit of rain arriving across the channel, weve got some rain in towards the north west of scotland, but otherwise a dry start. A little bit chilly for some eastern parts of england. For the cricket at old trafford, whilst there is a band of cloud around, it shouldnt really produce any rain. It should be a dry day, fairly cloudy with temperatures maybe 18 or 19 degrees. We do have some rain though, coming into scotland, showery rain, mainly for western scotland, coming into northern ireland, too, and then some sunshine. But increasing cloud for england and wales, and this rain, moving northwards through the channel into england and wales. The heaviest rain towards the south east of england and east anglia, temperatures on tuesday, similar to those of monday. But it will feel quite muggy i think, as that wetter weather pushes in towards the south east, and its going to be arriving at royal ascot as well, which starts on tuesday. Weve got some rain here, and overnight, and into wednesday as well before things improve for ladies day on thursday. But before then, this is the main area at risk of some rain, which could be quite heavy, as you can see there, and some thunderstorms. Now, this could be a high impact event but there is an awful lot of uncertainty about the detail. Hence, it is a yellow thunderstorm warning from the met office. Now, we may well find the earlier rain moving away, out into the north sea, and things quietening down for a while. But were looking at some storms to push in on tuesday night, up from the near continent, into the south east of england, the midlands towards east anglia and lincolnshire, perhaps, for the rush hour on wednesday. That wetter weather then moves northwards, taking away most of the storms but theres still some rain around across england and we could see some more storms in the south east later. Scotland and northern ireland, its much more straightforward. Therell be some sunny spells, therell be some showers around as well. And again, those temperatures 16 20 degrees. But a humid feel for many central and eastern parts of england together with the storms potentially, all on that weather front. As that moves away weve got slightly fresher air, slightly cooler air coming in from the north west around that area of low pressure. So things get a little more straightforward everywhere, really, i think, on thursday. Most of the showers in the north west of the uk, close to that area of low pressure. Therell be a few showers coming into england and wales, but not many, probably the driest weather at the warmest weather back again towards the south east of england. Again, highs of around 20 celsius. Youre watching you stay on the bbc. Newsday. Im Sharanjit Leyl in singapore. The headlines rare access inside the hidden world of chinas detention camps, where a million muslims are thought to be held. Translation we were told ahead of the visits if any of you speak out youll go to a worse place than this. Thats why everyone does what theyre told. The United States says its sending a thousand extra troops to the gulf to defend american assets. Im kasia madera in london. Also in the programme after hundreds of thousands call for carrie lam to resign, beijing declares its full support for hong kongs leader