In response to Greg Hamilton’s letter (March 14, 2012), I wish to assure readers that Ms Baxter and I well understand the duties and ethics of professional historical research, including the obligation to tell the truth and to stand by it in the face of delusion and dishonesty.
Our recent investigations into the claims made in Hamilton and Sinclair’s 2009 book easily determined that their alternative account of the fatal capture of Thunderbolt at Uralla in 1870 was based on wild and unfounded speculation, and on an extraordinarily poor grasp of history and historical research. The claim that “crucial official records were put off limits’ is a self-serving fantasy, and far from provoking any sort of Constitutional crisis, we suggest that the authors’ allegations have been finally recognised as errant and mischievous nonsense.
I would also like to assure the public that we are not party to any government conspiracy to return Australian citizens to an “insidious form of neo-serfdom’, whatever that is.
Copies of our report on the Thunderbolt conspiracy are available on request to the School of Humanities at UNE.
David Andrew Roberts
History, University of New England
