Utopia inspired me to redouble my efforts to report on the failings of a nation that has never made peace with its First Peoples. The film was also the realisation of a childhood dream: I had grown up reading Pilger – he was one of the reasons I went into journalism. As it transpired, I realised another dream three years later, in 2016, when I travelled to the West Bank for the first time, having spent years learning about the struggle of the Palestinian people against Israeli occupation, much of it, again, written or filmed by Pilger.

For a student of history, Noel Pearson seems to devote an awful lot of time to forgetting the past. In a landmark speech in 2000, in which Pearson signalled his transition from land rights activist to conservative power broker, he unloaded on the evils of passive welfare, blaming hard-won human rights for ruining black lives.