No-one in government cares enough about Aboriginal peoples

No-one in government cares enough about Aboriginal peoples

Gerry Georgatos

Well placed sources, including parliamentarians, in the Australian Labor Party, the Coalition, and the Greens have made surprising comments that issues afflicting Aboriginal peoples and 'Aboriginal affairs' are in the 'too hard basket' or 'best swept under the carpet'.

A source close to the Office of the Prime Minister said, "Indigenous issues are tough because they affect so few Australians - they are a small minority so the government really is not urged on by community or the polls to do anything about them. Indigenous Australians are less than 3% of Australians and less than half of them vote. Other than the odd pollie talking up Indigenous issues as part of their own moral platform we have no experts in government - Jenny Macklin doesn't count, she's just a face for the portfolio - so we just franchise out the problems to agencies and they deal with Indigenous issues, they produce on report after another - best swept under the carpet so to speak and they deal with it. In general Australians don't care."

For many Aboriginal peoples, Kevin Rudd was seen as the great beacon of hope in helping to address Aboriginal disadvantage and in being one of the few Prime Ministers not to stand in the way of Aboriginal peoples' self determination - he delivered 'The Apology' and this opened the door to hope - however Rudd's demise and the NT Intervention have put paid to this, so it appears.

Recently, Western Australian state minister for Indigenous Affairs. Peter Collier said that he did not have the answers to addressing Aboriginal disadvantage and horrific incarceration rates. There was little public comment from anyone - you would have presumed that someone would have said, 'well, if you don't have answers what are you doing in the role?'

The National Indigenous Times has sent a number of questions to state, territory and federal governments and political parties asking what is being done and what more needs to be done to reduce and remedy Aboriginal disadvantage. In some cases we have provided examples where for instance resources could be allocated to crises centres, mobile medical clinics, education staff, and other opportunity - underwritten by expert advice - for instance, in Adelaide the Aboriginal community endured 8 premature deaths, 3 by suicide, of its young people, within the first 13 days of January - the state government is yet to allocate resources to an 24/7 Aboriginal crisis centre.

A parliamentary source in the ALP said, "Our government does not want to discuss Aboriginal issues because we don't know how to deal with the public shame of failure. We are now just as guilty of neglecting Aboriginal people as were the Howard government. We are part of the (NT) Intervention. Macklin is the wrong person for the job, most of us are not the right ones for the job when it comes to Aboriginal people, but there are some right people we could tap into but they haven't done their dues in the party to be able to push out Macklin. We have a couple of Senators and backbenchers who would do much better and who'd probably argue against the Intervention and demand for fairer policies and not just slide along with the Closing the Gap monitoring reports bullshit."

WA Aboriginal Legal Services CEO, Dennis Eggington recently said that the Closing the Gap reports are the lowest common denominator and are piecemeal. He said, "Is this the best our governments can do for Aboriginal peoples?"

The source said, "Unfortunately Gerry, as you often say, racism comes in many forms and we in government have a long way to go before we get it right for Aboriginal people. We have to change but we don't, some care and very much so, but not enough, not at this time. Maybe we need to get more Aboriginal people into our party sooner rather than later. It is embarassing that the Liberals have outdone us on this."

The National Indigenous Times asked federal member for the WA seat of Hasluck, Ken Wyatt, a man with Wongi, Yamatji and Nyoongar heritage, if in the event the Coalition secured government if he would seek the Aboriginal Affairs ministerial portfolio. "The Coalition has an effective shadow minister for Indigenous Affairs in Senator Nigel Scullion and I would be honoured to play any role within the executive of a Liberal government."

A well placed source in the Coalition said, "Ken Wyatt came in to government with a number of statements about ways forward for Indigenous people but since speaking with Tony Abbott, let us just say Ken's views have been modified. However, he may finish up getting the Indigenous portfolio but we understand he is also interested in Health, so maybe he'd do something for Indigenous people through this."

The source said, "The Coalition will spend money on Indigenous people but we won't give carte blanche on any rights issues. We don't expend much energy talking about Indigenous people except for a little of the time when it has to do with elections."

A source in the Greens said, "We could do more, we certainly don't have any group dialogue on Aboriginal peoples' issues and we trust much of it in Rachel Siewert which is probably a mistake. We go off the reports we read and merely respond to them, we have no genuine policies. We speak up in public where someone else has raised something and agree but the party room and council meetings and our National Conferences hear very little, if anything, on Aboriginal issues - we should be leading the way. Gerry, I'll take it upon myself to push for more said and done when it comes to our conferences."