No Apology

Monday, 26 June 2017    

Mutitjulu. Ground zero. Photo: Kia Mistilis

Ten years ago this month the then Northern Territory Labor government published a report Little Children Are Sacred that claimed widespread sexual abuse of children by NT indigenous communities.

This followed a Lateline report a year earlier, somewhat luridly titled ‘Sexual slavery reported in Indigenous community’, that claimed much the same thing in a small NT town called Mutitjulu. Based on testimony from a “former youth worker” (actually an advisor to then Minister for Indigenous Affairs, Mal Brough) the ABC report claimed that young girls in Mutitjulu were being traded between indigenous communities as “sex slaves”. Subsequent investigation by the police found no evidence to back the claims and residents of Mutitjulu lodged a formal complaint to the ABC.

Now we find out that after ten years, there was no data to back the claims in the Little Children Are Sacred report either. This should not surprise. As was clear to anyone bothering to read the report at the time, including this blogger, no proof for the claims was given.

Yet despite the extraordinary nature of the claims, and the lack of evidence to support them, there was little challenge – either from the major parties that suspended the Racial Discrimination Act to implement a race-based response, the faux libertarian right, the mostly posturing “anti-racist” left, nor even many of the self-appointed “representatives” of indigenous communities. While there was plenty of argument over the Howard government’s response to the report’s claims, there was pretty well none to the claims themselves.

So why was the lack of proof in the report ignored by politicos across the spectrum? It could only be because either 1) they can’t read, 2) they were so racist as to think the claims were believeable enough to require no proof or 3) any doubts were swept beside by broader political considerations. This being a charitable blog, it believes the latter reason is the most likely one.

When the report was made public in June 2007, Australian politics was undergoing significant change. The catalysts at the time were the declining impact of the War on Terror that was to see the Howard Coalition government return to the malaise it had pre-9/11, and the rise of Kevin Rudd, who pitched himself against the “old politics”, especially in his own party. Yet while they were catalysts, they only brought to the surface more fundamental changes that had happened years before, most notably the end of factors that had underpinned the political polarities of much of the 20th century, the collapse of the Soviet Union internationally and the declining influence of unions at home.

The impact of the decline of unions on the day to day life in Australia tends to get wildly exaggerated, especially by nostalgics on the left. But where changes were most pronounced was less in society itself, but in society’s relationship to government.

From its birth during the depression of the 1890s, an instrumental part of the unions’ political project through Labor was for the state to address the failings of the market; through nationalisation, welfare and public works. In the closing years of the 20th century the role of government started to be rearticulated to addressing less the failings of the market but instead the failings of individuals and communities.

This “New Thinking” paralleled the Third Way of Blair and Clinton, but in Australia, with the left having a more successful 1980s under a relatively traditional old-style Labor government of Hawke and Keating, it was to occur later. Yet in some ways it was to go further and be more explicit in Australia, especially on account of the role of race.

This reformulation can be seen in the writings of Latham but is probably most succinctly articulated by Gillard in her super portfolio under Rudd of Social Exclusion, Industrial Relations and Education, which encompassed that change.

In a seminal speech entitled “The Economics of Social Exclusion” made to the Sydney Institute a few weeks after the intervention, Gillard set out how, with the economy ticking along nicely, communities and individuals that were left behind required a shift of attention to measures that were more aimed at them rather than broader economic failings. Such social engineering thinking was also happening in the right under Howard, led by those such as Brough and Abbott. The right was already focussed on indigenous communities and experiments such as Pearson’s in Cape York and the latest thought bubbles by mining magnates such as Forrest and hangers-on like Langton.

So when a report emerged claiming widespread dysfunction and depravity on a mass scale across indigenous communities, it was seized upon not only by Howard as a pre-election ploy, as it was narrowly seen at the time, but across the political spectrum as a laboratory experiment on a grand scale for more far-reaching changes in welfare.

The results are seen everywhere now. Most clearly of course with the Basics Card, initially imposed on racial grounds, and requiring the suspension of the RDA, but still predominately racially applied. There has been little practical success to its introduction, but this has been ignored by both sides of politics in favour of the profound symbolic shift it presents: from welfare payments meant to plug the gap of an imperfect market system, to now managing the supposed flaws of the recipients. And of course, there are more banal examples of this change in welfare. The daily nightmare of Centrelink is a result of a cost-cutting program carried out on the basis that the onus of proof for benefits should now rest on the claimant than the Department.

This represents a profound change in the relationship between individuals and government, and it was one that pivoted and relied on the unproven claims in that 2007 report. So it is why no apology for such a slur is likely any time soon. But there is also another reason.

Earlier it was noted that racism in the body politic is unlikely to be the reason the claims were so widely accepted. Almost universally, racism is regarded as a Bad Thing and commitment to anti-racism is genuine and widespread across mainstream politics. It is particularly pertinent here because the claims did not come from some right-wing fringe – the Claire Martin government, the ABC, and indeed the report’s authors, some of whom were indigenous, would surely be on the side of politics most attuned to anti-racism.

So that leaves the question, what sort of anti-racism is this that allowed such an unfounded racial slur to be so widely believed? It does suggest a flaw in anti-racism as it exists today.

There have always been two, contradictory strands to anti-racism in Australia. On one hand there is the emancipatory removal of racial barriers to equality and opportunity of access to society. On the other hand, there has been the celebration of difference and acceptance of cultural “essence”.

As has been noted, as far as indigenous politics has gone, much of the initial push towards equality around at the time of the 1967 referendum has waned in recent years, and the celebration of difference and essence has taken over, such as seen in current regressive discussions about cultural appropriation. But the very fact that even in 1967, a push for equality was taking place during a referendum to extend racially-based laws to indigenous people shows how confusing it has always been.

Certainly the concept of difference might explain why the outrageous claims of the Little Children are Sacred report were so readily believed on the basis that “different standards apply” to claims that would perhaps have seemed incredible if made about a Sydney suburb. No wonder on the back of such an extreme social breakdown as was painted, only a body above society, like the state, could possibly intervene.

This is not the first time of course. The stolen generation was on the back of different standards applying to indigenous communities in the past that required the state to intervene for the children’s “good” on much the same basis as a new generation of children are being taken away since the intervention. It took more than thirty years from when taking children from their parents was stopped before an apology came, because those who had to make the apology were too close to those responsible. This time again, no apology is likely in at least the foreseeable future. We are simply still too much in the thick of it.

The confusions of anti-politics: UK edition – an update

Monday, 12 June 2017    

Back to the 1980s! Not.

When the British Prime Minister called an election seven weeks ago, it wasn’t just the pundits who thought she’d romp home in a landslide, so did the public. Theresa May was facing one of the most unpopular opposition leaders in modern political history leading a party scraping historic lows in polling.

And it was not just the polls. Read more …

The fracturing – an update

Wednesday, 26 April 2017    

Don’t get too comfortable.

The first round of the French election confirmed what should now be clear, a profound political realignment is underway across Europe and the US. Yet the nature and extent of that realignment is being continually distorted because it is looked through the left-right prism of the past, or its current version, “globalism versus nationalism”.

The French election has been described as a break in the upsurge of right wing nationalism from Brexit to Trump but that requires a mis-reading of both those events. Read more …

No resurrection

Tuesday, 18 April 2017    

David Rowe AFR

Let’s get something clear from the outset. What is going on in the Liberals right now is not a re-run of the Rudd-Gillard-Rudd years. This is worse. Much worse. Read more …

A morbid symptom

Monday, 13 March 2017    

In the run up to the WA election, with the focus on One Nation, several vox pop pieces came out to explain its support. They were presented as empirical evidence from which political conclusions could be drawn but in reality they were the reverse Read more …

Entitlement

Tuesday, 17 January 2017    

David Rowe: AFR

The age of entitlement is over. The age of personal responsibility has begun.

Joe Hockey, 2 February 2014

Four discussions are going on right now that tells a lot about the current state of play between Australian government and society: means testing on pensions, the Centrelink fiasco, MPs expenses and the implementation of income management through the BasicsCard.

Actually, tell a lie. Read more …

2016: The fracturing

Friday, 30 December 2016    

One of the fascinating things about Australian politics is its sensitivity to global politics, a sensitivity that is often disguised unconvincingly by politicians and those with an interest in pretending that it all emanates from the security compound on Capital Hill – even though much of the public is fairly wise to the fact that it doesn’t. It has been useful looking at Australian politics over the last decade because it gives some details on a period in global politics that is now coming to an end. Read more …

A mini Menzies ice age

Tuesday, 27 December 2016    

Howard’s attempt to rehabilitate Menzies this year on telly may have been unconvincing, but its timing wasn’t too bad, since right now Australia is going through a late Menzies period – politically paralysed in the face of international change. Read more …

Shock!

Friday, 18 November 2016    

That other basket of people are people who feel that the government has let them down, the economy has let them down, nobody cares about them, nobody worries about what happens to their lives and their futures, and they’re just desperate for change.

It doesn’t really even matter where it comes from. They don’t buy everything he says, but he seems to hold out some hope that their lives will be different. They won’t wake up and see their jobs disappear, lose a kid to heroin, feel like they’re in a dead end. Those are people we have to understand and empathize with as well.

– The empathy bit in Clinton’s “basket of deplorables” speech

There is a persistent confusion in most political commentary, and the election of Trump shows that this had better be sorted out, and quick. This confusion rests on the relationship between politics and society, and especially an increasingly common habit of projecting what is going on politically directly on to society. Read more …

Equality – an update

Wednesday, 19 October 2016    

On the issue of marriage, I think the reality is there is a cultural, religious and historical view around that which we have to respect. I do respect the fact that’s how people view the institution.

Penny Wong 2010

I do find myself on the conservative side in this question. I think that there are some important things from our past that need to continue to be part of our present and part of our future. If I was in a different walk of life, if I’d continued in the law and was partner of a law firm now, I would express the same view, that I think for our culture, for our heritage, the Marriage Act and marriage being between a man and a woman has a special status.

Now, I know people might look at me and think that’s something that they wouldn’t necessarily expect me to say, but that is what I believe.

Julia Gillard 2011

Personally speaking, I’m completely relaxed about having some form of plebiscite. I’d be wary of trying to use a referendum and a constitutional mechanism to start tampering with the Marriage Act. But in terms of a plebiscite — I would rather the people of Australia could make their view clear on this than leaving this issue to 150 people.

Bill Shorten 2013

Questions of marriage are the preserve of the Commonwealth Parliament. Referendums are held in this country where there’s a proposal to change the constitution. I don’t think anyone is suggesting the constitution needs to be changed in this respect.

Tony Abbott 2015

Marriage is primarily a social institution rather than a legal or political one. If some whacky law was passed tomorrow annulling all marriages, they would of course continue to be recognised by society, both by those in them and everyone else. Society is constantly evolving and so naturally does its view of marriage and its relation to the family. Decades ago, divorce had a social stigma and children born out of marriage were considered illegitimate. These days, every social attitude survey and opinion polls indicates that society recognises marriage between same sex couples and so you’d think the law would be changed to reflect that.

You’d think. Read more …