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Australian Aborigines look forward to election with hope

15 July 2004 - SYDNEY - The aboriginal boy staggers zombie-like around an Australian outback settlement, drugged on fumes from a can of petrol tied like a feedbag around his face.

Aboriginal men and women, seeing no way out of their poverty, spend their days drinking themselves senseless in a dry riverbed.

But aboriginal leaders think defeat for conservative Prime Minister John Howard at a looming general election could bring relief to their bruised and battered community.

They believe a Labor government under Mark Latham would restart a stalled process of reconciliation between black and white communities, and work for a future where the children of the nation’s most disadvantaged people no longer have to rely on sniffing petrol to ease their pain.

“Australia’s race relations under the Howard government have gone backwards,” said Barry Cheadle, editor of the aboriginal newspaper Koori Mail.

“Traditionally the Labor party has been much more of a friend to indigenous people than the Liberal party,” said Cheadle.

Aborigines charge Howard’s eight-year-old government with dismantling racial reconciliation, a major policy of the last Labor government under Paul Keating in the 1990s.

Last month Howard removed reconciliation as a publicly stated policy of his indigenous affairs department, only to reinstate it after a public outcry. “Reconciliation remains a priority for the Australian government,” Howard reassured Aborigines.

But black leaders say Howard views Australia through white eyes and has no empathy with the plight of black Australia.

“The government has deliberately tried to force indigenous people into its straitjacket of a monocultural society,” said Aden Ridgeway, the only black senator in the national parliament.

“We need to accept and recognise that Australia is culturally diverse. The national cultural identity is one that must be vested in the culture of the first peoples.”

Third world

Howard has steadfastly refused to offer a government apology for past injustices against Aborigines since white settlers first landed in 1788. Thousands were massacred by whites or evicted from their land in what Aborigines call “the invasion”.

Howard warns of a “black arm-band view of history” and argues that modern Australians have nothing to apologise for.

But black leaders say racism still dictates their lives. A race riot in Sydney in February, sparked by the death of a young aboriginal boy in a black ghetto that is still under investigation, reflected deep-rooted alienation.

Australia’s 400,000 Aborigines make up two percent of the 20 million population. They have consistently been the nation’s most disadvantaged group under conservative and Labor governments, with a life expectancy 20 years less than white Australians.

Black infant mortality is twice the national average and many Aborigines live in poverty, with far higher rates of unemployment and alcohol and drug abuse and domestic violence.

Latham has promised a policy of spiritual and practical reconciliation in which he will issue an apology to Aborigines for past injustices and empower Aborigines to improve their standard of living, without being paternalistic.

“I think what a Latham government would offer is...some hope in indigenous affairs in this country,” said Ridgeway.

Howard has pursued what he calls practical reconciliation aimed at improving black health, housing and education. Aborigines say his policy has failed and that a policy without the recognition of black rights is merely welfare.

“It is obvious the government’s practical reconciliation has failed on the ground. Indigenous life expectancy is still...below that of third world countries such as Nigeria, Nepal and Bangladesh,” said Ridgeway, a senator for the small Democrats party.

Most Aborigines live in remote communities in the outback, where basic health and educational services are limited.

Black politics

Aborigines, who until 1967 had no more rights in the eyes of the law than plants or animals, have struggled for political representation. Ridgeway is only the second Aborigine elected to the national parliament.

Black leaders say the Howard government’s axing of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission (ATSIC), the nation’s main aboriginal affairs body, in April only disenfranchised them further.

Howard said the “experiment” in black-elected representation had failed, bringing little improvement in living standards despite ATSIC’s expenditure of billions of dollars. Latham backed axing ATSIC but offered to create new black-elected, regional bodies in its place.

Aborigines say the only way to achieve true reconciliation is through political power, and have formed the first national black party, “Your Voice”, to contest the upcoming election.

But some black leaders say Aborigines have become welfare-dependent, arguing that black Australia should take responsibility for improving its lot and not rely on either Howard or Latham.

“Money to purchase grog (alcohol) and drugs, and idle time to use them, are the key factors that must be confronted,” says black lawyer Noel Pearson from Cape York in Queensland state.

Source: Reuters

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