The emperor’s new clothes

Indigenous leaders are seeing through the empty rhetoric (the emperor’s new clothes) of current Indigenous policy. Not content with being mere subjects of Indigenous policies, Aboriginal people want to be the agents of change. Ironically, it is the more conservative parties that are embracing this change than the supposedly ‘progressive’ Australian Labor Party (ALP).

Warren Mundine’s decision not to renew his ALP membership followed the election of four Aboriginal people to the NT parliament under the conservative banner of the Country Liberals. Mundine’s disillusionment with the ALP stemmed from the party’s failure to put a single Aboriginal representative into federal parliament, while the Liberal Party has managed to get two Aboriginal representatives elected at the federal level – one in the House and one in the Senate.

Arguably, the Liberal Party has moved away from a ‘we know what is best for you’ type approach to one that recognises the importance of Indigenous representation. Liberal leader Tony Abbott’s attempt to lure Alison Anderson from the Country Liberals might have been misguided – but he had the right idea. Government needs people like Anderson in power.

Early on, CIS recognised Anderson as a powerful voice in Indigenous affairs and invited her to give a talk. Her words: ‘There is not a black way of educating a child or a white way of educating a child but a right way’ conveyed the same message as her speech to the NT Assembly where she said: ‘We need to show our fellow Australians we want to be normal. We want the right to be just like them and keep our identity, but to live fully in the 21st century.’

Yet politicians and bureaucrats are still failing to heed this message and continue to frame policies around the notion of the ‘exceptional Indigene’ where Indigenous difference is seen as more important than the things we share.

The ALP might have been responsible for abolishing discriminatory laws, but it replaced them with equally damaging ‘positive discrimination’ measures. Of course Aboriginal people should be entitled to their own distinct identity, but the maintenance of a cultural identity should not be the role of the state.

The cultural relativist approach dominating Indigenous affairs for so long has negated the need for change, but many Aboriginal people can and want to adapt.

Australia needs an alternative vision to the picture government paints with its motherhood statements about Indigenous disadvantage and view of Indigenous people as perpetual victims.

As Mundine wrote in the Australian Financial Review this week, we need to stop treating Indigenous problems as different from other problems and start treating Indigenous disadvantage as a problem that can be solved.

Sara Hudson is a Research Fellow at The Centre for Independent Studies.