Equality - My Ass!
The polarity of Australia's ideological identity as the land of the "Fair-Go" and its actual identity in the world as "Human Rights abusers" are no more evident than in its public discourse surrounding non-white people.
While governments past and present were shouting from the roof-tops "Stop the boats!" and demonising asylum-seekers in order to soften the public to the idea of unlawful practices such as off-shore detention, Australians continued to support colonial indigenous assimilation and protection policies which, essentially, amount to genocide (as defined by the UN).
Australians have a tendency to soften assimilation by calling it 'constitutional recognition' and to soften institutionalisation by calling it 'aboriginal protection', suggesting it's for their own good. We also soften torture by calling it other, more socially acceptable names, such as 'restraint devices', 'mechanical devices' and 'instruments of restraint' etc.
Recently, to soften Australia's perception towards more rigorous indigenous control, the government used the terms 'Work for the Dole' and 'Community Development Program (CDP) ', which target remote indigenous communities and sets more onerous work conditions on those communities. The net result is 84% of the program's participants are indigenous people who are forced to work 10 hours per week more than non-indigenous communities.
The dramatic differences in indigenous mortality rates and life expectancy are neatly also summarised by the softer term 'Closing the Gap'. This is another set of policies which specifically target indigenous communities, suggesting they are to blame for the lack of prosperous conditions which greatly improved white Australia's mortality rates in the last 100 years.
As if to suggest indigenous people somehow react differently to poverty than other Australians, the department of health uncovered the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander suicide prevention strategy in 2013. Less than 3 years later, the government cut $600 million from indigenous services as well as other cuts to shelters, drug and alcohol programs, employment, domestic violence, legal, medical, health and education services.
Likewise, educational strategies such as the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Education Policy Taskforce are softer, more socially acceptable terms for the targeting of indigenous Australians. These policies suggest lack of education has contributed to the noted 'gap' however, history demonstrates the forced, full time, educational institutions of the 'stolen generation' provided far more rigorous education than that which was imposed on white Australia - yet poverty prevailed.
The renewed 'Stolen Generation' effort is rebranded as 'Child Protection'. Under these policies, police are permitted to enter the homes of indigenous people and to strip their children naked (including budding teens) to inspect for any signs of physical abuse. In the case were abuse is suspected, the children are removed from their families to be placed in homes or with foster families, many of them non-Indigenous. In just 7 years more than 15,000 indigenous children were taken. Today, indigenous children are 11 times more likely to be placed in state care than white children.
The softly branded ‘prescribed communities’ (Northern Territory Emergency Response Act 2007), otherwise known as the Northern Territory Intervention, essentially forced independent indigenous communities (deemed economically unviable) onto welfare and forced many to live in Government compounds behind barbed wire. Re-branded as the even softer 'Stronger Futures in the Northern Territory Act', the Racial Discrimination Act was suspended and the military was sent into Aboriginal lands to send a clear message that the Commonwealth was in complete control.
In every way possible, our government denies responsibility for its strictly controlled poverty measures on the indigenous communities in order to explain its expenditure/budgets to the Australian public. It insists the complexities of indigenous disadvantage is far too complex for their community leaders to comprehend and gives them no choice other than to form voiceless committees and apply for measly grants to fund their invisible efforts.
Equality? Rubbish! Fair go? Bullshit!