Tuesday evening, went along to the launch of Nicolas Rothwell’s new book
Another Country, a collection of his writings on Northern (and particularly Aboriginal) Australia. It was quite a gathering-
Dame Elisabeth Murdoch was there, for example. (
book launch )
Comments 9
Reply
Actually, that is an extraordinarily inadequate explanation. On that grounds, all conquered peoples would be equally badly off, which simply ain't true.
My point is not that all problems have been caused by "the Coombs approach". Given the enormous cultural gulf between the early industrial age settlers and the old stone age inhabitants, it was never going to be a pretty picture.
My point is that, in Australia, they have demonstratably made things worse. That is what is so unforgiveable.
Reply
... and through all this, not one mention of what indigenous people might actually want themselves. Just ideologically-grounded criticism of a person who dedicated their lives to aboriginal land rights, native title and a treaty.
Reply
And on what precise basis could I speak for that? And why would it just be one thing anyway?
This seems to me to be the common thread in the failures of indigenous policy. We have a great idea, so we will do X ... Years ago, in 1990, as the last thing I did before leaving the mainstream public service for the Parliamentary Library, I wrote a paper predicting that ATSIC would fail because it was not grounded in Aboriginal cultures or authority structures, but an imposed idea of (bastardised) Westminister notions of legitimacy.
Also, the sleight of hand of classing concern for how things actually are on the ground in Aboriginal communities as "ideologically-grounded" is a contemptible evasion.
Reply
One wouldn't; one could certainly advocate in the strongest possible terms that indigenous Australians however should be able to determine their own future rather than having one imposed on them.
And why would it just be one thing anyway?
That is not suggested in the slightest.
Also, the sleight of hand of classing concern for how things actually are on the ground in Aboriginal communities as "ideologically-grounded" is a contemptible evasion.
I find the suggestion that Coombs is somehow responsible for conditions on the ground this to be the same.
Reply
Well yes, but by what mechanisms? ATSIC was a grotesque failure.
Coombs is somehow responsible for conditions on the ground this to be the same.
Ideas have consequences. The point is not the Coombs personally destroyed communities, but that the set of policy ideas best summarised as "the Coombs legacy" has been a comprehensive failure with disastrous consequences.
Reply
Reply
Reply
Leave a comment