“We have created a fictitious Aboriginal society …”

By Lyle Dunne

It seems the left are attempting to regain some of the moral high ground lost after the Australia Day tent embassy débâcle.

(I think I’ll abandon “embassy” in quotation marks as a bit tedious, relying on lower case to make the obvious point that it’s not a real embassy, i.e. a mission from one country to another. It does however seem that this is the status to which some of the Australia Day Indigenous protesters aspire, if “sovereignty” means what it usually does. Interestingly, this idea of Aborigines being not part of Australia is also attributed to the fathers of the Constitution – erroneously, in my view – but in the latter case, the same separatist view is considered racist rather than anti-racist. On the other hand, historic attempts at assimilation are also considered racist. One of those “irregular verbs”, it seems.)

There has been a fascinating debate about what the person described by The Canberra Times of 13 February as “embattled union boss Kim Sattler” actually heard and what she said, and to whom, about Abbott’s remarks that it was “time to move on” in relation to the tent embassy.

Ms Sattler is allegedly “embattled” largely through her own actions, but also because she’s been receiving Hate Mail in relation to her part in the fracas, allegedly from white supremacists. (This is clearly unacceptable. Disapproval Mail would suffice.)

Interviewed on Canberra local radio on 13 February, Ms Sattler attempted to blame Abbott for being provocative by making such remarks on such a day.

This is akin to the attempts to blame those responsible for security, for not taking the adage about glass houses and stones literally enough.

Really, this is a bit patronizing — toward the demonstrators, treating them as not really responsible for their own behavior.

Sattler also denied having misrepresented Abbott’s words. All this, as presumably intended, temporarily distracted attention from her role in precipitating the dramatic events of the day – for which she remains unapologetic.

Now, however, that role is front-and-centre again, with new video footage revealed that Sattler (former ALP candidate for Molonglo, ACT) told Barbara Shaw (former Greens candidate for Lingiari, NT).

“Abbott’s just made a statement to the press that the tent embassy should be pulled down!”

Shaw immediately relayed this (verbatim) to the crowd.

It’s clear there have been increasingly desperate attempts at damage control, and a bit of creative misdirection. This is of a piece with the PM’s approach of “nothing to see here, move along, move along” (though not on).

It’s equally clear none of it is working, the issue won’t go away, and the chain of evidence links clearly back to the PM’s office.

But is this all a tragedy for Indigenous Australians and their relations with the broader community?

Actually I don’t think so. Let me outline the “glass half full” case.

First, moderate Indigenous leaders such as Warren Mundine came out with commendable promptitude to distanced themselves from the Australia day rabble.  The convenient journalistic fiction of monolithic “Aboriginal opinion” has been exposed.

Second, memories of this event, especially this “sovereignty” idea, coupled with a spot of recreational flag-burning etc., would almost certainly torpedo the (already unseaworthy, somewhat rudderless) current indigenous referendum proposals, if any government were foolish enough to put them to a vote in the next few decades. (See my earlier piece for a brief sketch of their more glaring defects.) With any luck this will spare us a massively divisive exercise in time-wasting and misdirection.

Third, as Peter Coleman has argued in the Australian Spectator, the whole brouhaha may have created a climate within which it is now possible to remove the tent embassy, a focal point of division within and about indigenous Australians. All the more since moderate Aboriginal Leaders have disowned it, and people like Bob Carr have called for its removal. (Without being lynched, I note.)

Memories of this event, especially this “sovereignty” idea, coupled with a spot of recreational flag-burning etc., would almost certainly torpedo the (already unseaworthy, somewhat rudderless) current indigenous referendum proposals …

Actually I’m starting to wonder if the cup, far from being merely half-full, in fact runneth over – but no, I couldn’t claim that unless all this posturing moral vanity were replaced with some concrete proposals to actually do something about the appalling conditions in which Aboriginal Australians actually live.

The increased status of moderate Aboriginal leaders might be a good first step. But it will be a long time before there is widespread recognition that the current approach of gestures toward indigenous Australians designed to assuage white guilt is actually making its apparent beneficiaries worse off.

Karmic offsets

We have created a fictitious Aboriginal society, whose members are interested in gestures, in cultural recognition, in apologies and in Mystical Connections with the Land, and not in materialistic baggage like jobs, food, health and personal security.  This is partly a projection of our own spiritual yearnings (without having to make the sacrifices associated with adopting this mythical value-set ourselves.)

But it’s also a kind of “karmic offset”. Like the idea of paying people to plant trees elsewhere to enable us to benefit from technology of which we disapprove, or the Canberra practice of placing cycle-paths adjacent to busy highways to balance the bad karma generated by commuters in cars, we feel that our own guilt in exploiting the environment, driving SUVs and living in the world’s largest houses is somehow diminished by the existence (and the contemplation) of fellow Australians who care for none of this, in their Oneness with Nature.

(It occurs to me the tent embassy might be something similar – a hairshirt on Canberra’s torso, perhaps.)

We need to be exposed to the reality behind this fairytale before it’s too late.

Finally, whatever Abbott actually meant by “moving on”, there’s one important sense in which we have already moved on. When it was established, the tent embassy was outside the legislature. Subsequently, however, the Parliament itself moved on, quite literally, a few hundred metres up the hill.

Fittingly, it’s now a protest outside a Museum.

As a protest outside a Parliament, it might have had some relevance. But as a memorial to an earlier protest – and the failed policies it spawned – it’s an embarrassment.

Worse, it’s a monument to and catalyst for confrontation.

It should be replaced by a museum of indigenous Australia, which would inform people about all aspects of aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander life, past and present, positive and negative. This should include the history of protest movements, and the present realities of life for indigenous Australians. It should represent the diversity of viewpoints, and pull no punches.

But to achieve anything, such a building would have to be welcoming, visually appealing, and informative – everything, in short, which the tent embassy is not.

[Footnote: some will say the National Museum of Australia fulfills this function, or should. Did I mention “visually appealing”?]