Fifty Years of Failure Demand Real Truth-Telling

Jacinta Nampijinpa Price is right. What we really need is some genuine “truth telling.” To that end we need a royal commission into the funding of Aboriginal programs over the last so-many years – an audit that gets to the truth of where all those billions of dollars have gone and why they have done so little good.

Financial audit aside, we need another form of truth-telling as well. If there are two things those who argued for and against the Voice referendum have been able to agree on it is that past policies have failed and something new needs to be done. However, if the same people who have been running indigenous affairs’ policy directions in the past are the only ones who are allowed to assess what went wrong and why, and are the only ones who are allowed to formulate the new policy directions, I think we can pretty well assume there will be a cover-up and a doubling down on past policy failures.

What we need, rather than leaving matters in the hands of the usual suspects, is a detailed independent audit of each program, what it has achieved, what worked, what didn’t and why.

There are three aspects this truth-telling need to pursued.

Firstly, in South Australia’s archives and the annual reports of Protectors of Aborigines from the very beginnings of settlement one finds references again and again to programs that emerged as “a good idea” and were put into practice only to fizzle out in failure. Over a cycle of perhaps 30 years, more or less exactly the same failed programs resurface as recycled “new ideas”, get funded and put into practice only to end in failure all over again.

One classic example was the idea that Aborigines should be funded to run small vegetable gardens to provide fruit and vegetables for themselves and for sale in the local mainstream community.  This must have been tried at least four, perhaps five, times in South Australia alone over a period of around 120 years (starting around 1839 near to the current Torrens weir, then Wellington, Swan Reach, the APY Lands) All those efforts ended in failure. [i]  At no time does there appear to have been any will to either document the progress of the programs or identify the considerable cultural barriers to their success. Thus, right up to the present day, program after program is repeatedly implemented and fails, with no lessons learned. It is apparent that the cultural impediments to success have never been explored.

Another example?  It is my understanding that Noel Pearson’s Cape York The Cape York Aboriginal Australian Academy project, which was supposed to improve school attendance and literacy and thereby assist in “closing the gap”, has received millions of dollars. However, some years and many dollars later we discover there has been virtually no improvement over the very worst-performing remote schools, with illiteracy and truancy rates as high as ever. My point is that many such programs have been run … and failed, yet no one seems to have learned anything from the past. Yet such initiatives continue to be funded. He who fails to understand history is condemned to repeat it, as they say.

It is no secret that in traditional Aboriginal culture parents have a very relaxed attitude to the disciplining of children, so much so that compelling them to attend school would not be considered culturally appropriate. James Franklin is but one of many who have pointed to important differences between child-rearing practices in ‘mainstream’ and traditional Aboriginal families (my emphasis):

A normal Western child grows up with a non-stop training in self-restraint, from toilet training through fixed meal and bed-times to regimented and compulsory schooling and sport. Traditional indigenous child-rearing practices, still largely intact, are very different. McKnight states baldly, ‘Children are indulged and rarely disciplined’ (and if one relative attempts discipline, others will step in to prevent it). Black parents were often shocked by how white parents disciplined their children. The indulgent period lasted until the early teenage years, when an extreme level of discipline was suddenly imposed through a violent initiation (for boys) or marriage to an elder (for girls). [ii]                               

Any person who has worked with Aboriginal people in remote communities would have noticed this different attitude to child rearing and foreseen the miserable results. The failure, therefore, is in the lack of detailed advice on Aboriginal cultural attitudes given to those who approved the spending. Where were the “experts” in traditional Aboriginal culture, and why were no warnings issued? If we are really serious about closing that gap these cultural factors need to be factored in before the very start. Why has this never happened? It is a vital question a royal commission would need to address.

Secondly, it is a terrible shame on our society, a betrayal of the hard, thankless work of our predecessors, that few under the age of 60 these days are aware that in the past in the remote Aboriginal communities – mostly under the auspices of the Christian missions – there was a near complete lack of domestic violence, child abuse, alcohol abuse, drug dependency, petrol sniffing, no foetal alcohol syndrome, no youth suicide and very low levels of incarceration. Even in the most remote areas there were high levels of literacy and numeracy and high levels of employment. It is only since the supposedly great reformative referendum of the Sixties and the self-determination era of the Seventies that dysfunction in Aboriginal communities has exploded. The failure of Voice proponents to acknowledge this demonstrates an outrageous ingratitude to early workers in the field and, no less, to the long-suffering Australian taxpayer. It is, in a word, shameful.

We need to understand why the so-called “intergenerational trauma”, so often attributed to white settlement, only erupted on the ex-missions when supposedly enlightened policies were implemented and the former ways abandoned. Surely the timing is no coincidence. We really need to explore that chronology of decline if we are serious about improving conditions. I suspect a key ingredient was the change in the discipline of anthropology that occurred in the Sixties and Seventies.  Prior to that, anthropologists were primarily focussed on fitting Aboriginal culture into the broader picture of global human development. However, by that stage, Aboriginal groups with cultures intact were becoming much more difficult to find, while the number of anthropologists coming out of the universities steadily climbed.  Rather than the discipline become extinct for lack of research material, the focus shifted to advocacy on behalf of Aborigines by professionals who could “interpret” Aboriginal culture to the government and the courts – in effect acting as go-betweens in negotiations between Aborigines and the mainstream community.  It was also during this period that anthropologists began to propose policies arising from their supposed “expertise” in the field, but largely based on ideology rather than the real situation on the ground.  The previous workers, particularly in the mission workers, who had pursued policies based not on academic theory but on practical experience gained over many years of trial and error, were sidelined and their advice derided.

The problem with the take-over by the professional anthropologists was twofold. Firstly, the role of the anthropologists, like that of lawyers in our court system, became to spin an appropriate yarn which would put the interests of their “clients” in the most favourable light. And second, there were virtually no anthropologists prepared to articulate counter-arguments to the ideas advanced by other anthropologists. One gets a brief insight into this malaise by considering the charlatan Bruce Pascoe and his entirely invented narrative of Aboriginal “farmers” living in settled communities. Alternatively, one can go back to the Hindmarsh Island Bridge affair and Chris Kenny’s excellent case study in “noble cause corruption” and the fabrication of “sacred women’s business”. [iii] )

As a geologist trying to get site clearances [iv] for drilling in Aboriginal lands, many of the anthropologists with whom I worked made no secret how much they were prepared to manipulate “traditional” Aboriginal culture to ensure a successful outcome for their clients.  “That’s where I earn my money,” said one anthropologist to me in remote Western Australia.

One telling example of a policy championed by anthropologists was the so-called “outstation movement”, which saw anthropologists assure us that remote-area Aborigines wanted to return to their traditional lands. Many millions of dollars were spent building these outstations and constructing many houses (with sophisticated extras such as solar electricity with backup diesel generators, running water, microwave communications links…). And yet some of these outstations, perhaps even the majority, were being abandoned even before they were completed.  Thus anthropologist Professor Peter Sutton, one of the greatest advocates of the outstation movement in the 1970s, reported in his landmark book The Politics of Suffering:

With me [Sutton] based at Watha-nhiin, David Martin at Kendall River north, and the Adamses spending time at Ti-Tree, outstation development proliferated until up to 300 Aurukun people were spending at least Dry Season time out in their countries. That era had come gradually to a close by the 1990s, when only a small number of diehards abandoned the allurement of town to spend time in the bush beyond daily commuting distance from Aurukun. During my visits to Aurukun in the dry seasons of 2006 and 2007 and, as reported by me in 2008, not a single outstation was occupied.  [v]

Sutton added, just to remind us that a lack of funding was not the issue

Funding for outstation development was by then far more substantial than it had been at the height of the re-occupation of traditional countries in the 1970s and 1980s.

Thus, the government was apparently still funding the outstation movement even after support from Aborigines themselves had collapsed. Why has there never been any admission of failure and the waste of taxpayer money? Rather, the movement’s failure is still largely being suppressed.

While drilling in the APY lands in north-west South Australia some years ago, an abandoned outstation near our drill site (one of perhaps 30 abandoned outstations in the APY area alone) was suddenly repaired and cleaned up by a team brought up maybe a thousand kilometres from Port Pirie at what was no doubt great expense. We were told there was a parliamentary delegation from Canberra about to visit and the outstation, a la a Potemkin Village, need to appear clean, functional and occupied. The clean-up crew had removed a desiccated dingo carcass and tumbleweeds from a kitchen when, just as suddenly as they arrived, the cleaners disappeared, having been told the VIPs’ visit had been cancelled. The outstation remained abandoned and the tumbleweeds soon returned. [vi]

To be totally fair, I was informed that the reason that the outstation had been abandoned was because there had been a death in the house and the occupants feared the prospect of the deceased’s spirit lingering on. I understand from the literature that this would be a considered completely normal state of affairs under traditional culture beliefs. Just as a campsite might be abandoned until it could be safely assumed the spirit had moved on, so was modern housing for the same reason. (As an aside,  I’m not sure that particular reason is particularly convincing in the modern era, given the number of deaths in the regular communities which remain as habitations despite of the threat of wandering spirits.)  But even so, if the haunting excuse is accepted as reasonable, it rather poses a question about why the Department of Aboriginal Affairs would be so ignorant or dismissive as to spend so much constructing permanent outstation buildings while knowing they could be abandoned at a moment’s notice under traditional cultural practice. The key question: how could the advising anthropologists, supposedly so connected to traditional Aboriginal culture, get it so wrong?  Consider it an example of anthropologists projecting and lobbying for their fantasy of what the modern iteration of traditional culture should be.

WE HAVE had 50 years of failure in Aboriginal policies, and this has needed to be obscured by 50 years of anthropological spin. The real barriers to the success — embedded in Aboriginal culture itself — have been hidden from sight in order to not upset indigenous sentiment. Solidarity with the client-base is everything!

And now we come to the third aspect of truth-telling that warrants a royal commission’s attention.

As stated earlier, in the remote-area communities of the Fifties and Sixties there was almost a complete lack of domestic violence, likewise child abuse, alcoholism, drug dependency, petrol sniffing and the slather of other ills afflicting remote communities. In 2023 the situation is almost completely the polar opposite of the mission era. There is much complaint in the communities about this grievous situation, and yet if you were to ask if they would prefer to go back to the missionary era, the vast majority would not exchange their current situations, however bad. Without being the least bit cynical, if closing the gap requires high levels of school attendance, regular work and a reduction in the supply of alcohol and drugs, well there would be considerable resistance. The simple fact is that integration into mainstream Australia has always been an option for Aborigines — an option consistently rejected by a certain section of their population.

An example of what I mean can be seen in the different attitudes between Aborigines and the mainstream to community violence.  Of course Aborigines are concerned about violence in their communities – and, indeed, are very likely to complain about it – but to what extent would they accept changes to reduce it? While there may be much complaining about the levels of violence in the communities in general, I don’t see any real groundswell of support for action, particularly action by police or the courts, against the individual perpetrators of violent acts.

This contradiction can be seen in the Kurduju Report, authored in 2003 by Peter Ryan. Subtitled “Types of Violence Impacting Centralian Communities”, it deals with the attitude of indigenous community members to violence within their own communities, effectively categorising the different types of violence and allocating them as different examples of pre-existing cultural norms.  Indeed, the report notes there is community lobbying to incorporate certain non-standard types of violence (like the use of formerly unsanctioned weapons) into “traditional culture” in order to normalise their use. Thus the different styles of violence are considered to be “culturally appropriate” — ritual violence, Yarda sorcery, payback etc…

Incidentally, one particular type of traditional violence often overlooked in some remote communities and missing from Ryan’s list of violences is the practice of “cruelling” children. Anthropologist Peter Sutton described the practice [vii] :

‘This seems to be done ostensibly for the purpose of encouraging self-assertion, although deeper and less functional explanations to do with repressed anger and jealousy on the part of the instigator are probably relevant.’

‘Cruelling’ is most commonly done by relatives who pinch the infant’s cheek hard enough to bring tears, kiss the child in a biting manner, or slap it, and who may then offer part of their own body for a good hard striking by the child … Similar patterns of cruelling of infants are reported for … (followed by a long list of regions)

‘Cruelling’ is only one traditional child-rearing practice that is relevant to adult patterns of violence. More significant is a reluctance to control the anger of children, especially boys against women, and a reluctance to curb physical fighting among children. In Ryan’s list there is no mention of “intergenerational trauma” — except, perhaps, under one category described as “Cyclical Family, Estate Owner and Language Group feuding” where we are informed that this type of violence relates to the cyclical nature of ongoing disputes between feuding families, estate owners and different language groups. We are then told …

In some Centralian communities the origins of the disputes are thought to pre-date contact and settlement.

The point here is that all these different forms of violence are well documented and understood within both Aboriginal and the professional anthropological communities – but who is openly talking about them or addressing the implications?  Instead, as the outsiders perceive it, all violence is categorised as being fueled by “intergenerational trauma” related to settlement, which allows the anthropological fraternity and the broader Aboriginal Industry to sheet the blame for Aboriginal community violence away from their clients and their traditional practices and attach them to an outside party. This is duplicitous and means the true underlying issues have never been fully aired nor dealt with.

The main revelation of the report though is summed up thus

The Kurduju Committee met at Lajamanu in August 2002. They were concerned about what appeared to be discrepancies in the collection of data on family and community violence between government agencies such as police, health clinic and courts and community organisations such as night patrols, safe house staff and Elders. They were concerned this was leading to different perceptions about what was happening in the communities. Often community organisations were reporting declines in the levels of violence but government agencies were reporting there were no changes.

The Committee’s concern was that what was being counted as community violence by the police etc. was really just the normal, day-to-day, “pushing and shoving” associated with standard traditional cultural practices. The police and the communities in many instances had completely different understandings of what constituted “violence” and therefore different levels of toleration.  Thus, to many Aborigines, even the current levels of community violence were being interpreted by them as culturally “normal,” and certainly would not be seen as a sufficient reason to change anything or sacrifice the lifestyle that they already have.

“Closing the Gap” has been consistently rejected by many Aborigines over the last hundred years.  Is it now to be implemented by force?  By coercion?  By white mainstream institutions against the will of  Aborigines themselves? That policy was never acceptable, even at the height of the missionary era.  I suggest that any attempt at coercive policies would fail just as they have done so many times in the past. If one considers Noel Pearson’s failed education initiative, I cannot see why anyone would believe a nebulous Voice in Canberra could exert any more influence over Cape York’s school students than Noel Pearson has been able to do – and, therefore, the whole agenda appears to be based more on wishful thinking than any on-the-ground reality. Such fantasies really need to be exposed to full daylight.

WHAT is needed before all else is a royal commission which looks at traditional culture’s barriers to Aboriginal advancement and how these have failed to be properly addressed by past programs. It needs to look at the on-going failure of professional anthropology to provide advice which actually improves conditions and to find more reliable sources of information and insight.  Perhaps it should even look for a single example of a hunter-gatherer society anywhere in the world that has successfully transitioned into the modern era. Perhaps culture holds the trump card against good will.

In particular, a royal commission needs to appoint specific legal representation on behalf of past ministers and bureaucrats, former mission workers and, of course, the taxpayers in order to provide a balanced assessment of past policies and their architects. The inquiry into the so-called Stolen Generations, which never allowed any evidence from opposing voices, should not be allowed again.

So let us bring on a royal commission and have some genuine truth-telling. We’ve gone far too long without it.

[i]  See …   Crooks, A. and Lane, J., 2016. Voices From The Past : Extracts from the Annual Reports of the South Australian Chief Protectors of Aborigines, 1837 onwards.  Hoplon Press.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/33259405-voices-from-the-past

[ii]  Franklin, James, 2008. The Cultural Roots of Violence. Quadrant Magazine.

http://www.quadrant.org.au/magazine/issue/2008/451/the-cultural-roots-of-aboriginal-violence

[iii]  Kenny, Christopher, 1996, Women’s Business: It would be nice if there was some women’s business: The Story Behind the Hindmarsh Island Affair. Duffy and Snellgrove.

[iv]  “Site clearances”- Identifying with the elders sacred sites and culturally sensitive areas to be avoided during drilling programs.

[v]  Sutton, Professor Peter, 2009, pp 24-25. The Politics of Suffering: Indigenous Australia and the end of the liberal consensus. Melbourne University Press.

[vi]  This anecdote was published in the May, 2019 edition of  Quadrant Magazine under the title De-prioritising the Truth   and republished on line.

https://quadrant.org.au/magazine/2019/05/de-prioritising-truth-in-remote-communities/

[vii] Sutton, Professor Peter, 2009, pp111 -113.The Politics of Suffering: Indigenous Australia and the end of the liberal consensus. Melbourne University Press.

[viii]  Crooks, Alistair, 2022.    The Voice and its Ten Glaring Pitfalls Quadrant Online 10th June 2022

https://quadrant.org.au/opinion/aborigines/2022/06/the-voice-and-its-ten-glaring-pitfalls/

[ix]  See the Dreaming and other essays by Bill Stanner.

  https://www.blackincbooks.com.au/books/dreaming-other-essays