Poor Malcolm Fraser. He cannot bring himself to apologise for the long term damage he inflicted on the nation by his ruthless opportunism in engineering the fall of the Whitlam Labor Government in 1975. So he tries to redeem himself by adopting the favoured tactic of the posturing classes -- demanding that others apologise for things they did not do.
In Darwin last week, the former prime minister gave the annual Vincent Lingiari Memorial Lecture, named for the renowned Gurindji stockman who led a major strike for land rights and better conditions at Wave Hill in the Northern Territory in the mid-1960s. Someone who really wished to honour the memory of Lingiari would have tried to inject some fresh and rigorous thinking into the discussion of Aboriginal issues.
Unfortunately, this was absent from Fraser's address. He confined himself to repeating progressive platitudes of the kind that have proved so detrimental to Aborigines over the past three decades. He would have done well to consider the bitter comment that Noel Pearson recently made in a memorial lecture for another former prime minister, Ben Chifley -- "A rule of thumb in relation to most of the programs and policies that pose as progressive thinking in indigenous affairs is that if we did the opposite we would have the chance of making progress".
Mr Fraser said that his remarks were primarily directed at non-indigenous Australians. But he demonstrated just how little he understands the many Australians who have strong reservations about the "progressive" consensus on Aboriginal issues -- the "unbelievers", as he calls us.
He seemed to be suggesting that there are two kinds of people in this country. There are those who are generous and good, "who believe an honest apology on behalf of the nation is necessary and that we should follow Canada's example". Then there are the others, those ignoble souls "who prefer to forget" the terrible past that Aborigines suffered "and almost pretend it never happened".
Like much else in his lecture, this is a caricature. There are sound intellectual and moral reasons for refusing to go along with the notions favoured by Malcolm Fraser and his ilk. These reasons have nothing to do with denying or forgetting the past, and everything to do with insisting that it be presented truthfully, in all its complexity.
Accepting the distortions and falsehoods promoted by sections of the "Aboriginal industry" is not a mark of goodness or generosity, particularly as these misrepresentations are often used to entice Aborigines into the destructive temptations of victimhood. If Mr Fraser really wished to influence those who disagree with his position on indigenous issues he should not have been so careless with his facts.
He stated, for instance, that the assimilation policies pursued by the Federal government in the 1950s "were designed to breed out Aboriginals". But this slur against Mr Fraser's own former colleagues was specifically considered and totally rejected by Federal Court judge Maurice O'Loughlin in his recent decision in the Cubillo and Gunner "stolen generations" case.
Although the plaintiffs claimed that "breeding out half-castes" was one of the reasons they were removed from their families, Justice O'Loughlin stated that none of the evidence presented to the court suggested that any such purpose had existed in the post-World War II period.
Mr Fraser's talk also illustrated -- though no doubt unintentionally -- some of the silliness surrounding the "stolen generations" issue. He applauded J.W. Bleakley, Queensland's Chief Protector of Aborigines in the years before World War II, as a man who demonstrated concern for "the well being of Aboriginals". Clearly, Fraser is oblivious to the fact that in a recent Senate submission, the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission cited Bleakley's views as evidence of Australia's "genocide"!
Mr Fraser offered Canada as a model for Australia. He praised the Canadian government's apology for its past, its willingness to negotiate compensation for the victims of the "residential schools" (Canada's "stolen generations") and the $C350 million "healing fund" it established, as well as its preparedness to discuss self-government and sign treaties with indigenous people.
But Canada's approach has not produced the harmony he pretends. Most of its indigenous leaders spurned the apology when it was offered in 1998, and the "healing fund" has not prevented thousands of "residential schools" lawsuits from clogging up the courts. Furthermore, the newly elected Grand Chief of Canada's Assembly of First Nations (their ATSIC) said that he did not consider himself a Canadian, and that the whole country was really his people's land.
Mr Fraser assured his audience that Aboriginal "self-government", "doesn't relate to establishing a separate sovereignty", and that Aboriginal leaders "have not spoken of separation". Fraser must not have been listening, but they have, as the historian Keith Windschuttle documents in the current issue of Quadrant.
Windschuttle notes, for instance, that the current chairman of ATSIC, Geoff Clark, was previously the deputy chairman of Michael Mansell's secessionist Aboriginal Provisional Government. And Mick Dodson, the former Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner, has claimed that indigenous people have never accepted that they should be governed by the Australian state.
But the Liberals can't really complain about Mr Fraser's suggestion that Australians should vote against them. After all, only four months ago, they rewarded him with life membership of their party. People foolish enough to honour a man as vain and destructive as Malcolm Fraser should not be surprised when he turns around and kicks them in the teeth.
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