By Kim Bullimore
In 1996, Pauline Hanson was catapulted onto the national stage when she was elected as the federal member for Oxley in Queensland. For the next two and half years, Hanson became the public face of racism in Australia.
Hanson vowed to use her parliamentary position to represent everyone except Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders. She sanctioned the publication of a book that accused Aborigines of cannibalism and she whipped up hysteria about the "invasion" of Asian immigrants to Australia.
As outrageous as the blatant racism of Hanson and her One Nation party is, it is only the most visible manifestation of a condition which has been the bedrock of Australian society since European colonisation in 1788.
Origins and role of racism
Racism is a social construction used to justify the oppression of one group by another. Racist ideology attempts to link the social divisions between people to a biological basis, thereby legitimising social inequality as natural, permanent and inevitable.
However, these categorisations are based on arbitrarily selected physical traits that are neither historically nor socially meaningful or fixed. In Australia, for example, 67 definitions of Aboriginality have been used in more than 700 pieces of legislation. These definitions were developed to facilitate Aboriginal people's incarceration in reserves and institutions as wards of the state.
While racial categorisation has no scientific basis, racist ideology is used by the ruling capitalist class to divide working people by providing a supposedly objective and legitimate basis for the super-exploitation of a particular group of working-class people — people of colour.
Racism arose with the capitalist economic system which concentrated the ownership of productive resources, such as land and equipment, in the hands of a minority, the capitalist class. This class, having consolidated itself in England, France, Holland and many other European nations, quickly colonised new territories in the Americas, Asia and Australia from the 17th century.
The inhabitants of the new colonies were driven from their lands or murdered so that plantations could be established to produce sugar, tobacco, rice, flax, coco and other products for profitable sale in the advanced capitalist countries. Millions more indigenous people were indentured or forced into bonded labour to work their own land which was now owned by their colonial masters.
The Europeans' advanced war technology enabled them to force the people whose land they had taken into subordinate social positions, and racial categorisation was used to justify this.
In Australia, as in other colonised countries, the Europeans brought with them an unshakeable belief in the superiority of their civilisation, a belief that was sustained and enforced by Christianity, the capitalists' more advanced technologies and their ability to physically conquer the indigenous people through war. They seized the most economically viable and productive lands, pushing the Aboriginal people off or attempting to exterminate them so that farming and grazing could develop in a secure and profitable environment.
Only land thought to be economically useless was left for, or later returned to Aboriginal people. In the second half of the 20th century, however, when it was discovered that many of these areas were rich in minerals, a second dispossession of indigenous people began. This time, it was (and still is) couched in terms of the "national interest" or as being for the economic good of indigenous people.
By the 1860s and '70s, the Australian colonies were establishing offices of the Protector of Aborigines. The number of reserves and missions in which Aborigines were incarcerated increased, ensuring the "orderly" development of white townships and society.
In pastoral areas, Aborigines were super-exploited as labourers to guarantee the profitability for the capitalists of the stolen land. They worked as stockmen, often because it enabled them to maintain links with their homelands and also because they could no longer sustain themselves without their land. Aborigines provided approximately half of the labour in the pastoral industry at a fraction of the cost of white workers. Many Aboriginal workers received no wages, being paid in blankets, food and tobacco.
Despite Aboriginal labour being indispensable to the white capitalists, many viewed caring for Aboriginal workers as a drain on development resources. Very little medical or social welfare was provided and many Aboriginal workers and their dependents, both on and off reserves, died of starvation or curable diseases. This was justified by the racist proclamation that Aborigines were an inferior and therefore "dying race".
Institutionalisation
Between 1890 and 1911, the ideology of Aboriginal racial inferiority was institutionalised when all states and territories, except Tasmania, enacted legislation severely restricting the liberty of Aborigines. They were prohibited from consuming alcohol and being in the vicinity of townships, they could be removed or transferred to different reserves without recourse, and they required white permission to marry, dispose of property and seek employment. Aborigines could only work in areas deemed productive by the "protectors", Christian missionaries and police.
Aboriginal protectors were empowered to make mixed-blood children wards of the state. These children were often sent to missions or homes where they were trained or worked as domestics or outdoor labourers for little or no remuneration.
The exploitation of "half-caste" or mixed-blood children was justified by racist ideology, which deemed them inferior to pure whites but superior, because of their white blood, to full-blood Aborigines. Thus, half-caste children could, it was argued, be trained to be productive members of society, but only at a low social level.
The definition of half-caste was, however, ever changing, thereby revealing how racism is socially constructed. In 1897, the definition of an Aborigine included half-castes "who otherwise than as wife, husband, or child habitually lives or associates with Aboriginals". This was changed later to exclude social factors, such as who they associated with, and to consider only Aboriginal descent.
From the 1930s, those Aborigines deemed to have enough white blood could apply for a certificate which exempted them from being Aboriginal. To be eligible, Aborigines needed to display "exemplary" behaviour. In Western Australia, this included: dissolving all tribal associations, except for filial relations; serving in the armed forces or demonstrating they were fit and proper; being able to speak and write English; being free from serious disease (this often meant venereal disease) and having two references from reputable white citizens.
The certificate of exemption stated: "[Name], by reason of his character and standard of intelligence and development, should be exempt from provision of the Aborigines Act 1934-1939 ... [and] shall cease to be an Aborigine for the purpose of the Act".
While racist ideology was used to justify the oppression and exploitation of Aborigines, the enactment of these policies enabled total control over Aborigines' day-to-day lives so that they could be either excluded from white society, thereby allowing capitalist development to proceed unhindered by resistance from traditional owners, or exploited as labourers to increase the profitability of colonial development.
Divide and conquer
The victims of racism in Australia have not been limited to indigenous people.
Between 1837 and 1844, approximately 500 Indian labourers arrived in the Australian colonies, along with a small number of Melanesian and Chinese workers. Between 1848 and 1852, 3000 Chinese labourers arrived. This number increased substantially between 1850 and the 1870s when gold was discovered in NSW and Victoria.
Between 1863 and 1900, around 60,000 Melanesian labourers or "Kanakas" were indentured to work on sugar plantations in Queensland and northern NSW. Some came voluntarily; others were tricked or kidnapped in a practice known as "blackbirding".
The Asian and Melanesian labourers were a cheap form of labour for the capitalists. Asian workers often received only one-third of the wage of white workers and they were poorly fed and housed in conditions well below acceptable white standards. Melanesian labourers faced similar conditions.
White workers caught up in the racist ideology of the day refused to see non-whites as fellow workers who were also being exploited. Instead, they were seen as competitors for jobs and the labour movement campaigned, on the basis of white nationalism, against Asian and Melanesian labour and lobbied for restrictions on Chinese immigration.
Non-white workers were accused of strike breaking, despite the fact that they were banned from membership of most trade unions. Some unions, such as the shearer's union, even excluded from membership white workers who had worked for anyone who employed non-white labour, had commercial dealings with Chinese people or patronised merchants or stores which dealt with or employed Chinese people.
Racism, used by the capitalists to deflect workers' grievances and demands by blaming Asian and Melanesian workers, was central to forging an Australian nationalism that divided white and non-white within the working class and cemented white workers' identification with and support for the capitalist class. This played an important role in preventing the rise of a working-class movement which promoted egalitarian ideas and was aware of and championed the interests of all members of its class.
This virulent racist nationalism culminated in the 1901 Immigration Restriction Act, or "white Australia policy", which was supported by many labour organisations and remained part of the ALP platform until 1965. Under the policy, Asians, Africans and Pacific Islanders were denied the right to vote, unless their state of residence had already conferred that right. Some states, like Queensland, enacted legislation to revoke such rights.
In 1903, Asians, Africans and Pacific Islanders were denied the right to become Australian citizens and in 1905 legislation was enacted to exclude non-whites, including Aborigines, from receiving welfare benefits.
The white Australia policy remained intact until the late 1950s, when it began to be reformed in order to help meet Australian capitalists' need for more labour power as the economy boomed after World War II.
While white, European migrants continued to be preferred, limited non-white immigration was not seen as a significant threat to the maintenance of a white monoculture. Non-white immigrants, and Aborigines, were expected to assimilate, abandon their cultures of origin, forgo forming communities and organisations based on their ethnicity or culture, learn English and become like white Australians.
By the late 1960s, the formal policy of assimilation became one of integration, a recognition that the complete assimilation of non-whites could not be achieved in one generation. Assimilation, however, remained the long-term goal.
Formal equality
During the 1960s, the federal and most state governments removed all overtly racist provisions relating to Aborigines from all legislation, although formal discrimination against Aborigines continued in WA until 1972 and in Queensland until 1975, when the federal Racial Discrimination Act was introduced to override the Queensland legislation.
Despite nationwide formal equality for indigenous people by 1975, racism had not been eliminated.
From 1965, equal pay for Aboriginal workers in the pastoral industry was phased in over three years but the legislation contained a provision allowing pastoralists to pay "slow workers" at a reduced rate. In Queensland, until 1975, Aboriginal people on reserves could be forced to work as directed and be paid below award wages.
Recently released cabinet documents from 1969 reveal that the Harold Holt federal government deliberately slowed the rate at which Aboriginal people claimed unemployment benefits by keeping them ignorant of their rights, lying to them about the law and using administrative rules to stall applicants.
Also during this period, Aborigines became the first Australians to be forced to work for the dole. It was argued that "hand outs" such as unemployment benefits, which were available to all other Australians, would destroy Aborigines' motivation to work. Three decades later, in 1997, John Howard's Coalition government extended work for the dole to all unemployed people under 24 years old.
The new spin in the capitalist class's racist rhetoric — "it's for their own good" — is still being used today. Hanson's comments along these lines are well known, but more recently, acting prime minister, National Party leader John Anderson, commented in early January that "benefits day" meant a big party somewhere in town for the recipients. His comments were clearly directed at Aboriginal people in the bush and intended to convey that the recipients are both irresponsible and undeserving.
In the light of Australia's racist history, the rise of Hanson should have been no surprise. The fact that it was a surprise for many people testifies to the success of the capitalists' propaganda about Australia being an egalitarian society. It is not.
Despite winning legal equality, Aborigines continue to be the most disadvantaged people in Australia. They die 20 years younger than other Australians. They have an infant mortality rate of three times the national average. They are imprisoned at a rate 20 times greater than non-indigenous Australians. And they are among the most likely to be unemployed and the least likely to have completed matriculation and attend university.
While both Coalition, and especially Labor, governments have made a great show in recent decades of addressing the "Aboriginal problem", they have actively supported the exploitation and oppression of indigenous Australians whenever and wherever it served the interests of big capitalists. In 1984, for example, the Bob Hawke Labor government, after proclaiming a commitment to land rights, backed down under pressure from mining companies which did not want to give up their unfettered access to resource-rich Aboriginal lands.
More recently, the Howard government continues to deny that its native title legislation, introduced over the last three years, is racist, despite the finding last March of the United Nations Committee for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination that the government's 1998 amendments to the Wik ruling breached Australia's obligations under the convention.
Since 1991, under both Liberal and Labor governments, Aboriginal deaths in custody have increased, Aboriginal health indicators have declined and poverty in many Aboriginal communities has worsened (see the article on page 3 for the full record under Howard).
While the major Australian capitalists and their representatives in government carry on their attacks against indigenous people, the focus on the more overtly racist ideas of figures such as Hanson enable them to deflect and dilute criticism of their own offensive.
At the same time, the racist ideas that are fuelled by the Hanson's of the world serve the needs of capitalists by directing working people's anger and frustration about the neo-liberal economic program of the capitalist class towards the easy target of racially oppressed people. Aborigines and non-white migrants are blamed for increasing job insecurity, low wages, longer hours and bad working conditions. Indigenous people receive "special treatment", they say, and migrants and refugees are a drain on the economy and take "our" jobs.
To combat such lies, push Hanson and her ilk back under the rocks from which they crawled, and force the capitalists and their governments to retreat from their attacks on indigenous people, the considerable anti-racism sentiment that still exists in the Australian population must be organised into campaigns and movements for immediate reforms.
In the end, however, racism will continue to be used to defuse working people's anger at the brutality of the private profit system and to undermine workers' ability to unite and fight successfully against employer and government attacks for so long as capitalist economic and social relations rule. To abolish racism, society must be completely restructured to give priority, not to capitalist profit, but to meeting people's needs on a basis of equality and solidarity.