Why Pearson is wrong on Aboriginal welfare
BY SIMON BUTLER
Former Labor prime minister Ben Chifley was no radical. He was a staunch supporter of the "white Australia policy" and infamously called in the army to break the coalminers' strike in 1949. But after Noel Pearson delivered the "Light on the Hill" Chifley memorial address in Bathurst on August 13, even Ben Chifley must have rolled in his grave.
As chairperson of the Cape York Land Council, Noel Pearson came to prominence as an Aboriginal leader who zealously campaigned for land rights. But that was long ago. His Chifley address, which attacked what he described as Aboriginal "welfare dependency", marks the culmination of his drift towards the far right of Australian politics.
In a wide-ranging speech, Pearson attacked "progressive" thinking on just about every issue affecting Aborigines. Progressive attitudes to welfare provision, drug addiction and imprisonment were all condemned.
According to Pearson, it is the meagre government welfare provided to Aborigines, and the resulting "welfare dependency", that is the root cause of the massive inequality and unemployment Aboriginal people face. He called for decisive action to break this "dependency", saying, "Our motivation to welfare reform must be based on the principle that dependency and passivity kills people and is the surest road to social ruin.
"Australians do not have an inalienable right to dependency", he added. "They have an inalienable right to a fair place in the real economy."
Similarly, Pearson rejected the "progressive" thinking on drug addiction and petty crime in Aboriginal communities which, he argued, absolves Aboriginal people of personal responsibility for their actions. Drug addiction and petty crime are not symptoms of alienation, racism or disadvantage, he said, but are the result of individual choices, which can only be combatted with "the restoration of social order and the enforcement of law".
Aboriginal legal aid also copped a spray; its provision "has not worked" to reduce extreme levels of Aboriginal incarceration, he said. Instead, he argued, Aboriginal legal representation should be replaced with a renewed emphasis on the enforcement of law and order in Aboriginal communities!
Indigenous opposition
Pearson's conservative rhetoric has not been well received by radical Aboriginal leaders. Kim Bullimore, an activist in the Indigenous Students Network and the Democratic Socialist Party, told Green Left Weekly that Pearson is blaming Aboriginal people for the racism and discrimination they are subjected to. "Pearson doesn't attack the federal government over mandatory sentencing or the increasing number of Aboriginal deaths in custody or Howard's refusal to recognise and compensate the stolen generations — all instances of current government policy discriminating against Aborigines", she said angrily. "Instead, he has given a speech that reinforces racist prejudices about Aborigines and welfare payments."
Bullimore scoffed at Pearson's solutions, saying they were "indistinguishable from current Liberal Party policy". Pearson has been encouraged by senior Coalition politicians to consider standing for Liberal Party preselection for a federal seat.
"He argues that welfare payments should be cut to Aborigines, but puts no responsibility on the government to provide employment", Bullimore said. "And then he pretends that Aboriginal alienation and poverty can be solved by more police and more punishment and imprisonment. Indigenous Australians are already the most incarcerated people in the entire world."
Prominent Aboriginal activist Michael Mansell has also come out strongly against Pearson's stance. Speaking on the ABC's Lateline program on August 18, Mansell challenged the idea that welfare payments are responsible for the problems facing Aboriginal people. He said, "You take away a people's country, you dominate them on a day-to-day basis, you prevent them from running their own land, their own communities, and you are bound to get symptoms of alienation".
"We've heard [Pearson's arguments] all before", Mansell said. "The only difference is it's coming from a black person who is part of the oppressed group, rather than from the oppressor."
Conservative approval
Pearson's criticisms of Aboriginal welfare were clearly not intended for an Aboriginal audience. Right-wing media commentators and former Liberal politicians have been quick to applaud Pearson for his "poignancy", "courage" and "leadership" — and his sense of timing. Pearson's broadside coincided with the release of the McClure report into welfare, which proposes to overhaul the system (see article on page 13).
Columnist Paul Kelly heaped praise on Pearson in the Australian on August 23, calling him a "leader trying to draw lessons from the dysfunction of the Cape York Aboriginal community". The Australian Financial Review's Christopher Pearson was similarly extravagant.
Pearson's comments also received the wholehearted approval of former Liberal leader and arch-economic rationalist John Hewson. Writing in the August 18 Australian Financial Review, Hewson asked "... all those in the [welfare] debate] to listen to Pearson".
Hewson said that Pearson's ideas closely matched the welfare reform proposals he advocated in the early 1990s, adding, "This carries so much more authority than when whites say it".
Kelly agreed. Pearson's status as "an Aboriginal with moral authority" meant "his speeches are virtually destroying the status quo progressive welfare position", Kelly enthused, and not just on Aboriginal welfare but on welfare in general.
Rights warning
It is Pearson's willingness to join those determined to do the worst by indigenous people that most infuriates Bullimore. "Our people have been fighting so long against the idea that we should be happy with scraps off the white man's table. Now Pearson would have us back there.
"With this speech, Pearson has joined the government's campaign against one of the most disadvantaged groups in society", she said. "He's lent his name to attempts to quash the idea that people have a right to welfare. According to him, it's all the individual; society and the government have no obligation.
"But more than that, we have a right not to have to survive on welfare because we can't get jobs. A decent job with good wages and working conditions is a basic human right, and for Aboriginal people in this racist society that means affirmative action in both education and employment."
Bullimore also had a warning for the non-indigenous population: Aboriginal welfare is just one of the targets of the government's crusade. "If Pearson and his Liberal mates wipe out 'dependency' by wiping out Aboriginal welfare, it won't hit just our people, and it won't hit just the unemployed.
"It'll hit all workers because they'll find themselves without security and dependent on their boss' generosity to get by. Rights are rights; if they get rid of one, they can get rid of others."
Bullimore dismissed Kelly's notion that, given his high profile and stature as an indigenous leader, Pearson's speech has destroyed the progressive argument for Aboriginal rights. "He wishes", she said. "But he does not speak for Aboriginal people. Nor does he have our interests at heart."
"His words won't shake us", she insisted. "We're strong in our opposition to this government and there are lots of people across this country who are finally waking up to what's been done to us in their name. It'll take more than a speech by a wannabe Liberal politician to stop the movement for Aboriginal justice, that's for sure."