A brief history of Indigenous advisory groups and why conservatives have been undermining them for decades:
So after decades of paternalistic and controlling policies that greatly disempowered and displaced Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders, Gough Whitlam went “hey, let’s actually ask Indigenous people their thoughts on policy that affects them.” Advisory bodies are a normal thing to aid Members of Parliament, but until 1973 and the formation of National Aboriginal Consultative Committee, there wasn’t one with Indigenous people. Whitlam brought in a range of progressive reforms, and is the first PM to have land rights legislation created. The NACC was elected solely by Aboriginal people across Australia, and was made up of 40 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders representing 800 Aboriginal communities from 41 electorates. After decades of Coalition rule Australia finally someone who actually had an interest in Indigenous affairs is in office.
In comes Malcolm Fraser. He decides that nah, he’ll replace it with the National Aboriginal Conference - which wasn’t elected directly, but its key people managed by state/territory branches which removed it from having proper input from the people it was meant to represent. He also created the Aboriginal Development Commission which was not even remotely elected, but appointed by the Government directly.
Bob Hawke comes in and decides it’s clearly ineffective. He begins years of extensive consultation with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders - talking to more than 1000 separate Indigenous organisations and communities across Australia, speaking to over 20,000 people, an options paper produced, then further consultation with several thousand Indigenous people once again. This leads to the creation of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission - ATSIC.
It initially covers 60 regions before being altered in 1993 to be only 35 regions to make it more manageable. Each region has 8-12 councillors elected. ATSIC, on top of providing advice to the government, provided many services in tandem with local Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community groups and organisations to help Indigenous people find employment, housing, and access to better health outcomes, as well as preserving and promoting Indigenous heritage and culture. One of its programs accounted for around 25% of Indigenous employment across all of Australia in the early 2000s.
However, when John Howard was elected in 1996 he instantly cut funding to ATSIC by 11%. This forced ATSIC to cut many of its smaller programs - particularly those which had been created in response to the recommendations of the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody. It also forced the closure of women’s resource programs. Howard saw an opportunity for austerity and went for the programs THAT TRY TO STOP ABORIGINAL PEOPLE DYING IN POLICE CUSTODY AND WOMEN’S RESOURCE CENTRES. He heavily restricted what level of discretion and freedom ATSIC had to spend money on any of its programs.
ATSIC was then abolished by Howard, replaced by the Office of Indigenous Policy Coordination. That was then abolished by Tony Abbott who also favoured austerity and cut over HALF A BILLION DOLLARS from Aboriginal programs.
In 2009 Kevin Rudd had the Human Rights Commission to develop the National Congress of Australia’s First Peoples. Tony Abbott also, predictably, cut off its funding, and it managed to get by until 2019 when it could no longer function without government funding. By that point, Morrison wasn’t willing to care about Indigenous people or their support groups/bodies.
Also under Abbott the employment programs that had been so prominent for Aboriginal people, and run by Aboriginal people in tandem with Aboriginal communities, were also then merged into Centrelink and replaced with the work for the dole scheme. Under ATSIC and its prime Aboriginal people could work 15 hours for the equivalent of a Newstart payment and receive additional money for extra work - but under Abbott/Turnbull/Morrison that turned into 25 hours per week thus forcing the payments BELOW minimum wage.
You know Australia has a history of forcing Aboriginal people to work for less than minimum wage… but at least they don’t physically kidnap them anymore. They just get Centrelink to force them into it instead.
In addition, as it is an unemployment scheme, participants aren’t eligible to earn superannuation whilst undertaking activities and aren’t covered by workplace health and safety schemes. And as it was taken away from local community groups and forced into a cold centralised beurocratic system it meant there was less flexibility or discretion to take in available local activities or personal needs, and instead is run by non-local for-profits and greatly increased the level of punitive action for people who didn’t meet their mutual obligations.
LITERALLY. FUCKING. EVERY. TIME. The Coalition has taken the approach of gutting Aboriginal programs, kneecapping Aboriginal involvement, or self-determination, or their input, and repeatedly forced them into worse situations and silenced them. The Coalition took away control from local Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities and gave it to private companies to profiteer off their unemployment and force them into poverty.
The Indigenous Voice to Parliament isn’t a radical new idea - elected advisory bodies have existed on/off for the past 50 years. It should be normal for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders to be consulted, to be able to work within their own communities, and be a prominent part of the discussion when it comes to their own affairs. However we have seen time and time again over the past 50 FUCKING YEARS that if protections aren’t constitutionally enshrined then the Coalition government will again and again harm Aboriginal people, silence them, cut their funding, fracture their communities, and punish them for profit. Conservative governments perpetuate the colonial legacy of white superiority and exclusion. It’s racist and vile.
Peter Dutton wants the Voice to fail because he doesn’t want the Coalition to listen to Indigenous people. Thats why he keeps lying about it. He doesn’t want the accountability that comes with a constitutionally protected advisory body examining and reporting on your policy and how it impacts the community.
This is why we need to vote YES to the Indigenous Voice to Parliament. We NEED to ensure that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people cannot be silenced by the Coalition.
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