A standard response

The familiar echo of Aboriginal condemnation - Opinion - theage.com.au

The article above takes the "standard" old style aboriginal interest group response to the aboriginal abuse issues raised last week.

Rather than acknowledge the longstanding structural disadvantage experienced by remote Aboriginal communities, the complicity of the Australian Government in their creation and neglect, and a national responsibility to make real changes, Brough's immediate response to Rogers' revelations was to announce the existence of a pedophile ring of senior Aboriginal men. No evidence has been produced, and it seems clear that none exists.

Where did Brough's allegation come from? Such a "ring" would, of course, give the minister a convenient solution to his need to be seen to be doing something: an evil group of Aboriginal men, a target small enough to rapidly identify and punish, would serve as a scapegoat and provide a quick fix for his problem. But if we look further back into the long history of Aboriginal-white relations, it becomes clear that such claims have often helped governments to justify interventionist indigenous policies.

Is the writer suggesting that "non interventionist" policies have never been tried, even under the long reign of Labor and ATSIC? Does she really want the solution to this to be left up to the same bunch of aboriginal leaders and academics who have been around for the last 30 years worrying more about land rights, and whether Aboriginal cultures 200 years ago were abusive to women or not, than what's going on now?