Racism behind ATSIC abolition

Tom Pearson

With the proposed abolition of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait 
Islander Commission (ATSIC) the Howard Government has reached a 
racist milestone in its policies of assimilation and 
dispossession of Indigenous Australians. The peak national body 
with its elected representatives has been a high priority target 
of the Government. The legislation will be introduced in 
Parliament next month.

It was one year ago that the Government set up an agency to gut 
ATSIC. Its staff was cut from 1300 to 20, with those remaining 
moved to a new board run by Wayne Gibbons, a government-appointed 
chief executive officer. Gibbons was invested with absolute 
authority through this new executive agency, called Aboriginal 
and Torres Strait Islander Services.

As such he replaced ATSIC's 18 elected board members and 400 
elected regional councillors.

The coup was executed ahead of a $1 million government-
commissioned review into ATSIC: the review found that ATSIC 
functioned well and was important to Aboriginal people.

Under this final part of the Government's plan the board members 
will be now displaced by an advisory group of "eminent Indigenous 
people" appointed by the Indigenous Affairs Minister Amanda 
Vanstone on July 1 this year. Regional councils are to be 
scrapped by July, 2005.

As ATSIC commissioner Rick Griffiths put it: "Howard's Cabinet 
represents a black-armband, mean, narrow-minded, self-serving 
Government whose members just cannot come to terms with the 
notion of Aboriginal self-determination."

The Government put a lot of time in portraying ATSIC as the 
ultimate expression of Indigenous self-determination. It then 
undermined the organisation's ability to carry out its tasks and 
demonised its leaders through character assassination so that it 
could tear down ATSIC and declare Indigenous rights to be dead 
and buried.

Thus, in announcing the organisation's abolition Howard described 
"separate elected representation for Indigenous people" as a 
"failed experiment".

The word "separate" is pivotal to the Government's racist agenda, 
as was soon revealed when Minister Vanstone compared ATSIC to 
apartheid South Africa.

ATSIC delivered

ATSIC leaders Ray Robinson and Geoff Clark pointed out in a 
statement last year that, despite having been in existence for 
just 12 years, ATSIC delivered more to Indigenous people than any 
government, federal, state or territory in 200 years of colonial 
rule.

As part of the drive to discredit it, ATSIC has been blamed by 
the Government (with the co-operation of the mass media) for not 
delivering Indigenous communities out of third world conditions.

But ATSIC is not responsible for the provision of essential 
services, such as health, housing, education and employment, even 
though it has programs in some of these areas. These are the 
responsibility of state and federal governments. ATSIC was forced 
to provide supplementary funding in these areas because of the 
failure of governments to meet their responsibilities.

With the destruction of ATSIC recognition of the special needs of 
Indigenous people is to be wiped. The Howard Government plans to 
mainstream all essential services to Aboriginal communities.

Noting that most countries have realised that mainstreaming does 
not work, the National Aboriginal Community Controlled Health 
Organisation (NACCHO) asked why Australia has not learned those 
lessons. "Why do we want to turn the clock back 40 years?", asked 
NACCHO Chairman Tony McCartney.

NACCHO is urging Parliamentarians to realise that Aboriginal 
community-controlled advisory mechanisms have to be maintained in 
improving health, education and economic opportunities. "These 
are life and death decisions."

The Government also intends to dismantle the Aboriginal Legal 
Service (ALS) by contracting out its work to private companies in 
a bidding war for a $122 million, two-year contract. The bidder 
granted the contract will not be required to employ Indigenous 
staff or to be an Indigenous organisation.

Further, under the plan an Aboriginal person who has one prior 
conviction for a violent crime can be refused legal aid by the 
new contractor. This will lead to an even greater number of 
Indigenous people in prisons and increased Aboriginal deaths in 
custody. People charged with trivial offences such as drunkenness 
and traffic violations, would no longer be represented, 
increasing the Indigenous jail population.

The contractor will be also be required to shift its priority 
from criminal cases, which make up the overwhelming majority of 
the ASL's cases, to child welfare and family violence matters. A 
means test will also be introduced.

Vanstone calls this "ensuring that Indigenous people get value 
for money". The Principal Lawyer for the Central Australian 
Aboriginal Legal Aid Service, David Bamber, said the proposals 
will have serious implications.

"The major point is that provision of legal services could not be 
profitable without a major reduction of service", he warned.

"The introduction of means testing and reduction of the number of 
types of matters for which aid is granted, services such as our 
after-hours services, a lot of our field services and services to 
the bush, would surely be cut."