Comment

Hon. Dr Gary Johns

Writing in The Weekend Australian (November 25, 2006, 'Skewed world view'), Noel Pearson has moved much further than previously in his critique of passive welfare.

He now appreciates that not only must individuals take responsibility for their own welfare, but that in Aboriginal affairs, too often those assigned to care for Aboriginal welfare recipients defend their charges using bogus cultural arguments.

We at Bennelong have been making the point for many years, and been criticised greatly for it.

Pearson relates the story as told by his friend Milton James, a social worker who works with young Aborigines.

James has been placing young people---the Work Placement Scheme---from remote Aboriginal communities (including Cape York) into rural work in Victoria and South Australia. The operation provides an air fare for a young person to shift residence to work. All other costs, including return fares are paid by that person from their earnings.

The scheme has apparently been successful. The story relates an exception: an individual who played up, and was asked to leave his accommodation. He also wanted to return to Cape York. The catch was he had to pay his own way! He was told to contact his work supervisor to sort it out.

He pulled the 'cultural curtain' ploy, i.e. claiming his culture had to be respected etc... and called in a public servant ('bureaucrat') to do his bidding.

The following is an extract of the rest of the story as told by Milton James and published in The Weekend Australian:

"The bureaucrat said: 'There are cultural factors that prohibit him from making contact with you.' At first he was not forthcoming on what exactly he meant by this. After my insistence, he said the young man was a remote-area Aboriginal and didn't have the ability to find the work group supervisor's name and number and telephone him. I told him this was claptrap.

"I said the only issue here was the young man's refusal to take responsibility for his actions; it had nothing to do with culture.

"I put it to the bureaucrat that to try to suggest that the young man's culture prevents him from contacting us is to have a very low opinion of Aboriginal culture:

"'Since when is not being able to carry out a simple task a culture matter? Since when is refusal to take responsibility for one's own actions a cultural matter, and therefore warranting some sort of exemption?'

"I said: 'To me, this sounds very much like a racist comment, to have such a low opinion of Aboriginal people's ability to carry out the simplest of tasks.'

"Infuriated, the bureaucrat declared himself to be part-Aboriginal and that if I repeated this claim he would take action against me. I said: 'If you are part-Aboriginal, then all the more reason why you should think better of Aboriginal people. I, for one, believe that Aboriginal people are capable people and that they can take responsibility for their actions.' At this, the bureaucrat hung up the phone."

James concludes: "This is a good example of what I am talking about when I say that the welfare approach is about rescuing people from competition and from taking responsibility for their own actions: to patronise and infantilise Aboriginal people."

The struggle is on to rescue Aborigines from their minders, we are pleased to support Noel Pearson in this essential work.