ABOLISH ATSIC, ACTIVIST CHALLENGES
19.11.1996
ATSIC should be abolished because it is an undemocratic, unrepresentative organisation that with its predecessor,
the Department of Aboriginal Affairs, had misspent $25 billion, according to prominent activist Gary Foley.
He said indigenous people had not prospered in the past 15 years and had been conned by the ALP's "veneer of tolerance'' underpinned by millions of dollars spent with ""public relations companies in Sydney and Melbourne''.
Mr Foley, who rose to prominence in 1973 as a leader of the
Aboriginal protest group which established the "tent embassy'' for six months on the lawns of Parliament House in Canberra, also delivered a surprising endorsement of the racially charged views of rebel MP Pauline Hanson.
Addressing a University of Southern Queensland indigenous peoples' conference in Toowoomba, Mr Foley said an "Aboriginal industry'' did exist as Ms Hanson claimed, and he had branded it just that for the past decade.
"One of the reasons Pauline Hanson _ that her mutterings and
proclamations seem to strike a little bit of a chord in a lot of odd Australians is because there is just a tiny element of truth in some of the things she said,'' Mr Foley said.
"But unfortunately when that talk about the Aboriginal industry and the Labor people jumped up and down and said it's racist to talk about the ""Aboriginal industry''- I've been saying it for 10 years.
"If every Aboriginal person in Australia dropped dead tonight there would be one million non-Aboriginal people on the dole queues tomorrow. That's the extent of the Aboriginal industry.
"Where do we think the 25 or $30 billion went? You know and I know it didn't go to us.''
Mr Foley said responsibility for underlying racism in Australia rested with previous federal Labor governments, adding that he had "no problem'' with the current Federal Government because now the issue of racism could be debated openly.
"I like what is going on politically in Australia at the moment. I am glad we have dispensed with the veneer of tolerence that the ALP spent millions of dollars _ our dollars _ getting public relations agencies in Sydney and Melbourne to come up with big, garbagey PR campaigns _ "hands across the water; as Australians we should all live
together; we shall overcome''; all that stuff. Ridiculous promotions.
"We were conned, and some who were conned were the ones who run with ATSIC.''
He said most of the problem with ATSIC rested with the "white bureaucracy'', but some indigenous people were "unfortunately involved''.
"And it seems to me now, on looking back on it _ with the
exception of the Whitlam government _ the best politicians, prime ministers, governments we ever dealt with in terms of their being straight with what they were going to do with us, was the Conservatives _ the Liberal-National Party.
""Just look at the mediocrity of the last 15 years. We went
backwards under the Labor government.''
Mr Foley said that all "indicators'' such as blacks in prison,deaths in custody, unemployment, health problems _ were as bad now as they were 20 years ago.
He said he could not understand why Prime Minister John Howard did not "knock off ATSIC when he had the chance''.
"It really wouldn't worry me. I couldn't care less. Chop ATSIC and it won't affect me or many of the Kooris in the community where I come from,'' he said.
"It might affect some of the flash ones with their flash jobs.
"No government in the last 40 years has really empowered Koori people.''
He said a "black bourgeoisie'' had been created since the days of the Whitlam government and claimed Labor governments did not deliver what they promised indigenous Australians.
"Too many of our leaders are tainted with accusations of
maladministration of Aboriginal affairs,'' said the former radical who now describes himself as "a pushbike-riding Melbourne university student''.
"The critics of Aboriginal affairs do have a point. There has been maladministration.
"But any maladministration by a small group of Kooris here and there fades into insignificance when you look at the maladministration by state governments of Aboriginal health moneys, deaths in custody money.''
