Piers Akerman: Divisive policies that prioritise Indigenous people just alienate the rest

Australia needs a more balanced, truly inclusive approach that respects all aspects of our overwhelmingly positive and diverse national story, writes Piers Akerman.

National Reconciliation Week finishes on Monday but what, if anything, was achieved except greater division?

Like National Sorry Day, NAIDOC week, Mabo Day, Survival/Invasion Day and other dates, the legacy of the past week is dubious.

The only certainty is that there will be further taxpayer-funded payments and continued mythification that every single Indigenous Australian is superior and exceptionally gifted.

The virtue-ambitious Western Australian Premier Roger Cook announced his government will give Indigenous Australians removed from their families before July 1972 $85,000 each because they must have been members of a Stolen Generation. Yet any Indigenous children removed from their families were taken by authorised officials acting under laws which mandated the removal of children if they were considered to be at risk of harm.

Any Indigenous children removed from their families were taken by authorised officials acting under laws which mandated the removal of children if they were considered to be at risk of harm.

The $85,000 is less than the $100,000 in Victoria’s scheme, but more than the payments from NSW and the territories ($75,000), South Australia and Tasmania.

The courts have been markedly slower in recognising Stolen Generation claims than our politicians, with fewer than five cases having any degree of success, but that hasn’t stopped the High Court discovering mystical elements of spirituality, proving it’s onside with maximum virtue.

Former senator Patrick Dodson. Picture: NewsWire/Martin Ollman

Indigenous former Labor senator Patrick Dodson, styled as the Father of Reconciliation, says Indigenous Australians are owed more than just equality. Practical reconciliation, the stuff that might actually matter to people stuck in remote communities where they can’t own their own properties, is not enough, Dodson reckons. They a re owed more because they have inherent and collective rights as the “first peoples”.

NSW Minister for Veterans and for Aboriginal Affairs and Treaty David Harris attended an Indigenous Veterans Commemoration Service at the Anzac Memorial in Hyde Park, Sydney, on Friday. There’s no doubt Australians with some Indigenous heritage fought in almost every war but singling them out overlooks the contributions made by those born in foreign countries.

The piper's lament for Australia’s dead of Long Tan. Of the more than 520 killed in the war overall, at least 35 were born in the British Isles and 11 in Germany – the number who identified as Indigenous may be fewer than a dozen. Picture: AAP/Australian War Memorial

In the Vietnam War, a review of records shows that of the more than 520 killed, at least 35 were born in the British Isles and 11 in Germany. The number who identified as Indigenous may be fewer than a dozen, though the records are sketchy.

The Diggers’ least concern was the heritage of their mates – and don’t we remember ALL servicemen and women every Anzac Day?

Australians voted 60-40 against dividing the nation by heritage but we now have daily reminders enforcing divisions.

Send a package by Australia Post and the form asks for any Indigenous names that may apply. And at every level, the education system falls over itself to present a much-disputed narrative of black armband history, that is when the curriculum isn’t alarming children with falsehoods about catastrophic global warming.

There is a time and place to acknowledge Indigenous culture, but there is a distinction between respectful recognition and forceful imposition.

The national broadcaster hasn’t just crossed this line – it leapt over it with abandon. It’s engaging in cultural engineering. It’s telling us that one part of our national story is more important than all others.

By pushing the Indigenous agenda so forcefully, they are alienating a significant portion of the population and undermining the very cause they claim to champion.

The nation needs a more balanced, truly inclusive approach that respects all aspects of our overwhelmingly positive and diverse national story.

Restoring pride in the national flag and love for our great country would be a good place to begin.

Originally published as Piers Akerman: Divisive policies that prioritise Indigenous people just alienate the rest