Wyatt’s Indigenous Commission a disaster waiting to happen

If established, the problem with Ken Wyatt’s Makarrata Commission is that it wouldn’t actually deliver anything truly meaningful for Indigenous Australians or improve their lives, writes Peta Credlin.

If there’s a key lesson from the Turnbull aberration, it’s that the Liberals do very badly when they become Labor-lite.

Scott Morrison won the election by disagreeing with the Labor Party, not by snuggling up to them on tax, energy, and identity politics. If the government now spends the next three years pandering to the climate cult or creating new, politically-correct bureaucracies — instead of actually getting common sense things done, like dams and better energy generation — electoral retribution will be swift.

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And let’s not forget how tight the margin is. Our nation’s politics has slipped further and further to the left largely because the Liberals have often seen their role as moderating Labor’s initiatives rather than respecting the values and institutions that have stood the test of time.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison with Ken Wyatt at Government House after the swearing-in of the coalition new government ministry. Picture: Gary Ramage

That’s why new indigenous affairs minister Ken Wyatt’s proposal for a Makarrata Commission — a quasi-parliament, just for Aboriginal people, that will second-guess the work of the real parliament — is so toxic.

Okay, Wyatt prepared it pre-election in his role as chair of a parliamentary select committee on constitutional recognition. As he stressed on Friday, it’s “not government policy”. But the relevant minister’s clear support for something as cumbersome, divisive and against the Liberal principle of equal treatment for everyone spells big danger ahead.

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As detailed in draft legislation, Wyatt’s Makarrata Commission would have a chairman and nine elected elders, with at least one from each state and territory; plus up to ten full-time associate commissioners. As a kind of parallel government, it would obviously be a very expensive, as well as a very large — and very busy — body. And don’t think that this is just a thought bubble — there are pages and pages of the legislation needed to make it a reality already drafted.

Ken Wyatt’s Commission won’t work. Picture: Kym Smith

If established, this body would conduct public inquiries, undertake research, analyse government policy, and monitor the performance of government bodies that affect indigenous Australians (in other words, it would monitor the performance of the entire federal government from an Aboriginal perspective). It would also investigate complaints from indigenous groups against the federal government and its agencies, could inform itself in “any way it thinks fit” — not far off a standing royal commission.

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The problem with this body is that it wouldn’t actually deliver anything. It would just carp and criticise the existing entities and individuals trying to deliver services to Aboriginal people. It would not get one extra Aboriginal kid to school. It would not get one extra Aboriginal adult into a real job. It would not get a single extra policeman into remote Australia or protect a single woman from bashing or a child from sexual abuse.

Wyatt’s Commission would only make Morrison’s right to rule harder. Picture: Kym Smith

But it would make every teacher, nurse and cop’s job harder and more rule-ridden. It would turbocharge the grievance industry. And if it didn’t lead to similar bodies for women, migrants, and people with disabilities etc., it would make every other group that feels disadvantaged, resentful against the special deal for Aboriginal people.

You know what’s the worst aspect of this terrible proposal? It’s exactly the kind of dingbat, ATSIC 2.0 idea that a Labor government would come up with — and Scott Morrison has just been re-elected precisely because he was NOT going to run a Labor-lite government.

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I am all for policy that advances the lives of indigenous people but would march in the streets about something that would formally divide us on the grounds of race, as this proposal sets out to do. The PM won’t like overruling his new minister on just his first week but the sooner this is dead, buried, and cremated, the better.

Originally published as Wyatt’s Indigenous Commission a disaster waiting to happen