Apology foundation perpetuate fable

FORMER Prime Minister Kevin Rudd could never be described as self-effacing.

Arrogant, yes. Abusive, yes. Narcissistic, certainly. That last trait may be the reason he tried to thrust himself back into the spotlight last week with the announcement that he would establish a National Apology Foundation to recognise the “principles” of his 2008 apology to the so-called “stolen” generation. Not surprisingly, he has a chairman in mind. That person would be K.Rudd. According to reports, the new foundation will be launched at a fundraising function by the end of the year, with a key mandate to ensure the “apology” remains in the national memory in future. “Rather than trying to hide our indigenous origins from the rest of the world, instead (we should be) fully embracing our indigenous identity as part of our wider national identity,” Rudd said. There is a lot that could be said about Rudd’s brief trajectory across the national political horizon. He came, he spoke incomprehensibly, he was responsible for wasting the surplus left after the sound economic management of the former Howard-Costello government, he was responsible for pushing ahead with the ludicrous but lethal “pink batts” insulation scheme and he was responsible for weakening the effective border protection policies that had successfully stopped the boats. When he reversed that policy, he not only broke his own pre-election promise to “turn back the boats” but he also effectively ensured that hundreds and hundreds of hapless men, women and children would drown lured to their deaths by what Indonesian president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono described as “the sugar on the table”. While most Australians recognise that it is totally unacceptable that far too many of those who identify as Aboriginals are unemployed, ill-educated and in poor health, it is also a reality that Rudd’s tearful apology did little or nothing to alter their situation. His elaborate ceremony, with its recently contrived “traditions” may have made some Aboriginals feel better about themselves in the short term and it may have made many of those who like to smugly parade the imagined moral superiority feel even assured of their ethical pre-eminence, but it didn’t change anything. As Prime Minister Tony Abbott said when he delivered his first Closing the Gap report to a joint parliamentary sitting Wednesday: “the bad news is that there’s almost no progress in closing the life expectancy gap between Aboriginal and other Australians - which is still about a decade. “There’s been very little improvement towards halving the gap in reading, writing and numeracy. And indigenous employment has, if anything, slipped backwards over the past few years. We are not on track to achieve the more important targets. “Because it’s hard to be literate and numerate without attending school; it’s hard to find work without a basic education; and it’s hard to live well without a job.” But apart from delivering a warm inner glow to those who think they are the most deserving, Rudd’s apology also served to give some credibility to the whole notion of “stolen children” though no court has yet found any plausible evidence that any child was ever actually “stolen”. The repercussions from this well-intentioned but so far baseless campaign are far-reaching. Academia, not unnaturally, seized upon the flawed history and used it to push its usual anti-European theme. Schoolchildren are now taught that the fiction is fact. The ABC and Fairfax unquestioningly publish any material which they think will further cement the fable into the national consciousness. Worse, vulnerable Aboriginals have embraced the myth to embellish their status as victims of an unjust system. In NSW, Greens MLC David Shoebridge who has been actively promoting the fable used the apology anniversary to assist a group of about a dozen Aboriginals whom he had met recently in Gunnedah with a protest outside State Parliament. According to the ABC’s PM program the “group of grandmothers from Gunnedah in New South Wales are using the anniversary to warn of a new stolen generation”. Reporter Brendan Trembath declaimed: “For nearly a century, tens of thousands of Indigenous children were forcibly removed from their families by state and federal governments and church missions.” Absolute hogwash, but that’s “our” ABC today. He went on to interview a woman who claimed her grandmother and aunt were forcibly removed from their families and now four of her grandchildren are in care. Shoebridge was given an open microphone to declare “Between 1997 and 2012 we saw a fivefold increase in the number of Aboriginal children being removed across Australia. And NSW tragically is a real hot spot, it’s the highest rate of Aboriginal child removal and more than one in 10 Aboriginal children across New South Wales are in care. It’s the new stolen generation.” “Our” ABC didn’t seem interested in the reasons why some Aboriginal children are taken into care but it’s never a decision taken lightly, further, in NSW, 81 per cent of those who are at risk are placed with family or Aboriginal carers. Any intelligent reading of the available data might have suggested that NSW would have the highest rate of Aboriginal child removal – because it has the greatest population of Aboriginals of any state or territory. A fair reading would have noted that, according to the statistics, the growth in the numbers of young Aboriginals placed into care has been roughly in line with the overall population growth in recent years but in 2012 was actually below the growth in population size. That doesn’t fit with the Green narrative however, or that preferred by the ABC and Fairfax, because it would indicate that the conservative NSW state government is actually performing better in the area of social policy than Green/Labor can manage. While more can be done, there’s no need to apologise for that performance.