It should not shock anybody that some of the nation’s most respected Indigenous leaders were forced to debate radicals claiming genocide is a government policy in Queensland in 2025.
This is life as a moderate in Aboriginal politics, especially since the voice debate sent hardliners to their respective corners where some are getting bolder.
Marcia Langton was not the problem two years ago when she said some Australians are racist. Some of us are. A real threat to cohesion comes from people who want the endless fight. People who live for the performance are also showing us how to achieve nothing.
While Langton was working with the Morrison government on a proposal for a legislated voice, the Blak Sovereign Movement was fomenting malcontent. An Indigenous advisory body – legislated or constitutionally enshrined – was always too timid for activists who do not recognise the coloniser.
While some on the right are preoccupied with symbolism like flags and welcome to country ceremonies, veterans of Indigenous rights such as East Kimberley elder Ian Trust are getting on with the practical work of running a resort that employs local Aboriginal people. Like most stalwarts of Indigenous politics, Trust does not mind who the government of the day is. He has worked well with both sides and hopes for a prime minister who listens and learns from what he knows about the poison of welfare and the horrors that flow from the oversupply of alcohol to the remote north. However Indigenous leaders who seek respectful relationships with government are often maligned behind their backs and even to their faces. The continued suffering of their people becomes their fault. They are labelled establishment, elite and part of the problem. Both sides have been guilty of this.
In Indigenous affairs, the hard left is as destructive as the hard right. Neither is interested in good outcomes other than entirely on their own terms.
The Brisbane summit last week of 100 Indigenous leaders, activists and experts in their fields was called to discuss a disaster for Indigenous children and youth in Queensland.
Queensland’s youth crime scourge is a long-predicted consequence of child removal practices. The numbers are extreme and getting worse.
Report after report shows out-of-home care is a pipeline to jail in Australia. For years, these same reports have recommended early interventions that support parents to make the changes they need to make in order to keep their children safe and at home. Some of the nation’s most experienced Indigenous leaders arrived at the summit deeply unhappy with the Crisafulli government’s actions but aware it was reaping what others had sewn.
Emotions were high over the extent of the human crisis and the LNP’s decision to override its own Human Rights Act to treat children as adults.
However, moderates at the summit had reason to believe Premier David Crisafulli was reachable, partly because he had described the state’s child safety system as broken. The day before the summit began, he ordered a commission of inquiry to examine the failings.
Then activists at the summit revealed they wanted to make a splash by accusing the state of genocide in a formal statement. This is when senior leaders stepped in. They knew this would derail the summit. It would be all anyone spoke about. At the end of a closed-door debate, the word genocide was gone.
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