Geoffrey Blainey says Indigenous Australians ‘far far better off’ since 1788

Prominent conservative historian Geoffrey Blainey has backed Jacinta Price’s claim Indigenous Australians are better off following colonisation.

Historian Geoffrey Blainey. Picture: Julian Kingma

Prominent conservative historian Geoffrey Blainey says Indigenous Australians are “far far better” off since colonisation and are benefiting from a dramatic increase in life expectancy since 1788.

Professor Blainey rejected suggestions it was a national shame that the life expectancy of Indigenous people was eight years lower than other Australians, backing leading No campaigner Jacinta Price’s claim colonisation had been positive for First Nations people.

Professor Blainey, one of Australia’s most prolific historians writing more than 40 books, ­argued the life expectancy gap ­between Indigenous and non-­indigenous Australians was “misleading” when used as a lone fact.

“The life expectancy of us all, Aboriginal peoples included, has improved dramatically since 1788,” he writes in The Weekend Australian’s Inquirer section.

“I myself believe that most ­Aboriginals and Torres Strait ­Islanders are far, far better off today than if they were living in 1788.

Senator Jacinta Price. Picture: Martin Ollman

“This land is infinitely more fruitful than it was in 1788, and most Aboriginals are now the gainers … Here in this continent arose a democratic society which, for all its imperfections, offers liberty in a world where liberty is not normal.”

Professor Blainey says the life expectancy of Indigenous Australians – recorded in 2018 as 71.6 years for men and 75.6 years for women – is “about the same as the average citizen of the world”.

“Every country in Africa has a much lower life expectation than Indigenous Australians. Even the European Union displays more than an eight-year gap between member nations,” he writes.

“There is a wide gap between north and south England. Today the Aboriginals have a life expectancy equal to that of Bulgaria and Romania. Their life expectancy is higher than that in peacetime Russia and Ukraine.”

Among other contentious claims in his piece, the 93-year-old pours doubt over the future of remote Indigenous towns, criticises the Native Title Act and ­refers to the “so-called Stolen Generation” as being made up of “Aboriginal children who had to be rescued for the sake of their own safety and welfare”.

Senator Price was condemned by the Healing Foundation, Central Land Council and other peak bodies, who said her claims were “a denial of history” and “an ­insult” to Indigenous Australians who had survived colonisation and the Stolen Generations.

Professor Blainey, who stirred controversy in the 1980s for ­critiquing the nation’s immigration policy and its intake of Asians, criticises Anthony Albanese and Indigenous Australians Minister Linda Burney for failing to congratulate No campaigners Senator Price and Warren Mundine.

“Here was a unique event, a national triumph for two true-blue Aboriginal leaders, Warren Mundine and Jacinta Price,” he writes. “Only one sentence was needed. (Mr Albanese) failed to speak that sentence.”

Former Australian of the Year Fiona Stanley said she had ­researched the health of Indigenous Australians for 50 years and the evidence was against the ­arguments of Professor Blainey.

Professor Fiona Stanley.

“There’s an ignorance about a lot of this. And people like Professor Blainey want us to see … how wonderful this colonialism was,” she said. “The aim of (the Stolen Generations) was genocide. And yes, Aboriginal outcomes have improved. But a gap is there because white outcomes have improved more quickly.”

In an article written with former Edith Cowan University pro-vice chancellor of equity Colleen Hayward and honorary emeritus research fellow Stephen Zubrick, Professor Stanley pointed to how between 40 to 60 per cent of families had been formerly removed from their homelands. Those who had been removed were nearly twice as likely to be arrested and more than 1.5 times as likely to abuse alcohol.

“It is mischievous and hurtful to deny the impacts of colonisation on today’s population,” the academics said.