Australian Politics

Time to get rid of Indigenous reconciliation police

It's just a racket

After last year’s referendum there is a new willingness to look closely at Indigenous agendas that favour division over unity.

When Indigenous elder Marcia Langton said no Indigenous person, including her, would deliver a welcome to country if Australians voted No to the voice, the floodgates opened to lingering concerns about whether a welcome to country divided us or united us. We discovered that many Australians believed it was the former, and had grown tired of receiving mini-lectures before meetings, sporting events, school assemblies and other gatherings.

Another issue crying out for sunlight is embedded inside most Australian companies, especially the biggest ones, along with government departments, not-for-profits and other groups. There you will find a Reconciliation Action Plan. And behind this “RAP”, as they are colloquially called, is one single organisation – Reconciliation Australia.

Reconciliation Australia tells these groups how to run their Indigenous outreach programs. Within RA and the bodies that unthinkingly do RA’s bidding with their RAPs, there is a shocking misreading of mainstream Australian values. Though the referendum proposal failed, the voice’s radical separatist spirit lives on in the RAPs of thousands of groups across the country. Given that ignores the memo sent by voters on October 14 last year, it’s time we asked whether RA, and RAPs, should be abolished.

The referendum result shows that Australians overwhelmingly believe in a single sovereign Australia in which we all have equal civic rights.

At the same time, Australians have enormous goodwill for Indigenous Australians, especially those suffering disadvantage. The country has devoted vast amounts of time, money and effort to practical measures to improve the lives of Indigenous people, and we are overwhelmingly happy to devote more to such practical endeavours.

However, the latest Closing the Gap report shows that RA and the 2700 RAPs inside Australian organisations have failed to shift the needle. There are poorer outcomes in early childhood development, increased numbers of Indigenous people in prison and more children in out-of-home care, as well as more Indigenous suicides.

Life expectancy gaps are not on track, nor are school completion rates, or employment or training or tertiary education.

That Closing the Gap targets are not being met is not from lack of care among mainstream Australians. It’s down to something else.

Reconciliation is one of those words that sounds nice. But what if this word, reconciliation, has become camouflage for holding tight to a set of policies that continually fail Indigenous people? What if RA is nothing more than a shakedown racket, playing on institutional anxiety and laziness to instil in those same institutions across the country a radical rights-based agenda that has patently already failed generations of disadvantaged Indigenous people?

RA enjoys monopoly power. Just about every major company or other group wanting to signal to the rest of the country that its leaders and workers believe in reconciliation drafts a Reconciliation Action Plan agreed with RA.

Once that’s done, they will be applauded by RA for formalising their commitment to reconciliation and can parade as moral corporate citizens. Many will be at Reconciliation Australia’s gala dinner next month in Brisbane.

In 2006, prime minister John Howard launched the Reconciliation Action Plan program with professor Mick Dodson to encourage companies and other groups to effect practical solutions for Indigenous Australians. Since then, it seems that RA and its soldiers inside the environment, social and governance departments of big corporations have turned reconciliation into a covert pursuit of a ’70s-style separatist rights agenda.

What follows is hard to say and may be harder for some to hear. The focus of Indigenous activists on reconciliation and self-determination have set back the lives of the most disadvantaged Indigenous people. These are big amorphous words used by elites in the Indigenous industry – by groups such as Reconciliation Australia – to capture demands made by Indigenous groups.

And the model of modern identity politics means that when a victim group makes demands, the oppressor group must say yes because, as Damien Freeman said in this newspaper recently when explaining the voice agenda, who are the oppressors to question what victims demand?

This dismal model has certainly delivered good outcomes for elites in the Indigenous rights industry – they work in our law schools, sit on advisory committees, host radio programs, deliver speeches and fill the board of RA. The other consequence of identity politics has been to entrench even further into our body politic a rights agenda, giving short shrift to responsibilities.

Reconciliation Australia is a prime example. This not-for-profit entity is primarily funded by the federal government (through the National Indigenous Australians Agency) and various BHP entities. Its funding pie of about $10m is neither here nor there.

RA’s influence comes in controlling and giving its imprimatur to RAPs, and emphasising self-determination for Indigenous peoples. About 2700 groups have a RAP. That includes every significant Australian company – BHP, of course, but also the big banks, Coles and Woolworths, and the rest of the ASX 100, as well as the pre-eminent professional legal and accounting firms, government departments, not-for-profit entities, governmental agencies and other groups. RA offers four levels of RAP, each more activist than the former.

Many companies have the two highest levels – called Stretch and Elevate – which, according to the website, “can only be done in careful consultation with RA” due to the “specific requirements, expectations and processes”.

RA tells would-be RAP applicants that after they have paid their RAP registration fee, they will draft their RAP using one of RA’s templates, submit it to RA and “expect a minimum of 2 to 3 rounds of feedback” before RA will conditionally endorse it.

Given they are sourced from an RA template, it’s no surprise most RAPs look the same and embody principles peddled by RA from the separatist era more than 50 years ago when Gough Whitlam endorsed the UN’s International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights in 1972.

That UN instrument, applicable to every person equally, was overtaken in 2007 by the radical UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, or UNDRIP.

As RA chief executive Karen Mundine said to a 2023 parliamentary committee looking at incorporating UNDRIP into Australian law, RA’s Reconciliation Action Plan program “has been informed by a strong commitment to self-determination, drawing on the principles of UNDRIP”. According to Mundine, the organisations with RAPs “are committed to actions to progress reconciliation and embed the principles of UNDRIP in the policies, governance and practices of those organisations”. How many board members of big Australian companies realise that their RAP embeds the UNDRIP principles in their organisation?

UNDRIP is part of that UN phenomenon where the world’s activists for a particular cause design a “one size fits all” revolutionary charter that is often grossly inappropriate for many countries.

There may be countries and indigenous peoples for whom UNDRIP, or parts of it, makes sense. Australia is not one of them.

Our federal parliament has not incorporated UNDRIP into domestic law and could never do so because it is comprehensively inconsistent with Australian law and our political framework. Even a recent Labor-Greens dominated parliamentary committee stopped short of recommending it be made binding.

For example, article three of UNDRIP provides that by virtue of the right to self-determination, Indigenous people must “freely determine their political status and freely pursue their economic, social and cultural development”.

Article four says self-determination includes “the right to autonomy or self-government in matters relating to their internal and local affairs, as well as ways and means for financing their autonomous functions”.

Under our Constitution every Australian has equal rights, but this UN document clearly gives special rights to indigenous people. How does that work in practice when a company or other group endorses UNDRIP?

Take Coles, for example. Its RAP prominently features UNDRIP and says the supermarket recognises the declaration’s principles and will explore how to apply them within its operations.

Did executive and board members at Coles take some time out from thinking up clever pricing strategies to read the details of UNDRIP before signing off on the company RAP? Is Coles supporting self-governing states for Indigenous groups?

Article 14 of UNDRIP demands that “Indigenous peoples have the right to establish and control their educational systems”. Is Coles demanding a separate Indigenous school system? What about the fundamental responsibility of parents to ensure their children go to school?

How many chief executives and board members of other companies and groups understand that their RAP is a Trojan horse for a rights-based agenda that has failed generations of the most disadvantaged Indigenous Australians, especially women and children?

Or do companies sign up to RAPs without proper board scrutiny? It’s entirely possible the ESG department tells the chief executive that their company needs a RAP to be a good corporate citizen and, hey presto, a RAP – largely dictated and overseen by RA – is born.

That’s not to say all things companies and other groups commit to in a RAP are divisive or inappropriate. Coles deserves credit for supporting Aboriginal health service The Purple House, for donations of food and groceries to remote Aboriginal communities and for its training and recruitment of Indigenous young people.

But corporations could, and should, deliver all these steps to practical reconciliation without linking them inextricably to what appears to be the inflammatory separatist agenda of Reconciliation Australia.

The separatist attacks on Australian sovereignty are undoubtedly the worst features of the corporate RAPs sponsored by RA because they go to the heart of our cohesion as a society and a polity.

But plenty of other features in RAPs surely irk mainstream Australians to varying degrees. Endless claims that the land we live and work on is Indigenous land – even if it’s located in Pitt Street or Collins Street, are ubiquitous in RAPs and a constant feature of the welcomes to country we are forced to endure.

Indeed, it’s the compulsion behind RAPs, similar to how groups foisted the voice on workers, customers and other stakeholders, that will cause division.

The more aggressive corporations make no apology for their coercion. KPMG (some will say, who else) actually brags that in 2021 its national executive committee decided that Indigenous cultural awareness training would become mandatory for all staff and partners because attendance at voluntary training fell short of targets. This is terribly counter-productive. Compulsion is not even close to what reconciliation should be about.

The unforgivable shame is that by swallowing the four RAP flavours of RA’s Kool-Aid, big Australian companies, government bodies and other groups are taking the lazy and irresponsible path.

By outsourcing reconciliation to RA, Australia’s biggest companies have turned RA into the nation’s reconciliation policeman. That allows RA to guarantee that reconciliation and self-determination are far more wedded to rights agendas than practical outcomes, let alone responsibilities.

The biggest beneficiaries of this reconciliation racket are those Indigenous elites who give reconciliation directives, provide cultural training courses, sit on boards of groups such as RA, deliver welcomes to country, advise companies on how to draft a RAP and trot off to international gatherings to talk about self-determination.

How this provides any help to an Indigenous child in a violent family who hasn’t been to school for more than 100 days, has a mum who’s addicted to grog and an absent father is not obvious.

Companies and other groups don’t need RA. Forget the RA model of re-education cultural training camps in the workplace. As working adults, we can read and learn for ourselves.

If all companies, especially our biggest ones, got rid of their RAPs and instead focused on practical and generous steps towards reconciliation – scholarships, apprenticeships, support for health centres, food banks and the like – we would cheer their commitment to improving the lot of disadvantaged Indigenous Australians from the rooftops.

Corporate Australia should move out from under the shadow of RA for another reason, too. The separatism at the core of RA, and the RAPs signed by companies and groups across Australia is out of step with the result of the October 14 referendum last year when an overwhelming majority of Australians voted for unity, not division. That’s another way it saying it is time to get rid of Reconciliation Australia and its ineffective and divisive RAP program.

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/inquirer/time-to-get-rid-of-indigenous-reconciliation-police/news-story/98e12392df94cbdc153b4debbbf329a0

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ACT Greens accused of ‘extremism crisis’ after candidate James Cruz’s Hezbollah post

An ACT Greens candidate has been forced to issue a clarifying statement after a social media post in which he appeared to suggest Iranian-backed militant group Hezbollah should be removed from Australia’s list of proscribed terrorist organisations.

James Cruz, Greens candidate for the seat of Kurrajong, came under fire after he said on X that “more and more” people were arguing that Hezbollah should be taken off the terror list, prompting Coalition calls for the Greens to address their “growing extremism crisis”.

Mr Cruz was replying to Guardian podcaster Nour Haydar, who suggested Jewish groups had led the charge for Hezbollah to be listed as a terrorist group.

Mr Cruz replied: “Remove Hezbollah from the list of terrorist organisations? You’re hearing it more and more.”

Amid a backlash over the post, Mr Cruz issued a statement saying he had only remarked that “other people have queried the listing”.

“Hezbollah is a listed terrorist organisation and the Greens are not arguing to change that,” Mr Cruz said. “I back that position of the Australian Greens.”

Opposition home affairs spokesman James Paterson said it was “utterly extraordinary” that an endorsed Greens candidate believed the remarks were appropriate, calling on the left-wing party to dump Mr Cruz from its ticket.

“Hezbollah are proscribed in Australia and around the world for very good reason – they are terrorists,” he said.

“Over a four-decade reign of terror they’ve killed tens of thousands of innocent civilians in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and even Argentina, where they blew up a Jewish community centre in 1995, killing 84 people.

“The Greens must address their growing extremism crisis and it should start with disendorsing James Cruz.”

During a recent wave of demonstrations marking one year since Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel, the Australian Federal Police targeted protesters displaying the Hezbollah flag, which is a prohibited symbol due to concerns it could ignite violence.

The furore over Mr Cruz’s post came just a week out from the October 19 ACT election, which will see Chief Minister Andrew Barr pitch for another term after 23 years of Labor government.

ACT Greens leader Shane Rattenbury said the comments raised a “sensitive and complicated issue”, but declined to comment further.

Greens sources told The Weekend Australian Mr Cruz’s X account had recently been hacked and deleted by a third party.

Conservative group Advance accused the Greens of “standing with Hezbollah and Hamas at protests”, rather than acting as a “party of environmentalists”.

“Not only do they stand with Hezbollah and Hamas at protests, they float changes to how those barbaric organisations are treated by our national security apparatuses,” spokeswoman Sandra Bourke

“The Greens aren’t who they used to be, and more and more Australians are seeing it as the Greens show their true colours.”

The stoush followed federal Greens deputy leader Mehreen Faruqi’s refusal to declare Hamas should be dismantled.

Mr Cruz’s comments surfaced the day after revelations came to light that ACT Greens candidate Harini Rangarajan had reportedly written a blog post comparing 9/11 mastermind Osama bin Laden to Jesus Christ.

“I’ve gone on to idolise several other martyrs – Bhagat Singh, Husayn ibn Ali, Guru Tegh Bahadur, Che Guevara, Jesus Christ, Balachandran Prabhakaran, Joan of Arc, Osama bin Laden, etc,” her post reportedly said.

In his pitch to voters Mr Cruz said he was drawn to run for the Greens because of the party’s commitment to end homelessness and its recognition of housing as a fundamental human right.

“Growing up in poverty and living in public housing showed me the urgent need for a society that addresses inequality and the growing housing crisis,” he said.

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/greens-accused-of-extremism-crisis-after-candidates-hezbollah-post/news-story/108c0ecd5411bc97d85cf5ec8173b49f

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The eSafety Commissioner concedes – for now

Australia’s eSafety Commissioner has conceded their position regarding orders sent to X to block footage of the attack on Bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel.

In April of this year, the eSafety Commissioner wrote, or should we say, ‘demanded’:

‘I am exercising my powers under the Online Safety Act to formally compel [online platforms] to remove [the footage]. I have issued a notice to X requiring them to remove this content. A legal notice will also be sent to Meta this afternoon, and further notices are likely to follow. I will not hesitate to use further graduated powers at my disposal if there is non-compliance.’

This request was made possible by the authority contained within the Online Safety Act and its new eSafety Commission set up by the former Liberal government.

Australia now sits on the map beside places such as China, Brazil, and Russia when it comes to the restriction of news stories.

Many have grown to suspect this Online Safety Act, whether intentional or accidental, constrains the independent press granting a de facto market advantage to established media giants. In doing so, it also strengthens the media’s existing political relationships.

Social media and the sudden rise of citizen journalism presents an existential threat to the media. By extension, it has weakened the control our government has over public reception to its policies. Criticism can no longer be silenced with the promise of a seat on the press bus.

Previously, online government censorship existed in the shadows through private requests made to platforms, particularly during Covid. The public suspected something was amiss, but Elon Musk confirmed the political interference after purchasing Twitter. 4,000 requests were secretly made by the Morrison government to censor posts, the majority of which turned out to be true. Was this an abuse of power, and why has there been no apology from the Liberals who today say they oppose Labor’s censorship bill? Does the current leadership regret its previous actions? We do not know. They will not discuss it.

‘The online world cannot be a cowards’ cavern where the rules of the real world do not exist,’ said then-Prime Minister, Scott Morrison. ‘Big tech and social media giants must be held to account. Our plan will force them to do more – they cannot create it, and wash their hands of all consequences of it.’

Funny. That’s how most people feel about politicians and their hair-brained policies.

Over the weekend, the eSafety Commissioner, Julie Inman Grant, announced:

‘Today I have decided to consolidate action concerning my Class 1 removal notice to X Corp in the Administrative Appeals Tribunal. After weighing multiple considerations, including litigation across multiple cases, I have considered this option likely to achieve the most positive outcome for the online safety of all Australians, especially children.’

It would be interesting to hear an elaboration from the eSafety Commissioner about how removing video footage of a news incident helped ‘keep children safe online’ when no such action has been taken to remove far more violent footage of things such as … the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas.

Why this footage? Why this incident? By what criteria is the censorship of the news undertaken and how, we may ask, is one piece of footage more damaging to ‘children’ than another?

Or, as many of us suspect, is ‘child safety’ being increasingly and lazily used as a means to justify the censorship of adults?

X’s Global Government Affairs account posted the following:

X welcomes the decision of the Australian eSafety Commissioner to concede that it should not have ordered X to block the video footage of the tragic attack on Bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel.

After the attack, a number of X users posted video footage of the event. The Bishop himself thought the public should be allowed to see the footage. However, the eSafety Commissioner ordered X to block Australians from seeing the footage on X – even though it was available on some other platforms.

X objected but complied within Australian borders, pending a legal challenge by X. Unsatisfied, the eSafety Commissioner demanded that social media platforms censor the footage worldwide. While other social media companies did so, X fought in the Australian federal court. The court ruled in favour of X and rejected the eSafety Commissioner’s global censorship demand.

Meanwhile, X filed a legal challenge arguing that the video footage should not be blocked even in Australia. Six months later, the eSafety Commissioner has conceded that X was correct all along and Australians have a right to see the footage.

It is regrettable the Commissioner used significant taxpayer resources for this legal battle when communities need more than ever to be allowed to see, decide and discuss what is true and important to them.

Whether in Australia or around the world, X will fight for your right to free speech.

This is not the only battle for free speech being fought online. Billboard Chris is still waiting for his appeal against the eSafety Commissioner to be held next year.

The eSafety Commission brands itself as ‘empowering all Australians to have safer and more positive experiences online’ but that depends on your definition of ‘safety’, ‘positivity’, and ‘empowerment’.

What is empowering about having an unelected and unaccountable government authority deciding what we can and cannot know about our world?

https://www.spectator.com.au/2024/10/the-esafety-commissioner-concedes-for-now/

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The Christian vote swings against Labor

When planning for the next federal election, due by September 2025 with some pundits suggesting as early as March, Prime Minister Albanese (aka one-term Albo) cannot ignore the Christian vote, the majority of which is Catholic.

Approximately 44 per cent of Australians identify as Christian and, proven by the 2019 election when Scott Morrison was unexpectedly re-elected as Prime Minister, a significant number of such voters appear to be swayed by their religious beliefs.

Such was the impact of the Christian vote that the review commissioned by the ALP after its electoral defeat recommends the party do more to ensure its polices gain the support of faith-based voters, instead of alienating what is a key constituency.

The report concludes that in outer urban and regional electorates, especially in Queensland, ‘When all other variables are controlled for, it is estimated that identifying as Christian was associated with a swing against Labor.’

While inner-city electorates, now dominated by the Teals and Greens, champion Woke causes including Indigenous reconciliation, multiculturalism, gender diversity, and climate change – there are millions of voters who are more conservatively minded.

One only needs to look at the 60/40 vote against the Voice to Parliament to realise, as argued by the cultural critic Roger Scruton, that most people, unlike the cosmopolitan, inner-city elites, centre their lives on family, local community, and the need for social cohesion and stability.

It’s obvious that if Albanese and the Labor government are keen to attract the millions of Christian voters who will decide the electoral outcome in marginal seats across Australia, they are going about it the wrong way.

Based on existing policies, and what the government plans to do if re-elected, it’s clear the ALP government has turned its back on Christian and Catholic voters when it comes to issues like religious freedom and freedom of conscience as well as school funding.

The Albanese government’s failure to introduce its Religious Discrimination Bill to Parliament, even though the draft bill was made public in 2021, represents a serious threat to the millions of voters identifying as Christian.

Whereas current anti-discrimination legislation makes it illegal to unfairly discriminate against someone on the basis of age, sex, gender identity, race, and disability the same protection is not afforded to people of religious beliefs and faith.

While those of Jewish faith are facing a rising flood of antisemitism in Australia where they are vilified and attacked on a daily basis by those seeking Israel’s destruction, it’s also true, though less violent and less extreme, that Christians face hostility and prejudice in Australia.

Examples include Victoria’s legislation to fine and imprison priests and Christian parents for daring to counsel children about the dangers of gender transitioning. Tasmania’s Archbishop Porteous has also been punished for advocating church teachings. To this we add the ACT government’s compulsory acquisition of the Catholic-owned Calvary Hospital, public figures like Israel Folau and Margaret Court being attacked for their religious beliefs, and the head of Brisbane’s Citipointe Christian College being pressured to resign over the school’s enrolment policies.

In an increasingly extreme secular world where human rights activists and elected representatives of various left-wing political parties argue Christians must be banished from the public square, it’s obvious more must be done to protect religious freedom.

Currently, faith-based schools are exempt from anti-discrimination legislation regarding who they employ and who they enrol. Religious schools, given their primary purpose is to remain true to their faith, must have control over staffing and enrolments.

The Albanese government’s failure to ensure such rights are protected represents another reason why parents who send their children to religious schools have every reason to fear what happens next year if the ALP government is re-elected. Especially if the Greens hold the balance of power.

Education Minister Jason Clare has stated a number of times that government schools deserve greater funding while one of the ALP’s long-term supporters, the Australian Education Union, opposes funding Catholic and Independent schools.

To financially penalise parents by reducing Commonwealth funding to non-government schools threatens parental choice as well as being financially counter-productive. Catholic schools enrol 19.7 per cent of students while Independent schools, the majority of which have a religious affiliation, enrol 16.3 per cent.

The cost to government, and taxpayers, of educating students in religious schools is significantly less than the cost of educating students in government schools as non-government school parents contribute billions of dollars annually to educate their children.

Catholic school parents contribute approximately 23.6 per cent of their children’s school income while Independent school parents contribute 46.9 per cent. If such students were enrolled in government schools the cost to government and taxpayers would increase dramatically.

There’s no doubt cost of living will be the main issue at the next election but, at the same time and proven by Scott Morrison’s win in 2019, the Christian vote will also be a deciding factor.

https://www.spectator.com.au/2024/10/the-christian-vote-swings-against-labor/