COMMENT BY SARAH STEPHEN
Aboriginal communities are populated by drunken, violent criminals, are racked by internal squabbling and lack any credible leadership — if you believe corporate media reporting of indigenous domestic violence.
According to newspaper commentators, ATSIC has covered up its "darkest secret" and Aboriginal families are populated only by the violent (the men) and those who are victims of it (the women and children).
The media frenzy which surrounded the Fairfax newspapers' allegations of sexual assault against ATSIC chair Geoff Clark hasn't stopped there; it's become a full-scale witch-hunt.
The mud-slinging continued on June 25 when arch-conservative and homophobe Senator Bill Heffernan used parliamentary privilege to make untested allegations against Cairns ATSIC regional council chair Terry O'Shane.
Heffernan has a dirty little obsession with homosexuality and paedophilia and spends much of his time setting out to "expose" public figures he doesn't like. In the current climate, his mud is likely to stick regardless of whether the allegations are true.
Deputy ATSIC chair Ray Robinson has also been caught in the cross-fire, with Heffernan exposing a rape conviction when Robinson, then 17, was found guilty by a white jury against the urging of the judge. Robinson maintains his innocence.
As the allegations pile up, this whole affair is taking shape as a vendetta to discredit ATSIC and the indigenous political leadership as a whole.
Violence against indigenous women is being used as part of a concerted attack to discredit indigenous society, indigenous culture, and the credibility of all indigenous men, especially those in leadership positions.
Some would like to see the replacement of ATSIC's whole leadership, or even the commission itself.
The usually liberal Margo Kingston summed up much establishment sentiment in a scathing comment in the Sydney Morning Herald on June 27 with the title, "Stop this cover-up: it's time for a new generation of Aboriginal leaders".
"It's time to stop messing around", Kingston cried. "ATSIC must be overhauled, the cover-up must end and a new Aboriginal body put in place to lead the fight for the safety of Aboriginal women and children ... ATSIC should have led this debate for years. It should have been its top priority to expose the crisis and to shame white governments into financing solutions."
But who is this new generation of leaders? Noel Pearson, perhaps, or at least someone who shares the government's values? Employment minister Tony Abbott has referred to Pearson as "a prophet for our times", just the one to assault indigenous "welfare dependency".
Questioning the suitability of ATSIC's leadership as a consequence of a media witch-hunt amounts to unacceptable interference in indigenous people's right to elect their own leaders. What confidence can indigenous people have in the election of an ATSIC chairperson when they've seen how effectively the media can run a campaign to discredit them and drive them from office?
The government's minister for Aboriginal affairs, Philip Ruddock, is even considering amending ATSIC rules which currently prevent the head of the organisation being removed, to allow for the chair to step aside temporarily or be sacked if the majority of the board agrees.
All such moves should be opposed.
Let's recognise this campaign for what it is — a concerted, racist political campaign to discredit and undermine the political authority of indigenous leadership in the lead-up to a federal election, and at a time when public sympathy for reconciliation and a treaty between indigenous and non-indigenous Australians is at an all-time high.