An interview with Gary Foley: history will judge Howard's reforms

A certain amount of historical appreciation is necessary when debating Indigenous issues, because such understanding is disappearing. Long-term stability in Indigenous communities is being compromised in favour of pragmatic and hasty policy, which result in nothing but superficial change.

Prime Minister John Howard’s “reforms” are all too familiar to a prominent and strident activist of years gone by: Gary Foley.

Foley believes, in perhaps a more militant and abrasive way than is necessary, that if an individual understands how their actions interact with history, the chance of effecting change is greater.

From setting up an Aboriginal Tent Embassy, to a legal service for Aborigines in Redfern, Foley’s activism has become comparatively co-operative with age. Teaching at the University of Melbourne, he has tutored nearly 600 students on the historical ignorance of White Australia.

Foley sees the profession of teaching as a necessary tool if Australians are to overcome their cultural inadequacies, but he remains convinced that universities, and the University of Melbourne in particular, are among “the most respectable [but] conservative organisations in the country”.

Both political and social institutions are arenas disliked by Foley and he can’t help but be suspicious of officials and authorities working in them: elected or unelected, Indigenous or non-Indigenous.

“Successive governments, in particular the Hawke and Keating governments, and the government of Whitlam, put a lot of effort into recruiting Aboriginal (sic) into the public service and training them into their way of thinking …”.

He speaks in specific reference to (but doesn’t mention directly) the director of the Cape York Institute, Noel Pearson, a man who played key roles in negotiating the Native Title Act in 1993, and was an advisor to ATSIC. Currently, he is the director of the Cape York Institute for Public Policy and Leadership.

“I don’t think about Noel Pearson”, says an unconcerned Foley.

In Pearson’s essay Layered Identities and Peace (PDF 65KB), his arguments seemingly most comparable to Foley’s (who would tend to disagree) are identified in the relationship between their “layers of identities”.

“Opponents and friends in any social conflict,” Pearson writes, “are marked according to some form of identity, whether political, cultural, religious, social or economic.

“And more layers of identity come to bear when we consider our wider geographic, political, social and sub-cultural affiliations.

“We are North Queenslanders, but often we are specifically people of Cape York Peninsula.”

Pearson, director of the Cape York Institute, has remained effectively silent on the government’s universal reforms, despite the fact they neglect the complex “layers of identity”. Admittedly Pearson’s essay relates only to the area of the Cape York, but extrapolating his theory beyond the Cape York would be extremely valuable.

With Mal Brough and John Howard using Noel Pearson as a poster boy for their political ends, his hesitance to openly criticise the government suggests reluctant consent. The potential for Aboriginal communities to benefit is too good an opportunity to pass up, so Pearson is in an awful position for an “authority” on such issues.

Foley, on the other hand, believes Pearson and his “band of cheerleaders” have misunderstood Aboriginal societies to begin with. In fact, the problem is not part of any social issue that government or Pearson may think.

“If you see it as a simple social problem, then you will never solve it and you will never understand it. It’s a historical and political problem”.

Granted, no solution would be without its controversy, but Foley’s pledge to history may be a valid one, particularly because it is somewhat trivialised in the current debate.

Eleven years of Howard’s inaction, or 150 years of disastrous government policy, cannot be forgotten amid the apprehension of one government initiative that aims to help Aborigines; a government initiative that, according to Foley, will, like its predecessors leave an undesirable legacy.

“You look at the whole history of Australia, the whole history of Australia is full of this sort of stuff, and the reason you’ve got that problem there now, is that every single government plan that involved imposing things on Koori communities has failed. Every single one, there is not one success story.”

And this, in Foley’s eyes, is what has given rise to what is known as the “Aboriginal industry”.

“If every Aboriginal person dropped dead tonight, there would be two million white fellas on the dole tomorrow. Such is the extent of the Aboriginal industry. These are the white fellas that (sic) have career paths that are purportedly helping us. Most of the money that’s spent goes straight into white pockets.

“We are talking about $35,000 million since 1972, if money had been given straight to the Aboriginal people, we’d be millionaires, and there would be no problem. But how would that help the people that depend upon our suffering for their career paths.”

Though it is equally problematic to put taxpayer money directly into the pockets of Aborigines; this is not what Foley is advocating.

“You will see that in some of the stuff we were talking about 30 years ago, some of things people praise Pearson for; getting people off welfare and getting economic self-sufficiency or independence of community, that’s the sort of stuff we were saying in the 60s”.

The money, he argues is being “pissed up against the wall”.

Though Foley believes Howard’s reforms will do more harm than good, there exist just as striking inadequacies in his rhetoric. In his eyes, a detailed historical understanding of Aborigines is more than essential if Australia is to address the inequalities of Indigenous Australians. Aboriginal history, however, covers about 40,000 years: with such a huge time frame it wouldn’t be defeatist to think it difficult for “White Australia” to access such a rich and complex history.

Despite this, the inequality suffered by Indigenous Australians is definitely complex and deserves more thorough attention than the hasty “reforms” pitched by Howard. The inequality does not exist in isolation with the sexual abuse of children like the government would have you think. Health, life expectancy, education and economics are but a few sectors where Aborigines are grossly disadvantaged and denied opportunity.

Foley’s era of activism is slowly but surely being outmoded, but his encouragement of a learned history is valuable. History is a useful means to craft decisions; a way of making sure blunders are avoided and that successes may be repeated.

After all, what unites Aborigines and White Australia is as Foley says “your history and my history: our history”. These “reforms” are yet another chapter, of which history will be the judge.