Government adopts One Nation's policies
By Margaret Allum
Despite trying to distance itself from One Nation's policies with the launch of its “Harmony” anti-racist propaganda campaign, the Howard government has adopted more of the policies advocated by Pauline Hanson. The government is planning further attacks on migrants and indigenous people.
Before the launch of the $5 million Harmony campaign on August 14, the government decided to reassess the Abstudy scheme, the program designed to address educational disadvantages suffered by indigenous Australians. The government plans to narrow the definition of Aboriginal, which determines eligibility for income assistance for study.
Hanson has consistently called for cuts to Abstudy, claiming it is “too generous”, and that it is too easy for students to call themselves Aboriginal and benefit financially.
The move against Abstudy came shortly after Aboriginal affairs minister Senator John Herron called for the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission (ATSIC) to tighten its accounting for funding allocations to Aboriginal organisations.
He implied that some funding claimants were withholding information about their financial situation from ATSIC, a claim refuted by ATSIC leaders.
In another development, the federal government has called for a change in the wording of a recent United Nations declaration on the rights of indigenous people. Cabinet moved to oppose a clause calling for “self-determination” for indigenous people, preferring the more restrictive terms “self-empowerment” or “self-management”.
Despite the non-binding nature of the declaration, Howard and Hanson share a “concern” about the declaration's implications. The as yet unsigned declaration was criticised in lurid terms by Hanson in June. She claimed that non-Aboriginal Australians would be extremely disadvantaged by the declaration, and Australian sovereignty would be threatened.
Migrants, too, are the victims of Howard's increasingly overt racism. A proposed federal government rule seeks to prevent those seeking refugee status from working for wages while they await the results of their application. The rule will apply to those whose initial application is refused, and who are appealing the decision.
Hanson's persistent calls for further restriction of the already meagre rights of immigrants in Australia, as well as her proposals for a halt to immigration, have not been ignored by the Howard government.
“If the Howard government was serious about opposing racism it would reverse its own racist policies”, declared Marina Carman, the Democratic Socialists' lead Senate candidate in NSW and a spokesperson for Resistance, the organisation which has called the August 28 walkout against racism.
Noting the Howard government's efforts to extinguish native title, its cuts to Aboriginal services, its introduction of discriminatory welfare rights for new migrants, its cuts to immigration, and its approval of uranium mining on Aboriginal land at Jabiluka, Carman commented: “No wonder young people see Howard and Hanson as a racist tag team.”
