Mansell, SARAH STEPHEN">
BY SARAH STEPHEN
On June 14, the Fairfax company’s Melbourne Age and Sydney Morning Herald each ran a three-page expose detailing the stories of four women who allege that they were raped in the 1970s and ‘80s by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission chairperson Geoff Clark.
In the weeks since, there has been a concerted media campaign calling for Clark’s resignation. Under extreme public pressure, former ATSIC head Gatjil Djerrkura, Queensland ATSIC board member Jenny Prior and ATSIC deputy chairperson Ray Robinson are amongst those who have urged Clark to resign.
Former ATSIC chairperson Lowitja O’Donoghue, Democrats deputy leader Aden Ridgeway, and NSW magistrate Pat O’Shane have risen to the defence of Clark’s right to be presumed innocent unless found guilty through the courts.
In an interview on the ABC’s Lateline program on June 14, O’Shane responded to a question about whether she thought there was a conspiracy against Clark. “If I were to say there are allegations against a senior Liberal party politician in the federal government accused of sexual assault when he was at university, would you run that? Of course not. For the very reason that he is who he is. But if it’s Geoff Clark, head of ATSIC in this country, yes, it gets a run. One has to question the motives in those circumstances.”
In coming out against the media lynching of Clark, O’Shane made comment that “a lot of women manufacture a lot of stories against men” — a statement that rightly outraged many feminists since it reinforces the sexist view that most claims by women of sexual assault are malicious fabrications, not to be taken seriously by either the police or the courts.
Over the last week, the discussion in the corporate media has shifted from speculation over Clark’s guilt or innocence over the rape allegations to an exploration of the “epidemic” of sexual violence within indigenous communities. Not only is this discussion being conducted in a profoundly racist context, what has become implicit as a consequence is the presumption of that Clark is guilty of the alleged rapes.
Clark’s political `crimes’
What was the Fairfax press’s motivation in giving such extensive coverage to the rape allegations against Clark? Its reporters certainly didn’t just stumble on this story. Andrew Rule, a senior reporter for the Age, was put on a three-month assignment to dig up “dirt” about Clark.
There is no legal basis for the corporate media to declare Clark guilty on the grounds of the published accusations of rape. Last July, a case involving one of the four women was dismissed due to insufficient evidence. The most recent allegations, which relate to alleged incidents between 17 and 30 years ago, have not been tested in a court of law.
Clark has been put in a position where he cannot legally defend himself. The more the accusations are repeated day after day in the press, and on radio and television, the more they become accepted as fact.
In replying to the allegations, Clark declared: “My only crime is that I am an Aboriginal and I have had the audacity to question the legitimacy of this country, to question the treatment of Aboriginal people ... and I have called for a treaty to settle our differences.”
Since Clark became the first elected chairperson of ATSIC in 1999, he has repeatedly called for a treaty between the federal government and indigenous Australians. He has put forward proposals for affirmative action for indigenous people in employment, and has not been prepared to accommodate to the white ruling elite’s attempt to blame Aboriginal poverty upon “welfare dependency”, instead arguing that the focus has to be put back onto the provision of jobs.
Clark’s willingness to be explicitly critical of the Howard government’s indigenous affairs policies has meant that he’s proved to be more difficult for the government to work with than previous ATSIC chairpersons.
Discrediting ATSIC
A central aim of the white establishment is to use the accusations against Clark, and the ensuing debate and divisions, as an opportunity to discredit ATSIC, and to call into question its right to control its own funding decisions.
This was one of the key planks of the Howard government’s attack on indigenous people in its first term of government — an attempt to undermine the credibility of ATSIC through exposing a so-called “rorts” scandal. It was then Aboriginal affairs minister John Herron who led the campaign to undermine the credibility of ATSIC.
Criticisms of ATSIC were part of the government's campaign to stifle any public outcry about the government’s cuts in funding for indigenous organisations.
There were concerted attacks on the notion that indigenous people (the most disadvantaged group in Australia) should be given additional and special assistance to overcome the effects of more 200 years of racist discrimination.
Recent commentary has picked up on this theme from the past and attempted to discredit ATSIC’s ability to make the “correct” decisions about funding priorities. Sydney Morning Herald columnist Miranda Devine commented on June 21 that “ATSIC admitted this week it spends just $3.9 million of its annual billion dollar budget on domestic violence `legal prevention‘ programs. On the other hand, it is reported to be preparing to spend close to a million dollars championing a treaty.”
ATSIC commissioner for family policy and women’s issues Marion Hanson hit back at the government for cutting ATSIC’s budget by $470 million over four years from 1996. “A lot of programs were cut, women’s centres were closed”, she said. Hanson explained that in its latest budget, ATSIC has committed $3.9 million to establishing 12 family violence legal units around the country.
Opponents of racism should defend Clark’s right to remain as ASTIC chairperson against what is clearly a political campaign waged the capitalist media to discredit him and to force him to resign as head of ATSIC.
ATSIC must also retain the right to decide how its budget is allocated. Furthermore, Aboriginal people must have the means to elect their own leaderships, to control their own organisations, and to make their own decisions about funding priorities, without the fear of those elected leaders being vilified and forced to resign if the corporate media disapproves.
This point was strongly underlined by indigenous leader Michael
Mansell. Interviewed on Lateline on June 22, Mansell said: “I think if Geoff Clark goes, it will send all the wrong messages to the Aboriginal people that ATSIC is full of argument, dissension, people can't stand against the slightest media pressure, and it also makes ATSIC an enormous target for those in the conservative government who want to reform it.
“I don't think there's any dispute that there is a vendetta against Geoff Clark by the Age. The Age has said in editorials that Geoff Clark must go and presumably they want a new leader.”
Mansell correctly pointed out that exposing the problem of domestic violence within indigenous communities was not had what motivated the Fairfax press’s attack on Clark. He said, “the difference between Aboriginal people who say, look, we know this is a problem, and we need to address it the same as white Australia needs to address its sexual abuse issues [and the Fairfax press]... is that the Age and the Sydney Morning Herald ... are using this issue as an excuse to run their vendetta against a particular Aboriginal political leader.”
“There's sexual abuse of Aboriginal children and Aboriginal women by Aboriginal men, and it has to stop”, he added. “But it doesn't mean that I'm going to go after Geoff Clark or anybody else to stop it.”
