Telling it like it is: Land rights and the pastoral industry
Bludgers in Grass Castles: Native title and the unpaid debts of the pastoral industry
By Martin Taylor
Resistance Books, 1998
$3.95 from Resistance Bookshops (addresses page 2) or send $6 to PO Box 515, Broadway, NSW 2007
Review by Sam Wainwright
Living in Queensland, you sometimes wonder why it is the site of some of the most conservative and racist politics in the country. Martin Taylor's Bludgers in Grass Castles tells the history of the Queensland pastoral industry as it really is — founded on the dispossession of the land's original inhabitants, every bit as brutal as the decimation of north America's original population.
With white invasion, Queensland's indigenous population plummeted from 120,000 to just 20,000 by 1920. Both the violence and recentness of this history, and its virtual absence in "official" Australian culture, explain the fear, misunderstanding and outright racism still directed at Aborigines. John Howard and Rob Borbidge hope to crush once and for all the Aboriginal people's last modest claims to land by exploiting these prejudices.
Is the title of Taylor's pamphlet too harsh or provocative? He writes: "It is not the intent of this essay to imply that pastoralists are not hard workers ... but to show that the success of the pastoralists is due to unpaid human and ecological costs, and continual state subsidies."
Taylor documents how, from its inception to the present, the pastoral industry has relied on Aboriginal land, cheap Aboriginal labour and various forms of government intervention and help.
People need to know this history to understand why any talk of further compromises by Aboriginal people (let alone acceptance of Howard's 10-point plan) in the current struggle over native title is racist. If any of your friends or relatives suffer such illusions then get Taylor's work into their hands as soon as possible!
Taylor discusses at length the ecological impact of the pastoral industry. He documents the species loss, use of poison, dependence on antibiotics, land clearance, erosion and links to toxic blooms of blue-green algae. This dimension to the pastoral industry is important because it raises the question of whether it should even exist in many areas.
Given that the Wik decision left pastoral lease holders' rights intact and granted native title holders subordinate access rights to the land, why have so many pastoralists and farmers whipped themselves into a lather about the decision? Obviously the history and culture of rural Australia means that there are many who can not conceptualise sharing anything with Aborigines.
Furthermore, pastoral lease holders have tended to assume that their leases would be upgraded to freehold as a matter of course. The Wik decision was an unwelcome reminder that this is not yet the case.
Another factor is the very real economic pain being suffered by people in rural Australia, not least of all workers in the beef industry. Current government policy is exacerbating this. For instance, only those enterprises which meet a test for "economic viability" qualify for drought relief funds. Small family farmers are being deliberately driven off the land in favour of the "big" families and agribusiness.
The National Party and National Farmers Federation (NFF) are deliberately diverting the anger and pain of rural people into racist fear-mongering to take the focus off their own policies.
Most importantly, the big leaseholders, big business in general and above all the mining companies do not want native title to pose even the slightest hurdle to their plans. This is why Howard's 10-point plan will not be defeated solely by convincing ordinary pastoralists why they can and should reconcile themselves to coexistence with Aboriginal people.
Australian capitalism is determined to sweep aside every obstacle to increasing its profits, whether it be native title in the countryside or workers' wages and conditions in the cities.
It was the Waterside Workers Federation which threw their support behind the Gurindji people's strike against British pastoralist Lord Vestey, and the 1966 strike by Aboriginal stock workers in the Northern Territory in the 1960s demanding full award rates of pay.
It's not just coincidence that the NFF is behind the latest attempts to smash the wharfies. Taylor says the "persistence of Aboriginal people in reclaiming their heritage and culture despite all the odds against them shows a dignified courage that should be an inspiration to all Australians". Now, more than ever, we all need to draw on that inspiration.<>><>41559MS>n<>255D>