Too many elephants

Vanguard February 2014 p. 2
Verity M.

  

                                                                             

Warren Mundine (above, right) delivered a speech to the Gama Festival  corporate dinner,    'Four Giant Steps: Shooting The Elephants'. 

The Gama Festival and conference on Indigenous culture, policy and economic development is held  in Darwin.  The conference audience was comprised primarily of a cross section of 'the most successful companies in Australia '. Mundine's speech was obviously tailored to this audience just as the advisory committee  he leads advising  Tony Abbott has structured its thinking to meet the needs of the Coalition and capital.

Mundine began  his speech with a run through of the seemingly intractable problems impacting on the lives of Aboriginal people, too well known to need reiterating here. These he attributed to failed policies over preceding decades but in  particular the failure of these  to challenge the collective ownership of land and the closed nature of remote communities.  These are two of the elephants in the room which, according to Mundine, impede economic development and 'wealth creation' in remote Aboriginal communities.

Mundine speaks of the possibility and desirability of the establishment of Aboriginal small business in remote areas and of course that is desirable and possible given funding, training and ongoing support, providing of course there is sufficient population to support the facility.

What Mundine is really pushing is the privatisation of Aboriginal land to facilitate commerce which in turn, so the conservative belief goes, creates  employment.  Private land ownership according to Mundine is "the foundation of commercial systems and a critical enabler for economic development". In another part of his speech, Mundine speaks of "outside investment" as a means of lifting the living standards  of remote Aboriginal communities. 

This kind of thinking fits in snugly with Abbot's message to the world that "Australia is open for business" or more accurately 'for sale'. The largest elephant in the room is obviously foreign investment.  It seems the prevailing vision is for Aboriginal lands to be open for business particularly the kind of business that delivers huge profits for international capital. Once the land is bought /99-year leased it can be developed in any way the new owners find most profitable unless the sale/lease is tightly regulated and this is not a regulating government. 

Open access to Aboriginal lands may entice some small businesses to set up a commercially viable business in an aboriginal community but opening land for commercial interests will primarily benefit global mining and agricultural capital which will move in, take over the land and give a few locals a job. Sounds like neo-colonialism, a lot like old colonialism that created the problem in the first place.

What is missing in Mundine's speech is the voices of the people living in the remote areas Mundine is talking about.  Mundine's committee is not going to solve the problems he itemises in hisspeech , nor is big business. 

Global capital is feverishly seeking investment opportunities, particularly in the energy sector and agriculture is also becoming a money spinner with Asian markets seeking more Australian produced food. Marketing Aboriginal land must sound very appealing to governments more interested in meeting the needs of international capital than in meeting the needs of their own people.
.........
Incidentally, Abbot has set up a committee to examine locations for dumping uranium waste - only local waste of course, but if government can find a bit of land to dump the waste of the international nuclear industry then it will be doing some capitalist a big favour.  They would not want to hold their breath however; there is almost universal resistance to using Australia as a dumping ground for the world's uranium waste.