Two-tier over here

Martin Lynch I 3 September 2024 I Spectator Australia

Two-tier policing is one of the driving forces of the ‘mostly peaceful’ protests in England.

We have had two-tier policing in Australia for years, starting off with the Anunga guidelines in 1976. Since then, there has been a slow, but steady erosion of even-handed impartiality in every step of justice administration.

There are different sentencing guidelines that result in lesser sentences for Indigenous offenders, including for violent offences. I saw it happen as a police officer in Cape York and the Torres Straits. As the excellent Jacinta Nampijinpa Price points out, the people who suffer from this are Indigenous women and children, the most vulnerable of the vulnerable.

‘Our’ justice system is schizophrenic. It claims and trades on impartiality but is quite obviously two-tier in application. If this issue isn’t addressed, Australia will eventually see the same results as England.

The Closing the Gap productivity report makes for grim reading. Things are going backwards for Indigenous people. Yet, after the crushing defeat of the Voice to Parliament referendum, vocal members of the industrial guilt complex want more of the same. They continue to advocate for separate race-based parallel legal systems, effectively creating an Indigenous state within the State. One thing we can all agree on is something must be done.

A major contributor to the steady deterioration of quality of life for Indigenous people is the existing positive discrimination regime which reaches into every facet of life.

Two-tiered apartheid is everywhere.

There are entire government departments dedicated to Indigenous people. There are cultural advisors and diversity hires in most mid and large-level corporations. There are separate Indigenous medical services. After birth, there are special grants, exemptions for housing, education, and even subsidised funerals.

There are people who identify as Indigenous who have no greater connection to land, place, or culture than any other Australian. Rather, their social power is based on being credentialed in providing ‘cultural services’ despite not living these rituals, let alone knowing how to track, hunt, fish or identify good bush ‘myee’ (the Wik word for food). Many Indigenous people have come to feel that those in the city, who are the most disconnected from the land, have begun dictating to regional Indigenous people through arrogant and dysfunctional organisations.

These city-bound Indigenous groups, some believe, value theory over practical skills, which is why they express a dislike for elected officials such as Senator Price. Disproportionately influenced by left-wing ideology, the Queensland government’s answer to the Voice referendum defeat was to ignore it. The Voice is still being implemented in Queensland, but surreptitiously through a pathogenic spread of administrative bureaucracy.

‘Local decision-making bodies’ are self-selected, nominated, and approved by bureaucrats. De-colonising means removing democracy. These bodies are full of individuals who implemented a new form of apartheid, syphoning off hundreds of millions while making things worse.

While this country was not founded or continuing to prosper on Indigenous oppression, the existence of two-state apartheid means we can’t say Australia isn’t systematically racist. This positive discrimination racist apartheid, a regime that encompasses not just systems but culture and mindset, hasn’t worked. As the Productivity Commission report shows, it is counterproductive. It will take considerable political will, moral fortitude, and politicians with real character to stand up and bring it to an end.

It is time to stop listening to those obsessed with race-based ideology and benefit from what I believe to be a corrupt system. These individuals have set themselves up as gatekeepers to an endless treasure trove of public money, positional authority, and counterproductive positive discrimination measures. We should be appalled by those who are benefiting from the suffering of truly disadvantaged Indigenous Australians in remote, isolated communities like the ones I lived and worked in.

We all agree that people should have a voice and the right to participate in decisions that impact their lives. We can achieve that if we apply the principle of subsidiarity, a theory of social organisation which holds social and political issues should be dealt with at the most immediate, local level that is consistent with resolution. North Queensland is disproportionately Indigenous, Cape York and the Torres Straits are almost entirely so. Applying subsidiarity while maintaining our current constitutional arrangements and Westminster system could play out in two ways.

First, create a new state in North Queensland. This was expected by our Founding Fathers and specifically enabled in Federal and State constitutions. The expectation was people in the future; that is us, would want control over our own lives, not wanting to be dictated to by far off Capitals whose people and culture were shaped by different issues and concerns.

Second, go local. Give local people control over government services like hospitals, schools, and justice administration through elected boards. This simple change will mean local managers will in effect become CEOs, responsible to community-elected boards instead of answering to Brisbane-based, unelected, unaccountable, bureaucrat heads of departments. It is that simple.

Imagine decisions being made by representative local boards rather than bureaucrat bosses disconnected from the land and local area. The latter make decisions based on false, but politically correct and ideologically acceptable narratives. Constant promises to make bureaucrats more efficient and accountable or that a change of party will somehow change things have proven to be wrong. Along with a new state, going local is a great way of uniting people together to act in their own best interests. Everyone wants systematic change. These are ideas whose time has come.

Author: Martin Lynch