National Observer Home > No. 42 - Spring 1999 > Editorial Comment

Defence, Security and Aboriginals

Much discussion of Australia's defence takes place, but a view that is gaining acceptance is that at the present time the greatest danger to Australia's defence is found in increasing Aboriginal acquisition and control of land.

The Aboriginal lobby (sometimes called the Aboriginal industry, since it disposes of hundreds of millions of dollars provided by the Commonwealth government) has become unacceptably influential.¹ 

By dint of political correctness and a lack of political courage by politicians such as Messrs. John Howard and Lou Lieberman and mischievous comments by Mr. Kim Beazley, ² Aboriginals have obtained control over extraordinarily high proportions of the Australian continent.

For example, already 54 per cent of Australia has been claimed by Aboriginals, and a total of 79 per cent is subject to potential claim by them. Even in Victoria, which is relatively highly developed and with few Aboriginals, 15 per cent of total land has already been claimed and 30 per cent is subject to potential claim.

The foregoing is all the more surprising in view of the relatively small number of full-blood Aboriginals who exist, perhaps in the order of 50,000. That this small group, together with vociferous part-blood associates, should control such a large proportion of this country is increasingly a cause of astonishment and apprehension.

Defence Implications

At the present time there is no immediate military threat to Australia (unless Australia provokes Indonesia into conflict, as some left-wing groups evidently desire; and the insistence by Mr John Howard that Australia should itself lead an international force in East Timor is a matter for concern). The Communist Chinese are increasingly minatory towards Taiwan, and Indonesia is putting down by force a number of secessionist movements in its territory.  However neither China nor India is presently showing any particular interest in Australia.

It is a truism that the absence of a present threat may not prevent the arising of a threat in ten years time or even in a shorter period. At one time the thought that Japan was a threat was ridiculed, but the subsequent bombing of Darwin was not an illusion. But in 1999, nonetheless, the absence of immediate external threats should be accepted.

Unfortunately, the threat that is arising comes from within. The large areas that have come under Aboriginal control have an entirely unpredictable future. The Aboriginal stone-age culture has not prepared its people for the modern world. Aboriginals have no history or experience of dealing with Asians or other cultures. And Aboriginals have in the past gone to foreign forums, for example, the United Nations, in order to achieve their objectives as against non-Aboriginal Australians.

If Aboriginals are prepared to go to the United Nations,³ against their fellow Australians, there is clearly a prospect that they will go to other, possibly Asian, countries for assistance in achieving their aims.

One cannot exclude the possibility that they may invite in United Nations "observers," or "advisors" or "friendly faces" from other countries. Indeed, many of the Aboriginals' representatives — commonly part-blood, with generous salaries paid by the Commonwealth government — betray an aggressiveness or hostility that would make interference and trouble-making from outsiders attractive to them.⁴

Inexplicable government weakness in giving way to Aboriginal demands hence gives rise not only to growing economic and social problems within Australia, but threatens Australia's capacity to defend itself.

National Observer No. 42 - Spring 1999