It takes a certain degree of taxpayer-funded chutzpah to do a story on people dubiously claiming “Aboriginal” status in order to further their careers and/or access race-based welfare — and feature none other than Bruce Pascoe, pontificating about the damage done by fake Aborigines. But that’s SBS for you: the taxpayer dime can buy a lot of things, but self-awareness clearly isn’t one of them.
The 2021 Census reported a 25 per cent increase in the Indigenous population in the five years since the previous census.
This compares with Census figures showing the total Australian population increased by 8.6 per cent between 2016 and 2021.
So, are Aboriginal Australians breeding like rabbits, or is something else going on?
In a phenomenon University of Sydney post-graduate student and Wiradjuri woman Suzanne Ingram described as “race-shifting”, people, who for the bulk of their lives have identified as non-Indigenous Australians, are now “box-ticking” ‘Indigenous’ as their identity in the Census, at workplaces, within cultural institutions and in educational settings, to name just a few.
This is Suzanne Ingram, by the way.
Critiquing the validity of the beyond birth rate increase in the First Nations population, Ms Ingram argued, if the newly identified group were to be tested against the three-point criteria, from the 812,728 people who self-identified as Indigenous, “there has been data to suggest that [the population] should actually be about 300,000 less.”
However, she explained the problem lies not only with the individual, but also rests upon the non-Indigenous “enablers” who accept the potential misrepresentation, without having knowledge or qualifications to know what is truthful and what is cultural identity fraud.
Which brings us to Bruce Pascoe.
University of Melbourne Professor, Bruce Pascoe, the award-winning author of Dark Emu, agreed this is a serious issue, telling Insight special host Karla Grant that he has witnessed the First Nations community change dramatically since he began identifying as a Yuin, Bunurong and Tasmanian man decades ago.
“I think we are in dangerous times, with that explosion of people identifying.”
Mr Pascoe now holds the opinion that some who identified later in life “need to pull their heads in a bit.”
Yes, he actually said that with a straight face.
It might be worth keeping in mind that professional genealogists have researched Pascoe’s family tree — and traced every branch of it back to England. When pressed on his claim to be “Aboriginal”, Pascoe notably hems and haws and avoids the subject.
Yet, here he is, pontificating away:
“What I have seen is recent identifiers coming with their income, and their education, usually acquired because they’re not dark [skinned], skewing what is happening in local Aboriginal politics.”
Some of them even write ludicrous books and make a ton of money peddling the most historically nonsensical claims.
Veteran activist Stephen Hagan — most famous for forcing a name-change on Coon Cheese — argues, not unreasonably, that the Fauxborigines are doing real damage to the real deals.
“People are being remunerated very handsomely to hold a lot of senior positions and in our business” and organisations.
“People are growing rich on our misery.
“This increase in fake Aborigines coming into the organisations. They are basically white people.”
Yes, yes they are. But Andrew Bolt was sued and vilified for saying much the same thing.
Pambalong woman Kumarah Kelly […says] “If you find out that you’re Aboriginal when you’re in your late 40s, you cannot be a cultural knowledge holder.
SBS
No, but you can charge a lazy few grand a pop to do a “Welcome to Country” ceremony. You can even become a Greens politician and rake in 200 grand a year on the taxpayer dime.
And it’s looking like more than a few people in the “Aboriginal Industry” are just trying to slam the door shut, now that they’re resting easy on a mound of taxpayer loot.
