Spin, waste, rent seeking, and lack of progress have become defining characteristics of Aboriginal Affairs

There were the makings of a much more damaging scandal some twenty years earlier. The Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission (ATSIC), which had been established (with high hopes) by act of parliament in 1989, was abolished in 2004. While it was the Howard government that abolished ATSIC, citing it as a failed "experiment in separate representation", Labor substantially avoided receiving collateral damage. This was both because it supported the legislation and because Gerry Hand, a previous Labor minister, had publicly clashed with several ATSIC figures. Effectively, ATSIC was scrapped because of issues with corruption and governance. There had been media allegations of criminal acts and fraud by some senior ATSIC officials, as well as some convictions.

A prerequisite to solving any economic or social problem is policy realism, and failure to face up to realities within Indigenous communities is at the heart of failure to close the gap.

To start with, in Australia there is no policy area more subject to public censorship or political correctness than Aboriginal affairs. The unspoken aim has been to promote "progressive" policies and opinions by supressing information that might cause public opinion to deviate from the official narrative.

The clearest example is how the "progressive" media, especially the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC), deal with Aboriginal affairs and acts as a mouthpiece for the policies of the Aboriginal industry. The ABC has increasingly become a bastion of politically correct language and opinions, while SBS has moved in the same direction since incorporating National Indigenous Television (NITV). Other prominent "progressive" media outlets include the Channel 9/Herald group, The Guardian Australia, and Channel 10.

Unspoken censorship among politicians, the Aboriginal industry, and the "progressive" media takes many forms.

The public is told what language is appropriate and what is not. The word "Aborigine" is out and was replaced initially by "Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander People" and "Indigenous". In recent years the term "First Nations People" has been pushed despite evidence that our ancient peoples qualified more as clans than nations.

The ABC promotes an image of Aboriginal peoples, as though they sometimes still play the same role as 200 or more years ago. Sydney for example is referred to as Gadigal Country, and the "ABC pays respects to Gadigal people ……the Traditional Custodians of the land where the ABC's Sydney headquarters are located. This practice is a formal recognition of the enduring connection of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples to Country, land, and culture."

The problem is that in virtually all but remote parts of Australia, the original Aboriginal clans have long ceased being significant custodians of the land, and their languages and many of their traditions have largely died out. In modern Australia, the main custodians of the land in non-remote areas are farmers and government authorities, while smoking ceremonies and the like have been introduced officially to many areas, where such traditions had either died out or had never been practiced.

ABC Canberra News from 2019 has been generally signed off "Yarra, Goodnight" in Ngunnawal language, as part of an Acknowledgement of Country. This initiative, which also less frequently included the greeting "Yuma" (hello), was a partnership with the United Ngunnawal Elders Council to recognise the Traditional Owners of the Canberra region. The problem is that the Ngunnawal language has been extinct for a long time, and the Ngambri people's claim to also be traditional owners is ignored. Both clans in any case, are now greatly outnumbered in the ACT by those of Indigenous descent originating elsewhere. Historical records record the last "full-blooded" Ngunnawal person, Nellie Hamilton, dying in 1897.

Promotion by the "progressive" media of an out-of-date image of Aboriginal people misleads the public. These media, as well as much of our political class, are also responsible for promoting misleading history, while alternative narratives and viewpoints rarely rate a mention.

The reality is that, while British colonial authorities routinely treated native people badly, exaggeration of historic wrongs has played a major role promoting a victim mentality and overstating the culpability of early settlers and administrators. In addition, first-hand historical accounts of early Aboriginal life and culture are now rarely referred to. Instead, they have been replaced by an ideological narrative of genocide and inter-generational trauma based on poorly evidenced "history".

The balance of evidence supports the view that the so-called "Stolen Generations" were not stolen but instead were either given up to authorities or removed for child welfare reasons. Similarly, stories of so-called "frontier wars" have been exaggerated and lack robust evidence in many cases.