Time to stop the dreaming.(Australia)

FAR BE IT FROM ME to differ from Edmund Burke, but when he said, "People, sir, must never be regarded as incurable", he had not encountered Australia's Aboriginal industry today.

Writing here last month about John Howard's approach to Aboriginal issues, I noted that:

* When the Bringing Them Home report was published, Howard refused to accept its untruthful central thesis. A decade later, no evidence has been provided--and certainly none that has stood up in court--for its claims. Its shameful charges of "genocide" are now treated with the scorn they always deserved. Faced with this barefaced attempt at moral blackmail, Howard stood firm.

* Pressed to offer a formal "apology" on behalf of Australians today for those alleged atrocities of which their forebears have been accused by the Henry Reynolds school of black-armband "historians", Howard remained immovable. He saw that, as usual where Aboriginal issues are concerned, this matter was really about money (first, last and foremost) and shaming the nation. He refused to countenance either.

* With one exception (the Australia--United States Free Trade Agreement), this is probably the area for which, in terms of changing the debate, the nation is most in Howard's debt.

When I wrote this, the Rudd government, while formally rejecting the claim for money, was still shilly-shallying over what form of shaming it would proffer. This, that article said, would be a pointer to its future behaviour. More generally, the extent of any backsliding from the Howard government's approach to Aboriginal issues would be of the highest significance.

This article will not canvass in detail the events of February 12 and 13, which have been, ad nauseam, the stuff of journalism rather than of serious discussion. It attempts, rather, to look into the future.