On the morning of March 11, 2019, One Nation leader Mark Latham released a speech in the media, said avoiding the blue eye and blond hair people welfare cheating, people needed to provide their DNA testing results to get the welfare benefit, of course, they need to be paid money for the testing. (Dunlop, G, Latimore, J, 2019). In the media, it was implied that the motive of the party was to get extra money (Dunlop, G, Latimore, J, 2019). It was also reported in The Sydney Herald, that Mark Latham said that anyone who wanted to claim Aboriginal ancestry would be forced to do DNA testing to stop welfare rorters (Han, 2019). Cathy Wilcox drew a cartoon published in the paper “Genetic testing”(2019) of The Sydney Morning Herald. In the cartoon, the woman who does DNA testing said Latham was right to identify correctly, but she was against doing so. Aboriginal DNA testing is not a simple policy, especially connecting with Indigenous welfare. Because of the complicated background of Aboriginal policies, the policymaker needs to think about carefully whether it is suitable for Indigenous recognition.
Focusing on Mark Latham's announcement, they propose to set up a new DNA testing system instead of the three-part definition. Only those who have DNA testing results and twenty-five percent Aboriginal ancestry can be recognized as Indigenous Australians (Dunlop, G., Latimore, J, 2019). They believe that those people with blue eyes, and blond hair are rorters of welfare and the old system was abused, and the new commercial DNA test system which claimants need to pay $150 to get the result can also stop the corruption in Aboriginal communities(Dunlop, G, Latimore, J, 2019). Another reason for releasing a new DNA testing system is that they thought the DNA testing system had already worked fine for US Indigenous Americans(Wolfe, 2019).
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All of Mark Latham’s ideas exist underneath some assumptions. The first assumption is fake Aboriginals rorted the welfare system. They went to the Central Link counter, simply saying that they were Aboriginals and then the Central Link staff accepted them and gave them welfare benefits. The second assumption is that people who have blonde hair and blue eyes cannot be Aboriginal. Their third assumption is that the DNA testing is precise, every Aboriginal can do a DNA test and get their ancestry.
Let us discuss One Nation’s assumption. Firstly, about the fake Aboriginals rorting the welfare system. We cannot find evidence from Central Link or websites about Aboriginals cheating the government system but do find some fraud cases of some companies and government-founded service stuff criminal records, and the Aboriginals are victims(Smith, Jorna, 2011). What is the problem of the welfare system? In 2014, the Social Security minister, Kevin Andrews said that the welfare system was unsustainable because the number of those relying on the disability support pension(DSP) was 800,000 in mid-2013, but the number was only 714,000 in 2007(Whiteford, 2014). According to the department assessment, more than 97,000 claims applied for DSP, only about 27,000 were successful and 70,000 failed from 2016 to 2017(Michael, 2018). The long-term unemployed trend increased double from a lower 50,000 in 2006 compared with nearly 100,000 in 2016(ABS, 2018). No clear evidence can be found in the welfare review that Aboriginals cheating the welfare system.
The second assumption of One Nation’s statement is fair- skinned person cannot be indigenous. Go back to the history of early colonization. Social Darwinism impacted Indigenous policies in Australia in the early twentieth century(Essays, 2018). In theory, the race of Indigenous Australia was doomed to extinct (AT). The Aborigines Act 1905 was an example issued based on this theory in Western Australia. All Aboriginal people's lives were governed including their living place, jobs, and marriage. For Assimilation, Aboriginal and half-caste children were forced to be taken from their parents with changed names and sent to white families or some institutions or orphanages where neglect and cruelty were usual(Behrendt,2012). They were forbidden to speak their language, taught to study white culture, and gave up their Indigenous heritage, some children thought they were orphans (AT). However, the records of the children and their families were kept by churches, some missions, or non-government organizations, and many of them were lost(AIATSIS). On 26 May 1997, the Bring Them Home Report came into public sight. This 689-page report collected oral and written evidence from over 500 Aboriginal people and all other related people and organizations (BTH). People were shocked at the truth of what the Aboriginal families suffered (BTH). From 1 July 2009 and 30 June 2012, $13.8 million in funding was committed to Link Up services establishing “Return to Country” to help the Stolen Generations and their families(AGDOSS, 2014). This progress still works continually today. Because of the history which white policies made, ‘half-caste’, and ‘quadroon’ Aboriginals are looked like ‘white’. Because of this, can we identify Aboriginal people by their skin color?
Another assumption is DNA testing can be precise enough to get Aboriginal ancestry. In Australia, organizations do not have enough Aboriginal autosomal samples in the database(Kowal, 2018). The Division of Immunology lab leader, Dr Misty Jenkins said that it was impossible to do DNA testing to find Indigenous ancestry because of the inexistence of the Aboriginal genome(Fryer,2019). Dr Jenkins also said the two companies which supply DNA testing services can only do paternity tests, but cannot do testing for Aboriginal ancestry(Fryer, 2019. Booth’s case is another proof that DNA testing is unbelievable. Andrea Booth is a journalist and did DNA testing with STRs for ancestry finding. Her parents are from Europe and Asia, but she got results from “Central Australian ancestry”(Kowal, 2018).
Has the welfare been given especially to Aboriginal Australia? If Indigenous people want to get grants, enroll in university units, access Centrelink, or be employed in an Indigenous position, they need to provide proof of Indigenous heritage(AIATSIS, 2018). According to the NSW Aboriginal Land Rights Act 1983, confirming Aboriginal has three parts: Aboriginal descent, identification, and community recognition(POA, 2003). Not everyone can be accepted by the community if they can’t find the claimed ancestor in their records, like Jacqui Lambie’s case(Grasswill, 2014).
As Latham said stopping welfare wasting, the Aboriginal leader, Geoff Clark was accused of welfare corruption(Neal, 2018). Clark was the chairman of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission (ATSIC), his wife and his two sons were accused related to $685,000 in corruption in October 2018(Neal, 2018). This happened because of the weakness of the supervision mechanism, the vulnerable Aboriginals are all victims. Government welfare expenditure covered six areas: early child development and education and training; healthy lives; economic participation; home environment; safe and supportive communities; and, other government services(AGPC, 2017). There are still 31 percent of Aboriginal people living under the poverty line, and it is 54 percent in remote Aboriginal communities which is twice as many in cities (Davidson, Saunders, Bradbury, Wong, 2018). Roy Ah-See who is the co-chair of the Indigenous Advisory Council, said he still remembered the feeling of surviving in depending on welfare when they grew up(Ruming, 2018). We can believe that most fair-skinned people want to reunite with their family and then go back to the Aboriginal community because their parents or grandparents were forced to separate from their living. As we discussed earlier, fair-skinned can be Aboriginal, dark black people are not always Aboriginals.
Who can decide who is Aboriginal? Ketchell checked over 200 Aboriginal writers’ biographies or autobiographies and found that they had no concern with the definition of race. Many Aboriginal people have more than two or three non-Indigenous ancestors, but they still believe they are Aboriginals, because they think culture and styles are the most important are the most aspects of Aboriginal defining(Ketchell, 2014). Three-part definition policy has been used since 1987 according to the law NSW Aboriginal Lan Rights Act 1983 and works fine in NSW(Parliament of Australia, 2003). For DNA testing, not only were scientists told that DNA testing was not available for testing Aboriginal ancestry, but also the DNA company declared publicly that they did not have enough Aboriginal genomes and were not able to get the correct result of DNA testing(Fryer, 2019). The commercial DNA testing fee is also not $150 like Mark Latham said, the claimer needs to pay $450 for the service(Fryer, 2019). For Aboriginals who are living under the poverty line, this is a disaster news. As Wilcox described in the cartoon, DNA testing sounds correct, but it is stupid to make it very precise for Aboriginal identification.
It is over 200 years since settlers colonised the Australian continent. Racial discrimination, assimilation, miscegenation, and stolen generation, all happened to the local Indigenous people. The First Nation, as a member of Australia, has right equalling everyone in Australia, especially in education, employment, and living environment. They also have the right to decide what race they want to stay in if they have more ancestors. They should also be respected equally as anyone else, and should not be judged by skin color. Helping them move from poverty circumstances, improving the whole education level, increasing job opportunities, and giving them chances to change their living is the government party needs to think about, is the most important task, not just feeding welfare to them to survive. The special culture of Aboriginals is one part of Australia, and should not be doomed to extinct. If one party can respect history, correct the wrong policies, develop the economic level, and improve the working and living environment for people, no matter whether, the right-wing or left wing, they will win.
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