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Sherwood, Juanita --- "Book Review - Black Lives, Government Lies" [2001] IndigLawB 7; (2001) 5(5) Indigenous Law Bulletin 26

Book Review

Black Lives, Government Lies

by Rosalind Kidd

UNSW Press 2000

64pp Paperback

RRP AUD$12.95

Reviewed by Juanita Sherwood

...they who control the information, control, to a frightening extent, what we understand as the historical truth.[1]

Black lives, Government lies is, as the name suggests, a highly provocative text. Considering this year’s celebration of the centenary of Australian federation, it is also timely and in the reviewer’s opinion is a book that every single Australian must read. The book’s brief format makes it an easily digested package furnishing unequivocal evidence of a distorted history produced as a result of colonial amnesia.

An example of an ‘historical truth’ that Kidd challenges is the term 'benign intent' which has been the catch-phrase of Herron’s administration of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Affairs portfolio under the Howard government in relation to policies of forcible removal of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children from their families.

Using documents from government archives, Kidd demonstrates that the intention of the administrators of the time was far from benign. Her use of the evidence is compelling and draws not only on historical sources but also the contemporary consequences of State protection on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples since the 1900's.

Kidd reports on the lack of funding by governments for Indigenous Australians who had been targeted by protection policies to come under the care of either the State or the Church. Reserve managers, Reverends in charge of missions, and medical authorities all documented both the inadequacy their funding and the consequences of under-funding on its supposed beneficiaries and begged the government to provide equitable funds. Death rates soared as result of malnutrition, inadequate clothing and bedding, lack of sanitation, lack of clean drinking water and cross infection arising from putrid and overcrowded living conditions which the State deemed adequate for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples f not for any other human being. The government ignored the protests of those who disagreed and many of our people died from preventable conditions, conditions that had been indirectly inflicted upon them by the government.

Successive governments, along with other agencies such as the police, the protectors and managers, deviously frauded funds from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander workers, in order to further reduce government expenditure on the welfare of Indigenous Australians:

the State's exploitation of Aboriginal savings through entrenched frauds and negligence and through legal and illegal manipulation of trust funds. This evidence is from Queensland government's own files. Knowing the terrible consequences of this extreme financial deprivation over most of last century, they stood by and recorded the hunger, deprivation and social distress.[2]

Kidd's text is particularly poignant to this reader who shares her opinion that the powerful are the writers of history. She is brave, honest and personal in her approach, informing the reader of her struggle to challenge and disassemble the myths that this country has fabricated in order to forget its brutal colonial past. It does not demand feelings of guilt but simply requests the reader to become aware.

Juanita Sherwood is a lecturer at the Koori Centre, University of Sydney.

[1] Rosalind Kidd, Black Lives, Government Lies (2000) 7.

[2] Ibid 47.


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