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23 July, 2021
How white Aussies who pretend to be Aboriginal are taking over universities and stealing high-paid jobs meant for real Indigenous Australians
Andrew Bolt blew the whistle on this some years back and was prosecuted for it
Aboriginal academic Victoria Grieve-Williams remembers the first time a white female acquaintance asked if she would support her claim to be Indigenous.
The woman was working in what was then the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission and it would help her career if she was actually Aboriginal.
Dr Grieve-Williams, a Warraimaay woman from the mid-north coast of NSW and now adjunct professor at RMIT University in Melbourne, refused the woman's request.
'She actually called me and asked if I would support her in her claim to be an Aboriginal person,' Dr Grieve-Williams told Daily Mail Australia.
'I said to her that I couldn't do that because I didn't know anything about it. I'd always known her as a non-Aboriginal person.'
Ten years earlier the woman's mother, who worked at a university with Dr Grieve-Williams, had made a point of saying her daughter was not Aboriginal when they were discussing a particular course.
'Other people filled in the story with what was going on with her and why she wanted to be Aboriginal,' Dr Grieve-Williams said.
'A big reason was that she was working within ATSIC and they'd reclassified a job to be a position held by an Indigenous person. She told me that on the phone.'
The woman then sought to claim membership of an Aboriginal family group but they rejected her. A second mob did the same and she has since sought to identify with a third group that has not accepted her as one of their own.
The woman is now a professor at an Australian university where at least on paper she is considered Aboriginal.
Dr Grieve-Williams says the woman is one of growing number of Australians who claim to be Indigenous when they have no such ancestry.
These people are sometimes called 'box-tickers' - because they literally tick a box to say they are Aboriginal - but are known in Canada as Pretendians and in the United States as race-shifters.
Dr Grieve-Williams describes what they do as 'Indigenous identify fraud'.
'Aboriginal people are actually very badly affected by this,' she said. 'Universities and governments are employing so-called Aboriginal people without due diligence. 'High-level positions, huge salaries, great opportunities through Indigenous Business Australia, all of that's being gobbled up.
'There's no penalties, or checks and balances. These numbers are increasing.'
There is no way of knowing how many box-tickers there are in Australia but the practice seems particularly prevalent in academia and sectors of the public service where Aboriginality is sought and sometimes rewarded.
'It's a huge problem but the figures are difficult to assess,' Dr Grieve-Williams said.
Dr Grieve-Williams said Australian universities employed bogus Aboriginal academics as professors and right up to pro and deputy vice-chancellors.
How the government accepts Aboriginality
The federal government has applied a three-part test of Indigeneity since the 1980s. A person is considered Indigenous if he or she:
a) Is of Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander descent
b) Identifies as an Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander, and
c) Is accepted as such by the Indigenous community in which he or she resides or has resided.
When accessing services intended to address the social, health and educational issues that Indigenous people often face, proof of Indigeneity is required to ensure the intention of the assistance is honoured.
Most individuals seeking government assistance are required to provide a certified statement from an appropriately qualified individual or organisation (such as a local land council) to prove their identity and eligibility to receive services.
'The interesting thing I'm finding with my research is that Aboriginal people always recognise them, they always know they're not Aboriginal,' Dr Grieve-Williams said. 'Aboriginal people have been saying, "Hold on, that person isn't one of us" and nobody takes any notice.
'It's not only Aboriginal people who recognise it. It's non-Aboriginal people too.'
Box-tickers, who are concentrated in major east coast cities, are appropriating a culture that is not theirs and taking jobs and resources meant for Aboriginal Australians.
'It's very surreal, particularly to a person my age because when I grew up the worst thing you could be was Aboriginal,' Dr Grieve-Williams said.
'Aboriginal people were so scorned and vilified. There were these nasty "Abo" jokes. I couldn't begin to tell you the depths of racism that I experienced.
'We were always made to feel in deficit. And now the tables have turned right around but it's not the real Aboriginal people who are getting the benefit from all of this.'
There are particular benefits for box-tickers within academia who falsely claim to be Aboriginal.
'The benefits are to do with status, you have a certain status when you're a recognised Aboriginal person,' Dr Grieve-Williams said. 'But the main benefit is material.
'People get promoted very quickly. The interesting thing is box-tickers, or those committing identity fraud, seem to get the big jobs.
'They're promoted over other Aboriginal people. We joke and we say they're better at being Aboriginal people than we are.'
Until recently, the focus in Australia on box-tickers has been on outing individuals - in what some see as a witch hunt - but race-shifting is now recognised to be an international phenomenon.
Dr Grieve-Williams, a historian, spoke on the topic in May at a conference held by the Canadian Anthropology Society at the University of Guelph, Ontario.
She and fellow conference contributors were concerned the willingness to adopt a fake Aboriginal persona was causing real harm to genuine Indigenous people.
'I just thought this needs to be viable new area for research the way that it is in the United States and Canada,' Dr Grieve-Williams said. 'We need to be able to research this without a lot of opprobrium.
'The voices in Australia in defence of Indigenous identity fraud are very shrill, they're very damaging. You can be absolutely cancelled out because a lot of people have something to protect.
'One of the things that's been established in the United States and Canada is that the Pretendians support each other and it's the same thing in Australia.
'They will give each other jobs, they will give each other references, and they will often be quite aggressive and ostracising of real Aboriginal people.'
Dr Grieve-Williams said non-Aboriginal people taking public service jobs meant for Aboriginal applicants were known as 'nine-to-five blacks' and caused resentment.
'If you've got a person who comes in who calls themselves Aboriginal but who actually doesn't know anything about being Aboriginal then they rely on other people to inform them,' she said.
'They call them nine-to-five blacks because they're only black when they're in the office and then they go home to their white lives.'
Another term, 'black cladding', refers to a non-Indigenous business masquerading as an Indigenous business by deceptive marketing which invents or exaggerates Aboriginal involvement in the enterprise.
A spokeswoman for the Minister for Indigenous Australians, Ken Wyatt - who is Indigenous - said there were government guidelines to reduce such fraud.
'Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander identity is something that is personal and can be extremely complex,' the spokeswoman said.
'Where concerns around a person's Indigeneity are raised, it is important that these concerns are considered on a case-by-case basis in an appropriate and sensitive manner.'
A spokesman for the Department of Education, Skills and Employment said: 'Verifying student and staff identities are matters for individual universities.'
Dr Grieve-Williams was frustrated the box-ticking problem was not taken more seriously by governments.
She said any debate was stifled by those with vested interests and that the fakes protested personal offence when their Aboriginality was challenged.
'The people who are committing this identify fraud, they cry lateral violence. They say, "Are you questioning my Aboriginality? I'm getting traumatised by this".'
It is indisputable the number of Australians who say they are Aboriginal has been increasing for decades at a rate far faster than the broader population, or that can be explained by births.
The last Census, conducted in 2016, estimated there were 798,400 Indigenous Australians - Aboriginal, Torres Strait Islander or both - making up 3.3 per cent of the citizenry.
That number was an increase of 19 per cent - or 128,500 people - on the estimate of 669,900 from the previous 2011 Census.
During the same period the whole Australian population grew by just 8.4 per cent to 24,210,800.
Since the introduction of a Standard Indigenous Question in 1996 - 'Are you of Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander origin?' - the Census count of Indigenous Australians had increased by 83.9 per cent.
The Australian Bureau of Statistics cites several factors in this increase, including higher fertility rates among Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women.
But it also recognises some respondents change whether or not they identify as Indigenous between Censuses, the next of which will be taken on August 10.
Part of the increase can be attributed to Australians discovering a previously unknown forebear, or a late acceptance of a once-shunned Aboriginal ancestry.
But at least some of these box-tickers are likely to be moved by a belief that to be white in modern Australia is to accept being part of a dark colonial history deeply associated with guilt.
Anecdotes suggest there is a mindset that identifying as Aboriginal seems more exotic, or might somehow afford claimants some spiritual connection with the land that doesn't exist.
Censuses record Australians in age brackets and there are not enough 'new' Indigenous individuals in the 0-4 years range each five years to account for the rise.
Between 2011 and 2016 almost every five-year Indigenous age cohort under 70 increased in size. And where the increases occur shows box-tickers don't live in the bush.
'The growth in counts of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander persons between 2011 and 2016 is not consistent across the country, with growth primarily occurring in major cities and on the eastern coast of Australia,' the Australian Bureau of Statistics states.
Dr Grieve-Williams has a store of tales about white people suddenly - or conveniently - deciding they were black.
'A friend of mine was running an ATSIC office in Tasmania in the 1990s and the Aboriginal population in Tasmania had just suddenly boomed by 13,000 people. She said people were just able to do it.'
'I'll never forget at one student meeting at a university in Brisbane this young man said that he was Aboriginal because he supported Aboriginal people's aims.
'He actually thought that was all he had to do to be Aboriginal. Then somebody said is your family Aboriginal and he said no.'
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'Sick and tired of sport being ruined by politics': Pauline Hanson unleashes on the Matildas for posing with the Aboriginal flag at the Olympics
Pauline Hanson has unleashed on Olypmic athletes the Matildas after they posed with the Aboriginal flag at the Tokyo Olympics.
The Australian women's soccer side posed with the flag ahead of their Olympic Games opener against New Zealand in Tokyo on Wednesday night.
Ms Hanson claimed the moment was 'a slap in the face to all Australians' and accused the team of 'hijacking' the sporting competition.
The One Nation leader claimed the gesture was a 'token' effort to be politically correct.
'Australians are sick and tired of their favourite sports being ruined by politics,' Ms Hanson wrote in her press release on Friday.
'Indigenous flags don't represent all Australians. There's only one flag which truly represents all of us.'
After they posed with the flag, The Matildas then stood arm-in-arm on the halfway line as their Kiwi opponents dropped to one knee in a show of support against racism prior to the kick off.
But Ms Hanson said the gesture was designed to 'inflame division' rather than promote solidarity.
'Taxpayers don't shell out millions of dollars to send Olympic teams to represent two nations. We're one nation, Australia, indigenous and non-indigenous alike,' she said.
'Australians supporting their Olympic team deserve an explanation from the Australian Olympic Committee, and I'm sure they want to know what the Prime Minister has to say about it too.'
The Aboriginal flag was declared by law as the of the official flags of the nation in 1995.
The design of the flag includes three colours - black representing First Nations people, yellow representing the sun, and red the earth.
Viewers watching back home appreciated the inclusive gesture, but some also questioned why the team chose not to pose with the Australian flag.
'Hey Matildas.. you represent Australia. The Aboriginal flag is not the Australian flag,' one fan wrote.
Another added: 'I absolutely love watching the Matildas play but why the hell did they display the Aboriginal flag and not the Australian flag? It is such a strange, divisive situation for a country to have two flags in my opinion.
Others accused the Matildas of making a political statement.
'When will sport just be about getting on and playing sport, yes I agree statements need to be made about political issues but there is a place for that to happen surely,' one viewer commented.
Another questioned why the Matildas also didn't take a knee prior to kick-off.
'Lots of questions about the Matildas at the Olympics. Strong choice in not holding the Australian flag only the Aboriginal flag, but then not taking a knee like their NZ counterparts. Anyone know why or did I miss it?,' one woman tweeted.
But many viewers were pleased to see the Aboriginal flag on display.
'Well done Matildas for standing arm in arm in a show of unity and togetherness for all Australian cultures , if only those who kneel new the true value of equality,' one fan wrote.
Matildas captain Sam Kerr defended the gesture after the match and said decided on consultation with fellow indigenous members in the squad.
'We are really proud of it,' the star striker said following the 2-1 win against the New Zealanders.
'It's something we spoke about a lot as a team. 'We let the Indigenous girls drive it.'
'We didn't want to do something that goes along with the grain, we wanted to do something that was relevant for our country.'
Australia takes on world number five ranked Sweden in their next clash on Saturday who caused a massive upset on Wednesday night by defeating gold medal favourites USA 3-0.
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Gas a critical interim energy source in move to renewables
When much of Queensland was blacked out by a power station explosion, it wasn’t renewables that came to the rescue, writes Des Houghton.
You could be forgiven for thinking there would have been a soaring demand for lovely green renewable power after the catastrophic explosion and fire that disrupted the Callide power station causing widespread blackouts in May.
Alas, it was not wind or solar power that came to the rescue, it was gas.
“The figures don’t lie. In Queensland’s hour of need it was gas that came to the rescue,” Australian Petroleum Production and Exploration Association CEO Andrew McConville said.
In fact the use of gas to generate power doubled to more than 20 per cent. Solar was hovering around 5 per cent and wind power much less.
“Gas has once again shown its versatility and reliability, literally keeping the lights on,” he said.
“Gas can do things that renewables simply can’t, including providing feedstock to manufacturing plants and helping create everyday products such as clothes, computers, phones, fertilisers and vital medical equipment such as heart valves.’’
The association’s Queensland chief Matt Paull said gas was worth $11.1 billion to the Queensland economy each year, and directly and indirectly employed more than 47,000 Queenslanders.
That is something for Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk to ponder as she continues to demonise hydrocarbons and criticise federal Labor leader Anthony Albanese for visiting a mine.
Paull said the sector has also invested more than $70 billion in Queensland’s economy to develop the natural gas and LNG industries.
Government estimates Australia’s LNG has the potential to lower emissions in LNG importing countries by around 170 million tonnes of carbon dioxide each year by providing an alternative to higher emissions fuels – the equivalent of almost one-third of Australia’s total annual emissions.
Renewables will have their day, but not yet.
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Australia's education crisis laid bare with shocking data showing one in five adults are unable to read or do math - as experts warn it will only get WORSE
Australia needs a national plan on reading, writing and numeracy for adults because learning at school is no longer enough, educators have told a federal inquiry.
The inquiry heard shame and embarrassment were also barriers to learning and people need to be reassured they are not alone.
One in five Australians, or around three million adults, have low literacy and/or numeracy scores, federal parliament's employment, education and training committee heard on Monday.
The educators and community workers called for a national plan to stop Australia from falling behind the rest of the developed world.
Language and literacy education expert Joseph Lo Bianco called for co-ordination, standard-setting and innovation from the Commonwealth.
'Adult literacy is no longer a welfare activity by good-hearted people,' Professor Bianco said.
'That's not enough.'
He said Australia was facing a historic moment as other nations adjusted to technology.
'We have to keep in mind artificial intelligence which, combined with cyber systems, is going to require much higher levels of comprehension and functioning than we've ever had.'
People who are adequate on reading and writing often nosedive in performance when numbers and charts are added, the committee heard.
Rapid change means learning on the job is becoming too risky.
Adult educators said farmers were coming forward to seek help in understanding the use of toxic chemicals and making critical decisions.
Australian Council for Educational Research spokeswoman Louise Wignall said aged care was another area needing strong digital literacy, for clinical notes and online learning for qualifications.
People need to know what words mean when applied in the real world.
'In real estate, it's location, location, location. In literacy, it's context, context, context,' Ms Wignall said.
Numerous reviews over the years have highlighted the need to target and support the improvement of adult and youth language, literacy, numeracy and digital literacy across Australia.
Lowitja Institute chair Pat Anderson slammed mainstream models for First Nations peoples.
'These models in the past have just not worked,' she said.
Ms Anderson said it was public policy when her mother was young to not teach her to read and write.
'This is the perennial issue for the nation, that we still haven't really dealt with,' she said.
First Nations educators said bilingual learning would help young ones.
Australian Education Union boss Susan Hopgood said one quarter of Australian children arrive at school without the skills they need to learn, and never catch up.
'The intergenerational impacts of low literacy demonstrate exactly why the Commonwealth should prioritise resourcing for all levels of education,' she said.
The committee was keen on Victoria's state-funded 'learn local' model that offers a safe, non-stigmatised environment for adults.
'Learn local is really reducing a lot of barriers,' Victorian Council of Social Service policy officer Deb Fewster said.
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