Top Aboriginal official sacked

Press, 28 December 1988, Page 13

Top Aboriginal official sacked

IN SYDNEY

Judy O' Connor

One of Australia’s most prominent and senior public servants who has worked virtually all of his 52 years in pursuit of his particular ideal — driven relentlessly by a passionate “fire in his belly” — has been unceremoniously sacked by the Government.

He became embroiled in a public scandal about the management of his department. Almost overnight, he found himself without a job and having to face a great deal of personal disgrace.

It is not a pleasant story, but, in the course of things, not overly spectacular, except that this public servant is black — the most senior black public servant in the country — and this is Australia’s bicentennial year, when the Government has made concerted efforts (some would say in public relations style) to make sure Australia did not attract unfavourable atten-

tion from the world community about race relations. It was also the year the Government said it would draw up

an Aboriginal treaty to be a preamble to the Australian constitution, recognising that Aborigines were the first Australians to inhabit the country — a treaty which has never materialised. Charles Perkins, the sacked public servant, is not only an Aborigine. He was, until his dismissal, secretary of the Department of Aboriginal Affairs, on a salary of $BO,OOO a year, and responsible for the management of a budget of $460 million.

Charlie Perkins is a household name in Australia. He has been an outspoken, radical worker in Aboriginal affairs,since his teens. He was the first Aborigine to graduate from a university in Australia and during his university years became famous for his “freedom rides” round the country, based on American civil rights protests that were taking place at about the same time. He and fellow sympathisers

drove a bus round Australia’s country towns. They were thrown out of clubs and hotels, were not allowed to swim in public baths, and became the target for many other racist acts. The reason for Perkins’ sacking was particularly damaging and humiliating for a person of his background and reputation.

He was blamed for mismanagement within his department, in particular for the spending of $300,000 on 47 poker machines to be installed in the basement of the department’s head office, where an Aboriginal social club was being set up. It was said that $900,000 had already been spent on the club, and that eight of the poker machines came from another club of which Perkins was also a member.

Other allegations of mismanagement and waste followed, including the spending of more than $2 million on a hotel in

Walgett, in Australia’s outback. Within days of the matter becoming public, the issue was too hot politically for the Hawke Government. Just two days after it had assured the public that although auditors had been called in, Perkins did not need to stand down, he was dramatically sacked.

At a press conference accounting his dismissal, Perkins said the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs, Gerry Hand, and he no longer had any confidence in each other. It was appropriate for him to go. Having already spoken to his departmental staff, he choked back tears as he defended himself: “My name has been smeared right around Australia for standing up for what I believe is correct and I think that is most un-Australian.

“I believe Aboriginal affairs has taken a pounding in the Senate — in some cases justified,

in most cases not. There is a limit that you can go to and some people have gone beyond that limit, and I think it’s a disgrace to the nation. “I have committed no crime in Aboriginal affairs in Australia apart from taking the stand I think should have been taken on a number of issues.” He said the Aboriginal social club, situated in Canberra, was “absolutely a good proposition.” “The problem is that I think in Australia we don’t expect that blacks should have social clubs.” He said he would fight his dismissal and seek reinstatement after a series of investigations the Government has scheduled for the next few months. Whatever the outcome, Charles Perkins, after fighting all his life for Aboriginal causes, was one person no one in Australia would have thought would have ended the bicentennial year on such an ironic note.