If you don't quite get the meaning of the term, think about what a dogwhistle is - a stimulus that is imperceptible to many, but which arouses a sharp reaction in the intended target.
It's highly evident in Indigenous policy.
Take the recent tinkering with the Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Act 1976. The Tories have had their eye on the Act since one of their number - Malcolm Fraser (known during his post-Prime Minister career as Comrade Malcolm in the early days in Zimbabwe) - actually passed the Act that Gough Whitlam had framed (see Modern Australian Political History 101) and gave Aboriginal people in the Territory alone the right to claim back their own countries.
One of the central amendments now makes it possible for Aboriginal people living in Aboriginal towns to lease a block of land for 99 years. The theory is that if they can lease land, they can build (and own) their own houses and raise capital for setting up a business.
It presumes, of course, that you can unravel complex systems of land tenure to identify the sole owner of a particular parcel of land as one person who may enter a transaction that involves them in surrendering guardianship of that land until their grandchildren are long dead. It also ignores the fact that a group of owners might have obligations to people in other clans who may have a managerial responsibility and accompanying rights for that piece of land.
It also presumes that people want to run businesses.
All this they wave aside in their haste to tamper with the Act. The problem has always been that many whitefellas can't come at the idea that Aboriginal people can close their land to outsiders and live largely as they choose. Australians haven't quite got the fact that Aboriginal land rerally does - belong to Aboriginal people and always has(well, at least for the last 40,000-odd years).
The accompanying rhetoric is stunning: '...this will allow Aboriginal people access to the free market'; and:'...why should Aboriginal people be denied the right of all Australians to be homeowners?....etc etc'. These quotes are what is actually being said.
On the face of it, innocuous statements all.
Right.
Got your dog ears tuned in? The real meaning of all of this is: why should they have a different system of land tenure? why can't we use their land if we want to? why should Aboriginal people be different? The answer to the first is: because they have. To the second: you can if they want you to. And to the third: because they are.
And I think that last is the key to it all. We don't like people to be different. We can't cope with other cultures. And the greatest compliment we can offer is try and make other people just like us.
Assimilation is the name of the game. Let's go back to 'access to the free market', for instance. If you're living on your own country in remote Northern Australia, you don't have access to any market without an economy and generally - apart from the money generated by a robust art industry and distributed through extended families - there just ain't anything like a free-standing local economy.
There used to be, of course, and there are still remnants of it today. But before whitefellas arrived it was solely based on the appropriate distribution of what could be hunted and gathered; and it was implicit in the relationships the people built and extended along trade routes, which saw stone implements, ochre, salt, information and ceremonies travel the length and breadth of the continent. It worked, but it doesn't suit our purposes any more.
Like I said, assimilation...just whistle and you'll find it.
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