Reds under the bed

Many Aboriginal towns operate under some sort of local government scheme.
But it's for our convenience, not theirs.
To try and accommodate crazy whitefella ideas and get the funding they need to run the towns, build the houses and so on, they try to make the councils work in a way that allows for some expression of Aboriginal ways of doing things.
In some places, it's making sure that every clan is represented on the council.
That way the benefits are more likely to be shared equally - new houses, sewerage, council positions.
It doesn't quite work to the satisfaction of the beancounters, but it generally passes muster.
Except for our boofhead Federal Minister for Indigenous Affairs, that is.
Mal the Mouth was heard to rant at a conference of policemen recently that clan-based community councils were nothing more than 'communist collectives'.
I kid you not.
Mal pretends to be unaware that the only member of the Marx family to have any impact on Aboriginal people was Groucho.
And he should know that the most widely-read book in Aboriginal domains is the Bible.
Emphatically not Das Kapital.
So why the rant?
One of my earlier blogs mentioned dogwhistle politics and this is a classic example: the subtext says these communist collectives are un-Australian, so the normal rules don't apply.
The Government is within its rights to subject them to scrutiny and cut off their funding if there's a sniff of suspect practices.
Which of course the government will find.
It's always easier in politics to demonise people.
It worked for George Bush.
But I don't think even he would return to the Cold War era to find a justification for reactionary and repressive policies.

I'd thought reds under the bed existed only in the febrile imagination of ratbag conservatives in the 60s.

It seems I was wrong.

John Howard and his gang strike again with Back to the Future.

That's the true measure of the intellectual and moral bankruptcy of this government.