Letter to the Editor - Government policies should be predicated on the welfare of all of us

To The Age        Pat Turner argues ("Finally, a step in the right direction", 15/2) that the "Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people" should be treated as "equal partners" in the search to "close the gap"; but there are problems with this advocacy. It is not clear that such a "people" exists today in fact. Rather, there are a minority of Australians who happen to have some or full Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander ancestry. As for the "gap", there is reason to fear, on scientific grounds concerning genetic inheritance, that the gap simply cannot be closed. This suggests that the campaign to close it has been conceived and is being operated in order to achieve significant change in the political order of the nation - a kind of confidence trick at the expense of other Australians. Government policies should be predicated on the welfare of all of us, with equitable sharing that is not derailed by insult terminology ("racism") or dubious psychological theorizing ("generational trauma").
  Nigel Jackson, Belgrave, Vic