Date of Award
2001
Keywords
Aboriginal Australians -- Government policy -- History, Aboriginal Australians -- Public welfare, Aboriginal Australians, Treatment of -- History, Australia -- Social policy, Indigenous peoples -- Australia, Welfare recipients -- Australia
Document Type
Thesis
Publisher
Edith Cowan University
Degree Name
Bachelor of Arts Honours
Faculty
Faculty of Community Services, Education and Social Sciences
Abstract
In his speech The Light on the Hill Noel Pearson criticises the nature of contemporary social reality in Australia. In his view this social reality is co-dependent in portraying Indigenous Australians as victims and non-Indigenous Australians as guilty. The result has been the generation of a welfare mentality to the structural disadvantage of Indigenous Australians. I conclude that the debate Pearson has initiated is ongoing. This debate has adopted ideological overtones consistent with emphases on individual and community development and these emphases are emerging in policy. However I suggest that governments are seeking to divest responsibility for individual and community well being to those Indigenous Australians already constrained by relative structural disadvantage.
Recommended Citation
Dews, A. (2001). Pearson's Paradox : An Emergent Social Reality. Edith Cowan University. https://ro.ecu.edu.au/theses_hons/886