Australia and the World Past and Present

In May of this year journalist Patricia Karvelas asked since the Voice to Parliament’s defeat, has the Great Australian Silence been extended into perpetuity?

Karvelas has focused on the hurt experienced by some indigenous people following the rejection of the Voice.

She questions how Aboriginal policy will proceed and how Reconciliation will be advanced.

In referring to Stanner’s ‘Great Australian Silence’ phrase, Karvelas draws upon a well-known piece in academic circles.

But is her alluding to ‘Silence’ a fair reflection on the current of the situation in Australia today?

In 1968 anthropologist W.E.H Stanner gave a Boyer Lecture entitled ‘The Great Australian Silence”.

Stanner noted that after the 1930s there was a liberalising of Australian culture. There was expansion of the CSIRO, more government spending on art and culture. Greater Jewish immigration.

But little consideration was given toward Aboriginal issues.

He notes that Brian Fitzpatrick’s The Australian People only has one or two pages out of 260 that mentions the country’s first people.

Stanner said that there was, “a view from a window that has been placed to exclude a whole quadrant of the landscape…a cult of forgettfulness practiced on a national scale”.

He continued, “I hardly think that what I have called ‘the great Australian silence’ will survive the research that is now on course. Our universities and research institutes are full of young people who are working actively to end it.”

Stanner was correct in his belief that the disinterest in Aboriginal issues would be overcome.

I’ve have done a Newsbank newspaper article search using the term ‘Aboriginal’.

The number of newspapers references on an issue gives us some idea about how much an issue is appearing in the media and is circulating generally in the community. It allows us to see change over time.

So what do the numbers reveal about the last forty-odd years?

There has been very strong growth in the media covering Aboriginal issues. There has been a surge – particularly since the early 2000s. The last full decade has had to most results and there is every indication that this decade will surpass the last. Here are the results:

1980-1990: 6,606 results

1990-2000: 70,857

2000-2010: 226, 622

2010-2020: 275, 087

2020-2024: 166, 454

How does it compare to some other search items?

All figures are for the period 2020-2024:

‘Health’ – 1,070, 686

‘History’ – 676,779

‘Education’ – 378, 634

‘Technology’ – 320, 614

‘Aboriginal’ – 166, 454

‘Politics’ – 183, 112

Karavelas has invoked a famous phrase from academia but there is no Great Australian Silence like there was in the first and middle parts of the twentieth century.

Interest has been growing strongly in recent decades – both in academia and the media in general. Far from being wastelands for Aboriginal studies, our universities see Aboriginal studies as absolutely essential.

It is unsurprising that there will be a relative lull for a time after the Voice debate. It was an incredibly divisive debate and like all big issues people will need time to consider what is next.

The Closing the Gap issues are always there to be worked on.

No, the work for improvement in the lives of Aboriginal Australians will continue and the rejection of the Voice proposal does not mark a return the Silence of the early 1900s.