Whitewashing the Gap: The Discursive Practices of Whiteness

In this article I utilise critical discourse analysis to investigate the discursive practices evident in the Gillard Government’s 2011 ‘Closing the Gap’ speech. The speech is interpreted as a performative activity which normalises the racialised privilege/disadvantage divide in contemporary Australia by framing this divide as meritocratic. Inherently contradictory discourses are used to position both the government and Indigenes in antithetical ways. The government is constructed as a benevolent authority, yet is excused from responsibility for ‘closing the gap’. Indigenous peoples are framed as culturally deficient while simultaneously held responsible to ‘close the gap’. The contentiousness of these discourses is minimised by their portrayal as hegemonic commonsense. Introduction ‘Closing the Gap’ is the Council of Australian Governments' overarching nationwide policy approach to Indigenous disadvantage. In comparison to non-Indigenous Australians, Indigenous peoples are disadvantaged on all major socio-economic indicators, such as life expectancy, health, education and employment (Australian Human Rights Commission 2008). As its name suggests, ‘Closing the Gap’ (CTG) policy aims to reduce these discrepancies. The contemporary socio-economic positioning of Indigenes is a consequence of the ongoing legacies of past and present government policy (Moreton-Robinson 2003, 23). Following British colonisation in 1788, Indigenous peoples were decimated by frontier conflict, introduced diseases and dispossession from traditional lands (Flood 2006). As conflict subsided, the ‘civilising mission’ gained precedence, in which Indigenes were segregated onto missions and reserves in order to be ‘civilised’ into modernity and Christianity (Maddison 2011, 51–2). From the 1930s, policy shifted from segregation to assimilation. This resulted in an escalation of the forcible removal of Indigenous children from their families with the explicit aim of assimilating them with white culture (Lecouteur and Augoustinos 2001, 51). Following the civil rights era of the 1960s, the assimilation policy became untenable, resulting in the formal adoption of liberal and egalitarian policy. Reflecting this shift, after 22 years in opposition, a federal Labor government was elected in 1972 on a platform including human rights and self-determination for Indigenes (Flood 2006, 240). This was followed by over three decades of arguably well-intentioned Indigenous policy-making by both major parties (Pearson 2006). However, in spite of diverse approaches, the socio-economic position of Indigenes relative to non-Indigenes continued to fall. The election of the Howard Liberal Government in 1996 saw a return to paternalistic policy reminiscent of the pre-civil rights era and culminated in the Northern Territory Intervention in 2007. The Howard Government held power for eleven years until the Rudd Labor Government was elected in 2007. Following his election, Kevin Rudd (2008) instigated the CTG policy and apologised to Indigenous Australians on behalf of the nation, emphasising the ongoing legacy of child removal. The current leader of the Australian Labor Party is Prime Minister Gillard, who delivered the speech which is the subject of this article (Gillard 2011). The Prime Ministerial CTG speech is a key text, given in the first sitting of parliament each year, which summarises CTG policy and all progress to date. Rudd (2008) initiated annual reporting on CTG in order to create ‘real measures of policy success or policy failure’. In contrast, I argue that rather than being an impartial progress report, the Gillard Government’s 2011 CTG speech is a