Leadership Quote by Malcolm Fraser

Fraser’s line is a reprimand dressed as pragmatism: stop outsourcing Indigenous futures to the comforting machinery of “help.” As a politician, he’s speaking in the language of policy outcomes, but the real target is the moral theatre that often surrounds Indigenous affairs. The word “treated” matters. It implies an active system of framing - governments, media, charities, even well-meaning citizens - that positions Indigenous people as objects of concern rather than political actors with authority. “Victims” here isn’t a denial of harm; it’s a warning about what happens when harm becomes an identity assigned from the outside.

The subtext is about power. If “someone else must find solutions,” then someone else keeps control of the budget, the timetable, the definition of success, and the right to declare the problem “fixed.” That posture produces policies that are paternalistic by design: interventions that manage symptoms while preserving the hierarchy that created them. Fraser is arguing that dependency is not just an economic condition but a narrative that can be legislated into place.

Contextually, this sits in Australia’s long arc from assimilation to self-determination, and the recurring backlash whenever Indigenous communities demand decision-making power rather than services. It reads as an early critique of the “closing the gap” style of politics: lots of targets, lots of administrators, thin accountability to the people most affected. Fraser’s intent is blunt: dignity isn’t an add-on to policy; it’s the mechanism. Without agency, “solutions” are just programs that happen to people.