TREADING ON EGGSHELLS

INDIGENOUS culture, its mystery, its stories and the lessons we can learn from it were a central theme at the Games opening ceremony.

These “Friendly Games’’ have also been touted as the inclusive games, which is an appropriate ideal in a nation finding its way to reconciliation, “bridging the gap’’ by addressing health and economic disadvantage, and seeking to ensure equality.

We applaud this aspect of the Games plan. It could lead to a worthy legacy of which we would all be proud.

The Bulletin has said previously the opening ceremony did significantly more in promoting culture and addressing disadvantage than the protest actions waged by a group outside the stadium.

But how do Games organisers reconcile their worthy principles with the astounding disparity between what is charged for indigenous souvenir artwork on the Games website and what is apparently being paid to the Aboriginal artists?

The Bulletin understands some artists are receiving as little as 50c for painted boomerangs that are then flogged for up to $60; and that artists have been paid just $5 for each emu egg they paint, which the Games website is selling for $130. The eggs are presented in a box that includes some brief details of the artist and the Games. Artists have refused to comment. Jabiru Boomerangs, the business contracted to supply the official indigenous souvenirs, did not respond to Bulletin inquiries yesterday.

The indigenous art scene is controversial, having already led to a Senate inquiry, repeated calls for action by maverick independent MP Bob Katter, and to allegations of greed in a bombshell book a decade ago titled Dollar Dreaming, by author and art critic Ben Genocchio who wrote of a paradox in which art “provides one of the few chances Aboriginal people … have to engage in the market economy’’.

He was chiefly concerned at the plight of remote area artists so desperate to keep themselves and their communities afloat that they had been known to accept as little as the cost of a tank of petrol for work experts deemed extremely valuable.

Artists need proper representation so they have meaningful compensation for their work. Games bosses should ensure that. And the public must be satisfied the art they buy is produced by artists under a code that recognises their worth.