Bruce Pascoe has become too big to fail — almost impossible to question

Four weeks ago, Dark Emu author Bruce Pascoe suffered a blow to his credibility that few would survive. With scholarly rigour, anthropologist Peter Sutton and archaeologist Keryn Walshe demolished key parts of Dark Emu’s thesis — a thesis hailed as a revelation by many, positing that Aboriginal people engaged in agriculture, irrigation and construction before European invasion, and were not solely hunter-gatherers.

Sutton, whose anthropological research underpinned the historic Wik native title claim 25 years ago, alleges that Pascoe’s scholarship is “indefensible” and, further, that some of what he has written is “pure fiction”. 

Journalist and author on Indigenous affairs Stan Grant has weighed into the debate, describing Pascoe as a “conjurer” who “invites people to disbelieve their eyes”.

“The white man vanishes and behold, the black man appears,” Grant wrote. “It doesn’t work on Aboriginal people; we’ve seen it before. He seeks — and receives in some quarters — a black imprimatur. But he knows he has nothing new to reveal to us.”

Pascoe appears to so far unscathed. His supporters, though made quiet by the detailed dismantling of his work, have not publicly abandoned him. The man is rolling with the punches, saying in effect that all contributions are welcome. He is said to be working through the criticisms of his book, and wasn’t available to speak to Crikey. We have twice asked Pascoe for his answers and have invited him to contribute a piece. 

There are plenty of Pascoe sceptics, white and Indigenous, and as they have it Pascoe’s rise may represent the most extravagant con in Australia’s literary history: that of an allegedly white man distorting black history for white people and making fools of the arts and cultural hierarchies, as well as a gullible media on the way through.

Whatever the case, at age 74 Pascoe has attained what he could barely ever have dreamed of as the child born into a poor inner-Melbourne in the immediate postwar years. From that humble beginning Pascoe has become too big to fail.

There are a host of reasons for this. Many revolve around money.

The business of being Bruce Pascoe

Should the colossus of Bruce Pascoe come tumbling down it would have mighty reverberations.

Dark Emu was published in 2014 but started to take off in 2016, the year it won the top prize at the NSW Premier’s Literary Awards. Now the sky’s the limit. Pascoe has reached that magic moment of transformation from a successful author known (mainly) for his fiction works to a fully fledged merchandisable and bankable brand — a marketing force crossing into tourism, food and lifestyle.

For some years he has had the support of influential Indigenous figures including, notably Professor Marcia Langton. Now his backing has mushroomed to take in the most powerful business figures and organisations in Australia.

Here’s how Dark Emu launched fortunes and careers and forged networks of influence.

Literature

WA-based Magabala Books has its own “before and after” Dark Emu story. Between 2014 and 2017 Dark Emu sold a total of 77,000 copies. In 2018 Magabala relaunched it, and through 2019 sales shot up to 140,597, making it the number 10 national bestselling title for the year.

A spin-off called Young Dark Emu aimed at primary school children sold 46,432 copies. Together the Pascoe books accounted for 60% of the publisher’s 316,000 book sales and made Magabala the fastest-growing small publisher in Australia. Little wonder the company calls it “the unstoppable Dark Emu“. 

Magabala started with an initial print run of 800 copies. According to the tracking system Bookscan, total sale stand at close to 250,000 for Dark Emu, with a further 60,000 for Young Dark Emu. The books are also a staple of school curriculums. From its own small beginnings Magabala now describes itself as Australia’s leading Indigenous publisher.

Documentary 

In 2019 Screen Australia funded development of a two-part Dark Emu documentary to be fronted by Pascoe as he takes audiences on a “revelatory and inspiring journey” across Australia. It is due to be screened on the ABC next year and is being produced by Blackfella Films, a production company led by filmmaker Rachel Perkins. (Perkins, the daughter of the famed Aboriginal rights activist Charlie Perkins, was invited to deliver the ABC’s prestigious Boyer Lecture in 2019.) 

Dance 

In 2018 the Indigenous dance company Bangarra took its Dark Emu stage production nationwide.

Travel 

Publisher Hardie Grant’s travel division acquired world rights to Pascoe’s book Loving Country: a guide to sacred Australia, which seeks to show areas where evidence of Indigenous history has not been highlighted. The book was published in 2020.

Cuisine

Pascoe was awarded Gourmet Traveller‘s “Outstanding Contribution to Hospitality Award” in 2016; the editors cited Pascoe’s eloquent, persuasive revelations, which had inspired his audience to accept, appreciate and adopt Indigenous ingredients and food culture.

Beer

A brewery in Orbost, East Gippsland, collaborated with Pascoe last year to produce a Dark Emu beer made with Indigenous grain. The result was said to be “amber-coloured, clean, roasty and tangy”.

Academia

Last year Pascoe was appointed an enterprise professor in Indigenous agriculture at the University of Melbourne. The role, created for him is a so-called Level E appointment, for those with specialist knowledge. (A full-time salary is about $200,000 a year). His appointment was announced by Langton, an associate provost at the university and its foundation chair of Australian Indigenous studies.

Pascoe had previously been a professor at the University of Technology Sydney in its Jumbunna Institute for Indigenous Education and Research.

A move into agriculture 

Pascoe has jumped out of the arts and into the world of agricultural production, focusing on Indigenous seeds and other traditional foodstuffs via an enterprise called Black Duck Foods Ltd. (The black duck is the totem of the Yuin nation, to which Pascoe claims ancestry.)

The move places him at the centre of a network of Australia’s largest businesses and philanthropists.

Black Duck Foods is run from Pascoe’s 60-hectare property at Mallacoota in the south-east corner of Victoria. The venture is registered as a charity with (the much sought after) deductible gift recipient status, meaning donations are tax-deductible. 

ASIC searches show the venture was registered in October 2019. Its six directors include four members of the Pascoe family including Bruce and his son Jack (who also claims Indigenous ancestry). The two non-Pascoe members of the board are Yuin elder Noel Butler and his wife Patricia. 

Black Duck’s major backer is First Australians Capital (FAC) which works with top tier Australian firms who provide financial support and valuable business nous to Indigenous-run enterprises. These include law firms Minter Ellison and Arnold Bloch Liebler, as well as philanthropic organisations the Ramsay Foundation, the Cages Foundation, the Baker Foundation, the AMP Foundation and Equity Trustees.

The Cages Foundation is the good works vehicle of Paul Salteri, co-founder of giant construction company Paul Transfield. Equity Trustees is chaired by Melbourne businesswoman and philanthropist Carol Schwartz. It provided a $500,000 grant to FAC last week.

Other Black Duck partners listed on its website include lawfirm Ashurst, PricewaterhouseCoopers, and the Australian government’s Indigenous Land and Sea Corporation. It is also a research partner with the University of Melbourne (engaged in accordance with university policies, it told Crikey). 

The venture is a new chapter in Pascoe’s own story. There is plenty of competition for philanthropy money — climate change and cancer research are two that dominate — but the Pascoe name is a drawcard for Indigenous projects.

Magabala Books also operates with the support of philanthropic foundations. The Ian Potter Foundation, named after the late Melbourne businessman and manufacturing titan Sir Ian Potter, is one. Another is the Jon and Caro Stewart Family Foundation, set up with the near $2 billion proceeds of the sale of Perth company Aurora Oil and Gas in 2014. That fund gave direct financial support to the manuscript development of Young Dark Emu.

The gush of philanthropy and impact investment money shows that Pascoe’s backers go well beyond the progressives and ABC types targeted by his pursuers. Not just a darling of the left, he is at the centre of a large pool of social change money and a celebrity magnet for boardrooms looking to improve their “purpose” metrics.

However flawed his facts might allegedly be, and whatever question marks that hang over his ancestry, there is a strong vested interest in keeping the Pascoe dream alive.