Reconciliation finally back on the agenda?
Blog Post | Rachel Siewert
Friday 12th October 2007, 3:20pm
by RachelSiewert in
Last night John Howard yet again demonstrated his canny knack for pulling an issue out of the hat and setting a new political (and media) agenda. The big surprise for many of us was the choice of reconciliation ... by proposing constitutional recognition for Australia's first people.So far all the Prime Minister has offered is a half-way house to true reconciliation. It will not succeed in being anything but an empty symbolic gesture if he does not also move to address underlying disadvantage.
He needs to try to truly understand and respect Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander history and culture.
While we have welcomed the PM's announcement of a referendum as ‘better late than never,' we remain sceptical about whether this truly reflects a change of heart.
There is so much more the PM now needs to do, and many bridges he needs to rebuild in order to get real Indigenous engagement in and support for a constitutional referendum. We remain concerned that Mr Howard will continue to make the same mistakes we have seen in the past, and are still seeing in the NT intervention - failing to properly and openly consult with Aboriginal people and involve them in the decisions that have a major impact on their lives.
If Mr Howard is truly serious about doing this properly then he will recognise that there must be real agreement on the wording of the constitutional preamble. He cannot seek to impose his own words onto Indigenous Australia through this referendum - as he did in 1999. The words need to be heartfelt and they need to be owned by Indigenous Australia.
Mr Howard is going to need to use the full eighteen months if he genuinely wants this referendum to succeed.
The Greens believe that consultation with the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community needs to begin straight away (which means engaging with the whole community, not just a token few). If parliament resumes next week I will be moving in the Senate for a wide-ranging public inquiry into the best way to constitutionally recognise our first Australians.
If Mr Howard is for real then the Government will back our motion next week and begin the consultation process straight away with a call to all Indigenous Australians for submissions.
True Reconciliation
Constitutional recognition is only one part of the process of reconciliation derailed in the first term of the Howard government. There is an urgent need to recognise that Indigenous Australians have a right to equality in the delivery of basic services in health education and housing, and equality of outcomes in their quality of life.
There also needs to be recognition of the inherent rights of Indigenous Australians - including the rights to land, to protection of cultural knowledge, and recognition of customary law.
This is all part of what Howard is now characterising as the ‘old' approach to reconciliation, but his comments in the media today indicate quite clearly that he is looking to an even earlier model of incorporation for Indigenous Australians into the life of our nation - what he has described as ‘mainstreaming' and others have referred to in the past as ‘integration'.
For instance today he said that any notion of a treaty or trying to separate Indigenous people from mainstream Australia was wrong, saying "the way to help them is to incorporate them into the mainstream of the community..."
He also referred to recognition of "their special, though not separate, place within a reconciled, indivisible nation..." in a way which would be "acceptable to ‘traditional Australia'."
This whole dialogue is based on the premise that you cannot have recognition of cultural difference and cultural diversity without separation, conflict and cultural disintegration. It maps onto the similar rhetoric about refugees and immigrants ... as we have recently seen with the dog-whistle comments about Sudanese refugees. It ignores Australia's long and proud history of becoming a home to successive waves of migrants who have enlivened and enriched our culture in a two-way process of exchange. The fact that immigrants from a wide range of European cultures have both managed to become Australians, made a massive contribution to our society and economy... and still retain their unique cultural identity is ignored.
Perhaps the PM needs to eat out more often...
Leadership?
It is a true mark of leadership to be able to admit when you're wrong ... but Mr Howard's claims that there has been a sudden attitudinal shift in the Australian population with the NT intervention that has meant the nation is now ready for reconciliation are not credible ... and shows that he is still in denial.
This morning the PM responded to calls from Aboriginal leaders by categorically ruling out an apology saying that "there are millions of Australians who will never entertain an apology because they don't believe that there is anything to apologise for."
It's a damn shame he didn't apply the same criteria to the GST or Work Choices, or our part in the invasion of Iraq ... because we know that there were millions of Australians who were not ready for those things.
On all of these issues he took a strong position about what he thought was necessary and acted ... and set about trying to change public opinion.
That what we might describe as leadership ... as opposed to the current approach of what we might call "follower-ship". (It seems that Kevin ‘me-too' Rudd is also a keen proponent of the discipline of follower-ship...)
I strongly believe that the nation was ready for reconciliation in 2000 ... when millions of Australians walked across bridges, signed sorry books and took part in the sea of hands.
I am perplexed by the PM's comments that he sees a ‘narrow window of opportunity' in which to get this right - quite frankly he has had eleven years of squandered opportunities to show leadership on reconciliation.
The only window that rapidly is closing on him is the way back into Kiribilli house...
The start of a reconciliation check-list
- Commitment to a rights-based approach to addressing Indigenous disadvantage in health, education and housing
- Implementing the recommendations of the Bringing them Home report
- Committing to ‘close the gap' to fix the 17 year deficit in life expectancy within a generation
- Supporting the UN declaration on the rights of Indigenous peoples
- Implementing the recommendations of the Little Children are Sacred report
- Committing to facilitate the fuller participation in the economic, social and political life of the nation and to resource representative bodies as determined by Indigenous Australians
- Ending opposition to native title and undertaking to negotiate in good faith
- Implementing a plan to fix the Indigenous housing crisis within 7 years
- A formal national apology
(...feel free to suggest further items)
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Every thing about Howard has
Every thing about Howard has a double purpose. Howard fears that he will lose the election and his seat. In this very carefully worded adjustment of position Howard has: a) in the event of losing made a statement that he can later call his reconcilliation without ever having done anything other than give a speech in which he passed his failure onto "his generation"; b) in the event of slithering back into power gained the key to unlocking the constitution cabinet which he would dearly love to do. We are talking here about the king of give an inch, take a mile, and the inch back.
The northern territory thing was a slimmey way to achieve what Mal Brough had failed to do, gain control of the aboriginal lands, while at the same time tamper with the aboriginal incomes. This is just another step down the same path.
You can suggest items for all you are worth, to no avail. Reconcilliation is not what this is about.
For the sake of a small loss of face, but absolutely no commitment other than to "recognise" people who cannot be anything other than recognised, because they have always been there, Howard gets:
Poll adjusting sympathy for his "difficult" decision.
Votes from anyone foolish enough to believe that he is sincere.
The key to the constitution cabinet (look for the other unrelated issues that would be included in a referendum and swept along with the justice for aboriginals vote).
Howard is truly amongst the nastiest people on the face of this earth. Bush is just lazy and stupid, Howard is nasty.
The referendum in the terms
The referendum in the terms outlined yesterday would be the ultimate solution to the various problems Howard, and white Australia, have with native title, customary law, the stolen generations, Terra Nullius and the UN declaration on Human rights. It is a simple “acknowledgement” that sweeps all these issues under the carpet for the rest of history. It will be a vote of white people to reinforce our own perceptions of how Aboriginal people fit into our Australia.
The reconciliation movement and model has not been about reconciliation. It has been predominantly a white movement operating on white notions and has had next to no real connection to Aboriginal Australia and their aspirations.
An assimilationist proposal such as Howard has put up, and as the 1967 referendum was, will be passed by white Australia as an affirmation of our own understandings and the incorporation of Aboriginal people into our understandings.
A Rudd government with a Green balance of power could come up with a more substantial proposition, maybe even based on the UN declaration of indigenous rights.
The involvement and leadership of Aboriginal people will be the main issue of such a process.
However I am not convinced that a conservative and racist Australian electorate will vote for anything of substance.
Howard’s proposal has been well crafted to win. A proposal that acknowledges Aboriginal rights and interests would still be very controversial and probably fail, especially as every opposition group from the liberals to Pauline Hanson will be part of the debate and whip up racist hysteria about real change.
The truth is that the reconcilliation process was aborted before it really began. As a nation we have to go through some considerable truth telling and healing before Australians could vote for real justice of any sort for Aboriginal people. This change has simply not occured yet.
John T.
John I agree with your
John
I agree with your comments about Howard seeking an 'acknowledgement' that would be a way of sweeping all the throny issues under the carpet and reaffirming an assimilationsit paradigm...
But I must admit I find your comments about the 'reconciliation movement' being solely a white movement pursuing white aspirations a bit harsh...
I confess to having a personal conflict - as I was the founding convenor of the WA-branch of ANTaR.
However, at the time I was also working for an Aboriginal organisation and I took the issue of getting involved in reconciliation (and many of the subsequent issues that came up) to our advisory board of community representatives and elders.
There is always a difficult line you have to walk between undertaking advocacy on behalf of and in consultation with Indigenous people ... and not seeking to put words into their mouths.
There was an understanding at the time among many of the Indigenous leaders that there was a need to mobilise the support of white middle-class Australians - and hence it was essential to have them engaged in making it happen.
But there was also always an effort to try and make sure that the connection and the consultation and the respect were maintained - not that there weren't and haven't continued to be some problems.
Ultimately the place where reconciliation movement fell over wasn't about lack of communication or the predominance of white values ... it was in the assumption that all that really needed to happen was to mobiles large numbers of ordinary Australians to demonstrate their commitment to reconciliation (bridge walks, sea of hands, sorry day pledges...etc) ... and the government would take notice.
We succeeded in doing all of that and mobilising millions but then hit a brick wall when Howard steadfastly refused to pay attention and went on with his 10 point plan and the disillution of ATSIC...
BilB
Howard has committed publically that he won't throw any other issues into the referendum.
You're right about the NT intervention. We've spent a bit of time in the NT lately and been working closely with Olga Havnen and the CAO and also talking to Tangentyere council.
Jon Altman from CAEPR has done some good analysis on both the economic impacts of the changes and also the kind of things needed to enable successful community development.
Don't trust Howard on this,
Don't trust Howard on this, its just an attempted vote grab. If the coalition is to retain government it has to win back some of those voters who currently intend to vote labor or will give preferences to labor. Its merely a stunt, expect more before the election.
The disconnect between stated policy and what actually happens angers me, its about time the media gets stuck into government (particularly at state and federal levels) and highlight the hypocrisy.
For example, governments moan and sympathise about the cost/lack of housing, this is no accident, its a combination of increased levels of migration, negative gearing, no capital gains on prime residence, infrastructure levies, etc etc - in short the high cost of housing is government policy.
Governments similarly moan about how they'd like to improve indigenous health and education. Governments choose the locations for these facilities, the inferior access that many indigenous people face compared to "white australians" is not an accident, its government policy. Long response time for police outside large cities and towns, not an accident, once again its government policy.
There is talk by the major political parties of rolling out high speed broadband, fine, great idea, once again it will be remote and regional people who will receive the worst coverage and be about the last to get it. No accident, its policy. On any social equity basis I would have thought that remote and regional communities should get high speed broadband first, because for these people it offers far greater potential reward than for people living in cities. I realise that many aboriginal people will not be able to use the internet to its full potential because of poor english literacy and numeracy, but I'd rather talk to an aborigine working in a virtual call centre than deal with some guy in India. Access to high speed broadband means access to employment (and education), it offers hope. It means that aborigines living in small communities don't have to choose between staying in their community OR seeking employment, they can have both.
If Howard was to put isolated communities first when it comes to highspeed broadband then I might be prepared to believe him on reconcilliation. Aborigines from across the nation can then get together online to workout the wording for any changes to the constitution. In the process they might just teach us something about democracy.
Hello Chris, Dont want to
Hello Chris,
Dont want to get too picky but I did say "predominantly" not "solely" a white movement. My criticism is broad and general but in those terms I believe I am accurate.
The lessons of the Federal Council for the Advancement of Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders (FCATSI) was that well intentioned white people tended to dominate the campaign and this experience became a key aspect of the developing national self determination agenda of the 70s, where Aboriginal people themselves took control of the movement. This, I believe was a key element in the transition from an equal rights agenda as manifested in FCATSI and the 67 referendum towards the agenda of land rights and sovereignty in the 70s and 80s.
Oodgeroo Noonuccal (Kath Walker at the time) said retrospectively of the 1967 referendum.....
"Looking back, the only major improvement has been the 93% 'Yes' vote of the referendum of May 1967; but this improvement did not benefit the black Australians though it eased the guilty conscience of white Australians in this country and overseas. It can be regarded therefore as a victory for white Australians who formed a coalition with black Australians. Black Australians must be seen as stooges for white Australians working in the interest of white Australians."
(quote from Gary Foley's article "Whiteness and Blackness in the Koori Struggle for self determination" which includes a bit of FCATSI history) http://www.kooriweb.org/foley/essays/essay_9.html )
The various land rights support groups that arose during the land rights campaign saw their role as resourcing and supporting specific Aboriginal leaderships, not leading the movement themselves.
But it seems to me that the ANTAR model has reverted back to the FCATSI white domination in the last decade.
When ANTAR first began it was created by and strictly controlled by the Aboriginal leadership lobbying for native title legislation. It had a specific task to lobby for the legislation.
Since that time ANTAR has taken on a life of its own and engaged in a "consultation" model rather than taking direction from Aboriginal leadership and being a direct part of an Aboriginal agenda.
The rise of the reconciliation movement has coincided with the demise of local and national Aboriginal leaderships. It has become white dominated in its understandings.
Thats what I reckon anyway but I admit I'm a bit of a hard liner.
JT
On a little further
On a little further reflection and seeing excerpts from Howard's speech I now imagine that the game plan here hinges on his use of the word "unity". If you join the dots the picture becomes one in which Howard will use Constitutional adjustment to continue his Northern Territory raid. Howard will use the opportunity to take from the states whatever powers they have to enable the Federal government to have complete control over Aboriginal affairs. This will allow what ever happened in the Northern Territory to occur nationally.
This spells the end of what ever is left of aboriginal lifestyle and culture. In Howards mind (I believe) every body in this nation should have an 8 to 4.30 job and live in a little house and have a little bit of land in some town somewhere. That is the package. Aboriginals having there cultural home land area with the right to decide who can come on and who cannot is an afront to Howard's sense of order. And he is determined to smash it. Howard needs this change to make his work for the dole scheme work uniformally while giving mining operators unfettered access to all lands in the country.
Howard has been doing a lot of moment seizing in the last few years. He siezed the moment to steal East Timor's only natural resource gas deposits, he siezed the moment to eliminate union access to workplaces, he siezed the moment to demolish student unions, he siezed the moment to give employers free reign over work conditions, he siezed global warming concern to slam through the groundwork for nuclear power and nuclear waste storage, he siezed that same concern, not to solve environment problems but to exacerbate them with enhanced coal and gas sales, he siezed the concern over health and welfare in some aboriginal communities to raid all of them and take their land, and now he has signalled that he intends to sieze this moment and extend that control to all parts of Australia.
Wake up people there is a pattern here. Howard's way simply put:
Worthy cause, ends in theft.
me again, My hope, now that
me again,
My hope, now that “reconcilliation is finally back on (the) agenda” is that indigenous issues might join climate change, health, work rights, education and rescue the senate on the Greens list of national campaigns. I would rejoin the Greens if this occurred. If Howard can make indigenous issues an election issue then surely the Greens can too.
The Greens have not made indigenous issues a key campaign that has been pursued with consistency and determination in the past as they have done on climate change, Tasmanian forests, the Gunns pulp mill and uranium. There has been a scattergun approach to media releases in response to particular flash points but the Greens have not “pushed” indigenous issues, with the obvious exception of the Burrup Peninsula.
The Burrup campaign is an example of the confluence between an environmental conservation agenda and Aboriginal rights so it is a relatively easy, but not insignificant, campaign for Greens to pursue because it does not challenge any of our (white/green) assumptions and ideological frameworks.
The recent controversies between the Wilderness Society and Cape York Aborigines around Wild Rivers legislation is an example of the other end of the scale, the tricky bits where the different perspectives are clashing. http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/content/2007/s2017181.htm
It must be noted that the Wilderness society has been engaged in extensive “consultation” with Aboriginal people on their wild rivers campaign for seven years but the whole campaign developed without Aboriginal interests and rights being included until long after the legislation was passed and Aboriginal people started complaining about it.
Reconcilliation for the green movement, with leadership from the Greens party means tackling the hard issues of the different perspectives of the Earth and landscape that arise in the Wild Rivers controversy as well as many other less publicised issues and places. This means an adjustment of core green understandings about the environment and land management which will not occur easily or quickly. It will take time and effort. It will take working relationships with Aboriginal people, not just "consultation". Much work and thinking is already occuring in this area but it has not been generalised and incorporated into green philosophy and politics.
This is my perspective on the issues - http://paradigmoz.wordpress.com/2007/09/18/terra-nullius-and-ecology/
John Tracey
[...] see the comments of
[...] see the comments of Senator Bartlett, Guido at Rank and Vile, Ken Lovell at The Road to Surfdom, Senator Siewert, and Tim Dunlop). There has been a very mixed response - while cynicism about the political aim of [...]
Is it too late to include
Is it too late to include indigenous issues amongst the core Green campaigns of this election?
I suggest the lead issue should be adpotion of the UN declaration on indigenous rights. Keep it on the agenda and dont let the ALP forget about it. It is a clear and simple focus yet success would include significant changes.
In Qld., where I live, the Greens have not campaigned on indigenous issues in the last two federal elections, the last state election and on the weekend's byelection. This present campaign has not yet included indigenous issues.
All of these elections have occured during the high media profile of stolen wages, the Palm Island death in custody and family and community violence.
During this period they also had a Green mayor and an embryonic branch on Palm Island.
It seems the QLD Greens are unable to engage on Aboriginal issues. Leadership from the senators would make it easier for them - especially if indiginous issues were incorporated into this election campaign.
Andrew Bartlett has a very high profile on indigenous issues and I believe many amongst the Greens traditional base will vote for him. The Greens have next to no profile on indigenous issues in Qld.
JT
JT As far as the UN
JT
As far as the UN declaration goes, Rachel has been working on the issue - we actually hosted a forum in Parliament house with Lez Melzer and Tom Calma... and also raised the issue again last month
So we won't let a possible new ALP government forget about it. We will also push them about the promises they made to review the NT intervention. During the last Senate sitting we put up a motion with the terms of reference for a review ... which wasn't supported.
I think the mainstream media have done us a bit of a disservice as far as our work on Indigenous issues goes - if you look at the amount of stuff on Rachel's website in terms of speeches, media releases and initiatives as well as committee work I think you'll see it far outweighs the proportion of coverage we've got on these issues...
I'll talk to the Queensland mob about what they are or aren't doing on Indigenous issues as part of their campaign. I do recall Qld working on Palm Island issues a while ago (but I think it was probably after the last election) - Drew Hutton was working on housing issues and made a few trips over there and passed some stuff onto us.
Rachel and I are heading to Bris-vegas on thursday and firday - so I'll suggest we do something while we're there.
Andrew Bartlett has done a really good job on the stolen wages issue and has collaborated with us on quite a number of Indigenous initiatives in the Senate to his credit.
So keep your eyes peeled and maybe come up and say hi if your in town... ;-)
Chris, There is a big
Chris,
There is a big difference between putting out reactive press releases and running a campaign. Look at climate change, Gunns and uranium - the greens are actively campaigning on these things, not just issuing occaisional scatter gun press releases.
Indigenous issues needs to be a proactive national campaign too.
I worked with Drew on the Palm Island Housing stuff, my partner and I wrote the report.
http://www.kalkadoon.org/index.php/palm-island-housing-report/
Drew put out a media release when it was released but it was totally ignored by the party after that.
I will hopefully see you on Thursday or Friday, see what happens.
JT
In 1945 ordinary Germans
In 1945 ordinary Germans claimed that "they didn't know" about the Jewish Holocaust (6 million victims) but then followed a post-Holocaust, anti-Genocide protocol that can be summarized by the acronym CAAAA (C4A) involving Cessation of the killing, Acknowledgement, Apology, Amends and Assertion "Never again to anyone". History ignored yields history repeated. Genocide denied yields genocide repeated.
Armenian Genocide-denying Turkey is involved in the continued gross abuse of the Kurds (with the complicity of the Australian Coalition Government), has now started shelling hitherto relatively peaceful Northern Iraq and is actively involved in the US-administered Iraqi Genocide.
The Bush Administration denies the Armenian Holocaust (1.5 million victims) as an Armenian Genocide. The US and its mainly Anglo-Celtic Allies (UK and Australia) are involved in simultaneous Genocide Commission and Genocide Denial in relation to Occupied Iraq (2 million post-invasion excess deaths, 4 million refugees).
The US and its Anglo-Celtic allies (UK, New Zealand, Canada, Australia), Japan and NATO (Germany, Netherlands and France) are involved in Genocide Commission and Genocide Denial in relation to Occupied Afghanistan (3.2 million post-invasion excess deaths, 3.7 million refugees).
Silence kills and silence is complicity. In Election 2007 decent Australians simply cannot support media or politicians involved in Genocide Commission, Genocide Ignoring and Genocide Denial. However they can give their #1 preference to Greens or Democrats and their #2 preference to cowardly, poll-driven, Genocide-ignoring (if not yet Genocide-committing) Labor.
(For detailed analysis of these and other important matters resolutely CENSORED OUT by Australian media and politicians see: http://mwcnews.net/content/view/17139/42/ and http://mwcnews.net/content/view/1375/247/ ).
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