Views from Western Australia

When Howard’s government was it its death throws he said that he  wanted to "mobilise his influence with the mainstream to carry the referendum on Aboriginal reconciliation".  Many in the community were gobsmacked!

 Howard came into government in the mid 1990’s and squandered the best opportunity the country had to do that.

The lead up to Howard’s election was a very profound period in the Australian consciousness in relation to Indigenous affairs.  There were three main “events” that had a major impact on the understanding and awareness of who we are as a nation.
 
1991 saw the presentation of the final reports from the Royal Commission Into Aboriginal Deaths In Custody (RCIADIC).  Ninety nine deaths were investigated and there were 339 recommendations from that inquiry.  Key causal factors that were addressed in the reports, included: inadequate housing and the continuing and astonishingly high incarceration rates of Aboriginal people around the country.
 
The RCIADIC also lead to establishment of “reconciliation” as a major national priority.  The reconciliation initiative was embraced by many thousands of people, who over the years participated in a range of activities from study circles to bridge walks.
 
In 1992 the Australian High Court published a decision that would be a turning point in the long struggle for land rights.  It was commonly known as the “Mabo” decision and it recognised in law that Aboriginal people had been here before white settlement. 
 
Curiously the political drama surrounding the Mabo decision did not break in the media until after 1993 Federal election.   The subsequent‘controversy’ surrounding native title was sustained until the end of the year when legislation went through the Federal parliament.

Then Howard was elected and in 1996 the ‘Bringing Them Home’ report was released; this was result of a Human Rights & Equal Opportunity Commission inquiry into what soon became known as the ‘Stolen Generations’.  Indigenous children had been separated from their families and communities since the very earliest days of the European occupation of Australia; legislation and policies to that effect were introduced in Australian jurisdictions early in the twentieth century.  Most Indigenous families have been affected in one or more generations by theses policies.
 
This was perhaps the watershed issue in the wider Australian community and consciousness in relation to Aboriginal people.  Unlike the issues around custodial death and native title this was a subject that the average Australian could connect to in a real way.  Even if people don’t have kids, everyone has a mother and as Mark Bin Bakar from the Kimberley Stolen Generation group has said this is not just about what was done to the children, it is also about what was done to the mothers.
 
Governments, both State and Federal, have had to address their role in Aboriginal child removal.  The key idea of the recommendations from the inquiry was ‘reparation’, this incorporated a numbed of components including acknowledgement and an apology.

Howard missed the opportunity. 

All of the indicators of socio-economic and health status (eg education, income and employment levels, infant mortality, life expectancy, adult morbidity and mortality rates) show Aboriginal people to be by far the most disadvantaged group in Australia.  It is clear that the appalling, and in some respects worsening, state of Aboriginal well-being is embedded in the history of government policies along with dispossession from country experienced by Aboriginal people.  Anyone with half a brain can see this and there are stacks of reports that say this in every which way.

Improving Aboriginal health and well-being is not just about improving the physical well-being of an individual. It is about working towards the social, emotional, and cultural well-being of the whole community in which each individual is able to achieve their full potential as a human being. It is also based on the need to acknowledge the reality that Aboriginal people have never ceded sovereignty of their land. An apology was always a part of that.

The audience turned their back on Mr Howard at a major reconciliation congress some years ago and now the nation has done the same.

Mr Howard you have missed the last bus out of town and you squandered over ten years of opportunity to address reconciliation and all the issues that are a part of that process.

Midnight Oil “Diesel and Dust” Columbia 1987 In the summer of 80/81 Sydney’s beloved 2JJ became national broadcaster Triple J. There was a farewell doublejay concert in Parramatta Park with ten bands playing on a sweltering summer’s day. The park was packed and the Oil’s did a blistering set at about sixth on the bill; then half the crowd left. They were not top of the bill, but clearly the tribes had come out to hear Midnight Oil. The Oils were iconic at home, but had little impact beyond Australian shores. Diesel and Dust was the group’s first global success, going platinum in America and spawning the massive hit, Beds Are Burning. While the album lacks the gutbucket Aussie pub rock of their earlier work, the Oils still come up with powerful and persuasive music like The Dead Heart and Dreamworld. There was no compromise in the band’s political stance with most of the album’s songs addressing the issues of Aboriginal rights. Strangely, Beds Are Burning, a song clearly calling for compensation for Aboriginal people, topped the charts around the world. The more intimate Sometimes is probably amongst the best the band ever wrote ("Sometimes you’re beaten to the core/Sometimes you’re taken to the wall/But you don’t give in"). In the quest for an international audience Midnight Oil maintained their musical and political integrity with Diesel and Dust. Twenty years after Beds are Burning and former Oils man Peter Garrett is in Federal Parliament; however this album has stood the test of time and become a classic album.

Midnight Oil

“Diesel and Dust”

Columbia 1987

Sorry: feeling regret & Apology: regretful acknowledgement of offence - Concise Oxford Dictionary.  It appears that both carry a strong implication of responsibility.

The Prime Minister tripped up in a test of his own political logic.

He was thinking more about the debate over whether he should “say sorry” for the stolen generation than interest rates when a journalist nailed him with the question: “Mr Howard, if you’re not responsible for the interest rates rise, why did you apologise for it?”

Howard’s response gave a rare insight into the man: “Well, I said that I was sorry they’d occurred. I don’t think I actually used the word ‘apology’. I think there is a difference between the two things. I think we’ve been through that debate before, haven’t we, in the context of something?”

His body language suggested panic and then Howard sarcastically added “Now, I am, you know, we’re to blame for the strong economy,” “We accept full responsibility for having a strong economy.”

Media coverage of Prime Minister John Howard saying “sorry” for interest rate rises was then seized upon by the Opposition. Howard retaliated  by revealing that when he said "sorry", it wasn’t actually an apology!  

Then astonishingly Howard accused Labor of “playing silly word games”, of inventing the whole “sorry” business “to divert attention from the fact they don’t have an economic policy to put downward pressure on inflation and interest rates”.

The PM’s hasty non-apology apology is clearly linked to the ‘Stolen generations’ saga of the last ten years. A decade ago the PM expressed “deep and sincere regret” for what happened to indigenous Australians. That wasn’t an apology either and he has continued with the mantra ever since.

Then:

ABC , 26 August 1999: Parliament endorsed Mr Howard’s expression of “… deep and sincere regret that indigenous Australians suffered injustices under the practices of past generations, and for the hurt and trauma that many indigenous people continue to feel as a consequence of those practices.”

ABC PM , 27 August 1999:

JOHN HOWARD: "I committed the Government to pursuing reconciliation the night that the Government was re-elected in October of last year. I believe that this resolution will make a huge contribution towards the cause of reconciliation. It does not, as a resolution, impose a blame or a guilt on present generations for past misdeeds. But it does recognise the truth about Australia’s history.

MATT PEACOCK: It doesn’t say sorry.

JOHN HOWARD: No, well…

MATT PEACOCK: Is that important?

JOHN HOWARD: Well, no, what is important, Matt, is what is positive out of what was passed yesterday. I am not, like Aden Ridgeway, I am not going to get hung out about, hung up about this or that word or this or that expression.

Wednesday, 7 November, 2007:

I would say to the borrowers of Australia who are affected by this change that I am sorry about that and I regret the additional burden that will be put upon them as a result.
And now:

Well, I said I was sorry they’d occurred. I don’t think I actually used the word apology. I think there is a difference between the two things … I think we’ve been through that debate before, haven’t we, in the context of something (else) … I very much regret the interest rate rise. I’m sorry it’s happened. This word game about apologies and sorry has been invented by the Labor Party to divert attention from the fact they don’t have an economic policy to put downward pressure on inflation and interest rates."

This encapsulates Howard’s arrogant attitude to the Australian public.

Perhaps he can ask Kevin Rudd to explain it in Mandarin.  It may be easier to understand it then.

The Grand Experiment
Anouk Ride
Hachette Livre Australia, April 2007
ISBN: 978-0-7344-0920-1