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.
